Sternly Worded Letters

Mark Sanford: The Rime of the Ancient Governor

2009-06-29T08:36:00.011-04:00

It is an ancient Governor,
Who, at the wedding feast
Of Piper Palin, grips the arm
Of a Republican high priest.

The priest quick blanches, stark with fright;
His lips go ghastly pale.
"I fear thy skinny hand," quoth he.
"I hate thy gruesome tale."

Whereat the ancient Governor
Replies in steely tones:
"Listen you will to my tale, until
Its dread doth invade thy bones.

I was a Solon, great and good
(So should we all fain be!) --
But idly did I twin my ‘Self’
To John F. Kennedy.

O cursed` be that awe-full name!
I acquired his roving eye:
Whence women – whom my fancy struck --
O’er me might wail and sigh."

The priest crieth, "Stop! I’ll brook no more!
Thy tale is so oft-told,
That men crouched here do quake in fear
Of aping your sins so bold."

The ancient Governor grows now stern.
"The People have spoken loud.
They cherish not our Candidates:
You men of your ‘virtue’ proud."

The priest looks down – "Carry on," saith he --
For he kens the diamond truth:
Whispers of hypocrisy
Are plague in the voting booth.

And so the ancient Governor,
Resumeth his tale of woe,
As if to cauterize the wound
His Party doth vainly show.

"Emails! Innocent and pure!
With such my doom began:
Eftsoons their subject lines did turn
To Maria’s golden tan,

And to her wond’rous fleshly globes,
And to her celestial kiss,
And to her curves, and to her soul --
Thus born: my desperate bliss!

Short-lived my bliss, short-lived indeed,
My lies compounded so:
Tall tales of Appalachian Trails
Vanished in the truth’s warm glow.

Humility – I’ve learned it hard.
Take heed, stout friend of mine:
On my gray headstone wags will scrawl --
He shagged the Argentine!"

* * *

The wedding feast went forth as planned;
The high priest took his place.
He nothing thought of aught he’d heard
Of a sad man’s sad disgrace.

From my main blog: http://partisandawn.wordpress.com/
(It reads much better there.)

My New Blog

2009-03-26T15:46:00.002-04:00

Sternly Worded Letters was conceived in the cauldron of the Clinton/Obama wars. I don't regret anything I've written here in the last ten months, but I've come to see things a bit differently. For a fuller explanation, read the "About" section of my new blog, Partisan Dawn.

(http://partisandawn.wordpress.com/)

See you there!

The Joke That Is The Juddster

2009-03-22T17:58:00.006-04:00

Obama has hit a rough patch lately, but he’s got to be relieved that his cabinet didn’t get saddled with this hypocrite:

"The practical implications of this is bankruptcy for the United States," Gregg said of the Obama’s administration’s recently released budget blueprint. "There’s no other way around it. If we maintain the proposals that are in this budget over the ten-year period that this budget covers, this country will go bankrupt. People will not buy our debt, our dollar will become devalued. It is a very severe situation."

Gregg, known as one of the keenest fiscal minds on Capitol Hill, also told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King that he thought it was "almost unconscionable" for the White House to continue with its planned course on fiscal matters with unprecedented actual and projected budget deficits in the coming years. (Emphasis added.)

I guess Bush and the Juddster were using Monopoly money when they sent trillions down the toilet to pay for their tax cuts and wars. Where do Republicans get balls big enough to comment on anybody else’s budget? And what sane person would speak of Judd Gregg’s "keen fiscal mind"?

In Washington, any Republican politician without a southern accent who hangs around town long enough is presumed to be sensible, if not an outright genius. But the truth is that they all peddle the same economic snake oil.

Leadership Time

2009-03-21T06:57:00.004-04:00

Obama dropped the ball on the stimulus, allowing his obsession with bipartisanship to make the bill weaker than it should have been. He rebounded with a bold budget proposal, telling the country that he intended to fix health care and energy policy. This weekend, he’s facing the third test of his young presidency.

While it’s necessary for Congress to do something about the AIG bonuses, and while politicians need to respond to the anger of their constituents, things have gotten way out of hand. More bonus scandals are going to surface, and each one can’t be Armageddon. Like it or not, Wall Street firms will be buying up the toxic waste they created. That’s Geithner’s plan, and it’s too late to find a new one. (He has no staff.) There’s talk that Treasury might be rolling out the details on Monday, and they need to. Meanwhile, Obama needs to call off the dogs in Congress.

