Hostage Crisis

[note: this image made more sense with the original title, “America Pulls a Boehner,” and it's still too good not to keep; courtesy of superdickery, though I'm sure owned by DC]

DI: Last year, Obama used the metaphor of a hostage crisis for the Republican negotiation over the Bush tax cuts. He ended up relenting, because he wasn’t willing to let them hurt the hostage, when the hostage was the American people. But you’ve dealt with some real-world hostage situations, so I’d like to get your opinion on this latest negotiation.

B: I don’t negotiate hostage crises; I end them.

DI: Probably by breaking through a hostage taker’s skylight then kicking them until they go to prison.

B: In a nutshell.

DI: Do you provide the nutshell, or do Gotham’s hostage-takers provide their own?

B: Clever.

DI: I have my moments.

B: But there have been circumstances where I’ve had to negotiate. It’s a favorite tactic of the Riddler, making sure he and his victims are hidden somewhere, so I have to deal with him remotely. It’s the only way he could ever get me to play his games at first.

DI: At first?

B: We came to an understanding about ten years ago: he stopped kidnapping people and I agreed to solve one of his riddles a month.

DI: So you enabled his lunacy. Wonderful.

B: The Riddler’s obsessive and compulsive, but not violently insane in the same way as someone like the Joker. All he really cared about was his puzzles, and one time, as I was taking him to the police, frustrated, I asked, “Next time can’t we just skip to the part that you care about?” And he laughed. But then he thought about it, and asked if I was offering what it sounded like I was offering. And I hadn’t been, but now that we were both thinking about it, it made a weird kind of sense.

Because he’d been terrorizing innocent people needlessly. He didn’t want a ransom. And he never actually hurt his hostages. He just wanted to play the game.

DI: But given that you negotiated with terrorists

B: Actually, you’ll note that I negotiated an end to the terrorism.

DI: But at the time he was a terrorist and you negotiated- and that makes President Bush cry- so what would you say of the current stalemate?

B: Well, first, looking back at the first hostage negotiation, Obama was being stupid. I think his metaphor fails, in that we weren’t talking about really hurting the American people, just whether or not some of them paid marginally higher taxes- at the rate they paid them under Clinton. Regardless, he did the worst thing possible: he caved- which only encourages more hostage-taking.

By contrast, I think the current debt ceiling negotiations, and maybe to a lesser extent the budget fight earlier this year, are closer to hostage negotiations. Because the debt ceiling allows us to pay for services that really will hurt Americans who lose them. And unlike taxes, which have a large lobby constantly agitating against them, those Americans tend not to have powerful political allies. So damage done to those Americans could well end up permanent.

DI: Then what do you think of the debt ceiling bill Boehner got passed in the House?

B: I liked Jonathan Chait’s description of the Boehner ‘deal’: “it's like a kidnapper demanding for the release of your child $100,000 and your other child.” Because Boehner’s deal extracts cuts without revenue, but then ensures that there will be another debt ceiling standoff in six months’ time.

This may be the reason that, according to CNN, the House plan championed by Speaker Boehner would likely lead to a downgrade of US credit from Standard and Poor’s, while the Senate plan championed by Harry Reid wouldn’t. [note: the Reid plan offers a ceiling extension that should see us to 2013]. We’ll see, I suppose, in the next few days, if that does anything to change the debate. I suspect not. John Boehner’s been painted into a corner. I suspect he’s not long for this political world; he was barely able to craft a bill that mustered Republican support in the House, but it’ll never make it through the Democratic Senate. His options now seem to be to throw his speakership under the bus to vote with the Democrats, or to try to preserve his speakership by tacking right, which means not voting for whatever compromise comes out of the Senate, and means the Republicans get hammered for the consequences and probably lose their majority and the speakership anyway.

Not that I’ll lament his loss. In attempting to sell his bill to the House, Boehner called the other options default or giving Obama a blank check. Now, I hate to go against Hanlon’s razor, but I can’t believe that the Speaker of the House misunderstands government so badly. The President doesn’t spend money- he executes the laws as passed by the Congress. Spending- the power of the purse- that’s Congress. The Congress, one half of which Boehner “leads,” set spending levels. Which makes it either blatant propaganda or criminal stupidity.

DI: You’ve placed a lot of people under citizen’s arrest in your time. Ever for stupidity?

