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A deaf college student speaks to Obama in the only language he knows, American Sign Language (saying "I am very proud of you")... and without missing a beat, Obama signs back "Thank you"
You've heard about it, here it is. Narrated by Tom Hanks.
It serves as a nice contrast to the media buys coming out of the GOP race. While Republicans strive to outdo themselves in portraying the current and future apocalypse, this piece projects a calm, quiet assurance that things are getting better. It was almost a relief to watch after all the amped-up noise we’ve been seeing in the Republican primary. If the theme of the current election is sanity versus insanity, the Obama campaign is clearly staking its claim as the defenders of reason.
In response to the Obama ad featuring Sarah Palin, Sarah responded via her Facebook page:
Exhibit A in these diversionary tactics is an absurd new attack ad President Obama has released taking my comments out of context. I’m not running for any office, but I’m more than happy to accept the dubious honor of being Barack Obama’s “enemy of the week” if that includes the opportunity to debate him on the issues Americans are actually concerned about. (Remember when I said you don’t need a title to make a difference?)
Just before he died last week, media provocateur Andrew Breitbart teased his readers and followers by saying that he had "never-before-shown" video of Barack Obama during his college days.
The right wing, teased into a tizzy by Breitbart, went full into speculation mode. Was it Barry Osama bin Obama doing drugs with Bill Ayers? Could he have been making sweet love with Saul Alinsky? What was it?
No. It turns out that it is a video showing Barack Obama, speaking at a small rally in support of Professor Derrick Bell, a black constitutional law professor, who was seeking to get Harvard to tenure more minority and women law professors. It was 1990, and Obama was in law school at the time (the first black president of the Harvard Review), not college.
Ooooooh. Radical stuff.
The video was relased yesterday by Buzzfeed, scooping Breitbart. Breitbart's people then claimed that the released video was "selectively edited".
Finally, a REAL news organization, the one that actually SHOT the video in 1990, stepped in. A little thing called PBS Frontline:
The web is abuzz today about video of a speech Barack Obama gave in 1990 (some reports have incorrectly identified the speech as occurring in 1991) at Harvard Law School defending the actions of Professor Derrick Bell. Bell, the law school’s first tenured black professor, had protested Harvard’s failure to offer tenure to women of color as law school professors. Online publisher Andrew Breitbart, who died last week, had said he possessed the speech and hinted that he would release it, arguing that it provided evidence that Obama has long held radical political beliefs.
Today, the website BuzzFeed published a clip of the speech along with an article explaining some past and current context for Obama’s remarks. The website claimed the clip was “not previously available online.” The editors at Breitbart.com responded that the video on Buzzfeed had been “selectively edited” and said that they would release the full footage tonight on Fox News.
But there’s nothing new about the clip or Obama’s role in the controversy at Harvard Law School. In 2008, as a part of our quadrennial election special The Choice2008, FRONTLINE ran the same footage of the speech as a part of an exploration of Obama’s time at Harvard Law School, where he graduated in 1991. It’s been online at our site and on YouTube since then.
So apparently Breitbart's "exclusive" video of Obama back in 1990, has been around -- even online! -- since 2008. Great scoop, morons at Breitbart.
And by the way, what the video shows of Obama is positive. He's articulate and engaging (yes, without teleprompters!). Here is the video:
Scandalous. Obama calling for diversity at Harvard Law.
The larger "unedited" video (at the PBS link above) shows the full news piece, but Obama isn't in any of it (except briefly in one crowd shot).
Somehow not shamed by their utter failure, the right is now trying to paint Professor Derrick Bell, now deceased, as some kind of radical. He wasn't. I knew him. He taught at NYU law school when I was there, one year after this video was shot. He was smart. He was affible. He cared about equality and justice. Now, to many on the right, a black man who cares about equality and justice IS a "radical". But to most normal people, Obama's loose affiliation with Bell is not a scar at all.
But watch and laugh as Sean Haniity and Michelle "Twitchy" Malkin try to hype this up:
“You want to talk about values?... Hard work — that’s a value. Looking out for one another — that’s a value. The idea that we’re all in it together — that I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper — that is a value. But they’re still talking about you as if you’re some greedy special interest that needs to be beaten. Since when are hardworking men and women special interests? Since when is the idea that we look out for each other a bad thing?”
Missed the SOTU speech, but heard it was a barn-burner. Some liberal commentators were concerned because he left nothing for the convention speech.
From what I understand, he tapped into the income inequality issue bigtime. He didn't position himself as an anti-capitalist -- he just wants to make it such that everyone pays their fair share and the burdens aren't placed on the lower and middle classes. Six months ago, such a speech would have been used by the Republicans to paint Obama as a socialist, but now since the GOP candidates are talking about the same thing, that criticism is muted.
Also heard that he was no longer kowtow to the obsructionists in Congress, and maybe even made a veiled threat about going after insider trading by Congressman? Cool.
According to the poll, which was conducted online by Knowledge Networks immediately after the president’s address, 91 percent of those who watched the speech approved of the proposals Mr. Obama put forth during his remarks. Only nine percent disapproved.
Did well with swing voters, too. Here's a Greenberg Quinlan Rosner focus group in Denver for Democracy Corps, which found voters who “overwhelmingly liked what they heard” last night.
Dial testing and follow-up focus groups with 50 swing voters in Denver, Colorado show that President Obama’s populist defense of the middle class and their priorities in his State of the Union scored with voters. The President generated strong responses on energy, education and foreign policy, but most important, he made impressive gains on a range of economic measures. These swing voters, even the Republicans, responded enthusiastically to his call for a “Buffet Rule” that would require the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share. As one participant put it, “I agree with his tax reform - the 1 percent should shoulder more of the burden than the other 99 percent. He [Obama] talked about being all for one, one for all - that really resonated for me.” These dial focus groups make it very clear that defending further tax cuts for those at the top of the economic spectrum puts Republicans in Congress and on the Presidential campaign trail well outside of the American mainstream.
"Hope and change" has brought nothing but "Let's do whatever congressional Republicans want". The latest:
Citing the financial burden in a struggling economy and after Republican protests, President Barack Obama on Friday ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to shelve a proposal to tighten smog standards.
"I have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover," Obama said in a statement announcing the order.
Environmental activists immediately pounced on the move as a retreat by a weakened Obama administration trying to cut deals with Republicans in Congress. And the American Lung Association vowed to fight the move in court.
The withdrawal of the proposed rule comes two days after the White House, at the request of Republicans, identified seven such regulations that it promised to review after finding each would cost industry at least $1 billion.
Obama is now QUOTING from the GOP playbook -- i.e., regulations destroy jobs. I recognize on some level, there's a truth behind that, but there's the other side of the coin, too: the EPA earlier estimated the rule would save as much as $100 billion in health costs, and help prevent as many as 12,000 premature deaths from heart and lung complications.
Republicans are doing a jig, but, unhappy enough with success, Boehner merely calls this "a good first step".
Here's a hint -- if Boehner is happy, this country is headed in the wrong direction.
Mr. President, your poll numbers are tanking. This is why.
Conservatives are trying to downplay Obama's role in the killing of bin Laden, but the New York Times gives a dramatic account of what happened inside the White House, and indeed, it does show that Obama made a tough, and ultimately correct decision:
As more than a dozen White House, intelligence and Pentagon officials described the operation on Monday, the past few weeks were a nerve-racking amalgamation of what-ifs and negative scenarios. "There wasn't a meeting when someone didn't mention 'Black Hawk Down,' " a senior administration official said, referring to the disastrous 1993 battle in Somalia in which two American helicopters were shot down and some of their crew killed in action. The failed mission to rescue hostages in Iran in 1980 also loomed large.
Administration officials split over whether to launch the operation, whether to wait and continue monitoring until they were more sure that Bin Laden was really there, or whether to go for a less risky bombing assault. In the end, President Obama opted against a bombing that could do so much damage it might be uncertain whether Bin Laden was really hit and chose to send in commandos. A "fight your way out" option was built into the plan, with two helicopters following the two main assault copters as backup in case of trouble.