The bonuses are chump change, and not all Wall Street employees are villains. If legislators want to get outraged, let them consider this: Goldman Sachs got a double bailout. Is there anything they can do about it?

Mistakes Were Made, Bonuses Were Paid

2009-03-18T12:14:00.006-04:00

Edward Liddy:

Mistakes were made at AIG, and on a scale that few could have imagined possible. The most egregious of those began in 1987, when the company strayed from its core insurance competencies to launch a credit-default-swaps portfolio, which eventually became subject to massive collateral calls that created a liquidity crisis for AIG. Its missteps have exacted a high price, not only for the company and its employees but for the American taxpayer, the federal government's finances and the global economy. These missteps brought AIG to the brink of collapse and to the government for help.

AIG is greatest employer in the world. Not only is it impossible to get fired--you can get rich by sticking it to The Man!

AIG: Catharsis Day

2009-03-18T09:10:00.028-04:00

Congressional Democrats in the Pelosi-Reid era are defined by their failures, so it's hardly surprising that they got swindled by the sharpies at AIG. As for the Administration, Tim Geithner deserves to be scorned by Republicans for signing off on the bonuses. (David Axelrod’s defense–that the poor kid had a lot on his plate, so leave him alone–is embarrassing.) But folks--we really do need to move on. The fragile, horrendous economy is--believe it or not!--on a bit of a roll right now, and it’s essential that government officials stay on top of things. (Republicans don't count.)

I generally despise all the grandstanding displayed by our elected representatives at committee hearings. Most legislators have no real interest in anything and regard their five minutes on C-SPAN as little more than an opportunity to rehearse their campaign sound bites. But today I say to our brave tribunes on the Potomac–Don't hold back! Now is not the time to grow a collective brain and get yourselves lost in the bonus weeds. Sure, it would be nice if taxpayers didn't get shafted by Wall Street again, but let's face it--if the high-priced legal talent at AIG can’t outwit a pack of panic-stricken Congressmen, they ought to be disbarred. (Maybe Andrew Cuomo in New York will manage to squeeze the crooks for a few token shekels down the road.)

Today, the Liliputians of the Capitol need to do what they do best–bloviate and get outraged. Come on, guys and gals! Show us your righteous indignation! Shout yourselves hoarse!

Your country needs you!

Simple Question, Simple Answer

2009-03-16T14:25:00.001-04:00

If the government tries to stop the thieving blackmailers at AIG from getting their bonuses, taxpayers may end up losing money due to expensive litigation. Would it still be worth it?

Yes. Now get started, Mr. Geithner.

Dow Up 240! (Carpe Diem, Mr. President)

2009-03-12T20:01:00.004-04:00

Wall Street traders have no credibility on economic issues–they predicted a Clinton Depression in 1993, missed the Bush Recession in 2007, and think the economy will collapse if the rich pay a penny more in taxes–but fluctuations in the Dow are politically important.

If the stock market is going to crater a thousand points because traders are afraid Obama’s health care proposals might cost them money, so be it. We can’t make policy based on short-sighted greed. But if the market is tanking because the Obama Administration is perceived to be dragging its feet on fixing the banks or as being hostile to private enterprise, then a change is in order.

On that score, Obama’s appearance at the Business Roundtable this evening was excellent. Probably the best I’ve ever seen him. He didn’t back down on his budget priorities, firmly tying his initiatives to the overall health of the economy. And he exuded confidence.

Democrats are always going to be suspect when it comes to economic growth. That’s how the corporate media rolls. Anything Obama can do to jump-start the stock market will keep some of the jackals off his back and strengthen his hand for the rest of his agenda.

We might just get through this mess.

Dow Up 380!

2009-03-10T19:47:00.014-04:00

CNBC's Larry Kudlow is a supply-side wingnut, but I share his economic optimism. (More on that in a future post).

Last week, on Larry's 7:00 pm show, a savant named "Dougie Kass" called the bottom on the S & P. He made a lot of sense, and tonight he said we were on the verge of a "generational opportunity" in stocks.

Let's see what happens the rest of the week.

