capitoilette

We've Moved!

2011-12-30T03:10:00.005-05:00

Wondering where I've been all these years? After two-and-a-half years as managing editor of Firedoglake, I have returned to the writing world and restarted good ol' capitoilette. . . but at the New! Improved! capitoilette.com.

Follow me there, and follow me here, too.

You can also find some of my posts featured on Truthout.

GE to KO: STFU

2009-08-01T00:01:00.001-04:00

[A version of this post previously ran as my regular Friday night column on Firedoglake.]

Hey, waddya say tonight we go after some big game? Yeah, I know what you’re thinkin’: elephants by definition are big game. Or, maybe you’ve watched the video clip here, and you’re thinking, Bill O’Reilly is a big target, but kind of an easy one. Well, if that’s what you’re thinking, think bigger:

For years Keith Olbermann of MSNBC had savaged his prime-time nemesis Bill O’Reilly of the Fox News Channel and accused Fox of journalistic malpractice almost nightly. Mr. O’Reilly in turn criticized Mr. Olbermann’s bosses and led an exceptional campaign against General Electric, the parent company of MSNBC.

It was perhaps the fiercest media feud of the decade and by this year, their bosses had had enough. But it took a fellow television personality with a neutral perspective to bring it to an end.

At an off-the-record summit meeting for chief executives sponsored by Microsoft in May, the PBS interviewer Charlie Rose asked Jeffrey Immelt, chairman of G.E., and his counterpart at the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, about the feud.

Both moguls expressed regret over the venomous culture between the two networks. Then — even though the feud had increased the viewing audience of both programs — they instructed lieutenants to arrange a cease-fire, according to three people who work at the companies and have direct knowledge of the deal.

In early June, the combat stopped, and the anchors for the most part found other targets for their verbal missiles (Hello, CNN).

“It was time to grow up,” a senior employee of one of the companies said.

Instructed lieutenants??? Oh, wait, I should add this:

The rapprochement — not acknowledged by the parties until now — showcased how a personal and commercial battle between two men could create real consequences for their parent corporations. A G.E. shareholders’ meeting, for instance, was overrun by critics of MSNBC (and one of Mr. O’Reilly’s producers) last April.

And there we have it, don’t we? It wasn’t that it was personal, it’s that it was business—and not the news business, G.E.’s business.

To review: Olbermann goes after O’Reilly directly for Bill-O’s distortions, lies, and dangerous invective. In return, Fox’s angry anchor goes after. . . not Olbermann, not Olbermann’s politics, but after Olbermann’s paycheck—after KO’s corporate bosses.

When Olbermann chose to make O’Reilly his “Worst Person in the World,” The Factor folks would retaliate by accusing General Electric of aiding Iran and insurgent forces in Iraq:

“If my child were killed in Iraq, I would blame the likes of Jeffrey Immelt.” The resulting e-mail messages to G.E. from Mr. O’Reilly’s viewers were scathing and relentless.

Bill-O also sent his pachydermal pit poodle, Jesse Watters, to ambush Immelt, and pelt him with questions about G.E.’s business in Iran. That cannot have made Jeffrey happy.

Then, the day after MSNBC aired the Countdown segment above (a segment in which, after detailing the 28 times that Bill-O accused the murdered Dr. Tiller of being a “baby killer,” Keith calls on viewers to quarantine Bill-O, to refuse to watch, to boycott establishments that show O’Reilly on their TVs, and then announces he will make the first gesture by retiring the nickname and caricature), this:

O’Reilly made the extraordinary claim that “federal authorities have developed information about General Electric doing business with Iran, deadly business” and published Mr. Immelt’s e-mail address and mailing address, repeating it slowly for emphasis.

The next day, according to the New York Times, the attacks stopped.

Now, I have not done a careful catalogue of Countdowns since then. Olbermann, currently on vacation, told the Times, “I am party to no deal.” We will see what happens on air now that this story is public when Keith returns. But it does make for a high eyebrow raise.

But if Olbermann was pressured, he should not be the focus of our disgust. As they say, don’t hate the player, hate the game. And, in this case, the game is corporate-owned, overly consolidated media, and the guys who make the game’s rules are Rupert Murdoch and Jeffrey Immelt.

I don’t need to tell you about Rupe—arrrrrrrgh!—his failings are legendary, but what of Immelt? Is he tonight’s Elephant?

Immelt is a smart mogul, so he spreads the ~~influence~~ dung around, but there is a decidedly bigger pile on one side of the midway.

While Jeffrey maxed-out to Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd during the primaries, he also gave the legal limit to Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. In the general, he gave his maximum $2,300 to John McCain. Immelt has also given generously to the RNCC and Mitch McConnell. (There are no reported commensurate donations to Democrats or their campaign funds.)

So, here’s what we have in tonight’s media circus: two ostensibly Republican ring masters—supposedly in competition—collude (with the help of Microsoft and Charlie Rose—wtf?) to silence one side of the debate in order to make the world safe for parent company profit.

In fact, I should go a little further: It is not that one side of a debate was silenced, it is that the only side in the debate was silenced. O’Reilly stoked a climate of hatred against a man that was eventually murdered for providing a necessary and legal service. Olbermann attacked O’Reilly for that. In return, Bill-O attacked Immelt and G.E., and, as a result, it seems, Immelt directed Olbermann to STFU.

Tell me again about the liberal media. . . . Tell me again why rolling back media consolidation shouldn’t be one of our main priorities during this Democratic era in national politics. . . .

Well, Keith’s paycheck is, for ~~better or~~ worse, dependant on a corporate parent. Mine is not; neither is yours (at least in this forum). I say the airways are a public trust, and O’Reilly seriously strains that trust. I say attack him all you want. What do you say?

[Small Update: I just remembered that back in March, I wrote about this other instance of corporate interference with on-air content at MSNBC.]

[Update 2: Glenn Greenwald has more. And more.]

[Update 3: Olbermann responds. . . sort of.]

Worst. Inauguration. Ever. Part II: The Reckoning?

2009-03-24T18:00:00.003-04:00

My proper purple ticket

Perhaps you are one of the seven or eight people out there in the web-o-sphere that didn’t read of my less than happy happy joy joy inauguration day experience, or hear about the purple tunnel of doom, or purple-gate, or the bad side of crowds, in general. Well, have no fear, a congressional committee is here:

A report released by a congressional committee yesterday found that "flaws and shortcomings in the planning process" contributed to chaotic conditions around the U.S. Capitol for people trying to attend President Obama's inauguration in January.

Thousands of people complained that they were stuck in slow-moving lines or tightly packed crowds outside entrance gates to the Capitol area, causing them to miss the ceremony even though they had tickets.

An executive summary of the report said the main cause of the breakdown was a flood of people, many without the proper tickets, who overwhelmed the entrance gates.

The document also pointed to insufficient signs, poor coordination among law enforcement agencies and a lack of personnel to keep order and provide information to visitors. Officials at the multi-agency command center were not aware of the problems in some ticket lines, it said.

The report was drawn up for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies by several law enforcement agencies that worked on the event, led by the Secret Service. Only an eight-page executive summary was released because the full report contained sensitive security information, according to the committee.

The main cause of there being too many people for them to deal with was that there were too many people?

. . . no one could have possibly foreseen. . .

Maybe the actual report reads differently, but this summary basically puts everything in the passive voice. Memo to committee: Deficiencies didn't just “happen.” Who was responsible for not assigning personnel to direct the lines? Who made the decision to wait until after 8am to open the gates? (Note: 8am is the official story; I believe they opened later—more like 9am.) Who drew up the plan that had security at the parade four cops deep six hours before anyone was there while having zero police presence with the crowds outside the purple gate?

But, OK, the past is the past; we want to look forward—that’s what all the hip kids are doing—how can we turn the page?

The summary recommended setting up a high-level committee to oversee planning and improve coordination for the next inauguration and opening the ticket gates earlier. It called for turning over responsibility for giving directions and prescreening ticket-holders to the congressional and presidential inaugural committees, which could provide volunteers or hire staff for such tasks.

It also suggested that law enforcement officials monitor Twitter and Facebook to keep on top of developing problems.

We need a high-level commission to replace what exactly? Seriously, again, who was responsible for the shortcomings this last time? Will this commission replace Senator Feinstein’s committee? Will it have authority over the DC police? (I can’t wait to get my tickets for that turf war.) Dare I say, “you have to read the page before you turn the page?” Moving on. . . .

And, can you just see four years from now the DC police—or this commission—monitoring Twitter and Facebook, but by that point in history, we are all doing something completely different? I have a better idea: have people monitoring the situation by being there!

As to this "flood of people. . . not having proper tickets," think this one through. . . . Beyond my eyewitness view that everyone around me had purple tickets--we were waving them in the air and chanting, "we have tickets," after all—how many people who thought they were going to sneak into the section would have put themselves through this hour after hour? I would have had much better luck if I had given up my purported purple place of privilege and just hoofed down to the mall. Some I met actually did give up and do just that. If you were thinking that the place I was in was a shortcut to a better view, you would have been disabused of that notion within the first couple of the many couples of hours that most of us were there.

As predicted within hours of the original debacle, this investigation started with a faulty set of premises—that no one could have expected the large turnout and that only a few thousand ticket-holders were inconvenienced—and so it came to a faulty set of conclusions. (Jason Linkins and the gang at HufPo did a better job of assessing the scene within two days of the inauguration.) By not acknowledging the realities of the day, and by not asking who was responsible for the bad planning and decision-making, DiFi and friends have done little more than hand the problem off to the next Congress. . . and the next 10-20,000 poor bastards who will end inauguration day 2013 holding on to unused tickets and unpleasant memories.

Worst. Inauguration investigation. Ever.

* * *

Follow-up/update: I see the The Hill has also posted a story on this report (h/t Peterr). Though both the Washington Post (above) and The Hill were working from the same executive summary, the latter story has a very different emphasis from the headline—“Report: Poor communication led to inaugural snafu”—on down:

An insufficient number of law enforcement officers and the absence of a loudspeaker system led to thousands of ticket-wielding spectators being trapped in a tunnel as officials refused them entry for President Obama’s inauguration.

The problem wasn’t the situation; it was the response to the situation. Got that? Not a subtle difference.

The Hill also provides a link to the executive summary itself (warning: PDF). The ES is more comprehensive than either news article, and it does make a little clearer whom it recommends might be in charge next time (I still shudder at the thought of that turf war), but it maintains the passive voice I criticize above. The “snafu” was poor organization’s fault, it was a lack of coordination’s fault, a lack of loudspeakers’ fault, too many people’s fault—but it was no particular person’s fault.

However, they did get one thing right:

Both Feinstein and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), recognized that the study may not satisfy the thousands of people who were barred entrance.

Also, I have to link to this enormous overhead picture (third one down when you scroll), which shows that 20 minutes after the inaugural ceremony began, there is still plenty of room in one of the purple sections. To me, that says the problem is not that there were too many purple tickets handed out—the problem lay in someone’s lack of ability to get thousands with legitimate tickets from outside the gates, through the entry point (I say point, and not points, because, despite what DC police claimed, I saw with my own eyes that the second gate was not open), through the magnetometers, and into the open area. That takes planning, and it takes personnel, sure, but it is hardly an original problem—someone could have possibly foreseen. . . .

(cross-posted on Firedoglake)

It's Pitchfork Time in America

2009-03-18T01:51:00.003-04:00

AIG hires extra security for its New York offices, newspapers and TV anchors talk of torches and pitchforks, and a senior US senator calls for executives to commit suicide.

And America, rather than ask, “Oh my god, what have we become?” instead, on the whole, screams “Hellz yeah!”

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid has vowed to introduce legislation within the next day to recoup those noisome AIG bonuses, and House Financial Services Committee member Brad Sherman is planning a bill to impose a surtax on executive pay for companies receiving federal bailouts. President Obama is asking his Treasury Secretary to pursue every angle to block payment of the AIG bonuses. . . at least the ones to the Financial Products division. There is, it seems, a contest to see who can claim their pound of flesh in more serious and severe tones.

All well and good. . . not the first time leaders have sought to ride the wave of public outrage. . . but where does it get us?

As onerous as the AIG bonuses are—which is very—they are but a tiny symptom of a thoroughly systemic disease. The $165 million in bonuses due this particular group at AIG make up less than one-tenth of one percent of the insurance giant's entire rescue “plan.”

Problem is, what’s needed is not a rescue plan; what’s needed is a complete restructuring plan to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.

When members of the Capital Markets subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee hold hearings on this bonus battle today (Wednesday), there will no doubt be no shortage of grand and angry words. Executives will be paraded before Congress, and while the seppuku knives will likely stay sheathed, the Representatives will each take turns verbally filleting these Masters of the Universe for all the world—and most of their districts—to see. All, of course, on behalf of the American people, so that these executives can know their—know our—rage.

To which I say: Don’t do me any favors.

If this panel, this committee, this government as a whole wanted to help, they would keep the speechifying to a minimum, and use their time asking tough questions about what was negotiated, who allowed this to happen, and what can be done to prevent this from happening again. "This" being the entire “gives us your money or we blow up your economy” scenario, not just the big bonuses for the architects of our misfortune.

It is believed that the Federal Reserve has doled out something like $1.2 trillion to AIG and a long list of other banks and brokerage houses. It is believed because we don’t know—or, more specifically, we know that the money is gone, but we don’t really know where it went.

It seems almost unfathomable. Almost too big to un-fail. But, if Congress, the President, and opinion leaders are looking for a place to start, perhaps they can start by mustering even a quarter of the outrage they’ve exhibited over the AIG bonuses, and use it to decry the lack of transparency in the TARP and Federal Reserve “rescue” plans. Without that basic knowledge, the way out of this remains a mysterious heap—a heap worthy of anger, fear, angst, outrage, and, for better or worse, pitchforks.

(cross-posted on Firedoglake)

AIG: Putting the Racketeering Back in the Insurance Racket

2009-03-17T01:49:00.005-04:00

So, late Saturday/early Sunday, we learn that AIG, already recipient of some $170 billion of US government coin, is set to pay out $165 million in something called “retention bonuses” to the people in the financial products unit, the very division that brought the insurance giant to its knees. Cue the righteous indignation.

Righteous, but also rightful—this dispersal is outrageous. But while most behind the microphones, on the opinion pages, and in the halls of Congress will declare this the height of hubris, or a simple “screw you” to the American people, they will be missing a slightly more nefarious conclusion:

These are not retention bonuses--this is protection money.

I had a drink with a friend last week--she works for the NYSE in Europe--and she commented that in her 15 years in the market, the march of "progress" has been about who can come up with the next gimmick, the next algorithm that is slightly more nuanced, complicated, and arcane than the previous. Anything that can give you an edge over your competitors. She said you can see similar growth curves repeated in each of the derivatives as they came along: a slow growth start, then a rapid, steep climb, and then a rapid leveling off, followed by everyone rearranging the deck chairs while they scramble for the next hot gimmick. CDOs, CDSs fall into this pattern.

Do not assume that Edward Liddy, the government appointed chairman of AIG, fully understands what went on within the financial products unit, do not assume he understands their "gimmick," but assume that he knows that something is up and that these bonus babies know what it is.

Many more expert than I believe these “smartest guys in the room (AIG edition)” cooked the books—I’d say that’s more than possible--but even if they didn't, Liddy likely fears that without these guys, it might be impossible to sort out what the hell they did.

Libby also worries that they will take this "expertise" somewhere else, and that Somewhere Else, inc., will then have a competitive advantage over AIG, since they will know not only the game last played, and how to play it better, they will know where AIG is on solid ground, and where it is not.

And, worst fear of all: the disgruntled AIG employees will not land a new job, and to make a little cash, or in order to boost their personal stock, or simply out of sheer vindictiveness they will start talking to friends, regulators, and/or the press.

AIG is paying to prevent this from happening. Retention = protection, pure and simple.

Obviously, this not a legal opinion on my part--just an opinion. I would assume that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner can read between the lines, and that he knows what Liddy is really saying here, and that the legalities (such as they are) are little more than window dressing. I assume Geithner has no interest in this all becoming a public bloodbath any more than Liddy does.

One heck of a racket, indeed.

[graphic by twolf1]

(cross-posted on Firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette and guy2k)

FDL will be delivering a petition to Congress telling them to put a stop to this legalized racketeering on Wednesday morning when Barney Frank's House Financial Services Committee holds a hearing on AIG at 10am ET. You can sign it here and leave your comments for Congress.

What Dreams May Come? Rolling Back Media Consolidation and Reforming Campaign Finance in the Wake of Stewart and Cramer

2009-03-16T19:14:00.003-04:00

Perhaps much of this has been said before, but some of the fallout from Stewart vs. Cramer—the calls for changes in the way business “news” is handled—puts some long-simmering arguments about media consolidation back on the front burner.

Media conglomerates do not exist to deliver news, they exist to deliver shareholder value. It is in their interest to fluff the stock market and to curry favor with government regulators so that they can continue to acquire, conglomerate, consolidate, profit, and pay dividends.

There are individual reporters that try to do their jobs, but increasingly with less staff and more demands for additional content. Reporters are rewarded and promoted more often these days not for their clips as much as they are for their rolodexes and their ability to serve the needs of the parent company as detailed above. It is natural for them to want to get ahead and ensure job security. Pissing off powerful contacts doesn't really meet any of these needs as the industry is currently structured.

Is there a fix for this? Yes, but it's a very heavy lift. Roll back media consolidation. Re-impose limits on ownership that existed prior to 1996. Take away special wavers for multiple major channels in single markets.

Yes, it's hard to get to that when the large and ever-growing media conglomerates lobby the heck out of the officials and electeds that would impose such reforms. . . so, we must then examine campaign finance reform as a way of taking the influence of the media conglomerates (and the telecoms that carry so much of our information) out of the regulatory process.

Getting real campaign finance reform is going to be difficult, as you know, since it needs to be approved by the folks that benefit from the status quo. The push is going to have to come from somewhere else. . . perhaps an aggressive Fourth Estate?

And there's the rub. . . .

(cross-posted on Firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette)

Meghan McCain: On Message

2009-03-12T23:30:00.000-04:00

You didn’t really expect Meghan McCain, daughter of Senator John “yes, I may have lost, but I’m still a cranky, idea-free asshole” McCain, to break news during Wednesday’s appearance on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow, did you?

OK, yes yes yes, she has “taken on” Ann Coulter, ~~saying~~ writing ~~out loud~~ in The Daily Beast all the things that, well, 89% of the sentient population already knows. But hey, props where props is due: it’s not like everyone is blogging about how noxious Coultergeist is, now, is it?

So, it wasn’t “breaking” news that we got in a head-scratchingly super-sized double segment, but there was some refreshing honesty—or, if not honesty, at least a sort of self-awareness. You think that I’m going to mention hearing a McCain admit to zero understanding of “economic things”—nah, too easy. Truly old news. But, check this out:

I really think we’re on the precipice of possibly becoming a party that’s irrelevant to young people. It’s truly possible in the next election unless the right politician, the right message, and it starts with message, which I think people are missing, too. . . .

Well, Meghan, they very well might be missing the right message—there was that November election, after all—but that your Republicans are missing that “it starts with message?” We beg to differ:

[House Minority leader John] Boehner reminded Republicans that they are no longer in the business of legislating and should focus almost solely on communicating their message with voters.

"We are in the communications business,” Boehner told the crowd during his opening remarks. “We can build a new Republican majority one issue at a time."

You see, SunTanMan gets it. Or, rather, he gets what you think he should get. So does your party Chair, Michael Steele, who seems to believe that all the Republicans need do to win over African American voters is use words like “bling” more often. So does every one of your best and “brightest” who have beaten a path to Rush Limbaugh’s ~~door~~ ass—because who better to lead your message quest than a guy who is all about maximizing ratings to boost ad revenue?

What John, Michael, you, and yours don’t get, however, is that it doesn’t start with the right message.

Take it from an old communications consultant, choosing a future for your country, choosing a way out of the mess we are in, is not like choosing between Coke or Pepsi. Not really. Elections might have some elements of marketing (OK, many elements), but governing—governing is different.

Governing first takes ideas. You start with the right ideas, Meghan. After you find those, after you let go of the failed ideologies that have cast you to the margins of electoral relevance, after you understand that America already tried it your way and no matter how you “message” that, America now knows that your way sucked, after you do that hard work, then you can craft a message to sell your brave new party.

But, don’t listen to me (really, I beg you, don’t listen to me)—I’m just a blogger. You, Meghan, you know all about this; you’re a, uh, um, well, you’re also a blogger. But, you’re a privileged, progeny-of-the-powerful blogger. . . who loves the Republican Party, who wants to save the Republican Party, who gets to post at TDB and go on Maddow because you are, without any particularly noteworthy ideas, without any other qualifications than being John McCain’s daughter, now a face of the Republican party. . . .

Hmmm, I guess, once again, McLuhan is right: the medium is the message.

(a version of this post previously appeared on Firedoglake)

Rush, Republicans Gaze at Navels while America Looks Elsewhere for Leadership

2009-03-06T00:10:00.000-05:00

Conn Carroll, quoting an Ann Althouse quip fed through the Instapundit filter, should know that two wrongs don’t make a, um, Next Right:

The White House, the DNC, and Americans United for Change are all apparently about to double down on their "Republicans equal Limbaugh" strategy. My thoughts on this are summed up by a comment on Ann Althouse's blog highlight by Instapundit: "Does anyone really think Team Obama's focus on Limbaugh reflects their success so far in office."

This should be the only talking point when conservative surrogates are brought on TV to talk about this compleltely [sic] fake controversy: The only reason the Obama White House is attacking Rush Limbaugh is because Obama already has been a complete failure in office. Since his election in November the market has lost 25% of its value and every single one of his policy announcements has only been followed by hundreds of thousands of more lost jobs.

Obama, the Democrats, and the left desperately want to change the subject from Obama's performance. That is why they are investing time, resources, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in demonizing Rush. How does any of this help the American people?

Representative John Boehner (Rushlickin’ – OH) seems to be reading off of the same fax (via Benen):

[I]n a carefully calculated campaign, operatives and allies of the Obama administration are seeking to divert attention toward radio host Rush Limbaugh, and away from a debate about our alternative solutions on the economy and the irresponsible spending binge they are presiding over. This diversionary tactic will not create a single job or help a single family struggling in today's economic crisis. And that is where our focus should be.

“Calculated campaign?” “Operatives and allies?” Puh-leez! The most calculated, orchestrated part of this whole hullabaloo is the daily gust of ill wind blowing from the blowhard himself—and Rush is going to ride the breeze for as long as he can.

The establishment media, never one to turn down an easy ~~story~~ ~~controversy~~ slap fight might be focused on Limbaugh—they are the ones that have asked questions of Gibbs, Emanuel, etc., after all—but "Team" Obama seems focused on fixing the fucking the disaster left to them by "Team" Bush-Cheney. The Recovery Act, the budget fixes—hell, the whole damn budget—today’s healthcare summit, Clinton’s Mideast initiative, the initiative to cut military waste, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, this week’s release of the OLC memos. . . that's what the White House is focusing on.

Where is the Republican "loyal" opposition focusing? They are busy fearmongering about "socialism," saying "no" without proposing any implementable alternatives, and seeing who can kiss Rush's butt closest to his anus.

And how’s that workin’ for ya’? As the latest NBC/WSJ poll will tell you, not very well:

President Obama's favorability rating is at an all-time high. Two-thirds feel hopeful about his leadership and six in 10 approve of the job he's doing in the White House.

. . . .

By comparison, the Republican Party — which resisted Obama's recently passed stimulus plan and has criticized the spending in his budget — finds its favorability at an all-time low. It also receives most of the blame for the current partisanship in Washington and trails the Democrats by nearly 30 percentage points on the question of which party could best lead the nation out of recession.

Which goes straight to bolstering an observation made today by Steve Benen:

I don't think Boehner fully appreciates the point of "diversionary tactics." As the Minority Leader sees it, Democrats don't want to talk about their economic policies, so they're talking about Limbaugh.

But here's the follow-up question: why would Democrats be reluctant to talk about their economic policies? Americans like the Democrats' economic policies. The policies make sense, especially when compared to Republican rhetoric about spending freezes, tax cuts, deficit reduction, and a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Put it this way: with Democrats enjoying a huge advantage on economic policy in the midst of an economic crisis, and with the GOP's economic agenda coming straight out of the Hoover playbook, what possible incentive does the majority party have in mulling "diversionary tactics"? Why engage in a "change-the-subject campaign" when your side is winning the most important economic debate in generations?
Not that this White House hasn’t demonstrated an ability to walk and chew gum at the same time—so, when asked about the rush to Rush, most on the Democratic side of the aisle seem to have an idea of just how toxic this “leadership” fight is for the Party of No.

