The Lion and Gun

Test

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:13:00 +0000

Testing.

Team of Rivals

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:28:00 +0000

At the moment I'm wrapping up Doris Kearns Goodwin's excellent book. (Lest anybody accuse me of bandwagoning, let it be known that I purchased it and have been slowly reading it since long before Obama's victory and transition.) Obviously the book has gained popular currency recently, especially with buzz about President-elect Obama potentially pulling former rival Hillary Clinton into his cabinet as Secretary of State. (I've already made some preliminary remarks on the subject here.) 'Team of rivals' is a good way to describe such an administration -- but a poor philosophy for building it.

Cliché tells us those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat it. And there's some truth in that. But it does not follow that those who understand history can repeat it at will: what has worked in the particular circumstances of the past usually fails in the particular, and different, circumstances of the present.

There were plenty of good reasons for Abraham Lincoln to bring his rivals into his administration -- a new and fragile Republican party, a fragile nation headed for war. Today's challenges are certainly great, but they are nothing like what faced the new President in 1861, and the Democratic party is much stronger and more unified than the Republicans under their first President. Lincoln's decision to tap the talents of Edward Bates, Henry Seward, and Salmon Chase was fueled by the daunting challenges facing his administration. I fear that Obama's decision to tap the talents of Hillary Clinton has been fueled by a best-selling book.

There are arguments in Clinton's favor. For one thing, she's smart as hell. She's tough and determined. She's relentless. All of these are good qualities for the face of the nation's foreign policy, and they should not be underestimated. There are other benefits as well, some of which haven't been given much attention elsewhere. But the appointment, assuming it comes to pass, brings with it some significant problems. And many of Clinton's attributes political bloggers stress strike me as being hollow or not particularly useful. (I also think it's interesting that, from what I've seen, bloggers whose primary interest is domestic policy or political process seem to be celebrating the decision, whereas bloggers more focused on foreign policy tend to have considerable reservations.)

Beyond her innate abilities, Hillary Clinton will bring a significant amount of political capital to the State Department. Obama might be crafting the kind of star-studded cabinet that will strike fear into the hearts of Republicans. Clinton will bring with her the good will of Congress, the Democratic party, and a significant chunk of the American populace. All of this will help to clear any domestic roadblocks to Obama's conduct of foreign policy.

Clinton's star-power will also raise the profile of the (already high-profile) State Department. If Obama intends to shift the fulcrum of foreign policy conduct further from Defense to State this is a good way to do it. With somebody as famously tough as Clinton at the reins, voters (and political rivals) will be less likely to accuse an Obama administration's focus on diplomacy as weak-kneed appeasement. For the President's domestic agenda, but also for much of his foreign policy, he'll have to rally his grassroots, twist arms in Congress, and convince the American people to get behind him. Clinton can help with that.

Senator Clinton's familiarity with the levers of power in Washington -- and, even more importantly, her high profile -- will allow Obama to concentrate more on the gargantuan domestic policy challenges facing the nation without sacrificing Americans' trust on his ability to handle myriad foreign crises and entanglements. This might be the most important reason for choosing Clinton. There are many other candidates who could manage delegated foreign policy and the State Department as well as, or better than, Hillary Clinton. But there are perhaps none that are better known and would be better trusted by the American people.

Here, however, is where we start getting into thornier problems. Does Obama really want to outsource foreign policymaking to a State Department run by Hillary Clinton? Probably not. Surely one of the lessons of the early Clinton years was that the most important political decision making takes place in the West Wing, not at Foggy Bottom. And in the primaries Clinton staked out a substantially different (and more hawkish) foreign policy vision than Obama. He'll have to keep her on a tight leash.

How will Clinton react to that? Obviously she desired to be President. It's not a well-kept secret that she feels herself more qualified than Obama, and there's been little love lost between them even since the convention. Will she work well in a subordinate role? In public surely she will, just as she heartily campaigned for Obama in the general election. She might not always be so happy to back down in private. Of course, disagreement within policy-making circles, if handled right, can be a good thing. But many of Clinton's advisers have more spleen and less to lose by venting to the press, and the Clintons have always presided over a leaky ship. Obama is famously averse to seeing behind-closed-doors backbiting splayed across the front pages of America's newspapers, but that's exactly what we saw in the final four months of Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Of course if such disputes do end up leaking, as they probably will, it would prove embarrassing to Obama. (An un-amicable or forced resignation of his Secretary of State, taking with her a sizable chunk of the Democratic party, could potentially hobble his administration.) More importantly, they could seriously undermine the conduct of American foreign policy.