B: I’ve caught a lot of people because of stupidity, but that was never the charge.

DI: You’ve been a pretty passionate proponent for raising the debt ceiling, even when a majority of Americans were against it.

B: I think most Americans are busy. They don’t want government to be a major thing in their lives- because they’d rather do something else, work, spend time with friends, family, just screwing around. So most Americans don’t pay a lot of attention to politics until it’s something important, something that gets in their face and demands attention. So the fact that most people didn’t understand what the debt ceiling was, I think accounts for most of the change in polls. But selling the increase - explaining why I’ve favored it, beyond what could go wrong- is a different thing. And I’ve said it before, but it’s about a different vision of the country.

Let me ask you a question: do you like our country? Right now, looking around, at the state of our roads, at the state of our national parks, at the state of our national security apparatus. Do you like this country, and want it to be able to continue at this level?

DI: Generally speaking, yeah. At least at this level.

B: Okay, these are the things our government spends money on. But how about the things you may not like, that the government isn’t doing as well with: the state of our schools, our crumbling infrastructure, high unemployment, the fact that seniors are edging closer to poverty as a group- these are all things that will require more spending in the future. Not unlimited spending- in some cases, like infrastructure, just a down payment- but increases over what we spend now.

I think most Americans are fairly happy with the country today. So I don’t understand that zealousness on the part of conservatives to take apart something we value.

DI: But you’re a dangerous socialist.

B: I’m a liberal. And maybe in the Europe I’d be a social democrat. I’ve never tried to hide that. And yes, personally, I’d favor robust government spending, to put us back on top of the world in education and technology, which is quite honestly where we belong. We’re the richest country in the world, and we still have an opportunity to cement our place at the head of that table; to me, that’s an America to dream about. It would require higher taxes- but if we made serious efforts to make the tax code fair- and I’m talking about treating all income equally, not the Orwellianly named ‘fair’ tax- it wouldn’t require a lot of sacrifice, either. To the average American, it would be more than worth it, to know that Medicare and Social Security were going to be there for them, and their kids.

But let me be clear: that’s not what I’m advocating here. I’m saying that, at a minimum, we should be trying to keep America strong. We don’t have to be the best. But we shouldn’t be willing to watch our nation slide further and further away from being the center of innovation, growth and prosperity. We’re still about as rich as the EU, but every day we fall further behind on the education and technology curves- and the further we fall back, the harder it is to regain position.

We should be looking for ways to ensure our nation’s stability and prosperity going into the future. We shouldn’t be looking to cut benefits for the elderly, while maintaining tax cuts for the oil industry. Those kinds of trade offs just don’t make sense.

DI: So how do you feel about the Reid plan?

B: The Reid plan isn’t wonderful. It has its flaws, namely a pretty large reduction in the government’s ability to protect its citizens. It does attack the deficit, and on that front it’s remarkably like the Beohner plan, both in how much gets cut and how quickly. So it tries to have the least effect during the downturn, which is a plus.

DI: So what’s so bad about the Boehner plan, then?

B: To get it out of the House, Boehner had to make the ceiling increase, or a second one, since he cuts a Reid sized increase in two, contingent upon passage of a balanced budget amendment. We’ve discussed how pointless such an amendment is, and this provision guaranteed that it could never even be considered by the Senate.

The thrust of the problem with a balanced budget amendment is it’s unenforceable, so it’s a rule which would only keep honest politicians honest.

DI: So the same way that, say, gun control only keeps honest gun owners honest?

B: One can of worms at a time.

And maybe I’m being cynical here, but I think Democrats have learned from pay as you go rules that they will try to live within the system, but Republicans won’t. Republicans, you’ll recall, got rid of pay as you go rules as soon as they took the House, and replaced them with cut as you go rules. The irony of which is that the party now obsessed with debt and deficits changed the rules to make it even easier to increase both.

But the other problem with Boehner’s plan we already mentioned. It’s the reason I think S & P has talked about downgrading our credit even if we pass the Boehner plan: it sets this whole hostage crisis back up again in six months. And even if we managed to talk the crazy people off the ledge this time, that doesn’t mean that next time we’ll be so lucky. In fact, since they’re likely to view this as a loss, and I speak from a long history with vengeful crazy people, they’re likely to be crazier, and more likely to throw us all off the ledge next time.

Unbalanced

B: I can tell you think you’re being clever. So out with it.

