American Politics and Policy

2012-11-23T05:47:00.005-08:00

I am now blogging on American politics almost exclusively at http://2012americanpolitics.blogspot.com/ through December 31, 2012.

Starting on January 1, 2013, I will be blogging at http://2013americanpolitics.blogspot.com/.

Starting on January 1, 2014, I will be blogging at http://2014americanpolitics.blogspot.com/.

Starting on January 1, 2015, I will be blogging at http://2015americanpolitics.blogspot.com/

Starting on January 1, 2016, I will be blogging at http://2016americanpolitics.blogspot.com/ .

God Bless America!

Mary Claire Kendall

Source: Wikipedia on American Revolution. "John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence, showing the five-man committee in charge of drafting the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776 as it presents its work to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia."

$1.2 trillion here, $1.2 trillion there …

2012-01-26T10:41:00.000-08:00

Obama shows no inclination toward relinquishing his overspending ways

Illustration: Obama spending by John Camejo for The Washington Times

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/3/12-trillion-here-12-trillion-there/

By Mary Claire Kendall

The Washington Times

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Here we go again. Last week, President Obama asked Congress for a $1.2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling - this $1.2 trillion to cover the government's bills in 2012. This just after he apparently wastes the taxpayer money to fly his dog from Hawaii to Washington to go Christmas shopping with him.The idea when the debt-ceiling-increase agreement was struck last summer was that in exchange, spending restraint would follow.

Flying your dog from Hawaii to the District is not an example of spending restraint.

In last summer's "agreement," the debt ceiling would automatically go up in three stages, unless Republicans passed a "resolution of disapproval," within 15 days. But no one will even be around to disapprove since the Congress won't be back in session until Tuesday, Jan. 17.

At any rate, an ensuing fight would occur just in time for the 2012 election, providing a fresh opportunity for Mr. Obama, who increasingly sounds like a demagogue-in-chief, to cast Republicans as protectors of the rich; he the fearless defender of the middle class.

Since Mr. Obama has put Social Security in the red, given his payroll tax endless holiday, he could once again hold old people hostage, as he did last summer, by saying unless Congress passes the debt ceiling, they will not get their Social Security checks.

He wouldn't be exactly lying. Last year, the payroll tax holiday drained $105 billion more from Social Security than it took in - the first deficit in its 75-year history - representing one-tenth of the debt-ceiling increase he is now requesting.

That Mr. Obama is simultaneously portraying himself as a defender of the middle class represents historic hubris - at least for the leader of the Free World.

If, perchance, you do think the rich alone will pay for this $1.2 trillion increase, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.

But Mr. Obama shamelessly demagogues the issue, saying re-elect me so, once and for all, we can get the wealthy to pay their fair share.

I wish that it were so easy. But, economic growth is all about having the right incentives and raising taxes doesn't do the job - not by a mile. So after his election, more government would be prescribed since the economy still won't be healing itself - all the rosy predictions for 2012 notwithstanding. With deficits growing, yet more taxes - paid by "the wealthy," of course - would be needed, by which point the definition of "wealthy" would be absurdly low. Before we know it, we would have morphed into Europe at the very time Europe is prescribing austerity and trying to be more like America when we were still the "shining city on the hill."

So, what's the solution?

Enjoy your vacation, Republicans, and give Mr. Obama his debt-ceiling increase. Election Day will help balance the books.

For those who fear a recovering economy will keep Mr. Obama and his profligate ways in the White House four more years, I have another bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.

Mary Claire Kendall, a Washington-based writer, served in the Department of Health and Human Services under President George H.W. Bush.

Journey to Liberty and Forgiveness

2011-09-08T07:07:00.004-07:00

COMMENTARY

BY Mary Claire Kendall

September 11-24, 2011 Issue | Posted 9/6/11 at 8:14 AM

http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/journey-to-liberty-and-forgiveness/

Life's coincidences are amazing and sometimes eerie.

On 9/11/01, I ended up stranded in New York. It was one of my rare visits.

I traveled to the city late on Sept. 10, staying until Sept. 14. I will never forget those days — e.g., late the next day, when the wind shifted, suddenly the putrid smell wafting up from Ground Zero enveloped the Midtown Manhattan condo where I was staying.

Two months later, when I quickly organized a return visit, the only available hotel was near the intersection of the symbolically powerful Liberty and Broadway, at Ground Zero, the air still thick with sickening chemicals, as workers with masks continued the clean-up.

During my November visit, that video of Osama bin Laden mimicking the planes crashing into the Twin Towers was released and aired incessantly.

A makeshift memorial at the corner of Liberty & Broadway,
as close as one could get to Ground Zero, November 9, 2001.
Credit: Mary Claire Kendall

Nearly 10 years later, while visiting the city again — a frequently canceled trip, months in planning — I awoke to news of bin Laden's demise.

During that stay, Pope John Paul II was beatified on May 1 in St. Peter's Square as Navy Seals were making final preparations to helicopter into Abbottabad, Pakistan, 65 miles outside of Islamabad, to take out the terrorist mastermind. It was a grotesque, bloody scene we can only imagine. He had taken out the Twin Towers and with them more than 2,500 souls — a total of 2,998 on 9/11. Now he got his eye-for-eye, tooth-for-tooth just deserts.

At 10:30pm, when the Seals took off, it was 8pm in Rome, where faithful were praying before John Paul II's exhumed casket; in Washington, it was 2pm. White House officials huddled in "The War Room," whose 50th anniversary was May 13.

At the beatification ceremony for John Paul II, the French nun whose Parkinson's was cured through John Paul's intercession carried a silver reliquary holding a vial of the Pope's blood to the altar — the blood that flowed from John Paul II in that very square, nearly 30 years earlier, when Turkish hitman Mehmet Ali Agca gunned him down on May 13, 1981, the feast of Our Lady of Fatima.

It was only because the Pope had leaned over to bless a little girl's Our Lady of Fatima medal just as the would-be assassin pulled the trigger that the bullet narrowly missed his heart.

Exactly a year later, the Pope made a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal to thank her for saving his life, bringing her a crown encased with jewels and his attacker's bullet. (Our Lady of Fatima is said to have told the three shepherd children she appeared to in Fatima in 1917, "There are no coincidences.")

Following the shooting, Pope John Paul II asked people "to pray for my brother [Agca] ... whom I have sincerely forgiven." In December 1983, he visited Agca in prison, meeting and speaking with him privately. The Pope also developed a rapport with Agca's family, meeting his mother in 1987 and his brother a decade later.

Although Agca had expressed disdain for John Paul II, mistakenly considering him "the incarnation of all that is capitalism," he too developed a warm friendship with the Pope and, in early February 2005, as the John Paul was dying, wrote to wish him well.

Two years later, Agca wrote a letter saying he had renounced his Muslim faith and converted to Catholicism on May 13, 2007. "I would wish to return to Rome," he wrote, "to pray at the tomb of John Paul II to express my filial appreciation for his forgiveness."

At St. Patrick's Cathedral on May 1, 2011, Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop emeritus of New York, emphasized the Pope's powerful example of forgiveness as the only path to peace.

It's hard to think about forgiveness 10 years after 9/11. The events of that day are just too horrific.

Yet out of that tragedy and brutal loss of life came a flowering of spirituality — of which forgiveness is the foundation.

When I spoke with Father Peter Gnanashekar of Our Lady of Victory Church, which is close to Ground Zero, on Nov. 9, 2001, he reflected on this spiritual renewal, while recounting the events surrounding the terrorist attack.

On the morning of Sept. 11, at 8:47am, he said, "Time seemed to stand still."

While assisting at Mass, he heard a "big sound." Soon a man, covered in debris, rushed in to report the horrific news, followed by someone reporting a man covered in blood had dragged himself to the church seeking last rites. Father Andrew Cieszkowksi immediately administered the sacrament to this man, who had been struck by flying debris. He was Ground Zero's first visible victim.

Others, going out to see the scene with their own eyes, came back in utter disbelief.

Spurred on by the mayhem, Father Peter recalled how everyone began to pray fervently "in front of the tabernacle and Blessed Mother's statue," and then, "spontaneously, to pray aloud."

As the dust came pouring in, people started taking altar cloths to cover themselves, holding tight through the final 10:30am tower collapse.

Then, as the debris in the church cleared, everyone — in a state of shock — began going to confession. Believing their demise was imminent, they asked Father Peter to hurry with the absolution.

Every Wednesday since Sept. 11, Our Lady of Victory held an hour of prayer to help people cope with the grief and to provide mental and spiritual solace. The purpose, Father Peter said, was "to share, to heal, (and) to grow as we try to face this one with faith."

This Sept. 11, let's continue "to face this one with faith." That such great suffering can bring that silver lining — enabling us to discern and embrace the wisdom of Pope John Paul II's central message of forgiveness — is a great consolation.

Mary Claire Kendall is a Washington-based journalist and screenwriter.

For companion piece, "Journey to Liberty and Broadway," giving more details about the 2001 journey, see http://maryclairespearlsofwisdom.blogspot.com/2012/09/journey-to-liberty-and-broadway.html.

Post Office Tipping Point: Romney to the Rescue?

2011-09-05T20:31:00.000-07:00

By Mary Claire Kendall

Madonna of the Trail outside Bethesda Post Office,
which was closed in 2012

The mess President Obama has gotten our nation into has reached a clearly definable tipping point: The United States Post Office will just disappear in December if something is not done and fast to put it on a solid financial footing.

The agency is so low on cash, reports the New York Times, that it can’t make a $5.5 billion payment due this month. It has never been so precipitously close to collapse. (I knew something was radically wrong when I couldn’t find a mailbox in downtown DC to save myself!)

While Republican presidential candidate Governor Rick Perry of Texas subtly hints he will be “Superman” coming to America’s rescue, what we need, in this instance, is former Governor (and front runner) Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, “Turnaround Artist”—his skill documented in his book about how he rescued the Salt Lake City Olympics—to design a plan for saving the Post Office.

Gary Cooper Commemorative Stamp
From the Legends of Hollywood series
Copyright: 2008 USPS.

Romney could bring the kind of creativity and business savvy needed to breathe new life back into the Post Office that he brought to creating Staples while at Bain & Company, as one of the founding partners—where he took struggling businesses and turned them around. Perhaps he could devise a public-private partnership that would streamline the service for greater efficiency and cost savings and maximize profits from its iconic stamp collection celebrating American life—famous writers, artists, scientists, stars, statesmen, educators, et alia. For instance, the Post Office’s marketing tool of stamps featuring notable African Americans—a sterile list from 2004—is wholly inadequate, and properly conceived and executed could reap huge financial rewards.

