OH FER CRISSAKES, DRUDGICO
Politico, not even making the slightest attempt to conceal its desire for the Holy Grail, a Drudge link, pulls a few seconds out of a half-hour Steve Kroft interview of Barack Obama on 60 Minutes, distorts it beyond recognition, puts it up as the current lead item, and -- yes -- gets that Drudge link. (And -- calling Dr. Pavlov -- a lot of right-wing blog attention.)
The story:
Kroft to Obama: Are you punch-drunk?
President Barack Obama said he believes the global financial system remains at risk of implosion with the failure of Citigroup or AIG, touching off "an even more destructive recession and potentially depression."
His remarks came in a "60 Minutes" interview in which he was pressed by an incredulous Steve Kroft for laughing and chuckling several times while discussing the perilous state of the world's economy.
"You're sitting here. And you're -- you are laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems. Are people going to look at this and say, 'I mean, he's sitting there just making jokes about money--' How do you deal with-- I mean: explain..." Kroft asks at one point.
"Are you punch-drunk?" Kroft says....
Wrong. Wrong. Utterly, utterly wrong. Kroft is not incredulous. It's a sympathetic question ("How do you deal with--"). You have to go to about 13:40 of the first part of the interview to see it (clip below), but it's obvious -- the chuckling is mutual as they agree about the extraordinary unpopularity of bailing out the auto industry.
Oh, and over the course of the thirteen-plus minutes that lead up to that moment, Obama is -- of course -- the least punch-drunk-appearing person you've ever seen.
Watch CBS Videos Online
It's actually a surprisingly sympathetic moment, because a number of Kroft's questions are rooted in Millionaire Pundit Values. From the transcript:
STEVE KROFT:
Do you think that the people on Wall Street and the people in the financial community that you need trust you, believe-- believe in you?...
STEVE KROFT:
There is a perception right now, at least in New York, which is where I live and work.
BARACK OBAMA:
Right.
STEVE KROFT:
That, um, people feel they thought that you were going to be supportive.
Er, Steve? You obviously don't live in my New York, where we stupidly thought the Masters of the Universe were going to be supportive of us, or that at least they'd have such a great banquet that we, or at least our 401(k)s, would thrive on their table scraps. And now we don't give a damn if they feel loved or supported.
But that's earlier in the interview. And Obama fields the question cleanly. And doesn't look at all punch-drunk.
****
UPDATE: If you want just the "punch-drunk" moment, here it is:
National Review's Greg Pollowitz, heretofore a scathing denouncer of WALL-E and a mocker of Gwen Ifill's broken ankle, calls Obama's laugh "creepy." Really?
And I mean that as more than a rhetorical question? Do the wingnuts really react to Obama this way? Or do they know that he's effective in these mass-media appearances and realize they have to do everything in their power to blunt the impact of these appearances, which twice in the last week meant singling out one moment and trying to make it rather than the rest of the twenty-odd minutes into the story?
Sunday, March 22, 2009
MISTY WATERCOLOR MEMORIES OF THE WAY REPUBLICANS WERE
There's a Sheryl Gay Stolberg article in today's New York Times about the way "distractions" can take over the national political dialogue. (She's referring, of course, to those AIG bonuses.) Stolberg looks back through the recent past -- and recalls it not quite the way I do (emphasis mine):
... the [distractions] that pose the greatest political danger are those that seem to erupt spontaneously, crossing political boundaries by putting a president at odds with his own party.
That was the case in 2006, when the Bush administration was caught flat-footed by news of its own Dubai ports deal. Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat, picked up on it, accusing Mr. Bush of outsourcing port security. But the issue really took off when Republicans, fed up with the administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq, turned on the president.
"It matched the meta-narrative that this administration can't handle Iraq and the Middle East," said Eric Ueland, who was chief of staff to one Republican critic, the former Senate majority leader Bill Frist.
The Dubai Ports World story broke in February 2006. Anyone remember the Republicans in Congress being "fed up" with Bush's Iraq policy? Wasn't this a year before they dug in their heels against the new Democratic congressional majority to defend the surge and fight off any and all attempts to withdraw troops from Iraq?
And then-Senate Majority Leader Frist may have been a critic on the Dubai Ports World deal, but he certainly knew how to sling the GOP talking points regarding Iraq and Katrina on Meet the Press just a few weeks before the DPW story broke:
SEN. FRIST: ... The political process [in Iraq] is going well, tremendous success in the last year with three elections. A year ago, who would have thought we would have had three elections there with turnout greater than in this country? ... The fact that we know that it's going to take a long period of time, but the good news there is that we have 100 Iraqi battalions today that we didn't have a year ago, and we have 200,000 Iraqi security forces trained that two years ago were not trained. So I see continued progress. It's going to be a long road, a determined road, but we are making progress.
... SEN. FRIST: Oh, I think it was a war of necessity. And it we -- if we look at the Middle East today, if we look at the importance of that to our global security, which reflects on homeland security, it was absolutely, to me, an absolute necessity that we remove this tyrant who had killed hundreds of thousands of his own people, who had attacked sovereign nations, who killed on the outside inside, and had the enemy of the United States. So it's clear to me that the war was conducted for the right reasons, and that we will be successful there.
...SEN. FRIST: Tim, the president of the United States has committed to respond to this [Katrina] tragedy in a spirit of renewal and rebuilding and regrowth of this region.... What I can say is that we have responded aggressively to the tune of $80 billion, 8-0, billion to this largest natural disaster this country has ever seen. That's what we've done to date. We passed an additional $15 billion just about four weeks ago, going directly to issues of homeownership, how people can rebuild in Mississippi and in Louisiana. And this year, we will have another supplemental, that's a spending bill, that will be coming through probably in the next six to eight weeks, which will have another huge investment in investing in this renewal of that area....
Oh, and, er, um, yeah, Frist said, maybe there should have been a few more troops in Iraq at the outset, and, er, um, yeah, a Katrina bill Bush wouldn't like was approved by a House committee, but ... freedom! Compassionate conservatism! Yay, Bush! said the top Republican in Congress.
I guess Stolberg doesn't remember any of that.
There's a Sheryl Gay Stolberg article in today's New York Times about the way "distractions" can take over the national political dialogue. (She's referring, of course, to those AIG bonuses.) Stolberg looks back through the recent past -- and recalls it not quite the way I do (emphasis mine):
... the [distractions] that pose the greatest political danger are those that seem to erupt spontaneously, crossing political boundaries by putting a president at odds with his own party.
That was the case in 2006, when the Bush administration was caught flat-footed by news of its own Dubai ports deal. Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat, picked up on it, accusing Mr. Bush of outsourcing port security. But the issue really took off when Republicans, fed up with the administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq, turned on the president.
"It matched the meta-narrative that this administration can't handle Iraq and the Middle East," said Eric Ueland, who was chief of staff to one Republican critic, the former Senate majority leader Bill Frist.
The Dubai Ports World story broke in February 2006. Anyone remember the Republicans in Congress being "fed up" with Bush's Iraq policy? Wasn't this a year before they dug in their heels against the new Democratic congressional majority to defend the surge and fight off any and all attempts to withdraw troops from Iraq?
And then-Senate Majority Leader Frist may have been a critic on the Dubai Ports World deal, but he certainly knew how to sling the GOP talking points regarding Iraq and Katrina on Meet the Press just a few weeks before the DPW story broke:
SEN. FRIST: ... The political process [in Iraq] is going well, tremendous success in the last year with three elections. A year ago, who would have thought we would have had three elections there with turnout greater than in this country? ... The fact that we know that it's going to take a long period of time, but the good news there is that we have 100 Iraqi battalions today that we didn't have a year ago, and we have 200,000 Iraqi security forces trained that two years ago were not trained. So I see continued progress. It's going to be a long road, a determined road, but we are making progress.
... SEN. FRIST: Oh, I think it was a war of necessity. And it we -- if we look at the Middle East today, if we look at the importance of that to our global security, which reflects on homeland security, it was absolutely, to me, an absolute necessity that we remove this tyrant who had killed hundreds of thousands of his own people, who had attacked sovereign nations, who killed on the outside inside, and had the enemy of the United States. So it's clear to me that the war was conducted for the right reasons, and that we will be successful there.
...SEN. FRIST: Tim, the president of the United States has committed to respond to this [Katrina] tragedy in a spirit of renewal and rebuilding and regrowth of this region.... What I can say is that we have responded aggressively to the tune of $80 billion, 8-0, billion to this largest natural disaster this country has ever seen. That's what we've done to date. We passed an additional $15 billion just about four weeks ago, going directly to issues of homeownership, how people can rebuild in Mississippi and in Louisiana. And this year, we will have another supplemental, that's a spending bill, that will be coming through probably in the next six to eight weeks, which will have another huge investment in investing in this renewal of that area....
Oh, and, er, um, yeah, Frist said, maybe there should have been a few more troops in Iraq at the outset, and, er, um, yeah, a Katrina bill Bush wouldn't like was approved by a House committee, but ... freedom! Compassionate conservatism! Yay, Bush! said the top Republican in Congress.
I guess Stolberg doesn't remember any of that.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
THE VATICAN ASKS FOR A MULLIGAN
Remember Pope Benedict's recent statement -- just before he arrived in Africa -- that condoms aren't the solution for the HIV/AIDS and may in fact make the problem worse? It turns out the Vatican Web site -- out of embarrassment? -- ran the statement in a somewhat different form:
Looks like the Vatican is ... having trouble resisting the temptation to change Pope Benedict's words to reporters on his papal plane.
What the pope said (and what we ran in a translation from the original Italian in our story Tuesday) included this line:
"One cannot overcome the problem with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem."
What the Vatican published on its Web site and in its newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, was something different:
"One cannot resolve the problem with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, there is a risk of increasing the problem."
Even allowing for translation differences, the pope didn't speak of a "risk." He said what he said....
I guess that papal-infallibility thing is a lot easier to pull off if you allow yourself do-overs to tone down your gaffes.
(The pope also said you can't solve the AIDS crisis with money; the Vatican site, bizarrely, changed this as well, replacing "money" with "advertising slogans.")
Ah, but a less skeptical information service, the Catholic News Agency, informs us that the critics missed the pope's real recommendation for solving the crisis -- the rest of have to be really, really sympathetic! Yeah, that's going to solve everything!
Although it was missed by most of the media, who focused on the Pope's solitary line about condoms, ... Pope Benedict stressed once again the need to accompany the sick and suffering, the second prong of the Church's strategy to combat AIDS.
In the presence of atrocious torment "we feel powerless and we cannot find the right words. Before a brother or sister plunged into the mystery of the Cross, a respectful and compassionate silence, a prayerful presence, a gesture of tenderness and comfort, a kind look, a smile, often achieve more than many words," he said.
That's true. However, they achieve a hell of a lot less than something that prevents disease transmission in the first place.
Oh, but if you're already sick, well ... pray a lot:
Pope Benedict invited sick people to "gaze upon the Crucified One, with faith and courage, for from Him come life, comfort, and healing," and to turn to St. Joseph, "an intercessor for bodily health ... [and] for the health of the soul."
But no condoms. God forbid. Not that.
