Tag: Politics

2010, the GOP, and Play or Pay

Greg Sargent pulls out some interesting figures from a recent WaPo poll:

* That Dems hold an overwhelming 20-point lead on which party is most trusted on major issues, with Obama preferred over Republicans by 12 points on health care.

* That a majority, 53%, agrees that “government reform of the nation’s health care system is necessary to control costs and expand coverage,” underscoring yet again that the public wants government action.

* That a plurality now believes reform won’t prevent people from keeping their own health care, suggesting the public may be it reform as less and less threatening.

* That a big majority, or 62%, believe Republicans have not made a good faith effort to cooperate with Dems on health care.

That last one seems the most damning. Everyone talks about 2010 being full of doom for the Democratic party. To be sure, historic majorities like the current Democratic position don’t last. By definition, any “historic” majority is going to include seats that, for one reason or another, are more likely to be held by the non-historic-majority party more often than not.

But, and it’s a big but: to go back to the “predictable” seat holder party-wise, you still have to give those “predictable” voters a reason to prefer you. And the GOP isn’t doing it so far. Even worse: people are noticing. Naturally, we need to see some of these toss-up districts broken out to be sure, but I suspect this polling data is more or less on the nose.

The bad news for Democrats in this poll is this:

a big majority wants Dems to craft a bill that will win GOP support

Since we know a priori that no proposal will win GOP support (party leaders have done everything but put that in writing on granite tablets), there would appear to be a rather hazardous, built-in capacity for outrage. That is: voters, never ones to pay a lot of attention, will see that some healthcare reforms passed, not realize that nothing rolls out until 2012 or later (circa 2010: “I ain’t seen nuthim from it ‘tall!”), see (and be told repeatedly) that not one member of the GOP voted for it in the House and that (at most) one or two GOPers voted for it in the Senate, and will assume that all the “problems” with the bill are well and truly the fault of the Democrats. And, here’s the rub: they’ll assume it’s all because they wouldn’t work with the GOP, not because the GOP refused to work in good faith with the Democrats. The ever feckless Reid et al. will try to point out that no GOP proposal or counter-offer (beyond Go Die in the Streets) ever appeared. But the media cares not for nuance, and you need to be setting up the short, two or three word rhyming drumbeat right now, every day, every hour, and every minute about GOP intransigence such that, when the time comes (and it will come), you can merely call back to your groundwork, which will seem familiar, and will almost automatically become the basis for the discussion. No Democrat should even be approaching a microphone without uttering something like “The GOP needs to Play, or Pay.”

Of course, that will not happen. And, we all know that, even if the Democrats managed to gain seats in 2010, it will be portrayed as “good for Republicans.” Everything always is.

Tuesdays with Ronnie

Reagan or Obama?: As a wise Frenchman one wrote: “Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue.”
Obama or Reagan?: I’ve talked a lot about responsibility. I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn. I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV
Reagan or Obama?: [O]ur revolution had already occurred “in the hearts and minds of the people.”
Obama or Reagan?: […] we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
Reagan or Obama?: America is not yet complete, and it’s up to each one of us to help complete it. And each one of you can place yourself in that painting. You can become one of the those immortal figures by helping to build and renew America.
Obama or Reagan?: These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

Strange Architecture

Krugman, writing in a blog post, notes the same utterly detached form of group insanity that Joe Klein observed at a recent Arkansas town hall:

The point is that whatever is driving all this doesn’t have anything to do with the realities of what I, or, much more important of course, Obama say or do. Obama could have come in proposing to pursue an agenda identical to Bush, and he would still be a socialist/Commie/fascist, with those of us who don’t see it that way lying Nazis ourselves.

Something is going very wrong in the heads of a substantial number of Americans.

At least on the point of the communist nonsense (and, if you haven’t been following the output of the nuthatch: Obama is secretly larding his White House with Marxists), I think we can parse the madness pretty damned easily. The first signs of it emerged from the fact that various high-level advisors who report only to the President are commonly referred to in the popular media as “Czars.” That must refer to some kind of a Marxist, right? Why, there are more “Czars” in the Obama administration than in Old Russia! Where there was one… and the more frequent english spelling there is actually, uh, “Tsar.” But let’s take it at fully idiotic face value: never mentioned or grasped is the seemingly equally critical fact that Obama’s is the first administration since Reagan (whose team seemingly popularized, but didn’t invent, the term “Czar” in its modern US political usage) that has actually stopped using the term at all. Early on during the transition period, the administration went out of its way to put a stop to the common usage, going so far as getting out there and providing quotes that made it into various stories, such as this one in Politico, which specifically note that:

“Obama aides say that Browner will not be called a “czar,” a term they dislike. They say she will simply focus like a laser beam on energy-reform issues, which the president-elect has named as a top priority and one of the linchpins of his economic recovery plan.”

Of course, the media positively loves the term. And continued to use it. Even when specifically corrected:

Reporter: On Ken Feinberg, I think that he’s maybe the 20th czar-type position you’ve named.

