Who doomed the presidency of George Bush Sr, and sent him limping back to Houston at the end of his first term? No, it wasn't Saddam Hussein, spared by Bush I in recognition of his long-term utility to the oil industry, on whom Bush Jr, now hopes to inflict revenge.

It was Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve and the man whose wrong-way calls on interest rates at the start of the Nineties ushered in the recession that allowed Bill Clinton to capture the White House on a platform of economic populism.

Guess what? It's happening again! Bush Jr, will learn that you can indeed step in the same river twice, so long as Greenspan is controlling the sluices. Because Greenspan did nothing in the late Nineties to curb the greatest corporate crime spree in the history of capitalism, the Democrats got out of Dodge seconds before the roof finally fell in.

As one economist recently remarked, in terms of economic reality, the late Nineties never happened. Everything was done with smoke, mirrors and crooked accountancy, condoned by Greenspan.

If you call the toll-free number on the TV screen during one of those upbeat Army commercials, a large envelope will arrive with a white t-shirt inside. On the back is a slogan in big block letters: "AN ARMY OF ONE."

The only other thing in the package is a videotape called "212 Ways to Be a Soldier." A hard-driving rock soundtrack propels all 20 minutes. Graphics flash with a cutting-edge look (supplied by a designer who gained ad-biz acclaim for working on a smash Nike commercial). Young adults provide warm narratives about their daily lives in the Army. From the outset, the mood is reassuring.

Sometimes, the screen fills with helicopters, intrepid soldiers rappelling through the air, men advancing across terrain as they carry machine guns -- always accompanied by plenty of rock 'n' roll -- all in the service of a country much more comfortable dishing out extreme violence than experiencing it. There's no talk of risk, and scarcely a mention of killing.

Carefully multiracial and coed, the video gets a lot of its juice from an undertone of foreclosed civilian possibilities. It beckons the

AUSTIN, Texas -- Sometimes you have to connect the dots, and sometimes the connections just hit you over the head.

Congress is on the verge of taking a final vote on the bankruptcy bill, the product of a five-year effort by credit-card companies to stack the law in their favor and against average citizens. But you will be relieved to learn that our lawmakers have thoughtfully included a loophole that leaves six states, including Florida and Texas, free to continue providing extraordinary advantages to rich citizens from all over the country who need to shelter their gelt from bankruptcy proceedings. The millionaire protection amendment.

And this is about to happen despite the fact that one of the bill's most important sponsors, a congressman with financial problems, got a $447,500 loan -- as The New York Times genteelly put it, "on what appeared to be highly favorable terms," from (guess who? Right again) -- a major credit card company.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Here's another to add to our growing list of needed corporate reforms. When some poor company -- caught in endless coils of red tape, strangled by mean government bureaucrats, its last gasp of entrepreneurial energy driven out by nasty investigators -- is finally forced to pay for some slightly overzealous bit of capitalist behavior, what is that poor company to do? Write the fine off on its taxes, of course.

Yes, incredible as it sounds, when corporations are fined for breaking the law, they can deduct the fine from their tax bill. This puts the rest of us taxpayers in the unhappy position of subsidizing corporate misbehavior.

This revolting situation is now being "looked at" by the Senate finance committee Chair Max Baucus. Kudos to The Wall Street Journal for bringing this one to the public's attention. Is this a perfect example of how corrupted our political system has become by corporate special interests, or what? This policy should not be tossed aside lightly. It needs to be thrown aside with great force.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Nothing like a lot of distracting saber-rattling to get you to take your eyes off the shell with the pea under it. Kind of like the prospect of being hanged in the morning, impending war does tend to concentrate the mind wonderfully. But the remaining balance, if any, in your 401(k) is an attention-grabber as well, so while the administration tries to make up its mind whether it agrees with itself on the best way to handle Saddam Hussein, I recommend a swift glance back at the corporate reform agenda.

President Bush went around the country this summer essentially saying, "Done that, it's all over," on corporate reform. His adoption of Sen. Paul Sarbanes' Accounting Reform and Investment Protection Act, which he staunchly opposed until two weeks before it passed by a unanimous vote, is his most unusual claim to parenthood since he announced in mid-debate he was the father of the Texas patients' bill of rights. In that case, he had first vetoed the bill of rights and then refused to sign it after it passed by a veto-proof majority.