Pufferfish

The Seminal Moment That Wasn't

2010-06-19T00:07:13-04:00

Almost always when a ref makes a mistake it's a missed offsides or an unseen handball. It's what's not seen that gets the official in trouble (Diego Maradona's Hand of God and Thierry Henry's dubious work immediately come to mind). But in the US game the ref didn't miss anything. What he called, what he saw, didn't exist. It's hard to understand how that could happen.

But forget the ref. The real loser was the fans:

Understand: This was Nolan Ryan’s seventh no-hitter. This was Jerry West’s 60-foot shot. This was Montana to Clark in the end zone. This was Bobby Orr’s flying goal. This was the young Tiger Woods at Augusta. This was all those things multiplied several times, because this was happening on the giant stage, in the world’s biggest sporting event. A team does not come back from a 2-0 halftime deficit to win in the World Cup. It doesn’t happen. It had NEVER happened. In soccer at the World Cup level — with its impossible mix of passion and fury and consequence and vuvuzelas — each goal is a minor miracle. Two goals is basically insurmountable, especially when a team has shut you out for an entire half.

Progress

2010-06-10T20:59:00-04:00

Here's to the hope of a silver lining in this corporate-sponsored, free market disaster. Perhaps yet another junk punch to our collective groins will make people more agreeable to the notion that greater regulation is the clear alternative:

Just a quarter of Americans back expanding offshore drilling in the wake of the BP oil spill, and most fault federal regulators for the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
* * *
Some 63 percent point a finger at inadequate enforcement of current regulations, and 55 percent see an overall weak regulatory structure. Even more, 73 percent, blame BP and its drilling partners for the accident. And the same number now call the spill a major environmental disaster.

With the Bush and Obama-led feds disintersted in regulating, here's how BP failed to plan for the worst:

NEW ORLEANS – Glaring errors and omissions in BP's oil spill response plans have exposed a slapdash effort to follow environmental rules, outraging Gulf Coast residents who can see on their beaches how unprepared the company was.
* * *
Professor Peter Lutz is listed in BP's 2009 response plan for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a national wildlife expert. He died in 2005. Under the heading "sensitive biological resources," the plan lists marine mammals including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals. None lives anywhere near the Gulf. The names and phone numbers of several Texas A&M University marine life specialists are wrong. So are the numbers for marine mammal stranding network offices in Louisiana and Florida, which are no longer in service.

It would be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic.

Republicans, as one should expect, are trying mightily to turn an indictment of their ideology into a opportunity to place blame on liberalism. A stronger central government, John Boehner would tell you, isn't the answer and poor federal regulation isn't the exception but the rule.

I'm reminded of what the late, great David Halberstam wrote in the dark days following Katrina:

I never expected to see my government fail so completely when high professionalism would have meant saving lives by the hour. I suppose that if you have a formidable political movement which for 25 years has pushed the idea that government is the enemy—that is, if you have a government run by people who do not believe in government—things like this will happen. The service agencies inevitably atrophy, ever less capable people man them, and they have less and less leverage with which to gain their necessary share of the annual budget.

What Republicans don't want Americans to do is think beyond their flimsy rationale and ask what the appropriate response should be. Because their answer is what we've already got. What you see is what you get.

Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

2010-06-07T21:05:04-04:00

Last week I attended an event at the White House. (Because that's how I roll.) When I called my dad to tell him about the ceremony and the experience, his first question was whether I had to produce my birth certificate before getting in. Why? Because Glenn Beck told him that even though Obama couldn't produced his own birth certificate, he was still forcing Real Americans to show their papers before getting into the White House:

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For those scoring at home, the answer to my dad's question was no.

What If Political Reporters Provided Context?

2010-06-06T13:41:55-04:00

I know. That sounds like a lot of work. But at least we wouldn't be inundated with variations of remedial MoDoism, when presidential mannerisms are viewed through the prism of an introductory philosophy class at Bunker Hill Community College:

Oddly, the good father who wrote so poignantly about growing up without a daddy scorns the paternal aspect of the presidency.

In the face of condensed triviality like this, I guess one could point out that getting the vapors because the president isn't, ignores that voters are getting what they wanted: a guy who stays calm in a crisis and doesn't suspend his campaign to go off in search of the ultimate pudding pop. But engaging the media for focusing on Obama's tone ignores the root cause of their impatience:

Chief among the criticisms of Obama was his response to the spill. Pundits argued that he needed to show more emotion. Their analysis, however, should be viewed in light of the economic pressures on the journalism industry combined with a 24-hour news environment and a lack of new information about the spill itself.