As for that party, since the Republicans are not in the governing business, but, as Boehner confessed in January, are instead “in the communications business,” then I guess it makes sense to worship a guy whose driving force/life purpose/raison d’etre is to drive up his own Arbitron ratings.

(a version of this column was previously posted on Firedoglake)

Worst. Inauguration. Ever.

2009-01-21T02:57:00.003-05:00

So, I don't even know how to write about this without it sounding like bitter grousing, and frankly, I'm a little embarrassed to have to report that after five hours of standing in the bitter cold, getting pushed and shoved to the point where you start to feel for your safety, and being herded to and fro, the most I can report about the inauguration is that the 21-gun salute is really loud.

So loud, in fact, you can feel it outside the security perimeter.

That's right, despite having in hand magic purple tickets, and lining up hours before the gates opened, I saw nothing. I heard, beyond the guns, nothing.

I followed all the signs, I went to the appointed spot. . . and what? There was almost no one who had a clue of what was to happen next. Some people who seemed to know what they were talking about stood on the back of a garbage truck and shouted--sans any amplification--so that all anyone could make out was that they were pointing in a certain direction. Most of us followed.

The gates weren't to open till 9, so it made sense that the movement stopped at that point, but what is inexplicable is what happened after that point.

The lines for the Purple Tickets and the lines for the Yellow Tickets crisscrossed at numerous points causing every bit of the road-blocking mayhem you would imagine.

Over the next 90 minutes, I traced a circle with a diameter of no more than 20 feet. We then came to a stop just outside a fence within within full view of the metal detectors and the uniforms that were staffing them.

And, there I stood. I stood next to women from Florida who had saved for months to make this trip. I stood next to a woman separated by the crowd from her husband. I stood next to people who had been standing in that same spot since 5am. . . since, in one case, 3am.

At about 10:30, two women with Day-Glo vests who seemed like they were speaking in some official capacity, pushed down the middle of this crowd, explaining to a few people at a time that they would be opening a second entry directly behind us. But looking there, I saw no signs of movement. This news, however, caused about a third of the crowd to turn 180 degrees and try to work themselves against the general flow. Needless to say, a nightmare.

And then things began on the Hill, you could tell because they would stop letting people in every time anyone of national import was being led to the Capitol balcony. I knew this because a guy next to me had CNN on his mobile phone.

And then we would move just enough to cause everyone behind me to surge forward. I was pushed. I was crushed. A woman in a wheelchair repeatedly was pushed into me--I finally had to warn her that I was about to fall on the woman and she needed to back off.

And all the time I am watching other people go through the metal detectors that were meant for my crowd and me. It gradually became very clear that they were drawing from another line--a line that had formed hours after mine.

But there was no escape--no chance to leave my area. I was boxed in. I couldn't join the line of latecomers.

People chanted, "Let us in." People chanted, "We have tickets." People chanted "we are purple," waving their precious 4x6 inch tickets in the air.

And then they just started begging and shouting. Let us in. We have tickets. We've been here for hours. Let us in.

And then it was noon. And everything stopped.

And then a 21-gunner of deafening percussion.

And then, shear, crushing disappointment descends over the crowd. Unlike the smiles on all the faces you walked by on, say, election night, or in the metro last night, this crowd had to summon up all they had left after multiple hours in the cold to give a tepid ovation to the inauguration of a new president.

I know because this was how I felt. And then I felt selfish for feeling that way. But the disappointment, amplified by the cold, and the overall expenditure of energy over not just this election cycle, but the eight years of Bush misrule, really made it hard not to feel utterly crestfallen.

I probably would have rather witnessed this moment from just about anywhere else than where I was.

And then I overhear a conversation between people waiting on my side of the fence with a well-insulated security officer on the other side. Those with me were begging to be let in for the speech. The officer said, "I can't tell you anything that will make you feel better."

I look up over this post, and, believe it or not, I don't think I even begin to capture the chaos and lack of organization--and, of course, the frustration and anger that this caused in all of us out there.

The crowd began to disperse. I was happy to have a little breathing room, but still extremely unhappy. And then a wild quiet fell over everyone. It was actually quite amazing to behold when I distanced myself from my disappointment. Small groups gathered around people's phones and radios to listen to the inaugural address. And there they stood and strained. I tried to listen, but I couldn't really hear, so I decided to just keep walking. . . and as I walked, I kept walking by these groups of people listening to the speech. I have a picture of some folks gathered around a police canine car that had its windows open and the radio turned up. Dogs barked along with the new president.

What is the takeaway from all of this? I honestly am not sure. At least not yet. I will have to watch the swearing in and speech on YouTube. And maybe after a day or two, I will be able to evaluate the actual transition of power, the little "moment" between Justice Roberts and President Obama that people are already telling me about, the speech. But now?

(btw, I have just spoken with someone who had a blue ticket, and had an almost identical experience)

Maddow, Herbert, Website Urge US to Get Afghanistan Right

2009-01-15T01:37:00.003-05:00

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I can’t believe I just had to type that, but when it comes to US policymakers vis-à-vis America’s war footing, the Obama Administration is looking all too ready to embrace the melodic cynicism of Pete Townsend.

Rachel Maddow began a Tuesday segment on Afghanistan by reporting with a degree of disbelief that Bush appointee Lt. General Douglas E. Lute would stay on as Barack Obama’s War Czar (officially the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan). Add Lute to a team that already includes Bush warriors Robert Gates and David Petraeus, along with a new Secretary of State that has a few authorization for military force votes under her belt, and one might be inclined to start checking one's pockets for missing change.

Take, for example, a front-page article from yesterday’s Washington Post reporting that the incoming president plans to sign off on a Pentagon plan to send an additional 30,000 US troops into Afghanistan. This “plan,” says WaPo, is designed to “help buy enough time for the new administration to reappraise the entire Afghanistan war effort and develop a comprehensive new strategy for what Obama has called the ‘central front on terror.’”

Escalate the conflict while you think about what to do. . . isn’t that the kind of “shoot first, ask questions later” approach voters rejected just ten august weeks ago?

Some folks have a different idea: How about we ask those questions first? One group of such people have put together Get Afghanistan Right, a campaign and affiliated website that opposes the escalation and calls for an informed discussion of alternative, non-military strategies to end the conflict and stabilize the region. (Full disclosure: I know many of the people working on GAR, and was an early supporter of their efforts.) Maddow gave getafghanistanright.com a nice plug in her Tuesday broadcast.

Another prominent voice asking the Obama Administration not to deepen the quagmire is New York Times columnist Bob Herbert. “Get out of it as quickly as you can,” says Herbert.

Herbert draws a comparison with an incoming Kennedy administration escalating US involvement in Vietnam while it tried to define its strategy.

Herbert, Maddow, and the writers and activists at Get Afghanistan Right want some questions answered by the soon-to-be president before any more treasure is expended in the Afghani conflict; as I see it, they go something like this:

What are the goals of US involvement?
What is the main objective of the military strategy?
What would “victory” look like, and what allows US troops to leave?
How will we pay for an escalation in Afghanistan?
What diplomatic and non-military aid initiatives will the US pursue in the immediate future?
What role does Pakistan (and other surrounding nations) play in this conflict and its solution?
What kind of permanent presence in Afghanistan does the Obama Administration envision, and how does that benefit America and the region?
What is the plan for de-escalating the US military presence?

Without answering those questions—both internally and publicly—Obama’s posture on Afghanistan fails to make the transition from campaign rhetoric to presidential leadership. It is up to a President Obama to do more than escalate while he thinks about what to do next; he has to make the case for his defense policy—he owes it to the troops, he owes it to the country, and, not least, he owes it to himself.

Only in that explanation, that teaching moment, the answers to the questions asked above will Americans have any hope to believe we, uh, won’t get fooled again.

(cross-posted on Firedoglake)

Bush’s Final Presser: Redefining Success, One Rooftop Rescue at a Time

2009-01-13T04:05:00.004-05:00

Still-President George W. Bush, looking on Monday morning like most of America now feels, stood before the White House press corps one last time to express his undying gratitude for their piss-poor performance during his eight-years in office. From groggy start to rambling finish, it was a jaw-dropping performance.

In keeping with a long-standing pattern, Bush repeatedly “admitted” that his “rhetoric” might not have been right (“Obviously, some of my rhetoric has been a mistake.”). All the deeds were fine; he just didn’t sell them well. For the Boy King, this has always been the PR presidency; he is now just more loose-lipped about it. Like with so many crappy, Peter-Principled CEO types, he has made the strategy the tactic.

In that vain vein, the most startling moment to my ear and eye was Bush’s perception of his failure to respond to Hurricane Katrina with anything resembling appropriate gravity:

Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed.

You know, I remember going to see those helicopter drivers, Coast Guard drivers, to thank them. . .

Wait, hang on—I just have to interrupt for minute: “Helicopter drivers?” “Coast Guard Drivers?”

I think we call them “pilots.”

OK, carry on. . . .

You know, I remember going to see those helicopter drivers, Coast Guard drivers, to thank them for their courageous efforts to rescue people off roofs -- 30,000 people were pulled off roofs right after the storm moved through. That's a pretty quick response.

Could things have been done better? Absolutely. Absolutely.

But when I hear people say the federal response was slow, then what are they going to say to those chopper drivers or the 30,000 that got pulled off the roofs?

Amazing, right? It doesn’t even occur to Bush that having to pull people off of roofs is wholly emblematic of the slow response. Last time I checked, the standard advice when faced with a big hurricane is not “First, get on your roof.”

As for the levees breaking, the floods, well, “no one could have anticipated. . .” except, well, um:

In the 48 hours before Hurricane Katrina hit, the White House received detailed warnings about the storm's likely impact, including eerily prescient predictions of breached levees, massive flooding, and major losses of life and property, documents show.

A 41-page assessment by the Department of Homeland Security's National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC), was delivered by e-mail to the White House's "situation room," the nerve center where crises are handled, at 1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, the day the storm hit, according to an e-mail cover sheet accompanying the document.

The NISAC paper warned that a storm of Katrina's size would "likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching" and specifically noted the potential for levee failures along Lake Pontchartrain. . . .

In a second document. . . a computer slide presentation by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, prepared for a 9 a.m. meeting on Aug. 27, two days before Katrina made landfall, compared Katrina's likely impact to that of "Hurricane Pam," a fictional Category 3 storm used in a series of FEMA disaster-preparedness exercises simulating the effects of a major hurricane striking New Orleans. But Katrina, the report warned, could be worse.

The hurricane's Category 4 storm surge "could greatly overtop levees and protective systems" and destroy nearly 90 percent of city structures, the FEMA report said. It further predicted "incredible search and rescue needs (60,000-plus)" and the displacement of more than a million residents.

So, that’s four days notice—or six days before those helicopter drivers got to work—but the “Hurricane Pam” simulation, that was done a full year before Katrina.

But why stop there? Bush was actually warned about the problem with the New Orleans levees over four years before Katrina; his response:

Funding for flood prevention was slashed by 80 per cent, work on strengthening levees to protect the city was stopped for the first time in 37 years, and planning for housing stranded citizens and evacuating refugees from the Superdome were crippled. Yet the administration had been warned repeatedly of the dangers by its own officials.

In early 2001, at the start of Mr Bush's presidency, his Government's Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) warned that a hurricane hitting New Orleans would be the deadliest of the three most likely catastrophes facing America; the others were a massive San Francisco earthquake and, prophetically, a terrorist attack on New York.

So, I guess, in a manner of speaking, his “response” wasn’t slow at all—Bush laid the groundwork for those wonderful rooftop photo-ops four years in advance.

This sort of truth-squading could be done with just about every response Bush gave in his presser. And it should be done, not just today, but for every instance of Bush legacy burnishing we will be forced to endure, push back on, fight, and re-fight for many years to come. Though it might be rare to see the burnishing this unvarnished, it has been made apparent from these instant re-writes on current events, through the neocons’ Vietnam revisionism, to the recent attempts to trash-talk the New Deal that nothing is safe or sacred.

Certainly not the truth.

. . . .

On a related point, nothing exemplifies just what a petty, egomaniacal, vindictive jerk this president was, is, and will always be than his treatment Helen Thomas. Bush had stopped calling on Thomas long ago, the White House press office even tried to take away her front row seat—a “punishment” for asking tough questions—but to not give her the honor of the first or last question at his final presser was, to my mind, classless.

cross-posted on Firedoglake

Bush at Walter Reed:Between Chicken and Egg, I’ll Go with Chicken

2008-12-23T02:05:00.009-05:00

Yesterday’s headline news, in all its various establishment media permutations, was full of stories about Still-President George W. Bush paying a visit to wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center this morning. A couple added that this was the site of one of his administration’s most serious scandals.

Those reports were talking about the appalling conditions at Walter Reed given broad attention after Dana Priest and Anne Hull published a front-page exposé last year in the Washington Post—they were not talking about the scandal that is the cause of so many of those wounds. That would be the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

When I heard the story, I smirked and shook my head in disgust, figuring it was just another lame, lame duck attempt at legacy burnishing.

Well, it was that, but it was so much more. . . or less.

It turns out, as was later reported, that Bush had an MRI on Monday morning at Walter Reed for a chronic pain in his left shoulder. Yes, that’s right. Bush went to WRAMC because he wasn’t feeling well.

I suppose it’s a chicken and egg thing. . . kind of. It certainly would have looked bad if word had gotten out that Bush was at the medical center and didn’t stop in to look after the men and women who owe their disability checks to his vainglorious boondoggle. But would George W. have gone out there at all if he hadn’t had his own needs to look after?

My guess is a certain “no.”

Bush, even at his most “engaged” was never big on confronting his mistakes—especially ones made so (pardon this) flesh. The man was, is, and will forever be a reality chicken.

Now, as anyone looking at an unemployment check will confirm, the decider has decided he’s decided enough. He’s over it, done his bit, given what he can give. You don’t like him being president any more? Fine, he just won’t be.

So, while it’s just me s’posin’, I’m going to say that if Bush hadn’t felt the need, there’s no way he goes to Reed.

Which might have been just fine with the brave men and women confronting reality every day. . . whether they choose to or not.

(cross-posted on Firedoglake, The Seminal, and guy2k)

Big News

2008-12-01T03:13:00.002-05:00

Starting today, I join Jane Hamsher and all the other great folks at Firedoglake, where I’ll be serving as editor (I think that’s my official title) and posting under my actual, meatspace name. This is an exciting opportunity, and I am honored to now be among the smart, aggressively progressive voices at FDL.

What does that mean for my lil’ ol’ blogs, guy2k and capitoilette? Well, the short answer is: I don’t know. It’s going to take a few weeks for me to get my bearings, and until then, my own output might drop a bit (might. . . still not sure. . . we’ll see). Once I do have things better figured out, I expect that there will be posts that don’t necessarily fit on Firedoglake, which I will put up here; conversely, some of the things I will be responsible for over at FDL, like breaking news, have not typically been the stock and trade of my personal blogs.

Dare I suggest that you might want to look at all three places?

I was surprised to discover that The Jeffersons ran for 11 seasons—let’s hope that I can enjoy even a fraction of that success in my own move on up.

(PS I will continue to occasionally cross-post to The Seminal, where you can still find all kinds of good work. Over the last 16 months, The Seminal has been extremely supportive of me and my writing, for which I am very grateful, so don’t forget to show them some love.)

Brennan and Gates: a Big Win, a Continued Loss

2008-11-26T07:13:00.006-05:00

Sunday before last, Glenn Greenwald provided substantial pushback on the possibility of one-time George Tenet deputy John Brennan heading the CIA for the Obama Administration. Ten days later, Brennan withdrew his name from consideration, specifically citing a “firestorm” in the “liberal blogs” for blocking his ascent. Well, here’s what I think of that:

It's not so much a victory for the blogosphere as it is a victory for transparency, openness, and the media—be it establishment or new—paying attention to the things that matter to America.

The Obama transition team might be vetting the heck out of prospective administration hires to make sure that they haven't done anything embarrassing on a personal or financial level, but it is up to blogs and other media professionals to vet our next government for things that embarrass us as a nation. That means torture, that means rendition, that means completely mishandling and exploiting the threat of terrorism.

Only with a full airing and open discussion of the viewpoints of potential Obama teammates can we really get the change we voted for, the change we deserve.

. . .

Only hours later, word got out that President Elect Obama would retain the services of Bush Defense Secretary Robert Gates, at least for the foreseeable future.

On Tuesday evening, Jane Hamsher appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show to raise doubts about the pick because it hinted at a continuation (an escalation?) of failed tactics in the Afghan theater—which it most certainly does.

However, that is only one part of the problem with this non-pick pick.

Gates, of course, was already covered with the stink of Iran Contra when he was nominated to head the CIA by President Reagan in 1987. So covered, in fact, he had to withdraw from consideration. Four years later, after a report from the panel investigating Iran Contra found that Gates had lied to investigators about what he knew and when he knew it, but that his lies did not rise to the level that warranted prosecution, Daddy Bush re-nominated Gates for DCI. It was a long, contentious confirmation hearing, but Gates lied his way through it—again contradicting the findings in the Iran Contra report.

All of that is to say that Robert Gates is no straight shooter. He is a self-serving liar who has always put his own image and career ahead of duty, honor, and country. There is no reason for a President Obama to expect anything different from the DoD version of Gates just because he is in a different job, or because he is reportedly building his dream house for a much anticipated retirement.

Further, Gates does not really represent “competence.” As Glenn Greenwald recently observed, you can't really separate competence and ideology:

[I]sn't competence determined, at least in part, by ideology? For instance, isn't someone's support for the Iraq War -- the most consequential political issue of the last decade, at least -- a negative reflection on that person's judgment, competence and expertise, just as someone's opposition to that war is a positive reflection on those attributes? How can selecting only pro-war Cabinet members and advisers be justified on the grounds of "competence" -- as though one's support for the War has nothing to do with competence?

If you want to competently re-focus US foreign policy away from the interventionist model, you have to appoint people at the very top who buy into your new approach. Just because Gates has appeared relatively rational when compared with his predecessor, Don Rumsfeld, does not mean that he represents a shift in strategic thinking. If he did, we would have seen a drawdown of our presence in Iraq, and far less reliance on reckless, immoral, and counterproductive aerial bombing in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Leave it to the careerists to provide the continuity—the folks at the top need a vision. We want something more than technocrats; the moment calls for something more than technocrats.

Additionally, since the Truman Administration, we've only had three Secretaries of Defense that were Democrats. Democratic Presidents need to promote the idea that there is a liberal point of view on military engagement. If we keep promoting Republicans to this post, we are going to keep getting advice shaped by their worldview.

The left—or even the center-left—should do a better job of promoting their military minds. Perhaps this community needs to produce more leading voices, but there are certainly enough liberal thinkers in this field to provide more than enough potential staff for top jobs at the Pentagon.

(cross-posted on firedoglake)

GM’s “no plan” more of a plan than Citi’s “plan”

2008-11-25T06:55:00.003-05:00

Days after the Big Three automakers were sent home without any supper—told to come back after Thanksgiving with a “plan” that shows them to be deserving of $25 billion of ~~taxpayer~~ ~~congressional~~ Treasury largess—Super-sized financial institution Citibank was handed roughly that much cash in an attempt to prevent the bank’s complete collapse. (That is new money added to the estimated $25 billion Citi has already received under the Paulson TARP/injection/bailout extravaganza.)

But one of the big car manufacturers, General Motors, already seems to be ahead of Citibank as far as making plans for financial stability is concerned. GM’s Buick division announced that it has cancelled its five-year, $40 million endorsement deal with star golfer Tiger Woods, while Citibank has confirmed that its 20-year, $400 million deal for the naming rights to the new home of Major League Baseball’s New York Mets is still very much a “go.”

GM’s Chief Executive, Richard Wagoner, was lambasted for taking a private jet to last week’s congressional hearings (and that was bad form), but just a week earlier, the company had already decided to let go of two of its five private jets (all five are leased, not owned). General Motors has also made many other (arguably small) cuts in an effort to trim costs—from slashing worker uniform stipends and buying cheaper wipe-up towels, to trimming the size of test fleets and turning off escalators at corporate HQ after 7 p.m.

These cuts could fall under the “penny wise and pound foolish” category, but they stand in striking contrast to the kinds of cuts Citi has made:

At Citigroup, executives had announced more than 27,000 job cuts, including ones shed through the sale of the company’s Indian outsourcing operations and German banking franchise and prior layoffs. But the bank stepped up its efforts on Monday with plans to eliminate 17,000 workers in the coming months. It will also cut an additional 7,000 or so employees by divesting businesses in the future and could shed more jobs through attrition.

The job cuts would be in addition to about 23,000 layoffs already this year and leave the bank with about 300,000 employees, down from its peak of about 375,000 in the fourth quarter of 2008. And Citi executives said there could be more layoffs ahead as they moved forward with plans to reorganize the company next year.

Meanwhile, back at GM, failure to get a bridge loan this year could result in the direct loss of some 120,000 jobs—with an additional seven-and-a-half times as many spin-off jobs potentially lost as a ripple effect. That’s over a million jobs total from GM’s hardships—and that doesn’t figure in Ford or Chrysler.

Though the failure of another big financial institution is likely not in the country’s economic interests, either, based on recent history, it is hard to argue that Citi is more deserving of its backstop than America’s automakers.

(photo by me)

(cross-posted on The Seminal and guy2k)

Don’t make him angry. . .

2008-11-19T07:18:00.005-05:00

. . . because you won’t. . . oh, never mind.

"I pretty well understand anger," said Senate Majority leader Harry Reid after the vote of the Democratic caucus.

"I would defy anyone to be more angry than I was but I also believe that if you look at the problems we face as a nation, is this a time we walk out of here saying, 'boy, did we get even?'"

By now you know about the vote within the Democratic Caucus that allowed Republican sock-puppet Joe Lieberman to retain his seniority and his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

In a deal that was brokered behind the scenes over the weekend, Lieberman was forced to step down from his seat one the Environment and Public Works Committee. (A tiny slap on the wrist, but I will try to make a little lemonade here by hoping that this might help kill off once and for all the Lieberman-Warner global warming “effort”—which was a faux-solution designed to check off a box on a congressional to-do list without actually doing anywhere near enough.)

Of course, I, and any other honest, caring Democrats, don’t give a damn about how angry Harry Reid might have been. I’ve been angry at Joe Lieberman for a decade now because of so very many things that he has done to betray his party, his state, and his country—but anger has nothing to do with it. Neither does “getting even.”

Nor, honestly, does the possibility that Lieberman will make the 60th vote in a cloture-ific super-majority (congratulations to our latest Democratic Senator-elect, Mark Begich, by the way). That was just another straw man thrown out there by Senate leaders and media elites to distract us from what this was really all about.

Even if Minnesota’s Al Franken and Georgia’s Jim Martin go on to join the other 56 Democrats and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the Senate majority, Joe Lieberman (Party of One-CT) will never be the 60th vote on any matter of importance—and I promise you that will include attempts to end roadblock Republican filibusters. Never.

Remember, Joe was a member of the “Gang of Fourteen,” a group of supposedly “centrist” Senators that undercut Democratic attempts to stop a series of ultra-right Bush nominees from littering the federal bench.

Remember, Joe wouldn’t even vote for cloture on a non-binding resolution to condemn the lawlessness of former AG Alberto Gonzales—when even seven Republicans found the courage to do just that.

Remember, Joe was the guy who just last month warned how dangerous it would be if Democrats controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress. . . and campaigned like crazy to try and prevent that from happening.

(Some talking heads like to tell us that Joe won’t matter because Republicans like Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and/or Arlen Specter will be willing to join with Democrats on a whole host of issues; color me unconvinced—I could give numerous examples of all three talking tough and then voting with their party on a litany of important issues.)

No one was seriously arguing that Lieberman should be kicked out of the Democratic caucus (because no one ever asked me), but those that understand the dynamics of power were arguing that Joe needed to be stripped of his committee chairmanship. If Democrats had done that, it would have permanently marginalized Lieberman with little effect on any majorities Dems might amass. Lieberman might have switched parties (though I don’t think that was anywhere near certain, since he had little to gain by doing so), and I expect that he will vote with the Republicans just as often as a nominal “Independent Democrat” because Lieberman has shown time and again that he has no respect for the Democratic Party or, honestly, much of what it stands for. And he has proven that he has no sense of allegiance or gratitude to those that have helped him in the past.