Edward Hopper Commemorative Stamp
Copyright: USPS 2009.

It’s just a question of applying good old American know-how in a focused, determined, effective way.

Such a gesture would touch the hearts of every American, who cherishes their community post offices—replete with memories from childhood, standing in line, securely clutching their mother's hand, into adulthood, hopefully clutching that job application—and would be a big boost to his presidential campaign.

It would also be worthy of that iconic Madonna of the Trail standing in front of the Post Office in Bethesda, Maryland—just outside of Washington, D.C.—representing resolute determination and steadfastness in the face of great odds—precisely what’s needed to meet this and every other daunting challenge facing America.

The Madonna is one of twelve monuments commissioned by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution that dot the National Old Trails Road, extending from Maryland to California—roughly the trail the candidates will follow in 2012, a trail now littered with reminders of American decline under almost three years of Obama’s wanting “leadership.” Also known as the Oceans-to-Oceans Highway, this 2,448 mile long highway began in New York City, traversed Baltimore and Bethesda, eventually wending its way through the southwest, along what became the famed Route 66 highway, and finally ending at the shores of the Pacific in California.

All twelve monuments were dedicated in 1928, and now, 83 years later, are presiding over a crumbling

America

, of which the Post Office’s decline is a clear and startling example.

The Post Office survived the telephone, the telegraph but may not survive the Internet and Obama, who ironically marshaled the power of the Internet to win—resulting, it seems clearer day by excruciating day, in

America

losing big.

But, hope—and help you can believe in—is on the way in the form of competency, experience and heart such as Romney possesses.

###

Heck of a Job, Obama!

2011-08-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

By Mary Claire Kendall

As we mark the 6th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, it's increasingly clear, the really big storm headed our way is economic...

It's the lull before the storm—the perfect storm. No, not another Irene or, even worse, Katrina.

The really nasty storm that awaits us is economic.

As everyone focused on Irene, our growth rate for the second quarter weighed in at a paltry 1%—revised downward from the reported 1.3% at the end of July.

People crowd Wall Street after the Stock Market Crash of 1929.
Credit: The Authentic History Center, Michael Barnes.

The stock market’s gyrations—reminiscent of the volatility preceding “The Crash of 1929,” compared then to Coney Island’s “Cyclone” roller coaster—is reflecting fear over our seriously ill economy, still laden down with massive debt and corruption that favors “too big to fail” institutions, whose misdeeds during the 2008 financial meltdown have been rewarded with more favoritism at the little guy’s expense.

Before President Obama escaped to Martha’s Vineyard—instead of a more humble location where he could have listened to and felt Americans’ pain—the market was down 635 points, up 430 points, (then came S&P’s downgrade), down 520 points, up 423 points, and down 419 points—in just two weeks.

Obama’s plummeting polls, in turn, are reflecting dissatisfaction with his anemic response to the anemic economy.

But, now, we’re assured, he started developing that jobs plan on lush Martha’s Vineyard, which he’ll unveil early September. What about January 2009? Why not then, when it was job one? What? He needs golfing on Martha’s Vineyard to get creative? Thus, all we got was that boondoggle trillion dollar stimulus we were assured was needed to keep the unemployment rate, now 9.1%, below 8%?

Meanwhile, Americans are battening down the hatches to try to weather this perfect storm barreling our way from Europe, collapsing under the weight of its own dismal growth and debt-laden consequences, making growth less likely and the vicious cycle prefiguring global economic collapse—in the absence of leadership—more likely.

Leadership, you say? Yes, leadership! The absence of which Ruth Marcus was one of the first to broach six months ago in her “Obama’s Where’s Waldo Presidency?” piece, noting, “On the biggest issues, the president is often hard to find.”

Everyone was aghast. But, she was only stating the obvious. By now, it’s a steady drumbeat, with Mort Zuckerman recently writing about Obama’s “competency crisis” in the Wall Street Journal.

Admittedly, to some, the need for Obama leadership is still a foreign concept. As Jonathan Capehart mused on “Morning Joe”—also on Friday, August 26—what can the president do to create jobs?

It all calls to mind the Saturday Night Live spoof of the 2008 Hillary-Obama debates. Whereas she was treated to boxing gloves, Obama was asked, Are you comfortable and do you need another pillow?

It’s confounding that in the midst of incalculable suffering, given Obama’s apparent cluelessness over how to nurse the ailing economy back to health—the unemployment rate among 16-24 year-olds, April-July, alone, was 51.2%, highest since 1948, when that statistic began being calculated—that anyone would give Obama a mulligan.

Notwithstanding, I would say, no, Obama can do nothing to create jobs—unless he transforms himself and does what great presidents do, namely: inspire the nation with a driving dream; eliminate job-choking regulation; lower job-killing taxes; support community banks that lend money to small businesses that create most jobs, instead of big banks courtesy zero percent interest rates, that, the Fed just announced, will be maintained through 2013—the same community banks that, because they know how to make responsible mortgage loans, hold the key to cleaning up the mortgage mess; reform health care the smart way by putting patients first instead of bureaucrats—government and insurance—and getting the incentives right.

But, this would require, well greatness, and really and truly falling in love with America.

And, that might be too much for a president who only inspires coddling.

Postscript: On Friday, September 2, the Labor Department reported zero jobs were created in August—such a dismal number not seen since 1945!

###

China Global Cyberattack?

2011-08-08T11:23:00.000-07:00

by Mary Claire Kendall

William "Wild Bill" Donavan
on the cover of Life Magazine

Washington, DC, August 7, 2011—The Department of Defense (DOD) is now treating cyberspace as an "operational domain."

As Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn explained on "Charlie Rose" last October, it's a whole new command—CYBERCON—focused on preparing for "emerging cyber threats." The new "Cyber Strategy," as Deputy Defense Secretary Lynn outlined, holds that:

...our posture in cyberspace must mirror the posture we assume to provide security for our nation overall. Namely, our first goal is to prevent war. We do this in part by preparing for it...

This presupposes we have an enemy threatening us with cyber warfare.

Is China a purveyor of such threats?

It's hard to know. But, the recent McAfee report released in conjunction with the Black Hat and Defcon conferences in Las Vegas at which security experts and hackers meet to discuss the growing threat of cyber intrusions, should give pause to those tasked with defending our nation against such attacks.

The 14-page report all but accuses China of launching a five-year hacking operation aimed at a diverse array of over 70 organizations—including the US government, particularly its national security apparatus; UN Secretariat in Geneva; and US Olympic Committee—using malicious software from a single computer server to troll for sensitive data, as reported in The Daily Telegraph.

If true—a big if—China is not so much a "strategic competitor," in former President George W. Bush's words, as an "unscrupulous competitor," as Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee vice president for threat research, described the perpetrator of this massive hacking scheme—robbing us of "economic advantage and national secrets."

"This," he added, "is the biggest transfer of wealth in terms of intellectual property in history."

Others say, not so fast. It's easy to mask cyber crimes in someone else's guise. However, the fact that USOC was hacked before the 2008 Olympic Games China hosted, heightens suspicion.

In the days when Reagan officials were referring to the Soviet Union as "the evil empire," China was considered "the threat," along the lines discussed in The China Threat by national security journalist Bill Gertz.

The worry then was that China's espionage was siphoning off nuclear secrets.

Upping the ante, Rear Admiral David L. Philman recently called China "a smart and learning enemy" in a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. However we describe it—and whoever the source—the end game is to try and deal America a fatal blow.

We may be closer than we realize.

As Gertz reported vis-à-vis Kevin Freeman's 2009 unclassified report, Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses: "Chinese military officials publicly have suggested using economic warfare against the U.S.," which principally involves cyber attacks to take advantage of our economic vulnerabilities."

"The new battle space," says Freeman, "is the economy. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems each year. But a relatively small amount of money focused against our financial markets through leveraged derivatives or cyber efforts can result in trillions of dollars in losses. And, the perpetrators can remain undiscovered."

Freeman believes a coordinated plan of attack is currently underway.

As this author wrote on April 29, in "America's Fiscal High Noon":

Right now, it's 1941 all over again… We're just months away from another Pearl Harbor — potentially — and all we hear from President Barack Obama and company, as Governor Haley Barbour (R-MS) puts it, is "happy talk." ...According to... Freeman, what's referred to as "Bear Raid II" — phase III of an economic terrorist attack against the United States — is poised to fatally hit the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. dollar, causing the collapse of America's economy.

With DOD on the case, working synergistically with General David H. Petraeus, new Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), replacing Leon Panetta, new DOD Secretary—we have a fighting chance of avoiding such a calamity.

But, it will take a well-coordinated effort involving many more entities, perhaps akin to that William "Wild Bill" Donovan, Major General, US Army (Ret.) undertook at FDR's request, prior to Pearl Harbor, as Coordinator of Information, starting in July 1941—COI, morphing into the Office of Strategic Services, which later became the CIA—to mount the kind of effort needed to head cyber attacks off at the pass, and at their source—whatever that might be.

Originally published in AND Magazine on August 6, 2011.

What, Compromise?: As Speaker John Boehner Said, "It can Be Done!"

2011-07-31T00:34:00.000-07:00

By Mary Claire Kendall

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)
Credit: Associated Press
blog.al.com/wire/2011/01/gop_takes_charge_new_speaker_b.html

There was a time, way back in 1995, when Congress actually cared about balancing its budget.

Remember the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget Act?

It's what gave President Bill Clinton bragging rights to a surplus by the end of his term. That and President George H.W. "read my lips, no new taxes" Bush's tax increase, which paved the way to Clinton's growing economy and balanced budgets.

But, President Barack Obama doesn't have such a rich political inheritance. The missing "H" in his predecessor's name made all the difference in the world to Obama's success.

And, one thing Congress can do is read polls, especially the polls showing that since Obama's "Eat Your Peas" press conference on June 29, he's tanked in voter approval.

Having offered no real solutions or leadership, instead preferring to scold Congress—and sic the American public on Congressional switchboard operators—the President has basically painted himself into a corner, with a bowl of peas to eat all by himself.