About a week ago, the president asked his national security team for options, and Defense Secretary Bob Gates was skeptical about a helicopter assault, preferring an aerial bombardment using smart bombs. The result, however, would have been a crater -- with no physical remains.
On Thursday, Obama led another meeting with his top national security officials.
Mr. Panetta told the group that the C.I.A. had "red-teamed" the case -- shared their intelligence with other analysts who weren't involved to see if they agreed that Bin Laden was probably in Abbottabad. They did. It was time to decide.
Around the table, the group went over and over the negative scenarios. There were long periods of silence, one aide said. And then, finally, Mr. Obama spoke: "I'm not going to tell you what my decision is now -- I'm going to go back and think about it some more." But he added, "I'm going to make a decision soon."
Sixteen hours later, he had made up his mind. Early the next morning, four top aides were summoned to the White House Diplomatic Room. Before they could brief the president, he cut them off. "It's a go," he said.
Obama, as the Wall Street Journal put it, "rolled the dice."
Is it reasonable to call this "one of the gutsiest calls of any president in recent memory"? It seems fair to me. When you think about how the failed rescue of the Iranian hostages virtually ruined Jimmy Carter, when you think about all the variables and "what ifs", making the stand to go after bin Laden was.... well, a gutsy call.
Actually, does the killing of Osama bin Laden help Barack Obama's reelection chances? I doubt it. I still think Obama's re-election is going to depend mostly on economic conditions. What's more, the election is still 18 months away.
UPDATE: Here's a better photo:
UPDATE: A guy who happened to be in Abbottabad twittered the whole thing, without realizing it was a strike on bin Laden. Read his tweets here, cluminating with:
At one crucial moment in the game of chicken over a looming shutdown of the United States government, President Obama and the House speaker, John A. Boehner, faced off in the Oval Office. Mr. Boehner, a Republican heavily outnumbered in the room by Democrats, was demanding a provision to restrict financing to Planned Parenthood and other groups that provide abortions. Mr. Obama would not budge.
"Nope. Zero," the president said to the speaker. Mr. Boehner tried again. "Nope. Zero," Mr. Obama repeated. "John, this is it." A long silence followed, said one participant in the meeting. "It was just like an awkward, 'O.K., well, what do you do now?' " That meeting broke without an agreement.
The sane senior Democratic aide relayed the story to ABC News, and added, "There were a good 10 minutes of just sitting there of everybody looking at each other.... [Republicans] realized that kind of the gig was up. They weren't going to get [defunding for family planning] included. It wasn't going to happen. The president and Sen. Reid were prepared to say, 'This bill will go down if you make this about social policy.' That was the line in the sand."
I'm a little disappointed in my president for, well, for a number of reasons, but I'm glad he's still not above using the bully pulpit for good causes:
What's more, the White House posted an item from Brian Bond, the deputy director of the Office of Public Engagement, who not only shared his own story about being taunted as a young person, and who also admits that he considered suicide. His piece on the White House blog also includes links and information on anti-bullying resources.
All of this comes the same week as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also recording a video message for the It Gets Better project.
Yeah, despite my enjoyment of the GOP/Tea Party rift, I should keep in mind that there's some infighting on the left, too:
Top Obama adviser David Axelrod got an earful of the liberal blogosphere's anger at the White House moments ago, when a blogger on a conference call directly called out Axelrod over White House criticism of the left, accusing the administration of "hippie punching."
"We're the girl you'll take under the bleachers but you won't be seen with in the light of day," the blogger, Susan Madrak of Crooks and Liars, pointedly told Axelrod on the call, which was organzied for liberal bloggers and progressive media.
The call seemed to perfectly capture the tense dynamic that exists between the White House and the online and organized left: Though White House advisers in the past have dumped on the left, anonymously and even on the record, Axelrod repeatedly pleaded with the bloggers on the call for help in pumping up the flagging enthusiasm of rank and file Dems.
"You play a great role in informing people about the stakes of elections," Axelrod told the bloggers. "One of the reasons I was eager to expend time was to enlist you."
But hovering over the call was the obvious disconnect between this plea for help and statements like those of Robert Gibbs, who recently pilloried the "professional left" for being overly critical of the White House.
That tension burst out into the open when Madrak directly asked Axelrod: "Have you ever heard of hippie punching?" That prompted a long silence from Axelrod.
"You want us to help you, the first thing I would suggest is enough of the hippie punching," Madrak added. "We're the girl you'll take under the bleachers but you won't be seen with in the light of day."
Axelrod didn't engage on "hippie punching," but he said he agreed with the blogger. "To the extent that we shouldn't get involved in intramural skirmishing, I couldn't agree more," Axelrod said. "We just can't afford that. There are big things at stake here."
Madrak replied that Axelrod was missing the point -- that the criticism of the left made it tougher for bloggers like herself to motivate the base. "Don't make our jobs harder," she said.
"Right back at'cha. Right back at'cha," Axelrod replied, a bit testily, an apparent reference to blogospheric criticism of the administration.
"Democrats in Washington are divided and somewhat puzzled over President Obama's fading popularity", writes Matt Bai at The New York Times today. He then goes on to explain why he thinks Obama's popularity is lackluster in the middle of his first term: because Obama has too much of a legislator -- trying to pass health care, the stimulus, etc.
You know, I don't have a degree in political science, but it seems to me that the simplest explanations of Obama's low numbers are the best explanations. So here it is, in a nutshell.
(1) Obama's ratings are not all that low. Clinton, Carter and Reagan were between 39 percent and 41 percent approval rating at this point in their presidencies. Obama is at 44 percent. In other words, barring some cataclysmic nationally unifying event, all presidents experience a huge drop in their popularity in the middle of their first term. Only two presidents since 1900 didn't lose House seats during the midterm election of their first term -- FDR during the height of the depression, and George Bush after 9/11. Every other president? Their party lost seats.
So obviously what is driving down Obama's numbers are larger political issues that go beyond what Obama has or hasn't done as a president. His numbers are down because that always happens in the middle of a president's first term.
(2) It's the economy, stupid.Does anyone think that there would be discussion about Obama's "low" approval rating if the unemployment rate was at 7% and falling? Now, to be sure, some of Obama's "low" approval rating could be attributed to his failure to turn the economy around (so far), but it is a bad economy that he inherited in the first place. At some point, the recovery will kick in, and his numbers will go up.
But it seems to me rather silly to try to pin Obama's lackluster approval ratings solely on his policies.
I've heavily edited what Krugman writes today (it's largely an article about Elizabeth Warren) to bring out its essence:
Why does the Obama administration keep looking for love in all the wrong places? Why does it go out of its way to alienate its friends, while wooing people who will never waver in their hatred?
***
Mr. Obama rode into office on a vast wave of progressive enthusiasm. This enthusiasm was bound to be followed by disappointment, and not just because the president was always more centrist and conventional than his fervent supporters imagined. Given the facts of politics, and above all the difficulty of getting anything done in the face of lock step Republican opposition, he wasn’t going to be the transformational figure some envisioned.
And Mr. Obama has delivered in important ways. Above all, he managed (with a lot of help from Nancy Pelosi) to enact a health reform that, imperfect as it is, will greatly improve Americans’ lives — unless a Republican Congress manages to sabotage its implementation.But progressive disillusionment isn’t just a matter of sky-high expectations meeting prosaic reality. Threatened filibusters didn’t force Mr. Obama to waffle on torture; to escalate in Afghanistan; to choose, with exquisitely bad timing, to loosen the rules on offshore drilling early this year.