So, too, could the many (and possibly shady) dealings Bill Clinton has had with foreign leaders. I have written previously about this and won't belabor the point. Let me just stress that impropriety isn't the issue so much as the perception of impropriety. Bill's business connections and donor lists could cause serious (or perceived) conflicts of interest that further complicate American foreign policy. His ties in Kazakhstan, whose oil fields are jealously eyed by powerful neighbors, are especially problematic.

Meanwhile, the qualities most observers have focused on strike me as being overestimated or not particularly useful. The first, and most easily dispensed with, is that Clinton will heal divisions within the Democratic party. What divisions? Didn't Barack Obama just win the election? Any divisions that remains, obviously not fatal, will be erased (if they can at all be erased) by his conduct as President. If there are any voters who refuse to vote for Barack Obama four years from now because he had the temerity to defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 primaries, they either have serious attachment issues or other (more or less legitimate) reasons that are really causing their opposition.

The second, and perhaps most often-mentioned, attribute is Clinton's worldwide popularity. I question, first of all, the veracity of this statement. I don't mean to deny Clinton's popularity, simply its degree. On this point I'm genuinely uncertain, but it seems to me that it was her husband who was really popular overseas. At any rate, I can remember seeing polling during the primaries (I can't recall the source, I'm afraid) showing that, out of a number of foreign democracies, Obama was supported over Clinton by wide margins in all countries save Israel and Britain. Certainly Clinton couldn't draw a crowd of 400,000 at the Victory Column in Berlin.

More importantly, I question the usefulness of having a popular Secretary of State. Sure, it will improve America's reputation abroad, but I think the returns are pretty marginal considering how much and how quickly Obama's election has done that already. Which is as it should be: it's the President who should be popular worldwide, not the Secretary of State. She needs to be the bad cop. Henry Kissinger, arguably the most successful Secretary of State of the post-war period, did not exactly inspire warm and fuzzy feeling worldwide.

Of course, Hillary can be (and often has been) a bad cop. That's another of her supposed qualities, in fact -- she'll be a tough and shrewd negotiator. And I don't doubt her toughness, but I do her diplomatic skills. So far in Clinton's political life her two greatest endeavors, health care and an election campaign, both failed in large part because of her inability to fruitfully resolve conflicts. Building a 1,300 page fait accompli without involving any of the stakeholders is exactly the wrong way to manage a huge a complex negotiation, but that's what was done with health care in 1994. More recently, Clinton's inability to forge a working relationship between the strong personalities on her own campaign team was at the heart of its failure. (And those were all people dedicated to a single goal!) It was, above all else, Clinton's indecisiveness and unwillingness to fire problematic advisers that had her campaign vacillating between different tactics and messages and leaking angry conversations all over the place. This raises doubts about both her ability to lead the huge bureaucracy she'd be placed in charge of as well as her ability to conduct fruitful negotiations between recalcitrant parties.

Others have vaunted Clinton's foreign policy experience and working relationships with foreign leaders. But today's crop of foreign leaders has changed from what she and her husband dealt with in the 1990s, and the extent to which she had a serious working relationship with any of them has been exaggerated by her partisans. So too is her vaunted experience. What experience? I thought that was revealed as bullshit during the primaries. Certainly Clinton has plenty of political experience doing plenty of political things, but foreign policy? She's never been a diplomat, she's never negotiated foreign treaties, she's never studied or written about international relations or foreign policy. The closest she's come (and this is really not so very close) is her seat on the Armed Services Committee.

And, I suppose, the sniper fire in Bosnia.

In all seriousness, this is the claim that I take the most issue with. The received wisdom of Clinton's experience stems from a mostly uncritical acceptance of a carefully crafted political narrative. Clinton has had more experience than Obama, yes, but not more than most professional politicians in their early sixties. And very little of her experience is relevant to a potential position at the head of State. She is, for all intents and purposes, a neophyte, and this was revealed in some of her foreign policy stances and statements (extending America's nuclear shield over its Middle Eastern allies!) during the campaign.

This is one myth I wish would be slayed.

Finally, there's been plenty of attention paid to what this will mean for Clinton's political prospects, or else how it plays politically for Obama. Does it remove a potential problem for his agenda in the Senate? Possibly, but I doubt Clinton would have (or could have) posed much of a threat from the Upper House. She could certainly do more damage, intentionally or not, to Obama's administration from the State Department; more importantly, she could do more damage to America's foreign policy than she could from the Upper Chamber. On the other hand, as I've said, she'll bring with her a store of political capital for Obama to share, so I think that's a wash. And as for Clinton's own ambitions, as Ezra Klein suggests, they are probably realistically at an end. 2016 will be the year for Mark Warner or Brian Schweitzer or someone yet to emerge. Hillary's star hasn't faded yet, but it will. If she still thinks she has a chance, Governor of New York would be a better place to build her movement. If she doesn't, Secretary of State could be her crowning achievement and lasting legacy.