DI: I have two topics I’d like to talk about with you; unfortunately I’ve been having trouble coming up with an overarching theme, but they are Michele Bachmann and the budget.

B: And I’ll take a wild guess and assume you’re going to title the piece, ‘unbalanced.’

DI: On the nosey. We’ll start with the one that’s the furthest out of whack.

B: Michele Bachmann?

DI: Correct. Michele Bachmann really first came to prominent national attention when she called Barack Obama anti-American. Most notably because he was palling around with Bill Ayers, a member of the Weathermen, a group that bombed several government buildings in the 70s, and was friendly with Obama.

B: Obama served on a charity board with Ayers, and lived in the same neighborhood. I was friends with Harvey Dent- I actually cooked for him, in my home, once. I gave to his campaign when he was running for DA. By that standard, Michele Bachmann would believe that I condone any and everything Harvey’s ever done.

Which is stupid if not unbelievably cynical. Harvey was one of my best friends. When his… issues broke him, it was hard on me. But that never stopped me from beating the hell out of him every single time he put innocent people in danger. I don’t condone his actions; I despise them. I hate what Harvey became- and it’s all the sadder knowing where he came from, and who he could have been.

DI: But is that fair? Obama knew Ayers after he’d been in the Weathermen.

B: Okay. Say that Harvey reformed- which he’s tried, several times. Let’s say this time he makes it, and like Ayers he’s an honest, normal citizen for twenty years. Let’s say he gets his law license back, somehow, and runs for DA. I’d donate to his campaign all over again.

DI: I’m just going to lay my cards on the table, here, and just quote from Wikipedia: following comments by China proposing adoption of a global reserve currency, Bachmann introduced a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment to bar the dollar from being replaced by a foreign currency.

B: I have no words. (pause) You’re not going to say anything else until I respond, are you?

DI: Nope.

B: It’s just… lunacy. The existence of a global reserve currency would have nothing to do with the US. All China is saying is that it doesn’t like being tied to US policy. They don’t like the idea that all the wealth they’ve generated is denominated in dollars, because they could lose their shirts if we were to do something stupid, like, say, reneg on our debts by refusing to lift the debt ceiling. So they’d rather have a currency that wasn’t related to any single country- sort of a gold standard without tying the reserve currency necessarily to any particular commodity.

DI: She also made headlines when she fretted publically about the census.

B: Which was ironic, given her self-proclaimed love for the Constitution- because that’s where the Census comes from. Every ten years the government performs a count and accounting of the citizenry- largely for the allocation of representatives for the house, but also the distribution of funds.

DI: And during the health care debate, she read an article by the notorious Betsy McCaughey on the floor of the House.

B: It’s unclear how much Bachmann’s persona is cynical shtick and how much of it is actual, diagnosable paranoia. But I can’t, looking at the evidence, believes it’s all an act; she went on record saying she wanted to “wean” people off Social Security and Medicare. She was talking about keeping people in the system there, and making sure people who wouldn’t get it had time to prepare- similar in spirit to the Ryan budget, but also throwing Social Security under the same bus- but that’s an incredibly unpopular mindset to have in this country. Frankly, I’m surprised she’s getting any traction at all.

DI: In 2004, Bachmann said, “We need to have profound compassion for people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life and sexual identity disorders”

B: Given my long career in dealing with people with mental dysfunctions and identity disorders, I can tell you I have profound compassion for people like Bachmann, surpassed only by my compassion for the poor people of Minnesota she represents.

DI: That was catty. You’re getting catty in your old age.

B: Maybe I’ve been spending too much time around Selina. Kitten has claws.

DI: But conveniently, Bachmann has been at least on the outskirts of the skirmish over the debt ceiling. She tends to make wacky sounding demands- actually, I imagine that’s your wheelhouse, since you’ve been involved in hostage negotiations with the Joker.

B: To be fair, Bachmann isn’t going to kill anyone; she’s just threatening to hurt the country and its interests. Both dire, I admit; but I want to make sure we don’t step too far into hyperbole, here. Bachmann isn’t a murderer, and while I’d question her ability to properly grasp reality, she’s far from the Joker in that regard.

DI: Noted; also, aren’t I supposed to be the grown-up, here?

B: That’s what I keep asking.