As Frank Newport of Gallup reported this week:

President Obama is in a somewhat more perilous situation now, based on his job approval ratings, than was President Clinton in late 1995, when Clinton faced off against Gingrich over similar budget issues. Clinton's job approval rating was above 50% during most of the shutdown, and continued at that level from February 1996 through the November election, which he won. Obama's job approval ratings in recent weeks have been significantly lower.

Look for further erosion in his polls given anemic economic growth the Commerce Department reported on July 29: the second quarter's 1.3% GDP growth, much less than expected; the first quarter revised down from 1.9% to .4%.

Of course, the Tea Party Caucus may yet revive Obama's sinking fortunes instead of the economy. Apparently the wisdom Republican leaders hoped The Town would impart, is still sinking in, namely: "… this not f#%*ing around thing is about to go both ways."

Is Washington a great place, or what?

But, presuming, in James Carville's words, the Tea Party Caucus finally "takes the white flag"—and House passage early Friday night of the Boehner plan is a hopeful sign—Obama will then perform one function: signing or vetoing the bill raising the debt ceiling.

Now, for the actual "solution":

Congress is apparently coalescing around some semblance of the plans offered by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), with a dash of McConnell and G-6 Plans—seasoned legislators' practical genius—added in for good measure, i.e., to help the measures pass!

The Boehner plan seems very reasonable—raising the debt ceiling by $900 billion until February 2012 for $917 billion in CBO-certified cuts; instituting budget caps to guard against budget creep; while, just like Reid's plan, a "committee" of six Democrat and six Republican Members of Congress sort out the other roughly $2 trillion in cuts and revenue increases, derived from a reformed tax code oriented toward job-creation.

Remember The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget Act?

Even the Missouri Compromise needed a committee to achieve its success!

Boehner is basically saying, let's come back in six months and see how the patient is doing. Maybe Uncle Sam's meds will need to be adjusted, but at least he'll be on the right track. Reid prefers raising the debt limit in one fell swoop by $2.5 trillion, for $2.4 trillion in CBO-certified cuts, lasting through the 2012 election.

The real sweetener will be achieved by focusing on "where the jobs are"—since job creation is what will ultimately dig us out of the hole.

Boehner argues jobs come predominantly from the private sector and excessive taxes kill jobs, which Reid apparently agrees with given his "no taxes" plan. As Boehner said in his concise remarks to the nation on Monday, July 25:

These are difficult times… Millions are looking for work, have been for some time, and the spending binge going on in Washington is a big part of the reason why. Before I served in Congress, I ran a small business in Ohio. I was amazed at how different Washington, DC operated than every business in America. Where most American businesses make the hard choices to pay their bills and live within their means, in Washington more spending and more debt is business as usual. I've got news for Washington—those days are over.

Obama's "fair" and "balanced" approach, on the other hand, emphasizes government "investments" to help Americans get jobs, not create them.

Boehner's plan—what's "doable," in his opinion—is Reid's plan, but in two steps, lest the time-honored tradition of "Washington gimmicks" and "phony accounting" be allowed to overtake this mad dash to cobble together, at the 11th hour, a bill just to get the debt ceiling raised—conveniently through the 2012 election.

The six-month check up would focus sharply on what's at stake in the 2012 election—whether government should pick winners and losers; or give us the freedom to chart our own economic course—America's foundational principle.

The Tea Party's request, in the spirit of Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, that a balanced budget amendment be added to the bill, would help advance the latter vision.

But, most of all it's time for action and achieving what's possible—not the ideal.

As Speaker Boehner said in his remarks on the Floor of the U.S. House of Representatives Friday before the vote on his bill, quoting President Ronald Reagan (quoting Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle), "IT CAN BE DONE!"

Published for the first time on American Politics and Policy, Wednesday, September 28, 2011.

Originally published in AND Magazine on Saturday, July 30, 2011.

Compromise: The "Genius" of America

2011-07-30T08:34:00.001-07:00

By Mary Claire Kendall

Given the perspective of time, it's crystal clear that to compromise you need a partner who is dealing in good faith. Unfortunately President Obama continues to play games, today trotting out a Rose Garden tax increase, knowing it’s DOA, which actually makes Grover Norquist’s position, referenced herein, seem more reasonable and strategically wise. As then Governor Ronald Reagan told Johnny Carson in 1975, when asked about how he would balance the federal budget, the same way you protect your virtue – by learning how to say “no.” But, as Reagan also said, politics is the “art of the possible.”

- Mary Claire Kendall, September 19, 2011

Sketch of Bull Run battle by "Mr. Davenport."

Washington, DC, July 21, 2011 – Echoing loudly, on this, the 150th anniversary of the First Battle of Bull Run—the Civil War’s first real battle—is a powerful lesson.

As Shelby Foote reflected in Ken Burns’ The Civil War, this “enormous catastrophe” erupted “because we failed to do the thing we really have a genius for, which is compromise.”

“Americans,” he continued in that soothing Mississippi drawl of his, “like to think of themselves as uncompromising. Our true genius is for compromise. Our whole government’s founded on it and it failed.”

Compromise founded our nation; wrote our Constitution; and defused the simmering conflict over slavery’s expansion, between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions, every thirty years since George Washington's first inauguration—in 1790, 1820 and 1850.

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30’ north except within the boundaries of Missouri (proposed state). Prior to this agreement, the House of Representatives had steadfastly eschewed compromise. But, then a conference committee was appointed, paving the way to the solution.

Only when North and South factional leaders refused to budge off their ideological positions did their struggle boil over into Civil War.

Some Things Never Change.

Of course, the North had a point—as does Grover Norquist and Republican politicians he holds in check. Slavery was wrong and had to be eliminated. And, taxes to pay for excess spending are wrong, so excess spending must be eliminated. But, then so did the South—as does House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her fellow progressives. While not a perfect analogy, the South was intent on maintaining states’ rights to run their affairs without federal interference. And, entitlements, bankrupting our country, must continue—without reality’s interference—no matter how much they shackle our future.

States’ rights is what motivated General Robert E. Lee, who owned no slaves himself, to accept command of the Confederate Army, instead of President Abraham Lincoln’s offer to command the Union Army. When faced with that decision, siding with Virginia, “my country,” as he called his beloved state, was his only choice.

Of course, it didn’t need to come to that.

And, neither does it today, figuratively-speaking, except for one troubling fact—the same troubling fact that existed in 1865: The political center—where compromise lives—is barely breathing.

As in 1861, today two great factions have commandeered the debate on the national stage and are talking past each other.

Civil War erupted "because we failed to do the thing we really have a genius for, which is compromise." - Shelby Foote

The Tea Party, claiming a large stake in the Republican Party, given their House of Representative wins in the 2010 elections, insists cuts alone—no new taxes—must close the $2.5 trillion budget gap through roughly November 7, 2012, that, by an amazing coincidence, gets President Barack Obama past the next election.

The Progressives, who hold great sway over the Democratic Party, insist revenue increases, beyond closing loopholes for corporate jets, and cuts to Defense—definitely not entitlements or other favored social programs—solve the problem.

What a mess!

Fortunately, there are signs of compromise, including the “Gang of Six” plan for $4 trillion in cuts paired with revenue increases in a 4:1 ratio, albeit, there’s no way this plan can be “scored” in time; as well as “The McConnell Plan,” linked to doable cuts identified in the Biden talks.

But, will the entrenched factions budge? That's the $2.5 trillion question.

Ironically, like the Tea Partiers of today, Washingtonians who went out to watch the First Battle of Bull Run on a Sunday afternoon 150 years ago, in Manassas, near the muddy “Bull Run” stream, 30 miles south of Washington, thought it would be great fun. A regular tea party!

They brought their picnic baskets to watch the battle, thinking the Army of the Potomac would whip 'em, thus settling once and for all the decades-old conflict, making the federal government’s role in arbitrating slavery's future pre-eminent. Instead they witnessed in horror as casualties mounted during the five-hour battle in which General Irvin McDowell’s 28,000-strong Army of the Potomac fought General Pierre Gustave Toutant (PGT) Beauregard's 33,000-strong Confederate States Army.

When all was said and done, 2,900 Northerners and 2,000 Southerners, respectively, were killed, wounded, captured, or missing. Hardly a tea party!

Thus, as we mark today’s anniversary, best to heed warnings regarding the August 2 deadline to raise the debt ceiling, which if disregarded, could result in the largest, fastest tax increase in American history, through steep interest rate hikes.

At which point, Grover, I would watch out for flying pies.

Published for the first time on American Politics and Policy, Wednesday, September 19, 2011.

Originally published in AND Magazine.

"Where Are The Jobs?"

2011-07-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

By Mary Claire Kendall

Unemployed men queued outside a Depression soup kitchen opened in Chicago
by Al Capone, in an effort to clean up his public image. The storefront sign
reads: "Free Soup, Coffee and Doughnuts for the Unemployed."
February 1931. 306-NT-165.319c. (american_cities_129.jpg)
Credit: Unknown. Source: American Archives.

This column, originally published on July 16, is as relevant as ever. The situation continues to deteriorate, with "zero" jobs reported in August, a number not seen since 1945; while Obama is still talking about infrastructure projects and job-creation tax credits as the road to recovery. Now packaged as "The American Jobs Act," he announced it to great fanfare at a Joint Session of Congress on September 8. Unfortunately, as employers, Americans at large, Republicans and even Democrats, are signaling, his vague plan, costing $447 billion - paid for by small-business-choking tax hikes - fails to revive the private sector's job creating engine. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, has a detailed plan, released September 6, which focuses squarely on the private sector's central role in creating jobs. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), likewise, spoke to Obama's government-as-prime-mover myopia in remarks to the Economic Club of Washington today. "The president's proposals," he said, "are a poor substitute for the pro-growth policies that are needed to remove barriers to job creation in America."

Washington, DC, July 16, 2011—“Where are the jobs?,” House Speaker John Boehner tweeted in the recent “twitter town hall” hosted by President Barack Obama.

It's a fair question.

Two days later, the government reported the unemployment rate edged up to 9.2% in June, from 9.1%, while “real unemployment” was 16.2%. Just 18,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy—far less than expected, dashing hopes of a fast rebound.

As George Will recently wrote, “Is this the best we can do?”

Obama, in typical fashion, answered Boehner by blaming Republicans—this time for not supporting big “infrastructure and public works programs” to create jobs, the need for which he reiterated in Rose Garden remarks following the dismal jobs report.