***
What explains Mr. Obama’s consistent snubbing of those who made him what he is? Does he fear that his enemies would use any support for progressive people or ideas as an excuse to denounce him as a left-wing extremist? Well, as you may have noticed, they don’t need such excuses: He’s been portrayed as a socialist because he enacted Mitt Romney’s health-care plan, as a virulent foe of business because he’s been known to mention that corporations sometimes behave badly.The point is that Mr. Obama’s attempts to avoid confrontation have been counterproductive. His opponents remain filled with a passionate intensity, while his supporters, having received no respect, lack all conviction. And in a midterm election, where turnout is crucial, the “enthusiasm gap” between Republicans and Democrats could spell catastrophe for the Obama agenda.
***
O.K., I don’t really know what’s going on. But I worry that Mr. Obama is still wrapped up in his dream of transcending partisanship, while his aides dislike the idea of having to deal with strong, independent voices. And the end result of this game-playing is an administration that seems determined to alienate its friends.
Just to be clear, progressives would be foolish to sit out this election: Mr. Obama may not be the politician of their dreams, but his enemies are definitely the stuff of their nightmares. But Mr. Obama has a responsibility, too. He can’t expect strong support from people his administration keeps ignoring and insulting.
UPDATE: Gibbs, Obama's press secretary at this afternoon's briefing:
"Without a doubt Miss Sherrod is owed an apology.. on behalf of this entire administration."
"Everybody made determinations without knowing all of the facts."
". . .a disservice was done, an apology was owed."
You think?!? The press secretary also suggested that it was worth taking some time to consider how this mess happened in the first place -- and that included reporters he was speaking to directly: "I think everybody has to go back and look at what has happened over the past 24 to 36 hours, and ask ourselves how we got into this. How did we not ask the right questions? How did you all not ask the right questions?"
Sadly, I don't think the Washing press corps is particularly interested anymore in getting stories right. It just wants to print allegations and watch the fur fly.
Every eight years, a couple hundred president scholars are asked to rank the presidents on various scales, including communication, honesty, intelligence, foreign policy achievements, economic achievements, etc.
The 2010 assessment is out -- you can read the PDF here -- but the "headline" results are:
In overall rankings, Obama comes in at 15th
In overall rankings, Bush 44 dropped from 23rd (in 2002) to 39th today
Bush 44 also ranked next to last in communication ability and intelligence (Andrew Johnson was ranked last in both categories)
Here's the top ten's over the life of the survey:
...and the 2010 top two and the bottom two for each category:
Clinton, for what it's worth, ranked 13th this year -- one ahead of "Bloody Bloody" (Andrew Jackson) and two ahead of Obama.
There's a very read-able article about the how the Obama White House, and how it handled events the past two weeks. A very rare inside baseball look at how the forces handled the McChrystal Rolling Stone interview and the Obama speech relating to BP. Interesting dynamics.
A lot of "serious" right-wing contributors are comparing the Obama's response to the Oil Spill to Bush's response to Katrina.
Read, for example, how unhinged the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan
I don't see how the president's position and popularity can survive the oil spill. This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office.
She continues:
I wonder if the president knows what a disaster this is not only for him but for his political assumptions. His philosophy is that it is appropriate for the federal government to occupy a more burly, significant and powerful place in America—confronting its problems of need, injustice, inequality. But in a way, and inevitably, this is always boiled down to a promise: "Trust us here in Washington, we will prove worthy of your trust." Then the oil spill came and government could not do the job, could not meet need, in fact seemed faraway and incapable: "We pay so much for the government and it can't cap an undersea oil well!"This is what happened with Katrina, and Katrina did at least two big things politically. The first was draw together everything people didn't like about the Bush administration, everything it didn't like about two wars and high spending and illegal immigration, and brought those strands into a heavy knot that just sat there, soggily, and came to symbolize Bushism. The second was illustrate that even though the federal government in our time has continually taken on new missions and responsibilities, the more it took on, the less it seemed capable of performing even its most essential jobs.
Peggy conveniently overlooks the obvious. Katrina is not the same as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in some very significant ways.
For one thing, the federal government never took it upon itself to oversee oil spills caused by private industries. There is no federal expertise in capping oil blowouts. There is no federal
agency tasked specifically with repairing broken well pipes. There is no
expectation that the federal government should be able to respond instantly to a
disaster like this. There never has been. For better or worse, it's simply not
something that's ever been considered the responsibility of the federal
government.
The same cannot be said of hurricanes. In that case, we specifically have FEMA just for that purpose. And FEMA worked like a charm during the Clinton administration. But when George Bush became president and Joe Allbaugh became director of FEMA,
everything changed. Allbaugh neither knew nor cared about
disaster preparedness. For ideological reasons, FEMA was downsized and much of its work outsourced. When
Allbaugh left after less than two years on the job, he was replaced by the
hapless Michael Brown and the agency was downgraded and broken up yet again. By
the time Katrina hit, the upper levels of FEMA were populated largely with
political appointees with no disaster preparedness experience and the agency was
simply not up to the job of dealing with a huge storm anymore.
So is the oil spill "Obama's Katrina"? Hardly. There was nothing for the Obama Administration to do. BP had the experts to stop the thing. BP was tasked to stop the thing (although the Obama Administration was clearly breathing down BP's back).
In fact, there's a very good argument that the BP oil explosion could have prevented if the federal agencies under Bush hadn't been watered down. The BP blowout was made more likely because that Bush administration decided
that government regulation of private industry wasn't very important and turned
the relevant agency into a joke. If you believe that government is the problem,
not the solution, and if you actually run the country that way for eight years,
it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But we shouldn't pretend it's inevitable.
OBAMA: After they drove the car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want to keys back. No! You can’t drive! We don’t want to have to go back into the ditch. We just got the car out.
I think we can see his main political theme for 2010 and 2012 taking shape here: Republicans screwed the country up, Obama got to work fixing it, Republicans took an ultra-partisan stance on every issue, and if you give them power they'll screw things up again. It's quite simple, and has the added virtue of being true.
The Chicago Sun-Times has the full transcript. A few zingers:
On speaking ahead of hired entertainer Jay Leno: "I'm also glad that I'm speaking first, because we've all seen what happens when somebody takes the time slot after Leno's."
On his low approval ratings: "It doesn't bother me. Beside I happen to know that my approval ratings are still very high in the country of my birth."
On GOP chairman Michael Steele: "I saw Michael Steele backstage when we were taking pictures -- AKA Notorious GOP."
On disgraced Rep. Eric Massa: " You know what really tickles me? Eric Massa. Apparently Massa claimed that Rahm came up to him one day in the House locker room, stark naked, started screaming obscenities at him -- to which I say, welcome to my world."
Nate Silver has an excellent post wherein he breaks down 25 major issues being pushed by Obama and the Democrats, and sizes them up against public opinion polling.
The bottom line?
Of these 25 issues, Obama's position appears to be on the right side of public opinion on 14: the bank tax, repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, campaign finance, the credit card bill, D.C. voting rights, fair pay, financial regulation, gays in the military, hate crimes, the jobs bill, mortgage relief, PAYGO, SCHIP, and Sotomayor. It would appear to be on the wrong side of public opinion on five issues: the GM/Chrysler bailout, Guantanamo Bay, health care, the extension of the TARP program, and terrorist trials. On the other six issues, the polling is probably too ambiguous to render a clear verdict.
Republicans, on the other hand, have been overwhelmingly opposed to almost all of these measures with the exception of Ben Bernanke and Afghanistan troops, both of which poll ambiguously, and the credit card bill, which polled well.
Obviously, this analysis is superficial in certain ways. All issues are by no means created equal, and health care in particular, which is unpopular, has weighed heavily upon the public's perception of the Democrats. In addition, there is probably another layer of 'meta-argument' that goes beyond specific issues, and at which the GOP has tended to excel.
Nevertheless, it runs in contrast to the objective evidence when one asserts, as Hanson does, that "On every issue ... the Obama position polls 5-15 points below 50 percent." Rather, the votes taken by the Republican Congress have far more often been out of step with those of the median voter.
Silver's caveats are well-advised, but the larger point here is that Obama and the Democrats are, for the most part, doing what the people want. One wonders then why they have a hard time actually getting things done.
Something unusual happened today in American politics -- something never before seen.