The press has become part of the oil spill coverage by projecting its bottom line onto Obama. The 24-hour news cycle compels the media to speak breathlessly, whether it's about a missing blonde teen or the unfolding pseudo scandal involving the de facto head of the Democratic Party attempting to influence Democratic primaries. Now it's oil.

This is the rare event that actually deserves provocative headlines, alarmist skepticism and Brian Williams knee deep in BP crude. But while the oil spill is a catastrophe it's also a very complicated problem in search of a solution. Left to do the obvious and explain to people the regulatory lapses or cost-saving measures used by BP to get us into this mess, the usual media suspects decided instead to fallback on their own cost-saving, corner-cutting measures: style without substance. And so Maureen Dowd and her cohorts are transfixed with Obama's unwillingness to exercise the powers of presidential awesomeness and become the protagonist their 24-hour narrative demands.

Rovian Ramblings

2010-06-01T19:13:59-04:00

Then:

The federal government’s responsibilities were met under Katrina which were to provide the immediate assistance, to pluck people off of the roofs.

And now:

Could this be Mr. Obama's Katrina? It could be even worse.

For Rove, Katrina is a pejorative only when being applied to another president. Here's another offering. Then:

In the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, President George H.W. Bush never visited Prince William Sound.

And now:

It took Mr. Obama 12 days to show up in the region. ... Now the administration is intent on making it appear he has engaged all along. But this stance is undermined by lack of action.

Not all disasters are created equal. But then neither are the critics.

Those Tar Balls Are Nothing More Than Freedom's Residue

2010-05-28T17:15:40-04:00

BP engineers aren't the only folks working hard on the oil spill:

I think it’s actually right to say that the BP oil spill is something like Obama’s Katrina, but not in the sense in which most critics seem to mean it.
It’s like Katrina in that many people's attitudes regarding the response to it reveal completely unreasonable expectations of government. The fact is, accidents (not to mention storms) happen. We can work to prepare for them, we can have various preventive rules and measures in place. We can build the capacity for response and recovery in advance. But these things happen, and sometimes they happen on a scale that is just too great to be easily addressed. It is totally unreasonable to expect the government to be able to easily address them—and the kind of government that would be capable of that is not the kind of government that we should want.

Apparently not only can conservatism never be failed, but it's also perpetually self-serving.

The difficulty with trying to spin this into a Katrina-esque blunder—or a treatise on the shortcomings of a large, central government—is that not all disasters are made equal nor do they all fall under the purview of the federal government. A hurricane is the type of disaster that the federal government is specifically tasked with handling. And routinely does. Perhaps we should use this as a guidepost: You know the president is having a bad day when Sean Penn is one of the first responders to a national disaster.

Contrary to the Katrina-spin, what has become painfully obvious over the last month is that there is no federal agency trained in capping deep water oil blowouts. In a sop to conservatives, oil companies have been left to regulate themselves. And in the event something goes wrong, well, there remains a $75 million cap on what BP stands to lose. Our bizarro free market fetish of socialzing the loss and privatizing the gain is even more glaring when ecosystems and wildlife habitats are part of the loss.

But because the messenger matters, this is a missed opportunity for Republicans. Just take a look at Sarah Palin's Facebook page:

Listening to the President, you get the impression he is continually surprised by the inability of various centralized government agencies to get more involved and help solve problems. His lack of executive experience might explain this because he is apparently unaware that it’s his job as a chief executive to make sure they do their jobs and help solve problems.

It would seem Palin wants Obama to a) realize the federal government isn't reliable, while b) owning up to the fact that he lacks the management skill to make sure the government handles the crisis. In the parlance of our times, I'm left to respond: "lolwut?"

That Palin manages to extend her mismatch of political sloganeering ("freedom," "security," "buck passing") for 1,300 words while failing to provide any advice on how to solve the problem is the telling detail.

It's a wonder to read about disaster response protocols from a grifter who routinely peddles the idea that government is the enemy. Palin's incoherence is a testament to the Right's inability to capitalize on the country's anger. This isn't an emergency that falls neatly into the GOP's wheelhouse. Not when the environment is the victim, Big Oil is to blame and greater regulatory oversight an obvious response.

Company We Keep

2010-05-27T23:03:09-04:00

The few, the proud, the unenlightened: Cuba, China, Egypt, Iran, Jamaica, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Uganda, United States, and Yemen.

Conservative policies have grouped us with countries the civilized world generally loathes.

More here.

Virginia Is For Lovers

2010-04-07T22:23:45-04:00

Of secession:

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, reviving a controversy that had been dormant for eight years, has declared that April will be Confederate History Month in Virginia, a move that angered civil rights leaders Tuesday but that political observers said would strengthen his position with his conservative base.
* * *

The seven-paragraph declaration calls for Virginians to "understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War."