What Joe was never serious about was resigning his seat so that Connecticut Governor Jody Rell, a Republican, could appoint a Republican to replace him. Never would have happened. Not in a million years. I know, and you know, Joe is all about Joe (and practically nothing else), and Joe would never willingly give up the power or the fundraising prowess of his Senate seat. (Seriously, I was amazed resignation was even being discussed on the news shows—it was absurd.)

Now, thanks to Reid’s all-anger-no-action reaction, and similar behavior from a majority of his colleagues, we have the worst of all possible worlds (yes, I said possible—see above). Lieberman will never help his caucus in any meaningful way—I just know this—but he will hurt them, likely repeatedly.

As head of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Joe the Chairman could have used his position to investigate many of the misdeeds of the Bush Administration, but he did nothing of the sort (absolutely nothing). But in that same seat during the Obama Administration, just watch and see if Lieberman suddenly finds the need for scrutiny and oversight (and lo unto the Democrats if they then try to remove or silence him—not only would taking away his gavel mid-session require a Senate vote subject to filibuster, it would unleash the right wing and establishment media hounds).

Watch and see if Joe doesn’t convene some new “gang” of some number—a group of pretend moderates who only exist to thwart Obama Administration or progressive Democratic initiatives—to create for himself a sense of importance and a renewed media interest. I am expecting this, too.

And watch, because you will have no choice but to watch, as the Liar of the Senate goes on news show after news show, filling the designated Democratic seat, and then using the opportunity to bash President Obama or fellow Democrats. He did it throughout the campaign, and, indeed, throughout the last four years (or more), and that was when he supposedly had something to lose; I can pretty much guarantee this will come to pass.

For a generation now, party loyalists and pundits alike have turned with some self-assurance to the pseudo-amusing saw “Democrats never fail to seize defeat from the jaws of victory.” But with the elections of 2006 and 2008, it seemed, if just for a moment, that Democrats might have put that one to bed—but that was before Joe made Harry the Hulk angry. . . . And, I guess Nevada’s answer to Bruce Banner was right—at least for me—I don’t like him when he’s angry.

(With apologies to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby)

(cross-posted on The Seminal)

Too late

2008-11-17T07:33:00.001-05:00

Over the next two months, Mr. Paulson must impose some coherence and clarity on the bailout. Otherwise he will only fan anxieties and mistrust, which will undermine the effectiveness of his good decisions and amplify the fallout of his bad ones. With markets gyrating wildly, and the economy deteriorating rapidly, the nation needs clear leadership and a sound plan.

After spending the entire length of today’s lead editorial demonstrating just how badly Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has handled the economic crisis and ensuing attempts at a “bailout,” the New York Times undermines its point with this half-hearted admonition. Honestly, if the Times editorial board knows of a good decision by Mr. Hanky, might they have shared it?

The nation does need clear leadership and a sound plan, but, to date, the nation has gotten neither. As pointed out in this very editorial, any “modest easing the bailout initially brought about in the credit markets is now being reversed over doubts about the Treasury’s stewardship of the plan.” Paulson’s actions have been reactive and woefully behind the curve; he lacks anything like a coherent strategy, and the moves he has taken seem less motivated by an interest in protecting wage-earning Americans than in protecting Paulson’s pals and ideological biases.

There is also zero transparency—something many econ-watchers consider of utmost importance to stabilizing credit markets. . . not to mention the stock market. Beyond the lack of oversight as to what the banks are doing with the billions in bailout cash that they have received (much will end up going to bonuses, balance sheets, and the buy-ups of competing banks), it has now been revealed that there was another $2 trillion (!) dispensed by the Fed that is completely opaque.

Paulson has refused to use any of the TARP cash to help homeowners facing foreclosure, even though that might slow the bleeding and even stimulate some local economies, and now he has also rejected using his precious kitty to help the auto industry. Though it’s true that an auto-industry bailout administered with a similar chaotic attitude and the same lack of rules and requirements would do little in the long run to fix systemic problems in this sector, deciding that Goldman Sachs was “too big to fail” but GM is not is as stupid as it is hypocritical.

Given that record, I have no need to extend the rhetorical lifeline the Times so generously offers. Clear leadership and a sound plan cannot come soon enough, and given the noted rapid deterioration of the economy and the number of Paulson’s remaining days, it probably won’t.

(cross-posted on guy2k and The Seminal)

New York State Budget: More Regressive Ideas From Gov. Paterson

2008-11-14T05:49:00.003-05:00

Two days ago I wrote about the proposal to jack up NYC transit fares by 28% and how that was in effect a regressive tax on the sort of New Yorkers whom could least afford it—and how this was being done at the same time New York State Governor David Paterson has refused to consider what’s come to be called the “millionaires’ tax.”

Well, just to add insult to injury, here’s another winner of an idea: New York State has started collecting a $25 child support enforcement fee from those that needed government help to recover child support payments.

To be fair, this insult was originally the brainchild of the Bush Administration and its rubberstamp Republican Congress. As part of the “Deficit Reduction Act of 2005,” the federal government started charging states a $25 fee for child support recovery. However, from then, till recently, New York had covered that fee for its needy residents.

But with the looming state budget crisis, no more. Governor Paterson has decided the state can no longer afford this level of generosity.

Millionaires, however, well, have no fear, the governor is looking out for you.

The “millionaires’ tax” is pretty simple as tax proposals go. Income over $1 million would be taxed an additional 1%, and income over $5 million would be taxed .75% more. New York has one of the highest concentrations of wealth in the country—just one-half of one percent earned 28% of the taxable income back in 2005. The proposed tax surcharge could bring in about $1.5 billion in the first year—or roughly three-quarters of the expected NY budget shortfall.

The millionaires that would have to pay this tax—or at least a few loud ones, like the ubiquitous, selfish, and inevitably wrong Donald Trump—argue that if you make them pay this increase, they just might leave New York. I say, as did the NY Daily News recently, call their bluff.

As the Daily News observed, New Jersey imposed a much larger increase on all incomes over half-a-million a few years back, and they got incredible bang for their buck—about $26 coming in for every $1 fleeing the state.

And they were fleeing New Jersey!

Even New York City’s billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg—who had previously been heard whining about a surcharge—now says this millionaire flight threat is a lot of hooey:

I can only tell you, among my friends, I've never heard one person say “I'm going to move out of the city because of taxes.” Not one. Not in all the years I've lived here. You know, they can complain, “Oh got my tax bill, it's heavy.” But they've not ever thought that. My friends all want to live here and understand the value.

He oughta know, right? That is his cohort.

As for the rest of us—that would be 99.5% of us—well, I’m guessing a lot of us have a little less mobility. And since Paterson knows he’s got a captive “audience,” I guess it’s up to this rest of us to pick up the slack, balance the budget, and so, look out for the Governor’s interests. . . whether we want to or not.

(PS The information on the child support fee comes from the office of Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), who has called on NY State to stop collecting this regressive tax, and has asked the Senate to increase funding to child support enforcement.)

(cross-posted on guy2k, The Seminal, and Daily Kos)

Prop 8: Nate Silver has my back

2008-11-13T04:02:00.002-05:00

Last week, I wrote this:

The implication [of the AP story] is clear, and has been said outright, first-time non-white voters brought into the system by the Obama campaign provided the margin necessary to pass Prop. 8.

Except that if you look at the data from the AP exit poll [now a pdf], that isn’t clear at all.

Unless there are cross-tabulations from this poll that have not been made publicly available, I cannot see how the numbers support the certitude of the claim. . . .

Democrats overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, first-time voters overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who are in accordance with Obama’s positions overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who supported Obama in the primary overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who voted for Obama on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8.

Five days later, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight wrote this:

Certainly, the No on 8 folks might have done a better job of outreach to California's black and Latino communities. But the notion that Prop 8 passed because of the Obama turnout surge is silly. Exit polls suggest that first-time voters -- the vast majority of whom were driven to turn out by Obama (he won 83 percent [!] of their votes) -- voted against Prop 8 by a 62-38 margin. More experienced voters voted for the measure 56-44, however, providing for its passage.

Now, it's true that if new voters had voted against Prop 8 at the same rates that they voted for Obama, the measure probably would have failed. But that does not mean that the new voters were harmful on balance -- they were helpful on balance. If California's electorate had been the same as it was in 2004, Prop 8 would have passed by a wider margin.

Furthermore, it would be premature to say that new Latino and black voters were responsible for Prop 8's passage. Latinos aged 18-29 (not strictly the same as 'new' voters, but the closest available proxy) voted against Prop 8 by a 59-41 margin. These figures are not available for young black voters, but it would surprise me if their votes weren't fairly close to the 50-50 mark.

There are few quantitative analysts I would trust more than Silver (and his presidential predictions were the best of the lot this cycle), so it is a real confidence builder for me to know that when he looks at the data he sees the same thing that I see—or, more accurately, he doesn’t see the same thing that I don’t see. There is nothing in the exit polling to support the narrative that the first-time African American voters brought to the polls by Barack Obama’s campaign provided Prop. 8 with its margin of victory—and, in fact, most evidence seems to point the other way.

Silver believes that the ballot measure owes its passage to older voters, noting that if no one over 65 had voted, Prop. 8 would have failed by “a point or two.” Silver suggests that as that demographic ages out of, um, life, bigoted efforts such as this one will eventually fail.

While I tend to agree overall—the younger you go, the more comfortable most seem with diversity—I think that Silver should take a look at the family factor. Those that are married and have children (31% of the sample) voted in favor of the measure 68% to 32%. All others voted against the gay marriage ban by a ten-point margin.

(I know what you’re thinking: “All others” includes most of the voting homosexual population. That’s probably true. Alas, there is no cross-tabulation for “married heterosexuals without children”—however, because the “all others” segment is so much larger than the “married with children” slice, even if you could subtract the gay vote, I suspect that this segment would still have rejected the proposition.)

The question becomes “Are beliefs about gay marriage static?” Will the young segments that voted against Prop. 8 continue to feel the same way, even as they age and/or have children? To ask it another way: Do those married with children tend to favor the ban more because they would tend to be older than those without kids, or did those that are younger reject Proposition 8 because they had yet to reproduce?

To my eye, the history of civil rights movements in the United States would favor Silver’s take on the numbers, but the numbers don’t confirm this, at least not with absolute certainty. I guess, as they—and the numbers—say, time will tell.

(cross-posted on Daily Kos, guy2k, and The Seminal)

NYC subways: fare hikes, service cuts. . . is this the change we need?

2008-11-12T04:54:00.005-05:00

Tell me you didn’t see this one coming. MTA Chief Elliot Sander announced this week that economic times being what they are, the Transit Authority’s deficit was going to balloon to $1.2 billion, and so service cuts and substantial fare hikes were now inevitable.

The MTA had already slated eight percent fare increases for next year; they now say they will need an additional 20% to make up shortfalls caused by increased fuel costs and decreasing property values (the MTA gets a good chunk of its budget from property and property-related taxes). If an increase like that is approved, the price of a single ride on a New York City subway or bus would climb above $2.50.

Capital improvements and service expansion are already lagging far behind the needs of a city expecting to grow to a size of 10 million in the next decade, but even if Sander gets all of his fare boost, service and improvements will still have to be cut back to trim the deficit.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority is hardly the only state agency facing a budget crisis as the Bush economy and the Wall Street meltdown send shockwaves through the New York economy. (For those of you not familiar with NYS politics—yes, the city’s transit system is run by the state. It was taken from the city during the 1970s fiscal crisis, and NYC never got it back.) Governor David Paterson, who has already negotiated state budget cuts, is demanding the legislature return for another round—and for that round, Paterson is proposing a 25% haircut.

Still, Paterson has made it clear: there will be no state tax increases.

What Paterson means by that, of course, is that he will not countenance a state income tax increase. The ousted Spitzer Administration had floated the idea of a “millionaires’ tax”—a surcharge on the highest of highest incomes to help New York meet its obligations—but Paterson, formerly a state representative from Harlem and once considered a liberal, has thrown that baby out with Eliot’s bathwater.

Of course, a 28% fare increase—more than a dollar extra for every roundtrip commute—would effectively (if not officially) be a tax increase. . . except this one would primarily affect the other end of the economic ladder.

To reiterate: For millionaires, who don’t take the subway all that much—no new taxes; for working class New Yorkers, who do use the subway daily to get to and from work—how does paying an extra $260 per year sound? (That’s per person—if there are kids that use the subways and busses to get to school, multiply accordingly.)

NYC is the economic engine of New York State. (And city residents already pay a disproportionate amount to fill state coffers—they pay out more than they get back in services and benefits.) The fuel for that engine is the city’s workforce—and that workforce relies in large part on public transportation to get to work. Without a functioning and affordable public transit system, New York City’s commerce—the state’s engine—would grind to a halt.

So why is it that all anyone can think of when times get tough is to cut service and raise fares? Why take one of the great advantages that New York has over most other American cities and hobble it? Is it that hard to think of anything else to do?

Let me give it a try. . .

First off, it is high time that control of the city’s mass transit system is returned to the city. For far too long, income from the total of state transit systems has gone disproportionately to commuter rail; subway and bus riders have effectively been subsidizing suburban rail commuters. That has to stop. I’m not saying that commuter rail isn’t important—it is vital—but the subway system is more vital to the workings of New York City, and it deserves the full benefit of its income.

Second, how about some creative thinking?

New York City and State pay more in taxes to the federal government than either gets back—so it is in America’s best interest to keep the New York economy growing. So how about we integrate some of NYC’s financial problems into the national thinking on bailouts and stimulus?

If Washington is going to spend billions to bailout the auto industry, why not spend a couple billion to help out systems that are better for the economy and the environment than cars? Seriously, not only does the MTA itself provide good-paying jobs to thousands of New Yorkers, capital improvements would provide even more, and the service that the MTA provides increases the productivity of practically all city businesses. Backstopping automobile manufacturers will cost tens or hundreds of billions, and I can’t even begin to tell you how much of that will go to the credit divisions, or legacy costs, or executive compensation, or shareholder value. I can pretty much guarantee that one or two billion to the MTA will deliver much more bang for your buck.

Here’s another idea: The coming infrastructure bill. . . what says infrastructure more than subway and light rail? Why shouldn’t the New York congressional delegation insist that this promised investment in infrastructure pick up the tab for system upgrades and expansion? Let fares go to the day-to-day operating costs. For all the reasons cited above, I am pretty sure that few infrastructure investments will provide better ROI.

I got another: What say we reduce the burden of rising fuel costs by making the New York transit system one of the stars of the new green economy? Spur plug-in hybrid innovation by promising the best technology a crack at replacing all of NYC’s busses. Fund an initiative to find a self-sustaining way to generate all the electricity needed to run the subways. Yes, that’s dreaming big, but a) not that big, and b) isn’t that the change we need?

So there you go—in fifteen minutes, I just outlined three (or was that four?) possible alternatives to fare hikes and service cuts. And I am just doing this on my own, pro-bono. There are staffs of paid experts and consultants at the MTA’s and the government’s beck and call—where are their ideas?

Indeed, I’ll go a step further: where is the political leadership? Why is it that the best anyone can think of is to make the poor and working class suck it up, pay more, and make do with less? What makes that leadership? That’s the simpleton’s solution. That’s the coward’s way. Why should we reward that?

When I went to the polls here in Manhattan last week, I didn’t just vote for change at the federal level; I voted for my US Representative, and my state senator and assembly member, too. Two years from now, I’ll vote for all of them again, and a Senator. I expect them to be full participants in promoting the vision and the programs that were highlighted in the campaign of our president-elect. What better place to begin than right here at home?

(cross-posted on guy2k, Daily Kos, and The Seminal)

Electoral shift more about embracing Democratic values than transcending race

2008-11-11T06:13:00.003-05:00

Last Thursday, I wrote that Obama’s path to victory in this election—a strategy that embraced core Democratic values instead of pandering to the center-right—had left me feeling validated if not vindicated for two decades of advocating just such an approach.

Well, thanks to Stanley Greenberg, writing in today’s New York Times, you can now color me vindicated, too. Greenberg, who was Bill Clinton’s chief pollster and one of the men most responsible for reinforcing the notion of “Reagan Democrats,” has decided to finally lay that frame to rest:

I’m finished with the Reagan Democrats of Macomb County in suburban Detroit after making a career of spotlighting their middle-class anger and frustrations about race and Democratic politicians. . . .

For more than 20 years, the non-college-educated white voters in Macomb County have been considered a “national political barometer,” as Ronald Brownstein of National Journal described them during the Democratic convention in August. After Ronald Reagan won the county by a 2-to-1 margin in 1984, Mr. Brownstein noted, I conducted focus groups that “found that these working-class whites interpreted Democratic calls for economic fairness as code for transfer payments to African-Americans.” So what do we think when Barack Obama, an African-American Democrat, wins Macomb County by eight points?

I conducted a survey of 750 Macomb County residents who voted Tuesday, and their responses put their votes in context. Before the Democratic convention, barely 40 percent of Macomb County voters were “comfortable” with the idea of Mr. Obama as president, far below the number who were comfortable with a nameless Democrat. But on Election Day, nearly 60 percent said they were “comfortable” with Mr. Obama. About the same number said Mr. Obama “shares your values” and “has what it takes to be president.”

I was never comfortable with Greenberg’s attributing all of the Democrats’ problems in Macomb to what is, not to put too fine a point on it, racism. Though I don’t doubt that this segment of voters contains racists, I’ve often thought that this rationale sells these people short, and lets the Democrats off too easy. Pardon the pun, but I felt that the racism Greenberg measured in Macomb was only skin deep.

Missing from Greenberg’s old equation were Democrats able and willing to sell the Democratic brand. It was easy for white voters in Macomb to feel that the Democratic Party had turned away from them because in many ways they had. Running scared since 1972, and more so after 1980, Democrats kept quiet about or even abandoned many of the policies and programs once championed by the party—programs that directly helped working class voters like the ones Greenberg studied.

The void created by the Democrats’ ambivalence to their own legacy was exploited by the continuance of the Republican’s infamous “southern strategy,” and filled by rightwing myths like “the Cadillac-driving black welfare cheat”—myths that were allowed to metastasize into full-blown frames. By the time Greenberg brought his white suburban voters into a focus group, the Democrats were no longer the party of New Deals and Great Societies so much as they were the party of over a decade’s worth of government’s failures. That these failures—especially as they intersected lives in Macomb—owed much to the budgetary, trade, and labor policies of Republicans notwithstanding.

So, naturally, to Greenberg, what he heard in the focus groups throughout the 1980s and ‘90s expressed itself as racism (I’ve moderated enough focus groups to easily see how this “finding” could have emerged). And, naturally, as Macomb voters moved to a place of trust vis-à-vis candidate Obama, Greenberg sees this as an evolution away from that racism.

I don’t believe that adequately explains the shift any more than I believe that the election of America’s first bi-racial president means that racism is no longer an American problem. And I think I now have some statistics to back me up.

If last Tuesday was all about America getting comfortable with one candidate’s race, and little else, then Barack Obama should have outperformed other Democrats running down ticket—many of whom are still the plain old white guys that Greenberg’s groups had rejected. Fact of the matter, however, is that down-ticket Dems did better than Obama.

Paul Krugman highlights the work of Andrew Gelman, who demonstrated that congressional Democrats averaged 56% of the two-party vote, while Obama netted 53%, and where Obama influenced a 4.5% swing when compared with John Kerry in 2004, Democratic races for Congress garnered an average swing of 5.7%.

Specifically in Greenberg’s favorite locale, Macomb County, MI, Senator Carl Levin—considered by most to be a liberal Democrat—grabbed over 63% of the vote. Obama managed 53.4% in the same county. (Of course, Levin had the advantage of incumbency, but it is hard to imagine that his visibility was any higher than Obama’s during the last year.)

The point of all this is to say that if all Barack Obama had to do for these lost Democrats was go on TV a few times and prove he wasn’t some scary hybrid of racial stereotypes, it’s hard to explain the performance of other Democrats this cycle. Even more telling, if previous Democratic deficits were about racism—implied or overt—then what explains how a man of color outperformed his white predecessor in a county that is almost 93% white?

I do not think that Obama’s win in places like Macomb is simply the result of his proving that he puts his pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else. Indeed, that is the added barrier that Obama had to overcome, and not some special advantage. For this demographic, or even for this psychographic, the difference in this race was not race, but reality. Voters like this group in Michigan have suffered badly under Republican rule; the change in this election is that Democratic candidates were not afraid to explain this.

Barack Obama and most of his party’s candidates did something Democrats had failed to do far too often in the last three decades: they criticized Republican ideology while embracing traditional Democratic values. Dem candidates attacked tax cuts for the rich, corporate favoritism, and the cronyism and corruption that have been the hallmarks of Republican rule. Democrats then offered an alternative that emphasized tax equity, and policies that could benefit the many like universal healthcare, energy innovation, green jobs, reinvestments in infrastructure, better-funded schools, and more college aid. In short, Democrats returned to campaigning as Democrats.

Don’t get me wrong, as I said up top, I am thrilled that Stan Greenberg has chosen to put his “Reagan Democrats” to bed. But when Greenberg goes to sing his lullaby, it would be beneficial for future Democratic candidates if he made sure he knew the right tune.

(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Doubt, by the numbers

2008-11-07T06:41:00.003-05:00

A snippet of “analysis,” courtesy of the AP (here via the LA Times), seems to have dictated what fast became the received wisdom on the “be careful what you fish for” conundrum of the Obama campaign’s drive for increased minority turnout vis-à-vis the very unfortunate passage of Proposition 8 (eliminating marriage rights for same-sex couples):

California's black and Latino voters, who turned out in droves for Barack Obama, also provided key support in favor of the state's same-sex marriage ban. Seven in 10 black voters backed a successful ballot measure to overturn the California Supreme Court's May decision allowing same-sex marriage, according to exit polls for The Associated Press.

More than half of Latino voters supported Proposition 8, while whites were split. Religious groups led the tightly organized campaign for the measure, and religious voters were decisive in getting it passed. Of the seven in 10 voters who described themselves as Christian, two-thirds backed the initiative. Married voters and voters with children strongly supported Proposition 8. Unmarried voters were heavily opposed.

The sound of this report, what with it being grounded in a poll and all, makes it hard to refute—and, indeed, it seems few have tried. The language in the top paragraph, or some slight variant, appears in most of the major reports I’ve read or heard in the two days since the November 4th referendum. The implication is clear, and has been said outright, first-time non-white voters brought into the system by the Obama campaign provided the margin necessary to pass Prop. 8.

Except that if you look at the data from the AP exit poll, that isn’t clear at all.

Unless there are cross-tabulations from this poll that have not been made publicly available, I cannot see how the numbers support the certitude of the claim. The above narrative is a possibility, but so are many other stories—and I feel that other conclusions are likely just as viable.

First off, while it is true that African American voters in California did vote overwhelmingly for the marriage ban—70% YES to 30% NO—Latinos were more closely divided: 53% YES to 47% NO. That’s significant, but not in the same league as the margin from African American voters. It also should be noted that African Americans accounted for 10% of those polled; Latinos, 18%.

More to my point, however, is the missing cross-tab. There are a good number of sub-samples available in the published results (more on some of those in moment), but “African American first-time voters that voted for Obama-Biden” or even just “African American first-time voters” are not among them.

It is quite possible that with that many cuts, the sample size is too small to yield results that pass statistical muster, but without the ability to run my own cross-tabs, I can’t tell you.

Here’s what I can tell you (based on what is posted), and it is some of these numbers that make me at least harbor doubts about the “new Black voters are conservative on social issues” storyline.

(The first number in brackets is the % of the total sample, the second number is the % that voted YES, and the third is the % that voted NO.)

Democrats (42) 36 - 64
Republicans (29) 82 - 18
Independents (28) 46 - 54

Is this the first year you’ve ever voted?
Yes (14) 38 - 62
No (86) 56 - 44

Union Household (25) 56 - 44
Non-union Household (75) 50 - 50

Who did you want to win in the nomination?
Dems for Clinton (15) 39 - 61
Dems for Obama (23) 31 - 69

Suburban voters (51) 59 - 41
Large city voters (45) 45 - 55

Do you think Obama’s positions are:
Too liberal (32) 74 - 25
Too conservative (7) (sample too small)
About right (56) 31 - 69

Voted for Obama (60) 32 - 68
Voted for McCain (38) 84 - 16

Democrats overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, first-time voters overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who are in accordance with Obama’s positions overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who supported Obama in the primary overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who voted for Obama on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8.