President Obama appeared at the Republican party retreat. Their invitation. He gave a speech, hitting on the same points as his State of the Union, and then....
.... he took questions.
He took questions from Republican congressmen.
It was much like "Question Time" that they have in the British parliamentary system.
And reports suggest that when Obama was questioned and put to task by Republican elected officials, who naturally challenged him on every question, he ran rings around them, coming off as far more knowledgeable.
The GOPers asked pretty typical questions. Some of them tried to play "gotcha." Didn't work. Obama answered their questions and provided his own commentary on them. He called Republicans out for their attacks on him. He noted that they've pretty much called his health care plan a "Bolshevik plot." One of the best moments was when Obama dissed Hensarling's question as a recitation of talking points.
Towards the end, Obama pointed to GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who was sitting in the front row. He noted that when many of the GOP Representatives stand on the House floor to talk issues, Luntz "has already polled it" -- and they get the talking points from him on how to box Obama in. The President kept going back to the theme that the GOPers were in a constant attack mode -- and how that prevented them from being able to work with him.
Obama's Q&A session with the House Republicans was transfixing. What should have been a banal exchange of talking points was actually a riveting reminder of how rarely you hear actual debate -- which is separate from disagreement -- between political players.
This was a surprise. The session was clearly proposed so that Obama could appear to be taking real steps to reach out to Republicans. That implied warm feelings and a studied unwillingness to cause offense. But that was not the event we just saw. Instead, Obama stood at a podium for an hour and hammered his assailants. That makes it sound partisan and disrespectful. But it wasn't. It was partisan, but respectful.
***
Yesterday, I interviewed David Axelrod and was struck by his inability to explain how the White House would highlight the the difference between disagreement and obstruction. Today's session, if it becomes a regular event rather than a one-off, provided part of the answer. He'll debate them directly. But that may be tough to do. Republicans are already spreading the word that they made a mistake allowing cameras into the event. Apparently, transparency sounds better in press releases than it does in practice.
But if this is to be the last of these we see for a while, make sure to take the time and watch it, or read the transcript. It's some of the best political television I've seen in memory.
Writes the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder:
“Debating a law professor is kind of foolish — the Republican House Caucus has managed to turn Obama’s weakness — his penchant for nuance — into a strength. Plenty of Republicans asked good and probing questions, but Mike Pence, among others, found their arguments simply demolished by the president.”
UPDATE: Republicans are beginning to realize how they looked stupid... they now think the whole thing was a "mistake".
I guess it is easy for Republicans to take on Obama on Fox News, but taking him on face-to-face? Not so much.
How remarkable was it? Fox cut away from broadcasting it.
Other reacts from Twitter media people:
marcambinder: Obama looked like a law prof; the GOPers looked like students challenging him.
maddow: This appearance by Obama with House Republicans is really remarkable.
ThePlumLineGS: Imagine if Obama publicly pushed Congressional Dem leaders to pass HCR via reconciliation as aggressively as he's now pushing Republicans.
ezraklein: Obama's Q&A with the House Republicans is the most compelling political television I've seen...maybe ever.
chucktodd: the president should hold Congressional "town halls" more often. Public needs to see this if they'll ever trust washington again
I would like to see Obama move away from bi-partisanship. He has left so much to Congress (especially health care) and it has given him a big fat zero. I don't think he needs to slam Republicans, but he needs to show resolve in getting the things he promised us done.
It is a little awkward that Obama is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize just weeks after announcing that he is sending more troops into Afghanistan. To his credit, he didn't shy away from addressing this elephant in the room when he received the Prize in Norway today:
And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. (Laughter.) In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who've received this prize -- Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela -- my accomplishments are slight. And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women -- some known, some obscure to all but those they help -- to be far more deserving of this honor than I.
But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 42 other countries -- including Norway -- in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.
Still, we are at war, and I'm responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict -- filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.
Now these questions are not new. War, in one form or another, appeared with the first man. At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease -- the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences.
And over time, as codes of law sought to control violence within groups, so did philosophers and clerics and statesmen seek to regulate the destructive power of war. The concept of a "just war" emerged, suggesting that war is justified only when certain conditions were met: if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.
***
We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.
I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak -- nothing passive -- nothing naïve -- in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.
But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.
Basically, he's saying that it's the Nobel Peace Prize, folks, not the Nobel Pacifist Prize... and that war is sometimes necessary to preserve the peace.
Well, I guess he has to say that, and there certainly is an unfortunate truth to what he says. However, it only highlights the position held by many that Obama may not have been the best choice for the Peace Prize.
I think, however, he shows himself more worthy of the award toward the end of his speech, when he embraces the so-called "Superman theory" of American warfare -- i.e., as the world's remaining superpower, we should behave more like Clark Kent rather than Jack Bauer:
Let me make one final point about the use of force. Even as we make difficult decisions about going to war, we must also think clearly about how we fight it. The Nobel Committee recognized this truth in awarding its first prize for peace to Henry Dunant -- the founder of the Red Cross, and a driving force behind the Geneva Conventions.
Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America's commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. (Applause.) And we honor -- we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it's easy, but when it is hard.
And moments later:
We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached -- their fundamental faith in human progress -- that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.
For if we lose that faith -- if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace -- then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.
Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, "I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."
Let us reach for the world that ought to be -- that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. (Applause.)
All in all, I believe it was a good speech that threaded the fine line between acknowledging the world as it is, while aspiring to a world that could be.
Here's how you know the way things have changed. In his September 14, 2001 speech at a prayer service for 9/11 victims, George W. Bush said that America's "responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil." And today, Barack Obama, in contrast, offered a less utopian view of the future: "We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes."
That goes back to the leader-as-tough-talking-movie-hero vs. leader-as-realist issue. Republicans love the former; hate the latter.
If you're into that sort of thing, the White House is pardoning a turkey at 11.28 a.m. today, and you can view it live on the White House website here. The turkey's name is "Courage", and he's from North Carolina.
In the meantime, here's a classic scene from The West Wing where CJ asks President Bartlet to pardon a second turkey.
Many conservatives and many liberals have taken up the meme that Obama really hasn't done that much in his first year. Esquire's John Richardson shoots this down. A healthy excerpt:
These days, the argument that Obama hasn't accomplished anything may be the only example of real bipartisanship in America.
Here's the conventional wisdom in a single paragraph: Three hundred and sixty-four days after he was elected president, Obama is still stuck in Iraq, hasn't closed Guantánamo, is getting deeper into Afghanistan, hasn't accomplished health-care reform or slowed the rise in unemployment. His promises of bipartisanship are a punch line... And there's still no peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. What a failure! What a splash of cold water in the face of all our bold hopes!
But the conventional wisdom is insane. Consider the record:
A week before he was sworn in, Obama jammed part two of the bank bailout down the throat of his own party — a $350 billion accomplishment.
Two days after he was sworn in, Obama banned the use of "harsh interrogation" and ordered the closing of Guantánamo.
A day later, Obama reversed George W. Bush's funding cutoff to overseas family planning organizations — saving millions of lives with the stroke of a pen.
Three days after that, Obama gave a green light to the California car-emissions standards that Bush had been blocking for six years — an important step on the road to cleaner air and a cooler planet.
Two weeks after that, Obama signed the stimulus bill — a $787 billion accomplishment.
Ten days after that, Obama formally announced America's withdrawal from Iraq.
A week later — we're in early March now — Obama erased Bush's decision to restrict federal funding for stem-cell research.
In April and June, Obama forced Chrysler and GM into bankruptcy.
In June, Obama reset the tone of our relations with the entire Arab world with a single speech — an accomplishment that the Bush administration failed to achieve despite a series of desperate PR moves (anyone remember Charlotte Beers?) and a "public diplomacy" budget of $1 billion a year.
Also in June, Obama unveiled the "Cash for Clunkers" program, a "socialist" giveaway that reanimated the corpse of our car industry — leading, for example, to the billion-dollar profit that Ford announced on Monday.