DI: But what I was trying to say about Bachmann’s demands; she has, if I’m remembering this right, demanded at one point a balanced budget amendment, and at another, repeal of the ACA.

B: It’s hard to watch. I don’t know how many people were reading you and Clark’s discussions, but I can’t help but feel the ACA- it’s a part of Clark’s legacy. It’s a part I think he was proud of, even though he didn’t get to see its final passage. But so often, he, and I’m in a similar position, we get to help people in a way that’s immediate, and visceral.

But after you’ve saved someone from the burning building, you set them back down on the sidewalk and you fly away. And the circumstances that had them living in that poorly built building that wasn’t up to code, with the badly functioning smoke detectors that they couldn’t afford to replace- those all stay like they were. So it’s hard to feel like you saved them, really- you just postponed the inevitable.

I’m in a more unique position, in that I can afford and have the resources to come back later, and try to help out. There were a lot of times, especially when I was starting out, that I’d say to people: “Batman told me you could use a hand.” And little kids, I mean, the first thing they’d say is, “You know Batman?” And their eyes would light up; and it always felt like the answer was “only slightly.” Because he’s a part of me, but he’s not a part of me I have access to when I’m out with people like that. He’s as much an enigma to me, at those moments, as he is to everyone else.

But the point I was trying to get at, that I think I’ve wandered away from, is that at least in my mind, the ACA is something he advocated for, at the end. The last hurrah in his campaign for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. And I remember, when the debate over the bill got really nasty, he called me, depressed. Because he couldn’t understand how people could question the patriotism of the idea that everyone should have medical coverage. He asked me, “What’s more American than all of us, together, helping every American succeed, and prosper? Is there anything more American than that?”

At the time I didn’t say anything. It was rhetorical, but beyond that he had a way about him- even when he said something corny, something I wanted to laugh about- I couldn’t. He made you want to believe silly things. I don’t think the ACA is actually silly- but I believe it’s aimed to make the world better, in a way that sometimes I want to dismiss as hopelessly and romantically idealistic. But I also think it’ll save more lives than Clark or I ever did. And I know that’s what Clark hoped, too.

DI: That’s all well and good, but don’t you hate freedom?

B: I once punched Captain America in a comic book- but I don’t think that counts. I’ll cop to the fact that Bachmann and I don’t see eye to eye on the purpose of government. But I also believe that in a democracy you actually have to govern, that means voting for budgets on time, it means funding agencies even if you may not like the way they work; it means doing the business of the American people like a professional.

As to the budget, itself, I think it’s silly to attempt to balance the budget immediately. Aside from the fact that taking billions if not trillions out of the economy in the midst of the recession is a bad idea, I think it’s unfair and irresponsible to the people who have come to rely on certain government programs to suddenly do without. You’ll note, this is the exact same logic Bachmann wants to use for Social Security and Medicare, and at least as a methodology I can agree with it. Weaning people off of government funding is better than suddenly slamming the door shut and saying no more. You’d be dealing a huge blow to the economy, and just as important, really hurting a lot of people.

I agree, that over the long term we have to make up the difference between revenue and spending; reasonable people can disagree on the balance, there- and I’m hopeful that more reasonable people are elected in 2012 to make it a more adult conversation.

DI: So you don’t like the current state of the negotiations?

B: It’s difficult to know what the current state is, actually. But last I heard, Obama was pushing for $3.5 trillion in spending cuts, against about $1.2 trillion in additional revenue. To people who look at the debt the last couple of years, that might sound great. But to anyone paying attention to the long-term it’s a kick in the crotch.

$3.5 trillion is slightly less than what the Bush tax cuts cost every decade. Raising revenues by $1.2 trillion might sound like a good idea, but $.8 trillion of that comes off letting the Bush cuts for those earning more than $250,000 expire. Why that’s a crappy deal is it’s basically asking for the least investment in the country from the wealthy, and asking for the most pain endurable by everyone else. If you like the idea of the elderly staying above the poverty line, if you like the idea that the US might remain a well-educated country, these are not the kinds of cuts you want to see.

Which isn’t to say that this isn’t necessary. It’s possible that we really are spending so far beyond our means that we have to cut $350 billion out of our budget every year- which is around 10%. But I don’t like that we’re being forced to cut our budget by that much this quickly; the appropriate time to examine your finances is not while your house is on fire.