Government At Its Worst

2009-03-06T07:07:00.012-05:00

No, I’m not talking about "earmarks." I don’t give a shit about those. I’m talking about this:

And, to the embarrassment of Obama — who promised during last year's campaign to force Congress to curb its pork-barrel ways — the bill contains 7,991 pet projects totaling $5.5 billion, according to calculations by the GOP staff of the House Appropriations Committee. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Obama's opponent in the presidential campaign, called the measure "a swollen, wasteful, egregious example of out-of-control spending" and again criticized Obama for pledging to sign the measure despite his earlier promises on such spending. (Emphasis added.)

Five and a half billion fucking dollars? Are you kidding me? That’s what McCain and the Media are having a cow about? AIG and Citigroup will piss away more than that before breakfast this morning. At least the pork barrel chump change will bring something to the streets of America.

One of Obama’s finest moments in the debates last fall came when he pointed out to Johnny Mac the pitifully tiny role that "earmarks" played in the grand scheme of things. I guess it didn't sink in. We seem doomed to argue endlessly over minutiae. The tiny minds of our legislators aren't comfortable with much else.

Will the government ever get serious? To quote Lee Iacocca: Where have all the leaders gone?

Mission: Impossible

2009-03-03T19:31:00.022-05:00

The funniest political essay I have ever read is something called "The Husbandman," published by H.L. Mencken in 1924. Here’s an excerpt:

….Let the farmer, so far as I am concerned, be damned forevermore. To Hell with him, and bad luck to him. He is a tedious fraud and ignoramus, a cheap rogue and hypocrite, the eternal Jack of the human pack. He deserves all that he ever suffers under our economic system, and more. Any city man, not insane, who sheds tears for him is shedding tears of the crocodile.

No more grasping, selfish and dishonest mammal, indeed, is known to students of the Anthropoidea. When the going is good for him he robs the rest of us up to the extreme limit of our endurance; when the going is bad be comes bawling for help out of the public till. Has anyone ever heard of a farmer making any sacrifice of his own interests, however slight, to the common good? Has anyone ever heard of a farmer practising or advocating any political idea that was not absolutely self-seeking–that was not, in fact, deliberately designed to loot the rest of us to his gain? Greenbackism, free silver, the government guarantee of prices, bonuses, all the complex fiscal imbecilities of the cow State John Baptists–these are the contributions of the virtuous husbandmen to American political theory. There has never been a time, in good seasons or bad, when his hands were not itching for more; there has never been a time when he was not ready to support any charlatan, however grotesque, who promised to get it for him. Only one issue ever fetches him, and that is the issue of his own profit. He must be promised something definite and valuable, to be paid to him alone, or he is off after some other mountebank. He simply cannot imagine himself as a citizen of a commonwealth, in duty bound to give as well as take; he can imagine himself only as getting all and giving nothing.

I fondly recall this hilarious screed every year at budget-making time, when Kent Conrad and his Midwestern Mafia begin demanding a "Great Plains - Sized" slice of the federal pie. As a taxpayer from the East, I long ago resigned myself to getting the shaft on the issue of agricultural subsidies. Senator Conrad never has any trouble absconding with poor Chuck Schumers’s lunch money. If President Obama ever forces the sainted "family farmers" to take a significant monetary haircut, I will drive to South Dakota and chisel his skinny mug on a soft rock as close to Mount Rushmore as I can get.

(Note: By no means am I endorsing Mr. Mencken’s intemperate insults--at least not all of them. I just think they’re funny.)

Barack and The Fat Man

2009-03-02T12:51:00.015-05:00

First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? –Hannibal Lecter

So the Republican hand-wringers want Rush Limbaugh to pipe down. Apparently, all the white noise of his recent bloviating has obscured the party’s message.

Stuff and Nonsense! I'm not sure Limbaugh even believes his own bullshit, but he knows full well the iron rules of what passes muster as an Acceptable Republican Idea, to wit:

Government is always incompetent.
Taxes may never be raised.

"Spending" must always opposed in the abstract, yet rarely defined in reality. (Military spending has no upper limit.)

Market solutions are always best, unless they upset our supporters.

Only corporations and wealthy individuals can spur economic growth.

Budget deficits, no matter how large, will be reduced by cutting taxes.
When in doubt, deregulate.

If Republican politicians violate these rules, their party will cease to exist. They will become Democrats. Limbaugh got a bad rap on his "hoping-for-failure" comment, but in stark political terms, he was correct--the Republican Party cannot afford to allow government solutions to succeed. Bill Kristol knew it. Karl Rove knew it. Rush Limbaugh knows it.

