The Conservative Soldier

The Barack Hussein Obama brain trust has got to be positively awash in salivation as red flags pop up daily across the U.S. economic landscape. With each passing hour, Obama’s hollow campaign platform — CHANGE — surely will grow more powerful as Americans come to grips with significantly higher energy costs. Invest heavily in the blame game, his brilliant advisers will tell him privately, and coast into the White House on a tide of economic despair. The working class will be re-defined as the economy class, a group of Americans paralyzed by indicators and analyst forecasts, eternally waiting for their tax cuts and stimulus checks.

More government. More relief for the little guy. More unchecked spending in Washington. The Perfect Storm for B.H. Obama & Co.

But, lest we forget, Obama also has declared that during his presidency “the oceans will begin to slow” (in a lame reference to appease the global warming nuts). So he had better be careful about choosing the waves he rides into the seat of power. From this seat, empty campaign word crafting soon must be replaced by important, sometimes unpopular decisions. Waves can weaken into ripples and, next thing you know, you are dog paddling.

Sen. Obama, who has rarely ever engaged in writing or passing serious economic legislation as a Senator, is turning up around the country talking about his stimulus-in-every-pot strategy for “saving” the U.S. economy. The middle class will get tax breaks and free spending money to offset high prices — middle class to be defined by Obama on an as-needed basis. For now, we can assume middle class means all of those people making just south of $75,000 a year, or looking at it another way, people who are one pay raise away from becoming not-middle-class and, thus, subject to Obama’s massive income tax increases.

While the expanding economy class (expanding because, presumably, illegal immigration will remain rampant under an Obama presidency) becomes dependent on electronic direct-deposits from the U.S. Treasury, all of the “obscenely wealthy” small-business owners and independent investors finally will be derailed from the free ride they’ve been on for too long, Obama will preach. Oh, and while we’re at it, we’re going to ratchet up capital gains taxes to stop all of these insensitive white folk from clearing so much money from property and stock investing. (The consequence being that this is the very activity — investments returns being reinvested — that fuels economic rebounds and growth).

Oh, and don’t forget death and inheritance taxes. That one-two punch will surely come back in Obamaland, more destructive to more longtime family owned farms and other businesses than ever.

By any (even casual) historical measure, Obama will bask in a struggling U.S. economy at his peril. The nation was so blinded by its desire for “change” in 1976 that it ushered in the untested Governor of Georgia, James Earl Carter, who was run out after one term by crippling inflation and heavy taxation. It was so extreme as to overshadow his foreign policy ineptitude. At least Carter was not naive enough to try ramming nationalized healthcare down our throats.

Team Obama will not be deterred by historical warnings. In his twisted view, an America near collapse is a beautiful vision to behold. Gas prices spiking to $4.50, then $5, and beyond. Airlines parking airplanes and, in some cases, disappearing, even as Obama and the radical left wing ignore the public’s cries for energy independence. (”We can’t drill our way out of these problems,” the old liberal Matriarch, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chortled last Sunday on one of the talk shows). Housing prices stagnating because legitimate real estate investors (not “flippers”) will avoid rising capital gains taxes if, as some predict, the tax doubles to 30%.

How can he relish these scenarios? Perhaps he simply does not care. Could not care less, in fact.

Writing for the electronic magazine American Thinker, Prof. Ed Kaitz explains Obama’s indifference by reminding us how strongly Obama is guided by anger (as are longtime associates and friends). For anyone who cared to listen, Obama stated this all too clearly in his much analyzed speech on race during the Democrat primary season. “The anger is real;” he said that March day in Philadelphia, “it is powerful. And to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm (between races).”

Kaitz, a UC-Berkeley educated professor, believe it or not, addresses the roots of Obama’s anger deftly in his American Thinker piece written soon after the Philadelphia race speech. He examines the stark difference between those in the black minority and those in Asian minorities. He recalls a conversation with a black acquaintance years ago that has stayed with him in which the black gentleman zeroed in on the differing attitudes between black and Vietnamese residents of the Louisiana Bayou.

“We’re owed and they aren’t,” the man told Kaitz.

Kaitz concludes that Obama’s race speech and, as I would interpret it, his campaign for President, tells us that Obama is not invested in the audacity of hope. He is invested in being, as Kaitz puts it, “a peddler of angst, resentment and despair.”