And I think if we’re going to ‘tighten our belts’ that it shouldn’t come on the backs of the poor and the vulnerable. There are a trillion dollars being basically wasted every decade through these so-called ‘tax expenditures.’ You can argue whether or not this is spending or it’s a tax cut, but that’s semantic; at the end of the day, it’s the government picking winners and losers. Giving some people preferential treatment through the tax code is, most of the time, a bad idea. It distorts markets, which can make it harder for certain businesses to compete.

After that trillion, I would say rescinding all the Bush tax cuts makes sense. If we really, really can’t afford our government, we should start things back at zero- because before those cuts was when we had a balanced budget. And from there we can have the sober discussion of how high we think taxes should be, versus the things we think the government should do.

And maybe the conclusion would eventually be, well, we want to pay fewer taxes even if that means a smaller military and smaller Social Security checks and maybe some rationing in Medicare. I don’t claim to speak for the American people on this. But I think we should start the conversation there- after we’ve put out most of the fires.

And personally, since I imagine you’re soliciting my economic expertise as a kind of poor man’s Warren Buffet, I’d suggest backloading the cuts. Because whenever you cut spending it’s going to take money out of the economy. If you aim it properly, some of it will be replaced by private investment- but that’s a matter of timing it so that it happens after the recovery actually gets stronger- no more of this see-sawing.

DI: Give yourself a little credit. You’re almost exactly like Warren Buffet, only you have a more interesting personal life- by which I mean your fetish gear fashion sense. And also your sex life.

B: Thanks for that.

Making Amend(ment)s

DI: We had an animated conversation the other day, and I’d like to talk about something similar: Republicans in the House have been saying they want a balanced budget amendment; in fact, they’re refusing to vote on the debt ceiling without it being tied to a balanced budget amendment. And you told me that was the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard.

B: The problem with a balanced budget amendment is it’s pointless. Because even if a congress were to violate the amendment- even if Congress decided to go completely off the deep end and stop collecting any taxes while also double all spending, an amendment would be powerless to stop them.

DI: And why’s that?

B: There are a couple of issues tied up here, both having to do with enforcement. The first hurdle has to do with the mechanism of enforcement. How do you write an amendment that guarantees that the budget be balanced? The most creative method I heard came from Warren Buffet, who suggested the amendment state that sitting congresspersons could not be reelected if there was a deficit. But even the budget hawks probably wouldn’t go for that- since even the most ambitious budgets won’t achieve balance for several years. And realistically, putting a revolving door into the Congress would likely increase spending, rather than decrease it. I mean, if you’re not going to have to be accountable to the voters at all, why not? Even assuming you could come up with language for an amendment that would be able to get through the constitutional process- which takes years and comes with no guarantees- you come up against the second issue.

When there’s a contention, rather than if, it’s ultimately the courts who are responsible for enforcing the Constitution. But the courts have refused to hear the case in similar circumstances. The courts have argued that plaintiffs don’t have standing to sue, even a case where congresspeople argued that their ability to carry out their constitutional prerogatives was being thwarted.

DI: And for those of us who have thusfar avoided being the targets of lawsuits, what’s standing?

B: Standing basically says that you personally were hurt by an action. For better or worse, the current court tends to favor executive power. So these suits get thrown out for lack of standing if there are any shades of gray.

But even if you assume for a moment that a court- any court- decides to set aside the concept of standing. Maybe they’re mad as hell, too, and want to see if anything can be done about it. They hear the case, and decide that indeed Congress is exceeding it’s authority by spending more than they’re bringing in. What then?

The court can’t decide on its own which spending is improper- they don’t have a line item veto: there’s nothing approaching that in the court’s authority. The court would then be left with the choice of either declaring the entire government unconstitutional, or admitting that it couldn’t do anything to change it. And even if a judiciary so vastly overstepped that it declared the US government illegitimate, what then? Does the Congress just turn in their parking passes and go home. Or do they flip the Court the bird and keep on trucking?

I want to be clear, here: I want a balanced budget, and sooner is certainly better than later. But this slash it now now NOW attitude pervading the conservatives in Congress- especially when coupled with intransigence on taxes- is purely political. It has nothing, zero, to do with the long term health and viability of the government or the country- and even less to do with the well-being of its citizens. Republicans are using the current budget issues as an excuse to try and dismantle the social programs they have never particularly liked.