Anybody who watched Jon Kyl and Paul Ryan on FOX News Sunday yesterday saw that Republicans have no new ideas. That’s why they keep Newt Gingrich around. He has lots of bullet points, but does anybody really understand what the hell he’s talking about? Have any of his wacky schemes ever been tried? Newt’s chief value to the GOP is as a fund raiser and a supplier of rhetoric. Substantively, he’s a bit player.

Republicans can still win elections, but the Democrats don’t have to worry about countering any bold new ideas. They just have to govern successfully. (That’s all!)

Base Camp

2009-02-28T06:49:00.004-05:00

For the upcoming battle over the budget, Obama is at least planting the right flag:

Obama's spending blueprint, with its massive $1.17 trillion deficit and tax hikes on the wealthy, seeks to squeeze billions of dollars in savings out of current spending through competitive bidding among health insurers and ending subsidies and tax breaks for banks, agribusiness and oil companies.

"These steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business," the president said in his weekly radio address.

"I know they're gearing up for a fight as we speak," he said. "My message to them is this: So am I."

Has the president has been sneaking a few peeks at the CPAC Wingnut Convention?

No more foot massages for Johnny Boehner!

Good Cop, Bad Cop

2009-02-26T09:13:00.047-05:00

In a rational world, today's Republican Party would be little more than a kooky fringe group, like the Larouchites. Unfortunately, we live here. And in America circa 2009, on the nation's premier business channel, the utterly discredited economic theories promulgated by George W. Bush and Company are still sacrosanct. (I guess it’s comfort food for CNBC's shell-shocked viewers, who cling to the fantasy of becoming swashbuckling Wall Street Jedi.)

Last evening, on the network in question, Arthur Laffer, legendary father of a ridiculous economic curve, teamed up with Larry Kudlow to denounce the Administration's plan for saving the nation’s banking system. Well, all I can say is Hallelujah! This is the first piece of unadulterated good news I’ve heard in weeks. If Kudlow and Laffer think the plan is a train wreck, then I’m getting bullish on America again. Those guys are always wrong.

Then, this morning, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Judd "We Hardly Knew Ye" Gregg went on Squawk Box to complain about the deficit. No--really--they did. These "Republican moderates"–who never met a trillion dollar war they couldn’t put off-budget–had the audacity to pose as penny-pinching guardians of the public till. Forget the fact that their supply-side snake oil has turned fatally rancid. Hutchison and Gregg deserve to be tarred and feathered around the clock solely on the grounds of criminal hypocrisy.

I’m no fan of President Obama’s rhetoric, but on substance, his speech the other night was excellent. His obsession with bipartisanship drives me up a wall, but it appears to be part of a long-term political strategy. I may just have to get used to it. But what about the rest of the Democrats? You know, the ones who aren’t President? How about this, people--When you're not actually legislating, you might want to try to terminate--with extreme prejudice--the Republican Party's current raison d'etre. That's the enemy. Ridicule mixed with condescension--along with liberal doses of the truth–should be your weapon of choice. Let Obama take the high road.

The stakes are too great, and there’s too much to do, to risk letting the GOP get their hands on the government again. The proponents of such a dangerous and bankrupt philosophy need to be exposed.

Free Market Dead-Enders

2009-02-21T06:56:00.002-05:00

Because every generation deserves its own Great Depression. Builds character.

Live-Blogging Hardball: Exit Judd Gregg!

2009-02-12T17:37:00.014-05:00

5:25 Chris Matthews and the other Republican are gushing over the Juddster's integrity, but Democrat Steve McMahon is having none of it. Obama's stimulus plan hasn't exactly been a secret, guys. Only now is Gregg noticing that Democrats are (sometimes) more liberal than Republicans? And puh-lease, Tweety! Spare us the bullshit about this guy's devotion to "fiscal responsibility." That dog won't hunt. Not after a trillion dollar war war--off-budget.

5:45 Nancy Pelosi is talking to Chris. She's taking the gloves off, too.

Two nails for the bipartisan coffin. Keep 'em coming, kids!

Can You Beat Something With Nothing?