Urban voters rejected the measure by a ten-point margin, while suburban voters supported it by eight. I don’t know what the racial breakdown is of California’s suburbs, but I would assume that large cities would have the larger African American populations.

The only category that could have been influenced by the “Obama effect” (for lack of a better name) is the union vote. It has been widely reported how active organized labor was in getting out the vote for Barack Obama, and, as you see above, union households favored the marriage ban by 12 points. However, and this is a big however, this number might also be deceptive because the “households” category, almost by definition, includes a lot of families. Married with children (31% of the sample) voted YES 68% of the time (all others—69% of the sample—rejected Prop. 8 by ten points).

While none of what I have just detailed rules out the hypothesis that first-time African American voters brought to the polls by the Obama candidacy proved the difference in the passage of Proposition 8, I think there is enough here to call that narrative into question. For all we know, most of the 70% of the African American population that voted YES on 8 would have come out and voted even if Obama wasn’t on the ballot. Conversely, it might be the case that the 30% of African Americans that rejected the measure are the ones voting for the first time. Might be—I just can’t tell.

And if I can’t tell, I am figuring that most of the establishment press parroting the AP’s narrative probably can’t tell either.

No doubt there is much to be done to combat the homophobic bias evidenced in this tally, and in similar outcomes in other states, but the discussion about what is to be done could be influenced by perceptions of which groups bear responsibility for the final outcome. Indeed, the way Obama governs could be shaped by the larger story about what kinds of voters provided the president-elect’s margin of victory. Without the ability to further analyze the exit poll data, we should not accept the center-right narrative or claims of any particular Obama effect.

(cross-posted on guy2k and The Seminal)

Yes We Brand

2008-11-06T07:53:00.003-05:00

It’s been a long time coming.

The first time that I ever voted was the first time that I was eligible—the 1980 general election. And if that’s not enough of a humbling admission, I’ll go a step further: I voted for Barry Commoner. It was a protest vote in a non-competitive state, but the reasons for that protest formed the foundation of my complaints about Democrats—or, if not Democrats, Democratic strategy—for the rest of my political life.

At least until today (more on that in a minute).

I didn’t have a neat phrase in 1980, because the trend did not yet have a name, but I would eventually topline my criticism by saying, “Why vote for the ersatz Republican when you can vote for the real thing?”

The point of that flip and bitter but all too often prescient comment was that Democrats, by pursuing what came to be called “Reagan Democrats”—conservative or right-leaning voters who, by some freak of demographics or inertia, had failed to change their party affiliation even though their worldview had left the Democratic party with the creation of Medicare, the signing of the Voting Rights Act, or protests over the Vietnam War—had so muddied their brand that they turned off or failed to inspire their core audience while failing to convince the so-called center that a second-to-market mishmash was better than almost just-as-good as the original. And when Democrats did manage to tilt Reagan-ward enough to grab the odd brass ring, the result was even worse—for the party and the country—for, you see (and this quickly became the corollary to my first proclamation), in a contest between an old Republican and a new Republican, the victor is guaranteed to be a Republican.

By the 1990s, the Democratic elite had evolved enough to believe that they shouldn’t so much follow the voters as they should follow the money. The Democratic Party of Bill Clinton did manage to divert their way some of the rivers of cash that had been flooding GOP coffers, but, to my mind, they did so at the expense of the party’s natural reservoir of votes.

Flash forward another decade, and suddenly “values voters” were all the rage. Democrats, apparently, didn’t know how to talk about religion—apparently the font of all positive values—and so were losing white evangelicals. Until Democrats embraced the naturally conservative (some might say reactionary) beliefs of this highly organized voting bloc, they would never feel the electoral love. The dreadful results that befell Democrats for more than a decade, or, depending on how you evaluated, perhaps more than a generation, stood as some kind of unmistakable verification of this trope.

Chasing Reaganites, millionaires, or evangelicals all required the same tactic, however (and not surprisingly), and that was a full-throttle fudge to the right.

What the ever-shifting boundaries of this monotonous, mono-directional, and monumentally flawed brand strategy always failed to understand, though, was that the group of habitual voters that Democrats supposedly just had to win-over to win was so very much smaller than the group of natural constituents who had become disenchanted enough to disengage, or who had never been inspired enough to participate in electoral politics at all.

To again put it in a tidier package: Instead of chasing the money, Democrats should have been chasing the voters. There are so many of them naturally predisposed to love Democrats for who they are—or recently were—that if you could just get them excited and invested in the outcome, they would swamp any numbers you might be able to pick off from the Republican base.

Which brings us to the here-and-now.

Though I have some reservations about what type of president Barack Obama might be, I have never failed to praise him as a candidate. The genius of the Obama campaign, and what I have loved most about the last year, is the ability of Barack Obama to reach out to, excite, inspire, and organize a part of the Democratic base that had long been either taken for granted or left for dead. With the voter registration drives, the canvassing, the outreach, and the GOTV, Obama didn’t have to sweat the right—he had something bigger and better: a broader definition of the American electorate.

For, while Obama and his surrogates might talk of an America beyond partisanship, the values and, indeed, the proposals that drove the Obama campaign were solidly Democratic. The fairness he preached and the cool reason he seemed to embody contrast favorably with the selfishness and base emotion of the Bush years. Proposals like more equitable taxation, universal access to affordable, quality healthcare, and a belief in the importance of organized labor feel like the Democratic Party I remember from my pre-voting youth. And a pro-active, fact-based approach to combating global warming is a refreshing reproach to the reactive and reactionary anti-science stance that drives today’s GOP.

Embodied in all of that, too, is the inherently Democratic (and democratic) sentiment that we are all in this together, rather than the sad ethos of the right—that we are all in this for ourselves.

And, amazingly, in returning to Democrats’ core principles and best practices, and not pandering to the Reagan Democrats or values voters or whatever we will now decide to call them, Obama was able to win (win back?) some of their votes. Obama’s victory is a monument to good branding—and I mean that wholly as a statement of admiration (I am, after all, a brand strategist). Barack Obama and many other Democrats this cycle (and I would be remiss if I did not single out DNC Chair Howard Dean for special praise) have proven that crafting a strong brand, behaving as a distinct brand, and not being simply a “not” brand—and then selling the distinct benefits of that brand—is the best route to victory.

After a lifetime of railing and flailing, I feel, well, not vindicated, but, at least, validated. I hope that Obama and other Democrats see it the same way—even if not all will admit it in public. Candidate Obama preached hope while implementing a strong and identifiably Democratic brand strategy. My hope is that President Obama sees that this would be a solid strategy for governing, as well.

(cross-posted on guy2k, The Seminal, and Daily Kos)

Bears repeating. . .

2008-11-04T06:11:00.001-05:00

More Why We Vote

2008-11-04T05:19:00.003-05:00

Whether you live in the swingin’est swing state or a solid party stronghold, there are many important reasons to vote on Tuesday beyond the crucial contest at the top of the ticket. Over at The Seminal, where I blog as “Red Wind,” I have been running a series highlighting some of these races.

Each post includes a little bit about the candidate and his or her positions, a brief synopsis of the contest, and a sample campaign ad. I’ll admit to putting in a fair amount of work on this little project, so I would greatly appreciate it if you click on over and take a look.

More importantly, if you live in one of these places or know someone who does, make sure to vote yourself and/or get out your friends’ votes.

I covered a passel of races yesterday (and there are a couple of updates), and here are a few more:

Alaska – Mark Begich for Senate

Nebraska – Scott Kleeb for Senate

New York – Alice Kryzan for Congress

Washington – Darcy Burner for Congress

In case you missed it, I urge New Yorkers to vote Row E (Working Families Party)—with the exception of the US House race in NY-26 (there, please vote for Kryzan on the Democratic line). New York is a fusion voting state, and a vote in Row E counts just as much as a Dem vote, but says you want to see our state and country move in a progressive direction.

And, just in case you just woke up from a 21-month nap, today is November 4th—aka ELECTION DAY! Get out there and vote. Call your friends—all of them—and make sure that they get out and vote.

Finally, and this is important, you can use the tools below to find your proper polling place, if you vote on an electronic machine, check your paper receipt to verify your votes, and if you have any trouble voting, and want legal advice, call 1-866-OUR VOTE.

And, trouble or no, you can be, like, your own election monitor: video your vote and post it at VideoTheVote.org

OK, that wasn’t quite “finally”. . . this is:

To everyone who has volunteered, donated, phone-banked, organized, or blogged this election cycle: Thank you and good luck!

(cross-posted on guy2k)

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Why We Vote

2008-11-03T07:11:00.004-05:00

Whether you live in the swingin’est swing state or a solid party stronghold, there are many important reasons to vote on Tuesday beyond the crucial contest at the top of the ticket. Over at The Seminal, where I blog as “Red Wind,” I have been running a series highlighting some of these races.

Each post includes a little bit about the candidate and his or her positions, a brief synopsis of the contest, and a sample campaign ad. I’ll admit to putting in a fair amount of work on this little project, so I would greatly appreciate it if you click on over and take a look.

More importantly, if you live in one of these places or know someone who does, make sure to vote yourself and/or get out your friends’ votes.

California – three House races and four ballot measures. (~~post will be up this afternoon~~it's up)

Georgia – Jim Martin for Georgia.

Michigan – Mark Schauer for Congress.

Minnesota – Al Franken for Senate. (~~post will be up in a couple of hours~~ it's up)

New Mexico – Martin Heinrich for Congress.

North Carolina – Kay Hagan for Senate

Oregon – Jeff Merkley for Senate.

Virginia – Tom Perriello for Congress.

Washington – Reelect Governor Chris Gregoire

And, as I have mentioned before, if you live in New York, vote Working Families Party, Row E.

It’s been a long, hard road to get to this point, but we have to push on for one more day. If everyone who reads this could make a few extra phone calls, or volunteer to help get out the vote, we can all cross the finish line in style. . . and with a smile. . . or something like that.

(cross-posted on guy2k)

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Endorsement: Vote Row E for WFP

2008-10-31T06:45:00.004-04:00

If you are a regular reader, then I expect that you can guess what I’m going to say when it comes to choosing the next president of the United States. If you call yourself a liberal, or a progressive, or a lover of individual liberty and reproductive choice; if you want quality, affordable healthcare to be accessible to all Americans, if you want to restore some modicum of equity to the tax code, and some degree of sanity to our foreign policy; if you want to approach energy independence and global warming with the seriousness and the urgency those matters deserve; if you want a government staffed with experts instead of ideologues that is led by a man who trusts his intellect enough to be intellectually curious—or even if you just want some portion of all this—then there is only one way to vote on Tuesday: Barack Obama for president.

BUT, if you live in New York, there are actually two ways you can vote for Obama—you can go the old, stodgy, predictable route, and pull the lever or mark your box for Barack Obama (D), Democrat, or, if you really, really believe in all that I laid out above, you can vote for Barack Obama (WFP), Working Families Party.

As I have discussed in elections past, New York has something called “fusion” voting; this allows a candidate to receive the endorsement of more than one party, and to be listed on the ballot under multiple party lines. All the votes for a single candidate, however, are combined to count for the final total. A vote for Obama on Row E—the Working Families Party line—counts just as much as a vote on the Democratic line. . .

. . . and more.

More, because the Working Families Party is more than a social club or the vestigial organ of some moribund New York political machine, the WFP is an active and organized party that has been fighting for progressive ideals for better than a decade. They stand for universal healthcare, tax equity, and equal representation under the law. They have lead fights for a living wage, for green jobs and green homes, and affordable housing. They advocate for better-funded public schools so that every child gets a quality education, no matter where he or she lives, and the public financing of elections to get the corrupting corporate money out of the system.

Earlier this month, WFP teamed with organized labor and local activists to protest New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Speaker Chris “Quisling” Quinn’s naked power grab vis-à-vis term limit “extensions.” The effort did not prevent Bloomberg from buying enough influence on the City Council to win his rule change, but working together, the WFP and the people of NYC made a lot of noise and called a lot of attention to the undemocratic way that the mayor and speaker went about overriding the existing law. Because of this effort, the fight to unseat these arrogant plutocrats next year has a big head start.

By voting for Obama—and for other cross-endorsed candidates—on the Working Families line, you are showing candidate and country that you stand for these kinds of progressive ideals. A vote for BHO (WFP) Row E shows that you want our next president to embrace the progressive potential that has brought you to his side.

By voting for state candidates on the WFP line, you will help shape the next generation of New York politics. Democrats are poised to gain the majority in the state senate for the first time in over 40 years, and thus will control both houses of the legislature and the governor’s mansion. It will present a tremendous opportunity to reform a dysfunctional state government; a vote for the Working Families Party will give the left better leverage in the battles that lay ahead.

The Nation, The Albany Project, Daily Gotham, and Democrats.com have all endorsed a Row E WFP vote because they all know that strengthening the role of the Working Families Party is a solid step toward building a statewide progressive movement. Voting for Obama on the same line brings that voice to the national dialogue.

Barack Obama has promised change, and I truly believe that his election will noticeably transform the style and substance of our national leadership. What kind of change, how much change, and how directly that difference will affect the lives of hard working Americans, however, still hangs in the balance. The progressive direction advocated by the Working Families Party is the kind of change Democrats have been fighting for lo these many months and years—it is change we can believe in.

Vote Row E.

UPDATE: Thanks to the courts, we have a late-breaking exception to this rule in Western New York—NY-26, to be specific. Please vote for Democrat Alice Kryzan on the Democratic line.

(cross-posted on guy2k, The Seminal, and Daily Kos)

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NYT endorses Obama; makes a mistake

2008-10-27T08:25:00.003-04:00

Easy, easy. . . there’s a semicolon up there. . . so, please, just read on.

In a lengthy editorial, published Friday, the New York Times endorsed Barack Obama for president:

The United States is battered and drifting after eight years of President Bush’s failed leadership. He is saddling his successor with two wars, a scarred global image and a government systematically stripped of its ability to protect and help its citizens — whether they are fleeing a hurricane’s floodwaters, searching for affordable health care or struggling to hold on to their homes, jobs, savings and pensions in the midst of a financial crisis that was foretold and preventable.

As tough as the times are, the selection of a new president is easy. After nearly two years of a grueling and ugly campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States.

Mr. Obama has met challenge after challenge, growing as a leader and putting real flesh on his early promises of hope and change. He has shown a cool head and sound judgment. We believe he has the will and the ability to forge the broad political consensus that is essential to finding solutions to this nation’s problems.

In the same time, Senator John McCain of Arizona has retreated farther and farther to the fringe of American politics, running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism. His policies and worldview are mired in the past. His choice of a running mate so evidently unfit for the office was a final act of opportunism and bad judgment that eclipsed the accomplishments of 26 years in Congress.

Well, I could quibble with just what the Times might call McCain’s accomplishments, for most are ephemeral or singularly self-serving, but that is nothing to get too up in arms about really. Within a generation, John McCain’s “career,” for lack of a better term, will be reduced to an interesting footnote; the editorial’s reference to “accomplishments” might be little more than a rhetorical flourish.

Instead, I take umbrage at an assumption quite casually tossed out in the section of the endorsement labeled “National Security”:

The American military — its people and equipment — is dangerously overstretched. Mr. Bush has neglected the necessary war in Afghanistan, which now threatens to spiral into defeat. The unnecessary and staggeringly costly war in Iraq must be ended as quickly and responsibly as possible.

While Iraq’s leaders insist on a swift drawdown of American troops and a deadline for the end of the occupation, Mr. McCain is still talking about some ill-defined “victory.” As a result, he has offered no real plan for extracting American troops and limiting any further damage to Iraq and its neighbors.

Mr. Obama was an early and thoughtful opponent of the war in Iraq, and he has presented a military and diplomatic plan for withdrawing American forces. Mr. Obama also has correctly warned that until the Pentagon starts pulling troops out of Iraq, there will not be enough troops to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

[emphasis added]

While I wholeheartedly advocate a quick end to the US occupation of Iraq, even if the next president engineers that exit, there will not be enough troops to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan—because as numerous experts, General McKiernan, and even Barack Obama understand, there is no military solution to the problems in Afghanistan.

While I personally find it infuriating enough that it is accepted as dogma that the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was moral, necessary, and unavoidable (if our goal was to apprehend Osama bin Laden, other options were on the table), it is now even more exasperating to hear talk of escalation in that theater treated as if it were America’s strategic “big duh” moment. The Times’ asserted consensus ignores both recent experience and centuries of history, but, even more concretely, it ignores the current debate.

Take, for example, former New York Times Berlin and Istanbul Bureau Chief Stephen Kinzer, writing earlier this month in the Boston Globe:

The McCain-Obama approach to Afghanistan, like much of US policy toward the Middle East and Central Asia, is based on emotion rather than realism. Emotion leads many Americans to want to punish perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. They see war against the Taliban as a way to do it. Suggesting that victory over the Taliban is impossible, and that the United States can only hope for peace in Afghanistan through compromise with Taliban leaders, has been taken as near-treason.

. . . .

In fact, long-run success in Afghanistan - defined as an acceptable level of violence and assurance that Afghan territory will not be used for attacks against other countries - will only be possible with fewer foreign troops on the ground, not more.

A relentless series of US attacks in Afghanistan has produced "collateral damage" in the form of hundreds of civilian deaths, which alienate the very Afghans the West needs. As long as the campaign continues, recruits will pour into Taliban ranks. It is no accident that the Taliban has mushroomed since the current bombing campaign began. It allows the Taliban to claim the mantle of resistance to a foreign occupier. In Afghanistan, there is none more sacred.

The US war in Afghanistan also serves as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. It is attracting a new stream of foreign fighters into the region. A few years ago, these jihadists went to Iraq to fight the Great Satan. Now they see the United States escalating its war in Afghanistan and neighboring regions of Pakistan, and are flocking there instead.

Civilian deaths alienating a local population, the honor inherent in resisting a foreign occupier, a US presence serving as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda—it all should sound chillingly familiar to even the most casual news consumer (no less a newspaper). It certainly seems to for at least one US Senator. . . and that one would be Russ Feingold:

We need to ask: After seven years of war, will more troops help us achieve our strategic goals in Afghanistan? How many troops would be needed and for how long? Is there a danger that a heavier military footprint will further alienate the population, and, if so, what are the alternatives? And – with the lessons of Iraq in mind – will this approach advance our top national security priority, namely defeating Al Qaeda?

. . . .

Regardless of whether we send more troops, we need to understand that, as in Iraq, there is ultimately no military solution to Afghanistan's problems. Unless we push for diplomacy and a regional approach, work to root out corruption, stamp out the country's narcotics trade, and step up development and reconstruction efforts, Afghanistan will probably continue its downward trajectory.

Not every paragraph of the Feingold piece is as clear as the ones above (if those are even that clear); in many ways, Feingold hedges his bets by refusing to rule out options and posing much in the form of questions. But at least he is asking a question. The New York Times (and, to an extent, the man that they endorsed) has not.

To be fair to Obama, I think he has made it pretty clear that he is a stronger advocate for multinational, diplomatic solutions than either Bush or McCain. But the nature of that diplomacy is yet undefined, while the “need” for more US troops in Afghanistan is a stated given. If and when a President Obama must make his plans more concrete, he would do well to enlist Feingold as an ally, and let the Democrat from Wisconsin ask him the questions quoted above. Obama would also be well served by talks with people who think like Kinzer:

Even if the United States de-escalates its war in Afghanistan, the country will not be stable as long as the poppy trade provides huge sums of money for violent militants. Eradicating poppies is like eradicating the Taliban: a great idea but not achievable. Instead of waging endless spray-and-burn campaigns that alienate ordinary Afghans, the United States should allow planting to proceed unmolested, and then buy the entire crop. Some could be turned into morphine for medical use, and the rest destroyed. The Afghan poppy crop is worth an estimated $4 billion per year. That sum would be better spent putting cash into the pockets of Afghan peasants than firing missiles into their villages.

Deploying more US troops in Afghanistan will intensify this highly dangerous conflict, not calm it. Compromise with Al Qaeda would be both unimaginable and morally repugnant, but the Taliban is a different force. Skillful negotiation among clan leaders, based on a genuine willingness to compromise, holds the best hope for Afghanistan. It is an approach based on reality, not emotion.

Perhaps the New York Times editorial board should give Kinzer a call as well.

* * *

But the Times actually needn’t go out of house. Here’s Nicholas Kristof from their own editorial pages:

Our intuitive approach to fighting terrorists and insurgents is to blow things up. But one of the most cost-effective counterterrorism methods in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan may be to build things up, like schooling and microfinance. Girls’ education sometimes gets more bang for the buck than a missile.

A new study from the RAND Corporation examined how 648 terror groups around the world ended between 1968 and 2006. It found that by far the most common way for them to disappear was to be absorbed by the political process. The second most common way was to be defeated by police work. In contrast, in only 7 percent of cases did military force destroy the terrorist group.

I quoted Kristof in a post last August. I also quoted Iliana Segura, who looked at the same RAND study and also applied it to Afghanistan:

If the United States really wants to improve the situation in Afghanistan, it should start by ending the occupation. It should then cough up money for humanitarian aid and reconstruction. (One estimate puts the tab at $10 billion.) This is not just for the sake of Afghanistan, but for the sake of Americans as well, who are no safer today than they were when the planes hit the towers. Ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is the first, crucial step in that elusive goal of "winning hearts and minds" that the United States claims to be so committed to in the region. As Iraq has demonstrated, occupying armies are not a deterrent to terrorism. Occupying armies breed terror.

Most important, it's time to stop thinking of Afghanistan as the "right front" of the so-called "War on Terror" -- an idea that has been perpetuated by everyone from Barack Obama to Jon Stewart (who idiotically told Colin Powell in 2005, "the Afghanistan war, man did I dig that. I'd like to go again") -- and start questioning the legitimacy of the "War on Terror" itself. . . .

"Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism," wrote Seth Jones, the lead author of the study. "Military force has rarely been the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory."

I added my own two cents to those two fine columns, but you can go back and read those with a simple click. I expect Barack Obama has at least glanced at that RAND report; what could it hurt to sit down with Kristof and Segura, too?

(cross-posted on The Seminal)

The wages of sin: your wages, their sin

2008-10-24T07:00:00.003-04:00

Now that our great and glorious leader Michael Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine ~~Quinn~~ Quisling have succeeded in their power play, here’s a little question to consider this fine fall weekend: at what cost?

I am not asking about the political cost, which is, in many ways, immeasurable—at least as yet—I am talking about the real cost in New York City tax dollars that have already gone or will have to go quite literally to pay homage to our new born king. For along with the millions upon millions that have already been spent out of the mayor’s publicly financed slush fund to buy the votes he needed on the City Council (an impeachable offense, as best I can tell), NYC will now have to spend more taxpayer dollars to defend itself against the lawsuits that naturally had to arise from this extralegal end run around the city charter (two have already been filed, with the promise of more on the way).

It will certainly be in the millions of dollars—how many millions, I can’t say. I doubt anyone in the city government would dare give an estimate.

But, millions and millions of city dollars have been spent, and millions and millions of city dollars will be spent. . . all so that we can keep Mike Bloomberg and his supposedly irreplaceable expertise in place to guide the city through the dire fiscal crisis to come.

* * *

By the way, Mike and Chris caught the eye and ire of the national media on Thursday, making Keith Olbermann’s list of Worst Persons in the World.

(cross-posted on Daily Kos, guy2k and The Seminal)

Liar, liar

2008-10-22T07:32:00.002-04:00

Sensing a groundswell of increasingly organized opposition to the Bloomberg-Quinn term limits override plan, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has rush-scheduled a vote on the proposal for tomorrow, Thursday, 10/23.

A new Quinnipiac poll shows a “dramatic swing” away from support for billionaire Bloomberg’s power grab: 51% of NYC voters now oppose a third term for Mayor Mike, up from 42% just two weeks ago. The same poll revealed that city residents prefer changing the term limits law through referendum by a whopping 89% to 7%.

Bloomberg could probably buy himself another election, but has continued to push his cheaper plan. As detailed yesterday, the mayor has used both public dollars from a previously secret slush fund, and donations from his philanthropies to buy what he thinks is enough support inside the City Council to avoid a less predictable plebiscite.

Democracy is messy. Bloomberg is famously phobic of messy.

You know what else can be messy? The facts. So, naturally, Hizzoner (his dishonor?) doesn’t like them, either:

Asked about the public’s preference that term limits be decided through referendum, Mr. Bloomberg said it was too late and too legally problematic to call for a special election or referendum. He also dismissed suggestions that he chose to work through the Council since he could be more confident of the result.