Ironically, the largest drivers of our current financial woes, were enacted by Republicans who had gotten rid of pay as you go rules and scoffed at the idea that they should have to pay for their agenda. Congressional Republicans are playing chicken with the global economy, and what they claim to be holding out for is this amendment. But it’s pointless and toothless.

DI: I read in the Washington Post that Michelle Bachman has said that she will not vote for a debt ceiling increase. The reporter said that placed her to the right of some other conservatives.

B: But it’s not ideologic, it’s just idiotic.

This is unprecedented. Never in the history of this country have we defaulted. That’s why we have good credit. Seriously, this would be like the head of a household declaring to his family, “We’re just not going to pay the credit card bill.” Years of good credit history would disappear, and borrowing rates, for the car, the kid’s student loans, the home, would all go way up. And even delaying payments a month would make the interest rates on any existing debt skyrocket. There is absolutely no good reason to do this. It borders upon insane.

DI: But don’t we have to cut spending?

B: Sure. Absolutely. And there are ways to do that that don’t put the financial future of the country at risk, that don’t put the global economy at risk. The sane thing to do would be to pass a clean debt ceiling hike today. The ambitious but still not crazy thing might be to push for, not some empty amendment, but a binding budget agreement that says that budgets over the next ten years we need to cut 10% of the deficit annually. As an enforcement mechanism, the law could automatically cut budgets across the board at the decade mark to make up for whatever deficit was left. Add in that repeal of this law takes a three quarters majority of both houses and you have a balanced budget law that’s even stronger than pay as you go rules the Democrats used to operate under.

DI: But isn’t that undemocratic?

B: So’s a balanced budget amendment. But just maybe to be responsible, we can’t be all that democratic. To make it fair, though, you could make sure the law can’t take effect without three quarters of both houses voting for it- so it takes an equal amount to pass it as repeal it.

Alternatively, you could reinstate the old pay as you go rules, with the change that you don’t just have to pay for changes, but pay a ‘surcharge’ on changes, of say 10%, so every time Congress made adjustments to programs they would have to find savings or revenue to cover the difference, plus ten percent. There are lots of ways to get us back in the black- and the vast majority are simple math problems that don’t require destroying Medicare or gutting Social Security or even telling the poor that we’re okay with them dying.

But the amendment, and especially tying an amendment or budget cuts, to the debt ceiling? That’s playing with fire. And it’s all of us that are going to get burned.

DI: You feel better? Farther away from a coronary than when we started? I hope so, because to make amends to our readership for your crazy polemics- I’m kidding; please don’t hit me- you know what time it is?

B: Where were we?

DI: Diana had just been to Cale Pharmaceuticals with the Gotham Police to investigate Danielle’s story, and came up empty.

B: Okay, we’re back in the embassy, then.

Wellys:
Diana, I swear to you, it should have been there.

Diana:
Start at the beginning.

Wellys:
I thought we'd hit a dead end in our research. We'd missed all of our milestones. When Veronica called me in, I thought it was because we were going to have all of our funding pulled. But she said she'd found a benefactor, one that was going to keep funding our project, and had some... ideas about getting over our hurdles.

DI:

Diana:
What hurdles?

B:
Wellys:
The human body doesn’t like tech. Whether it’s an artificial hip or nanites, we tend to react pretty violently to a foreign object implanted in the body- hence anti-rejection meds. The project, we were calling it “Silver Swan” to keep it secret, involved nanotec cosmetics. The idea was to stop putting makeup on the body, and start making the body itself beautiful. But all of our subjects were getting sick. Several of them developed tumors. It was a mess. This new investor brought in a truckload of cash and some kind of know-how. Within 72 hours all of our problems were gone. At first I was thrilled- I’ve been working on this project for six years, practically my entire professional life- and finally it was getting somewhere. Then I saw what they used it for. And it just, I knew they were taking shortcuts. Because that kind of a breakthrough, from where we were, it wasn’t possible.

Diana:
That's because it wasn’t science. It was magic. And I know someone with plenty of it.

DI: I think I know where you’re going with this. CUT TO poolside, a beautiful woman in a bikini, with long purple hair, is lounging beside the pool.

B: She sets her drink down on a tray held up by a male waiter who is dressed like a Chippendales dancer. He takes the drink away, and as he’s going, she wiggles her fingers, and his trunks become loose and nearly fall off before he catches them, giving us the hint of an untanned but firm butt.

