Obama Extends Bush’s Legacy of an Imperial Presidency Executive privilege. Presidential signing statements. Warrantless wiretapping. Detention without charge. The unitary executive theory. Americans inattentive to events unfolding in the nation’s capital would likely identify these policies as artifacts of the Bush administration, evidence of failed attempts to balance rights and security—and reminders of our flirtation with an imperial presidency. They are long gone, most would contend, banished from the halls of the White House since the historic inauguration of Barack Obama in January.

I am from the government and I’m here to help you. Most of us have heard or used this expression from time to time with either mirth or disdain. However, in recent years, this expression has taken on new meaning. Over the past few years, our government has succeeded in accomplishing the impossible. It has taken the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world and reduced it to a nation of debtors. This transformation has been under way for some time, but George Bush and Barack Obama have vastly accelerated the pace.

It’s time my industry—the advertising industry—did something important. For our own self-interest—and for the common good—we need to start paying attention to newspapers again. To begin with, it would be good for our business. For our own selfish reasons, we need a medium that targets the well-informed. We need a medium that lets us tell our whole story—and not just the 30-second version.

Questions are rightly being raised about whether actress Natasha Richardson could have been saved if her skiing accident had occurred in the U.S. rather than in Canada. No one ever will know if the tragedy could have been averted, but it is worth looking at the timing and medical resources available to her.

There’s a photograph I took on Osborne Turnpike, southeast of the city. It was early and the low sun gilded the fur of a fox lying dead on the shoulder of the road. Behind the creature spread a 40-acre field that I’ve passed every day for a decade. The land used to spend half the year covered in corn, the other half in flocks of gleaning geese. On the day of the picture it was bare orange clay crisscrossed by backhoe tracks. Today it is crowded with dozens of houses and wide paved roads.

Some people can’t understand why some Virginia legislators are urging the state to turn down millions of dollars in economic stimulus money to help the unemployed. But what critics don’t get is that the stimulus money has strings attached—strings that I believe would end up restraining our economy rather than helping it.

There is a movement afoot in our fair city to place a $388-million office/retail/restaurant/hotel development in Shockoe Bottom. At the very center of this development is a proposed $70-million baseball complex that the master develop ers of the entire project argue will be the answer to the question of growth in Shockoe Bottom. I, and those who have joined a Facebook page entitled, “I support baseball on the Boulevard,“ are politely opposed to this project and to the—seemingly—afterthought of a project that has been proposed by the same developers for the site of The Diamond and the Arthur Ashe Center on the Boulevard.

I have a small business in Shockoe Bottom in a little building that I hope someday will overlook right field of a new state-of-the-art ballpark. But right now, it’s around the corner from a weed-laden, macadam lot where a historic slave shack has been parked on a trailer for as long as I can remember. Down the street are boarded-up buildings, the remnants of where the Lovings used to do business, and a bunch of lots where MCV researchers and nurses battle for parking.

Bold prediction No. 1: The recession is over. Not-quite-as-bold prediction No. 2: We won’t find out that the recession is over until early next year. In spite of all the mistakes the government has made, is making, and will make, one of the oldest economic aphorisms will prove once again to be accurate: Never fight the Fed. The Federal Reserve has been flooding the economy with cheap money for more than a year now. And the best predictor of future economic performance—the yield curve—is flashing bright green.

In 1991, the TV program “Eerie, Indiana” first aired. It was the story of 13-year-old Marshall Teller who moved with his family from a New Jersey suburb to what appeared to be an idyllic small town. But things were not always as they seemed, and young Teller soon discovered that the Midwestern burg was actually the “center of weirdness for the entire planet.“

Agrandmother living in Richmond was already on a tight budget. When tragedy struck her family recently, she found herself without money to buy food. She went to Richmond’s Central Virginia Food Bank, shared her story, and was provided with one of the basic necessities of life. “If it hadn’t been for the food bank giving me groceries, I don’t know what I would have done,“ she said. “They helped me when I really needed it. I don’t know how to thank them.“

If the decline of real estate prices is the central problem in the current recession, it should follow that the Obama administration should concentrate more effort on stabilizing housing values—rather than spending $1 trillion (with more to come) shoring up the balance sheets of financial institutions that have been decimated by the devaluation of “toxic” assets.

Editor’s note: In a December Commentary section, Buddy Childress, executive director of Needle’s Eye Ministries in Richmond, wrote about the spiritual aspects of economic trouble. As the difficulties continue, and in some cases deepen, he offers more thoughts about values and money—and how they overlap and differ.

Frank Atkinson, a longtime participant in Republican politics at the highest levels, offered his analysis of the 2009 Virginia gubernatorial race in last Sunday’s Commentary section. His conclusions, as usual, are thoughtful, but don’t withstand close scrutiny.

The drug war is replete with oddities. Fore most among them is that the U.S. is funding both sides of it.