“I’m not trying to manipulate the system for an outcome,” he said, during an event at the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center. . . .

He then hightailed it back to City Hall. . . where he continued to meet in private with nominally wavering council members.

One of those who had been officially undecided, Peter Vallone Jr., decided—he’ll ~~stay bought~~ support the mayor.

“I’m doing what I think is right,” said Mr. Vallone, the son of a former City Council speaker who is also an avid supporter.

Vallone then said, “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go back to counting my money.”

Metaphorically, anyway. Vallone Jr. received $400,000 from Bloomberg’s slush fund (making him the third largest beneficiary), and has been granted a discretionary budget of $1.1 million—about twice the council average—for both 2008 and 2009.

I guess if you take the second-term councilman’s statement to mean that he is doing what he thinks is right for himself, then I guess that Vallone isn’t a liar. . . so I would still need a second liar to justify my headline. . . .

Well, there is billionaire Republican Ronald Lauder, who (as previously mentioned) bankrolled the previous two term limit referendums. Lauder has publicly decided that in Bloomberg’s case, his previous efforts shouldn’t count:

It was Mr. Lauder’s money and advocacy that originally paved the way for term limits, and it was only recently that Mr. Bloomberg convinced a reluctant Mr. Lauder that the economic crisis necessitated a third term for the mayor. In exchange for Mr. Lauder’s support, Mr. Bloomberg promised him a seat on a charter revision commission that would probably try to restore the two-term limit in a subsequent referendum, likely in 2010.

“I believe very strongly that the mayor should get the extra term and the City Council should get a third term,” Mr. Lauder said in an interview. “That is part of the deal. But I never spoke about the first-term council members.”

Well, actually, Lauder is being kind of honest there, isn’t he? He is publicly announcing to all the world that he cut a deal with Michael Bloomberg. Yes, that’s right, the laws can change because two billionaires made a deal.

But only for the mayor and some of the council members—not the first term-ers. Gosh, that’s not how the deal is being sold by Council Speaker Chris Quinn. As she ~~sells~~ tells it, the one time extension to three terms applies to the mayor, the whole council, and the city’s comptroller, public advocate, and five borough presidents. Could the City Council be voting Thursday on something other than what they’ve been told?

I think we’ve found our second liar.

(cross-posted on guy2k and The Seminal)

Impeach Bloomberg

2008-10-21T06:32:00.005-04:00

And, while you’re at it, impeach Quinn, Markowitz, Felder, Recchia, Valone, Dilan, and Sears, too.

I know I should learn more about the rules and bylaws that govern New York City’s impeachment process—and maybe I’ll get to that later—but right now I don’t care. All I know is that there is already a stack of stories on how Mayor Michael Bloomberg has used both personal and public funds in a covertly choreographed attempt to buy the support he needs to override the city’s term limits law, and he can no longer be trusted as an honest steward of our interests.

He has also used our tax dollars for his master plan, so, beyond being forced from office, he probably belongs in jail.

Someday. . . I’ll call upon you to do a service for me. . . .

It has now been reported that Bloomberg and/or Deputy Mayors Linda Gibbs, Edward Skyler, and Kevin Sheekey (all New York City employees, paid with tax dollars, in case that’s not obvious) placed calls to at least five community, arts, and neighborhood groups that had received city contracts and/or large donations from Bloomberg’s private philanthropies. The mayor and his deputies asked if those organizations might testify before the City Council on behalf of Bloomberg, or lobby council members behind he scenes to vote for the mayor’s position postponing term limits.

One leader of a civic group made it clear that it was an offer they couldn’t refuse.

Yet, when representatives from these organizations testified before the council late last week, none revealed their financial ties to Bloomberg.

It has also been revealed that money from the mayor’s previously secret slush fund (it was discovered in June after a similar, City Council Speaker slush fund was exposed) was disproportionately ferried to City Council members who sit on the committee that must first approve Bloomberg’s third term scheme before it can come to a vote before the entire council.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a close ally of the mayor who made her support known last week, and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, a vocal advocate for the Bloomberg plan, were also recipients of supersized amounts of Mayor Mike’s munificence.

And, just to reiterate, this largess is public money. It is from a kitty funded by New York City taxpayers.

Does not pass the smell test

Not surprisingly, two mayoral hopefuls are not pleased:

“It is an abuse of power, and it must stop,” said the city’s top financial watchdog, the New York City comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., who may run for mayor next year.

Representative Anthony D. Weiner, another likely candidate for mayor, said that “if you rely on the mayor or the administration to fund your organization, saying no when the mayor calls is not an option.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s tactic, he said, “walks right up to the line of coercion, and it’s very corrosive.”

But there are plenty of others from many different sectors that find these abuses equally (or even more) untoward:

Kenneth Sherrill, a political science professor at Hunter College, said it was inappropriate for the mayor to be asking the groups that are so dependent on his good graces to take a position on his legislation.

“It’s distasteful. And what’s distasteful about it is leaning on weak people — people who are vulnerable,” Mr. Sherrill said. “The problem is in the implicit threat that if you don’t help, we’re going to remember.”

….

Fred Siegel, a professor of history at Cooper Union who has studied New York City politics for decades, said Mr. Bloomberg had cynically “reversed the flow of money” in politics to build the illusion, if not the reality, of widespread support.

“The traditional politicians are bought by special interest groups, but Bloomberg buys special interest groups,” he said.

But wait, there’s more:

Mr. Bloomberg’s critics argue that changing term limits will not expand choice because it will all but guarantee his re-election, given his willingness, in two previous campaigns, to spend $80 million to win the office.

Gene Russianoff, a senior lawyer for the New York Public Interest Research Group, said that asking groups who receive city money to support the term limits bill “looks like an administration desperately abusing its power to stay in office. It just does not pass the smell test.”

Betsy Gotbaum, New York City’s public advocate, called the tactic “wrong.” She added, “You have the right to give all the money you want, but because you give support, you shouldn’t have to get support.”

Well, “you”—meaning Billionaire Bloomberg—might have the right to give all you/he wants. . . of his money! But if public funds are allocated on a quid pro quo, that would be not just smelly, but almost certainly illegal.

And, though not yet illegal, perhaps we need a law that requires full disclosure of financial ties from those testifying before public bodies. There needs to be some counter balance, some disincentive for this and future mayors and their client organizations.

Mike Bloomberg’s obscene wealth and the way he used it to pollute the electoral process has always been problematic (to say the least), but this current power play has crossed a new and more dangerous line. The use of personal funds to create the illusion of widespread support and to, let’s face it, bribe public officials should probably be made illegal. The use of taxpayer dollars to do the same sorts of things almost certainly already is.

Forget a third term; Mayor Bloomberg should not be allowed to finish his second.

(h/t DM)

(cross-posted on guy2k, The Seminal, and Daily Kos)

November 5th comes early:Newsweek’s conservative cover story tries to make winners out of losers, and vice-versa

2008-10-20T09:32:00.007-04:00

It is paragraphs like this one that make it hard to get all dewy-eyed over the predicted death of the dead-tree media:

So are we a centrist country, or a right-of-center one? I think the latter, because the mean to which most Americans revert tends to be more conservative than liberal. According to the NEWSWEEK Poll, nearly twice as many people call themselves conservatives as liberals (40 percent to 20 percent), and Republicans have dominated presidential politics—in many ways the most personal, visceral vote we cast—for 40 years. Since 1968, Democrats have won only three of 10 general elections (1976, 1992 and 1996), and in those years they were led by Southern Baptist nominees who ran away from the liberal label. "Is this a center-right country? Yes, compared to Europe or Canada it's obviously much more conservative," says Adrian Wooldridge, coauthor of "The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America" and Washington bureau chief of the London-based Economist. "There's a much higher tolerance for inequality, much greater cultural conservatism, a higher incarceration rate, legalized handguns and greater distrust of the state."

Writing the cover story for the October 27th issue of Newsweek, Jon Meacham wastes his magazine’s ink and its readers’ time arguing that the United States is (and always has been) a right-of-center country, and will continue to be, no matter what happens two weeks from Tuesday. Should Obama attempt to govern otherwise, Meacham opines, there will be hell to pay—most notably by the new President himself.

It is, firstly, an editorial masquerading as news—and that alone should earn Newsweek’s editors a harsh reproach—but the sheer number of factual and logical errors in Meacham’s screed, compounded by the dialectic straw men, sins of omission, and an over-reliance on conservative columnists and frustrated, fading DLC-ers for the framing of his argument, should make the news weekly’s entire subscriber base wonder if there aren’t cheaper ways to line a birdcage.

Let’s start with the paragraph above (though many others would prove my point equally as well). Twice as many people might “call themselves conservatives as liberals,” but when a self-described conservative can just as easily be a Wall Street CEO pocketing his bailout billions as he can be “Joe the Plumber” simultaneously relishing and ruing his fifteen minutes, I’m not sure what lesson we are supposed to learn from such a “fact.” (Further, as is mentioned in the piece, Rick Perlstein notes that after a generation of equating “liberal” with “all that is distasteful and alarming,” that side of the ID equation is messed up, as well.)

The real truth, as it has been for some time now in poll after poll, is that on the issues, American voters are what we used to call “liberal,” or “left-of-center,” or now might call “progressive.” Be it on the role of government, on minimum wage, on tax equity, the environment, universal healthcare, or stem cell research, the population of America is allied with the Democrats—and not so-called conservative or centrist Democrats, but progressive Democrats. On the supposedly more difficult and divisive issues like equal rights and pay for women, racial minorities, and homosexuals, the upholding of Roe v. Wade, and licensing requirements for guns, the preponderance of evidence again says that Americans are, in reality, liberal, whether they call themselves such or not.

That the United States does not elect presidents by popular vote should give anyone pause before declaring that the Oval Office is an accurate bellwether of our collective political proclivity; that fewer than half that could vote do vote should render it a non sequitur. In addition, it is hard to argue on the one hand that the Democrats that won the White House did so because they did not attach themselves to core Democratic ideals, but then contend on the other that their defeats and failures were rebukes of the Democratic Party.

I can’t dispute that parties on the European left are a measure further to that end of the spectrum than the US Democrats are as a party, but as many of the poll numbers alluded to above will show, the American people might be much closer to their European brethren than Meacham’s lot would care to believe. And, to Meacham’s use of Adrian Wooldridge, since when is “a much higher tolerance for inequality, much greater cultural conservatism, a higher incarceration rate, legalized handguns and greater distrust of the state”—even if true—an admirable space for a people to inhabit?

Almost every paragraph in the article is worthy of this multipoint takedown. For the sake of argument, let’s sample one more:

Like the apostles of Jesus who expected their Messiah to return in triumph before they themselves died, many liberals are almost certain to be disappointed in a President Obama. "I think right now people are in a pragmatic mood, not an ideological mood," says David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist. Perhaps, but on the off chance that ideology is on the mind of a voter or two, Axelrod's candidate has taken care to avoid the L word. Obama opposes gay marriage; talks about tax cuts, God and veterans' benefits; and is spending money to try to remain competitive in traditionally Republican states such as Virginia, North Carolina and even West Virginia, where Hillary Clinton trounced him earlier this year. "I think he will govern a little right of center," says Harold Ford Jr., the former Tennessee congressman and chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council. "He is not an ideologue."

Some number of liberals might, after a certain amount of time, indeed find themselves disappointed or frustrated with a President Obama should he fail to realize and take advantage of his political moment—but if they are, they will have a lot of company. If the electorate is left wanting—if Obama is stymied by obstructionist blocs in Congress, or just fails on his own to push hard enough for the change he seems to promise—then they might show less enthusiasm come the 2010 midterms. But that will not be because Obama was too much the liberal Democrat—it will be because he was not able to deliver the progressive policies that the majority want and perhaps will soon expect.

In that regard, Obama could be the next Clinton (though I hope that this will not be the case). However, keep in mind that when I make this comparison, I am seeing Clinton as a failure not because he was too liberal, but because his first two years failed to make real the liberal benefits he promised during his 1992 campaign.

As for avoiding the “L” word, if Meacham were to be taken at face value, if Americans are not keen to call themselves “liberals,” then why on earth would a smart candidate use that word? And that is doubly so when you understand that the term is as meaningless as it is problematic.

Let’s use Meacham’s own metric: Sure, Obama is on record as a opposing “gay marriage,” but he is, as are a majority of Americans, pro civil unions, and Obama is also staunchly opposed to the federal “defense of marriage” act. Legally defining marriage as solely the union between one man and one woman is the conservative position; Obama is opposed to that position—and America is, too.

Obama talks about tax cuts. . . for the middle class—a segment that has been squeezed by the conservative approach to tax policy. Obama is also just as open about advocating a return to pre-Bush tax rates on those making over $250,000, or the top few percent of the entire country. It is the conservatives—for lack of a better word—that want to extend the inequitable, failed, and unpopular Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.

As for God and veterans’ benefits—since when are either of those the province of conservatives? In fact, in the case of the veterans, it has been the Democrats who have pushed for more and better equipment in the field, and more and better care at home. It has been the conservative Republicans who have opposed these efforts every step of the way, up to and including the new GI bill.

That Obama is now spending money and making campaign stops in “Virginia, North Carolina, and even West Virginia” (especially when he doesn’t necessarily need these states to win) doesn’t mean that he is acting less like a liberal—it means that voters in those states are noticeably turning away from Republican conservatives. That this bit of “analysis” made it into the final version of this article is only slightly more astounding than the idea that Jon Meacham, after submitting it, still has a job.

Meacham’s quoting Harold Ford Jr., a man desperately trying to stay relevant (and if he has to undermine his nominally fellow Democrats, so be it) is hardly worth mentioning. But it is worth mentioning what almost no one in the establishment media ever does: that conservative Democrat Ford was the only Democratic candidate for Senate in 2006 to lose his contest.

This is all but a sample of the inanity that is supposed to sell copies of Newsweek this week, but it would be too easy to just point at it—and its author—and roll on the floor laughing our asses off. Meacham, Ford, Ronald Brownstein, and David Brooks, and even those conservatives like Christopher Buckley that have more openly embraced Obama, are scrambling to remake the next president in something akin to their own image, even before he is elected. It’s a rough job—trying to both claim that they played a part in Obama’s post-partisan success while pre-chastising him for refusing to embrace the failed ideology of the conservative movement—but establishment outlets like Newsweek, the New York Times, CNN, and the National Journal are all proving up to the task. Without a substantial pushback from the other side—the liberal side—claptrap like Meacham’s might become a policy trap for the Democrats.

Newsweek does offer an asymmetrical counterpoint to Meacham’s “news” story. In a shorter article, indeed labeled “counterpoint” (a dismissive appellation, I must note—Meacham gives us a “news” item, while this is mere “opinion”), Jonathan Alter argues that “We’re heading left once again.” Where Meacham grandstands for caution, Alter contends that if Obama pulls his punches, he can’t possibly win the fight to re-right and de-right the country.

Alter points to FDR, who used his first 100 days to push bold and sweeping government initiatives. The depression might have lasted another eight years, but Roosevelt showed that he had heard the voters, that he was on their side, and demonstrated just what an engaged government acting in the public interest could do for its people.

We are again at a place where a president could and should do what FDR did, much to the chagrin of Meacham and the movement conservative minority. That they are in fact an unpopular minority shouldn’t be in doubt—just look at Newsweek.com’s lists of most viewed and most e-mailed stories. In both cases, Alter’s “The country is heading leftward” is number one; Meacham’s “We’re a conservative country” is number two.

Is there any doubt on which side the presidential winner should be?

(cross-posted on Daily Kos and The Seminal)

Continuity this!

2008-10-17T08:57:00.004-04:00

OK, I’ve put it off long enough. . . I suppose it is time for me to give up my copper on New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s little plan to ~~abrogate~~ ~~override~~ extend term limits, allowing him to ~~run for~~ buy another four years in office.

I probably have more than two cents to add. . . I probably should have been down at the City Council hearings on Thursday, watching the goings on in the packed, stuffy room, impatiently waiting the 10, 12, 14 hours it might have taken for them to get to my two minutes of “fame.” But, truth be told, I had to spend 20 hours fighting with Time Warner about my dead internet connection, and, truth be told again, I was afraid that if I went, I would wind up with my own set of plastic bracelets. . . .

Yes, I am that angry. (I was that angry with Time Warner, too, but I had the benefit of being able to just slam the phone down when I though I was getting out of control.)

Let me just say straight out: I hate, hate, hate term limits. I believe that they are undemocratic. I believe they deny we the people the opportunity to fully exercise our franchise. In other words, I believe we already have term limits—they’re called elections.

Yes, we have a problem of entrenched incumbents, we do, but they are entrenched because incumbency can too easily become an entrée to influence peddling. It gives politicians easy access to powerful, moneyed interests who are all too happy to spread the wealth (sorry, Johnny Mac) in exchange for tax breaks, zoning changes, pay-to-play contracts, and a myriad of other secret-handshake and/or look-the-other-way deals.

But the way to end all this numismatic noblesse oblige is not to force out the good with the bad. Incumbency in-and-of itself is not a bad thing. There is a lot to be said for a professional government, one with institutional memory, one that knows how to grab the reigns of power, build coalitions, plumb the obscure depths of the law, and actually get things done on behalf of the electorate. And I believe that there are incumbents who behave in just that manner. . . and many who might even do more for their constituents if it weren’t for the incessant necessity of raising money for the next election.

Unless, of course, you are so disgustingly rich that you don’t have to work on that level—but more on that later. . . .

Term limits are a blunt instrument (dare I say “a hatchet?”); a quick fix that isn’t really a fix at all. And, perhaps worse, they are cynical. Inherent in the term limits equation is the assumption that all politicians are the same, and that this same is something just this side of pond scum. If I believed that, I would probably never vote again. I have a feeling that for some in the ruling class, it would be just fine if my cohort and I went to just such an unhappy place. “Democracy” is so much more manageable when most of us turn off, tune out, and stay home.

Instead of encouraging such cynicism, I’d rather we discourage the cronyism. Full public financing of political campaigns—coupled with laws and initiatives that protect, ease, and encourage near universal participation of those eligible to vote—would go a long way toward solving both the problem of incumbent-coddling influence peddling and the problem of the supremely wealthy simply buying their way in.

So, if term limits disappeared tomorrow, and we could start working on public financing and universal participation, well, that would very much calm my jangled nerves.

So, yeah, I hate term limits. . . but, you know what? I think I hate Mike Bloomberg—and, now, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn—even more.

Don’t get me wrong, if those two—the tweedle deaf and tweedle dumb of this current battle—were actually proposing to do away with term limits altogether, and to do it by putting it to a popular vote (because the term limits were imposed by popular vote), I would probably hold my nose and salute. (What kind of salute? Well, uh, let’s move on. . .) If Mayor Mike would spend half as much as he did to get elected (or reelected—when he spent even more) to campaign for the repeal of term limits rather than glad handing, arm twisting, and featherbedding his way to a city council majority, I bet he could get the result he wanted.

(The fact of the matter is, we only really have term limits because another billionaire, Republican and failed gubernatorial candidate Ronald Lauder (with some help from conservative billionaire and failed gubernatorial candidate Tom Golisano), flooded the airways and mailboxes of New York with pro-term limit propaganda. They outspent the anti-term limits groups by such a factor as to render them invisible. It was not a fair fight; it was not—thanks to the corrupting influence of money—an honest plebiscite. Ironic, no?)

But Bloomberg—previously a staunch defender of a two-term limit—has not done that. He actually said he thought that a popular vote would be “distracting” and “messy.” Democracy is a bitch (when you’re rich). The mayor has instead chosen to pursue the cleaner (cheaper?) route: a mere 26 members of the City Council.

Step one toward corralling the 26: include them in on the deal.

Oh, and I should probably mention what that deal is.

What it is not is an abolition of term limits. No. It is simply an extension of term limits. A one-term extension. Oh, and, not forever, either. Nope. It is a one time, one term extension.

Because that’s the deal that Bloomberg had to cut with Ron Lauder to keep him—and his money—on the sidelines.

Is this all feeling creepy enough for you yet? Wait, there’s more.

With much of the City Council also about to be term limited out of office, they have a dog in the fight, too—a lap dog.

It’s another of the problems with term limits. By the time you make a name for yourself in city politics, by the time you build connections or coalitions, by the time you have enough alliances to, say, get elected Speaker of the council, it’s the legally mandated time to leave. If you want to continue in city politics, you have to change jobs. But there are only so many jobs to go around—Mayor, Borough President, maybe Comptroller. That’s not really enough to give everybody a chance to achieve “greatness,” or even, just maybe, build a couple of new libraries or push for a change in the tax laws.

Christine Quinn, for instance, has been running for mayor pretty much from the day she was elected Speaker. She has to—she’s in her last term. Several other council members also would like to sow a few more seeds; part of the deal that Quinn struck to get the Speaker’s gavel was to agree to take up term extensions.

Quinn commissioned a private poll. The numbers didn’t look good; it would reflect badly on Quinn if she pushed it. So, she let the issue of an extension quietly drop.

This time around, Speaker Quinn waited ten days from the mayor’s official announcement before she publicly decided to side with Bloomberg. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Quinn, who had fought the Mayor on several issues in her pre-Speaker days, has been thisclose to Millionaire Mike for the last three years.

But that’s not really why you shouldn’t be surprised. I have a feeling Quinn spent those ten days doing some other polling. Already well behind US Representative Anthony Weiner in fundraising, Quinn might have seen that she would lose not only to Weiner, but also to City Comptroller William Thompson, if a Democratic Mayoral primary were held today.

Realizing that she had nowhere to go but nowhere, Quinn took a meeting (or two) with Bloomberg, and a deal was cut. I have no idea what that deal might look like—OK, I have some idea—but pretty much only Chris and Mike are pretending there is no Quinn pro quo.

So, we have Mayor Bloomberg, a man who a few years back threatened to veto a term limit extension, and Speaker Quinn, a woman who pretended to think this over, now united in extending term limits for themselves, for just this once. . . . And get this, this is what really has me. . . they are doing it for us.

It’s the economic crisis, you see—a cataclysmic event so distractingly perfect if it weren’t real, they’d have to create it. (Wait a minute there. . . oh, never mind.)

Apparently, in times this desperate, this scary—this undercapitalized—there is only one billionaire that can save us. Only one, one, one!

Absurd, ridiculous, insulting even—I mean, really fucking insulting—but that’s not the worst of it. Both Bloomberg and Quinn have said that in these troubled times we need a “continuity of government.”

Continuity of government. Now, I know, its taken me a long time to get here, but it is the use of this term that would have had me screaming and waving my finger at council members should I have been crazy enough to head downtown. That term, continuity of government, is what we in democracies talk about when we talk about the transition from one elected officeholder to another. Continuity of government refers to the system, not to the people. It refers to the rule of law—and how it does not change at the mere whim of the current executive—because (and, beware, I am going to go all caps on you) WE HAVE A GOVERNMENT OF LAWS; NOT A GOVERNMENT OF MEN!

To use “continuity of government” to mean the polar opposite is positively (negatively) Orwellian. Worse, it is. . . well, like with the salute, I won’t go there. . . .

Let’s just say that it is not leadership through a crisis. And it is certainly not what those of us who truly, passionately, and objectively hate term limits advocate for: democracy.

No, instead, it is part and parcel of the problem that gave us this economic crisis. It is plutocracy—the rule of a society by its wealthiest members. And it is this continuation of such rule that Billionaire Michael Bloomberg is trying to ram down the throats of New Yorkers under the war-equals-peace, poverty-equals-wealth twisting of the term, the concept, the ideal of continuity of government.

Well, Michael—and Christine—continuity this!

[Insert the gesture of your choice]

(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Mr. Hanky’s reverse Midas touch

2008-10-15T07:05:00.004-04:00

I have, in recent days, taken to calling Treasury Secretary Henry “Hank” Paulson Mr. Hanky, not because of any complex metaphor, but more because I just knew he was full of shit. Well, thanks to his most recent actions, Hank has given my allusion a new, improved accuracy.

As discussed in recent days, Paulson changed his position on stock injection, and decided to use $250 billion of bailout money to pump equity into troubled banks. He made his announcement after Still President Bush broke the ice for him on Tuesday morning. . . which was a day after Hank made the directors of America’s nine largest banks an offer they couldn’t refuse. . . .

Or so the story goes.

The thing is, it was an offer that the bankers couldn’t refuse, but not in that Godfather way. It was an offer they couldn’t refuse because the deal was so sweet!

