Things are getting mighty unfriendly out there.
The ninety-five year partnership between Ford and Firestone hasn't just ended; it's spiraled into vicious feud. A willingness to break the alliance in the face of negative press over vehicle rollovers is understandable, but you would expect the break to happen quietly, way down on page 38, while both companies did everything possible to keep the specter of unsafe products hidden away. Instead, Ford and Firestone are firing off press releases as fast as possible, smearing one another as viciously as they can. A successful campaign may, barely, deflect an expensive lawsuit or two, but it seems to me that hammering the message ?unsafe? into the public's mind will, in the long term, be even more expensive. Even if Ford, for example, bears the entire technical responsibility and Firestone gets off scot-free from suit, would you go out and buy a Firestone tire next week?
Vermont Senator Jeffords is expected shortly to defect from the Republican party over Bush the lesser's tax plan. The repercussions of such a decision when the Senate is split 50-50 will be enormous, even though US politics doesn't toe the party line so closely as in other countries, thanks to the shuffling of positions of influence: committee leadership, for example. Independent of Senate politics, the defection is a very visible and therefore extremely embarrassing reflection on the proposed tax program. Bush holds the theory that one gains political capital by spending it; using influence to push a bill through wins authority which may then be spent on a larger program, in a building momentum. Political power is sensitive to embarrassment, even if it carries no technical impact, and a strategy of snowballing is terribly vulnerable to an early reversal. Even if Jeffords fails to stop the tax bill, he may have hobbled Bush's presidency indefinitely, and Jeffords will lose a lot of face with his Republican colleagues. I have to respect his voting on principle ? especially since I agree with the principle ? but it's a vicious blow to the fledgling president.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is nothing new, of course, but Sharon has given up all pretense of a desire for peace, at least as far as the rest of the world understand the term. His response to the Mitchell report, which called for, among other things, an immediate cease-fire, abandonment of terrorist attacks, and halting Jewish settlement of the West Bank and Gaza strip, was to agree whole-heartedly ? to everything except that part about settlements. Apparently, Sharon considers ?cease-fire? to mean ?license to do anything you like, free of violent repercussions.? One can almost picture him waving the report at Arafat and shouting, ?See? The US says you should stop shooting at us and that the fighting is all your fault!? He can't possibly expect the world to swallow that line; we can only read this as an open endorsement of continuing conflict.
Nobody likes anybody today. More fun to make enemies than friends. I think I'll just stay home today, and play things safe: write, surf the net, play a computer game. With luck, I can conquer a few neighbors.