I haven't even mentioned Sonia Sotomayor, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the order to release the torture memos, Obama's push for charter schools, his $288 billion tax cut, or the end of Bush's war on medical marijuana. Or the minor fact that he seems to have — with Bush's help, it must be said — stopped the financial collapse, revived the credit markets, and nudged the economy toward 3.5 percent growth in the last quarter.
Oh, and one more thing: President Obama is now a month or two from accomplishing the awesome and seemingly impossible task that eluded mighty presidents like FDR, LBJ, and WJC — health-care reform.
Obama's early returns also include a host of remarkably cautious and prudent national-security decisions that seem, these days, to have been completely forgotten:
Appointing a conservative Bush holdover like Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense.
Appointing an establishment centrist like Leon Panetta at CIA.
Reinstating, with tweaks, Bush's military tribunal system for Guantánamo prisoners.
Fighting, in another unexpected defense of a controversial Bush policy, lawsuits against the "warrantless wiretapping" program — as recently as this weekend with a decision that a leading civil liberties group called "extremely disappointing."
Sending, way back in February, seventeen thousand more soldiers to Afghanistan. As Fareed Zakaira recently pointed out, this was just three thousand fewer soldiers than Bush sent to Iraq for his famous "surge."
Richardson points out that, if you're a conservative, Obama's actually done a lot to please you in the areas of foreign policy. If you're a liberal, he's done a lot to please you with his domestic policy.
But either way, to suggest that he hasn't done enough strains credulity, he argues. Just remove the partisan blinders:
So the question, a year since we elected him, isn't how much Obama has accomplished. The question is why we've turned so small and mean that we only see half of it — the half we happen to agree with.
From the B-roll, just chatting with the CNBC reporter before the "real" interview. Obama is kind of aware that he may have stepped in it, asking "Where the pool?" (meaning the press pool), but he laughs it off:
At a town hall forum at the DNC yesterday, Obama was asked where the lies about health care reform are coming from. After laughing and making reference to "certain" news channels (he didn't mention them by name, but we all know which ones), this is what Obama supposedly said:
"...I have to say, part of the reason it spreads is the way reporting is done today. If somebody puts out misinformation, 'Obama's Creating Death Panels,' then the way the news report comes across is: 'Today such-and-such accused President Obama of putting forward death panels. The White House responded that that wasn't true.' And then they go on to the next story. And what they don't say is, 'In fact, it isn't true.'
"You know, it's fine to have a debate back and forth -- he said, she said -- except when somebody else is just not even telling remotely the truth. Then you should say in your reports, 'Oh, and by the way, that's just not true.'
"But that doesn't happen often enough."
This is a problem that has been noted by many, for many years. Even when it is not propogating, the media, rather than reporting the facts, chooses instead to report what both sides say are the facts, as if both positions are equally valid. It exaults fairness over accuracy.
If Republicans said there were flying unicorns invading Oregon, and Democrats said there wasn't a single flying unicorn in Oregon or anywhere else, the media -- even the better journalism outlets -- would report "Republicans say there are flying unicorns in Oregon; Democrats deny this", rather than reporting "We've investigated it, and there a no flying unicorns in Oregon."
So what Obama said isn't new. But it's new and interesting that he said it.
Barney Frank took a protester to task after she refered to Obama's "Nazi" health care reform. He asked the woman "on what planet" does she live, and said that trying to have a serious discussion with her about health care would be like talking to a dining room table.
Now, comes the tut-tut of the conservative media. How both sides are engaging in uncivil discourse...
... as if there is no difference between (1) mobs of shouting angry conservatives, many of them playing the Nazi/facism card, some of them carrying guns and (2) the rare pushback against those mobs (like Barney Frank's response).
Sure, uncivility can be found on both sides, but how about a little perspective on the degree and frequency?
For decades, the American people believed that the Republican Party, despite whatever else they may lack, was the go-to party on issues involving national security and terrorism.
A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll from 2002 said that 57% of Americans felt Republicans were better on handling terrorism (only 22% favored Democrats).
An NBC/WSJ poll from 2002 said that 49% of registered voters preferred Republicans to deal with terrorism (compared to 13% for Democrats).
A Fox poll from 2003 had similar results: 53% favored Republicans; 19% favored Democrats.
In all cases the spread was 35-40 points, Republicans beating Democrats.
Who do you trust to do a better job handling the threat of terrorism — (Obama) or the (Republicans in Congress)?
Obama: 55%
Republicans in Congress: 34%
Looks like the GOP no longer has the edge on the subject of terrorism either. It sum, this graph compiles the poll on the "trust" issue:
With that much approval on the issues, it is hard to understand why Obama is having such a hard time getting certain things like health care reform approved. In fact, it's hard to tell why he's even bothering to be partisan.
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Ten-year-old Kennedy Corpus has a rock-solid excuse for missing the last day of school: a personal note to her teacher from President Barack Obama.
Her father, John Corpus of Green Bay, stood to ask Obama about health care during the president's town hall-style meeting at Southwest High School on Thursday. He told Obama that his daughter was missing school to attend the event and that he hoped she didn't get in trouble.
"Do you need me to write a note?" Obama asked. The crowd laughed, but the president was serious.
On a piece of paper, he wrote: "To Kennedy's teacher: Please excuse Kennedy's absence. She's with me. Barack Obama." He stepped off the stage to hand-deliver the note — to Kennedy's surprise.
"I thought he was joking until he started walking down," Kennedy said after the event, showing off the note in front of a bank of television cameras. "It was like the best thing ever."
The fourth-grader at Aldo Leopold elementary in Green Bay already knew what she was going to do with the note: frame it along with her ticket to the event. She said she'd make a copy for her teacher.
Kennedy said she had never seen Obama before. "He's really nice," she said.
While I could only stay for the first hour or so of the 3 hour "protest", I can report the following:
First of all, I take bad pictures, made even worse by the fact that I used a cell phone camera which was set to black/white (which actually seems to be blue/white). I'll pepper the most legible photos here. [UPDATE: BlueNC was there and took better photos].
The turnout was quite good. I would estimate about 800. Very few minorities (natch). Mostly the elderly (men and woman). The middle age was mostly women (to my surprise). And there were comparatively few under 30. There were a few families, and little girls were forced to carry signs that they didn't understand.
What exactly were they protesting?
Well, was like I posted a couple of days ago: it was basically "whatever you got", to paraphrase Jimmy Dean.
Going from the (handmade, yard-sale quality) signs, one clear thrust of the protest dealt with taxes, even though the Obama administration is cutting taxes for all except the very richest of Americans. Even then, the message wasn't clear.
A few signs said "No Taxes", but these were mostly held by kids (and presumably made by them as well). Most of the tax-related signage didn't go that far, but contained messages like "Taxed Enough Already" (the first letters forming "TEA") or "I already pay enough taxes". Apparently these people were protesting future tax increases.
One sign read "10% of the people pay 72% of the income taxes!! Is that fair??" I'm not sure what the signholder's intention was. The wealthiest 10% of Americans do pay the lion's share of income taxes -- but that's because they receive the lion's share of income. That does strike me as fair. I would rather have the wealthiest 10% of income-earners pay 72% of the taxes rather than try to squeeze it out of the poorest 10% (or even the middle 10%), wouldn't you?
I didn't ask this sign carrier what he meant. It's probably not a good idea to, as this CNN reporter found out today:
[It's interesting for the teabagger in the above clip to invoke Lincoln in his anti-tax screed. Anyone want to guess the president who first mandated income taxes? Bueller? Bueller? And by the way, FOX aired this clip, cutting out the guy with the Obama-Hitler poster]
Of course, I'm trying to find logic where perhaps none exists. As publius writes:
The tea parties, however, don’t have much to do with logic.I’m sure our modern-day Samuel Adamses aren’t supporting big military spending cuts.I doubt they care that taxes are unchanged or lowered on 95% of families.I suspect they had almost nothing to say about the spending and executive overreach of the Bush years.Logical consistency, remember, isn’t the point.