Remember Pope Benedict's recent statement -- just before he arrived in Africa -- that condoms aren't the solution for the HIV/AIDS and may in fact make the problem worse? It turns out the Vatican Web site -- out of embarrassment? -- ran the statement in a somewhat different form:
Looks like the Vatican is ... having trouble resisting the temptation to change Pope Benedict's words to reporters on his papal plane.
What the pope said (and what we ran in a translation from the original Italian in our story Tuesday) included this line:
"One cannot overcome the problem with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, they increase the problem."
What the Vatican published on its Web site and in its newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, was something different:
"One cannot resolve the problem with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, there is a risk of increasing the problem."
Even allowing for translation differences, the pope didn't speak of a "risk." He said what he said....
I guess that papal-infallibility thing is a lot easier to pull off if you allow yourself do-overs to tone down your gaffes.
(The pope also said you can't solve the AIDS crisis with money; the Vatican site, bizarrely, changed this as well, replacing "money" with "advertising slogans.")
Ah, but a less skeptical information service, the Catholic News Agency, informs us that the critics missed the pope's real recommendation for solving the crisis -- the rest of have to be really, really sympathetic! Yeah, that's going to solve everything!
Although it was missed by most of the media, who focused on the Pope's solitary line about condoms, ... Pope Benedict stressed once again the need to accompany the sick and suffering, the second prong of the Church's strategy to combat AIDS.
In the presence of atrocious torment "we feel powerless and we cannot find the right words. Before a brother or sister plunged into the mystery of the Cross, a respectful and compassionate silence, a prayerful presence, a gesture of tenderness and comfort, a kind look, a smile, often achieve more than many words," he said.
That's true. However, they achieve a hell of a lot less than something that prevents disease transmission in the first place.
Oh, but if you're already sick, well ... pray a lot:
Pope Benedict invited sick people to "gaze upon the Crucified One, with faith and courage, for from Him come life, comfort, and healing," and to turn to St. Joseph, "an intercessor for bodily health ... [and] for the health of the soul."
But no condoms. God forbid. Not that.
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
My hero -- no, really:
It's nice to know that somebody in Washington is listening to him:
Bo Lundgren, the steely-eyed head of Sweden's National Debt office, ... yesterday [Thursday] outlined the Swedish solution to the Congressional Oversight Panel, which supervises the US administration's troubled asset relief programme.
"I am a market liberal. I was even called the nearest Sweden had every come to having a party one could call libertarian," said Mr Lundgren, the former head of the Moderate Party with links to the Conservatives.
This did not stop him nationalising two failing major banks in 1992: the already majority state-owned Nordbanken, and the privately owned Gota bank.
"In the case of a crisis, the state needs to be strong," he said. "If it decides to act, it should become an owner." ...
Alas, Team Obama isn't listening. Paul Krugman:
... the plan proposes to create funds in which private investors put in a small amount of their own money, and in return get large, non-recourse loans from the taxpayer, with which to buy bad -- I mean misunderstood -- assets....
But it's immediately obvious, if you think about it, that these funds will have skewed incentives. In effect, Treasury will be creating -- deliberately! -- the functional equivalent of Texas S&Ls in the 1980s: financial operations with very little capital but lots of government-guaranteed liabilities. For the private investors, this is an open invitation to play heads I win, tails the taxpayers lose. So sure, these investors will be ready to pay high prices for toxic waste. After all, the stuff might be worth something; and if it isn't, that's someone else's problem....
Right-wing politicians and non-governmental agitators are ginning up all sorts of little mini-insurgencies these days. Blue Dog Democrats are getting mainstream-media brownie points for threatening to slow up or stop the progressive parts of Obama's agenda. Sure wish we lefties could gin up a mini-insurgency of our own, against the continued cosseting of the financial sector.
I say: Nationalize 'em all. Let Krugman (or Lundgren) sort 'em out.
Can we at least make this nationalizer guy a bit of a household name? Maybe he could get some face time being interviewed by a nationally recognized journalist -- like, say, Jon Stewart?
(Lundgren article via Wonkette)
My hero -- no, really:
It's nice to know that somebody in Washington is listening to him:
Bo Lundgren, the steely-eyed head of Sweden's National Debt office, ... yesterday [Thursday] outlined the Swedish solution to the Congressional Oversight Panel, which supervises the US administration's troubled asset relief programme.
"I am a market liberal. I was even called the nearest Sweden had every come to having a party one could call libertarian," said Mr Lundgren, the former head of the Moderate Party with links to the Conservatives.
This did not stop him nationalising two failing major banks in 1992: the already majority state-owned Nordbanken, and the privately owned Gota bank.
"In the case of a crisis, the state needs to be strong," he said. "If it decides to act, it should become an owner." ...
Alas, Team Obama isn't listening. Paul Krugman:
... the plan proposes to create funds in which private investors put in a small amount of their own money, and in return get large, non-recourse loans from the taxpayer, with which to buy bad -- I mean misunderstood -- assets....
But it's immediately obvious, if you think about it, that these funds will have skewed incentives. In effect, Treasury will be creating -- deliberately! -- the functional equivalent of Texas S&Ls in the 1980s: financial operations with very little capital but lots of government-guaranteed liabilities. For the private investors, this is an open invitation to play heads I win, tails the taxpayers lose. So sure, these investors will be ready to pay high prices for toxic waste. After all, the stuff might be worth something; and if it isn't, that's someone else's problem....
Right-wing politicians and non-governmental agitators are ginning up all sorts of little mini-insurgencies these days. Blue Dog Democrats are getting mainstream-media brownie points for threatening to slow up or stop the progressive parts of Obama's agenda. Sure wish we lefties could gin up a mini-insurgency of our own, against the continued cosseting of the financial sector.
I say: Nationalize 'em all. Let Krugman (or Lundgren) sort 'em out.
Can we at least make this nationalizer guy a bit of a household name? Maybe he could get some face time being interviewed by a nationally recognized journalist -- like, say, Jon Stewart?
(Lundgren article via Wonkette)
Friday, March 20, 2009
YEAH, AND THAT ED ANGER HAS SOME GOOD IDEAS, TOO!
You know what's even funnier than "Potty Mouth Joe Biden Must Resign," a phony op-ed written for a Philadelphia TV station's Web site by Wonkette's Sara K. Smith?
The fact that Freepers actually took it seriously.
By the way, I try to keep up with what the 'nuts believe, but even I don't understand the reference to "forced labor camps" (or, rather, "FORCED LABOR CAMPS") in a list of policies Biden allegedly supports (see comment #25).
You know what's even funnier than "Potty Mouth Joe Biden Must Resign," a phony op-ed written for a Philadelphia TV station's Web site by Wonkette's Sara K. Smith?
The fact that Freepers actually took it seriously.
By the way, I try to keep up with what the 'nuts believe, but even I don't understand the reference to "forced labor camps" (or, rather, "FORCED LABOR CAMPS") in a list of policies Biden allegedly supports (see comment #25).
BUSH DID OFFEND AN ENTIRE GROUP AS PRESIDENT -- AND YOU PROBABLY DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE
Every Obama-basher on the planet has said, in reference to Barack Obama's ill-advised Special Olympics remark, "If a Republican said something like this, it would be the end of his political career." Some have said this specifically about George W. Bush.
Wrong.
I take you back to January 8, 2002:
'Pakis' Remark Draws Fire for Bush
U.S. President George Bush has unwittingly used an offensive racial slur against the Pakistani people that the community has been trying to squash for at least 30 years.
Mr. Bush used the term Pakis in remarks to reporters yesterday, when discussing the possibility of nuclear rivals India and Pakistan going to war. The word has the same impact in the Pakistani community as the term nigger has for American blacks, said Aziz Khaki, vice-chair of the Muslim Canadian Federation.
"It's a very derogatory term," he said yesterday. "People use the term when they do not like you. It is used against people of colour." ...
I bet you don't even remember that. I didn't either. Notice that it didn't end Bush's career immediately?
Yeah, this was shortly after 9/11 -- but the Bush administration always proclaimed Pakistan to be our staunch ally, and there are half a million Pakistani-Americans in the country.
Every Obama-basher on the planet has said, in reference to Barack Obama's ill-advised Special Olympics remark, "If a Republican said something like this, it would be the end of his political career." Some have said this specifically about George W. Bush.
Wrong.
I take you back to January 8, 2002:
'Pakis' Remark Draws Fire for Bush
U.S. President George Bush has unwittingly used an offensive racial slur against the Pakistani people that the community has been trying to squash for at least 30 years.
Mr. Bush used the term Pakis in remarks to reporters yesterday, when discussing the possibility of nuclear rivals India and Pakistan going to war. The word has the same impact in the Pakistani community as the term nigger has for American blacks, said Aziz Khaki, vice-chair of the Muslim Canadian Federation.
"It's a very derogatory term," he said yesterday. "People use the term when they do not like you. It is used against people of colour." ...
I bet you don't even remember that. I didn't either. Notice that it didn't end Bush's career immediately?
Yeah, this was shortly after 9/11 -- but the Bush administration always proclaimed Pakistan to be our staunch ally, and there are half a million Pakistani-Americans in the country.
NO CONTEXT, PLEASE, WE'RE WINGNUTS
Peggy Noonan actually defends Dick Cheney in her latest column -- she says Cheney's recent statement asserting that President Obama is making us less safe was "received as partisan" but was "right in the most important, and dreadful, way," because, y'know, they want to kill us (and only Cheney and his ideological soul mates seem to have noticed!). Noonan cites Cheney's remarks and a Robert Mueller speech about a possible Mumbai-style attack in the U.S., then writes this:
Contrast it with the new secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano, who, in her first speech and testimony to congress, the same week as Mr. Mueller's remarks, did not mention the word terrorism once. This week in an interview with Der Spiegel, she was pressed: "Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?" Her reply: "I presume there is always a threat from terrorism." It's true she didn't use the word terrorism in her speech, but she did refer to "man-caused" disasters. "This is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear."
Ah. Well this is only a nuance, but her use of language is a man-caused disaster.
Which might be fair if it weren't completely belied by what Napolitano actually said, which Noonan presumably never read in full, choosing instead to channel right-wing blogger outrage.
Here's the key part of the interview in Der Spiegel (emphasis mine):
SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word "terrorism." Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?
Napolitano: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.
SPIEGEL: This sounds quite different from what we heard from the Bush administration. How will the new anti-terror policy differ from the previous one?
Napolitano: Our policies will be guided by authoritative information. We also have assets at our disposal now that we did not have prior to 9/11. For example, we are much better able to keep track of travellers coming into the US than we were before. The third thing is to work with our international partners and allies to make sure that we are getting information and sharing information in an appropriate and real-time fashion....
Omigod! She actually wants to know as much as possible about the threats! That's not what we want! We want her to say the booga-booga word! As often as possible!
And in Napolitano's testimony, no, she didn't use the word "terrorism." She did, however, say this:
At its core, I believe DHS has a straightforward mission: to protect the American people from threats both foreign and domestic, both natural and manmade -- to do all that we can to prevent threats from materializing, respond to them if they do, and recover with resiliency. Government does nothing more fundamental than protecting its citizens....
And this:
In an effort to assess security across all forms of transportation, I directed the review of transportation security in the surface, maritime and aviation sectors. The review identified a number of areas where risks to transportation security could be reduced. Resources such as explosives detection systems and transit, rail, and port security personnel contained in the recently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will enable the Department to accelerate the mitigation of risk in these areas....