As Barron YoungSmith points out at The Plank, Barack Obama's own national security adviser-in-waiting, Jim Steinberg, warns against this kind of choice in an upcoming book:

"An examination of how [post-WW II] national security teams functioned suggests some general conclusions about the do's-and-don't's of the appointments process. On the whole, decisions to appoint all-stars or worthies without significant previous personal connection to the candidates has, with the important exception of Kissinger, proved problematic. At best, they have been marginalized or ignored in the decision-making process ... at worst, they have caused significant disruption as a result of being seen as not team players."

None of this is meant either to disqualify Senator Clinton or to predict her failure. In fact, she could be a spectacularly successful Secretary of State; she could be the next Kissinger. She brings many considerable qualities to the position and she's certainly more qualified than, say, me. In fact, her attributes probably outweigh her detriments. But that's not the essential calculus because Clinton isn't the only choice. With other qualified candidates available -- John Kerry, Bill Richardson, Wes Clark, Richard Holbrooke -- we should not so blithely assume Clinton will be the best. I doubt she would be. All those I mentioned (and many others I didn't) have their own mix of qualities and problems; the question is, on the whole, who is best? I think someone like Richardson or Holbrooke fits the bill.

Senator Clinton's appointment would steal a newscycle or two (indeed, speculation already has), and it would guarantee more in the future. It's the kind of bold move most observers, myself included, have come to not expect from Barack Obama. It suggests an eye for political tactics and stunts that was assiduously avoided during the campaign. Maybe it's a brilliant stroke I simply have yet to appreciate.

Or maybe it's the result of reading a popular book of history and assuming the successes of the past could be repeated in the present. Which is the wrong lesson to take. But it's still a damned good book.

Photo provided under a CC license by Ellen Kanner.

Out

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:12:00 +0000

Have errands left over from the weekend; will be back and blogging this evening.

Should Cheney be Tried?

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:47:00 +0000

I have by nature a healthy allergy to any use of the justice system for crass political benefit or, perhaps worse, to punish political enemies. And so the calls on the left over the past several years to impeach and try Dick Cheney and George W. Bush have inclined me against the idea. I'm still uncomfortable with it, and lean against prosecution. I think that some crimes should go unpunished; from South African truth and reconciliation tribunals to the pardon of Richard Nixon, there are many different cases where the crimes of leadership burrow so far to the heart of the country that it's better to forgive as a people than to be torn apart. But on this point I'm willing to be persuaded, and conservative Conor Friedersdorf at Culture11 makes a gloomy but compelling argument:

[I]f Dick Cheney is found guilty of a prison worthy offense, the process of investigating, trying and convicting him is going to be an exceedingly ugly one for the country. . . . It is unimaginable that anyone in the upper levels of the Bush Administration would go to jail without fighting for the contrary outcome in the ugliest way.

It is not entirely irrational to fear that judicial proceedings might one day be used by a new president against his political opponents in the previous administration. Nor is it entirely irrational to fear that a future president might fail to take some prudent action to protect the country, applying some overly legalistic standard to his every action for fear of future prosecution, or take brutal, unethical actions while president — perhaps even atempting to hold onto power — to avoid the prospect of jail once leaving power. And it is almost certain, in any case, that legal action of this kind would mean that every president going forward would take even greater pains to hide their every action, decrease transparency, eliminate the possibility of even backward looking scrutiny. . .

Those who think that executive crimes should be punished have the right of it, I think, because not punishing such crimes is more dangerous, and triggers its own slew of frightening incentives, slippery slopes, and unintended consequences, that portend even more dangerous possibilities for the future, and do more to weaken the prospect of representative democracy governed by the rule of law. . . . But we should not fool ourselves that holding someone like Dick Cheney accountable would be a "very good day," given the inevitable reactions to it amoung our countrymen, even if we can agree that it would be a better day than the alternative. . .

Photo provided under a CC license by Robert F. W. Whitlock

Sixty Seat Update

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:22:00 +0000

After last night's counting Alaska Democrat Mark Begich now leads Republican incumbent and convicted felon Ted Stevens by 1,022 votes with about 15,000 remaining to be counted by Tuesday. In Minnesota Dartmouth College released a study which finds that the recount there is likely to favor Democratic candidate Al Franken, who is currently at a 204-vote deficit to Republican incumbent Norm Coleman. (h/t Political Wire) This will leave the Democrats just one seat shy of a sixty-seat majority; they'll be fighting for the last one in the Georgia run-off between Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin.