Of course, no one argues against the need for repair and construction of roads, railways, bridges, tunnels, sewers, etc.

But, clearly we can do better at reversing the downward trajectory in which over 40 million Americans don’t have a job (14.1 million) or sufficient employment (over 26 million), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics—as housing gets weaker, Case Shiller Index recently confirming a double dip in prices.

Long line snaking around building for jobs fair in Atlanta in August 2011.
Credit: Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal & Constitution, via Associated Press.

The first order of business would be to realize that, in Calvin Coolidge’s famous words, “The business of America is business.”

Or, to put it in modern parlance, “It's the private sector, stupid!”

But, the overriding fact is Obama believes government, not the private sector, should be the main jobs engine and solution to the interlocking housing crisis. This, in spite of the fact that the private sector is generating what growth there is. The payroll processing firm ADP reported that 157,000 jobs were created in the private sector in June—still a long way to go before closing the yawning 40,000,000 jobs gap.

Admittedly, some of Obama’s rhetoric is starting to give the nod to the private sector:

“Government,” he said in last weekend’s radio address, “has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can't afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs.”

Unfortunately for him and the rest of the country, it’s a little late; besides which, such rhetoric turns off his liberal base.

It’s an unenviable position to be in.

As Karl Rove summed it up in “Why Obama Is Likely to Lose in 2012”: “…he faces four serious threats. The economy is very weak and unlikely to experience a robust recovery by Election Day. Key voter groups have soured on him. He's defending unpopular policies. And he's made bad strategic decisions.”

A line outside the State Temporary Relief Administration in New York City
on November 24, 1933. Credit: Associated Press.
During the Great Depression, national unemployment rate reached 25 percent,
13 million people were unemployed and 100,000 businesses failed.
Now the effective unemployment rate is approaching 20%
and some 40 million have insufficient or no employment.

Like Herbert Hoover, heedless of the Great Depression’s economic reality, Obama, until recently, was telling Americans prosperity is just around the corner; albeit now he’s signaling we've got a long way to go before we turn that corner. Indeed we do. As Martin Feldstein, Harvard Economics Professor, Chairman of President Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers and former President of National Bureau for Economic Research, recently wrote, the economy’s near-term outlook is “weak at best.” Yet, “fundamental policy changes will probably have to wait until after the presidential and congressional elections in November 2012.”

Ironically, Hoover could not see his way clearly to supporting direct cash assistance to starving, jobless Americans, when there was none; whereas, Obama cannot see his way clearly to unleashing definitively private sector job-creating energies, when there's an abundance—even though it would stimulate a tax revenue gusher to melt the debt and fund his cherished infrastructure projects.

One of the only small businesses in America
not burdened by the heavy hand of Washington regulation,
albeit Montgomery County, MD could be more biz-friendly.

Hoover was resoundingly defeated in 1932—one of 10 incumbents, out of 31, who have lost re-election since our nation's founding.

Obama is on track to become #11.

His only hope, it seems—absent a miracle—is that Republicans, like Democrats in 2008, will nominate someone who is charismatic and inexperienced. Unfortunately for him, however, the Obama “experiment,” as Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney calls it, has inoculated even Republican primary voters against that possibility, as a recent Iowa poll demonstrated.

Voters clearly want out of this Great Recession.

"The line of 4,000 hopefuls stretched from a fifth-floor hotel ballroom
to the cold street below, snaking around the block."
New York Daily News, March 6, 2009, Credit: Watts/News.
How many of these folks are still unemployed or underemployed,
or, discouraged, have simply dropped out of the labor market, their
99 week unemployment benefits having long ago run out?

"The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment
benefits earlier this month jumped to a 26-year high. And by the looks
of these lines at job fairs  across the country, who knows when it will get better."
New York Daily News, March 6, 2009,  Credits: Sullivan/Getty.
Of course, as we now know from the perspective of almost three years
under Obama's leadership,  it's not gotten better, it's gotten worse - much worse.

Published for the first time on American Politics and Policy, Wednesday, September 15, 2011.

Hooverville, 1932. Credit: Unknown.

Originally published in AND Magazine, 7/16/11.

Winning the Present with TR and Civility

2011-06-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

by Mary Claire Kendall

It might seem like an odd pairing, but what the GOP field needs is TR and civility to win the present — and defeat President Barack Obama in 2012.

TR, of course, refers to larger-than-life Republican Theodore Roosevelt, who served as president from 1901-1908, then ran on the Progressive Bull Moose ticket in 1912.

While he was a rock-ribbed Republican, when theory ran afoul of doing what’s right by the little guy, he always chose the latter.

His brand of politics is perfect for slaying today’s dragons that have gutted the middle class and precipitated runaway spending.

Take, for example, housing prices. The Case-Shiller index recently revealed they’ve declined more steeply than during the Great Depression. The fact that 75% of consumers can’t even get loans to purchase a home, let alone refinance, is a big reason why.

Investment banker Christopher Whalen, whose father served in Ronald Reagan’s “kitchen cabinet,” says the way around this problem is to raise the FHA loan cap and help small and medium size banks increase lending. This would mean giving more power and money to community banks. Obama prefers letting Wall Street call the shots — in spite of its role in precipitating the 2007-08 housing meltdown — while the little guy gets slammed.

But, Republicans, Whalen says, should out-progressive Democrats and do what is right, which is TR writ large. TR basically stared down Wall Street, thus saving it from itself; so should today’s Republicans.

One hundred years after TR’s Bull Moose gambit, many in the GOP field seem well-positioned to take up his mantle.

For instance, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty emphasizes Main Street production over Wall Street consumption. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has that “can do” spirit. And Texas Governor Rick Perry shares TR’s tough-as-nails persona.

Then there’s Mitt Romney, who, like TR, favors universal health care as the key to economic stability, signing it into law as governor of Massachusetts (2003-2007).

Many conservatives deride the 2006 Massachusetts law as ObamaCare’s twin and Tea Party poison — a comparison Obama smugly reinforces. But, in fact, ObamaCare and RomneyCare are apples and oranges. Whereas ObamaCare reduces what doctors are paid; RomneyCare ensures that doctors are, in fact, paid when a patient, who could otherwise afford it, lacks insurance.

Also, as Romney underscored in Monday’s CNN debate in Manchester, RomneyCare did not raise taxes, whereas ObamaCare does — to the tune of $500 billion — in addition to shifting $500 billion out of Medicare to fund it.

Sixty-three percent of Massachusetts residents favor the law, according to a recent poll by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Boston Globe, up 10 percentage points in the past two years, with only 21 percent opposed.

And what of the “individual mandate” that makes people think RomneyCare is ObamaCare? Well, considering there’s already a federal mandate to provide ER care to anyone regardless of ability to pay, it’s pretty important to make sure docs get paid, unless you want to drive them out of business a la ObamaCare.

Where it gets tricky is that an insurance mandate only make sense if, as in the case of automobiles, having coverage doesn’t encourage crashes, whereas standard health insurance increases utilization. Also, RomneyCare does not encourage medical savings accounts and streamlined, just-the-basics insurance.

But, as Romney is at pains to say, the Massachusetts law was a state solution to a state problem. He vows to rescind cost-prohibitive, one-size-fits-all ObamaCare if elected president — granting a waiver to all 50 states on Day One.

Meanwhile, Republicans have come up with a way to obviate a “mandate” — since understandably, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea — by assessing a fee on those who don’t buy insurance to hedge against costs incurred should they fall ill or suffer injury.

But, sensing political opportunity, Romney’s Republican opponents have been pouncing on him, with Sarah Palin tut tutting the Massachusetts law in Boston one hour before Romney announced for the presidency. Gov. Pawlenty called out “ObamneyCare” because, he explained in the debate, Obama claimed RomneyCare was his “blueprint.”

The good news, though, is Monday’s debate [5] signaled a truce of sorts.

Indeed, if Republicans hope to win the present, we must nominate a candidate who understands what ails the economy and how to cure it, of which health care is a big part. This means civility — honestly assessing opponents’ positions and presenting your own — will be critically important, lest we destroy ourselves from within.

So, with eyes on the prize, let the race be guided by the kind of civility our great Republican presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and, yes, even TR, practiced; and inspired by TR’s overflowing common sense in making life better for the little guy, now suffering under the weight of Obamanomics.

Originally published in Pajamas Media http://pajamasmedia.com/ on June 15, 2010

________________________________________

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/winning-the-present-with-tr-and-civility/

URLs in this post:

[1] Theodore Roosevelt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt

[2] chose the latter: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/175141/teddy-right/jonah-goldberg

[3] The Case-Shiller index: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-09/shiller-says-u-s-home-price-declines-of-10-to-25-wouldn-t-surprise-me-.html

[4] Christopher Whalen: http://blogs.reuters.com/christopher-whalen/

[5] Monday’s debate: http://hotair.com/archives/2011/06/14/who-was-the-nights-biggest-winner/

Copyright © 2011 Pajamas Media. All rights reserved.

Haley Barbour: 2012 GOP Dark Horse?

2011-04-06T07:18:00.005-07:00

by Mary Claire Kendall

Politics is an art—the “art of the possible,” in President Ronald Reagan’s formulation.

Emerging from the crop of Republican presidential candidates is Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, who knows the art of politics as well as his good friend, the late Lee Atwater, a politically-gifted South Carolina boy, who like Barbour, rose to the Chairmanship of the Republican National Committee. The Party thrived under both.

Lee Atwater with President Ronald Reagan during the 1984 presidential campaign

Lee died 20 years ago this spring (i.e., March 29). He would have been 60 this year. Barbour is 63.

On a personal note, I first met Haley at the opening reception for Ed Rollins’ lobbying firm. Lee was there, too. Ed had just run Reagan’s landslide re-election, with Lee serving as his deputy. I remember Ed quipping to a reporter that the key to a winning campaign is finding a winning horse.

Haley is a winning horse.

He’s the Republican Party's Bill Clinton, without the fatal flaw: a Southern governor, who's a die-hard policy wonk, who knows and loves the game of politics better than anyone in the room—who also happens to be a schmoozer extraordinaire with dollops of Southern charm who genuinely likes people.

And, like Clinton, he's a baby boomer, born in the wake of the Allied World War II epic victory, who lost his father at a tender age.