The point is that tea parties give them an opportunity to reaffirm their own ideological self-image.In their own heads, they want to be “small government” people.In this sense, the tea parties are simply atonement – trying to “out out” the damned spot.
The other clear thrust of the protest dealt with the other end of the economic equation: government spending. Here, the message was even more disjointed. Many people objected, for example (again, going by the signs) to the bailouts. Others, to government "pork". And still others, to the stimulus. Many of the signs expressed concern about the deficit.
I personally don't have a problem with people expressing concerns about the government running up deficits. It should be a concern. But I was left to wonder where these people were when Bush was turning the huge surplus that Clinton gave him into a massive trillion dollar deficit.
One could argue, "well, Bush had to spend the massive amounts of money -- we were attacked and that led to us fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan". Fair point, but we're still fighting those wars. And more importantly, what is the reasoning which leads one to condone deficit-spending in order to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, but get upset about deficit-spending to rebuild our own infrastructure to combat an economic crisis?
But I digress.
Once the speakers took the stage, it got more interesting (for me). It was quite clear that their goal was to channel this mass discontent into pleas to join their organization, their think tank, their whatever.
The first speaker, an organizer from ncteaparty.com was refreshingly candid. He acknowledged that he knew diddly-squat about organizing protests, and suspected that most of the people there had never been to a protest.
The second speaker was a woman from the John Locke Foundation, and it was clear to me that she was either (1) stupid or (2) catering to the naivety of the crowd. It was remarkable. She said she was going to talk about "freedom". And then she proceeded to talk about excessive government spending.
It was never made clear to me what excessive government spending has to do with "freedom". I mean, here were hundreds of people exercising their freedom to assemble, their freedom to protest, etc. Even I, an opponent of everything said there, was moved by the "vox populi"ness of the tea party protest. I LOVE it when the people speak, even if I don't agree with them.
I apparently was the only one struck by the irony that these people were free to protest, and yet they had these speakers and signs that somehow suggested that the policies of the Obama government were infringing on freedoms. What freedoms they never said.
But every time this particular speaker used a phrase with the word "freedom" in it, people applauded. When she failed to use that buzzword (or other patriotic buzzwords), people sat on their hands. It was clear to me that many people in this crowd weren't really listening to, or not understanding, what was said so much as they were looking for an auditory cue to wave their flags (literally in some cases).
This same woman also talked about responsibility. She took on, for example, the car industry. They had the responsibility of running their own businesses. They could have, she said, not hired union workers. But they did. Now those auto manufacturers have to take responsibility for their actions, and not rely on government bailouts.
It was a cogent argument (one which I won't refute here), but as I listened to her, I wondered how her anti-union message would have been received at a tea party in Detroit or Flint.
This woman, as I said, was from the John Locke Foundation. She touted their alternative budget as being better than then the one presented by the NC legislature, which (she said) was full of tax increases and wasteful government spending.
She railed in particular against the NC government spending so much money on "social programs" (adding that such exhuberant spending limits "your freedom" although, again, I don't know what one has to do with the other).
I took a gander at the John Locke alternative budget to the one passed by the NC lesiglature. As expected, it lowers taxes drastically, and cuts government spending to "social programs", just as the speaker said it would. But at the rally, the speaker didn't bother to mention what some of these "social programs" were. I will:
Cultural programs ($26,509,810 less) -- NC Arts Council, for example, gets over $8 million less
Blind and Deaf/Hard of Hearing Services ($1,247,231 less)
Public Health ($20,565,091 less) -- includes $2,000,000 less for HIV prevention, $329,000 less for public health testing (includes elimination of jobs there), $2,000,000 less for the Breast and Cervical cancer program, elimination of UNC's OASIS program, etc.
Vocational rehabilitation programs ($3,591,938 less) -- including merging the entire disability administration with the Blind and Deaf Services (which was gutted -- see above)
Crime Control and Public Safety ($4,468,222 less) -- including Flood Map planning, National Guard and rape assistance programs
Agriculture services ($23,160,175 less [more than half of that area's budget]) -- including pesticide control, food testing
Clean Water Management Trust Fund (elimination in its entirety -- all $100,000,000): John Locke Foundation would let industries self-police
Miscellaneous: Cut DMV Driver's License Division by $4.7 million by merging DMV offices (because they're not crowded enough)
The list goes on and on and on.
And then, this same woman, griped that the North Carolina government cut spending on transportation and prisons too much.
Now, why does government budget spending increases in any of the above programs "take away your freedoms", but a failure to increase spending in transportation/prison as high as John Locke's budget also "take away your freedoms"? This apparently was lost on the audience. But they booed and cheered appropriately, as long as whatever was said was being couched in jingoistic nationalistic terms (like "freedom").
By the way, I'm not saying that limiting government spending is bad. Some things are worth spending money on; others, maybe not so much. The point is: it's entirely subjective. I'm just saying that if she had bothered to provide a complete list of these eeeeevil social programs to the flag-waving audience, I have no doubt that most of them would have said (at some point): "Wait a second. That's a good program."
But to rail against ALL taxes as oppressive, or ALL government spending as "wasteful", is just plain oversimplified to the point of silliness.
And that brings me to MY main point.
These protesters were not stupid or evil. They just hadn't thought things through.
It's easy to be against "wasteful government spending" when you're never called upon to even think about what is supposedly "wasteful".
Protesting government spending is meaningless unless you say what you'd cut.
If you favor no bailouts, then say so. If you want to see the banking system collapse, then say so. If you think the recession demands no fiscal stimulus, then say so. If you favor big cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, social security and defense, then say so. I keep waiting for [tea party promotor Glenn] Reynolds to tell us what these protests are for; and he can only spin what they they are against.
All protests against spending that do not tell us how to reduce it are fatuous pieces of theater, not constructive acts of politics. And until the right is able to make a constructive and specific argument about how they intend to reduce spending and debt and borrowing, they deserve to be dismissed as performance artists in a desperate search for coherence in an age that has left them bewilderingly behind.]
It's easy to be against high taxes, if your brain isn't allowed to consider what that tax money will be spent on. It kind of reminded me of the rabble in this Simpsons episode, where the townspeople couldn't simply grasp the connection between taxes and social services:
The most striking thing about the whole protest was the constant reference to the government as "they". Apparently, the tea bag segment of the population loves America, but hates the American government. They love the Founding Fathers, but hate the government that the founding fathers formed. They profess to love the Constitution, but they hate the government created by that document. And I'm not talking about the "Obama government" -- these people generally hate government as a concept. (They only complain about it, however, when a Democrat is at its head.)
The second speaker that I listened to was from the Civitas Institute. He again fired the masses by going for those jingoistic phrases. He was big on the symbolism of "Don't Tread On Me". The Civitas Institute had 7 or 8 Gadsden flags throughout the plaza, all bearing the iconic snake and bearing the words "Don't Tread On Me".
I won't get into this speaker too much, except to say that he was either stupid, or playing on the naivety of the crowd he was addressing. At one point, for example, he said this:
"...And whatever happened to the free market? I mean, these bailouts? Let me ask you: What would have happened if AIG had gone bankrupt? I'll tell you what: it would have gone bankrupt.But nooooo, we had to save it. It was 'too big to fail'." [boos, cheers, etc.]
This is just plain wrong, and there's not an economist -- on the left or right -- who would agree with this speaker's assessment of the AIG bailout. Look, AIG insures banks. Big banks. Big banks who made bad investments, and took out insurance on those bad investments. If AIG had failed, then those banks would be unable to collect that insurance, and THEY would have failed. And then other banks would freeze up, and there would have been no flow or credit to businesses large and small. Companies would fold, and the unemployment rate would be twice what it is now.
So the point of bailing out AIG wasn't to save AIG, its golden-parachuting senior management, or even its employees. The point was, ultimately, to save Main Street, and us. And anyone who doesn't recognize that shouldn't get in front of a microphone to talk about it. (That said, one can legitimately complain about the amount of the AIG bailout, or certainly the terms tied to the bailout, or any number of related issues. But to complain the necessity of it? Moronic.)