President-elect's First Video Radio Address

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:32:00 +0000

As previously noted, President-elect Obama has decided to take the President's weekly radio address to YouTube. The first is now online. In it, Obama once again calls for an economic stimulus plan and promises that it will be his first priority if not enacted by the lame duck Congress. Also perhaps significant, amidst conflicting reports that health care might be put on the back burner or pushed forward next spring, Obama re-confirms his commitment to reform.

Happy Hour

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:30:00 +0000

For my Canadian friends:

Clinton Already Offered State?

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:17:00 +0000

This is all still scuttlebutt, and maybe it's just a slow news day, but the noises out of Washington about Clinton's trip to Foggy Bottom are growing louder and louder. Somebody's piloting a leaky canoe, and I suspect it's on Clinton's side. A little while ago Politico reported that a close Clinton associate suspects she'd be open to State (another has since said otherwise). Now Huffington Post is reporting that Clinton was actually offered the position in her meeting with Obama yesterday and is taking some time to consider it. I remain skeptical of the wisdom of selecting Clinton as Secretary of State, but will withhold judgment till we see what actually happens.

In Defense of an Automaker Bailout

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:05:00 +0000

Jonathan Cohn suggests that a bailout of General Motors might be necessary. His reporting suggests that anywhere between half a million and three million Americans would be thrown out of work as the result of a complete Big Three meltdown, and contrary to many bailout critics' assertions a company like GM would not have much opportunity to restructure under Chapter 11:

In order to seek so-called Chapter 11 status, a distressed company must find some way to operate while the bankruptcy court keeps creditors at bay. But GM can't build cars without parts, and it can't get parts without credit. Chapter 11 companies typically get that sort of credit from something called Debtor-in-Possession (DIP) loans. But the same Wall Street meltdown that has dragged down the economy and GM sales has also dried up the DIP money GM would need to operate.

That's why many analysts and scholars believe GM would likely end up in Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which would entail total liquidation.

Cohn then makes the case that Detroit is positively reforming its business practices, or at least was before the financial crisis hit and credit dried up. And maybe that's the case. But decades of inertia argue against much optimism on that front.

The question, it seems to me, is threefold: first, to what extent should the government intervene in the economy to protect jobs; second, what types of intervention are most effective while being minimally invasive and distorting of market incentives; and, thirdly, which interventions provide the most 'bang for the buck'? It's not clear to me that a bailout of the auto industry provides satisfactory answers to any, let alone all, of those questions. 'It's not clear' -- I use those words deliberately. I'm not an economist. I remain skeptical of an automaker bailout but I recognize it's an open and shut case. But I think it's important that these questions, and their answers, frame the debate. We should not be moved by a nostalgia for the most 'American' of industries.

(Incidentally, in the long run an ancillary effect of comprehensive health care reform will be to alleviate the problems faced by companies like GM. Much of the burdensome legacy costs dragging the auto manufacturers down are tied up in ballooning health care costs, which now account for fully one-seventh of the American economy. Tamping down on that will go far toward making businesses, especially in more heavily unionized industries, more solvent.)

Ayers Speaks Out

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:20:00 +0000

William Ayers appeared on Good Morning America this morning. In his six-minute interview Ayers, a former leader of the radical leftist Weather Underground, appears perfectly reasonable in comparison to his interviewer.

Chris Cuomo grills Ayers over and over on Republicans' ridiculous guilt-by-association charges. In particular, Cuomo insists that the real problem with the so-called relationship is the 'evasiveness' used in Obama's and Ayers's descriptions of it.

This is perhaps the most politically dangerous (or profitable, depending on whose side you're on) lines of attack in the guilt-by-association arsenal. It is virtually impossible to refute: short of admitting outright to whatever your interlocutor's accusations are, you will continue to be charged with evasiveness.

The fact is that Obama's description of his relationship with Ayers rings true, corresponds with Ayers's own characterization, and is reflected by the known record. And yet Cuomo can still sit in front of Ayers and, with face straight and tone grave, object that 'there's an evaiveness here.' Cuomo's prosecutorial questions are loaded ('Will you admit to your close relationship with Obama or are you going to continue to lie about it?') and irresponsible.

Ayers, every inch the professor, makes a vain attempt to raise the level of the conversation:

What I'm saying about the guilt-by-association -- which, as you know, has a long and tragic history in this country -- what I'm saying is that every one of us actually should talk to lots and lots of people, and especially our political leaders. Far from being a demerit on his record, the fact that he's wiling to talk to a lot of people from a lot of different walks of life, listen to a lot of opinions, and still have a mind of his own is something we should honor and admire.