Admittedly, he’s also a “dark horse,” registering little more than an asterisk in recent polls of Republican presidential primary voters. As the New York Times reported recently vis-à-vis their poll with CBS, "Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi may be well known along K Street — where he was once a lobbyist — and among Washington-based reporters who covered him when he was the Republican Party chairman. But 85 percent of Republican voters said they did not know enough about him to offer an opinion."

But, he is well known and liked in the most important state for a Republican presidential nominee in sealing the deal—South Carolina, where he handily won the recent poll in Charleston County.

At or near the head of the pack—nationally—is former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who makes a persuasive case for why he’s the one to lead America out of the wilderness. And, he's neck and neck with Obama in the latest McClatchey-Marist poll. The others cut fine figures, too, including former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. And, of course, Donald Trump is surging with his winsome, no-nonsense, tough-talk New York style.

But, Barbour is, arguably, the savviest politically—and, critically important, has the best sense of humor—making him odds-on-favorite.

Now, many sniff at Barbour’s Mississippi roots, other struggling states tut-tutting, “Thank God for Mississippi!” It’s not a compliment. But, another way to look at it is, if you can make it in the Magnolia State, you can make it anywhere. Governor Barbour has certainly made it—outfoxing trial lawyers on tort reform, enticing corporations to relocate to Mississippi, balancing the budget and, most recently, leading the nationwide war on state-budget-busting Medicaid.

Barbour speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)

in Washington on Saturday, Feb. 12, 2011. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

Then there's that cockamamie idea that to be from the South, is to be a racist rube. Surely, after electing the first African-American president, it’s time we broke through another barrier and elected the first Deep South Republican President. What better time than the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War. Then, let him prove how much he can do to raise the living standard of African-Americans—and every other race and culture that bears the name “American”—thus dispelling the In the Heat of the Night racial stereotype—reverse discrimination—once and for all.

Furthermore, some in the Republican Party were decrying one of Barbour’s opening forays into Iowa Republican presidential politics on the Ides of March, no less, for suggesting Republicans might look for budget cuts in the Defense Department and scale back in Afghanistan.

But, Barbour looked prescient for three reasons—particularly in light of President Barack Obama’s offensive against Libya three days later:

First, he ticked off the neoconservatives. And, for their outsized role in the Republican Party, not always producing outsized success (e.g., Iraq “we will be greeted as liberators” War), that might be a good thing.

Governor Haley Barbour, appearing on CNN, November 2, 2010

But then, it wasn’t unexpected. Bill Kristol, son of the late Irving Kristol, “father of neoconservatism,” and Weekly Standard editor, had been throwing stink bombs at Barbour. (As a matter of fact, neocons have been throwing stink bombs at Southern conservatives since the M.E. Bradford dustup.)

A late December Weekly Standard cover story racially stereotyped Barbour. Then, in a blog entry, “T-Paw v. Hee-Haw,” Kristol praised Pawlenty, i.e., “T-Paw,” for promoting neocon foreign policy, while lambasting Barbour, whom he dubbed “Hee-Haw,” for advocating, at a GOP dinner in Iowa, the aforementioned defense cuts and troop reductions in Afghanistan and deriding him because he “couldn’t identify” specific cuts. After skewering Barbour more, Kristol reasoned he smelled a “shrewd political operative,” who sees “an opening for a defense-cutting, Afghanistan-skeptic candidate in 2012.” Haley Barbour’s son, Sterling, smelled something else and sent Kristol an e-mail in which, according to Houston Chronicle, he “suggest(ed) Kristol, a conservative leader who served as an informal adviser to 2008 vice presidential pick Sarah Palin, is more interested in dividing the party than defeating President Barack Obama in 2012.”

Meanwhile, Kristol showered lavish praise on Obama for his Libya intervention, declaring in his blog after Obama’s speech on the offensive, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

Et tu, Bill Kristol?

Governor Haley Barbour, 2011, LifeNews.com

Second, on that Ides of March, Barbour simultaneously signaled to another group of Reagan Democrats, especially the Southern variety, whose sons and daughters do most of the fighting and dying in these too-often misguided Mideast ventures, who are mad as hell, they’re not going to take it anymore, that he feels their pain. Dave “Mudcat” Sanders, who watches white Appalachian voters, told The Daily Caller’s Neil Munroe vis-à-vis Obama’s Libyan intervention: “I don’t see any upside, I don’t see him gaining him any voters… (they’re) tired of body-bags coming back to the mountains…”

Third, he telegraphed he’s not afraid to ask a Republican sacred, ahem, elephant—namely the not-so-lean-and-mean portion of defense spending—to step up to the plate and do its part. After all, since gaping debt and deficits, according to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, now constitute a veritable national security threat, it’s only right.

Barbour was similarly prescient in Iowa at the late March Principles Forum, citing economic growth and job creation “for our people” as priority one—spending cuts being “the means to an end”—noting “my old friend Fred Smith, my fellow Mississippian,” FedEx CEO/founder’s “great saying”: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing,” underscoring Barbour’s other “main thing”—electing a new president in 2012.

Lee Atwater 'jams' with President Bush at the

Celebration for Young Americans Inaugural event.

Inscription on photo is to "Robb Austin."

Welcome to the 2012 Republican presidential race, where the ghost of Lee Atwater won’t be far behind.

As former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, Bush-Quayle ’88 Chairman, said in his moving eulogy at Lee’s funeral twenty years ago on April 4, 1991, when it came to the game of politics, Lee was “Machiavellian… in the very best sense of that term.”

Lee knew how to win.

So does Haley.

The author with Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary during the Iraq War,

at a reception for former First Lady Nancy Reagan, June 2, 2009,

the day the bust of President Reagan was unveiled in the Capitol Rotunda

Postscript

So many memories about Lee have flooded my heart as I wrote this piece.

In August 1985, I interviewed with Lee after he had been jogging in the hot summer heat. He slouched back in his chair with his knees leaning against the desk, as I, dressed prim and proper, did my best to answer his questions. What a character!

I got a job instead at Ed Rollins’ firm, Russo, Watts & Rollins, right up the street from Lee’s firm in Old Town Alexandria. (Watts had produced the famous “Morning in America” ads for Reagan-Bush ’84 ).

Lee was always so gracious and encouraging to me when he would call to talk with Ed. Of course, they were great competitors: Lee would schedule these early morning breakfasts at 7:30 a.m., leaving Ed pleading to meet at 8 a.m.; but 7:30 a.m. it was!

Then, I remember that day in February 1990, when I was watching Lee being interviewed on TV with his cousin Steve Page, a fellow political appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services. In the course of the interview, Lee gave out his jogging route—a security breach, which shocked Steve, given what a target Lee was.

A month later, it became clear why Lee had been so careless. That day Steve and I went to a White House arrival ceremony for some dignitary, I can’t remember which one. All I could remember was how shaken Steve was because Lee had had a seizure the day before while speaking at a fundraising breakfast for Senator Phil Graham (R-TX). He was soon diagnosed with a brain tumor.

I started getting together with Steve to listen to tapes on alternative therapies that he thought might help Lee. In April 1990, after a few of those sessions, when it became clear Lee’s condition was much worse than first contemplated, I told Steve I would pray for him through the intercession of this holy priest, Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, being featured in Roland Joffe’s soon-to-be released film, There Be Dragons. I told him Escriva was on the way to being canonized, explaining that asking him to intervene with God was like asking Lee to intervene with the President. I prayed novena after novena, 27 in all; then in December I got really sick with the flu, and slacked off. On May 6, 1991, totally exhausted, I stayed home and read the papers, cover to cover, and, lo and behold, that day there was the story of Lee’s conversion in December 1990.

In the waning days of Lee's life, he apologized to Michael Dukakis for saying of him he would “strip the bark off the little bastard.” It was a gracious gesture and, I think, was Lee’s way of saying, ‘The ’88 campaign was an extremely rough fight and I’m sorry.’

Of course, Lee always knew his best campaign tactic was Dukakis himself; Dukakis’ ride in that M1 Abrams tank, where, Lee observed, he looked like Bullwinkle, was a classic. That day on the campaign, the sense that the tide had turned, as, indeed, it had, was palpable.

God bless Lee Atwater.

Mary Claire Kendall is a Washington-based journalist and screenwriter. She's published frequently in the Washington Times, Washington Examiner, San Francisco Examiner, and Pajamas Media, among other national venues. A graduate of Wellesley College, she has extensive political experience including a stint as one of Lee Atwater’s “30 nerds” on the George H.W. Bush presidential campaign. She served as a Reagan political appointee at the U.S. Department of Education, 1987-’88; and as a George H.W. Bush political appointee at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1989-’93. For more information, see www.maryclairecinema.com.

First day article published, April 6, 2011... On this day in history: April 6 ... during the American Revolution, Congress opened all U.S. ports to international trade, 1776... during the Old West era, The Black Hawk War began, 1832... during The Civil War, The Battle of Shiloh, 1862, and The Battle of Sayler's Creek, 1865, began... The U.S. entered World War I, 1917... Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece, during World War II, 1941... U.S. ground combat troops began to take offensive measures in Vietnam, 1965... U.S. forces responded to North Vietnamese offensive, 1972... Also, the Mormon Church was established, 1830... Tyler was inaugurated as the 10th president, 1841... Peary's expedition reached The North Pole, 1909... Oscar Wilde was arrested, 1895... .the First modern Olympics were held, 1896... and 2001: A Space Odyssey was released, 1968.... and, the Declaration of Arbroath was signed in Scotland in 1320, and Tartan Day, a celebration of Scottish heritage, is observed.

June 21, 2011 update: Former Utah Governor and U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman gave a moving presidential announcement speech today with the Statue of Liberty in the background - 30 years after Ronald Reagan announced for the presidency in the very same spot. Daily Beast's John Avlon is concluding Huntsman is this year's GOP dark horse... time will tell...

April 25, 2011 update: Governor Haley Barbour issued a statement today announcing that he has decided not to run for president after all because he did not feel he had the requisite "fire in the belly" to endure the steep climb a presidential run entails. He made the right decision: It takes a lot of fire in the belly to climb that presidential mountain, especially given the state of the Republican party today, and the corresponding Herculean task of unifying it around a singular purpose. But, of course, Barbour will still serve as a party elder and power broker, helping the GOP win the White House, plus more seats in House and possibly the Senate in November 2012... that's the spirit, as of today, in which this article is published...