2009-02-12T09:19:00.021-05:00

Krugman is being taken to task by the DLC types. For them, the process reigns supreme:

But in eschewing the strident partisanship that many on the left pine for, Obama is keeping faith with the people who elected him. He’s also maneuvering the Republicans into a position where they appear as dogmatic, lock-step partisans–and politically impotent to boot, since they can’t block a big stimulus bill from passing. And let’s face it: While the president has tried to foster a new spirit of comity and cooperation, the stimulus plans make very few concessions to GOP demands when you look at the big picture.

Some concessions are going to be necessary. But why give up territory before the battle is joined? And why puff up the opposition's "good ideas"? Just tell the public why their ideas are so bad!

The Republicans may look impotent, but do they really care? It’s not as if they think government can actually solve problems. Once they’ve cut taxes for their friends, they might as well go home.

The only thing that motivates the GOP is winning elections. On that score, they’re like Jason in the Friday the 13th movies. He does the same thing in every film, critics be damned. But the audience always knows what to expect, and sometimes they're in the mood for it.

Remember when Democrats were in the Bushian wilderness and Markos Moulitsas was screaming that we didn’t stand for anything? Not much has changed. The Republicans are looking to kick some wishy-washy Demcratic ass in the next movie, and the president is helping them write the script.

Jeb Hensarling (R-TX): Republicanus Moronicus

2009-02-11T12:22:00.009-05:00

From his first question to the nation's biggest bankers just now on CNBC:

"What you do with your money is your business. What you do with the taxpayers' money is our business." Delivered with beady-eyed rodent smugness as he puffs out his empty chest.

Deregulation now, deregulation forever. Isn't that how we got here?

Idiot. Dangerous, cretinous idiot.

Who Died And Made Him Boss?

2009-02-11T09:41:00.026-05:00

David Sirota is getting nasty emails from Clinton supporters who aren't thrilled with Obama:

Movements and activists and voters have to choose the best among this imperfect pool of possibilities. Journalists like me--if we're interested in the truth--will end up being both critical and supportive of candidates because those candidate aren't typically 100% bad or 100% good. That doesn't make the criticism or the praise "hypocritical"--it makes the reporting authentic and real, rather than sycophantic and propagandistic, and it certainly doesn't make it "hypocritical." {Emphasis added}

I get it--David Sirota is in charge of dispensing The Truth. If he said Barack Obama was the best available progressive--well, then--

To Clintonites, just STFU and slither back to your rathole of bitterness. Your candidate lost because she helped create the problems we now have to fix. Deal with that and become a productive member of society, or again, just STFU.

Listen, David. Thanks to you and the rest of the Democratic/Media establishment, we'll never know what kind of president Hillary Clinton would have made. One thing's for sure, though. Pretty much every negative prediction I made about your candidate's weakness is proving true. Shouldn't you be showing a little humility?

I don't feel like shutting the fuck up. As a matter of fact, David--Can I have your job? You seem to suck at it.

State of Denial

2009-02-09T09:06:00.012-05:00

So how are things going these days in the Mainstream Liberal Blogosphere? Not too good, I'm afraid. Here’s georgia10 from Daily Kos:

Democrats must shake off this stale stench of the minority that still wafts about them. They need not cling to the vessel of bipartisanship as if there were no other manner by which to reach the shore.

They need to realize that their efforts are buoyed on the backs of some 68 million strong that voted in favor of bold Democratic principles. As several Democrats (including the president) have noted, the American people voted for change. By selecting a man labeled as the most liberal Senator to the White House and by strengthening Democratic majorities in both chambers, they rejected the Republican policies that have left Americans alone to tread water for so long.

The American people voted for "change," but they didn’t vote for "bold Democratic principles." Barack Obama’s signature campaign promise was to find common ground with Republicans, and that’s exactly the strategy he's been pursuing. If Democrats are "clinging to the vessel of bipartisanship," it’s because they’re following the lead of their Captain.

And here’s Joe Sudaby from Americablog today (I can’t seem to find the link):

While that's all playing out in the Capitol Hill bubble, Obama is taking his show on the road. He's going to talk directly to the American people. Probably a good idea since the traditional media and pundits, a.k.a the Villagers, would rather talk about the very inside political game instead of the dire state of the economy. The perilous state of our country is an afterthought for them.

Get your head out of the sand, Joe. The Villagers aren’t the only ones talking about the "inside political game." The president can’t stop talking about it either. This weekend, instead of using his bully pulpit to press his own "bold" agenda, he’s out there praising the Lieberman Caucus for its wisdom in gutting the stimulus bill. But as always, nothing is ever Barack's fault in Obamaland.