But Cuomo will have none of it, returning with another accusatory question:

But then you have to come clean about saying, 'I'm one of those people.' Barack Obama either sought me out or I sought him out to discuss my ideas, my radical ideas, and then he made his own decision.

There's nothing Ayers has to 'come clean' about. He and Obama have both been forthright about their 'relationship', to the extent that there ever was one, which was was neither extensive nor substantive. That Obama didn't refuse to sit on a board which included Ayers does suggest a degree of open-mindedness. (As does, I gather, the very act of living in Hyde Park.) It does not mean that Obama took Ayers's counsel. And even if it did that doesn't mean he's unfit for the Presidency.

Fortunately the American people agreed. Now hopefully Ayers can go return to his life, and maybe sell a few extra books along the way.

Video Killed the Radio Star

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:29:00 +0000

Beginning this weekend, President-elect Barack Obama will begin recording the weekly Presidential radio address . . . in video. It's very Web 2.0. Circa 1983.

Clinton to State: Second Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:32:00 +0000

I think it's a bad idea, and I'm increasingly convinced that Obama's transition team agrees.

Ezra Klein suggests that this is just an elaborate show of respect that will ultimately result in nothing, and that sounds about right. One of the reasons Clinton was not seriously considered for Vice-President was her (and especially Bill's) refusal to be vetted. As I've mentioned, however, Obama's transition team is just as carefully vetting applicants for high office. And with State there's not just a concern about the potential political ramifications of some of the Clintons' doings. Certain beliefs and revelations could have a deleterious impact on the conduct of American foreign policy.

Central Asia, for example, with its oil reserves, is being jealously eyed by the Russians, Iranians, Chinese and others, and could become an international flash point in the years ahead. That the American Secretary of State's husband might have had shady dealings with the government of Kazakhstan therefore becomes a real problem. Even the appearance of impropriety could negatively impact America's ability to act.

What about Clinton's Presidential ambitions? As a base of operations for Hillary's plotting State doesn't make much sense. It's a high-profile position but not one that lends itself to politicking. And after that, what? Some have suggested Obama wants to build a 'team of rivals' in the manner of Lincoln; that allusion has a double meaning here, since Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Seward, was the only Secretary of State in American history to serve two full Presidential terms. It's unlikely Clinton will repeat that. So let's say she rests at State for three or four years. Then what? Madeline Albright and Warren Christopher haven't exactly aged well, politically speaking.

And if she were to make State a base from which to establish a rival or shadow administration -- which is pretty likely -- that would be even worse. The President famously has to wrangle with Congress to get anything done but has a relatively free hand in foreign affairs. Would he want a Secretary of State, then, that's working to undermine him? And how would that affect American interests abroad? Clinton had a very different (and much more hawkish) foreign policy agenda than Obama's during the primaries. What happens if she goes rogue? Presumably at some point the President would have to ask for her resignation. That would be pretty harmful to his administration. It hurt Bush's legitimacy when Colin Powell departed amongst speculation that he mightily disagreed with the country's direction in international affairs, and Powell didn't take half of the Republican party with him.

Andrew Sullivan suggests that Max Baucus's recent moves on health care are 'a sign that Obama might have already been signaling this maneuver.' I doubt it. Max Baucus's emergence as the front runner on reform is a natural consequence of Senate organization. Clinton was never going to be able to take the lead on health care from within the Senate unless Harry Reid decided to step aside and open up a path to leadership -- which he hasn't done. Clinton's on the wrong committees and has little seniority. The leaders for health care reform were always going to be Kennedy and, if he got on-board, Baucus. And Baucus has made it clear for the past year that he's on-board.

I'm not sure what Obama should do with Clinton, but my suspicion is nothing. Leave here where she is. Unless a great opportunity opens for her in the Senate she'll probably return to New York and run for Governor. That would be a better launching pad for a second Presidential run in 2016, and it would make a potentially very popular President Obama's life a hell of a lot easier.

Photo provided under a CC license by Chris Dunn

Hillary Clinton for State?

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:25:00 +0000

I'm not sure what I think of this. I don't think she'd be terrible. It would open up all kinds of things in New York state. But there isn't exactly a lack of qualified candidates. This article by Kevin Drum, pointing out some of Hillary's advantages over her rivals (mostly political), only considers John Kerry and Chuck Hagel as alternatives. But someone like Richard Holbrooke or Bill Richardson could also be effective at State. And in the meantime Josh Marshall at TPM raises an important question which might make all the speculation moot:

Secretaries of State don't usually last more than a single presidential term. And sometimes they don't make it that long. So, for the life of me, I do not understand why Hillary Clinton would want to give up what is in all likelihood a senate seat for life to run the State Department for Barack Obama.