DI: Thanks for that.

B: Somebody needs to help keep the ratio of T & A to man candy equitable. Besides, Circe really is man crazy. Circe lays back down, relaxing. A shadow looms over her, and she assumes for the moment it’s the waiter as she sits up to speak.

Circe
A little more salt on the rim this time if you- oh. It’s you.

DI:

Diana
Cale Pharmaceuticals. I have reason to believe that someone’s been trying to magic up some miracle make up.

B:

Circe
And you’re tired of trying to conceal those crow’s feet? Wish I could help you, Diana, really I do. But have you forgotten what happened last week?

Circe pushes down her sunglasses to reveal a black eye.

DI:

Diana
Oh, right. I punch a lot of people. Sometimes I forget who.

B:

Circe
I haven't had time, or frankly the perspicacity, to engage in another endeavor. Give me another week, maybe two, at poolside and perhaps I'll have something fun we can get up to, but today, I'm only lounging at the pool. But did you try Ares? Of course not. You came here hoping it was me. Because you don't enjoy the prospect of locking horns with the god of war- though as a lady I'd be happy to lock his horn any day of the week.

DI:

Danielle
Lady might be a bit of a stretch.

B:

Circe
Meow. Kitten’s got claws.

Diana
But if you're lounging around here, who's tending to your flock?

Circe
We witches call it a coven. And I forget the young man's name, but he looks excellent without a shirt on.

DI:

Diana
At least you remember the important details.

B:
Circe
I note you're chirlishly disapproving tone, Diana. But if L. Ron Hubbard can have his own clan of religious zealots, why can't I? Speaking of clans of zealots, how are the Amazons?

Diana
That's right. I hit you because you were trying to turn every Amazon on Themiscyra into a pig.

Circe
I've been in the market for another island- and I am a sucker for the classics.

Performance Enhancement

DI: Roger Clemens is in the news at the moment because he lied to Congress- which is a pretty hilarious thing in and of itself, given that politicians are probably the most consistently untruthful people on the planet.

B: It’s true that politicians lie. But I think it’s fair to ask why. And fundamentally, I think it comes down to the fact that the electorate doesn’t like consistency.

Look at the current Republican Presidential nominees. They’re vilified for taking what, at the time, weren’t even controversial stances on issues: Romney on health care, Pawlenty on cap and trade, even Gingrich on the Ryan budget. So they’ve largely denied ever taking those stances, or at least walked them back.

Note that I’m not condoning the behavior. I think if those three men, longtime party members with broad appeal and respect, stood up and together said that the politics of immolation can’t continue- that they took stands they believed in, and wouldn’t retreat just because something they liked was polling well- it would go a long way to changing things.

DI: But isn’t that a fairly undemocratic idea?

B: Let me explain. I have some socialist leanings- anyone who likes Medicare or Social Security does, frankly- but I’d go a step beyond. I’d like to see a higher minimum wage. I’d even support a maximum wage. If I were given the keys to the kingdom tomorrow, and told to remake the US to make it the best country I could, I’d push for more social democratic programs, similar to what exists in Europe, socialized medicine, for a start. But on the other hand, if I were running for or elected President, that’s a different story. Elected leaders aren’t chosen to represent their own ideas and interests, they’re there to represent the people. On a lot of issues I’ve been disappointed with Obama, but in that regard, I really feel he’s tried to be President not just of blue states but of all the states. You might not know it from all of the Nazi/Socialist rhetoric, but he’s a fairly centrist President; I’d say he’s not even as far left as Bush was right.

DI: Okay, but what I wanted to talk about was why Clemens is in the hot seat. He lied. Specifically about using performance enhancers. Or at least that’s the contention. And I know we touched on it briefly, I think around last Halloween- so I’ll try and keep us from rehashing. But I want to know, as a former performance enhancer, how you feel about performance enhancement.

B: Why do I shudder to think what you’ll name this blog entry? But it’s a tough question, and there’s a lot of nuance to it, so I’ll start at the general and we’ll get more specific from there. I think we’re living on the cusp of a new evolution in humanity. Some heroes are aliens, some have magical assistance, but some- I’d say most- of them truly represent what we’re doing or will do to ourselves as a species. Cyborg is a pretty good example. He’s part man and part machine. Call it post, trans, or metahumanity, but we’re changing, evolving; I doubt we’ll recognize the human race in 50 years.