**********

Obama's Faith-Building Exercise: Energy and the Middle East

2011-04-02T04:17:00.000-07:00

by Mary Claire Kendall

President Barack Obama in front of the "The Great Sphinx of Giza"

during his visit to Cairo in June 2009 (Mandel Ngan / AFP-Getty Images)

“Let me tell you, these past two years, they have deepened my faith,” President Barack Obama intoned at the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this year.

Let me tell you, President Obama, these past two years, they have deepened everyone’s faith!

The latest faith-building exercise is the President’s management of revolution in the Middle East, where strategically important energy supplies hang in the balance, while he’s simultaneously curbing American oil and gas production.

It’s surreal.

Just before that Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire, thereby inflaming the region with revolutionary fervor, Obama, on December 1, rescinded his March 2010 decision to expand offshore oil exploration in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic coast—a moratorium expected to last at least seven years. All told, these regions have reserves equivalent to Norway (7.5 billion barrels of oil), and Canada (58.5 trillion cubic feet of gas); and the expansion, partially opening those waters, would have yielded enough oil to fuel more than 2.4 million cars and heat 8 million households for 60 years.

In spite of a Louisiana federal judge holding the Obama administration in contempt over the moratorium , Republican Senator David Vitter (R-LA) recently called out Obama appointees Ken Salazar and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) Director Michael Bromwich, for claiming many more pending offshore drilling permits than is actually the case.

Under pressure, Bromwich, the top U.S. offshore-drilling regulator, said Tuesday, more permits would be issued “within the next week,” not months, while publicly excoriating the industry for what he considers its devil-could-care attitude in the wake of last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Bromwich told reporters, “I don’t know what the pace will be going forward. I don’t think anyone is in a position to say what that will be.”

But, Obama’s energy sleight-of-hand is a tea party compared to his management of revolution in the Middle East.

He was, of course, a little late to that party that, Sphinx-like, now involves solving a riddle—how to maintain stability in the midst of tectonic change—or be gobbled up.

Obama didn’t even mention the nascent Egyptian uprising in his State of the Union and failed to publicly encourage democracy in Egypt until crisis hit, leaving many scratching their heads given Egypt’s critically important role in Middle East stability.

With revolution spreading like wild fire throughout the region, prevention in Egypt—urging now-deposed President Hosni Mubarak, as President George W. Bush did, to prune dead branches of government repression and end incendiary injustice—should have been job one.

But, it was only when the fire was fully ablaze that Obama engaged—in spite of remaining neutral during the historic Iranian “Green Revolution” in June 2009. Nine days earlier, speaking at Cairo University, on the eve of the Iranian elections then shaping up as a sham, Obama highlighted US intervention in the 1953 Iranian coup, intimating that it catalyzed the 1979 radical theocratic takeover. When protests erupted over the patently unfair Iranian elections, Obama remained neutral in spite of the fact that our interests and values perfectly aligned in that instance.

As Niall Ferguson wrote in Newsweek, “Wanted: A Grand Strategy,” “The wave Obama just missed—again—is the revolutionary wave of Middle Eastern democracy.”

A faith-building exercise, indeed.

“It’s hard as hell,” wrote Leslie Gelb in The Daily Beast, to transform protests into democracy, and easy for the process to be hijacked by opportunists less interested in freedom for the people than power for themselves.

Far better—as Leslie “Remember that great old democrat, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin?” Gelb wrote—to go it slow.

With all the danger now mixed with uncertainty, the Middle East needs all the prayers it can get.

Smart leadership—“`progressive pragmatism,’ with an emphasis on both words” as David Ignatius counsels—wouldn’t hurt either.

Of course, the Libyan invention doesn’t come close to passing the “dumb war” test Obama used in 2002 to oppose the Iraq intervention against brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, who makes Qaddafi look tame by comparison. Our strategic national interest is non-existent: Libya has far less oil reserves, supplying 2% of the world’s oil, and does not have the ability to threaten shipping lanes like Iran.

Rather, a smart model is that employed by President Ronald Reagan when bombing Libya 25 years almost to the day that Operation Odyssey Dawn began—consulting Congress and outlining the mission clearly for the American people from the Oval Office—not Rio.

Absent smart policy that follows protocol, prayer will have to do for now, as Gelb urges at the end of this piece analyzing Obama’s misguided Libyan intervention.

Then, again, there’s always the Constitution, as then Senator Joe Biden articulated on “Hardball” in 2007, vis-à-vis Iran’s belligerence, noting President George W. Bush lacked “constitutional authority” to go to war “unless we were attacked or unless there is proof we are about to be attacked.”

Originally published in Pajamas Media in March 2011.

Haley Barbour's golden opportunity

2011-03-27T13:50:00.000-07:00

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour speaks at the

Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)

in Washington on Saturday, Feb. 12, 2011. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

Mississippi's Republican Gov. Haley Barbour has hit a bit of a rough patch on the road to the White House. A Weekly Standard cover story made this Yazoo City native look oblivious to civil rights struggles, albeit, who can begrudge him being more interested in girls as a teen?

Nonetheless, one path to recovery lies smack-dab in the midst of the other crucible every governor, including Mr. Barbour, is suffering: red ink as far as the eye can see.

It's not pretty. Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker is facing stiff headwinds - lawmakers on the lam, union members demonstrating, teachers staging sickouts, many displaying precious little comity - all because he proposed cutting state workers' pensions and health care benefits and curtailing collective bargaining to rein in long-term costs.

Collectively, states must close a budget deficit of $175 billion through 2013.

Public-employee benefits - the largest expenditure in nearly every state budget - must be realigned with fiscal reality. Medicaid is another source of out-of-control spending - not only for states but for the feds - that demands urgent attention.

In Mississippi, Medicaid swallowed up $4.37 billion in 2009. California, with the biggest Medicaid tab, spent nine times more.

President Obama, who should be sympathetic to the plight of poor, disproportionately black beneficiaries, has done zip, zilch, nada to reform Medicaid in his 2012 budget. In fact, his Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, i.e., Obamacare, expands it.

Now that a federal judge in Florida has declared Obamacare unconstitutional, Republicans have a major opportunity to get health care reform right - in a way that doesn't bust state budgets.

It just so happens Republicans have a plan that would save states on average $20 billion annually, a trillion collectively, on Medicaid - the feds $300 million - because it puts patients and their health needs first.

It's called the Patients' Choice Act (PCA). It was introduced in the 111th Congress and featured in House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's 2010 "Roadmap," which the 112th Congress' 2012 budget will reflect when it comes out April.

Unfortunately, too many Republicanshave withheld their support, if not outright campaigned against this plan because its patient-centeredness not only curbs the power of government bureaucracy, it also curbs the power of insurance bureaucracy.

This lack of Republican unanimity is why Democratsfalsely cast the party as having no plan.

PCA, co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, Sen. Richard Burr, North Carolina Republican, Rep. Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, and Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican - in contrast to Obamacare - would achieve universal coverage and create a true insurance market, thus removing anti-competitive inequities currently plaguing the system.

Most brilliantly, it transforms Medicaid from its current third-rate status into a first-class, stigma-free health care system for low-income people, making it the natural corollary to Republican-crafted welfare reform that President Clinton smartly co-opted in one of the crowning achievements of his presidency.

It does this by tackling health care's structural deficiencies, "realigning how nearly $1 trillion, currently assumed under law, is spent by involving individual [Medicaid] beneficiaries in a way that decelerates the health care spending growth rate, through a carefully calibrated template and formula that emphasizes health outcomes." ("Health Care Reform: The Private Option," Medical Progress Today, Oct. 23, 2009)

In short, PCA brings Medicaid into the 21st century, treating poorer eligible citizens with real dignity for the first time in their lives, and saves immense sums of money while providing a template for reducing health care spending across the board.

The only thing the Patients' Choice Act has lacked is high-wattage leadership.

That's where Haley Barbour comes in and with it a golden opportunity to transform himself into a budget and racial healer, positioning himself to win the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

Mary Claire Kendall, a Washington-based writer, served in the Department of Health and Human Services under President George H.W. Bush.

Originally published in The Washington Times, 6:22 p.m., Friday, February 25, 2011 (online) and in the paper edition, Monday, February 28, 2011.

Coming Soon: Back to the Future — Our ‘Rendezvous with Destiny’

2010-10-31T18:31:00.000-07:00

Forty-six years ago today on October 27, 1964, Ronald Reagan gave his now-legendary "Time for Choosing" speech. Next Tuesday, you and I have our own "rendezvous with destiny" as well.

October 27, 2010 - by Mary Claire Kendall

Many say next Tuesday’s election will be a referendum on President Barack Obama and that it will register epic disapproval, its feel and impact not unlike a Hawaiian tsunami, usually unexpected by the victims, triggered by earthquakes and then the eruption of a volcano.

This is true. Mount Voter Anger & Frustration, it seems clear, is about to erupt and give Obama the shock of a lifetime — perhaps the spanking he never got as a child in Hawaii. Enough with the European socialism! Spank! Enough with unaffordable cradle-to-grave health care and other entitlements we can’t afford! Spank! Focus on jobs, glorious jobs, so we can afford to take care of ourselves! Spank! Spank! Spank!

Three numbers point to the coming tsunami: 64% now think the country is on the wrong track; nearly 50% have disapproved of Obama’s performance since the summer of 2010 when he assumed ownership of the bad economy (W’s recession was deemed officially over in June 2009); and less than 40% of independents support Obama as of the summer of 2010, abandoning him in droves starting in the summer of 2009 when he failed to compromise on his excessive health care plan which translated into greater independent support for Republicans in the midterms.

Of course, Democrats are now already figuratively speaking “underwater” (many selling short), a reality they will confront on November 2, when Obama’s reduced value is finally known — likely eyepopppingly less than in 2008, when they bought his “hope and change” rhetoric. All indicators are it won’t be pretty. That’s what makes American democracy so great — and entertaining. Politicians tell voters what they think they’re worth — Obama gave himself a B+ — and voters tell them to go “shove it.”

But next Tuesday’s election — more than signaling what voters don’t want — will signal what voters want.

In this regard, it seems more and more clear that November 2 will be a referendum on the wisdom of Ronald Reagan from which we have veered in recent years.

Reagan’s “Time for Choosing” speech, which he gave 46 years ago today on October 27, 1964, honed in on the essence of what has made America so exceptional and so great, electrifying Americans of all stripes.