That’s quite a bit different than being an agent of change, isn’t it?

As United Airlines spirals toward another bankruptcy, I mostly feel sorry for the aging former standard bearer. What can any airline do to stem the rising tsunami of jet fuel costs?

Everywhere you turn, there are signs of an empire in decline, crumbling. United’s decision several years back to re-paint its fleet and switch to a cleaner, blue-white skin has saddled the carrier with an identity crisis. Some planes look fresh and new (though we know better), while others are tired and decrepit in their old, gray skin. More often than not, the white all-caps lettering is chipped and shabby on those still awaiting fresh paint jobs.

Perhaps they are all crazy for overspending on elaborate exteriors, but there is no question that an airline’s image is enhanced when its planes are pleasing to the eye. Frontier and its stunning wildlife images comes to mind. Or US Airways, which is painting the tails of Airbus aircraft in the logos of now-defunct carriers it has absorbed over the years, such as Allegheny and PSA. Seeing those old brands takes you back to an era of commercial aviation that was far superior and perhaps gone forever.

More observations about United during a quick weekend trip to Washington, D.C.:

In the Red Carpet Club at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport the cups and saucers have been removed from the shelves of the various coffee stations. Only Styrofoam cups remain. Some bean counter must have decided too much money was being wasted washing the china.

Conversely, and oddly, real knives are back in the first-class meal service. So I guess we are not all suspects, after all.

At check-in at Washington-Reagan Airport, signs direct fliers with elite frequent-flier status to special lines but most bear an ominous secondary sign indicating, Position Closed. This is not at 6 a.m. This is at 4 p.m. on a busy Sunday afternoon. After using the automated kiosk to check-in, receive boarding cards and request baggage tags, the two agents in charge of so-called “elite status” passengers ignore me for 10 minutes while staring into computer monitors. United desperately wants all of us to be self-sufficient in the airports, but can’t manage to close the deal by tagging bags efficiently for its top customers.

Aboard UA 627 to Chicago on Sunday, there is no effort to greet arriving passengers cordially as we board the aircraft to find our upgraded seats (remember, passengers pay for these upgrade segments, either with real cash or by logging tens of thousands of annual air miles). No attendant appears with an offer to place a jacket over a hanger. A request by a fellow passenger for a pre-flight beer is declined. Only water and orange juice in plastic cups. What a joke.

Before take-off, an arrogant flight attendant announces over the PA that the “safety video” will be re-played because too many passengers ignored it the first time. Give me a break. If there is an emergency, all of the flight attendants will be in the back of the aircraft on cell phones, talking to their union reps about personal damage claims.

And, in flight, passengers are scolded on UA 627 about not sitting down when the Fasten Seat Belts indicators are illuminated. They are reminded by the stern toned flight attendant that it is “an FAA regulation”. Is this not the same FAA that recently was charged with allowing more than 100 aircraft inspection directives to be ignored by the airlines? What semi-intelligent commercial aviation passenger regards the FAA as a legitimate entity toward which we must bow in reverence?

I doubt even the novice flier is intimidated by the looming consequences of ignoring the hypocritical FAA. Everyone knows the Fasten Seat Belts indicators are primarily used to keep passengers out of the aisles, allowing wide-girthed flight attendants an unimpeded path as they march, eyes forward, to their galley hide-outs.

The bottom line is, I can’t wait for upstart Virgin America to begin its Chicago service. I am willing to bet that an airline with British DNA never will serve its tea and coffee in Styrofoam, and likely will go easy on the FAA intimidation tactics. I hear the plane’s interiors have mood lighting, which will most certainly be an improvement over the bad moods inside United’s planes.

Other than some excellent spot analysis by travel expert, NBC Today contributor and mega-blogger Peter Greenberg, I have seen little journalistic clarity in the wake of The Great American Airlines Debacle.

For those seeking a real-life example of what happens when the federal government is permitted to run amuck, thereby complicating our lives and creating a huge financial mess, drive over to any major airport and visit the American Airlines terminals.  

Even in an era in which airlines are quick on the flight cancellation trigger, American is enduring a nearly incomprehensible fiasco. This is American Airlines. This is not JetBlue stranding a a few hundred passengers on a tarmac or two for eight hours. This is the world’s largest airline and American’s customers are among the most loyal around (even after being robbed of the short-lived, more-legroom-in-coach perk).