Physician, heal thyself!

Iceberg Ahead

2009-02-06T06:11:00.006-05:00

Paul Krugman today:

Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.

David Axelrod got his candidate elected by placing him above the political fray, and he'd like to keep him there. But he didn't foresee that President Obama would have to enact the most important economic legislation legislation of the last fifty years right off the bat.

The whole world is watching. If Obama screws this up because he still wants to be President Gandhi, he's going to pay a political price.

Are you listening, Mr. Axelrod? Time to change course.

Bush: A Love Supreme

2009-02-04T14:45:00.030-05:00

Bernard Goldberg’s new sop to the wingnuts--A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (and Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media--probably contains a fair amount of truth, but his audience needs to know that a real journalist would have already written the same book about George W. Bush.

After 9/11, Dubya got a four-year fluffing the likes of which we’ll not see again (short of the USA going all Kim Jong Il in the wake of a massive terrorist attack). Chris Matthews’ fixation on the manliness of his president is well documented, and I’ll never forget Howard Fineman writing a whole column about Bush’s belt buckles. Yowza!

As for serious scrutiny of the Cheney regime’s policies and crimes–Sorry, America. Not in a time of war. (After Chimpy’s stage-managed press conference on the eve of the Iraq debacle, Elizabeth Bumiller of the New York Times admitted she was too scared to risk upsetting him with a hard question. Thanks, Liz.)

The media still loves Obama, and his honeymoon is far from over, but he’s not going to get the Bush treatment. They managed to embarrass even themselves with all their carrying on over the worst president ever.

Unforced Errors

2009-02-04T13:28:00.006-05:00

Each of the last three presidents, immediately upon taking office, loudly proclaimed that when it came to running an ethical administration, he was going to make George Washington look like a sleazebag. Then, when the inevitable nanny problems and IRS issues cropped up, they each had to spend a week getting pummeled by their own lofty rhetoric.

Why can't these guys just keep their pieholes shut to begin with?

Who's the Boss?

2009-02-02T19:11:00.011-05:00

E. J. Dionne writes:

The president's quest for a new tone in Washington. . . has a practical motive. He believes that economic recovery is about psychology as well as money and that Americans will have more confidence in the future if they see the nation's politicians cooperating to resolve the crisis.

Obama may believe this (although I have my doubts), but is it true? Will people start spending again if they see John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi prancing arm in arm through the cherry blossoms? I don’t know why they should. Maybe there’s some abstruse economic theory at work here, but to me it just seems. . .dumb.

Dionne continues:

If achieving bipartisanship takes priority over the actual content of policy, Republicans are handed a powerful weapon. In theory, they can keep moving the bipartisan bar indefinitely. And each concession to their sensibilities threatens the solidarity in the president's own camp.

Now you’re making sense, E. J. At some point, President Obama is going to have to stop acting like a spectator in his own administration. Thus far, he’s been happy to let a thousand flowers bloom, even some smelly Republican ones. That better not last much longer.

Politics abhors a vacuum.

Zero

2009-01-29T10:34:00.022-05:00

That’s the number of House Republicans who voted for the stimulus bill, despite the best efforts of a Democratic president to water it down for them. Is this how we’re going to spend the next four years?

The Republicans aren’t going away and they aren’t going to change. I don’t care how many Michael Steeles they trot out to "put a new face on the party." They’re wedded to a right-wing, trickle-down ideology because 1) their base demands it 2) it’s lucrative and 3) its simplemindedness makes it a powerful campaign tool--in the right circumstances.

This is not a good year to be a Republican, yet Barack Obama insists on giving them credibility. (If he really thinks the GOP is brimming with good ideas, we’re in big trouble.) On substantive terms, getting more Republican votes than are absolutely necessary is going to make virtually all legislation worse than it need be. That’s just a fact. So the only justification for pandering to them has to be that it’s part of a long-term political strategy.

Does Obama believe that spending quality time with John Boehner is going to pave the way for a grand, bipartisan compromise on health care or anything else? That doesn’t pass the laugh test.