And this:
I issued an action directive to assess the status of the Department’s efforts to shield the Nation’s critical infrastructure from attacks. The response contained several steps DHS would take to inspect the security of chemical plants and efforts DHS would participate in to limit the availability of dangerous materials....
And this:
I issued two action directives concerned with the Department’s partnerships and intelligence-sharing activities with state, local, tribal, and territorial partners. As a result of the directives, the Department is considering a possible future assessment of all intelligence-sharing efforts within DHS with an eye toward reducing duplication. DHS is also considering ways to improve intelligence sharing by involving state and local partners during the formulation of intelligence-sharing policies and programs. The Department is looking to improve the coordination of activities involving state and local partners across DHS. I issued a separate action directive on FEMA integration with state and local governments; FEMA presented feedback based on 75 recommendations emerging from the candid assessments of state and local homeland security and emergency management officials....
To the wingnuts, this is a troubling dismissal of the terrorist threat.
*****
And go here, where Ahab makes an excellent point about a more scurrilous part of Noonan's column, in which she essentially lets Bush off the hook for 9/11.
*****
One more thing from Noonan's column:
...the teleprompter trope is taking off. Mr. Obama uses it more than previous presidents. No one would care about this or much notice it as long as he showed competence, and the promise of success. Reagan, if memory serves, once took his cards out of his suit and began to read them at a welcoming ceremony, only to realize a minute or so in that they were last week's cards from last week's ceremony. He caught himself and made a joke of it. One was reminded of this the other day when Mr. Obama's speech got mixed up with the Irish prime minister's. Things happen. But the teleprompter trope has taken off: Why does he always have to depend on that thing?
Obama is overreliant on the prompter? Because he wants to get his words right? That's a problem?
Just a reminder about Peggy's ex-boss and how reliant he was on scripts:
On October 15, 1984, President Ronald Reagan gave a campaign speech at the University of Alabama. Afterward, his motorcade pulled into the parking lot of the Northport McDonald's at the Northwood Shopping Center. It was a photo op, meant to show that the President was a regular guy. Secret Service agents grabbed two customers and sat them down next to Reagan to talk about University of Alabama football. Regular-guy Reagan turned to an aide and asked, "What am I supposed to order?"
Peggy Noonan actually defends Dick Cheney in her latest column -- she says Cheney's recent statement asserting that President Obama is making us less safe was "received as partisan" but was "right in the most important, and dreadful, way," because, y'know, they want to kill us (and only Cheney and his ideological soul mates seem to have noticed!). Noonan cites Cheney's remarks and a Robert Mueller speech about a possible Mumbai-style attack in the U.S., then writes this:
Contrast it with the new secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano, who, in her first speech and testimony to congress, the same week as Mr. Mueller's remarks, did not mention the word terrorism once. This week in an interview with Der Spiegel, she was pressed: "Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?" Her reply: "I presume there is always a threat from terrorism." It's true she didn't use the word terrorism in her speech, but she did refer to "man-caused" disasters. "This is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear."
Ah. Well this is only a nuance, but her use of language is a man-caused disaster.
Which might be fair if it weren't completely belied by what Napolitano actually said, which Noonan presumably never read in full, choosing instead to channel right-wing blogger outrage.
Here's the key part of the interview in Der Spiegel (emphasis mine):
SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word "terrorism." Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?
Napolitano: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.
SPIEGEL: This sounds quite different from what we heard from the Bush administration. How will the new anti-terror policy differ from the previous one?
Napolitano: Our policies will be guided by authoritative information. We also have assets at our disposal now that we did not have prior to 9/11. For example, we are much better able to keep track of travellers coming into the US than we were before. The third thing is to work with our international partners and allies to make sure that we are getting information and sharing information in an appropriate and real-time fashion....
Omigod! She actually wants to know as much as possible about the threats! That's not what we want! We want her to say the booga-booga word! As often as possible!
And in Napolitano's testimony, no, she didn't use the word "terrorism." She did, however, say this:
At its core, I believe DHS has a straightforward mission: to protect the American people from threats both foreign and domestic, both natural and manmade -- to do all that we can to prevent threats from materializing, respond to them if they do, and recover with resiliency. Government does nothing more fundamental than protecting its citizens....
And this:
In an effort to assess security across all forms of transportation, I directed the review of transportation security in the surface, maritime and aviation sectors. The review identified a number of areas where risks to transportation security could be reduced. Resources such as explosives detection systems and transit, rail, and port security personnel contained in the recently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will enable the Department to accelerate the mitigation of risk in these areas....
And this:
I issued an action directive to assess the status of the Department’s efforts to shield the Nation’s critical infrastructure from attacks. The response contained several steps DHS would take to inspect the security of chemical plants and efforts DHS would participate in to limit the availability of dangerous materials....
And this:
I issued two action directives concerned with the Department’s partnerships and intelligence-sharing activities with state, local, tribal, and territorial partners. As a result of the directives, the Department is considering a possible future assessment of all intelligence-sharing efforts within DHS with an eye toward reducing duplication. DHS is also considering ways to improve intelligence sharing by involving state and local partners during the formulation of intelligence-sharing policies and programs. The Department is looking to improve the coordination of activities involving state and local partners across DHS. I issued a separate action directive on FEMA integration with state and local governments; FEMA presented feedback based on 75 recommendations emerging from the candid assessments of state and local homeland security and emergency management officials....
To the wingnuts, this is a troubling dismissal of the terrorist threat.
*****
And go here, where Ahab makes an excellent point about a more scurrilous part of Noonan's column, in which she essentially lets Bush off the hook for 9/11.
*****
One more thing from Noonan's column:
...the teleprompter trope is taking off. Mr. Obama uses it more than previous presidents. No one would care about this or much notice it as long as he showed competence, and the promise of success. Reagan, if memory serves, once took his cards out of his suit and began to read them at a welcoming ceremony, only to realize a minute or so in that they were last week's cards from last week's ceremony. He caught himself and made a joke of it. One was reminded of this the other day when Mr. Obama's speech got mixed up with the Irish prime minister's. Things happen. But the teleprompter trope has taken off: Why does he always have to depend on that thing?
Obama is overreliant on the prompter? Because he wants to get his words right? That's a problem?
Just a reminder about Peggy's ex-boss and how reliant he was on scripts:
On October 15, 1984, President Ronald Reagan gave a campaign speech at the University of Alabama. Afterward, his motorcade pulled into the parking lot of the Northport McDonald's at the Northwood Shopping Center. It was a photo op, meant to show that the President was a regular guy. Secret Service agents grabbed two customers and sat them down next to Reagan to talk about University of Alabama football. Regular-guy Reagan turned to an aide and asked, "What am I supposed to order?"
HOW DARE YOU BE A McCARTHYITE NAME-NAMER! THAT'S OUR JOB!
Earlier this week, we heard horrified declarations that it would be "McCarthyism" for evil Democrats such as Barney Frank to reveal AIG bonus recipients' names. Some of these complaints came from Rupert Murdoch's cable empire -- among the complainants were Murdoch employees Shepard Smith and Martha MacCallum, while another complaint came from Michelle Malkin, who draws paychecks from Murdoch. Glenn Beck, on Fox, hosted a panel (featuring Malkin and Jonah Goldberg) that decried the new McCarthyism.
Now today I read this in my New York Times:
The A.I.G. executive who was nicknamed "Jackpot Jimmy" by a New York tabloid walked up the driveway toward his bay-windowed house in Fairfield, Conn., on Thursday afternoon. "How do I feel?" said the executive, James Haas, repeating the question he had just been asked. "I feel horrible. This has been a complete invasion of privacy."
Mr. Haas walked on, his pink shirt a burst of color on a slate-gray afternoon. The words came haltingly. "You have to understand," he said, "there are kids involved, there have been death threats. ..." His voice trailed off. It looked as if he was fighting back tears....
Gosh, what tabloid could have committed such a foul, nefarious, McCarthyite deed?
Let's find out!
Why, I'm shocked!
So I guess the Murdochites' problem wasn't with what they call McCarthyism -- their problem was with they consider socialized McCarthyism. Private-sector McCarthyism is just fine.
(I'll amend that statement if any of the above-named condemn the guy who signs their checks for running this article. Crickets, so far.)
*****
I love this from Gawker:
Anyway, the Times' story has precisely one secondhand report of a death threat, one angry neighbor in a driveway and a couple of pissed off Connecticut residents. None of the various Connecticut police departments contacted by the newspaper has heard anything about any sort of danger to these rich guys.
But still, let's feel anxious and a little ashamed of ourselves, on behalf of these wealthy executives. All that stands between them and terrible, fearsome populist mobs are their private security guards, their lawns, their state-of-the-art security systems, several flights of probably marble stairs and the entrenched political/law-enforcement establishment they bought over the past couple of decades, when the gettin' was good.
(Well, it's pretty good now, actually. When they gettin' was amazing.)
Earlier this week, we heard horrified declarations that it would be "McCarthyism" for evil Democrats such as Barney Frank to reveal AIG bonus recipients' names. Some of these complaints came from Rupert Murdoch's cable empire -- among the complainants were Murdoch employees Shepard Smith and Martha MacCallum, while another complaint came from Michelle Malkin, who draws paychecks from Murdoch. Glenn Beck, on Fox, hosted a panel (featuring Malkin and Jonah Goldberg) that decried the new McCarthyism.
Now today I read this in my New York Times:
The A.I.G. executive who was nicknamed "Jackpot Jimmy" by a New York tabloid walked up the driveway toward his bay-windowed house in Fairfield, Conn., on Thursday afternoon. "How do I feel?" said the executive, James Haas, repeating the question he had just been asked. "I feel horrible. This has been a complete invasion of privacy."
Mr. Haas walked on, his pink shirt a burst of color on a slate-gray afternoon. The words came haltingly. "You have to understand," he said, "there are kids involved, there have been death threats. ..." His voice trailed off. It looked as if he was fighting back tears....
Gosh, what tabloid could have committed such a foul, nefarious, McCarthyite deed?
Let's find out!
Why, I'm shocked!
So I guess the Murdochites' problem wasn't with what they call McCarthyism -- their problem was with they consider socialized McCarthyism. Private-sector McCarthyism is just fine.
(I'll amend that statement if any of the above-named condemn the guy who signs their checks for running this article. Crickets, so far.)
*****
I love this from Gawker:
Anyway, the Times' story has precisely one secondhand report of a death threat, one angry neighbor in a driveway and a couple of pissed off Connecticut residents. None of the various Connecticut police departments contacted by the newspaper has heard anything about any sort of danger to these rich guys.
But still, let's feel anxious and a little ashamed of ourselves, on behalf of these wealthy executives. All that stands between them and terrible, fearsome populist mobs are their private security guards, their lawns, their state-of-the-art security systems, several flights of probably marble stairs and the entrenched political/law-enforcement establishment they bought over the past couple of decades, when the gettin' was good.
(Well, it's pretty good now, actually. When they gettin' was amazing.)
24 MINUTES OF SMOOTH AND 3 SECONDS OF ARGH
No, there's no justifying Obama's Special Olympics remark on The Tonight Show (he'll probably have to do more than this to walk it back), but damn, to read the wingnuts you'd think he was Dan freaking Quayle up there:
"Wow. He really has a way with words, doesn't he? ... Is it possible he's not really that great a communicator after all?"