As Dean Baker noticed:

[T]here is a big issue about the terms under which they were given capital. Secretary Paulson decided that a 5 percent rate of return on preferred share was good enough for the taxpayers. Warren Buffet got a 10 percent return for his investment.

No one would confuse Henry Paulson for Warren Buffet, but come on -- he could get a 4.0 percent return buying treasury bonds. I can't believe that he had such bad business sense when he was CEO of Goldman Sachs.

And a commenter on Baker’s post noticed even more:

[I]t's not just the 5% "coupon" (dividend, technically), that marks this as bad relative to the Buffet deal. Buffet received an equivalent amount ($5 billion) of favorably-priced common stock warrants that he can exercise anytime during the next five years. The rough plan for Paulson, as I understand it, is for the Treasury to get warrants equal to just 15% of the preferred stock injection.

Also striking is how different this is than the Treasury-AIG deal. I understand that the AIG bailout was for different purposes -- AIG was going immediately bankrupt whereas the solvency of the banking system over the next, say, 24 hours, is relatively assured (with diminishing levels of confidence the farther one goes out) -- but the Treasury charged AIG for its loan facility a rate of LIBOR + 8.5%. While I understand that there is a difference between a loan and a preferred stock purchase, they are not all that different: preferred stock is like a bond, but with fewer recovery protections, and like a stock for capitalization purposes, but it doesn't share in the broader common stock market gains. The important point with the present Paulson action is, to my eye, that the Treasury picked a very low fixed rate for a LONG time (five years!) without reference to LIBOR.

OK, kind of technical there, but the point is clear: Paulson took what was a fairly good idea as structured by Gordon Brown (or even by Warren Buffet), and turned it into shit. Don’t believe me, check out what investors thought (again from Baker):

The markets gave Paulson's investment strategy a big thumbs down from the taxpayer perspective. Goldman Sachs shares jump 10.7 percent after the details were made public. Shares of Bank of America rose 16.4 percent and Citigroup's stock rose 18.2 percent. Obviously the market thinks that Paulson gave the banks a really good deal.

Conversely, the United Kingdom’s big three all saw their stock prices fall after Brown exchanged equity for preferred and common shares and exercised their voting rights to make changes in bank leadership.

(This might sound a little counterintuitive, but if you are not a board member of a bank, you actually want to see this result, at least in the short term. It actually means that screwing up has repercussions—which means less of that “moral hazard” that so many of the serious set warn us about when plans to help those facing home foreclosure are mentioned.)

The former King of Goldman has turned what was his Midas touch when it came to private capital, and turned it into the reverse for his public service. Even when shown a golden blueprint by the UK, Paulson’s fingerprints changed the result into a shitpile.

So, congratulations, Mr. Hanky, the Treasury Poo, you’ve now wholly embraced your nickname. Alas, it is the rest of us that are left holding the bag. . . .

(cross-posted on The Seminal)

How cute. . .

2008-10-14T08:00:00.000-04:00

Hank is going to let Bush pretend he’s still in charge. . . .

The Treasury Department, in its boldest move yet, is expected to announce a plan on Tuesday to invest up to $250 billion in banks, according to officials. The United States is also expected to guarantee new debt issued by banks for three years — a measure meant to encourage the banks to resume lending to one another and to customers, officials said.

And the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will offer an unlimited guarantee on bank deposits in accounts that do not bear interest — typically those of businesses — bringing the United States in line with several European countries, which have adopted such blanket guarantees.

. . . .

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. outlined the plan to nine of the nation’s leading bankers at an afternoon meeting, officials said. He essentially told the participants that they would have to accept government investment for the good of the American financial system.

Of the $250 billion, which will come from the $700 billion bailout approved by Congress, half is to be injected into nine big banks, including Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, officials said. The other half is to go to smaller banks and thrifts. The investments will be structured so that the government can benefit from a rebound in the banks’ fortunes.

President Bush plans to announce the measures on Tuesday morning. . . .

Henry Paulson, who himself had to be dragged kicking and screaming to this equity injection plan, worked out the details in private with the biggest players on Monday. . . and then kept it on the QT so that Still President Bush could come out on Tuesday morning and make it seem like he had some role to play in all this.

He didn’t.

Truth is, Mr. Hanky didn’t much either. Democrats in Congress inserted the language (over Paulson’s objections) in the TARP bill that gave Treasury the authority to do this; Paulson then did nothing for ten days, until markets tanked, credit got tighter, and UK PM Gordon Brown got most of the Europe on board with a similar plan. Hank Paulson is just desperately trying to keep up.

Meanwhile, Hank’s old pals at Goldman Sachs have cut a deal with New York state to headquarter their newly configured full-service bank in New York City. So, they get more from the federal government, and a state tax break, too.

How cute.

(cross-posted on The Seminal)

We are not amused

2008-10-14T06:49:00.004-04:00

Something you might have missed amid the economic chaos and last week’s broader slime slinging—I, myself, have just noticed this item:

This week, hundreds of absentee ballots were sent out to voters who are registered in Rensselaer County with the names of two presidential candidates on them: John McCain and Barack Osama. Yep, that's right, Osama.

Both Democratic and Republican officials insist this is a typo, but according to the Albany Times-Union, everyone feels pretty embarrassed. Roughly 300 voters received the ballots. "Is it a Freudian slip, intentional act or a mistake?" asks the paper. "Voters are sure to have opinions, and one pol pointed out that the letters 's' and 'b' are not exactly keyboard neighbors."

Missing from this item on NY Mag’s Daily Intel is any information about who received these ballots or what is being done to make sure that those voters receive fresh ballots with the actual name of the Democratic candidate (I won’t humor them by calling it “the correct spelling”). In fact, you are looking at the sum total of the whole, droll post—minus one sentence.

I say “droll” because that is how Chris Rovzar, the author, wants us to see it.

Here’s that other sentence:

Is it weird that during this freakishly contentious week, a minor screwup like this seems kind of fun?

No, it is not “weird.” Nor is it “minor.” Nor is it necessarily a “screwup,” now, is it? These tainted ballots might seem like a small event when compared with Sarah Palin’s violent rhetoric or the massive efforts to discredit the election by inventing charges of voter “fraud” in several battleground states, but it is far from “fun.” It is extremely hard to believe that this is a “typo” since the way a name is to be listed on a ballot is a multi-step process that involves a back-and-forth between the candidate’s campaign, the Secretary of State, and the locale for which that ballot is designed and printed, and as noted, the letters are not next to each other on a keyboard. In a year with such heightened sensitivities, this is not something likely to just slip through.

A look at the original story from the Albany Times Union has Rensselaer County officials swearing otherwise, and the Obama campaign has accepted their explanation. There will be some attempt made to replace the bad ballots, according to officials, though the story is not clear on how this will happen. One additional concern beyond the obvious taint—there is a fear that some folks will attempt to correct the spelling themselves on their ballot. “Election law is quite clear that any corrections done on a ballot will nullify the vote,” says a county official. . . see the problem? If the ballots are not replaced, and the people who care about the proper name of the Democrat in the race try to fix it, it will not only negate their vote for president, it will nullify the entire ballot. (Most of Rensselaer County is in NY-20, where frosh Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand was once thought vulnerable, but is now expected to win reelection. The county executive has been a Republican since the post was created in 1972.)

But back to the questionable jocularity of the Obama/Osama substitution. . . . It is much more likely that this is a symptom of the larger and growing problem spreading like a virus throughout the country: the persistent definition, identification, or categorizing of Senator and maybe President Barack Obama as “other,” somehow not American, somehow illegitimate.

As likely as it now seems that Obama will be elected our next president, it is probably even more likely that a group of movement conservatives are going to refuse to accept or acknowledge that result. Claiming that Obama is secretly in league with those that wish America ill is laying the groundwork for a perpetual campaign against a sitting, elected president. It will be an orchestrated effort like we saw during Clinton’s second term, but on a Wagnerian scale.

The movement will not do one thing; they will do many things. Claiming voter fraud and media bias, claiming Obama’s victory isn’t a mandate because McCain wasn’t a real conservative and ran such a poor campaign, claiming that, yes, Obama is a Muslim, or an Arab, or heaven forbid, both!

Sending out ballots printed “Barack Osama” is neither the biggest nor the sneakiest of these efforts, but it is not nothing.

And it is certainly not “fun.”

(cross-posted on The Seminal)

What’s the opposite of leadership?

2008-10-13T07:25:00.006-04:00

When last we spoke, the Dow was starting Friday in freefall while all eyes turned to a meeting of the G7 called by the chief executive of the United States, ~~George W. Bush~~ Henry Paulson. During the course of Friday, the Dow did a bit of a rollercoaster rebound, but I am not going to tell you it was because investors were expecting x or y from the G7 or the US Treasury Department, or because there was some bargain hunting, or because Mercury was in retrograde. (I utterly despise this kind of Stock Market analysis—it’s post-hoc hooey—so when you catch me doing it, and I assure you I will, take it with appropriate measures of sodium.)

What happened next? Well, the G7 released an abysmal document pledging future efforts, sunshine and lollipops, etc., but when it came to the details of actually doing something, one can sum it all up with, “splunge!” The next day, the IMF mostly followed the G7’s “lead.”

That was all very bad news.

As I wrote last week, economists out here in the real world had coalesced around a “stock injection” or “equity injection” plan, coupled with government guarantees on interbank loans—essentially a partial nationalization of banks willing to enter into the bargain—as the best way to quickly loosen up the credit market (and, ideally, provide time for more and better long-term changes to our global economic systems). It was an option that Hank Paulson rejected outright in late September. However, language permitting an equity injection was inserted into the $700 billion bailout signed into law ten days ago.

Still, Paulson did nothing last week to use that new authority. Never mind asking about the actual president of the United States. . . what was he up to? (You can’t see me, but I’m tipping my head back and pointing my right thumb toward my mouth while mimicking gulping sounds.) Well, there were those morning pep talks. . . zheesh!

Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the UK, however, did float the idea of equity injection and guarantees last Wednesday—and, late Sunday night, Brown made the float flesh, moving to pump 50 billion quid into British banks, and guarantee interbank lending, to boot. The European Union appears to be following suit.

Lo and behold, Hong Kong, European, and London markets are up sharply this morning. (You see, I told you I’d do it.) (Afternoon update: the Dow is also up sharply. ~~The US and~~ Japanese exchanges have Monday off.)

Which all raises an interesting question: If Brown came to Washington’s G7 confab with the equity plan in tow, and we now see that the EU was ready to go along with that framework, then why was the G7’s statement so unproductively obtuse? In other words, who prevented the G7 from simply issuing a statement saying, “What Gordon said”?

Hmmm. . . .

There is, clearly, only one possibility—Why, hi-de-ho, it’s Mr. Hanky!

And perhaps even more amazing, today, Monday, after the UK and EU have taken decisive action, the US Department of Treasury has let it be known that they will maybe, probably start injecting some of our bailout billions directly into banks in exchange for equity. . . but they have not issued any instructions or details of how, or who, or when, and they are offering this without the other part of the Brown plan, the guarantees!

What is Paulson’s rationale? What is the opposite of leadership? (Again, forget about “the leader of the free world”—and again, head tipped back, glug, glug, glug.)

Paulson fought against getting this authority, and now, once granted it, despite movement from economies much smaller than “his,” he still drags his feet. Contrast this with Hammerin’ Hank, say, September 17, hyperventilating and threatening the end of civilization as we know it if he didn’t get his 70 billion Benjamins to spend however he pleased. How can we explain the difference?

Well, as we seem to have to say too much these days, we can’t know what is in a man’s heart. . . but might the behavior gap have something to do with the ideological purity of this administration, and the company Paulson supposedly left behind to gallantly take over at Treasury?

Yeah, that was a rhetorical question.

First, the Bush Administration’s—hell, the whole Republican/Conservative movement’s—“private good, public bad,” “markets know best” philosophy not only helped usher in this nightmare, it lead to a stunning inability to entertain any viable solutions.

Second, from the beginning (or before the beginning) of this credit calcification and market tumble, it seems that Treasury has worked to protect, and even enrich, Goldman Sachs.

Just look at some of this: Lehman Brothers, a direct competitor of Goldman, was allowed to fail. Treasury said it had to draw a line. But a week later, the government steps in to save AIG by injecting capital (at first $80 billion; now well over $100 billion) in exchange for equity. It turns out that AIG owed Goldman something like $30 billion—in fact, a representative from Goldman Sachs was in the room when the AIG bailout was being negotiated.

With the big five investment banks reduced to the big two, many expected Goldman would be the next to go. Investors start shorting Goldman stock. The government’s response? Ban all short selling (not just naked short selling, as some had recommended).

That was quickly revealed to be a disastrous move for a variety of reasons, and the ban was lifted. Paulson went back to demanding his near trillion dollar blank check so that he could buy toxic assets off the hands of banks. . . investment banks included. Never mind that Paulson never was able to explain how that plan would actually solve the problems at hand.

All of this dicking around took weeks, of course; weeks where markets tanked, credit froze, jobs were lost, and the whole mess, by most accounts, grew worse and more expensive to fix.

By the way, there is a downside to the equity injection plan—that is if you own bank stock. If you own shares in a bank that opts in to an injection plan, a bank like, maybe, say, Goldman Sachs, the value of your shares will be diluted because the bank will have to issue additional preferred shares to exchange for government capital.

You don’t think that might adversely affect Hank’s “blind” trust, or the coffers of many of Paulson’s pals, now, do you?

I guess that’s a kind of leadership.

. . . .

Congratulations to Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate.

(cross-posted on Daily Kos and The Seminal)

Paul Krugman, Hank Paulson, and me

2008-10-10T06:57:00.006-04:00

Why, it seems like only yesterday (but was, in fact, Monday) that I was wondering out loud about the chances the US Treasury would exercise an option written into the final version of the bailout law to demand stock in exchange for the money funneled to the banks. This so-called “stock injection” plan sounded to me like the preferable way to spend our $700 billion (give or take), seeing as it gives the government some real equity in exchange for our real cash, it is has both longstanding (FDIC) and recent (AIG) precedent, and could provide for some of that accountability demanded by most of us on streets named other than Wall.

Well, on Wednesday, New York Times columnist/Princeton economist Paul Krugman, and, as you will read, UK PM Gordon Brown, gave my laymen’s interpretation a little street cred:

Readers ask what I think should be done about the financial crisis. The answer is, what Gordon Brown in doing in Britain: a bailout, yes, but one that gives the government an ownership stake in the bailed-out institutions. That plus a serious fiscal stimulus plan that includes emergency aid to state and local government.

The Brown plan, by the way, is 50 billion pounds; scaled by GDP, that would be the equivalent of a $500 billion plan here. The headline number would be smaller than the Paulson plan, but the probable effectiveness much, much greater. Not so incidentally, my reading of the TARP as passed is that thanks to the equity participation provisions, it could be converted into a version of the Brown plan at the Treasury secretary’s discretion; let’s hope that he does so discrete, or something like that, as soon as possible.

Which leads us to Thursday morning’s revelation.

Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system, according to government officials.

Treasury officials say the just-passed $700 billion bailout bill gives them the authority to inject cash directly into banks that request it. Such a move would quickly strengthen banks’ balance sheets and, officials hope, persuade them to resume lending. In return, the law gives the Treasury the right to take ownership positions in banks, including healthy ones.

. . . .

The American recapitalization plan, officials say, has emerged as one of the most favored new options being discussed in Washington and on Wall Street. The appeal is that it would directly address the worries that banks have about lending to one another and to other customers.

This new interest in direct investment in banks comes after yet another tumultuous day in which the Federal Reserve and five other central banks marshaled their combined firepower to cut interest rates but failed to stanch the global financial panic.

Now, I don’t know if Paulson had something like this in the back of his mind all the time (it wasn’t exactly spelled out in the original “three-page plan”), or if someone like Senator Chris Dodd or Senator Chuck Schumer clued him in to what was added to his authority; I don’t know if Hank checks out Planet Money, Paul Krugman, any of a number of other fine economist bloggers, or me (OK—pretty sure he doesn’t check out me). . . or if the Secretary of the Treasury just has no other flipping idea what to do. . . but Paulson let the idea of equity for injection slip out in a press conference late Wednesday. . .

Now, I will pull back the curtain just a touch, and confess that all of the above was written about 24-hours ago—so what has happened since?

Well, the short answer is: Nothing.

OK, let me be a little less short. The Dow dropping another 678 points is not nothing—the industrials average is now off 40% from its record high exactly one year ago. The Nikkei is in full-on panic mode—it suffered its worst one-day loss in 21 years on Wednesday, and is plunging more as I write this. European markets are also opening with big, big losses. The feds guaranteed AIG another 38 billion samolians because they have almost burned through their initial $80 billion.

And John McCain has revised his merely crappy half-assed mortgage proposal (scrubbing from his website the line about buying mortgages at their current, lower values) so that it is now a completely terrible half-assed proposal. . . wait, that is pretty much nothing.

But the other things—the continued downward rush of economic indicators (including things like the LIBOR and the TED Spread—neither of which I dare try to explain because I barely understand it all myself)—those are something. . . something that makes one want to do, uh, something.

Unless you are Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson. . . because, as best I can tell, he has done (and here’s why I use this word) nothing.

What is now weeks after Hammerin’ Hank and Sideshow Bob Bernanke laid it all (supposedly) on the line and warned Congressional leaders that if they didn’t act immediately (immediately!), we would have no economy to rescue, and weeks after those Congressional leaders and Still President Bush and much of the establishment media all lit their own hair on fire to reify the bubble boys’ hysterical frame, and, now, a week after said Congress and president gave Paulson all he could have wanted, and, frankly more, what has the SecTreas done?

Weeeeeelllllllllllllllllll. . . he has appointed a (another) Goldman Sachs alum to start designing some sort of system to purchase the shitpile of bad. . . you know I was going to say “assets,” but that just doesn’t seem like the right word anymore, especially when you are not only dealing with subprime mortgages but intangible gambler’s chits like credit default swaps. Anyway, there is now a guy working on a plan—maybe some sort of reverse auction, maybe just a way to shrink wrap bricks of 10,000 $100,000 bills—that should be ready in, eh. . . four or five weeks.

As mentioned by me, and even floated by Paulson, Hank now has the authority to give banks a direct cash infusion in exchange for equity—so why is he sitting on his hands?

I have read that Paulson might have caught deflationary disease. This is the idea that things are rapidly losing value—so, why buy some chunk of equity today, when the same amount of money could get you a bigger chunk tomorrow? Sounds like a sound investment strategy, right? Well, if you were a traditional investor, maybe. . . but the federal government wasn’t empowered by the bailout bill to act as an investor—at least that’s what I thought—supposedly, this “TARP” was supposed to be thrown quickly over this drowning pool. . . . OK, enough with the metaphors—Paulson is supposed to use this money and his new authority to backstop the financial system, to loosen up credit markets, to buoy investor confidence (there is some debate about whether that third point is a good idea).

Instead, it seems like the Treasury Secretary, after yelling “Fire!” (new metaphor, sorry) in a crowded theater, is now watching everyone stampede out (trampling many on the way), and waiting until the fire gets big enough to justify his earlier histrionics.

Of course, some will argue that it was behavior very much like this that helped transform the Crash of 1929 into the Depression of 1933.

And, of course, none of this—none—does the first thing to help the here-and-now, day-to-day economic problems of working or formerly working Americans.

So, what now, mes amis? (Wow, I’m like the French John McCain!)

It seems most economists agree that Paulson needs to use his stock injection authority, and pronto. He needs to give the banks a good chunk of change with the understanding that they will, in turn, start lending again. The US government will get bank stock in exchange—but I want to make sure that we taxpayers get preferred stock, and, I’ll go further and demand voting shares. Without voting shares, it will be impossible for the government to ensure that banks act in the interests of the American people and the global economy. Everybody claims they want accountability—exchanging cash for voting shares is the way to get that accountability. (Of course, this assumes that we have a government that acts in the interests of its people—big assumption, I know.)

Then—and this is equally important—Congress needs to come back and pass some real economic stimulus. No, I am not talking about some winky tax rebate—too small and too slow. I, as mentioned before, support a FICA holiday on the first $10,400 earned by every working American (because this will start putting money in the pockets of those that need it most starting the same week that such a law was enacted), coupled with New Deal-style programs to support and educate the poor, repair our nation’s aging infrastructure, and begin planning and building the electronic infrastructure needed for this information century.

Or, at least, find a way to put real money quickly in the pockets of those hit hardest by this recession (yes, we can now use that word without qualifiers)—then come back in late January with a new Democratic president and bigger majorities in Congress, and pass a full, new New Deal, adding affordable healthcare for all, tax equity, and investment in post-hydrocarbon technologies and green jobs to the programs mentioned above.

OK, more backstage news: I wrote up to this point, and before posting, I decided to open up (electronically speaking) Friday’s New York Times, and read what Paul Krugman had to say. Well, surprise, surprise:

[K]ey policy players have largely wasted the past four weeks. Now they’ve reached a moment of truth: They’d better do something soon — in fact, they’d better announce a coordinated rescue plan this weekend — or the world economy may well experience its worst slump since the Great Depression.

. . . .

[W]hen Mr. Paulson announced his plan for a huge bailout, there was a temporary surge of optimism. But it soon became clear that the plan suffered from a fatal lack of intellectual clarity. Mr. Paulson proposed buying $700 billion worth of “troubled assets” — toxic mortgage-related securities — from banks, but he was never able to explain why this would resolve the crisis.

What he should have proposed instead, many economists agree, was direct injection of capital into financial firms: The U.S. government would provide financial institutions with the capital they need to do business, thereby halting the downward spiral, in return for partial ownership. When Congress modified the Paulson plan, it introduced provisions that made such a capital injection possible, but not mandatory. And until two days ago, Mr. Paulson remained resolutely opposed to doing the right thing.

But on Wednesday the British government, showing the kind of clear thinking that has been all too scarce on this side of the pond, announced a plan to provide banks with £50 billion in new capital. . . together with extensive guarantees for financial transactions between banks. And U.S. Treasury officials now say that they plan to do something similar, using the authority they didn’t want but Congress gave them anyway.

The question now is whether these moves are too little, too late. I don’t think so, but it will be very alarming if this weekend rolls by without a credible announcement of a new financial rescue plan, involving not just the United States but all the major players.

And Krugman finishes with this cheery bit of encouragement:

[T]he time to act is now. You may think that things can’t get any worse — but they can, and if nothing is done in the next few days, they will.

So, with that, I think I better wrap this up and post it—the economic situation is evolving rapidly, and, who knows, Hank might need some ideas!

* * *

I would be terribly remiss if I did not recommend that everyone interested in these sorts of things read this amazingly comprehensive post by Stirling Newberry. Yes, it is long, but it provides a level of insight and clarity too scarce during this time of economic turmoil. Stirling gives us a great deal of history and makes proposals far more radical than mine. I was going to quote a little, but I can’t possibly do it justice, so please click on over and give it a look.

(cross-posted on Daily Kos)

Bailout Homework:Find a way to get our fair share(s)

2008-10-06T07:37:00.006-04:00

Adam Davidson, who reports on matters financial for NPR’s Planet Money and PRI’s This American Life tends to describe the credit hysteria of recent months in more dire terms than I would use (again, it’s not that I don’t think there are big problems with our economy, it’s just that I just don’t think that the way the problem has been framed promotes solutions that benefit the majority). However, oddly enough (or maybe this isn’t odd at all), Davidson also sees reason for some hope based on language he believes made its way into the final bailout, er, um, excuse me, rescue bill that passed the House and was signed into law by President Bush on Friday.

The language relates to something called a “stock injection,” which, as I understand it, would require that the government get some form of stock from banks in exchange for our (by which I mean the US taxpayer’s) money instead of just acquiring the crap assets of no determinate value.

But there are, as I see it, a number of questions:

There seems to be some debate about the version of the stock injection provision that made it into the final bill. You’d think this would be an easy enough question to answer, but since this massive bill was rushed through and signed into law in an absurdly short time, when I look for the final version, I still can only find one House and one Senate version. Theoretically, the Senate bill (which was passed as an amendment to another bill, because, in actuality, it would be unconstitutional to start a bill like this on the Senate side) was sent to the House and passed unchanged on Friday, but until I see it, I will take nothing for granted.

Working from the Senate version, there is still a ridiculous amount of wiggle room. It seems to be at the discretion of the Treasury Secretary as to whether he wants to insist on equity, and as to what kind of stock he will seek, should he choose to do that. Will it be common or preferred? This could make a world of difference, especially if the bank fails. Preferred stock should recoup most of their value after liquidation; common, not so much. Amazingly, the bill leaves this open to the discretion of Treasury.

