Time to tell it like it is
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AS PAUL NEWMAN said at the climax of "Cool Hand Luke": What we've got here is a failure to communicate.
The economic news grows worse. But from the White House to Capitol Hill - and all the way to Chicago and the office of the president-elect - there's no coherent message or overall rationale for turning things around.
The lucky get life preservers. The unlucky drown in red ink. Washington plays God, yet no one can explain the diabolic whimsy of it all.
President Bush was against using the Wall Street bailout fund to help the Big Three automakers. Now he's for it. Why?
There's no clear, calm voice explaining what is happening and why.
There's just US Representative Barney Frank lecturing "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl, in an interview set for broadcast tonight. "No. We're not propping up companies. That's your mistake. We're propping up individuals," he tells Stahl, who asked him about taxpayer money going to rescue companies that made bad decisions.
There's no call to work together for the good of the country.
Instead, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scolds Senate Republicans for their refusal to support the auto rescue legislation. The Democratic House leader labeled GOP opponents "irresponsible . . . devastating to our economy, detrimental to workers and destructive to the American automobile industry."
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm took the chiding a step further, saying it is "un-American" to vote against a bailout.
Exactly what President-elect Barack Obama and his economic team have in mind come January remains unclear.
In the meantime, Obama is right. There can be only one president at a time. But, without a leader to follow or a mission to embrace, the average citizen falls back upon that most basic of human responses: self-preservation. What about me? What about my job, my retirement, my family, my future?
Last week's headlines highlight the nub of the ongoing problem: a failure to level with the American people.
The $14 billion auto rescue plan collapsed in the Senate, putting hundreds of thousands of auto industry-related jobs at risk.
"This is going to be a very, very bad Christmas for a lot of people as a result of what takes place here tonight," moaned Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
What about Christmas for
No one ever explained that, nor explained why one insurance company or investment bank warrants a lifeline over another. "Too big to fail," is cold comfort to those who are too small to save.
Besides, it is increasingly obvious that no one knows what will work. Bank of America supposedly saved Merrill Lynch. But it can't save the 35,000 jobs it now plans to cut over the next three years.
The transition period between the outgoing Bush administration and incoming Obama administration is part of the problem, but not all of it.
Bush failed to communicate an over-arching economic plan. But so has Congress. When the mortgage lending crisis tipped off the economic downturn, Democrats blamed Republicans for deregulation and Republicans blamed Democrats for easing loan standards. The heat of the ongoing presidential campaign only fanned the fires.
As the auto rescue plan crashed in the Senate, Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan declared that the vote wasn't about Democrats or Republicans, nor about auto executives and union workers. "It's about the economy," she said.
All those politicians and no one can get that message through to the American public? That's a communication failure that can kill off more than a movie character.
Correction: I misquoted the Rev. Mark Scott of Dorchester in last Sunday's column. The correct quotation is: "We need a politics that is built around contribution and assets - that would be a shift."
Joan Vennochi can be reached at vennochi@globe.com.