And it is just speculation. Anything we hear before an official announcement -- which we shouldn't expect before December -- is just scuttlebutt. Most likely, with someone as high-profile as Clinton, a trial balloon to test public and political sentiment.

(For that matter, would Hillary want to go through the extensive vetting process Obama's transition team has in store for all its top applicants? Certainly she wasn't prepared to during the campaign. And doesn't making Hillary Clinton the face of American foreign policy ensure all kinds of prickly questions will be raised about her husband's shady dealings in various central Asian republics? I just don't have my head around the logic here.)

Update: Ambinder confirms that Clinton and Obama met yesterday. This seems to have a lot of her staff excited. There's something goind on; if not a Secretary of State interview, then what?

Putin on Saakashvili

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:00:00 +0000

Vladimir Putin, meeting with French President Nicholas Sarkozy in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Georgia, made no bones about his ambitions in the region.

In an attempt to illustrate just how hard he planned to lay the smack down on Georgia, Putin told Sarkozy, "I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls," referring to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Wait, it gets better:

Mr Sarkozy responded: "Hang him?"

"Why not? The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein," said Mr Putin.

Mr Sarkozy replied, using the familiar "tu": "Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?" Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then replied: "Ah, you have scored a point there."

Does it bother anyone else that the leader of the world's second-largest nuclear arsenal talks like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas?

Photo provided under a CC license by Brain Lint

Liar's Poker Redux

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:44:00 +0000

Your morning reading assignment: Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker, returns to the world of finance now that his twenty-year-old predictions of ruin seem to be finally coming through. He does his best to contain his schadenfreude.

Lots of good stuff, but for my money the most visceral evocation of just how badly things were managed is this:

Eisman knew subprime lenders could be scumbags. What he underestimated was the total unabashed complicity of the upper class of American capitalism. For instance, he knew that the big Wall Street investment banks took huge piles of loans that in and of themselves might be rated BBB, threw them into a trust, carved the trust into tranches, and wound up with 60 percent of the new total being rated AAA.

But he couldn’t figure out exactly how the rating agencies justified turning BBB loans into AAA-rated bonds. “I didn’t understand how they were turning all this garbage into gold,” he says. He brought some of the bond people from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and UBS over for a visit. “We always asked the same question,” says Eisman. “Where are the rating agencies in all of this? And I’d always get the same reaction. It was a smirk.” He called Standard & Poor’s and asked what would happen to default rates if real estate prices fell. The man at S&P couldn’t say; its model for home prices had no ability to accept a negative number. “They were just assuming home prices would keep going up,” Eisman says.

Again, these are the guys we paid to manage our money?

The Prognosticators

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:39:00 +0000

Watch Peter Schiff's economic doom-saying over the course of the past few years. In every instance he's laughed off. (The extended clip from Fox with Ben Stein is especially hilarious.) Everybody else, in hindsight, looks like a fool. Reminds me of a line from Jurassic Park; 'God, do I hate being right all the time.' My question is: who is paying these people to tell us what to do with our money? And why do we believe them?

(h/t Andrew Sullivan)

The Face of Bigotry

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:25:00 +0000

Bigotry appears in the guise of an eloquent, soft-spoken man, well-groomed and wearing a nice suit, speaking very reasonably from your television screen. Dan Savage v. Tony Perkins re: Proposition 8.

Savage interrupts a lot. Perkins complains. Savage finally returns with a sincere and devastating response:

When you strip me of my rights and I interrupt you, who's really suffering here?

To show how disingenuous and hate-propelled homophobia is, consider Perkins's final argument. His defense of the state's pseudo-utilitarian responsibility to impose upon its subjects what the majority deems to be the most efficacious solution to any given problem is at odds with fundamental precepts of post-war American conservatism. It is not at all an exaggeration to describe the argument as fascist.

(Hat tip to Crooks and Liars)

Obama and Race

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:35:00 +0000

Feeling a bit under the weather at the moment; hopefully will be up to full speed tomorrow. In case I'm not you can make do with reading David Remnick's excellent examination of Obama and race in this week's New Yorker. Lots of great stuff in it, but there's one point I wanted to emphasize. I think it draws the fundamental distinction between Obama and previous African-American candidates for President.

Of Obama's landmark Philadelphia speech on race Remnick writes:

Obama was in the midst of a high-stakes rhetorical balancing act. He empathized not only with his embittered preacher but also with the embittered white workers who have seen “their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor” and cannot understand why their children might be bused across town or why a person of color has a leg up through affirmative action “because of an injustice that they themselves never committed.” Obama signalled to all sides that he heard them, that he “got it.”