But rest assured that McDonnell tickling the dark underbelly of Civil War reenactors can be safely spun with language that serves as a dog whistle for white supremacists and a safety valve for practitioners of suburban white flight:

"It helps him with his base," said Mark Rozell, a political scientist at George Mason University. "These are people who support state's rights and oppose federal intrusion."

Just as Reagan going to Philadelphia, Mississippi to talk about state's right had nothing to do with race, McDonnell talking about race has everything to do with state's rights. Huh?

Then something happened in the 1990s. The leaders of the GOP grew belligerent. They became too religious, almost zealots. They became intolerant. They began searching for purity in Republican thought and doctrine. Ideology blinded them.

Or an ideology of intolerance Saved them, depending on who's delivering the sermon. Either way, it used to be that the GOP called on the country's dark forces to win elections. Increasingly, it is the country's dark force.

Not That He Ever Was

2010-04-05T19:34:44-04:00

Fairly sure Can't Remember Shit isn't fatal, unless we're talking about one's credibility:

As he faces a potentially tough Republican U.S. Senate primary in Arizona, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) no longer claims the "Maverick" mantle, Newsweek reports. In fact, he now denies he ever was one.
Said McCain: "I never considered myself a maverick."

Ever since he did the deed I've assumed McCain picked Palin largely because she burnished his Mavericky persona. "He did what? Now there's something that takes guts! He's one against-the-grain feller, that 'ol S.O.B." After all, he had a decade of Beltway hagiography to protect since 2000 when George Bush's presence forced him to the middle. Too bad for McCain that Palin was abhorred by GOP insiders and fans of Strunk & White.

Flash forward 18 months and McCain's shrugging off his security blanket of a political moniker while embarrassingly embracing his dubious veep pick on the Arizona campaign stump. Sure, it's a primary and that's typically all about out-basing your opponent. But a more confident, secure and safe politician wouldn't be forced to genuflect before the alter of Tea Partyism. Safe to says that after three decades in the Senate, McCain is none of those things.

I thought the old man's reaction after HCR passed—when he promising not to work with the Obama administration on any legislation until November—was a new low for McCain's brand of policy petulance. Then there's this, which is a new notch on the growing list of McCain's brand of rhetorical flatulence.

Communism Is In The Details

2010-04-03T18:18:24-04:00

Substance-lite reporter files substance-free article hitting Obama for talking about substance:

Even by President Obama's loquacious standards, an answer he gave here on health care Friday was a doozy.
Toward the end of a question-and-answer session with workers at an advanced battery technology manufacturer, a woman named Doris stood to ask the president whether it was a "wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care" package.

"We are overtaxed as it is," Doris said bluntly.

Obama started out feisty. "Well, let's talk about that, because this is an area where there's been just a whole lot of misinformation, and I'm going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have," the president said.

He then spent the next 17 minutes and 12 seconds lulling the crowd into a daze.
* * *

Halfway through, an audience member on the riser yawned.

It makes me a bit misty-eyed for the days when question and answer sessions with the president were pre-arranged, sprinkled with a condescending tone and punctuated by tight fitting jeans undoubtedly packed with a presidential cod piece.

To recap: Kornblut's mind takes a siesta during a long, detailed and comprehensive answer involving health care reform and that, as it turns out, is the president's problem, a politician plagued by his inability to connect with folks on the campaign trail. Kornblut can't be bothered helping readers better understand reform. And she'll be damned if Obama's going to get a pass for doing her job.

The Big One?

2009-12-31T13:48:24-05:00

If only Althouse was right:

Rush Limbaugh has said on his show many times that once the government runs health care, there is a threat that life-or-death decisions will be made based on politics, and people will worry that if they criticize the government or espouse the wrong opinions decisions will go against them.

Then again, maybe Rush is eying the estate tax loophole in 2010...

Then And Now

2009-12-30T10:28:26-05:00

The Bush years:

Even beyond the immediate political manipulation there was always a drive to push the country back into a 'high-fear' climate, with a presidential statements, always with some new leaked intel to dramatize the threat, even what you might call the iconography of terror -- color coded threat levels and the like.

But that isn't totally right:

Eight years ago, "a terrorist bomber's attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner was thwarted by a group of passengers, an incident that revealed some gaping holes in airline security just a few months after the attacks of September 11. But it was six days before President George W. Bush, then on vacation, made any public remarks about the so-called 'shoe bomber,' Richard Reid, and there were virtually no complaints from the press or any opposition Democrats that his response was sluggish or inadequate."