And there are all sorts of mechanisms. Cybernetics, gene therapy, chemicals, nanotech. I don’t know how we’re going to get there, but I think it’s clear from what’s happened in the hero community that we’re changing. I think the people who put on spandex and fight crime- or commit it- are just the precursor.

Which is why I see what’s happening in our sports as a choice. If we decide, as seems to be the overriding thought of the day, that sports ought to be a throwback to what humans can do without technological aid, then so be it. So long as those are the rules. I think the reason there’s been so much trouble is that the rules were technically that performance enhancement was wrong, but in reality everyone was looking the other way. So honest athletes were put at a severe, perhaps even crippling disadvantage. Which is wrong.

Now what the capitalist in me imagines for sports is that we’ll eventually end up with two of everything- a natural and an enhanced version. People or athletes who for whatever reason want to see the pinnacle of human achievement without certain kinds of technology, we have the Olympics and equivalent associations. For those who want to see a man kick a football as far as he can by whatever means, you’d have sports leagues that allow enhancements.

And whichever people pay to watch on TV, whichever people buy merchandising for, that’s what will determine which brands survive. And maybe it’ll be a case, like the NCAA and the NBA, where there’s an audience for both that overlaps. I don’t know.

DI: That was a fairly obvious caveat where you mentioned ‘certain kinds’ of technology being prohibited in the Olympics.

B: Well, there’s a reason why Olympic world records today tend to outstrip records from fifty years ago: the world changed. Nutrition, and sports medicine, equipment and training have all come a long way since then. And it’s only going to get more complicated. Taking your vitamins is okay; but what about eating a genetically modified fruit that secretes small amounts of human growth hormone? That’s probably a silly, and obvious, example, but there’s a lot of nuance that’s going to continue to complicate things. But what about a macrobiotic diet that includes bacteria designed to secrete small amounts of pain killers?

DI: Okay, so continuing to regulate the line between natural and not is complicated. But won’t somebody think of the children? Isn’t telling our youth that it’s all right to trade their health and longevity for success damaging?

B: That’s what sports already do. Even athletes that don’t take performance enhancing drugs are putting their bodies through tough exercise regimens with constant stress on them, and frequent injuries. Even sidestepping the amount of people football grinds up and spits out, athletes tend to trade time off their life for their sport. As someone who kept himself in peak physical condition for nearly thirty years, and engaged in some of the most demanding and damaging activities you can find, I can tell you, it took its toll. I took Venom less than a year, so the side effects I’ve suffered were fairly minimal from that. But there are days I have so much pain I can’t get out of bed- at least not until I get some pain relief. And that’s the reality of modern athletics.

DI: Okay, but do you regret using drugs- as someone who is frequently held up as a role model for children?

B: But I’m not a role model for children. I wasn’t plastering myself on the sides of cereal boxes or putting toys into happy meals, I was trying to help people. Even the merchandising, that was all done for charity- and I think even most children can understand the difference between the cartoon caricature and me doing what I’ve done.

But on the record, I regret my use of Venom. But that’s because it made me irrationally aggressive, even violent- not because it was wrong on the morals. If I had to trade time off my life to save that little girl, to just save that one little girl I failed to save- I’d do it. In a heartbeat. And I wouldn’t feel bad about it.

DI: So the take-away from you is that there should be a decision at the organizational level to use performance enhancers or not in sports, right?

B: Generally, yeah.

DI: And do you know of any heroes currently operating who take performance enhancing substances?

B: No- even among people who don’t believe there’s anything wrong with enhancers, there’s still a stigma about it. But I’d be surprised if I was the only one who ever did.

DI: And given what we’ve been discussing, do you think that’s wrong?

B: I think if it’s an issue of vanity, either to look bigger, or to perform better, purely as a function of ego, that’s wrong, or at least counterproductive. I think steroids and other current enhancers often have nasty side effects, and that having compulsory, de facto steroid use in sports is wrong, too. It’s a choice, not just for the commissioners, but for each player to make, too. There may come a day when players are forced to choose between enhancement and not playing the game anymore- which is unfortunate, but could be the reality.

But as for our League, I’d say that I think anyone who puts their own health at risk to try and help people- whether it’s through enhancement or just walking into a burning building- that’s the definition of a hero. And I’m proud that I know so many people who fit that description.