And, will they be voting shares? There actually seems to be language that encourages the government to take nonvoting shares, and if those are not available, seems to prohibit the government from exercising voting power. Voting shares would give the government power to influence whom is on the board, which, in theory, would give the feds power to fire the people who mismanaged the banks to a place where they needed government intervention. This seems to be just the kind of accountability so many demanded in the fight over this bailout. (It is also not without precedent, since when the FDIC steps in to rescue a bank, they have the power to relieve the board, and often exercise that power.)

There are also accounting exceptions for purchases under $100 million. Yes, that’s $100,000,000. Any purchase of assets valued less than that doesn’t need to meet the requirements of the stock injection provision. (This is apparently an improvement; an earlier version set the bar at $300 million.)

And this is just what I could figure out today. I am not a lawyer, I am not an economist, and I am not an accountant, so I am guessing there is plenty here that I don’t get, but here’s what I think I understand in the broadest terms: under the current regime, there is little reason for optimism. Hank Paulson was not enthusiastic about requiring equity in exchange for our money, so there is no reason to believe he will exercise his option to demand it.

However, by all accounts, there will be a new team moving into Treasury come late January, and only a portion of this bailout money will be turned over to Paulson before then. Will Paulson be able to spend all of his allotment on toxic debt before he leaves? I don’t know, but I bet he tries. Will the next Secretary of the Treasury, presumably appointed by Obama and confirmed by a Democratic Senate, be any more inclined toward demanding preferred stock instead of shitty assets? I can’t answer this, either. Obama’s economic brain trust includes many who had a hand in the fast and loose model that helped get us to where we are today—not to mention some very prominent Goldman Sachs alumnae.

So, while the questions and confusion tends to tarnish my perception of this potential silver lining, it could present some room for concerned citizens, who might have felt all was said-and-done with Friday’s vote, to continue to exert pressure. As has been noted throughout this crisis, Warren Buffet insisted on preferred stock as part of his package in exchange for his $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs, and the United States Government should accept nothing less. I don’t know the degree to which voters can pressure Congress to in turn pressure Paulson to demand “Buffet shares,” but I would like to think that if we started now and continued through next year, we could leave an impression on the incoming Obama Administration.

(cross-posted on Daily Kos and The Seminal)

Jeepers, Veepers

2008-10-03T07:20:00.005-04:00

Well, bygollygosh, Sarah—is it OK if I call you Sarah?—ya’ didn’t stare blankly into the camera like a moose in headlights, or make sick allover that pretty jacket yer wearin’, so I guess you can be vice president now fershure.

And what, dear readers, does being vice president mean to Sarah Palin? In her “own” words:

PALIN: I'm thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president's policies. . . .

IFILL: Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?

PALIN: Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.

Whoa, Sally! What are you saying there? The United States Constitution allows for the Vice President to take more power if he or she chooses? More than the current usurper? Really? The powers of the vice president are a matter of choice? (So, now you’re pro-choice, are ya’?) And, given the choice, you are going to make sure that legislature—the Senate—that you have chosen to take under your wing will be “supportive and cooperative” of and with the president, President McCain? Do I have all this right?

I don’t know if I have to spell out all the problems here, I mean, Senator Joe Biden did give it a good go in his response:

Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.

And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.

The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he's part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.

But I want to go just a bit further. No vice president—or president, for that matter—gets to choose how much or what kind of power he or she will have. To structure the government that way is to assert that we are a government of men (and/or women) and not a government of laws. The roles of the executive branch are pretty well defined after two centuries of amendments, laws, and court decisions, and if we had had a legislative branch worth its salt these last eight years, President Bush and Vice President Cheney would have been firmly told to play those roles—no improvising allowed.

In a debate that will likely be judged mostly on its intangibles, I found this the most terrifying substantive point. Sarah Palin, who once “joked” that she was waiting for someone to tell her what a vice president does (she wasn’t joking—this is just another post-hoc rationale for a bad answer out of the McCain-Palin team), has now decided that the only thing that constrains her vice presidential authority are the boundaries of her own ambition.

I figure that sounds like a great self-help mantra, but it makes, as Joe Biden said, for a fucking awful government.

That one of the night’s biggest revelations/gaffes came in an answer to a follow-up question is not a surprise, but that there were so few of these follow-up opportunities was surprising.

When I heard earlier in the week that Gwen Ifill had fallen and broken her ankle while carrying her debate material down the stairs, I imagined Thursday’s moderator precariously balancing a stack of briefing books—giant three-ring binders that went flying though the air when she fell. After seeing Ifill at the debate, I now envision two three-by-five note cards fluttering slowly to the floor.

Ifill asked broad, generic questions with few specifics, few facts from the candidates’ records, few quotes from their prior statements, and almost no follow-ups.

Ifill asked a broad question about Pakistan and Iran; Palin answered by talking about Iraq. Did Ifill say, “But I asked for your thoughts on Pakistan and Iran”? No.

Palin stated that the McCain health plan wouldn’t require tax increases and was revenue neutral; even the McCain campaign has admitted that their plan will levy taxes against the value of private health insurance policies and that the program will require additional federal money. Did Ifill challenge Palin with these points? No.

Palin repeatedly called the NATO commander in Afghanistan “General McClellan” (his name is McKiernan) and then asserted that he didn’t say that a surge in Afghanistan wouldn’t work (he said exactly that). Did Ifill call her on either of these gaffes? No.

Palin claimed that she has a record as a non-partisan executive, saying, “You do what I did as governor. And you appoint people regardless of party affiliation. Democrats, independents, Republicans, you walk the walk, don't just talk the talk.” Well, numerous news outlets have published facts quite to the contrary (like this NYT exposé)—did Ifill call out the governor on this? No.

Palin announced that she wasn’t obligated to answer the questions that were being put to her by the moderator. Did Ifill even push back on that one? Amazingly, no!

It was a remarkably deficient performance, proven more so by the last two weeks worth of Katie Couric clips. (Couric, not previously known for her tough interviews, managed to reveal much about Sarah Palin simply by asking, and re-asking, if necessary, for clarification and specifics.) Maybe it was the painkillers prescribed for her ankle, but whatever the reason, Ifill did America—and the candidates, really—a great disservice.

Joe Biden didn’t exactly knock it out of the box. The Senator started the debate bogged down in numbers, and I felt the sightlines made Biden’s brow look more prominent and severe than I’ve ever seen it, making him look a little too Herman Munster for my tastes. But, as the evening wore on, Joe warmed up—and looked up—finishing with passion and heart. He was a solid defender of the proposals outlined by the top of his ticket, and he spoke with an easily recognizable authority on most issues. It was in stark contrast to Palin’s attempts to run from the Bush-McCain record, and, as time wound down, cram in her money shots. I found myself thinking: Joe Biden spoke from his experience; Sarah Palin spoke from her notes.

So, Palin, with her well-rehearsed talking points and even more practiced “Joe Six-pack” (her words) folksiness lives to fight another day. . . or, I’m guessing, given what happened with Couric, Palin more likely lives to hide another day. She didn’t look or sound any more qualified to run a country (any country), but she didn’t get herself kicked off the ticket, either. The race will likely continue pretty much in the same direction it was going before this debate—as will the economy, the war in Afghanistan, the reconstruction of New Orleans, the illegal domestic spying, the privatization of our public institutions, and the cronyism, calumny, and corruption of the last eight years.

Sure, Sarah, even a small town hockey mom can run for the future vice president of the United States. . . but you can’t hide from your party’s past.

(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

All the news that’s fit to print. . . and some extra crap we had lying around

2008-10-02T06:25:00.004-04:00

Here we go again.

That was my first thought, anyway, when I saw this headline on the front page of today’s New York Times: “An Everyman on the Trail, With Perks at Home.” It is an article written my Mike Mcintire and Serge Kovaleski that, at first blush, appears to be yet another one of the type of which we’ve seen so many this long election cycle—one that brands a Democrat as somehow dishonest or insincere because he proclaims concern for the working or lower classes of American society while enjoying a higher standard of living himself (I use but one pronoun, I know—I don’t recall seeing an article like this about Hillary Clinton, though it certainly could have been written).

The opening paragraph did not disabuse me of this notion:

For the millions of voters getting to know him, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, portrays himself at times as an average guy who takes the train to work, frets about money and basically has led a middle-class life.

“Portrays” of course is a loaded word—it implies the lie, and no more need be said. So, of course, you expect more to be said.

And so, there it is: Joe and Jill Biden have a house, and it is a nice house. Sixty-eight hundred square feet, and on a lake, too. It is half the size, and one-quarter the value of one of John and Cindy McCain’s former mansions (sold and no longer counted toward the 8-12 others the Republican couple has), but still most certainly a nice place to live.

The Biden home is not his first—he sold his previous home of twenty years. . . and, after major renovations, at a profit, too. In fact, get this, the guy who bought it paid the listed price for it! And then the Bidens went and bought another parcel of land—and they paid the listed price for that after trying to get it for less. And then the Senator borrowed $500,000 to build his new home on that land.

And then there is the matter of the train rides. Those would be the Amtrak commutes that Biden makes daily between his Delaware home and his Capitol Hill office. Apparently, those rides—for Biden and his staff—cost money (probably not as much money as the private plane or the fleet of cars maintained by the McCains, but the McCains are rich, after all, so its only natural), and some of that money came from Joe Biden’s campaign fund.

That sounds a little dodgy, no doubt something illegal there, or some sort of nefarious deal with that whole house thing, right?

Uh, not right:

There is nothing to suggest Mr. Biden bent any rules in the sale, purchase and financing of his homes. Rather, he appears to have benefited at times from the simple fact of who he is: a United States senator, not just “Amtrak Joe,” the train-riding everyman that the Obama-Biden campaign has deployed to rally middle-class voters.

Forgive me, but I now must employ the cliché: Shocked, shocked! Honestly folks—is this news? A multi-term senator has benefited from his station, but has not broken or even bent any rules.

The article will later reveal that while Biden’s commuter costs are higher than others in the Delaware delegation, they are justified by simple math. Payment of these expenses from campaign funds might not seem completely legit, but in fact, legitimate is exactly what it was.

So, again, I ask: Why is this news? Why is this on the front page of the paper of record?

This is not to say that I endorse the extra privilege accorded Senator Biden because he is in a position of power. Indeed, I have often felt uneasy with the relationships between Biden and the financial institutions that have made Delaware their home. Much in Biden’s Senate record makes his nickname—the Senator from MBNA—ring true. But nothing in today’s Times story reveals anything illegal or particularly untoward. . . beyond, of course, this shocking revelation that Senators are treated nicely by interested parties.

Really, if I am shocked by anything in the article, it is by how relatively little Senator Biden seems to have profited from his position. He owes over $700,000 on his mortgage, he carries five figures of other debt, and his retirement account holds between $15,000 and $50,000. For the US Senate—often called “the millionaires’ club”—this is downright pathetic. It actually makes me believe he does lie awake nights worrying—worrying why he isn’t as good at profiting from his position as his colleagues.

But back to the Gray Lady. In a campaign where both men on the Democratic ticket come from quite humble beginnings, where both are among the least wealthy members of the Senate, what is the point here? That they are insincere? That they have no right to challenge Republicans on issues of importance to lower- and middleclass Americans? That certainly seems—yet again in this campaign—to be the implication.

If it is, I have news for Mcintire and Kovaleski—and all the journalists who have feigned similar outrage: we don’t live in a country where a lot of people of simple means get to be president. . . or even United States Senator, for that matter. That would be something worth writing about—especially now, in this time where the merely wealthy are voting to bailout the superrich. We could have a conversation about how we might finance campaigns differently to get candidates perhaps more in touch with the plight of working Americans.

Or, we could just talk about that plight—the struggles and needs of most of our population—and how each ticket’s proposals might address the situation.

However, in a time when the sitting president and the Republican candidate are both wealthy sons of privilege whose actions, decisions, orders, and votes have proven they have little real concern for the less well-off, to run a front-page story such as the one on Biden borders on the absurd—and gets in bed with the irresponsible.

Is it really the contention of the Times that it is more sincere to be a rich man from a privileged family acting in the service of his class while paying lip service to the needs of the less fortunate than it is to be a rich man, who was once a poor man, not forgetting from whence he came? If not, someone there should say something, because that’s the message they keep sending.

If the New York Times is not willing to pull back the curtain on this bias, then might I suggest that they actually stick to news for their news pages?

Then again, as I have come to realize, their motto isn’t “Only the news that’s fit to print.”

(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Before you think too kindly of House Republicans...

2008-10-01T09:48:00.005-04:00

Let me start with an extended quote from Glenn Greenwald:

Retired New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston, writing at The New Republic yesterday, makes a critical point, in a piece entitled "Celebrating the Bailout Bill's Failure":

Whether you favor the $700 billion bailout or not, the House vote today should make you cheer -- loudly.

Why?

Because the majority vote against it shows that Washington is not entirely in the service of the political donor class, by which I mean Wall Street and the corporations who rely on it for their financing. These campaign donors, a narrow slice of America, have lobbied and donated their way into a system that stacks the economic rules in their favor. But faced with as many as 200 telephone calls against the bailout for every one in favor, a lot of House members decided to listen to their constituents today instead of their campaign donors.

Johnston's celebration that "Washington is not entirely in the service of the political donor class" is probably premature given that Congressional leaders are falling all over themselves to assure everyone that this deal will pass in a few days after it is tinkered with in one direction or the other. . . . The corporate donor class and political establishment may lose a battle here and there, but they almost never lose the war, since they own and control the political battlefield.

Still, Johnston's overarching point is absolutely right. For better or worse, yesterday's vote was the rarest event in our political culture: ordinary Americans from all across the political spectrum actually exerting influence over how our Government functions, and trumping the concerted, unified efforts of the entire ruling class to ensure that their desires, as usual, would be ignored.

I like both Greenwald and David Cay Johnston a lot—I have especially appreciated Johnston’s writing on this latest manufactured “crisis”—and I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, but I think both of these men are giving “We, the People,” too much credit for making our voices heard, or, if not quite that, giving they, the House Republicans, too much credit for listening to we, the people.

Though Greenwald will correctly point out that whether Republicans are listening out of concern for their constituencies or concern for their jobs is a distinction without a difference, there is another possible—and I think probable—motivation at work. It is not the fear of losing their jobs, but the desire to make political hay, to use this bailout to destroy Democratic prospects (this year, and, even more so, in 2010), that is most likely the unifying force behind the Republican revolt.

Well, that prospect, and a guy named Newt:

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported this morning that conservatives may have been taking their marching orders from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who “was whipping against this up until the last minute” — despite issuing a statement supporting the bill as the vote was taking place:

MITCHELL: I’m told reliably by leading Republicans who are close to him, he was whipping against this up until the last minute when he issued that face-saving statement. Newt Gingrich was telling people in the strongest possible language that this was a terrible deal, not only that it was a terrible deal, that it was a disaster, it was the end of democracy as we know it, it was socialism. And then at the last minute comes out with a statement when the vote is already in place.

Reacting to the news, NBC’s Mike Barnicle said he had been told by congressional conservatives that the move was “the opening salvo of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign four years hence.”

That is not to say that the phone calls by concerned Americans were pointless—not at all—but it is to say that one should never assume there is the possibility of common cause to be struck with the post-Reagan Republican Party. They, like their latest standard-bearer, John McCain, are interested in power for power’s sake, and are the very embodiment of the corporate donor class-backed political establishment that Greenwald and Johnston believe took a body blow on Monday.

It is not so long ago that Gingrich haunted the corridors of power with his nasty brand of us-versus-them politics and sanctimonious hypocrisy. It was never enough that he and his party should win, it was also necessary that Democrats loose.

The man and his caucus are little changed today. If progressive Democrats want to stop the NPLB (No Plutocrats Left Behind) bill and advance a real economic fix, then they are going to have to do it themselves.

. . .

As to that final point—progressives doin’ it for themselves—there is an alternative bill with the less than compelling name “No BAILOUTS” (it’s an acronym—don’t ask) now introduced in the House. It is a mixed bag, but on the whole, much better—and much cheaper—than Paulson-plus. Sirota has a rundown and a plan of action.

The Senate plans to vote on a bill similar to the House version of Paulson with some tax cuts to woo the right and some incentives for alternative energy to then woo back liberal members. It’s still a monumental piece of crap. It will not fix the problem—though it will artificially inflate the markets for a while—in the long run, it could make things much worse. If you feel like picking up the phone today, please ignore my above cynicism and call your Senators—urge a “no” vote on this Paulson-plus plan. Instead, ask your Senators to pass the stimulus package previously approved by the House.

Then, while you’ve got that bakelite in your hands, call your US Representative, tell them of your continued opposition to a $700 billion bailout, and ask him or her to consider something like No BAILOUTS as an alternative.

(cross-posted on Daily Kos and The Seminal)

McCain’s Gerald Ford Moment

2008-09-27T02:50:00.005-04:00

Looking back on 1976, many historians and casual observers alike will tell you that if President Gerald Ford ever had a chance against challenger Jimmy Carter, that chance disappeared when, during a debate, the president forcefully declared, “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.”

Ford was given a chance to correct his assertion in a follow-up, but he stuck to his guns, even underscoring the point by saying that Yugoslavia, Romania, and Poland were “independent” and “autonomous.”

Here’s what Time magazine had to say about what they called “The Blooper Heard Round the World” back in October of 1976:

Thus, in his second debate with Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford made what could well be the most damaging statement of his career. For any politician, calling Eastern Europe free would be an amazing gaffe. For a President, especially one who is running partly on a campaign theme of experience in foreign policy, the mistake reawakened many voters' suspicions that Ford is a bumbier [sic].

Fast-forward 32 years, and a candidate who is, yes, “running partly on a campaign theme of experience in foreign policy” makes a mistake that is possibly a bigger fo-pol faux pas than Ford’s.

You heard that right, John McCain called the Pakistan of the late 1990s a “failed state.” To quote Max Bergmann, that is simply “not true.”

McCain just badly misstated the history of Pakistan. For someone claiming extensive foreign policy knowledge, this is simply not acceptable.

[emphasis added]

Darn, if that don’t sound familiar. Here (again, courtesy of Bergmann) is what really happened:

Musharraf took power in a military coup in 1999 when he deposed Nawaz Sharif - who recently participated in the latest election. The coup followed the 1999 war in Kashmir with India and was due to a power struggle with Sharif, not due to Pakistan being a "failed state." The United States did not welcome the Musharraf coup. Instead the government of the United States imposed sanctions against this action.

Remember Pakistan had nuclear weapons in 1999. Did McCain believe that there was a failed state that possessed nuclear weapons? If he did he showed no concern at the time.

And I do think that McCain’s blunder is bigger than Ford’s. While Gerald Ford made the mistake of garbling his talking points on whether the Soviets had gotten the better of a 1975 trade pact—and then, rather than correcting his error, tried instead to look more sure and presidential—John McCain seemed to believe his contention that Pakistan was a failed state prior to the military coup that elevated General Pervez Musharraf.

Either that, or McCain was just vamping—which, given the import of the office he seeks and the delicate nature of US-Pakistani relations, is probably worse.

One might say that such behavior is erratic or unstable. To paraphrase Time: it might even have reawakened many voters’ suspicions that McCain is dangerous.

Will such a dangerous gaffe hurt McCain the way Ford’s big-league bumble derailed his campaign? Claiming that Poland was not under Soviet control is thought to have swung votes in crucial northern states with large Polish-American populations. Whether Pakistani-Americans in this cycle’s swing states will take similar offense at McCain’s slight (or whether voters of any stripe will be more basically appalled) remains to be seen.

(h/t Rachel Maddow)

(cross-posted on guy2k, The Seminal, and Daily Kos)

Moose lips sink ships: Palin’s morning “availability” clues us to McCain’s plan to disrupt bailout talks

2008-09-26T01:55:00.004-04:00

Earlier today, I took a peek at this tape of Republican veep wannabe Sarah Palin’s “press availability” near the sight of the 9/11/01 attacks in lower Manhattan. . .

After viewing, I wrote to some friends:

She doesn't support the bailout until "the provisions that John McCain has offered" are incorporated into the bill??? What provisions?

It was BHO that offered the four points; McAsshole would only agree to the generic preamble.

Indeed, as noted here yesterday, Barack Obama tried to negotiate a joint statement on the financial crisis with John McCain. McCain left the Obama folks hanging all day while he hobnobbed with a wealthy benefactor and crafted a plan (and talking points) to pretend suspend his campaign. Late in the day, after all of McCain’s histrionics, McCain and Obama jointly released the most generic of statements:

The American people are facing a moment of economic crisis. No matter how this began, we all have a responsibility to work through it and restore confidence in our economy. The jobs, savings, and prosperity of the American people are at stake.

Now is a time to come together – Democrats and Republicans – in a spirit of cooperation for the sake of the American people. The plan that has been submitted to Congress by the Bush Administration is flawed, but the effort to protect the American economy must not fail.

This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country. We cannot risk an economic catastrophe. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country.

There are no proposals in that statement—not in the “joint” part, anyway. Obama went on to add a five-point amendment to the statement when it was posted on his campaign’s website. McCain, too busy not appearing on David Letterman, issued no additional points, recommendations, guidelines, or proposals.

And it doesn’t seem he privately phoned in any suggestions, either. Senate Banking Committee Chair Chris Dodd, appearing late last night on The Rachel Maddow Show, said that he had “never heard from McCain on the issue” of the economic crisis. Ranking Republicans involved in the negotiations also stated that they had not spoken with McCain.

Cut to today, Thursday. After spending the previous night in New York City and making a speech at the Clinton Global Initiative in the morning, McCain finally got on his plane and flew down to DC, arriving after Congressional negotiators had already announced a deal in principle.

McCain went to the planned afternoon meeting at the White House that included Congressional leaders, President Bush, and Hank Paulson, and, according to reports, then started pitching a new plan:

During the White House meeting, it appears that Sen. John McCain had an agenda He brought up alternative proposals, surprising and angering Democrats. He did not, according to someone briefed on the meeting, provide specifics.

One the proposals -- favored by House Republicans -- would relax regulation and temporarily get rid of certain taxes in order to lure private industry into the market for these distressed assets.

That approach has been rejected by Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans and, to this point, the White House. During the meeting, according to someone briefed on it, Sec. Henry Paulson told those assembled that the approach was not workable.

Members of the House Republican caucus, never happy with the prospect of large-scale government intervention in the markets, sided with McCain, and the deal unraveled. Negotiations broke down, and the air of bipartisanship that seemed to pervade Washington talk most of the week has dissipated.

Democratic leaders are clearly angered. Chairman Dodd, appearing on CNN, said that if Republicans had an alternative plan, they should have offered it at the beginning of the week, at the beginning of negotiations, not at the White House photo op organized to announce a deal. “Instead of being a rescue plan for the economy,” decried an exasperated Dodd, “it became a rescue plan for John McCain. . . . I didn’t quite understand what was going on down there [at the White House] except political theater.”

Now, we can clearly see that this McCain campaign bailout plan was premeditated. We suspected this before, and now, thanks to Sarah Palin’s loose lips, we have proof. Palin’s mention of not supporting a compromise bailout plan until it included McCain’s proposals—hours before McCain had actually made any proposals—revealed the McCain camp’s politics first, country second strategy.

As Barack Obama stated after talks broke up, “What I found and I think was confirmed today when you inject presidential politics into delicate negotiations it is not necessarily as helpful as it could be.”

That all depends on who you were planning to help, Senator, the American people, or John McCain.

(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

I have suspended posting to my blog. . .

2008-09-25T10:20:00.003-04:00

. . . so that I can work on fixing the economy.

There are, however, a couple of non-posts over on guy2k that are totally not about not posting.

Thank you, my friends.

McCain would rather tank the markets than lose an election

2008-09-24T22:41:00.005-04:00

You know, the top paragraph on the CBS website sets it up just fine, so let’s dive in:

After Sen. John McCain announced he would suspend his campaign in order to focus on his congressional work ironing out the $700 billion bailout package - and proposed delaying the first presidential debate - he came to the CBS News broadcast center to explain the politics of the situation to CBS News Anchor Katie Couric.

Katie Couric: Sen. McCain, why is it necessary for you to take this extraordinary step of suspending your campaign?

John McCain: 'Cause these are extraordinary times. The financial crisis is on the verge of a very, very serious, most serious crisis since the end of World War II. That's according to Mr. Bernanke, Secretary Paulson and others. Any expert. This is a most serious situation. And it could … not only be United States markets, but world markets as well.

