Conventional Wisdom

For decades, we took for granted that everyone agreed with us economists that free trade is good, protectionism is bad. Somewhere along the way, that stopped being the conventional wisdom."

"HUGE" IS THE only word to describe the impact of American women winning the Women's World Cup Soccer championship.I was born in 1940 and grew up female in the middle of this century. My generation was constantly told, "Women are not team players." We saw many women individually break through the glass ceiling, from Margaret Thatcher to Billie Jean King. But there was no cracking of the conventional wisdom that we could be divas but not trusted team members.That conventional wisdom, which exploded in front of our eyes by an incoming missile called the U.S. women's soccer team, should blast through some of the final barriers against women assuming more leadership roles.

LET ME acknowledge my bias up front: I subscribe to the old-fashioned notion that party activists and voters -- not the mass media -- should be the main players in nominating political candidates.As for Hillary Rodham Clinton, her New York Senate candidacy -- launched by political reporters left dangerously idle by the closing of Monica-gate -- rocketed through the studios of "Crossfire" and "Nightline" to the covers of Newsweek and Time. A real grass-roots mobilization of the media elite.

Thanks in part to a muscular economy showing few signs of fatigue, Baltimore County land is looking more and more desirable -- both to those who would profit from it and those hoping to preserve it.Hundreds of property owners, businesses and community groups this month asked their local elected officials for a big favor: Change the rules covering what can be built on their property."

WASHINGTON -- Disillusioned by scandal, an uncertain electorate was having second thoughts about the performance of its president as his eight years in office drew to a close. His hand-picked successor, a two-term vice president, was lagging in the polls against a governor who portrayed himself as a Washington outsider with fresh ideas.President Clinton? Vice President Al Gore? Texas Gov. George W. Bush?No. The year was 1988, not 1999, and the president was Ronald Reagan, who after seven years in office saw his approval rating flagging in the wake of the Iran-contra investigations.

LOS ANGELES -- On his 10-day presidential campaign swing through California, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley deliberately confronted the conventional wisdom about running statewide in this megastate -- that one-on-one retail politics can't work.Mr. Bradley campaigned as if he were in Iowa or New Hampshire, small states where seeking out voters one at a time or in small groups has long been the mainstay.But in the nation's most populous state, statewide campaigns are usually discussed and conducted in terms of television media markets.

As you near your investment goal -- retirement, college, a house down payment -- it's time to shift to more conservative investments, conventional wisdom says.But as the world changes, conventional wisdom changes, too.Advisers still say it's important to reduce risk and preserve capital, but a portfolio that's too conservative can be as bad as one that's too risky -- especially when nearing retirement."It's not as simple as it used to be," said Sarah R. Sullivan, a financial adviser in the North Baltimore office of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

BEFORE Bill Clinton was elected in 1992, conventional wisdom held that the Democrats faced a crisis. After 12 years of GOP White House rule and defeat in five of the previous six presidential elections, the party had seemingly ceased to become competitive at the presidential level.Peter Brown's 1991 book, "Minority Party: Why Democrats Face Defeat in 1992 and Beyond," was one of several arguing the thesis. White working-class and suburban middle-class voters, according to the conventional wisdom, were abandoning the party in droves because of its excessively liberal positions on crime, welfare, foreign policy and "values" issues.

TOO OFTEN the conventional wisdom in this town is that the mergers, acquisitions and shifts of personnel that are so much a part of modern corporate culture have been bad for Baltimore.Many of the changes, in fact, have been positive for the city and the region, bringing people with new insights and sometimes a refreshingly upbeat approach to civic involvement.Consider the following example of conventional wisdom: Faceless outsiders now run many of the companies that were once locally owned, and these executives are without commitment to the city.

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. -- Frederick L. Will, my father, recently died here. He was, as used to be said, well-stricken in years, nearly 89 of them, and suffered many of the afflictions that often accumulate in very elderly bodies. He was, it is safe to say, not sorry when the Dark Angel tapped him on his shoulder and said it was time to go.In earlier ages, much was made of ars moriendi, the art of dying, of having "a good death." Nowadays, science often overwhelms that art. When death approaches the elderly on measured tread, they are apt to become tangled in the toils of modern medicine.