Gibbs:  No, I think the title is “special master.”

And now fans the flames of this nonsense by failing to mention any of this, ever. And act as though this is the first administration EVAR to have such positions and to call them something like “Czars”, and it is all so much more evidence of secret Marxism in the Obama administration.

Secondly, that “Something” of Krugman’s post is largely personified in the form of one Glenn Beck. Who holds particular disdain for one Van Jones, Obama’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). See, absolutely no mention of “Czar” in there anywhere. Why, that gets us one closer to the number of Tsars around in the time of the Romanovs. In fact, I think we can all probably agree that Jones is a secret Marxist because Color of Change, an organization he co-founded has, as of this moment, successfully peeled off no fewer than 57 advertisers from Beck’s show. Clearly, only a secret Marxist would do such a thing, and a grateful nation owes Glenn Beck much for so selflessly pursuing this issue… That most of those advertisers still have contracts with FOXnews is troubling, but at least it’s a start. One might think that there’s a good MSM article in there somewhere, tracking the various personal vendettas that the right-wing echo chamber turns into grist for the mill. But, no, not interested. It’s just a “strange thing we’re observing on our various excursions flying across the hinterlands. Wonder what that’s all about?” Or, more succinctly:

“Sometimes in life you want to just keep walking… Sometimes, I think, just keep walking…. Some of life just has to be mysterious.”

God help us if we ever get a functional media class. People might actually learn something. Starting with those people in the newly functional media class.

Sunset

Free advice to the Obama administration: the various health care bills wending their way through the House and Senate will ultimately see the floor, and just getting that done is a lot of work. But, like Steve Jobs, you need that “oh, one more thing.”

We need one other bill passed immediately. Just a little one. It can be about one sentence long: should [healthcare reform] remain unsigned into law by the President of these United States on December 31, 2009, all healthcare funding and provisioning for the members of the House and Senate are null and void. Members of said organizations are furthermore ineligible for Medicare for as long as they may serve in the government.

Seems like we might see some more, uh, focused and credible debate with that particular Sword of Damocles hanging. Just saying.

THIS IS NEXT

The clearest statement I’ve yet seen on where the GOP goes from here is available from this piece that quotes that lovable scamp, Newt Gingrich:

“Look,” Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker, said the other day (on the air, to Bill O’Reilly), “I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence… . I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact.” For diversity’s sake, he added that “the historic version of Islam” and “the historic version of Judaism” are likewise menaced—which is natural, given that gay, secular, fascist values are “the opposite of what you’re taught in Sunday school.”

Warnings of violence from the ever mysterious, yet surprisingly well organized “other” couched in a pseudo-religious patina. Welcome to the next four years; Campaign 12, ‘Merica Decides! has begun.

GOP: look out, Constitution Party, Here we come. Absolutely determined to become a predominantly southern, crazily religious splinter of a party. The real question, then, is: will the new major party be to the left of the current Democrat? Wouldn’t surprise me, actually. All depends on the economy.

Somehow I thought it would be “BarackO!”

In which we learn about a newly minted Senator’s first encounter [warning: FOXnews, so NSFW] with the Presidentiary:

Four years ago, Obama and other newly elected members of the Senate were invited to the White House for a breakfast meeting with Bush, who pulled the young Chicagoan aside.

“Obama!” Bush exclaimed, according to Obama’s account of the meeting in his second memoir, “The Audacity of Hope.” “Come here and meet Laura. Laura, you remember Obama. We saw him on TV during election night. Beautiful family. And that wife of yours – that’s one impressive lady.”

The two men shook hands and then, according to Obama, Bush turned to an aide, “who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the president’s hand.”

Bush then offered some to Obama, who recalled: “Not wanting to seem unhygienic, I took a squirt.”

Okay, that’s more than a little weird. Was the President also wearing Kleenex boxes as shoes? How were his fingernails? Anywho, just when you think it’s peaked as a story:

The president then led Obama off to one side of the room, where Bush said: “I hope you don’t mind me giving you a piece of advice.”

“Not at all, Mr. President,” Obama told the commander-in-chief.

“You’ve got a bright future,” Bush said presciently. “Very bright. But I’ve been in this town awhile and, let me tell you, it can be tough. When you get a lot of attention like you’ve been getting, people start gunnin’ for ya. And it won’t necessarily just be coming from my side, you understand. From yours, too. Everybody’ll be waiting for you to slip, know what I mean? So watch yourself.”

Ever the friend to Our Burden, I guess. Mostly this interchange reminds me of the time a very special Aqualish named Ponda Baba ended up with no arm. Perhaps Bush is wanted in twelve planetary systems as well?

Back to Our Story:

Bush then noted that he and Obama had something in common.

“We both had to debate Alan Keyes,” the president said. “That guy’s a piece of work, isn’t he?”