Much has been made of Obama's ability to understand both sides of his racial heritage. As Remnick argues, this ability to empathize with whites and blacks alike was essential to his appeal. But it went farther than that. Earlier in Remnick's article he reminds us of the victory speech Obama made after the Iowa caucus on January 3rd:

The key pronoun is always “we,” or “us.” The historical fight for equal rights comes only at the end of a peroration on national purpose:

Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire; what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation; what led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom’s cause. Hope—hope is what led me here today.

The civil-rights struggle is deftly recast in terms not of national guilt but of national progress: the rise of the Joshua generation. What the African-American left once referred to as the “black freedom struggle” becomes, in Obama’s terms, an American freedom struggle.

The struggle for civil rights, so long the pride and province of African-Americans, was rendered by Obama a victory for all Americans. Implicit in this is the important notion that whites and blacks benefit alike when the barriers of racism and bigotry are overthrown. More important, however, is the rhetoric's broad inclusivity. Obama made his election, rightly or wrongly, a chance for white Americans to take part in the affirmative history of black Americans. Whites and blacks together with Obama would shake off the shackles of history and division and hate.

Barack Obama did not only empathize with whites and blacks; he quite literally brought them together into a single movement. The struggle to tame the frontier, the struggle for women's rights, the struggle for civil rights, all are in this conception cast as parts of one single overarching all-encompassing Struggle. And it is in the crucible of this Struggle that America is formed -- an America that gets better by the day. It's not overcoming the Struggle that makes America great, Obama says. It is the Struggle itself.

Heady stuff. Very powerful rhetoric. And a thread that has run throughout Obama's campaign. In that sense the title of Obama's Philadelphia speech could hardly be improved upon: A More Perfect Union.

Obama to Resign Senate Seat

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:55:00 +0000

President-elect Barack Obama has submitted his letter of resignation to the United States Senate, effective Sunday.

This is not simply a procedural move. Both the incoming and outgoing administrations are working hard to make the on-going transition smoother than usual. In some ways, however, this puts the incoming President in an awkward position. With such time-sensitive challenges facing the nation today Obama has to show leadership without stepping on the current President's toes. Hence the quick moves by both parties to disclaim reports earlier this week that Obama and Bush had hit a snag in negotiating a possible economic stimulus package. Obama wants to see a stimulus passed (as well as a bail-out of the auto industry) before Inauguration without raising President Bush's ire.

As such, remaining a member of a lame duck Congress that is being pressured to act on the economy before its term expires is politically problematic. Should a closely-contested stimulus bill be placed before the Senate, especially one opposed by President Bush, Obama will not want to be in a position where he either has to vote for it or skip the vote. (Bush's Colombia trade bill, which Obama opposes, presents a similar situation.)

I'm not sure where this falls in with usual etiquette. I'm not sure if there is a usual etiquette. No American has made the transition from Senate to President since John F. Kennedy. I'm not sure when, if ever, a member of a lame duck Congress expected to vote on an important piece of legislation was also President-Elect. If somebody is aware of this happening in the past, please let me know in the comments below!

Barachelle? Michack?

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:40:00 +0000

Barack and Michelle the new Brangelina:

(h/t Ben Smith)

Yeah, slow news day. And I'm irritable. My fridge is broken so all of my food is arranged next to an open window. Trying to eat all of my meat products before they go bad. I'm overstuffed and have a headache and my apartment feels like a meat locker. And it's raining. Brilliant.

Leaders of Republican Reform

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:40:00 +0000

With most blue-state and moderate Republicans losing their seats in Congress over the past two election cycles, it would be easy to conclude that the base conservative movement -- currently embodied in Alaska Governor Sarah Palin -- will strengthen its stranglehold over the party in coming elections. Indeed, just days ago reformist conservative David Brooks admitted defeat when battle had yet to be joined. But this obscures the other side of the story. And statements made this morning at the annual conference of the Republican Governors Association suggest some high-profile elected Republicans are taking up the fight against a rightward swing.

Leading the charge, according to this MSNBC report, is Minnesota Governor (and top Veep contender before Palin's surprise announcement) Tim Pawlenty:

"People don't want to just hear I'm against earmarks, and 'we need to get back to things,'" Pawlenty said. That's nice, he added, but people are want to know, 'How can I pay for college, fill up my gas tank,' he added. "People are wondering, 'What are you going to do for me.' … Enough's enough."

One thing the reformers potentially have working against them is their ideological heterogeneity. The MSNBC report continues:

One thing that seems to be emerging here is a split between the Pawlenty, Jindal, Crist wing versus the Palin, Perry, Portman and Sanford types. (Though perhaps less so with Sanford).