Despite conventional wisdom - and the huge higher education spending increase just proposed for Maryland - giving academia more public bucks is not the path to economic success. The cries for more money have certainly been abundant. In October, the New America Foundation's Michael Dannenberg declared that states should deficit spend on higher ed to keep tuitions low and economies running. In November, the Center for Studies in Higher Education implored Washington to fight recession by spending big on scholars.

People always warn you that workplace relationships are a recipe for disaster, that they'll end in awkwardness and anger, and that they should be avoided at all costs. Maybe that conventional wisdom is still true for most people, but not for me. The only reason I'm the person and writer I am today is because I swallowed my shyness and asked that Baltimore girl - who I'd privately had a crush on for nearly a year - on a date. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/lifeofkings)

Holiday weekend TV is supposed to be awful unless you are a serious sports fan. According to conventional wisdom, reruns and lame specials dominate. Once again, conventional wisdom is wrong; there is a fairly strong lineup this weekend. Start tonight with a couple of holiday specials on cable channel USA with new episodes of Monk and Psych. On Monk, the defective detective (Tony Shalhoub) helps three homeless men investigate a murder. On Psych, Shawn (James Roday) helps a mall Santa. OK, I'm not thrilled about it, but I'll take holiday goop from a couple of fun series like these.

The new great truth in media and politics is that Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama will be America's "first cybergenic president" if he is elected in November. The basic idea is that like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, who were the first to grasp the importance of radio and TV, respectively, Obama is the first to understand the many ways in which the Internet and other new media are transforming politics and American life. It isn't really true, of course. In fact, if you want to be McLuhanesque about it, a more apt description of Obama should he get elected might be the "last TV president."

For decades, we took for granted that everyone agreed with us economists that free trade is good, protectionism is bad. Somewhere along the way, that stopped being the conventional wisdom."

The intelligence community's report last week that al-Qaida has "regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability" confirms that our six-year effort to undermine the radical Islamist movement that fuels al-Qaida and its affiliated organizations is in tatters. The report notes that planned attacks have been thwarted and we've become a harder target to hit, but this is akin to treating the symptoms without curing the disease. We are winning battles but losing the larger war. How has this happened?

WASHINGTON -- Presidential campaigns are educational. The 2008 primaries are a year away, but we're already seeing the conventional wisdom flipped on its head, teaching us Americans new lessons about ourselves. Who, for example, would have expected former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, known to favor abortion rights, gay rights and gun control, to be surging ahead of Sen. John McCain of Arizona in major polls of Republicans - even among Southerners and Christian conservatives? How did he do it?

SAN ANTONIO -- When Toyota Motor Co. named Katsuaki Watanabe as its new president last year, many assumed he would be a caretaker chief executive, steering the giant automaker with a steady hand and a minimum of surprises until Akio Toyoda, the 50-year-old great-grandson of the company's founder, takes charge. The low-key approach of Watanabe - who rose up through the ranks as a cost-cutting manager of suppliers - seemed the safest bet, particularly since the company already was becoming a political target because it had taken market share at the expense of other automakers such as Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp.

The conventional wisdom is that the United States is so tied down that it can't do much about the rocket attacks on Israel, the blatant sponsorship of terrorists by Iran and Syria, or the Iranian nuclear program. Oil prices are already sky-high. Any unilateral American action might disrupt tight global supplies. That would derail the economies of our Western allies and only further enrich enemies with windfall profits. Trying to win hearts and minds for the fragile democracy in Iraq also means we can't afford to offend Arab sensitivities elsewhere.

Conventional wisdom holds that buying a home is always better than renting. But conventional wisdom could be luring many people into financial harm, claims Chicago author and financial adviser David Latko. "Go over the numbers," Latko advises. "If people do it right, it doesn't make much difference if they rent or buy." Latko, a talk-show host and author of the book Everybody Wants Your Money (Collins, $22.95), admits he offers a contrarian message. In many markets, the cost of homeownership has risen far beyond what a home can generate in rent, making it smarter for people to rent now rather than buy. Historically, home prices have risen only 1 percent to 2 percent more than the rate of inflation, but in some parts of the country they have grown at double-digit rates.