"We now know why Barack must have, I REPEAT MUST HAVE, a teleprompter in order to sound intelligent. If left to ad-lib the man is a walking gaffe-master."
Yeah, right. Watch it at length. The guy is smooth. The audience loves him. They laugh at his jokes about the Secret Service, and about Sasha and Malia. In the middle of the interview, he's wonky. And then, yeah, about twenty minutes in, a stupid remark. But smooth all the way through.
By the way, I'm quite fond of this wingnut, who, sometime yesterday, accused NBC of "shielding Obama" by withholding an advance video of the show ... which was going to air on national television a few hours later. Yeah, this was really a Watergate-level coverup.
But Dan Riehl wins the prize for calling Obama a
Clueless, Classless Clown
Uh-huh -- Dan Riehl is calling Obama "classless." That would be the same Dan Riehl who wrote this about a Spanish-surnamed Huffington Post contributor:
Oh my God! Matt Ortega is ringing the taco bell at HuffPo because he busted Duncan Hunter and Nathan Tabor ... not!
...while we're talking Ortega, I have another question, too. Were his parents illegal immigrants?
And this about Barack Obama's half-hour campaign ad:
Anyone watch the afro-mercial last night?
And this in reference to a couple of openly gay bloggers he doesn't like:
So, I'm thinking, what better way to take advantage of the current Liberal Blogosphere bonanza of attention we've been hearing about ... mostly from them, than to launch a series of Gay Blogger Boy Toy dolls, so every Liberal commenter can take a likeness of their favorite Liberal Boy Toy blogger home.
According to our Liberal focus groups, we'll need anatomically correct dolls for Gay male Liberals, but not so for the Liberal ladies and feminists -- they like their Boy Toys neutered, research has shown.
Yes -- the right blogosphere's expert on classiness lectures the president.
No, there's no justifying Obama's Special Olympics remark on The Tonight Show (he'll probably have to do more than this to walk it back), but damn, to read the wingnuts you'd think he was Dan freaking Quayle up there:
"Wow. He really has a way with words, doesn't he? ... Is it possible he's not really that great a communicator after all?"
"We now know why Barack must have, I REPEAT MUST HAVE, a teleprompter in order to sound intelligent. If left to ad-lib the man is a walking gaffe-master."
Yeah, right. Watch it at length. The guy is smooth. The audience loves him. They laugh at his jokes about the Secret Service, and about Sasha and Malia. In the middle of the interview, he's wonky. And then, yeah, about twenty minutes in, a stupid remark. But smooth all the way through.
By the way, I'm quite fond of this wingnut, who, sometime yesterday, accused NBC of "shielding Obama" by withholding an advance video of the show ... which was going to air on national television a few hours later. Yeah, this was really a Watergate-level coverup.
But Dan Riehl wins the prize for calling Obama a
Clueless, Classless Clown
Uh-huh -- Dan Riehl is calling Obama "classless." That would be the same Dan Riehl who wrote this about a Spanish-surnamed Huffington Post contributor:
Oh my God! Matt Ortega is ringing the taco bell at HuffPo because he busted Duncan Hunter and Nathan Tabor ... not!
...while we're talking Ortega, I have another question, too. Were his parents illegal immigrants?
And this about Barack Obama's half-hour campaign ad:
Anyone watch the afro-mercial last night?
And this in reference to a couple of openly gay bloggers he doesn't like:
So, I'm thinking, what better way to take advantage of the current Liberal Blogosphere bonanza of attention we've been hearing about ... mostly from them, than to launch a series of Gay Blogger Boy Toy dolls, so every Liberal commenter can take a likeness of their favorite Liberal Boy Toy blogger home.
According to our Liberal focus groups, we'll need anatomically correct dolls for Gay male Liberals, but not so for the Liberal ladies and feminists -- they like their Boy Toys neutered, research has shown.
Yes -- the right blogosphere's expert on classiness lectures the president.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
WE'D GO GALT IN A MINUTE, REALLY, BUT YOU JUST CAN'T GET GOOD ORGANIC WHITE TRUFFLE OIL IN BUGTUSSLE
There's a fairly easy way to go Galt, at least on a statewide (or citywide) level -- in fact, it's so easy that many politicians simply assume that lots of people do it, and make policy decisions accordingly. But as it turns out, this is completely a myth:
It is perhaps the most potent argument offered by those who oppose increasing the income tax on wealthy New Yorkers: If you raise it, they will flee.
That case has been made repeatedly by Gov. David A. Paterson, who says that higher taxes should be a last resort....
Yet there is surprisingly little evidence to support the proposition that rich New Yorkers would bolt if forced to pay higher income taxes....
"At the level we're talking about, there's no quantitative evidence that it affects the mobility decisions of affluent taxpayers," said Douglas S. Massey, a demographer at Princeton University and president of the American Academy of Political and Social Science....
New Jersey raised taxes on the wealthy in 2004, increasing by 2.6 percent the tax rate levied on those making more than $500,000 a year; and Gov. Jon S. Corzine this month proposed a new increase on high earners.
But a study by Professor Massey and two colleagues, published in September, estimated that the previous tax increase cost New Jersey only 50 to 350 existing "half-millionaire" households -- a relatively small number against the total of 44,000 such households in the state.
While those departures cost the state about $38 million a year in revenue, the study estimates, the higher taxes levied on those who stayed have brought in an average of $895 million a year....
There are similar studies of California and New York City, with similar conclusions. (In fact, after a tax increase on the wealthy in NYC in the wake of 9/11, wealthy people were the least likely to move out.)
Why would this be? Well, duh -- people do stuff for reasons other than precise calibrations of their tax liability:
...Some who study the issue theorize that other factors affecting people’s decisions about moving -- schools, jobs, even the weather -- make it unlikely that a relatively small tax increase would drive those decisions. In states like New York and California, hubs of culture and specific industries, people may also stay out of a desire to live and work near others like themselves.
"People move to maximize their utility," Professor Massey said. "The $64,000 question is, what is their utility? There are taxes and income, but there are issues about jobs, local amenities in the state, family." ...
Yeah -- can you even get the kind of job that made you wealthy in Bugtussle? In Bugtussle, can you buy the cool, chic, pricey stuff your money allows you to buy? If you're a master of the universe in Bugtussle, isn't that a rather puny universe?
And yet politicians fear they'll drive the wealthy away with higher taxes. But this, to the rich, is what moving to Canada was to Bush-haters: the subject of a lot of talk, but not a lot of action.
There's a fairly easy way to go Galt, at least on a statewide (or citywide) level -- in fact, it's so easy that many politicians simply assume that lots of people do it, and make policy decisions accordingly. But as it turns out, this is completely a myth:
It is perhaps the most potent argument offered by those who oppose increasing the income tax on wealthy New Yorkers: If you raise it, they will flee.
That case has been made repeatedly by Gov. David A. Paterson, who says that higher taxes should be a last resort....
Yet there is surprisingly little evidence to support the proposition that rich New Yorkers would bolt if forced to pay higher income taxes....
"At the level we're talking about, there's no quantitative evidence that it affects the mobility decisions of affluent taxpayers," said Douglas S. Massey, a demographer at Princeton University and president of the American Academy of Political and Social Science....
New Jersey raised taxes on the wealthy in 2004, increasing by 2.6 percent the tax rate levied on those making more than $500,000 a year; and Gov. Jon S. Corzine this month proposed a new increase on high earners.
But a study by Professor Massey and two colleagues, published in September, estimated that the previous tax increase cost New Jersey only 50 to 350 existing "half-millionaire" households -- a relatively small number against the total of 44,000 such households in the state.
While those departures cost the state about $38 million a year in revenue, the study estimates, the higher taxes levied on those who stayed have brought in an average of $895 million a year....
There are similar studies of California and New York City, with similar conclusions. (In fact, after a tax increase on the wealthy in NYC in the wake of 9/11, wealthy people were the least likely to move out.)
Why would this be? Well, duh -- people do stuff for reasons other than precise calibrations of their tax liability:
...Some who study the issue theorize that other factors affecting people’s decisions about moving -- schools, jobs, even the weather -- make it unlikely that a relatively small tax increase would drive those decisions. In states like New York and California, hubs of culture and specific industries, people may also stay out of a desire to live and work near others like themselves.
"People move to maximize their utility," Professor Massey said. "The $64,000 question is, what is their utility? There are taxes and income, but there are issues about jobs, local amenities in the state, family." ...
Yeah -- can you even get the kind of job that made you wealthy in Bugtussle? In Bugtussle, can you buy the cool, chic, pricey stuff your money allows you to buy? If you're a master of the universe in Bugtussle, isn't that a rather puny universe?
And yet politicians fear they'll drive the wealthy away with higher taxes. But this, to the rich, is what moving to Canada was to Bush-haters: the subject of a lot of talk, but not a lot of action.
NOW WE KNOW WHO RUNS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
Steve Benen:
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he will vote "no" on efforts to recoup the AIG money. Several leading conservative lawmakers in both chambers have said the same thing. And just for real fun, Grover Norquist told the 172 representatives and 35 senators who signed an anti-tax pledge that if they support getting back the AIG bonuses, they'll be violating their written promise to the conservative movement.
And Eric Cantor is unwilling to say what he'll do.
Well, so much for "Split Emerging Between Conservative Media And GOP Leadership On AIG Mess."
That sound you hear is the GOP caucus saying to Limbaugh and his ideological soul mates, "How high?"
****
UPDATE: A pro-AIG-bonus vote would seem to undermine the prediction contained in this gleeful Fox News headline from yesterday...
As Blame Game Deepens, AIG Outrage Could Give GOP Electoral Opening
...though it occurs to me that Republicans might be hoping to play this the way they played censure in the aftermath of the failed Clinton impeachment: vote no, then self-righteously position themselves as the high-minded opponents of people who got away with something. I've always thought that a censure of Clinton would have helped Al Gore in 2000; I'm sure Republicans saw the situation that way, so they held the line. Maybe they're trying to do the same thing again.
****
MORE: Keep it classy, Republicans:
"Ross Perot, when he ran for president in 1992, talked about the giant sucking sound," Bainbridge Township [Ohio] GOP Rep. Steve LaTourette said today in an impassioned speech on the House of Representatives floor that attacked the use of taxpayer funds for bonuses paid to AIG executives.
"Well, today there's another sucking sound going on in Washington, D.C. And that's the tightening of sphincters on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue as people are having to explain who put into the stimulus bill this provision of law."
Video below (courtesy Eric Cantor's YouTube page).
And yes, it really does appear as if Republicans want the AIG-anger wound to fester so they (rather than Democrats) can play doctor:
Wednesday, LaTourette and House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan held a news conference to discuss a "resolution of inquiry" to order an investigation into the Obama administration's communications with AIG on its use of federal money.
Regular readers of this blog will remember Thaddeus McCotter from this post, which features his asinine "Speaking Democrat" video from the House floor ("'Democrats support proactive government.' Translation: 'Democrats support proactive socialism'") and includes some of his choice polemical prose (there's quite a lot to pick from, but I chose the bit about "our anile need for a moral hospice before we slither into the dust bin of history" -- what is it with these guys and the anal region, anyway?)