Yet the numbers do not lie. AA cancelled 460 departures on Tuesday, and more than 1,090 flights on Wednesday. It forecasts more than 900 additional cancellations today, and is making no promises about returning to normal on Friday or even Saturday. The projection of 100,000 customers delayed or stranded is probably a low number.

These past few days have been an “economic 9/11″ for American. That’s not a stretch. These MD80 jets (averaging 140 seats) are the core of the airline. Have been as long as I can recall. They comprise nearly half of AA’s fleet of 650-plus aircraft. They are assigned to virtually all of the airline’s most vital business routes, including Chicago-New York, Chicago-Boston, Chicago-Los Angeles, Dallas-New York, Dallas-San Francisco and St. Louis-Chicago. There are 18 weekday AA flights from Chicago-O’Hare to New York-La Guardia. Seventeen are handled by MD80s.

Plus, MD80s are used exclusively on key leisure routes such as Dallas-Los Cabos and Dallas-Pam Springs.

The sad truth is: it never should have happened. It absolutely didn’t need to happen.

Mainstream media “reporters” are accepting — and spoon feeding us — the spin that the airline is addressing a serious threat to the safe operation of its planes caused by an obscure wiring problem.  The real reason is so obvious I do not understand how anyone can overlook it. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was nailed by a whistleblower who revealed it had been letting certain “airworthiness directives” slide, specifically in the area of fuselage inspections by mechanics of Southwest Airlines.

The headlines were alarming and potentially damaging to the FAA. It fined Southwest more than $10 million to show it is still boss, but that was just the beginning.

Knowing it would wreak havoc on the business and leisure traveler — and not caring — the FAA obviously made it known to American that it was going to play hardball with regard to the airworthiness directive tied to MD80 wiring (which was first issued in 2006). It left American no choice but to ground its planes all at once.

This is a sly, some would say sinister, move by the FAA. It makes American look like the culprit. It makes American take all of the heat. It tells the public that the airlines do not care enough about safety, and certainly not as much as does the uncompromised FAA.

It takes the FAA off the hook. The federal government was roundly criticized for bailing out Bear Stearns in the financial sector, but that wasn’t about one investment bank. For better or worse, that was a proactive bail-out to protect the U.S. economy. Now we have a horrfying example of what can happen when big government does the opposite of protecting the nation’s interests, when it shamefully covers up its bureaucratic bungling and shuns accountability.

To make matters worse, the FAA screwed American Airlines at a time when the major airlines have never been more economically vulnerable.

What should have happened? Logically, the FAA should have taken its lumps after the dust settled in the Southwest matter. It fined SW more than $10 million, so it was certainly not handing out a wrist slap. Next, it needed to quietly circle its own wagons inside FAA HQ, reassess its inspection compliance procedures and face the fact that it dodged a bullet (no SW planes were compromised) and must become much more vigilant.

Then, the airlines needed to be advised, quietly and calmly, that they were all expected to pay closer attention to existing (and future) airworthiness directives, and that they were all receiving an extension in order to systematically inspect and address the types of maintenance issues (i.e., wiring of redundant hydraulic systems in MD80s) so as to avert industry chaos.

Instead, the FAA has gleefully diverted all of the anxiety, anger and blame pent up in business and leisure travelers to American (and to a lesser degree, Delta and United). They bet, correctly, that the public’s anger would be tempered by the fact that the cancellations were safety related, even though they are really related to sustaining the bureaucratic status quo.

American is certainly not faultless. It could have taken the high road and systematically inspected the MD80 wiring over a period of many months during regularly scheduled maintenance for these aircraft. It did not have to act like a child who only obeys the rules when mommy and daddy are watching. And it certainly could have come up with a more honest explanation for the past few days when posting a notice on its web site, AA.com.

The notice reads: “We are very sorry for inconveniencing you with the cancellation of a portion of American Airlines’ flights which started on April 8.  Additional inspections of our MD-80 fleet are being conducted to ensure precise and complete compliance with the FAA’s directive related to wiring in the aircraft’s wheel wells. … Please be assured that safety of our customers is, and always will be, American’s first priority.”

Is that the muffled howling of FAA paper shufflers I am hearing?