As I left the tea party to return to work (much to my sadness, because nationally-syndicated columnist and K'vegas resident Nathan Tabor was due to speak), the Civitas speaker was going on about government "takings", a legal reference to property. The Constitution does not allow the government to "take" your property without "just compensation". To this guy, that meant that the government cannot regulate your property, which, of course, is an entirely different thing.
The example he used was an "intermittent stream", which is a stream that forms when it rains a lot. North Carolina land use laws do not permit building on an areas that have intermittent streams -- where there is a stream during the rainy season. Yes, that was his outrage, and he went on about it, invoking the flag, and freedom, and Thomas Paine.
Again, the audience sat on its hands (seriously, he's talking about streams???) until he said a sentence that included the word "freedom" or "God" or "America". Then, applause.
He then turned to the example of toilets, saying that because the government has so many regulations regarding toilets, the third-largest thing being smuggled in from Mexico (after drugs and people) is toilets. I don't know if that Mexico "fact" is true or not, but his point was that toilet smuggling is a consequence of "needless" government regulation. And the audience cheered. What he didn't the audience was that in the 1990's, the federal government essentially banned high-flow toilets because they wasted water. That creates a problem, especially in times of drought. Now, had he mentioned that to the crowd, I'm sure there would have been a handful of tobacco farmers who get hit hard whenever there is a drought or water shortage. And their take on that "needless" government regulation would have been quite different.
Again, that was my point. The people had legitimate concerns, but in the end, they hadn't thought things through.
Anyway, the toilet hissy-fit was my cue to leave.
I'll leave the coda to This Modern World's Greg Saunders:
In the grand scheme of things, getting people to complain about taxes on April 15th might be the easiest thing in the world. It’s right up there with “eating ice cream on a hot summer day” and “laughing whenever Glenn Beck cries”. Bitching about taxes is America’s true pastime. So when a few thousand people gather on tax day to whine about their taxes (after getting massive tax breaks, btw), it’s hardly the second coming of the American Revolution. Hell, I remember a time six years ago when millions of people took to the street to protest the government. We all saw how well that worked out.
When their rallying cry is “Grrrr…I hate you TAXES!”, there won’t be a whole lot left to keep the tea bagging movement together after April 15th. Manufactured-populism and a fractured-understanding of American history will only take you so far. The great-great-great-great grandchildren of liberty will have to find some other crusade to motivate them like birth certificate forgeries or investigating whether Bo Obama was really a rescue dog. Sure, some die-hards will stick around like the asshole who keeps flipping through your DVD’s at three in the morning oblivious to the fact that the party is over, but within a few weeks, the only people left to carry the “tea party” torch will be the GOP & Fox News personalities trying to recapture the “good times” with all the subtlety and humility of Chubby Checker trying to get everyone to do the twist.
I’m going to miss the “Tea Party” movement. I’m going to miss the powdered wigs and the lunatic ranting. I’m going to miss the ideological uncertainty and the unpragmatic futility (seriously, you’re mailing tea bags to the White House to demand lower taxes after you just got a tax cut?). Most of all, I’m going to miss the jokes. These last few weeks have been a golden age for juvenile humor that passes for insightful political commentary. It’s a rare movement that chooses to describe itself with terminology that also means “testicle slapping” and those of us who relish in the foolishness of conservative activism will be much worse off for it.
(1) I guess the big news was that the U.S. Navy rescued that skipper from the pirates. Skipper? Pirates? This sounds like a bad episode of "Gilligan's Island".
But no, it happened. Obviously, it is a good thing since (1) Obama's first serious military rescue operation was a success [guess those concerns about the 3 am call were unfounded]; (2) it shows that the Navy (which -- let's face it -- hasn't had a lot to do with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) has still got game.
Right-wing pundits had spent most of the weeken denouncing Obama for being a wuss about the whole thing....
After the succesful mission, do they credit Obama? Of course not.
This is the first time that the Somalian pirates have taken over a U.S.-flagged vessel, and the outcome (i.e., dead pirates) means that they're going to think hard about doing it again.
Also, these Somalian pirates aren't really "pirates" as we think of them. They really are remore extensions of the al Qaeda arm. So, that's good.
On the other hand, it was 5 guys and a boat against the U.S. Navy. I mean, it would have been embarrassing if it hadn't ended up positively.
(3) Amazon.com came under fire this weekend for removing the sales ranking for adult gay-themed books.
The end result is that certain not-very-racy-nor-very-gay books have been banned from Amazon rankings....
Ellen DeGeneres' autobiography, Heather Has Two Mommies, "Running with Scissors" by Augusten Burroughs, "Rubyfruit Jungle" by Rita Mae Brown, "Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic" by Alison Bechdel, "The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1" by Michel Foucault, "Bastard Out of Carolina" by Dorothy Allison (2005 Plume edition), "Little Birds: Erotica" by Anais Nin, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominque Bauby (1997 Knopf edition), "Maurice" by E.M. Forster (2005 W.W. Norton edition) and "Becoming a Man" by Paul Monette, which won the 1992 National Book Award.
.... while other very racy (but heterosexual) books remaing in the sale ranking pipeline -- books such as:
"Naked" by David Sedaris, "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller, "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis, "Wifey" by Judy Blume, "The Kiss" by Kathryn Harrison, the photobooks "Playboy: Helmut Newton" and "Playboy: Six Decades of Centerfolds," "Naked Lunch" by William Burroughs, "Incest: From 'A Journal of Love'" by Anais Nin, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominque Bauby (2007 Vintage International edition), "Maurice" by E.M. Forster (2005 Penguin Classics edition)
Amazon has a serious PR problem on its hands, and they're being a little slow to react.
This all strikes me as odd, as I always assumed that Bebos was gay.
And speaking of teh gay, this is soooo last week, but the anti-gay-marriage ugga bugga scare tactic advertisement has been improved upon:
Poll after poll after poll after poll, we see the same thing. This time, it's CBS/NY Times (MoE +/- 3): Obama's job approval is 66% and
By contrast, Republican fortunes have dropped in the first weeks of the Obama presidency; just 31 percent of respondents said they had a favorable view of the Republican Party, the lowest in the 25 years the question has been asked in New York Times/CBS News polls.
Here's a look at an aggregate of all polls asking the right direction/wrong direction question:
That's not bad at all, especially when you consider that most of the news -- economically, at least -- is almost always bad.
Two key questions in the poll show that whatever Republicans think they are doing in Congress by voting against the stimulus and other things, the American people ain't happy with it:
Regardless of how you usually vote, who do you think is more likely to make the right decisions about the nation's economy -- Barack Obama or the Republicans in Congress?
President Obama 63 Republicans in Congress 20
Regardless of how you usually vote, who do you think is more likely to make the right decisions about keeping the nation safe -- Barack Obama or the Republicans in Congress?
President Obama 61 Republicans in Congress 27
Perhaps the GOP should climb aboard the bandwagon.
For those who ever doubted that effective diplomacy cannot lead to results, and that our new president is a skilled diplomat, read this:
According to sources inside the room, President Obama just played peacemaker in a spat between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of China.
In the finaly plenary session among the G-20 leaders, Sarkozy and Hu were having a heated disagreement about tax havens.
***
The exchange between Sarkozy and Hu got so heated, said a source -- who is not a member of the Obama administration -- it was threatening the unity of the G-20 leaders' meeting.
Obama to the rescue:
But Mr. Obama, according to this account, stepped between the two men, urging them to try to find consensus, and giving them a "pep talk" about the importance of working together.
The senior adminstration official said that Mr. Obama pulled Mr. Sarkozy aside, took him to a corner, "and discussed possible alternatives," the senior official said.
Once they arrived at one, President Obama "sent a message to the Chinese" that a counter-offer was on the table. The Chinese spent some time considering the offer. But they took a few minutes.