Ronald Reagan — then, ironically, a General Electric spokesman poised to embark on a political career that his good friend, Paramount producer A.C. Lyles, rightly predicted then would take him to the White House — asked in this famous speech whether “we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers.” He compellingly highlighted the very challenges we confront today, namely: “Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”

The Republican Study Committee has artfully interspersed this speech with remarks made by the current crop of Democratic leaders, including Obama, in a video (“Those Voices Don’t Speak for Us”) as a closing argument for the midterms. It includes Reagan presciently noting self-government’s perennial threat:

A government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector
of the economy.

Fasten your seat belts: it’s time for another “rendezvous with destiny.”

###

Mary Claire Kendall's articles have appeared in the NY Daily News, New York Post, Washington Examiner, National Review Online, Human Events Online, the Daily Caller, Big Hollywood, On Patrol (USO magazine) and VFW Magazine, among many other publications. Visit her Website at www.maryclairecinema.com.

###

This piece first appeared in Pajamas Media at http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/our-rendezvous-with-destiny/?singlepage=true .

The madness of Barack Obama

2010-10-22T12:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/8/the-madness-of-barack-obama/print/

By Mary Claire Kendall

They say history repeats itself.

On July 2, Dave Bossie of Citizens United and writer-director Steve Bannon of Victory Productions began discussing a short "closing argument" video - with a working title called "Bill of Indictment" - for release Oct. 1, about the leftist agenda that, since January 2009, Barack Obama and his Capitol Hill allies have imposed upon unwilling Americans.

Artwork used in print version of commentary, replicated at
http://afrocityblog.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/black-tea-parties/

On July 2, 1776, 234 years earlier, Thomas Jefferson had just crafted his Declaration of Independence - a bill of indictment on the "Madness of King George III." (A 1994 film captured that year's revolution.)

By July 4, "Battle for America" was fully conceptualized, with Dick Morris, Newt Gingrich and Lou Dobbs coming on-board immediately. "We were able to do an 80-minute feature documentary, soup to nuts, in 90 days," Mr. Bannon said.

But they got lots of help from San Francisco liberal Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and company.

The three-act film, far from preaching to the choir, Mr. Bannon said, is directed at independents and Reagan Democrats. It's a "Greek tragedy" complete with a Greek chorus, led by Mr. Morris and including Ann Coulter, Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Dobbs and others who guide the audience through a collection of sound-off videos from Mr. Obama and fellow liberals so that, in line with Mr. Bannon's vision, they are "hoist(ed) with their own petard."

Their powerfully arrayed words and actions drive home the point that they have executed and presided over the systematic transformation of America into a European socialist state that Americans didn't vote for and don't want - including cradle-to-grave health care courtesy of trillions of dollars' worth of Chinese renminbi and government control of private businesses like GM, reducing American competitiveness and jobs. As many as 100 House Democrats stand to lose their seats because they voted for Obama health care, disapproval of which tops 60 percent in the latest Rasmussen poll.

As a prototypical independent constituent told Rep. Dan Lungren, the California Republican related in the film, "I voted for Barack Obama, but I did not vote for this madness,."

Ready or not, here comes a second American Revolution.

"We are carpet-bombing this film," said Mr. Bannon, including this weekend at the 3,000-strong Virginia Tea Party Convention, and "Battle for America" will play at theaters in areas chock-a-block with independents and Reagan Democrats who have had it.

Mr. Morris predicts Nov. 2 will dramatically check Mr. Obama's "madness."

Asked if Mr. Obama may be crazy like a fox, fancying himself like Bill "Clinton the Triangulator," Mr. Morris told me, "He might try to, but our politics [have] moved so far to the left that what used to be the right is now the center." No tax increases, no social engineering on health care, no state bailouts with federal money are all "centrist" positions now. "So, I think he'll try to move from what used to be the left to what used to be the center. But, that will only mean moving from the extreme left to the far left."

All of which means he's got a way to go before he reaches the sane center, promising what Mr. Morris believes will be an earthquake on Nov. 2.

Mary Claire Kendall is a Washington-based writer.

Originally published at: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/8/the-madness-of-barack-obama/print/

Obama’s Political Tin Ear

2010-09-07T07:05:00.000-07:00

by Mary Claire Kendall

When it comes to President Barack Obama’s political tin ear and inability to feel voters’ pain, truly it’s an embarrassment of riches.

The federal deficit, well in excess of $1 trillion, speaks volumes; but it lacks the immediacy of, say, last May’s Gulf Coast scenes of Obama, alone on the beach, limply picking up tar balls, as BP’s burst oil well was gushing and ruining lives; or the First Lady’s luxurious vacation in Spain this summer.

And now we have the very relatable Oval Office redecoration, costing tens of thousands of dollars, at a time when the federal budget is drowning in red ink and most Americans would be hard-pressed to replace carpets and sofas still having good wear left in them, let alone buy fancy wallpaper from the Hamptons.

And while the work was paid for by the White House Historical Association, it’s naïve to think the “quid” for the “quo” of an Oval Office makeover will cost taxpayers not a dime. But even positing utmost rectitude, the lack of frugality when America is approaching bankruptcy is incomprehensible.

Bill and Hillary Clinton already spent an estimated $337,000 in the 1990s to refurbish the Oval Office — along with the East Room, Blue Room, State Dining Room, Lincoln Bedroom, and Lincoln Sitting Room, with the assistance of Arkansas decorator Kaki Hockersmith.

This work, also paid for with private money, required counsel’s approval, given obvious conflict of interest concerns, and, in fact, as the New York Times noted back then, generated an angry letter [1] from then Deputy Counsel Vince Foster to the White House Usher’s Office on what he believed was the unfair politicization of the cost, shortly before he was found dead at Fort Marcy.

But then redecorating the White House has generated controversy since the dawn of the republic — now more than ever given our nation’s extreme indebtedness.

And just what should our national priorities be? Since Obama is so inept at properly projecting them, it’s helpful to consider remarks by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), poised to be next speaker of the House, to the American Legion.

After noting our nation, particularly our troops, have paid dearly during nine years of war, Boehner reflected: “We have serious decisions to make regarding our path forward, and these decisions will be made in an environment in which we borrow 41 cents of every dollar we spend. This means we must focus on working together to identify our national security priorities and ensure our continued military and economic superiority.”

Quite simply, the test for spending, knowing it puts America more deeply in debt, making us correspondingly more vulnerable to our enemies, should be: Is this spending essential to national security? Fancy new Oval Office digs clearly don’t qualify.

As Obama himself said in February 2009, upon release of his first budget: “There are times where you can afford to redecorate your house, and there are times where you need to focus on rebuilding the foundation.”

If only they had stuck to Michelle’s organic garden, including beehives installed on the South Lawn, a White House first, to supply organic produce and honey. Instead, they’ve supplied rich material for comedians and bloggers (Arianna Huffington dubbed the first family’s redecorating efforts “The Audacity of Taupe [2]” recently). Not to mention both Republican congressional candidates and Democrats in hyper-distancing mode.

Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com
URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obamas-political-tin-ear/
URLs in this post:
[1] generated an angry letter: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/15/us/redecorating-private-rooms-in-political-limelight.html
[2] The Audacity of Taupe: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-audacity-of-taupe_b_703628.html

Copyright © 2010 Pajamas Media. All rights reserved.

Summer of Discontent

2010-06-01T06:43:00.000-07:00

As the oil began gushing out of the BP Deep Horizon well, many questioned the wisdom of drilling a mile below the ocean's surface, apparently to satisfy environmentalists. So the contingency plan if/when the oil well blows one mile below the ocean's surface? Deploy sophisticated technology designed to stop the gusher? No, it doesn't exist. Fallback plan, if all else fails: relief wells that take a few months to build, while the oil gusher continues to whack away at livelihoods, ways of life, and much of Louisiana's natural beauty.

Governor Haley Barbour (R-MS) provided more context on This Week, a few days later on Sunday, June 6. He explained that 30,000 deep water oil drills had been approved since Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas gave the OK to deep water oil drilling, and that this Deep Horizon/BP disaster is the only such one. Most of the accidents, he said, have occurred with tankers, and that if we ceased our deep water oil drilling, we would be importing that much more oil, increasing the likelihood of tanker accidents.

Deepwater oil drilling, he stressed, is a big source of jobs and revenue.

The deep water oil rigs, he said, would not go out of commmission but would simply move to other parts of the world -- off the coast of Africa, Indonesia, etc. -- again making us progressively more dependent on the rest of the world for our oil, thereby further undermining our national security and that of our allies since so much of the oil profit would go into the hands of our enemies.

Now, this disaster has certainly put into the sharpest focus possible the need to have tighter safety regulation -- and to impose stiff penalties when greasing politicians hands' undermines saftey. Also, we need to have a better contingency plan should, God forbid, the unthinkable happen again. The irony is, as Gov. Barbour noted, such technology already exists -- the product of American innovation, which the Chinese and others are making use of it. Furthermore the technology exists to avoid such catastrophes in the first place -- technology which the Chinese and others are availing themselves of.

But, as Gov. Barbour suggests, if unwise policies are implemented, it would only compound the disaster the Gulf states are now reeling from.

The electronic run on banks nobody seemed to notice

2010-02-17T18:12:00.001-08:00

By Mary Claire Kendall

Sixteen months after the 11 a.m. simultaneous withdrawal of billions of dollars out of money market accounts in the aftermath of Lehman’s demise a few days earlier, no one seems to care about the dimensions of this event.

After all, this catastrophic event did not have quite the physicality of say an actual bank run.

George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart,
in It's A Wonderful Life (1946), confronting the run on
the Building and Loan, RKO Pictures

There were no investors standing in line waiting to take their money out for Americans to see just who they were—from what country, wearing what kind of clothes, honest or squirrelly looking, working in tandem with each other? Just computer generated orders simultaneously withdrawing billions of dollars adding up to $550 billion within about an hour.

And, certainly, if it were an act of economic terrorism, which no one seems to have the imagination or cojones to raise, the visual is not there. No Boeing 737 ramming into the Twin Towers, bursting into flames, innocent victims burning alive jumping out the windows to their death, prior to the buildings’ collapse into rubble.

But, make no mistake, this electronic run on the banks of Sept. 18, 2008, was every bit as catastrophic, with numerous victims.