****
UPDATE: Cantor votes yes, Boehner no, GOP nearly exactly split, clawback bill passes House easily.
Steve Benen:
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he will vote "no" on efforts to recoup the AIG money. Several leading conservative lawmakers in both chambers have said the same thing. And just for real fun, Grover Norquist told the 172 representatives and 35 senators who signed an anti-tax pledge that if they support getting back the AIG bonuses, they'll be violating their written promise to the conservative movement.
And Eric Cantor is unwilling to say what he'll do.
Well, so much for "Split Emerging Between Conservative Media And GOP Leadership On AIG Mess."
That sound you hear is the GOP caucus saying to Limbaugh and his ideological soul mates, "How high?"
****
UPDATE: A pro-AIG-bonus vote would seem to undermine the prediction contained in this gleeful Fox News headline from yesterday...
As Blame Game Deepens, AIG Outrage Could Give GOP Electoral Opening
...though it occurs to me that Republicans might be hoping to play this the way they played censure in the aftermath of the failed Clinton impeachment: vote no, then self-righteously position themselves as the high-minded opponents of people who got away with something. I've always thought that a censure of Clinton would have helped Al Gore in 2000; I'm sure Republicans saw the situation that way, so they held the line. Maybe they're trying to do the same thing again.
****
MORE: Keep it classy, Republicans:
"Ross Perot, when he ran for president in 1992, talked about the giant sucking sound," Bainbridge Township [Ohio] GOP Rep. Steve LaTourette said today in an impassioned speech on the House of Representatives floor that attacked the use of taxpayer funds for bonuses paid to AIG executives.
"Well, today there's another sucking sound going on in Washington, D.C. And that's the tightening of sphincters on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue as people are having to explain who put into the stimulus bill this provision of law."
Video below (courtesy Eric Cantor's YouTube page).
And yes, it really does appear as if Republicans want the AIG-anger wound to fester so they (rather than Democrats) can play doctor:
Wednesday, LaTourette and House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan held a news conference to discuss a "resolution of inquiry" to order an investigation into the Obama administration's communications with AIG on its use of federal money.
Regular readers of this blog will remember Thaddeus McCotter from this post, which features his asinine "Speaking Democrat" video from the House floor ("'Democrats support proactive government.' Translation: 'Democrats support proactive socialism'") and includes some of his choice polemical prose (there's quite a lot to pick from, but I chose the bit about "our anile need for a moral hospice before we slither into the dust bin of history" -- what is it with these guys and the anal region, anyway?)
****
UPDATE: Cantor votes yes, Boehner no, GOP nearly exactly split, clawback bill passes House easily.
MICHELLE MALKIN COMPARES AIG BONUS CLAWBACK TO THE HOLOCAUST
Oh, for heaven's sake, Michelle -- "First, they came for AIG bonuses"? Do you have no shame?
(Via the Mahablog.)
Oh, for heaven's sake, Michelle -- "First, they came for AIG bonuses"? Do you have no shame?
(Via the Mahablog.)
THE PERMANENT CAMPAIGN
Interesting timing on the forthcoming Bush book:
Former President George W. Bush has already written about 30,000 words of a memoir tentatively called "Decision Points" that will cover everything from how he found faith to how he quit drinking to how he chose Karl Rove and Dick Cheney for their jobs.
A contract with Crown, an imprint of Random House, is to be announced Thursday. The same publisher issued both of President Obama's books....
The book is due out in the fall of 2010, after Laura Bush has published her book earlier that year....
This isn't going to be a memoir -- it's going to be a campaign book. The timing is based on the assumption that the GOP base will be more motivated than the Democratic base in the next round of midterms, that they'll be furious at Obama (they already are), and that (after being softened up by Laura) they'll be ready to be moved again by the story of the brush-clearin' good ol' boy whom God personally steered away from Demon Rum and directly into a fight to the death with the evildoers, as opposed to the Kenyan-born Muslim America-hating effete basketball-playing interloper. There'll be a torrent of compare-and-contrast op-eds from right-wing hacks, and a book tour will ensue, managed as carefully as Bush's campaign appearances, with Dubya packed into pre-selected crowds of worshipful loyalists.
I know, I know: right now it seems that a reemergence of Bush just before the midterms would be a gift to the Democrats. But if Obama continues to navigate rough waters, if the recovery comes slowly, and if the mainstream press continues to engage in Broderesque sneering, this just might work.
Interesting timing on the forthcoming Bush book:
Former President George W. Bush has already written about 30,000 words of a memoir tentatively called "Decision Points" that will cover everything from how he found faith to how he quit drinking to how he chose Karl Rove and Dick Cheney for their jobs.
A contract with Crown, an imprint of Random House, is to be announced Thursday. The same publisher issued both of President Obama's books....
The book is due out in the fall of 2010, after Laura Bush has published her book earlier that year....
This isn't going to be a memoir -- it's going to be a campaign book. The timing is based on the assumption that the GOP base will be more motivated than the Democratic base in the next round of midterms, that they'll be furious at Obama (they already are), and that (after being softened up by Laura) they'll be ready to be moved again by the story of the brush-clearin' good ol' boy whom God personally steered away from Demon Rum and directly into a fight to the death with the evildoers, as opposed to the Kenyan-born Muslim America-hating effete basketball-playing interloper. There'll be a torrent of compare-and-contrast op-eds from right-wing hacks, and a book tour will ensue, managed as carefully as Bush's campaign appearances, with Dubya packed into pre-selected crowds of worshipful loyalists.
I know, I know: right now it seems that a reemergence of Bush just before the midterms would be a gift to the Democrats. But if Obama continues to navigate rough waters, if the recovery comes slowly, and if the mainstream press continues to engage in Broderesque sneering, this just might work.
WORSE THAN THE WINGNUTS
Fox's Glenn Beck is whinging about "mob rule" and "fake-populist anger" at AIG bonus recipients, Rush Limbaugh, Fox's Martha MacCallum, and Fox's Shepard Smith are comparing Barney Frank to Joe McCarthy for seeking the names of those recipients, and Michelle Malkin is reproducing AIG CEO Edward Liddy's expressed concerns about retribution. Fine. But while wingnuts are defending the underlings, no wingnut is actually crazy enough to defend Liddy, right? No wingnut is prepared to say he's a good guy, right?
As far as I know, no.
For that you need to go to the mainstream press.
Here's Democrat-bashing New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin:
... What was supposed to be a legal lynching of AIG boss Edward Liddy over the firm's bonus plan turned into a humiliating defeat for the lynch mob. Liddy came off as a smart straight shooter, a man who gave up retirement for $1 a year to rescue AIG so it wouldn't bring down the financial system.
He also proved himself a cut above those who aimed to make cheap headlines at his expense. I'd pay to see him question Congress on its role in the economic mess.
...Liddy stands guilty of being tone deaf to the public anger on any bonus payouts at a time when people have lost their savings, their homes and their jobs. But as he repeatedly made clear, he came not to defend AIG's past, merely to clean it up.
That puts him head and shoulders above those in Washington who follow no star except merciless ambition.
He's not the biggest corporate villain here. And there are a lot of people in Washington who deserve our outrage. But hands up -- anybody see this guy as a hero?
Michael Goodwin -- to the right of Limbaugh, Beck, and Malkin.
****
By the way, in that Limbaugh clip linked above, Rush says, regarding the recipients of AIG bonuses,
The next question that will be asked once these names have been produced -- and they will be -- these people will then be called up to testify before Chairman Frank's committee, and they will face other questions, like, "Have you attended pro-capitalist meetings during the course of your tenure at AIG? How many of your friends are free market capitalists, and what are their names? And where can we find them? And if you fail to answer, you will be cited as being in contempt of Congress."
I'm sure Limbaugh, who isn't stupid (unlike, say, Glenn Beck), knows this is a joke. He doesn't mean this literally. He's saying it for effect.
But does his audience know that? How many of his Rand-addled listeners do you suppose believe this will literally happen?
****
Oh, and to get back to my original point, I should note that Limbaugh does express something like sympathy for Liddy, twice referring to him as a "government-appointed sacrificial lamb" -- but even Limbaugh won't go so far as to praise him.
Fox's Glenn Beck is whinging about "mob rule" and "fake-populist anger" at AIG bonus recipients, Rush Limbaugh, Fox's Martha MacCallum, and Fox's Shepard Smith are comparing Barney Frank to Joe McCarthy for seeking the names of those recipients, and Michelle Malkin is reproducing AIG CEO Edward Liddy's expressed concerns about retribution. Fine. But while wingnuts are defending the underlings, no wingnut is actually crazy enough to defend Liddy, right? No wingnut is prepared to say he's a good guy, right?
As far as I know, no.
For that you need to go to the mainstream press.
Here's Democrat-bashing New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin:
... What was supposed to be a legal lynching of AIG boss Edward Liddy over the firm's bonus plan turned into a humiliating defeat for the lynch mob. Liddy came off as a smart straight shooter, a man who gave up retirement for $1 a year to rescue AIG so it wouldn't bring down the financial system.
He also proved himself a cut above those who aimed to make cheap headlines at his expense. I'd pay to see him question Congress on its role in the economic mess.
...Liddy stands guilty of being tone deaf to the public anger on any bonus payouts at a time when people have lost their savings, their homes and their jobs. But as he repeatedly made clear, he came not to defend AIG's past, merely to clean it up.
That puts him head and shoulders above those in Washington who follow no star except merciless ambition.
He's not the biggest corporate villain here. And there are a lot of people in Washington who deserve our outrage. But hands up -- anybody see this guy as a hero?
Michael Goodwin -- to the right of Limbaugh, Beck, and Malkin.
****
By the way, in that Limbaugh clip linked above, Rush says, regarding the recipients of AIG bonuses,
The next question that will be asked once these names have been produced -- and they will be -- these people will then be called up to testify before Chairman Frank's committee, and they will face other questions, like, "Have you attended pro-capitalist meetings during the course of your tenure at AIG? How many of your friends are free market capitalists, and what are their names? And where can we find them? And if you fail to answer, you will be cited as being in contempt of Congress."
I'm sure Limbaugh, who isn't stupid (unlike, say, Glenn Beck), knows this is a joke. He doesn't mean this literally. He's saying it for effect.
But does his audience know that? How many of his Rand-addled listeners do you suppose believe this will literally happen?
****
Oh, and to get back to my original point, I should note that Limbaugh does express something like sympathy for Liddy, twice referring to him as a "government-appointed sacrificial lamb" -- but even Limbaugh won't go so far as to praise him.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
AIG IS TO RIGHTIES' ECONOMIC THEORIES WHAT GEORGE W. BUSH IS TO THEIR POLITICAL THEORIES
I want to take another shot at something I tried to get at this in my last post, because it relates to Newt Gingrich's latest eructation. You see, what Newt is saying sounds almost like anti-fat-cat, pro-ordinary-schmuck populism, but I think it only seems that way if you don't recognize the Randian undercurrents:
...the cure for our outrage is not merely, as President Obama is demanding, that AIG be prevented from paying its executives. The $165 million in planned bonuses -- as manifestly undeserved as it is -- is chicken feed compared to the $170 billion in taxpayer funds AIG has received so far.
Nor is it acceptable to ask Americans to keep throwing their tax dollars at failed companies and their leaders.