Obviously the Bush administration used terror threats as a political weapon. It's a convenient extension of the conservative worldview which sees aggressive grandstanding and heightened anxiety as a genuine strength. Issuing a threat warning was also a form of foreplay for Dick Cheney. The common thread between the Shoe Bomber and the Underpants Bomber is that both administrations avoided a terrorist attack on their watch through sheer luck. Our best defense was operator error. Because that's clear, neither administration could make a claim to competence or control. So the attacks were spun as non-events. That's the expected reaction by the Obama folks, who downplay everything related to terrorism ("Keep Calm And Carry On" might as well be the mantra, as Marshall notes). For the Bush administration, the Shoe Bomber was a terrorism threat that couldn't be used for political gain. But this one is on Obama's watch. Thus the silence then and the furor now, with the upshot being the GOP will always play the fear card—except when it can't.

Shoot Now, Aim Later

2009-12-29T13:33:47-05:00

After a mini-blogging Sabbatical that coincided with the news that some swarthy yocal blew his balls off on a flight into Detroit (and who hasn't contemplated that when faced with landing on holiday in America's Beirut?) along with word that the Florida Gators coach was getting the vapors from Timmy Tebow's looming induction onto a CFL roster not near you, I came home to find Christmas cheer isn't doing anything to deter the right from indulging in unhealthy levels of stupidity. (Side note: a few days of not reading blogs is a detox we should all indulge in.) In fact, a dash of failed terrorism—cut with scenes of Obama playing golf instead of minding his place and caddying—mixed with a bit too much quality family time, seems to have turned up the unhinged obnoxiousness dial. We're at Orange on the wingnut threat level. This doesn't bode well for 2010:

You have to wonder if there’s a point at which these bloggers and Fox News will feel ashamed of themselves for spreading such deliberate falsehoods. They just fall in line like mindless parrots and repeat this stuff without even bothering to check if it’s true.

You actually don't have to wonder. Shame is for the weak. But at least this epic take-down of David Brooks' lame attempt to portray Obama as a Christian Soldier lifted my spirits:

Brooks is a perfect example of the kind of spineless Beltway geek we always see beating the war drum at times like these. It’s because nebbishly little dorks like Brooks and Paul Wolfowitz and David Frum got their books dumped in high school that we end up dropping daisy cutters on Afghan sheep herds and shipping working class American kids halfway around the world to get their nuts blown off. That sounds like a simplistic explanation, but anyone who doesn’t have a keen ear for the pencil-pusher’s eternal quest for macho cred is going to have a hard time understanding Washington politics. Brooks’s columns have always been the easiest way to take the pulse of that particular dynamic, and it sure seems now that bureaucratic momentum for intervention and more intervention is re-inflating the chests of these Beltway generals.

There's really only one trick left if Obama wants to placate Republicans: gratuitous dick swinging.

Crazy Train

2009-12-22T19:54:10-05:00

It once was conventional wisdom that Alan Greenspan was the smartest man alive:

And this brings us to Alan Greenspan, whom I've known for over 50 years and who I regarded as one of the best young business economists. Townsend-Greenspan was his company. But the trouble is that he had been an Ayn Rander. You can take the boy out of the cult but you can't take the cult out of the boy. He actually had instruction, probably pinned on the wall: "Nothing from this office should go forth which discredits the capitalist system. Greed is good."

Not that we're showing any inclination of learning from our mistakes. (I'm finding it difficult to write this post while saluting Time Magazine with a double middle finger salute.) Here's Greenspan's disciple in May, 2007:

"Importantly, we see no serious broad spillover to banks or thrift institutions from the problems in the subprime market," Bernanke said. "The troubled lenders, for the most part, have not been institutions with federally insured deposits."
He was wrong. Five of the 10 largest subprime lenders during the previous year were banks regulated by the Fed. Even as Bernanke spoke, the spillover from subprime lending was driving the banking industry into a historic crisis that some firms would not survive. And the upheaval would shove the economy into recession.

And he was wrong again:

The Fed let Citigroup make vast investments without setting aside enough money to cover its eventual losses. The company would need more than $45 billion in federal aid.
The Fed watched as National City made billions of dollars in subprime loans that were never repaid. Regulators would arrange its sale to a rival, PNC.

And the Fed approved Wachovia's purchase of a California mortgage lender shortly before California mortgage lenders led the nation into recession. Wachovia, on the verge of collapse, was bought by Wells Fargo with government help.