Maybe he thinks "going the extra mile" will make the GOP look obstructionist and strengthen his hand with the public. That might happen, but he’d better not be counting on Wolf Blitzer and company to hammer home the message. At Think Progress, they’re complaining about continued Republican dominance of the cable news guest list. Duh! What do they expect? Barack Obama has made bipartisanship the lodestar of his presidency. (As if the corporate media needs any more incentive than it already has to prop up Republicans!)

Then there’s the noxious influence of David Axelrod, Obama’s uber-Rove. His job in the White House is to prepare for 2012. Here’s how I see his political calculus:

"I’d rather not have to re-invent the wheel. We won with a feel-good campaign in 2008, and my client has a nice-guy image worth its weight in votes. So--where do we stand today? For the foreseeable future, elections will be won or lost on the economy. But here’s the thing–to a great extent, this recession will end when it ends. We might be able to ameliorate its awfulness, but how much credit will we get? What’s the difference between 9% unemployment and 8.5% unemployment? Barack is still going to get hammered. Is it worth it to fight for better policies at the risk of alienating our friends in the media? They’re so touchy when it comes to their precious bipartisanship. Isn't half a loaf better in the long run? After all, the world will still need Barack in 2013."

Does Obama see it like this? Who knows. But he certainly hasn’t embraced the James Carville strategy–which I endorse--of throwing your drowning opponent an anvil.

It’s going to take a long time to clean up the mess in this country. Politics needs to be about something. Democrats need to set the terms of the debate. They need to be clear about their solutions while attempting–respectfully–to highlight an unbroken line of Republican failure stretching from Hoover to Reagan to Bush to Boehner. They need to discredit–respectfully–the GOP and its policies the way the right-wing discredited the New Deal. (Leave the vicious, partisan name-calling to the blogosphere. I’m more than happy to do my part!)

Of course, presidents may have their own priorities. That’s why Obama needs to be pressured.

Team Of Professionals

2009-01-23T16:03:00.014-05:00

I suppose it’s possible that Hillary Clinton, George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke will need a full-time referee, but is it likely? I think not. In any case, I’d rather have them managing our diplomacy than a pack of lightweights.

The media is always is always looking for a soap opera, and Hillary is their favorite scheming harpy. Rest assured that anytime a lazy reporter needs a story, he’ll find a bureaucrat willing to trash her. Or else he’ll just make something up. After all, there’s no downside in being 100% wrong about a Clinton (as long as you’re vague enough), and you may get a mention on Hardball or in Maureen Dowd’s trashy column.

Barack Obama seems to understand that a restoration of American economic strength is essential to a successful foreign policy. That’s where he plans to deploy his political capital. He also seems to recognize his own limitations, which is why he turned to Hillary Clinton in the first place.

Let’s just say I have a lot more confidence in our foreign policy team than in our domestic policy team. More on that later.

Live-Blogging Hardball: Once An Asshole...

2009-01-21T17:26:00.011-05:00

Chris "I’m Afraid of Arlen Specter!" Matthews is all over the Senate’s 94-2 confirmation of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State--

Beware, Democrats! You’re ALL going to be held responsible for whatever fresh Clinton-bashing that David Vitter, Jim DeMint and ME--Tweety Matthews--decide to dispense!

MSNBC. Same as it ever was. A joke.

Geithner on C-SPAN

2009-01-21T12:57:00.027-05:00

---Grassley is trying to get himself righteously worked up over the IRS thing, but his heart doesn’t seem to be in it. He’s reading from his notes as if for the first time. Yawn.

---Chairman Baucus is being a hard-ass on senatorial question time, and Kerry doesn’t like it. Neither do I. Big John is as windy as ever, but his "good bank/bad bank" line of inqiry is right on point and deserves a long answer. (God forbid any distinguished senator be shorted his full five minutes to spew nonsense.)

–-Surprise, surprise. Hatch wants to cut corporate taxes again. Groundhog Day in the Republican caucus.

–-Bunning is an idiot. No wonder he runs around the Senate in his pajamas–no, wait--that’s Domenici. (Maybe they’re the same person?)

---Snowe seems out of place here. Succinct, intelligent questions. Who let her in?

–-Ensign: Stimulus? We don't need no stinking stimulus. And tax increases caused the 1937 mini-depression. GOP Groundhog Day continues.

–-Bunning again. He hasn’t gotten any smarter in the last ninety minutes.