The answer is an old fashioned one: AIG should choose between receivership or bankruptcy. It should not be allowed to choose more bailouts from the taxpayer.
... bankruptcy would replace the rule of politicians over U.S. financial institutions with the rule of law....
Gingrich isn't angry at fat cats. Gingrich is merely distancing himself from these fat cats. To Gingrich, capitalism -- the system that makes fat cats -- is still inerrant. These fat cats are just bad capitalists -- just as George W. Bush is, to Gingrich and other Republicans, a bad Republican (even though they loved him when he was winning elections). Conservative Republicanism is inerrant, too, so any failure that seems traceable to conservative Republicanism must be the fault of someone who is a failed conservative Republican -- and the financial meltdown is, similarly, the fault of failed capitalism.
This fits perfectly into Rand/Friedman thinking. The solution to seeming problems with capitalism is more capitalism -- there literally are no problems in the marketplace that can't be solved by the marketplace itself. Government must never intervene. (Even if failure to intervene the recession becomes a depression and ruins lives for years and years.)
Gingrich and his ideological soul mates will be the loudest cheerleaders of any sleazy greedheads who eventually create a new recovery, even it's based on a bubble, and even if the poor get poorer as the rich get richer. Gingrich et al. hate AIG and the current crop of failed fat cats because they're failures -- the Bushes of capitalism. Don't be confused.
I want to take another shot at something I tried to get at this in my last post, because it relates to Newt Gingrich's latest eructation. You see, what Newt is saying sounds almost like anti-fat-cat, pro-ordinary-schmuck populism, but I think it only seems that way if you don't recognize the Randian undercurrents:
...the cure for our outrage is not merely, as President Obama is demanding, that AIG be prevented from paying its executives. The $165 million in planned bonuses -- as manifestly undeserved as it is -- is chicken feed compared to the $170 billion in taxpayer funds AIG has received so far.
Nor is it acceptable to ask Americans to keep throwing their tax dollars at failed companies and their leaders.
The answer is an old fashioned one: AIG should choose between receivership or bankruptcy. It should not be allowed to choose more bailouts from the taxpayer.
... bankruptcy would replace the rule of politicians over U.S. financial institutions with the rule of law....
Gingrich isn't angry at fat cats. Gingrich is merely distancing himself from these fat cats. To Gingrich, capitalism -- the system that makes fat cats -- is still inerrant. These fat cats are just bad capitalists -- just as George W. Bush is, to Gingrich and other Republicans, a bad Republican (even though they loved him when he was winning elections). Conservative Republicanism is inerrant, too, so any failure that seems traceable to conservative Republicanism must be the fault of someone who is a failed conservative Republican -- and the financial meltdown is, similarly, the fault of failed capitalism.
This fits perfectly into Rand/Friedman thinking. The solution to seeming problems with capitalism is more capitalism -- there literally are no problems in the marketplace that can't be solved by the marketplace itself. Government must never intervene. (Even if failure to intervene the recession becomes a depression and ruins lives for years and years.)
Gingrich and his ideological soul mates will be the loudest cheerleaders of any sleazy greedheads who eventually create a new recovery, even it's based on a bubble, and even if the poor get poorer as the rich get richer. Gingrich et al. hate AIG and the current crop of failed fat cats because they're failures -- the Bushes of capitalism. Don't be confused.
NO, THEY CAN'T MANAGE
Atrios:
I've been sitting her for months wondering if Republicans would ever be able to get away from reflexively leg-humping Big Money and their general love of handing taxpayer money to rich people and start out-outraging and out-populisting Democrats about this bailout stuff.
Some signs today they might be going there. It's an obvious route, even if it means going against the money boys. Can they manage?
Simple answer: no.
Oh, sure, the front page of the New York Post today reads, NOT SO FAST YOU GREEDY BASTARDS -- but the same paper includes editorials headlined MANUFACTURED OUTRAGE and (from Michelle Malkin) SPARE US YOUR FAKE FURY, DC HYPOCRITES. The Posties aren't expressing outrage at greedy Wall Streeters -- they're leveraging that outrage to use against the same old target, affirmative government as practiced by Democrats (and by Bush late last year in the financial realm; the right has posthumously declared Bush a tax-and-spend liberal much in the way that LDSers baptize the dead as Mormons).
Rupert Murdoch's New York paper may seem populist, but his rising Fox News star Glenn Beck defends the sanctity of the contracts that led to the AIG bonuses. So does Rush Limbaugh. These are the true leaders of the GOP; nobody's going to get too far afield of where these guys are. (By the way, a bankruptcy judge in California just said that the city of Vallejo can void its union contracts; anyone think Beck or Rush or any GOP member of Congress is going to express outrage over that?) Even if Republican officeholders don't join Beck and Limbaugh in defending the bonuses, they're certainly joining them in making the argument that we should have just let all the financial institutions fail (and, presumably, taken whatever massive global depression resulted) -- that's essentially the argument John McCain made in his Twitter interview with George Stephanopoulos yesterday (despite his vote in favor of the first bailout). This is a neat trick, but they're pulling it off: they're selling Hooverism disguised as populism. They're defining affirmative-government types in Washington and Wall Street greedheads as indistinguishable (with, admittedly, a big help from the greedhead enablers in the Obama administration).
Are Republicans going to favor the non-rich over the rich? No -- they're just going to call for a budget-busting open-bar tax-cut party, with everyone, rich and non-rich, invited. McCain, as I noted yesterday, told Stephanopoulos yesterday that he admires the ideas of Congressman Paul Ryan, who wants to drop the top marginal tax rate on zillionaires from 35% to 25% as well as dropping everyone else's tax rate (up to $100,000) to 10%. He also wants to lower the top corporate tax rate to 25% and eliminate the capital gains tax. Senator Jim DeMint also wants to drop the top tax rate on individuals and companies from 35% to 25%, with the middle and lower rates dropped to 15% and 10%; he wants the estate tax reduced to 15% on estates above $5 million. (Spending cuts, I guess, will be penciled in later.) Get away from reflexively leg-humping Big Money? Forget it. These guys are never going to be able to abandon the core notion that business owners, big and small, are the studly gods who were put on earth by God to make everything in the world work properly.
Atrios:
I've been sitting her for months wondering if Republicans would ever be able to get away from reflexively leg-humping Big Money and their general love of handing taxpayer money to rich people and start out-outraging and out-populisting Democrats about this bailout stuff.
Some signs today they might be going there. It's an obvious route, even if it means going against the money boys. Can they manage?
Simple answer: no.
Oh, sure, the front page of the New York Post today reads, NOT SO FAST YOU GREEDY BASTARDS -- but the same paper includes editorials headlined MANUFACTURED OUTRAGE and (from Michelle Malkin) SPARE US YOUR FAKE FURY, DC HYPOCRITES. The Posties aren't expressing outrage at greedy Wall Streeters -- they're leveraging that outrage to use against the same old target, affirmative government as practiced by Democrats (and by Bush late last year in the financial realm; the right has posthumously declared Bush a tax-and-spend liberal much in the way that LDSers baptize the dead as Mormons).
Rupert Murdoch's New York paper may seem populist, but his rising Fox News star Glenn Beck defends the sanctity of the contracts that led to the AIG bonuses. So does Rush Limbaugh. These are the true leaders of the GOP; nobody's going to get too far afield of where these guys are. (By the way, a bankruptcy judge in California just said that the city of Vallejo can void its union contracts; anyone think Beck or Rush or any GOP member of Congress is going to express outrage over that?) Even if Republican officeholders don't join Beck and Limbaugh in defending the bonuses, they're certainly joining them in making the argument that we should have just let all the financial institutions fail (and, presumably, taken whatever massive global depression resulted) -- that's essentially the argument John McCain made in his Twitter interview with George Stephanopoulos yesterday (despite his vote in favor of the first bailout). This is a neat trick, but they're pulling it off: they're selling Hooverism disguised as populism. They're defining affirmative-government types in Washington and Wall Street greedheads as indistinguishable (with, admittedly, a big help from the greedhead enablers in the Obama administration).
Are Republicans going to favor the non-rich over the rich? No -- they're just going to call for a budget-busting open-bar tax-cut party, with everyone, rich and non-rich, invited. McCain, as I noted yesterday, told Stephanopoulos yesterday that he admires the ideas of Congressman Paul Ryan, who wants to drop the top marginal tax rate on zillionaires from 35% to 25% as well as dropping everyone else's tax rate (up to $100,000) to 10%. He also wants to lower the top corporate tax rate to 25% and eliminate the capital gains tax. Senator Jim DeMint also wants to drop the top tax rate on individuals and companies from 35% to 25%, with the middle and lower rates dropped to 15% and 10%; he wants the estate tax reduced to 15% on estates above $5 million. (Spending cuts, I guess, will be penciled in later.) Get away from reflexively leg-humping Big Money? Forget it. These guys are never going to be able to abandon the core notion that business owners, big and small, are the studly gods who were put on earth by God to make everything in the world work properly.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF PRESIDENTIAL DIGNITY, STARRING MR. T AND MICHAEL JACKSON
A former Poppy Bush speechwriter named Mary Kate Cary is now declaring in a U.S. News blog post that "Obama's Jay Leno Tonight Show Gig Will Diminish His Presidency." Her real, barely disguised purpose is to chide the president for declining an invitation to the Gridiron Club dinner; the Village will not be ignored, and her boss used to do it every year even though it killed him:
"The American people don't want a stand-up comedian for a president," I remember him saying to me. But he'd go anyway, his world-famous polite side taking over, so as not to snub the hosts.
But not only is Obama committing a sin of omission, he's compounded it with a sin of commission. The Gridiron Club dinner is discreet and dignified ... but Jay Leno's show! The Framers of the Constitution are rolling over in their graves!
In fact, no sitting president has ever appeared on any comedy show. Richard Nixon did "Sock It To Me" on Laugh-In as a candidate for president -- despite the objections of his staff, according to Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan -- and Bill Clinton did the Arsenio Hall Show, but also as a candidate. President Bush #41 went on Saturday Night Live with Dana Carvey, but only after he left office.
Actually, if we're going to count late-night talk shows as comedy shows, Richard Nixon did, in fact, appear on the New Year's Eve episode of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show in 1971.
But that barely scratches the surface. As president, Ronald Reagan appeared on a televised "All-Star Party for 'Dutch' Reagan," honored by such dignitaries as Rich Little, Eydie Gorme, Angie Dickinson, and Dean Martin. He appeared on "Bob Hope's High-Flying Birthday" and "George Burns' 90th Birthday Party: A Very Special Special." He contributed to a televised clip compilation called "James Bond: The First 21 Years."
And, of course, he once invited Michael Jackson to the White House:
He uttered the following dignified words:
Well, isn't this a thriller? [Laughter] ....
Michael, welcome to the White House. I hope you'll forgive me, but we have quite a few young folks in the White House who all wanted me to give you the same message. They said to tell Michael, "Please give some TLC to the PYTs." [Laughter] Now, I know that sounds a little off-the-wall, but you know what I mean. [Laughter]....
And about this moment ...
... the less said the better.