And again while serving on the Fed's Board of Governors:

The dangers of securitization were underscored the very next month by the collapse of energy giant Enron, which had abused the same accounting rules to conceal losses from investors. But in 2003, the board that writes accounting rules backed away from planned reforms after banks protested that Enron was an exception. The Fed sided with the industry, telling the board that securitization was safe and important to the economy, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

And how about one more time:

In January 2005, National City's chief economist had delivered a prescient warning to the Fed's board of governors: An increasingly overvalued housing market posed a threat to the broader economy, not to mention his own bank and others deeply involved in writing mortgages.
The message wasn't well received. One board member expressed particular skepticism -- Ben Bernanke.

"Where do you think it will be the worst?" Bernanke asked, according to people who attended the meeting, one in a series of sessions the Fed holds with economists.

"I would have to say California," said the economist, Richard Dekaser.

"They have been saying that about California since I bought my first house in 1979," Bernanke replied.

Woops. Apparently "they" were right. Routinely. Not that Bernanke's resume is going to keep the senate from rubber-stamping his bid for a second term as Fed chairman. He did the only thing that matters: left bankers alone and bailed them out when they fucked up. If only we could all be coddled for our incompetence.

Peasants Of The Land Unite

2009-12-22T12:05:40-05:00

Tis the season:

The World Series champions were hit with a luxury tax of nearly $25.69 million Monday, according to information received by clubs and obtained by The Associated Press.

Bang-up job by Selig to admit there's a problem but do nothing in the way of solving it:

The Yankees' regular payroll -- using 2009 salaries and prorated shares of signing bonuses -- finished at $220 million. That was a drop of $2.5 million from 2008 but more than $77.8 million higher than any other team -- a gap larger than the payrolls of the bottom 11 clubs.

Next stop for Bud: The U.S. senate, where propping up the elite is a noble profession. Or maybe he can serve a term as some sort of college football czar and counsel big school presidents on how to entrench their bowl money monopoly at the expense of mid-majors.

Once Again

2009-12-21T15:04:47-05:00

This time with feeling:

Surprisingly, the Senator who did the most to emphasize the absurdity of the situation was Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader. He recalled the votes on Social Security and Medicare, both of which passed with substantial Republican support. Social Security and Medicare, of course, were government-run programs paid for by straight tax increases. They were far more offensive to conservatives than the current legislation, which funds a mostly-private sector health-care expansion by trimming the budget of Medicare, America's largest single-payer health-care system.
Even as the bills Democrats pursue have become more moderate, the roll calls have become more partisan.

More impressive was the sight of John McCain saying Ted Kennedy wouldn't "appreciate" the bill passing cloture on a party-line vote (which Republicans made sure happened). I'd wager there's a few things Kennedy wouldn't appreciate and one of them was Republicans trying to take full advantage of the timing of his death to derail health care. None of his colleagues across the aisle mentioned respecting his interests or his constituents from Massachusetts. He was, momentarily, just one less vote to worry about.

Before Obama was even sworn-in Republicans had dusted off the '94 playbook and called on former Clinton reform-killing stars like Bill Kristol and Betsy McCaughey to lead their campaign of misinformation, fantastic lies and promises of death that poisoned the well and led people to angrily oppose broader, cheaper access to health care. Doesn't get much weirder than that. More telling was the GOP's decision over the last 15 years to ignore an industry with exploding costs in dire need of reform. Our health care system is what it is today because Republicans blocked reform when out of power and did nothing while in power. McCain can feel free to throw a tantrum. But he's got no answer for his own record of inaction.

The Politics Of Obstructionism

2009-12-20T10:41:33-05:00

Judging by Mitch McConnell's spin, you'd never guess Republicans were using every parliamentary trick in the book to slow down health care reform:

"If they were proud of this bill they wouldn't be doing it this way. They wouldn't be jamming it through in the middle of the night on the last weekend before Christmas."

Yes, where has the golden age of backroom deals and late night arm twisting provided by Tom Delay gone? Not that I blame Republicans. Their tactics have helped fracture the Democratic Party and sent Obama's approval rating into a tailspin. And that's what matters when raw power is more important to a party than governing. But that also means playing politics with the troops and basic decency toward other senators are a necessary collateral damage when throwing up filibuster after filibuster:

After years of criticizing Democrats for not supporting the troops, just three Republicans supported the military funding.” “Rarely has the Senate seen such a sad statement,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last night. “Rarely have I seen such brazen irresponsibility. And rarely have our nation's citizens received such little regard from their leaders." At 1:06 am, in fact, 92-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd (D) arrived to cast his vote, O’Donnell reports. The ailing Byrd was brought inside the chamber in a wheelchair, and his colleagues reacted by applauding. During that applause, Byrd raised his hand with a thumbs-up to signal an "aye" vote as he was heard saying, "Shame, shame."