So Mr. Obama, with the assistance of translators, suggested that he and Mr. Hu have a conversation as well. They, too went to the corner to talk. After a few minutes, Mr. Obama called upon Mr. Sarkozy to join them.
"Translators and sherpas in tow, they reached an agreement," the official said. "There was a multiple shaking of hands."
Driving into work today, I was listening to the BBC. The topic of discussion was Obama's appearance last night on Leno. One commentator was opining that it was beneath the dignity of the presidency for the American president to appear on a "chat show". Jeez. The Brits can be such snoots sometimes.
I think it was wise of Obama to go on. There is a populist wave running through America, and people actually like that their President can be a regular guy. Not so much "the guy you want to have a beer with", but a guy who is serious, responsible, and knows the import of his job, while still being personable and agreeable.
That's how Obama came off last night. Sure, it was a softball interview. But it was a way for him to speak about the nation's problems without the media filter. He was upbeat, funny and optimistic when he needed to be, and serious and throughful when he needed to be.
Sadly, Leno focussed on the AIG bonuses far too much for me. (In fact, I think everyone is focussing on the AIG bonuses far too much for me. In the big picture, financially, they are nothing.)
Slight gaffe when he compared his bowling skills to the "Special Olympics". The right wing is trumpeting the faux pas by saying "Obama insults the disabled", which, of course, he wasn't (he was denigrating his own bowling skills). No doubt Rush will have something to say, and irony alarms will sound throughout the country; it was Rush who literally did insult the disabled when he said that Michael J. Fox was exaggerating his tremors in order to get sympathy.
Sec. 1: . . . For the past 8 years, the authority of the Department of Health and Human Services, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to fund and conduct human embryonic stem cell research has been limited by Presidential actions. The purpose of this order is to remove these limitations on scientific inquiry, to expand NIH support for the exploration of human stem cell research, and in so doing to enhance the contribution of America's scientists to important new discoveries and new therapies for the benefit of humankind.
Sec. 2. Research. The Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary), through the Director of NIH, may support and conduct responsible, scientifically worthy human stem cell research, including human embryonic stem cell research, to the extent permitted by law.
Sec. 3. Guidance. Within 120 days from the date of this order, the Secretary, through the Director of NIH, shall review existing NIH guidance and other widely recognized guidelines on human stem cell research, including provisions establishing appropriate safeguards, and issue new NIH guidance on such research that is consistent with this order.
In a memo to senior government officials, Obama said they must check with Attorney General Eric Holder before relying on any of Bush's signing statements for guidance. Bush often issued a statement when signing a bill into law, and critics said the statements at times showed government officials how to circumvent the law if Bush disagreed with it on constitutional grounds.
By this memorandum, I assign to the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (Director) the responsibility for ensuring the highest level of integrity in all aspects of the executive branch's involvement with scientific and technological processes. The Director shall confer, as appropriate, with the heads of executive departments and agencies, including the Office of Management and Budget and offices and agencies within the Executive Office of the President (collectively, the "agencies"), and recommend a plan to achieve that goal throughout the executive branch.
Each of these events is worthy of its own thoughtful post (in fact, I've written about these subjects many times before, complaining about the Bush policies). But there's really nothing to say, except to note the speed with which these Bush-era policies are being undone.
I will comment, however, on Republican Eric Cantor. He recently said on CNN that Obama's stem cell reversal order is a distraction from dealing with the economy:
"Why are we going and distracting ourselves from the economy? This is job No. 1. Let's focus on what needs to be done."
First of all, Obama signed an executive order. Didn't really take a lot of time. Obama, I'm sure, can do that and focus on the economy.
Secondly, reversing the policy on stem cell research will create jobs (not to mention, oh, curing diseases).
Thirdly, Cantor is no position to talk about Obama's supposed failure to focus on "Job. No 1". Here are some bills that Cantor has co-sponsored in the past two months:
– H. Res. 204: Congratulating the American Dental Association for its 150th year of working to improve the public’s oral health and promoting dentistry.
– H. Res. 18: A bill honoring the life, achievements and contributions of Paul Newman.
– H.R. 997: To declare English as the official language of the United States.
– H.R. 836: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to reduce the tax on beer to its pre-1991 level, and for other purposes.
A CBS News poll of approximately 500 people saw approval of the president rise from 62 percent before the speech to 69 percent afterward.
Meanwhile, a poll on CNN showed that 68 percent of respondents -- who skewed a bit Democratic -- viewed the speech positively, 24 somewhat positively, and only eight percent not positively. Eighty-two percent supported the president's economic plan as outlined in the speech, while 17 percent opposed it.
Those results were buttressed by the findings of longtime Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg. In his own dial poll, which included 50 participants of mixed gender, education and politics, Greenberg found a large swath of bipartisan support for Obama's addres. That included a 14 percent jump, from 62 to 76 percent, in the favorability rating for the president.
Saying at the onset that this was an "immensely successful speech," he highlighted a few issues on which Obama won over the audience.
* On taxes, "there was a 26-point gain," from 38 to 64 percent, "the biggest gains that he made."
* On the deficit, "there was an 18 point swing... from 42 percent to 60 percent."
* On Iraq, "there was a 18-point swing" (no numbers were offered)
"I've never seen this," Greenberg added. For a large part of the speech, all three, the Republican, Democratic and independent line where virtually in the same place."
What was striking, Greenberg concluded, was "how un-polarized the reaction was to this speech. I have not quite seen that."
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart
May 4-6 & 10-13, 2012
Shows are Thursday-Saturday at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm
Perhaps Broadway’s greatest farce, this show is light, fast-paced, witty, irreverent and one of the funniest musicals ever written. It provides the perfect escape from life's troubles. The result is a non-stop laugh-fest in which a crafty slave tries to gain his freedom as a reward for his struggles to win the hand of a beautiful but slow-witted courtesan for his young master.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Pseudolus - Ken Ashford
Hysterium - Gray Smith
Senex - Miles Stanley
Domina - Christine Gorelick
Hero - Charlie Kluttz
Philia - Gracey Falk
Erronius - Lee McKusick
Miles Glorisosus - Mike Orsillo
Marcus Lycus - Neil Shepherd
Proteans - Justin Bulla, Josh Gerry, Bradley Phillis, Jacob Weinberg
Courtesans - Angela Brady, Ashley Howe, Sarah Jenkins, Natalie Juran, Scarlet Van Loon, Mary Lea Williams
Much Ado About Nothing
by William Shakespeare
FREE at MILLER PARK AMPHITHEATRE May 19, 20, 26, 27 and June 2, 3 at 1:00 and 4:00 pm (no 4:00 pm on June 3)
Onje of Shakespeare's most-cherished comedies. Benedick and Beatrice are engaged in a very "merry war"; they both talk a mile a minute and proclaim their scorn for love, marriage, and each other. In contrast, Claudio and Hero are sweet young people who are rendered practically speechless by their love for one another. By means of "noting" (which sounds the same as "nothing," and which is gossip, rumour, and overhearing), Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into confessing their love for each other, and Claudio is tricked into rejecting Hero at the altar. However, Dogberry, a Constable who is a master of malapropisms, discovers the evil trickery of the villain, Don John.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Benedick - Chad Edwards
Beatrice - Sally Meehan
Don Pedro - Mark March
Claudio - Carlos Luis Nieto
Hero - Devon Currie
Leonato - John Shea
Don J - Annie Weir
Margaret - Robyn Shute
Antonio - Lee Willard
Balthasar - Suzanne Vaughan
Borachio - Ken Ashford
Conrade - Rob Taylor
Friar Frances - Linda Minney
Dogberry - April Marshall
Verges - Sarah Jenkins
Sexton - Andrea Rivers
Messenger - Ryan Ball
Boy - Ben Taylor
Watch - True Jones and others TBA
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Ten-year-old Kennedy Corpus has a rock-solid excuse for missing the last day of school: a personal note to her teacher from President Barack Obama.
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