Mary Kate Cary's ex-boss wasn't quite the showman his onetime boss was, but, as VP, Poppy Bush did make an appearance on Bob Hope's "All-Star Comedy Birthday Party from West Point" and (with Reagan) another Bob Hope extravaganza, the Hope-hosted "All-Star Celebration Opening the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum," which also featured Tony Orlando, Foster Brooks, Sammy Davis Jr., Danny Thomas, and Debbie "You Light Up My Life" Boone. And as president he made an appearance in "Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue," an anti-drug film featuring Alf, Garfield, various Disney and Warner Bros. cartoon characters, and the Smurfs.
(And I won't even talk about the man Obama defeated last fall and his many, many appearances on The Tonight Show, The Late Show with David Letterman, Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Entertainment Tonight, Live with Regis and (both) Kathie Lee and Kelly, etc., etc....)
Cary really doesn't know what she's talking about. She chides President Obama not merely for his Tonight Show but for (naturally) his "casual" dress in the Oval Office (I still say he looks quite natty) and suggests that even publishing newspaper op-eds on real issues is undignified and unprecedented:
On Leno, he becomes just one more talk show guest, a celebrity on the circuit promoting his latest movie or book. It's a decision that speaks volumes about Obama's approach to the office. For that matter, so does his signing of op-eds about specific legislation in newspapers...
Er, George W. Bush, as president, published four op-eds. Read about them here, Mary.
And Cary also seems to think the president is going on Leno's show to tell jokes:
Doing the Jay Leno Show is doing the Gridiron, times ten. Much higher stakes: millions watching on live television coast-to-coast, with replays available on YouTube forever. No wine and silly warm-up acts to loosen up the crowd. Just walk in cold and be funny without a script.
Er, no. He's not Rupert Pupkin. He's the president of the United States. He'll be treated like a president.
A former Poppy Bush speechwriter named Mary Kate Cary is now declaring in a U.S. News blog post that "Obama's Jay Leno Tonight Show Gig Will Diminish His Presidency." Her real, barely disguised purpose is to chide the president for declining an invitation to the Gridiron Club dinner; the Village will not be ignored, and her boss used to do it every year even though it killed him:
"The American people don't want a stand-up comedian for a president," I remember him saying to me. But he'd go anyway, his world-famous polite side taking over, so as not to snub the hosts.
But not only is Obama committing a sin of omission, he's compounded it with a sin of commission. The Gridiron Club dinner is discreet and dignified ... but Jay Leno's show! The Framers of the Constitution are rolling over in their graves!
In fact, no sitting president has ever appeared on any comedy show. Richard Nixon did "Sock It To Me" on Laugh-In as a candidate for president -- despite the objections of his staff, according to Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan -- and Bill Clinton did the Arsenio Hall Show, but also as a candidate. President Bush #41 went on Saturday Night Live with Dana Carvey, but only after he left office.
Actually, if we're going to count late-night talk shows as comedy shows, Richard Nixon did, in fact, appear on the New Year's Eve episode of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show in 1971.
But that barely scratches the surface. As president, Ronald Reagan appeared on a televised "All-Star Party for 'Dutch' Reagan," honored by such dignitaries as Rich Little, Eydie Gorme, Angie Dickinson, and Dean Martin. He appeared on "Bob Hope's High-Flying Birthday" and "George Burns' 90th Birthday Party: A Very Special Special." He contributed to a televised clip compilation called "James Bond: The First 21 Years."
And, of course, he once invited Michael Jackson to the White House:
He uttered the following dignified words:
Well, isn't this a thriller? [Laughter] ....
Michael, welcome to the White House. I hope you'll forgive me, but we have quite a few young folks in the White House who all wanted me to give you the same message. They said to tell Michael, "Please give some TLC to the PYTs." [Laughter] Now, I know that sounds a little off-the-wall, but you know what I mean. [Laughter]....
And about this moment ...
... the less said the better.
Mary Kate Cary's ex-boss wasn't quite the showman his onetime boss was, but, as VP, Poppy Bush did make an appearance on Bob Hope's "All-Star Comedy Birthday Party from West Point" and (with Reagan) another Bob Hope extravaganza, the Hope-hosted "All-Star Celebration Opening the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum," which also featured Tony Orlando, Foster Brooks, Sammy Davis Jr., Danny Thomas, and Debbie "You Light Up My Life" Boone. And as president he made an appearance in "Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue," an anti-drug film featuring Alf, Garfield, various Disney and Warner Bros. cartoon characters, and the Smurfs.
(And I won't even talk about the man Obama defeated last fall and his many, many appearances on The Tonight Show, The Late Show with David Letterman, Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Entertainment Tonight, Live with Regis and (both) Kathie Lee and Kelly, etc., etc....)
Cary really doesn't know what she's talking about. She chides President Obama not merely for his Tonight Show but for (naturally) his "casual" dress in the Oval Office (I still say he looks quite natty) and suggests that even publishing newspaper op-eds on real issues is undignified and unprecedented:
On Leno, he becomes just one more talk show guest, a celebrity on the circuit promoting his latest movie or book. It's a decision that speaks volumes about Obama's approach to the office. For that matter, so does his signing of op-eds about specific legislation in newspapers...
Er, George W. Bush, as president, published four op-eds. Read about them here, Mary.
And Cary also seems to think the president is going on Leno's show to tell jokes:
Doing the Jay Leno Show is doing the Gridiron, times ten. Much higher stakes: millions watching on live television coast-to-coast, with replays available on YouTube forever. No wine and silly warm-up acts to loosen up the crowd. Just walk in cold and be funny without a script.
Er, no. He's not Rupert Pupkin. He's the president of the United States. He'll be treated like a president.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
TODAY'S WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
Dick Cheney Lite, otherwise known as John McCain:
McCain [in a "Twitterview" with George Stephanopoulos] said it is "too early" to tell if President Obama has put the nation at risk of a terror attack, refusing to agree or reject Cheney's recent comments.
Charming, Senator. Is it McCarthyite in here, or is it me?
And on another subject:
McCain also said he is working on alternatives to Obama's budget plan, and pointed to Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., as someone with "great ideas."
Paul Ryan's "great ideas," laid out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed a couple of weeks ago, essentially consist of huge tax cuts for everybody!!!! Whoopeee!!!! Federal debt? What federal debt?
Rather than raise the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6%, it should be dropped to 25%. The lower tax brackets should be collapsed to one 10% rate on the first $100,000 for couples. And the top corporate tax rate should be lowered to 25%....
The administration and congressional Democrats want to raise capital gains tax rates by a third. Instead, we should eliminate the capital gains tax....
And if that doesn't bankrupt the government forever, Ryan's "Roadmap for America's Future" (PDF) "[o]ffers workers under 55 the option of investing over one third of their current Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts" -- which immediately removes those workers' payments from the pool of money used to pay Social Security to current retirees, just as massive numbers of baby boomers retire and those payments by current workers are desperately needed. (And, of course, for anyone nearing retirement, switching from the SocSec Trust Fund to Wall Street investments would have been such a great move over, say, the last couple of years, wouldn't it?)
Oh, and there's also this from Johnny Mac:
Last week, ThinkProgress reported that hate radio host Laura Ingraham responded to Meghan McCain's criticism of right-wingers like Ann Coulter by calling her "plus-sized." Meghan shot back, telling Ingraham, "stop talking about my body." Yesterday, Meghan ripped Ingraham on The View, saying, "Kiss my fat ass!"
Today, in his "Twitterview" with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) shied away from condemning Ingraham's gratuitous attacks on his daughter. Stephanopoulos asked McCain, "What do you think of Meghan's feud with Coulter and Ingraham?" McCain first said, "I'm proud of my daughter and she has a right to her opinions." When asked if he agrees with his daughter, McCain did not say, simply stating, "like any family we agree on some things and disagree on others"...
It's unclear why McCain wouldn't directly admonish Ingraham, who has mocked his daughter's voice, weight, and just yesterday, called Meghan a "useful idiot." ...
Republican family values.
And, as Atrios notes, McCain's newfound enthusiasm for Twitter comes mere months after we were told, in response to a Barack Obama campaign ad, that McCain doesn't use a computer because of war injuries. Here's Jake Tapper last September telling us that if we have tears, prepare to shed them now:
Assuredly McCain isn't comfortable talking about this -- and the McCain campaign discouraged me from writing about this -- but the reason the aged Arizonan doesn't use a computer or send e-mail is because of his war wounds.
I realize some of the nastier liberals in the blogosphere will see this as McCain once again "playing the POW card," but it's simply a fact: typing on a regular keyboard for any sustained period of time bothers McCain physically.
He can type, he occasionally does type, but in general, the injuries he sustained as a POW -- ones that make it impossible for him to raise his arms high enough to comb his hair -- mean that small tasks make his shoulders ache, so he tries to avoid any repetitive exercise.
Again, it's not that he can't type, he just by habit, avoids when he can, repetitive exercise involving his arms. He does if he has to....
(In the "Twitterview," McCain specifically said he doesn't dictate his tweets -- he types them himself on a PC or a BlackBerry. But in the fall, he was too wounded to send an e-mail.)
Dick Cheney Lite, otherwise known as John McCain:
McCain [in a "Twitterview" with George Stephanopoulos] said it is "too early" to tell if President Obama has put the nation at risk of a terror attack, refusing to agree or reject Cheney's recent comments.
Charming, Senator. Is it McCarthyite in here, or is it me?
And on another subject:
McCain also said he is working on alternatives to Obama's budget plan, and pointed to Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., as someone with "great ideas."
Paul Ryan's "great ideas," laid out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed a couple of weeks ago, essentially consist of huge tax cuts for everybody!!!! Whoopeee!!!! Federal debt? What federal debt?
Rather than raise the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6%, it should be dropped to 25%. The lower tax brackets should be collapsed to one 10% rate on the first $100,000 for couples. And the top corporate tax rate should be lowered to 25%....
The administration and congressional Democrats want to raise capital gains tax rates by a third. Instead, we should eliminate the capital gains tax....
And if that doesn't bankrupt the government forever, Ryan's "Roadmap for America's Future" (PDF) "[o]ffers workers under 55 the option of investing over one third of their current Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts" -- which immediately removes those workers' payments from the pool of money used to pay Social Security to current retirees, just as massive numbers of baby boomers retire and those payments by current workers are desperately needed. (And, of course, for anyone nearing retirement, switching from the SocSec Trust Fund to Wall Street investments would have been such a great move over, say, the last couple of years, wouldn't it?)
Oh, and there's also this from Johnny Mac:
Last week, ThinkProgress reported that hate radio host Laura Ingraham responded to Meghan McCain's criticism of right-wingers like Ann Coulter by calling her "plus-sized." Meghan shot back, telling Ingraham, "stop talking about my body." Yesterday, Meghan ripped Ingraham on The View, saying, "Kiss my fat ass!"
Today, in his "Twitterview" with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) shied away from condemning Ingraham's gratuitous attacks on his daughter. Stephanopoulos asked McCain, "What do you think of Meghan's feud with Coulter and Ingraham?" McCain first said, "I'm proud of my daughter and she has a right to her opinions." When asked if he agrees with his daughter, McCain did not say, simply stating, "like any family we agree on some things and disagree on others"...
It's unclear why McCain wouldn't directly admonish Ingraham, who has mocked his daughter's voice, weight, and just yesterday, called Meghan a "useful idiot." ...
Republican family values.