The Mod Squad

2009-12-19T15:16:34-05:00

Barack Obama took a break from punching hippies in the face over health care to knock some international heads together in Copenhagen:

The deal eventually came together after a dramatic moment in which Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton burst into a meeting of the Chinese, Indian and Brazilian leaders, according to senior administration officials. Mr. Obama said he did not want them negotiating in secret.
The intrusion led to new talks that cemented central terms of the deal, American officials said.

Xanadu Or Bust

2009-12-18T21:30:55-05:00

If only Obama had channeled the rage of deadender progressives in his public comments, then Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson would beg for mercy and demand a much stronger public option. Did I get that right? If Obama wasn't weak and ineffective (or if he had the stones of St. Hillary of Clinton) then he could bend the will of a couple senators who would just assume that health care reform drifted away into the ether so they could concentrate on less controversial legislation. Is that what the far left is selling? Never mind senate rules and the unfortunate fact that having the exact number of votes you need means every Senator in the Democratic caucus is a walking filibuster. I guess this is what happens when you're a once-in-an-every-other generation candidate. People figure Obama can turn water into wine and Lieberman into a decent human being.

I need to smoke more drugs just to keep up with the hallucinations coming from the left. Talk about getting the vapors:

Joe Lieberman's reckless decision to blow up last week's compromise has had exactly the impact many of us predicted. Much of the left has flipped into vicious, angry opposition to the bill. Is that because the Medicare buy-in, a good but limited policy, has disappeared from the bill? Ostensibly. But not really. If you don't believe the bill has cost controls, Medicare buy-in was not an answer to your concerns. If you believe the mandate is bad policy, letting the small slice of exchange-users between 55 and 64 choose public insurance did not answer your fears.
Lieberman has tossed the process into chaos. But the short-term satisfactions won't overwhelm the long-term judgments. Lieberman is "point person" because he has appointed himself the 60th senator. Every other member of the Democratic caucus could have done the same, but most all have judged the underlying bill more important than their disagreements with it. Lieberman did the opposite, and there's little evidence that he actually had disagreements with the bill so much as dislike for some of its supporters.

Of the many things I find incredible about this freak out, it's the flimsy rationale that losing a weak-ass public option will turn us all into slaves to insurance corporatism. Unreal.

Blue Dogs

2009-12-18T09:48:53-05:00

Some things I will never understand:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) muscled a $154 billion jobs bill through the House on Wednesday evening just before Congress departed for a holiday recess. With the vote in serious doubt until seconds before it was gaveled to a close, Pelosi worked the floor furiously, imploring her caucus to stick with her and move the measure through.
The bill passed 217-212, but when the time on the clock expired, it was losing 208-212. A few minutes later, when it hit 214-213 and then 215-213, someone shouted "gavel it!" from the Democratic side. A bill doesn't need the full 218 to pass -- only a simple majority of those voting. The presiding officer took the suggestion and closed the vote.

Not a single Republican approved of the bill.

The slim margin is strong evidence that deficit hawks have momentum in the ideological battle between one camp that demands more spending on job creation and another, dominated by the GOP and Blue Dog Democrats, calling for immediate reductions in the deficit. Even the fact that the money was being redirected from Wall Street couldn't sway 38 Democrats, who voted with the Republicans.

It's rather amazing to watch Democrats reflexively cower when a Republican operative merely whispers "fiscally irresponsible" as if those words ensure electoral disaster. People vote on the economy. And not even that. They vote on the job they have, whether they like it, and whether they think the country is going "in the right direction." Whatever the hell that ephemeral notion of group-think positivity means. What people don't do is consider the deficit's impact on borrowing and the consequential deflationary aspects in relation to international economic trends. At least, they haven't to this point, which helps explain how we've arrived at a $11 trillion national debt. Yet this continues to escape Democrats who allow themselves to be hamstrung by a governing philosophy that Republicans themselves don't bother adhering to when controlling the purse strings.

In recent decades the GOP has routinely demonstrated its inability to manage the federal budget. The atrocities are well documented. That's doubly true for the George W Bush administration, when the GOP found a way to take a thriving economy, plus a federal surplus and nearly turn it into Great Depression 2.0 (check out that chart, which also shows spurring a bit of economic growth, perhaps through a Jobs Bill, would do quite a bit to help rein in the deficit). Point of fact: Nobody sucks at fiscal responsibility more than the Republican Party. But that doesn't prevent mealymouthed Blue Dogs from trying to shield themselves from not only a false charge, but an empty one:

O'Neill, fired in a shakeup of Bush's economic team in December 2002, raised objections to a new round of tax cuts and said the president balked at his more aggressive plan to combat corporate crime after a string of accounting scandals because of opposition from "the corporate crowd," a key constituency.
O'Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone-posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: "We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due." A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired.