This is clearly an issue we can reach across the aisle on. But things take a turn for the dramatic when:

Obama laughed and even “put my arm around his shoulder as we talked,” he recalled, although he added the gesture “might have made many of my friends, not to mention the Secret Service agents in the room, more than a little uneasy.”

I can see the headlines now: an unidentified United States Senator was wrestled to the ground today when he groped the President unexpectedly. Mr. Bush was unavailable for comment, still ensconced several stories underground in what insiders somewhat elliptically refer to as the White House’s ultra-secret Hyperbaric Purel Chamber.

But then it’s back to business:

Despite this display of bonhomie, Obama said the president’s demeanor turned downright frightening when he laid out his agenda to the freshly minted lawmakers.

“Suddenly it felt as if somebody in a back room had flipped a switch,” Obama wrote. “The president’s eyes became fixed; his voice took on the agitated, rapid tone of someone neither accustomed to nor welcoming interruption; his easy affability was replaced by an almost messianic certainty. As I watched my mostly Republican Senate colleagues hang on his every word, I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring, and appreciated the Founders’ wisdom in designating a system to keep power in check.”

When I quoted from this passage to Bush during an Oval Office interview, the president seemed irritated to learn he had been taken to task by the senator he once counseled.

I thought I was actually showing some kindness,“ Bush said indignantly. "And out of that he came with this belief?”

The president added with a bit of a scowl: “He doesn’t know me very well.”

Oh, I think he knows you pretty goddamned well. We all do. We. All. Do.

Joy Behar, meet Campbell Brown

Credit where due department: CNN’s Campbell Brown has been dramatically more engaged and more insightful recently than at any time in my memory. True, she’s getting more to do recently than report on plucky cats that could, but she’s also doing something with that occsional opportunity for real journalism (sorry, no link to the full transcript):

Tonight the scape-goating of Sarah Palin. Whatever you may have thought about John McCain’s running mate… about whether she was qualified, prepared or experienced enough for the job… try if you can to put all of that aside for just a moment. Because Sarah Palin is who she is. She did not become measurably more intelligent or measurably less intelligent during this campaign. Remember, she was only part of the campaign for a matter of nine weeks. Sarah Palin is who she is.

Which is why I find it so stunning that the very people who introduced us to Sarah Palin… who told us she would make a great Vice President… have now turned on her with a vengeance. They are the top advisors to John McCain’s failed campaign and they are desperate right now to find someone to blame for their long long list of mistakes. They have been launching grenades at Palin and her supporters… some of their allegations we at CNN have found to be patently false. You will hear people say “this is what always happens with a losing campaign”… and hopefully, this is the last time we will be talking about these people. But what they have done just in the last few days to save their own skins is worth a final comment.

To those top McCain advisors who leaked the little story about seeing Sarah Palin in a towel. To those who called her and her family “Wasilla Hillbillies” while using her to stoke class warfare with redmeat speeches and an anti-elitist message. To those who claim she didn’t know Africa was a continent. To those McCain aides who say she is the reason they lost this election… can I please remind you of one thing: you picked her.

You are the ones who supposedly vetted her, and then told the American people she was qualified for the job. You are the ones who after meeting her a couple of times, told us she was ready to be just one heartbeat away from the Presidency. If even half of what you say NOW is true, then boy, did you try to sell the American people a bill of goods. If Sarah Palin is the reason some voters chose Barack Obama, that is no one’s fault but your own. John McCain, as he so graciously said himself the other night, lost this election. He lost it with your help, your advice, your guidance, and yes, your running mate recommendations. And that is crystal clear to everyone, no matter how hard you try to blame Sarah Palin or anyone else.

As Atrios notes, it’s no Special Comment from Keith Olberman; I’d say it’s better. Olberman serves up the red meat, to be sure, but a force such as Brown on CNN gives you something else entirely: a thoughtful, questioning agent that isn’t immediately identifiable as in the bag for any given ideology. Much, much more effective, if somewhat less enjoyable for the partisan. Good on you, Campbell.

DOW 0


Reliably predicting events even a few days in the future is never easy. But this time, I think it’s pretty obviously straightforward. Lead-pipe domain. Assuming a continued steady and daily 500 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Index (which is looking pretty optimistic at this point) when will we finally reach Dow=0?

Why, on November 4th, of course. When else could it possibly happen?

I expect CNN and others to have some “Countdown to 0!!!” graphics up by the afternoon.

The Impossible Has Happened

No one could have expected:

Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.

“These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones,” said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA’s Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003.

Kinne described the contents of the calls as “personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism.”

She said US military officers, American journalists and American aid workers were routinely intercepted and “collected on” as they called their offices or homes in the United States.

This is only the marginally above board part of this particular iceberg. Guaranteed, absolutely, 100% take-it-to-the-bank: they were using this stuff for purely political ratfucking style oppo research and general mayhem. No doubt whatsoever. Whether or not we’ll ever get to that information is doubtful, but it’s there somewhere. Start with the attorney firing and work backwards.