Sure, it could be pure coincidence that exactly at 11 a.m. a wave of concerned investors all decided it was time to electronically withdraw their funds thus creating this crescendo drawdown effect setting in motion a worldwide panic.It could be coincidence. But, it’s doubtful.

The fact that the identities of those who simultaneously decided to withdraw their money at 11 a.m. on Sep. 18, precipitating this panic, were never released, does lead one to question whether or not something sinister was at work.

Is there no one else with even the vaguest curiosity to ask if it was a coincidence or not? And, to suggest maybe an investigation is in order to deliver that vaunted “transparency” that voters seemed to believe they would get after the 2008 elections.

If nothing sinister was at work, then why so much secrecy concerning the destination of this $550 billion in money withdrawn on Thursday, Sept. 18, and those responsible for redirecting these funds out of the U.S. money markets.

Surely the money didn’t go back into the American economy.

No, $550 billion was drained away from the American economy, the consequences of which we suffer to this day.

The exact contours of this event were described by Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) on C-SPAN on Wednesday, Feb. 11, the day before the 200th anniversary of Abe Lincoln’s birth.

An enraged caller had just erupted over the ill-advised $700 billion bailout a few months earlier and Rep. Kanjorski felt pressed to reveal what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had told Congress behind closed doors, which so shocked them into supporting this mind-bogglingly huge bailout.

“On Thursday [Sept. 18, 2008] at about 11 o’clock in the morning,” Kanjorski began, “the Federal Reserve noticed the tremendous drawdown of money market accounts in the United States to the tune of $550 billion dollars being drawn out in a matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help. It pumped $105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide.”

At that point, officials realized, Kanjorski relates, “We were having an electronic run on the banks.”

Depositors lining up outside the Building and
Loan in It's A Wonderful Life (1946), RKO Pictures

In response, Kanjorski continued, “They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn’t be further panic out there and that’s what actually happened.”

And, if nothing had been done, Kanjorski revealed, “their estimation was that by two o’clock that afternoon, five and 1/2 trillion dollars would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed (which would have meant) … the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.”

Kanjorski concluded, “Someone threw us in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean without a life raft. And, we’re trying to determine which is the closest shore, and whether there’s any chance in the world to swim that far. We don’t know.”

But why is no one in the least bit curious to know who that “someone” is who “threw us in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean without a life raft”—the consequences of which have so damaged our economy’s job-creating engine?

This writer, for one, would like to know.

Mary Claire Kendall is a Washington-based journalist and screenwriter.

Originally published in The Daily Caller on January 15, 2010, after which it went viral on the Internet, posted at various sites including Free Republic http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2430464/posts and Defense of the Republic http://defenseoftherepublic.com/7165.html/ among many others.

Time to channel Honest Abe to fix Obama’s rhetoric/reality gap

2010-02-06T06:16:00.001-08:00

By Mary Claire Kendall

President Barack Obama’s challenge to House Republicans in Baltimore to “close the gap between rhetoric and reality”—at the first of what the White House hopes will be monthly confabs, cameras rolling—seems more the product of “projection.” In psychological terms, this means someone who complains about another’s defect is, in reality, only projecting their own shortcomings.

His response to Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) was particularly telling. Price essentially said ‘Republicans have a health care plan (i.e., Price’s plan), yet you say otherwise, most recently in the State of the Union; so what am I supposed to tell my constituents?’ Obama first said, ‘No I didn’t say that; I said this’ in what amounted to a distinction without a difference. Then, Obama further clarified, Republicans need ideas that work and can’t say tort reform is all that’s needed to reform health care. That assertion, of course, does not even vaguely resemble Republicans’ actual legislative proposals.

The State of the Union, as Price hinted, was a veritable treasure trove [1] of Grand Canyon-sized whoppers bearing little resemblance to reality.

Even Speaker Nancy Pelosi “mocked Obama [2] for suggesting that the two measures (House and Senate health bills) are 90 percent similar,” noting they are only “75 per cent the same.” (Washington Post, January 29, 2010)

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in interviews with local California TV stations following Obama’s State of the Union also honed in sharply on this rhetoric/reality gap, highlighting its flights of “fantasy.” Nunes found the image Obama drew of job creation, given the larger picture of job distress, particularly striking.

“You can see the results,” Obama boasted, “of last year’s investments in clean energy… in the California business that will put a thousand people to work making solar panels.”

Yes, but what, Nunes asks [3], about the over 30,000 residents of his San Joaquin Valley district deprived of their livelihood because of Obama administration environmental policy. In the town of Mendota, alone, joblessness stands at 40 percent. Water in the Central Valley was shut off in early 2009 to save the three-inch long delta smelt, a bait fish, now happily swimming around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, while thousands of California farmers, and so many others impacted by lost agricultural production, languish without work. That’s the not-so-sunny side of Obama’s handiwork.

Or consider the issue of curbing lobbyist influence. Obama’s State of the Union rhetoric made it seem he’s wearing the white hat. But, since his Inauguration, he’s issued more waivers than ever for “revolving door” candidates and lobbyists.

Then, there’s Obama’s free-trade obfuscation. “We have to seek new markets aggressively, just as our competitors are,” said Obama. “If America sits on the sidelines while other nations sign trade deals, we will lose the chance to create jobs on our shores.” Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) said in Baltimore, if allowed to pass, these free-trade agreements would instantly generate good paying jobs; but that the Democrat majority has bottled them up for years. Yet, Obama conveniently forgets to mention his party’s primary role in depriving Americans of desperately needed FTA-generated jobs.

That glaring oversight makes the blame Obama heaps on Republicans for the nation’s plight as well as less-than-candid representations about so much else, e.g., budget, economy, taxes, all the more stunning—like a gong bell incessantly going off, a bell that sounded loud and clear this week when Obama released his $3.8 trillion FY 2011 budget. As Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), ranking Republican on the House budget committee, said, its “few cosmetic budget maneuvers… give the illusion of restraint.” But the reality is far different: more spending, taxes, deficits ($1.3 trillion in 2011) and debt.

One can only wonder what Honest Abe must think of the man so many breathlessly compared him to not so long ago.

Mary Claire Kendall is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and screenwriter.

Article originally published in The Daily Caller on Friday, February 5, 2010.

URLs in this post:
[1] treasure trove: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/us/politics/28obama.text.html
[2] mocked Obama: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/28/AR2010012803750.html
[3] asks: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574318621482123090.html

Real Clear Politics' average of polls...

2010-01-24T07:28:00.000-08:00

... shows more Americans disapprove than approve of Barack Obama's performance... Rasmussen has him down by 11 points... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html ... For consolation, he might check out Congress' rating... 26% favorable vs. 66.2% unfavorable... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html

A missed opportunity on health care reform

2010-01-23T12:45:00.000-08:00

By Mary Claire Kendall

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) must be smarting now that Democrats are talking about pulling the plug on the “deal” they crafted just for him and his State of Nebraska as the price of his support for Obamacare, now polling at W’s lows and and threatening the loss of Ted Kennedy’s seat—a provision that would exempt Nebraska from paying for the Medicaid expansion designed to cover currently uninsured low-income folks.

“Get as much gunk out of the Senate bill as possible. That Nebraska thing is really hurting us,” Bill Clinton told House Democrats in a closed-door speech during their annual “retreat” this year at Capital Visitor Center, far from the spa resort in colonial Williamsburg they usually decamp to. (Washington Post, 1/16/10)

Before they cut that deal, the White House brazenly threatened to hurt Nelson, a coalition of physicians [1] allege in a lawsuit, by putting Offutt Air Force Base on the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) list, slating it for closure, unless Sen. Nelson voted the right way.

Offutt AFB, Strategic Air Command headquarters, employs approximately 10,000 military and federal employees in Southeastern Nebraska. (So, Americans might not have jobs—either by an Act of God, an Act of Obama, or an Act of Financial Recklessness, if you don’t believe Lloyd Blankfein’s version of events—but they’ll have health care to deal with the resulting ulcers.)

Nelson’s was just one of many tailor-made deals that—Clinton’s right—are patently unfair to everyone else not in on the fix. Sen. Nelson, recognizing the obvious injustice, now says he wants to scratch the Nebraska provision but then replace it with a much more expensive provision that would exempt every state from the costs of expanded Medicaid coverage.

Problem is, Obama’s contention that health care reform would save money would then, finally and irrevocably, be exempted from reality, since Nelson’s “solution” to other states’ legitimate grumbling would explode costs, making former Comptroller of the Treasury David Walker’s quip at the budget commission’s opening hearing last month that “Harry and Louise” have morphed into “Thelma and Louise” a fitting summation of the year-long health care “debate.”

And, to think, the mess Democrats find themselves in was all so unnecessary.

If they had taken a cue from the Republicans, who contrary to repeated false assertions by Democrats that they were only obstructionists, did, in fact, offer an excellent alternative: It’s called the Patients’ Choice Act (PCA)—co-sponsored by Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Reps. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)—that in contrast to the Democrats’ Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, would achieve universal coverage and create a true insurance market, thus removing anti-competitive inequities currently plaguing the system.

And, most brilliantly, it transforms Medicaid from its current third-rate status to a first-class, stigma-free health care system for low-income, making it the natural corollary to Republican-crafted welfare reform Bill Clinton smartly co-opted in one of the crowning achievements of his presidency. Plus, it saves money and tackles health care’s structural deficiencies [2] by realigning “how nearly $1 trillion, currently assumed under law, is spent by involving individual beneficiaries in a way that decelerates the healthcare spending growth rate, through a carefully calibrated template and formula that emphasizes health outcomes…”

States would save $1 trillion and the federal government $300 million, thus responding to voters’ most pressing concern—to contain exploding health care costs.

Not only that, Democrats could have counted on Sen. Nelson’s vote without resorting to such unseemly tactics. And, today’s effort, sailing in the perfect storm to save Ted Kennedy’s seat, wouldn’t seem like Mission Impossible.

Mary Claire Kendall is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and screenwriter.

I wrote this piece as Democrats were heading into the "perfect storm" in Massachusetts in their ultimately fruitless attempt to retain the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy... Scott Brown ran as the 41st vote against Barack Obama's costly yet ineffective healthcare legislation... when groundbreaking legislation is contemplated, steamrolling support is never the way... This article, first published in Daily Caller, was posted at http://devinnunes.blogspot.com/2010/01/missed-opportunity-on-health-care_21.html , Congressman Devin Nunes' blog.