Cheney wasn't talking about economic policy and channeling his inner Nouriel Roubini. Deficits. Don't. Matter? Of course they do, at least with regard to long-tern economic strength. What Cheney was talking about is the politics of deficit spending and the fact that voters don't punish politicians for going into the red. What they punish voters for is a bad jobs report. And that's exactly what Blue Dogs tried to ensure by voting against the House's Jobs Bill. There are times, like this, when deficit spending is urgently necessary. And it's moments like this when I figure it isn't worth saving Blue Dogs from themselves.

Give 'Em A Little Chin Music

2009-12-17T12:32:10-05:00

Ten years ago Democrats decided they were sick of watching Wall St.'s campaign contributions flow directly into GOP coffers. It was time to get in on the action. One of the legislative results was John McCain voting for and Bill Clinton signing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that repealed Glass-Steagall, the 1933 law separating commercial and investment banking. That move helped make last year's economic implosion possible. Well now McCain—the same Maverick who had arch-deregulator Phil Gramm riding shotgun on the Straightalk Express and served as a useful tool for big business—is all about the do over. Yesterday, the Arizona senator partnered up with Sen. Maria Cantwell to introduce a bill aimed at bringing Glass-Steagall back from the dead. It's not every day you get a politician backing legislation to erase a law he worked to put on the books. Credit where it's due.

While McCain is again reinventing himself (this time in a good way), Joe Lieberman has a better chance of being caught by TMZ cameras doing body shots off of Jane Hamsher at Hawk & Dove than this bill has of being signed into law. Despite Republicans and Democrats telling anyone who will listen that they're opposed to "too big to fail" they haven't demonstrated any willingness to actually do something about it. But sometimes picking a fight you know you're going to lose can be a political winner, as Kevin Drum points out. And with the liberal netroots throwing an epic tantrum over the latest turn in the health care debate, Obama could stand to engender a little good will:

Why not pick a signature issue or two and really hammer away? Make a few fire-breathing speeches about how you agree with Alistair Darling about taxing banks that hand out huge bonuses and will be sending legislation to Congress to make that happen. It'll probably fail, but at least it moves the conversation forward and gets the public engaged. The fact that you fought the good fight won't really hurt you (the nation's bankers obviously don't think much of you already), and far from sinking the whole reform effort, it might actually help keep the rest of the bill(s) from getting watered down even more. A couple million postcards has that effect sometimes.

McCain is providing Obama an opening to sprinkle a little bit of that hopey, changey feeling around that has been missing. Not that he'll bite.

Question Of The Moment

2009-12-16T20:48:07-05:00

Can the Democrats govern?

There are those who say that Democrats shouldn't favor any system that continues to include private insurers. Good luck with that. I've been covering these issues for 40 years and I've come to this conclusion: anything that actually helps people is good, whether or not it fits into an ideological pattern. Covering 30 million more people is good. Preventing private insurers the ability to deny coverage to countless others is also good. Those who stand against these essential principles because of an ideological conceit--whether it be Joe Lieberman's opposition to a public option, Ben Nelson's opposition to abortion funding or Democracy for America's opposition to an individual mandate--are proving a point that conservatives have long made: that Democrats are too feckless to govern.

One could almost say that it's time to set aside these childish things. Speaking of, maybe it's time for that someone to speak up, talk loudly, and start swinging a big damn stick.

When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong

2009-12-16T14:46:53-05:00

Times are tough in Real America. Especially when highfalutin grifters, what with all their Saks Fifth flash and snowbilly common sense, roll through town and step all over the help:

Sarah Palin not only annoyed leaders of the Utah Republican Party when she didn't have time for them during her book signing stop in Salt Lake City last week. She also took off from her hotel after arranging for a last-minute hair appointment without paying the hairdresser and leaving her to cover her own valet parking.
But Rhonda Halliday of Images Hair Studio and Day Spa wants to give Palin the benefit of the doubt. She thinks the lack of payment was unintended, and someone on Palin's staff just dropped the ball.

Halliday was called by a friend at 8 a.m. last Wednesday and was told Palin needed her hair done that morning. Halliday had planned to take her 3-year-old to the dentist for her first filling that morning, but arranged for her husband to get off work for that chore.

She was told to meet the group at the Monaco Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City and to just leave her car with valet parking.

After being ushered to a room on the 15th floor and given some instructions (don't talk to Palin unless she talks first) she did Palin's hair while the former Alaska governor chatted with her family.

Then, the Palin party left to get to the book signing at Costco on time.