There are big ideological differences between the three reformers first mentioned. Florida Governor Crist is a pragmatic centrist, Jindal an arch-conservative, and Pawlenty somewhere in between. It's a loose coalition united only by a recognition that something in the Republican party has to change. They do not share a single vision of what that change should be. Rather, they are drawn together in opposition to another vision, the knee-jerk retreat to Reaganism and whatever else worked in the heyday of conservative ascendancy in America two and a half decades ago. Whether reformists can wrest control of the party from its self-proclaimed base is an open question, and doubtful in the near term. What they'll do with they it once they do is even less clear.

Photo provided under a CC license by Wigwam Jones

Shep Smith on Media Bias

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:06:00 +0000

Fox News anchor Shep Smith has been on a bit of a roll lately. Once again he bats it out of the park, taking conservative comedian Nick DiPaolo to task for claiming the mainstream media won the election for Obama. Smith makes the point that the mainstream media reflects what the electorate is doing and thinking much more than it influences it. I'm not sure the newsmedia accurately or fairly represents voter desires or concerns, but I'm under no illusion that it manufactures them. The media has had an important and often deleterious effect on the framing of political debate in this country, focusing on character and triviality and encouraging partisan grandstanding over compromise. That's profoundly changed the conduct of politics over the past half-century. But the tangible effect the media has on the outcome of any given election is, I think, small.

Anyway, watch the video. Smith makes no attempt to hide his exasperation, even disdain. He's going rogue! Or working on his application for MSNBC.

(h/t Ta-Nehesi Coates)

Palin's First National Press Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:01:00 +0000

Alaska Governor and former Republican Veep candidate Sarah Palin just moments ago completed her first -- first! -- press conference on the national stage. After much speculation it turned out to be (unsurprisingly) a let-down. The entire event lasted seven minutes from start to finish, with the first four taken up by a rambling impromptu digression on how awesome Republican governors are. Plain then took three questions, answered them vaguely, and tried her best to retreat. Texas Governor Rick Perry, who had introduced Palin, would have none of it, forcing the Alaska governor into answering a fourth question. It was dispatched in half a minute of disjointed meaningless words. The entire performance was like an army of vacuous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea.

Seven-Year-Old Political Blogger Gets Letter from Obama

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:47:00 +0000

By way of Crooks and Liars, meet young Stas Gunkel -- a seven-year-old gifted student and violinist with his own infrequently updated political blog. In the last days of his campaign President-elect Obama sent Gunkel a letter; what's more interesting to me is the young boy's commentary, such as it is. And, for a seven-year-old, it's not bad. More astute than much that I've seen on cable news. And he seems to have a firmer grasp of logic and reality (and undoubtedly a greater interest in the world) than a certain former Republican Vice-Presidential candidate:

McCain and Palin are not be qualified to be President / Vice President of the U.S. The President's job is to do good for the country and the world. To do good for the country, the President must make smart decisions on important situations.

Governor Palin believes the world is 6000 years old. This is absurd. This is not a rational belief. This is a mistake. Scientists, experiments and evidence have shown this to be completely false. Therefore, she is not rational. If she is not rational, she should not be allowed to be President or Vice President.

I have to admit that kids like this kind of creep me out. And I feel some sympathy for them. You look at them, and they're cute and smart and eloquent and mature, and you see little future geniuses, leaders of peoples and titans of industry and Nobel Prize winners. And maybe some of them do grow up to fulfill their potential. But I suspect most of them go the way of Bobby Fisher, just without the brief fortune and fame. Alas.

Video after the jump.

The Baucus Health Care Proposal

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Locke) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:18:00 +0000

Ezra Klein, who knows a hell of a lot more about this than I do, summarizes Baucus's plan:

Do not think of this as Max Baucus's health care plan. It isn't. Not yet. As of now, it's a policy paper, not a piece of legislation. It is the beginning of Max Baucus's attempt to create a health care reform process. What Baucus has offered is not the Max Baucus health care plan, but the generic Democratic health care plan. The place from which the policy process among congressional Democrats can start. It is extremely similar to the Obama plan if you added a mandate, and to the Clinton and Edwards plans if you left them untouched. If you liked those plans -- and most Democrats, eventually, did -- you like this one. It's as basic as that.

Elsewhere, Klein dissects the politics of it. The short version is that Baucus has now asserted a leading role in the Senate and a leading role in health care reform, and has ensured that Congress will play an integral role in the shaping of that reform (as opposed to the White House-led reform spearheaded by the Clintons). That said, it's worth reading both of Klein's pieces in full.