McCain continued with his hyperbolic fright-speak, saying: “I don't know anyone that doesn't believe that this crisis is of such enormous proportions that it has the possibility. . . of wrecking the economy in ways that we've never contemplated.”

Couric, who had earlier talked with the equally hyperbolic Sarah Palin, asked Palin's supposed number one about what the Alaska governor said:

Couric: Earlier today, senator, I spoke with your running mate, Sarah Palin, and she told me that if action is not taken a Great Depression is, quote, "The road that America may find itself on." Do you agree with that assessment?

McCain: I don't know … if it's exactly the Depression. But I know of no expert, including Mr. Bernanke, the head of the Federal Reserve, and our secretary of treasury, and the outside observers ... every respected economist … in this country is saying, "You better address this problem, and you better do it now, or the consequences, obviously, of inaction are of the utmost seriousness." So I agree … with Gov. Palin. There's so much at stake here. That's why I am confident that we'll sit down and work together on this thing.

Couric: But isn't so much of this, Sen. McCain, about consumer confidence?

McCain: Sure.

Couric: And using rhetoric like the "Great Depression," is that the kind of language Americans need to hear right now?

McCain: Well, listen, I've heard language from respected people: "oh, we're staring at the abyss." I've heard all kinds of things from people. I don't think we need to scare people. But I certainly think we need to tell them the truth. And tell them what's at stake here.

All of this from the same guy that, just ten days ago, told us “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.”

Listen, no self-respecting pol should sugarcoat what is going on with the economy, but there is a difference between honesty and fearmongering. It is not just proper, but essential for people in positions of power, people whose words all by themselves can provoke market action, to be very measured and careful when talking about developing financial events. John McCain’s statements to Couric—just like Palin’s earlier—were not the least bit measured, they were borderline hysterical. McCain, Palin, and, with his speech late Wednesday, President Bush, have all chosen to risk provoking additional, severe market panic in order to further their political objectives.

And there is now no doubt that McCain’s moves Wednesday were politically motivated. A McCain aid accidentally e-mailed the campaign’s internal talking points on suspension to their entire press list.

Add this to last week’s off-the-cuff call for the firing of SEC head Chris Cox, and today’s campaign “suspension” and the call for a delay of Friday’s presidential debate, and you can see why John McCain might not be presidential timber.

And it’s not just those of us on the left who’ve noticed. This is none other Republican graybeard George Will, writing this week in the Washington Post:

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.

Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. . . .

In any case, McCain's smear -- that Cox "betrayed the public's trust" -- is a harbinger of a McCain presidency. For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people.

. . . .

Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

Now, with the Arizona senator’s latest irresponsible proclamations on the financial crisis (one he helped create with his 26 years of anti-regulation votes), it seems McCain isn’t just “not suited to the presidency,” he’s not even suited to campaign for it.

(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Damn Yankees

2008-09-22T07:47:00.006-04:00

Even though I am anything but a Yankees fan (I am the fan of two teams, to paraphrase a quote the provenance of which I can’t remember, I am a fan of the Dodgers, and I am a fan of whichever team is playing the Yankees), I could not help but watch the ESPN broadcast of the final baseball game to be played at Yankee Stadium with a heavy heart. Simply known as “The Stadium” in metropolitan New York, it is—or was, I should now say—a living piece of history, a working facility that could provide present enjoyment alongside a palpable link to the past. Even with the terrible mid-Seventies remodel, seeing a game at Yankee Stadium still felt like spending a few hours in another era. You could look around and recognize tableaus from old newsreels and videotapes; you could feel like you were part of the history, not just of baseball, but of American popular culture.

Listening, however, to the broadcasters detail that history, not just of the stadium and the Yankees, but of the team’s majority owner, George Steinbrenner, I grew not only heavy of heart, but also sick of stomach. Talking about the Yankees’ marketing might without talking about what it has done to the economics of baseball is absurd; talking about “The Boss” (as Steinbrenner is unaffectionately known) without talking about the crimes he has committed—against individuals, baseball, and the United States of America—is offensive.

There is much to be said about Steinbrenner’s authoritarian, bullying management style that could still be dismissed as a subjective evaluation, but here is a point that is inarguable fact: George Steinbrenner is a crook.

In 1974, Steinbrenner was indicted on fourteen counts relating to his large, illegal under-the-table contributions to Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign. General George copped a plea—guilty of an illegal campaign contribution and guilty of obstruction of justice—and got off with a five-figure fine. Then Commissioner of Baseball Bowie Kuhn banned Steinbrenner from the game for two years—later cutting that penalty to 15 months. Ronald Reagan did Kuhn one better, granting Steinbrenner a full presidential pardon in the waning hours of the Reagan Administration.

Around about the same time as the pardon, George Steinbrenner grew weary of his all-star outfielder Dave Winfield, a player he had signed after the 1980 season to a ten-year, $23 million contract (the largest in the sport to that point). Or, more accurately, Steinbrenner got cheap. Having reneged on a contractual obligation to donate $300,000 to Winfield’s charity for poor, inner-city youth, The Boss was sued by Winfield. Steinbrenner’s response was to pay $40,000 to known gambler and all-around slime-ball Howard Spira in exchange for dirt on Winfield that could be used to derail the lawsuit.

This move got Georgie banned from baseball “for life.” In 1993, Fay Vincent, that era’s baseball commissioner, decided “life” meant “three years.”

I’m telling you this now; the good folks at ESPN mentioned none of it. Instead, they talked about Steinbrenner’s inevitable induction into baseball’s Hall of Fame. They’re probably right, but considering there are poor players who were banned from baseball for being caught hosting small-change crap games in their hotel rooms, and others that have been kept from the Hall for taking tiny bribes to supplement slavish salaries, Steinbrenner’s induction would make a mockery of the institution.

But all of this would just be inside baseball, as they say (well, except that he violated federal election laws, but, gosh, he was pardoned for that), were it not for the cause of Sunday’s lamentations and celebrations. Across the street from the old House that Ruth Built now rises the New Yankee Stadium. The old one will be torn down before next season to make room for a parking lot.

The Yankees didn’t really need a new stadium. The historic old one was more than serviceable, and has in recent years drawn over 4 million visitors a season. But in the last decade or so, as the Yankees were winning title after title, leveraging their brand, and increasing their revenue even faster than their payroll (much, much faster, really), George Steinbrenner neglected The Stadium, allowing for some very visible cracks and crumbles, making minimal repairs, and complaining about his plight all the way to the bank.

Steinbrenner demanded a fresh stadium. He threatened the city. He wanted a new ballpark, and better access roads for suburban commuters, and more space for parking, or else he’d take the New York Yankees out of New York.

New York City, faced with this manufactured crisis, eventually gave in. . . and gave in big, issuing hundreds of millions in tax exempt bonds to finance construction of the new stadium, along with pledging city funds to improve transportation and infrastructure around the area, seizing park land by imminent domain to make way for more parking, and over-valuing the land under the new stadium in order to facilitate a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes arrangement.

Negligence, a manufactured crisis, a gunless holdup, greed and corruption at every turn—sound familiar? You and I are not the only ones who think so. I was surprised and impressed to hear Bill Moyers close the Friday broadcast of his weekly show with an essay making some of the same observations—and doing so in harsh terms:

This last couple of weeks, ordinary mortals below could almost hear the ripcords of golden parachutes being pulled as the divinities on high prepared for soft, safe landings. All this while tossing their workers into the purgatory of unemployment, like sacrificial lambs.

. . . .

But let's change our metaphor for a moment. Let's go to our sports desk. Because if religion is no longer the soul of capitalism, we have to look somewhere else to understand this new gilded age. And there it is, just a few miles north of Wall Street, the "House that Ruth Built". . . . Yankee Stadium, as fabled a place to Americans as Ilium was to the Greeks.

But believe it or not, this Sunday — weather permitting — the Yankees will play their last game here. The stadium's being demolished, to be replaced next year with a brand new one. What a history to disappear down the memory hole.

. . . .

[Yankees] owner, George Steinbrenner, is one of the country's richest tycoons, among the Forbes 400. But when it came to paying for the new pleasure dome costing $1.3 billion, the millionaires on the field and King Midas in the skybox came up with some razzle-dazzle plays to finance their wealth machine. Tax-free bonds, requiring ordinary citizens to subsidize the construction, and hundreds of millions more for new parking garages, a train station and parks. Those parks, by the way, will supposedly replace the ones seized by the city to make room for the new stadium. The little league games that used to flourish on sandlots just outside the old ball park have been moved miles away, sent down to the minors on a long road trip.

That's okay, you may think, there will be plenty of room for the tax-paying public to come root, root, root for the home team — even the coliseum in ancient Rome had bleachers, for the commoners. But in fact there will be 5,000 fewer seats in the new stands.

And while the Yankees reportedly have promised that half of what's left will cost $45 apiece or less, those seats that used to cost $250, right behind the dugout, will cost you $850. And if you want to be near home plate, you'll have to cough up $2,500...per game.

Meanwhile, there will be more luxury suites and party rooms where the fat cats gather, safely removed from the sweaty masses. Corporations and wealthy individuals will be able to rent the luxury suites for anywhere from $600,000 to $850,000 tax deductible dollars a year, assuming they haven't filed for bankruptcy this week.

. . . .

Why aren't the fans and tax payers giving the Yankees a Bronx Cheer? They are. But city officials rolled over them while making sure local politicians stay in the line up. The pols are getting their own luxury suite at the new stadium for free and first shot at buying the best available seats.

And so this Sunday evening we will bid farewell to dear old Yankee Stadium, and await the new colossus to rise from its ruins. It will cast its majestic shadow across one of the country's poorest neighborhoods, whose residents will watch from the outside as suburban drivers avail themselves of 9,000 new or refurbished parking spaces. Never mind all the exhaust, even though in this part of town respiratory disease is already so high they call it "asthma alley."

Not that the well-to-do in the infield seats will have to hear that wheezing. They'll have access to a private club, a private entrance and a private elevator. Totems of this Gilded Age. Let the games begin.

Moyers is wonderfully on point, but as hard-hitting as this commentary is, it actually misses the chance to land an additional punch. . . or two. Perhaps Moyers didn’t realize, or perhaps he just had to edit for time, but missing from Friday’s story was an even more direct link between the meltdown on Wall Street, and the teardown in the Bronx.

Almost all Yankees games are broadcast in New York on the YES Network, a cable station formed after the Yankees and the NBA’s New Jersey Nets got into a pissing match with their previous television home and some of that station’s owners. The Nets have since landed in the pocket of wealthy real estate mogul Bruce Ratner, but the Yankees restructured the company with a new partner and kept YES a growing concern. Today, the television network is believed to be worth $1.5 billion (about $200 million more than the Yankees themselves).

Oh, that new partner in the YES Network? That would be Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs is one of the last two of the once “big five” independent investment banks. . . wait, what’s that? Goldman Sachs is now not an investment bank? This just in: Sunday night, during that Yankees game, or there abouts, Goldman and its only remaining rival, Morgan Stanley, sought and got permission to change themselves into full-service banks. They will argue that this makes them more competitive in these new tough times, but, in point of fact, they did this today because it will mean that they can partake of a much larger slice of the pending federal bailout. But, I digress. . .

Goldman Sachs, majority owner of the YES Network, is also the institution that gave us current Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (as well as Clinton Treas-Sec Robert Rubin). Paulson is the architect of the proposed financial sector bailout—a bailout that is an even better example of the shock doctrine than the New Yankee Stadium.

Paulson’s substantial portfolio is now in a blind trust, but it is more than possible that it still contains plenty of shares of both Goldman and YES. Inside baseball, indeed.

(cross-posted on Daily Kos and The Seminal)

Bush on econ crisis: I got nothin’

2008-09-19T06:32:00.004-04:00

With the US economy in crisis and the markets in something close to freefall Wednesday, the White House let it be known that President Bush would deliver an important statement come Thursday morning. At about a quarter after 10am yesterday, Bush stepped to a lectern placed in the Oval Colonnade and read the following:

The American people are concerned about the situation in our financial markets and our economy, and I share their concerns.

I've canceled my travel today to stay in Washington, where I will continue to closely monitor the situation in our financial markets and consult with my economic advisors. I spoke to Secretary Paulson this morning, and I will meet with him later on today.

In recent weeks, the federal government has taken extraordinary measures to address the challenges confronting our financial markets. We've taken control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- the home finance agencies -- to help promote market stability and to ensure they can continue to play a role in helping our housing market recover. This week, the Federal Reserve acted to prevent the disorderly failure of the insurance company AIG -- a development that could have caused a severe disruption in our financial markets and threatened other sectors of the economy. Yesterday, the Security and Exchange Commission took action to strengthen investor protections and step up its enforcement actions against illegal market manipulation. Last night, the Federal Reserve, in coordination with central banks around the world, took a substantial step to provide additional liquidity to the U.S. financial system.

These actions are necessary, and they're important. And the markets are adjusting to them. Our financial markets continue to deal with serious challenges. As our recent actions demonstrate, my administration is focused on meeting these challenges. The American people can be sure we will continue to act to strengthen and stabilize our financial markets and improve investor confidence.

Thank you.

And that was it. Bush took no questions, and submitted no supplementary materials.

This, of course, is not an important statement—it is a recap. There are no proposals or directions here, no new policies, not even a hint that the president might have a next step up his sleeve. Nothing.

Needless to say, this statement did nothing to calm the markets. What, you say, but the markets rebounded on Thursday—the Dow had its biggest one-day gain in years.

True, but that gain is even more impressive considering that after Bush made his remarks, the Dow had actually continued to fall another 200 points. The late day rally of some 600 points was not because of the US president’s words, but because there was a rumor circulating that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke were close to announcing a plan of their own.

Paulson and Bernanke, along with the recently unpopular SEC head Chris Cox, did meet with Congressional leaders from both parties on Thursday night, but they emerged several hours later with no plan to announce.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said he expected a proposal from the Administration not in days, but “in a matter of hours,” but, as of this writing, there is still nothing to report.

Asian markets are as of now holding their own based on the continuing belief that Treasury and Congress will craft a deal. . . a deal to bail out the multitude of troubled financial institutions.

Should Paulson, Bernanke, et al. disappoint, however, expect to start next week with another round of financial panic.

The problems here are myriad, but let me just focus on one: what are we doing hanging on every word from a disengaged, incurious, and uncaring president; what are we doing betting the house (no pun intended) on a last-minute deal for another stopgap government bailout?

This crisis is not a surprise—none of it. The Bear Stearns collapse was in March; the subprime mortgage bubble burst last year. And yet, the current administration—the CEO President (remember that boast?) and his pro-business brain trust—did nothing to reform the system; they didn’t even do anything to minimize the risk to the system.

Instead, we get the continued privatization of wealth hand-in-hand with the continued socialization of risk. The upper echelons of bank/investment house/insurance industry management continue to be rewarded for pushing financial instruments designed to skirt regulations and maximize short-term gain; when those schemes fail, the government must attempt to walk a lose-lose line between public expenditure and global economic fallout.

President Bush, as evidenced by his “important statement,” has offered zero leadership and zero desire to reform the system. The man who wants to continue his Republican economic policies, John McCain, has looked just as ridiculous. He opposed the AIG bridge loan before he was for it, he proposed a “9/11-style commission” to examine the roots of the crisis while almost simultaneously bragging that, as head of the Senate Commerce Committee, he had a hand in every aspect of this economy, and he claimed he would, if elected, fire SEC Chair Cox, even though he helped confirm him, can’t legally fire him, and won’t get the chance to try because Cox has made it clear he leaves with the current administration—and that was just this week.

It would be amusing if it weren’t so terribly real. Jobs will be lost, life savings will disappear, homes will have to be abandoned. Bush has personal wealth and a federal pension, Wall Street CEOs have gargantuan compensation packages and golden parachutes, and John McCain has his twelve houses and Cindy’s beer money. But American workers (you know, the “strong fundamentals” of the American economy), what do they have?

In too many cases, after decades of market deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy, and Republican class warfare, they have what Bush had on Thursday morning—nothing.

(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Roasting an old chestnut

2008-09-17T08:31:00.007-04:00

On September 17th, 1787, some 221 years ago today, a bunch of guys got together to sign their names to a little ditty that started something like this:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Yeah, spelling and punctuation was kind of quaint back then, but the rest of the thing holds up pretty well. . . or at least did for about 214 years or so. It was ‘round about then that the current vice president decided that he could form an even more perfect union—a union of his self-serving and paranoid worldview with virtually every aspect of American power and governance.

From drafting an “energy policy” all by his lonesome to manufacturing intelligence and lying the country into a war for oil, from kidnapping people abroad and disappearing them to torturing citizens in the basement of the White House, from abandoning the Geneva Conventions to abrogating the Fourth Amendment, Dick Cheney, with the blessings of his incurious regent patron, unitarily set about to edit away about two-thirds of the United States Constitution.

Well, not quite. As much as the biggest proponent of the unitary executive “theory” would like to think he did it alone, he couldn’t have really made his solo performance hum as well as he has without the cooperation of a furtive and feckless legislature. That the leadership of Congress changed hands two years ago has been of little consequence when it comes to these grand matters, and so, with Cheney due to relinquish his official control in just four short months, the 221-year-old Constitution is in more peril today than ever.

That point might seem odd to some—surely the menace has been two terms of rapacious Republican rule, and with that soon over, so, too, the threat, no?

No. For after eight years of complicity and codification, the current imbalance of power runs the risk of being passed on to another executive with little done to restore the equilibrium between the branches that is required by the Constitution, and nothing done to punish those that disregarded those constraints. That the next administration might be a Democratic one is of little consolation. Perhaps Barack Obama, who was, as we are oft reminded, a teacher of Constitutional law, will govern with a greater respect for the checks and balances envisioned by the founders, but his behavior in the recent battle over FISA revisions proves that such deference cannot be assumed. And without action by the Congress to reveal the Bush Administration’s transgressions, explain them to a distracted America, and hold responsible Cheney, Bush, and their minions, a restoration of the balance of power is most certainly not assured.

For without explanation of how harmful this has been to our Union, there will be little incentive for the next president to behave more in line with the provisions of Articles I, II, III, and, for that matter, IV and V, too, and without penalties assessed against those currently in violation, there will be no disincentive to behaving in much the same way. As has been noted before, there are few that would voluntarily choose to give up some of their power. A belief that this power might be used for good instead of evil makes that prognosis all the more certain. . . and grim.

America’s greatest strength these 221 Constitutionally governed years has been the openness that comes with a deliberative democracy. The push, pull, and pace may often be infuriating, but the informed debate is what keeps a country honest. It allows for a confident dissent and the contributions of a diverse population. It should, in theory, prevent wars of ego and choice, and guard against crony capitalism, selective prosecution, environmental exploitation, and a host of initiatives that benefit the friends of the current executive at the expense of the national interest.

In theory. The history of the US Constitution is littered with its failures, for sure, but those failures tend toward its misapplications or instances where it is not applied at all. Which brings to mind Article II, section 4:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

If there were ever a day to revisit those words, it would be today; if there were ever a time to honor them, it would be now.

To that end, there are some in Congress who are trying—Democratic Representatives Dennis Kucinich and Robert Wexler come to mind. And, today, Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold (D), as Chair of the Senate Judiciary’s Constitution Subcommittee, will host a celebrity roast, of sorts, in honor of the star document’s birthday. Titled “Restoring the Rule of Law.” Feingold introduced these hearings yesterday:

“Tomorrow, September 17, is the 221st anniversary of the day in 1787 when 39 members of the Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution in Philadelphia," said Feingold in opening the hearings this morning. "It is a sad fact as we approach that anniversary that for the past seven and a half years, and especially since 9/11, the Bush Administration has treated the Constitution and the rule of law with a disrespect never before seen in the history of this country."

Calling the Bush-Cheney shredding of our national creed "a shameful legacy that will haunt our country for years to come," Feingold addressed the difficulty that a new Congress will have in rectifying this administration's actions as the public and even Washington become numb to what Bush has made standard practice since September 11.

Feingold, to my mind, sells short the disrespect that the Bush-Cheney Administration had for the Constitution before 9/11/01, but the Senator fully recognizes the difficulties that lie ahead, especially considering how little support his and likeminded efforts have received from his own party’s leadership. Given that sorry state of affairs, and given the noise of the presidential election and the needs of a failing economy, I am not expecting much to come of Feingold’s hearings.

And that is a shame (and I mean that in the most condemnatory tone), for it will be harder to make the aggressive, long term changes to our financial markets, or our economy writ large, our energy policy, our national infrastructure, or our foreign policy, without the structures and strictures put in place 221 years ago. Not that it will be easy with them, but without the balance that has modernized and energized this Republic for two centuries, the rule of law is reduced to the whims of men and women. Any of those leaders will prove to be imperfect—even those that embody the hopes and good will of the majority are susceptible to the corrupting influences of power, the recalcitrance of institutions, the blindness of certitude, and the sway the interested few. It is the Constitution that protects the general welfare against misguided whims, that gives mere mortals the counterweight to politicized pressure, that gives the imperfect a means by which to become more perfect.

It is a 221-year-old idea—the idea of three co-equal branches each asserting their power equally and in the open—that gives a large and aging country the tools to make the change we need.

(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

I’m John McCain, and I Approve of Lying

2008-09-12T16:45:00.005-04:00

You know the adorable old guy or gal that seems so sweet and folksy on the surface but is always ready with a mean or nasty comment as soon as he or she thinks no one is paying attention? Sure you do—if you don’t have someone like this in your family, then you’ve seen the character on a sitcom at some point in the last, oh, thirty years. . . .

But you don’t have to think that hard, we have an example of the two-faced, nasty-at-his-core old man right here, right now, on TV practically every hour of the day: His name is John McCain.

Presidential wannabe McCain loves to step out of his “straight talk express” and talk about what a decent and honorable campaign he wants to run; all the while, his team of Karl Rove protégés (oh, and, Karl Rove, himself) issue sleazier and sleazier campaign ads filled with the kind of lies and innuendo that make that old Willie Horton ad look like a Sesame Street commercial for the letter “H.”

This week, while the entire presidential campaign has been lost in the lipstick vogue (stupid and false in its own right), Team McCain rolled out an ad that basically accused Barack Obama of being a pedophile. It was bad enough to offend even establishment sensibilities:

"This is a deliberately misleading accusation." [McClatchy, 9/9/08]

"The claim is simply false..." [FactCheck.org, 9/10/08]

"[The] accusations… seriously distort the record. … In referring to the sex-education bill, the McCain campaign is largely recycling old and discredited accusations..." [New York Times, 9/11/08]

"[McCain] is responsible for one of the sleaziest ads I've ever seen in presidential politics, so sleazy that I won't abet its spread by linking to it…." [Joe Klein, Time Magazine, 9/10/08]

"The most disheartening aspect of a scurrilous Republican ad falsely accusing Barack Obama of promoting sex education for kindergarten children is its closing line: 'I'm John McCain, and I approved this message.' This from that straight-talker of yore, who fervidly denounced the 2004 Bush campaign's Swift Boat character attacks on John Kerry's military record." [Editorial, New York Times, 9/12/08]

That little bit of federally required legalese—“I’m John McCain, and I approve this message”—should be enough to tie candidate McCain to his campaign’s gutter tactics, but Sweet John has carried on, maintaining some unspecified distance between his angelic self and the messy stuff of political sausage-making. He’s above that sort of thing, golly gosh [forced smile, creepy laugh].

And, McCain has largely managed to maintain this distance—I guess no one was around to call the old coot on his under-the-table insults. . . until this morning.

JOY BEHAR: "There are ads running from your campaign, one of them is saying that Obama, when he said you can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig, was talking about Sarah. There's another ad that says that Obama was interested in teaching sex education to kindergarteners. Now, we know that those two ads are untrue, they're lies. And yet you at the end of it say I approve these messages. Do you really approve them?"

JOHN MCCAIN: "Actually, they are not lies." [ABC, "The View," 9/12/08]

Yes, that’s the tough political team at The View nailing John McCain on his lying ads—or rather, that’s The View nailing John McCain TO his lying ads.

From where I come from, when a guy approves of a lying statement—and seconds it, even—that makes him a liar. It is now pretty much universally agreed that both the lipstick and child sex ads were lies, and John McCain has chosen to stand by those lies. That would make the self-anointed above-it-all straight talker a common, down-in-the-gutter, liar.

Say it with me, everyone: John McCain is a liar.

Now, I know that’s not as funny as an episode of The Golden Girls (if only just barely), but Betty White wasn’t running for president.

John McCain is. . . and he approves of lying.

(cross-posted on Daily Kos and The Seminal)