And, as Atrios notes, McCain's newfound enthusiasm for Twitter comes mere months after we were told, in response to a Barack Obama campaign ad, that McCain doesn't use a computer because of war injuries. Here's Jake Tapper last September telling us that if we have tears, prepare to shed them now:
Assuredly McCain isn't comfortable talking about this -- and the McCain campaign discouraged me from writing about this -- but the reason the aged Arizonan doesn't use a computer or send e-mail is because of his war wounds.
I realize some of the nastier liberals in the blogosphere will see this as McCain once again "playing the POW card," but it's simply a fact: typing on a regular keyboard for any sustained period of time bothers McCain physically.
He can type, he occasionally does type, but in general, the injuries he sustained as a POW -- ones that make it impossible for him to raise his arms high enough to comb his hair -- mean that small tasks make his shoulders ache, so he tries to avoid any repetitive exercise.
Again, it's not that he can't type, he just by habit, avoids when he can, repetitive exercise involving his arms. He does if he has to....
(In the "Twitterview," McCain specifically said he doesn't dictate his tweets -- he types them himself on a PC or a BlackBerry. But in the fall, he was too wounded to send an e-mail.)
WE'RE DOOMED
OK, I'm being facetious -- but I see warning signs in the latest NPR poll (reported here and here):
In NPR's first survey since the election, a bipartisan team of pollsters -- Republican Glen Bolger and Democrat Stan Greenberg -- found that a lot has changed. Despite a major economic crisis, far fewer voters think the country is on the wrong track: 63 percent, down from 80 percent in the previous NPR national poll.
That means that -- relatively -- people are happier with their leaders in Washington. But when asked whether they'd vote for the Republican or Democratic congressional candidate if the 2010 elections were held today, the result was a tie: 42-42.
"There's concern about the spending plans and other paths that Obama and Democrats in Congress are taking, so I think you're seeing a little bit more move toward a balance," Bolger said. "People still want the president to succeed. He's got a 59 percent approval rating. He has a lot of intensity, particularly from his base. But that doesn't mean that people want one side to have a blank check."
We're at parity in Congressional races? Already? That's not good.
Ah, but -- in addition to the president's high ratings -- this is supposed to be a sign of the Democrats' strength:
Historically, the party that holds the White House and Congress loses seats in midterm elections. But Greenberg points to other findings in the survey, which was conducted March 10-14.
"Everything else in this poll points toward much more dramatic shifts toward the Democrats," he said. "On all of the arguments we've looked at in this survey, on virtually every single question, Democrats enjoy about a 10- to 12-point advantage."
But don't Democrats always enjoy an advantage on the issues? Didn't they enjoy an advantage on the issues (or at least on most domestic issues) for much of the Reagan era and the Poppy Bush era and the Gingrich era and the W era?
And yet Democrats haven't come close to dominating national politics in the past 28 years except for three brief periods: the micro-honeymoon of Bill Clinton, the period of backlash against Monicagate, and the few weeks of the Obama era. Those were the only times Democrats had anyone America saw as Daddy (late-period Clinton was a dirty Daddy who cheated on Mom but took care of business otherwise); at all other moments throughout a period that's lasted nearly three decades, Republicans ruled because they were seen as the Daddy Party.
Don't think that can't happen again. Yes, the would-be leaders of the GOP are a sorry lot these days, but Gingrich and the two Bushes weren't particularly impressive or likable either, and they beat Democrats who should have won in 1988, 1994, and 2000.
Right now, the only thing keeping Democrats in a dominant position is the goodwill Barack Obama inspires. It would be tough to take him down -- but he's really all that's standing between the GOP and its usual dominance. That leads me to believe that this could turn around a lot faster than most people think.
OK, I'm being facetious -- but I see warning signs in the latest NPR poll (reported here and here):
In NPR's first survey since the election, a bipartisan team of pollsters -- Republican Glen Bolger and Democrat Stan Greenberg -- found that a lot has changed. Despite a major economic crisis, far fewer voters think the country is on the wrong track: 63 percent, down from 80 percent in the previous NPR national poll.
That means that -- relatively -- people are happier with their leaders in Washington. But when asked whether they'd vote for the Republican or Democratic congressional candidate if the 2010 elections were held today, the result was a tie: 42-42.
"There's concern about the spending plans and other paths that Obama and Democrats in Congress are taking, so I think you're seeing a little bit more move toward a balance," Bolger said. "People still want the president to succeed. He's got a 59 percent approval rating. He has a lot of intensity, particularly from his base. But that doesn't mean that people want one side to have a blank check."
We're at parity in Congressional races? Already? That's not good.
Ah, but -- in addition to the president's high ratings -- this is supposed to be a sign of the Democrats' strength:
Historically, the party that holds the White House and Congress loses seats in midterm elections. But Greenberg points to other findings in the survey, which was conducted March 10-14.
"Everything else in this poll points toward much more dramatic shifts toward the Democrats," he said. "On all of the arguments we've looked at in this survey, on virtually every single question, Democrats enjoy about a 10- to 12-point advantage."
But don't Democrats always enjoy an advantage on the issues? Didn't they enjoy an advantage on the issues (or at least on most domestic issues) for much of the Reagan era and the Poppy Bush era and the Gingrich era and the W era?
And yet Democrats haven't come close to dominating national politics in the past 28 years except for three brief periods: the micro-honeymoon of Bill Clinton, the period of backlash against Monicagate, and the few weeks of the Obama era. Those were the only times Democrats had anyone America saw as Daddy (late-period Clinton was a dirty Daddy who cheated on Mom but took care of business otherwise); at all other moments throughout a period that's lasted nearly three decades, Republicans ruled because they were seen as the Daddy Party.
Don't think that can't happen again. Yes, the would-be leaders of the GOP are a sorry lot these days, but Gingrich and the two Bushes weren't particularly impressive or likable either, and they beat Democrats who should have won in 1988, 1994, and 2000.
Right now, the only thing keeping Democrats in a dominant position is the goodwill Barack Obama inspires. It would be tough to take him down -- but he's really all that's standing between the GOP and its usual dominance. That leads me to believe that this could turn around a lot faster than most people think.
IS THIS OBAMA'S 9/11?
(And is it not at all like Bush's?)
In my last post, I talked about Dick Cheney's habit of telling interviewers that President Obama is making us more vulnerable to foreign evildoers, and I argued that it's laying the groundwork for a blame-Obama response in the event that America does suffer a terrorist attack.
Well, it occurs to me that Americans are looking at the AIG bonuses as a domestic 9/11 -- a deliberate assault by financial evildoers who hate us and who boast of their deeds. But as regards the president, in this 9/11 the reaction in the Beltway is to focus on the White House's failure to prevent the attack, and the assumption is that the attack weakens him.
Is that because this isn't a real terrorist attack by foreigners -- or is it because Obama's a Democrat? Hard to say. But here's the lede of a Washington Post story:
President Obama's apparent inability to block executive bonuses at insurance giant AIG has dealt a sharp blow to his young administration and is threatening to derail both public and congressional support for his ambitious political agenda.
Politicians in both parties flocked to express outrage over $165 million in bonuses paid out to executives at the company, demanding answers from the president....
It's easy to imagine that as:
President Obama's apparent inability to block the terrorist attacks has dealt a sharp blow to his young administration and is threatening to derail both public and congressional support for his ambitious political agenda.
Politicians in both parties flocked to express outrage, demanding answers from the president....
With regard to this attack, we're already at the 9/11 Commission stage. From the syndicated version of that Washington Post story:
Attorneys working for the Fed had been examining the matter for months and determined that the bonus payments couldn't be touched because AIG would face costly lawsuits and be subject to penalties from states and foreign governments. Administration officials said over the weekend that they agreed with that assessment.
AIG disclosed its retention-payment program more than a year ago, and the amount of the bonuses had been widely reported. But as the payments were coming due in recent days, the White House began to express its indignation.
And here's Talking Points Memo posting a story about California congressman Brad Sherman, who said the Obama administration had the power to modify those bonuses:
We had a provision in there that said Treasury was supposed to establish, by regulation, standards for executive compensation. We required that to be done -- had it been done, it would have been binding, whether [or not] these contracts had been signed earlier. It's entirely within the power of the federal government to have contracts modified [at companies receiving public aid]. Nixon had contracts modified by the federal government. We gave a similar power to Treasury.
****
It's fair to say that the Obama administration has tiptoed around these bastards far too carefully -- nationalize the lot of 'em, I say. (Certainly nationalize AIG.)
But meanwhile, I think he needs a bullhorn moment. I suspect he needs a war. He needs to identify himself with this outrage and join with those who want this wrong reversed somehow. It may be his only chance of retaining the Beltway-elite respect that Bush, despite failing to prevent 9/11, didn't lose for years and years.
(And is it not at all like Bush's?)
In my last post, I talked about Dick Cheney's habit of telling interviewers that President Obama is making us more vulnerable to foreign evildoers, and I argued that it's laying the groundwork for a blame-Obama response in the event that America does suffer a terrorist attack.
Well, it occurs to me that Americans are looking at the AIG bonuses as a domestic 9/11 -- a deliberate assault by financial evildoers who hate us and who boast of their deeds. But as regards the president, in this 9/11 the reaction in the Beltway is to focus on the White House's failure to prevent the attack, and the assumption is that the attack weakens him.
Is that because this isn't a real terrorist attack by foreigners -- or is it because Obama's a Democrat? Hard to say. But here's the lede of a Washington Post story:
President Obama's apparent inability to block executive bonuses at insurance giant AIG has dealt a sharp blow to his young administration and is threatening to derail both public and congressional support for his ambitious political agenda.
Politicians in both parties flocked to express outrage over $165 million in bonuses paid out to executives at the company, demanding answers from the president....
It's easy to imagine that as:
President Obama's apparent inability to block the terrorist attacks has dealt a sharp blow to his young administration and is threatening to derail both public and congressional support for his ambitious political agenda.
Politicians in both parties flocked to express outrage, demanding answers from the president....
With regard to this attack, we're already at the 9/11 Commission stage. From the syndicated version of that Washington Post story:
Attorneys working for the Fed had been examining the matter for months and determined that the bonus payments couldn't be touched because AIG would face costly lawsuits and be subject to penalties from states and foreign governments. Administration officials said over the weekend that they agreed with that assessment.
AIG disclosed its retention-payment program more than a year ago, and the amount of the bonuses had been widely reported. But as the payments were coming due in recent days, the White House began to express its indignation.
And here's Talking Points Memo posting a story about California congressman Brad Sherman, who said the Obama administration had the power to modify those bonuses:
We had a provision in there that said Treasury was supposed to establish, by regulation, standards for executive compensation. We required that to be done -- had it been done, it would have been binding, whether [or not] these contracts had been signed earlier. It's entirely within the power of the federal government to have contracts modified [at companies receiving public aid]. Nixon had contracts modified by the federal government. We gave a similar power to Treasury.
****
It's fair to say that the Obama administration has tiptoed around these bastards far too carefully -- nationalize the lot of 'em, I say. (Certainly nationalize AIG.)
But meanwhile, I think he needs a bullhorn moment. I suspect he needs a war. He needs to identify himself with this outrage and join with those who want this wrong reversed somehow. It may be his only chance of retaining the Beltway-elite respect that Bush, despite failing to prevent 9/11, didn't lose for years and years.
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