That's right. The great white hope of the GOP can be found in a semi-metropolis that's probably not all that close to you, hawking her ghost-written wears next to a five gallon jug of mayo. What's that Hitchens? Feel like talkin'?

Don’t be too hard on her. She didn’t write that piece and she probably hasn’t read it. I doubt she could either read or write it. Everything she does is for effect, and is always deniable. She could switch back in a minute. At the moment she thinks her tea party crowd wants to hear this kind of thing so she’ll say that. She’s been out to say, ‘well, I don’t know but I think the President ought to produce his birth certificate. I’m not saying it isn’t a good question. Then later, cause she’s got to go to the Gridiron dinner in Washington, and learn how to use a knife and fork and be taught by Fred Malek. She takes it back. She’s a disgraceful opportunist and a real moral coward.

Kill Bill

2009-12-16T09:06:44-05:00

If I didn't know better, I'd assume Howard Dean's cartoonish rhetoric is a fairly transparent attempt to provide cover for moderate Democrats just before the big compromise and subsequent vote. Unengaged headline readers will simply figure the bill must not be too liberal if the dude who lost it in a corn field is now having a similar meltdown. Dean's rally cry doesn't come close to connecting with reality. And he no doubt knows that the fate of flamed-out major legislation is to be banished for a generation. Just ask Bill Clinton. With that, put me down for what Cesca said:

A family of four earning $38,500 will qualify for subsidies that will reduce insurance premiums from around $9,880 annually to around $2,000. A family of four earing $60,000 will see their annual premium reduced from $9,880 to around $5,240 via subsidies in the Senate bill. This is very important. Do we endeavor to yank these subsidies away by killing the bill, or do we pass the subsidies and work to improve the bill?

Also too, Yglesias has a nifty chart.

-- Update --

Just because this is a "win" for insurance companies doesn't mean a lot of other people aren't winners:

[If] I could construct a system in which insurers spent 90 percent of every premium dollar on medical care, never discriminated against another sick applicant, began exerting real pressure for providers to bring down costs, vastly simplified their billing systems, made it easier to compare plans and access consumer ratings, and generally worked more like companies in a competitive market rather than companies in a non-functional market, I would take that deal. And if you told me that the price of that deal was that insurers would move from being the 86th most profitable industry to being the 53rd most profitable industry, I would still take that deal. And that may be the exact deal we're getting. The profit motive is not, in and of itself, a bad thing.

Nope, this isn't the best way to use tax dollars to make sure everyone has health insurance. But it's the best we can do with this Congress. A plague on both of our Houses...

Never Send A Dove To A War Zone

2009-12-15T20:35:04-05:00

They'll just want more war. This piece by Sarah Davidson lends the impression that arguing for withdrawal is easier from the comfort of your Ikea char. A group of eight women and one man organized by Code Pink, Women for Peace, took a trip to Afghanistan. What they saw changed hearts and minds:

After eight days, our presumptions were turned upside down, splitting us into camps with conflicting opinions. Some still wanted an exit strategy, but one woman who’s spent 40 years in non-violent peace work reversed her lifelong stand, believing the military should stay and more troops might be helpful. “It shocks me to admit this,” she said.[...]
She tells us about a Pashtun woman in the south who was referred to her by the U.S. Special Forces. The woman fell sick and tried to walk to the hospital but had to be chaperoned by a male relative, so she took her 8-year-old son. She was wearing the Afghan burqa -- a light blue garment that covers the woman completely except for a mesh grid over the eyes. “She stumbled and when she put out her arms to break her fall, she accidentally touched a man. Her son ran home and told his father that she’d had `relations with a strange man.’”

The UN director has to stop to compose herself. “Her husband called his neighbors to hold his wife down while he chopped off the tips of all her fingers. Then he told his son to punch her in the eyes. When we found her, she was unable to see.” The director shakes her head. “If your neighbors witness something like that, they’ll think twice about going to a hospital.”

We’re subdued as we ride away from the UN office. We’re hearing numerous stories like this, which makes us probe and question our assumptions. Ann Wright, 63, a former army colonel and State Department officer who has kind blue eyes and speaks with a Southern lilt, says, “I have changed a little bit. Before this trip I was leaning toward: let’s get the hell out! Accept the inevitable! Now I feel we have a responsibility -- to be part of a security strategy and help provide education and jobs. That’s a far better way to deal with terrorism.”

I still don't know what to think about Afghanistan. But I'm resolute in my dismissal of the argument that helping women in Kabul means we have to help kids in Rwanda. Making humanitarian work a reason to intervene is different than having it loom over us as a reason to stay. Once you go in, the rules change. We're in. And that means leaving is on our conscience.