–-Kyl is asking the same question about the stimulus plan that Ensign asked. Same answer. (The Republicans seem to think this recession is going to be over by December. Trillion dollar stimulus–bad! Trillion dollar wars–good!)

I've seen enough.

Adios, Au Revoir, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye!

2009-01-19T21:20:00.021-05:00

Tomorrow afternoon at 12:01, having utterly failed at the only real job he’s ever had, George W. Bush will take his place at the bottom of the presidential barrel. His media mea culpas have already vanished into the ether. His apparent graciousness during the current transition (in marked contrast to his reprehensible behavior in 2001, when he allowed his staff to spread preposterous lies about Clintons having "trashed" the White House) will do him no permanent good. (It’s like Chris Rock’s riff about sleazy people demanding credit for doing what they’re supposed to do.) The world and we have seen enough. Bush’s unprecedented blend of incompetence and villainy will serve him well as he battles the stygian shade of Richard Nixon for the title of Worst President Ever. And unless the Middle East transforms itself rapidly enough for a critical mass of historians to somehow give Bush and his bloody wars a share of the credit, his fate is sealed.

Still, in ways large and small, the Bush Reclamation Project is already underway. Here’s Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal, on the president's prodigious White House reading:

A glutton for punishment, Mr. Bush insisted on another rematch in 2008. But it will be a three-peat for me: as of today, his total is 40 volumes to my 64. His reading this year included a heavy dose of history -- including David Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter," Rick Atkinson's "Day of Battle," Hugh Thomas's "Spanish Civil War, "Stephen W. Sears's "Gettysburg" and David King's "Vienna 1814." There's also plenty of biography -- including U.S. Grant's "Personal Memoirs"; Jon Meacham's "American Lion"; James M. McPherson's "Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief" and Jacobo Timerman's "Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number."

This is absurd and laughable. It's pure presidential scorekeeping. Bush undoubtedly counts "books I've read" the way Bill Clinton counts golf strokes. (Although, if Rove is telling the truth for once, it might explain why his boss demanded one-page national security memos. He was too busy reading about Dean Acheson to worry about Osama bin Laden.)

Unfortunately for Karl and George, other people are going to keep talking about the Dark Side of Dubya. Here’s Lawrence Wilkerson, quoted in this month’s Vanity Fair:

We had this confluence of characters—and I use that term very carefully—that included people like Powell, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, and so forth, which allowed one perception to be "the dream team." It allowed everybody to believe that this Sarah Palin-like president—because, let’s face it, that’s what he was—was going to be protected by this national-security elite, tested in the cauldrons of fire. What in effect happened was that a very astute, probably the most astute, bureaucratic entrepreneur I’ve ever run into in my life became the vice president of the United States.
He became vice president well before George Bush picked him. And he began to manipulate things from that point on, knowing that he was going to be able to convince this guy to pick him, knowing that he was then going to be able to wade into the vacuums that existed around George Bush—personality vacuum, character vacuum, details vacuum, experience vacuum.

Ironically, George W. Bush has left the country in such a sorry state that his successor and the Democratic Congress are unlikely to have the time to hold him accountable, even if they have the stomach for it--which they don’t.

For me, the jury is still out on Barack Obama. I need to see some results. I won’t be getting any thrills up my thigh tomorrow.

Unless I get to see a commercial jet–not Air Force One–taking off for Texas with George W. Bush aboard. One way.

Thanks, But No Thanks

2009-01-16T16:44:00.008-05:00

The GOP is returning to the scene of the crime:

"Tomorrow will be an opportunity for Republicans to respond to President-elect Obama’s request to offer solutions that help put America back on the path to prosperity," Cantor said. "Top national experts will offer innovative approaches that address the needs of working families and small businesses and put American back on the path to prosperity."

Politicians and economic experts participating in Thursday’s hearing include:
*John Boehner, Republican leader (R-Ohio)
*Eric Cantor, Republican Whip
*Mike Pence, Republican Conference Chair (R-IN)
*Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts
*Meg Whitman, former CEO, e-Bay
*Alex Brill, American Enterprise Institute
*Bill Breach, The Heritage Foundation
*Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform

This is a joke, right? Grover Fucking Norquist? Are they planning to resurrect the K Street Project in broad daylight?

I sincerely hope Barack Obama’s talk of "bipartisanship" is just window dressing for the media. (Nobody else really gives a shit.) The Republican Party, as an institution, is currently unfit to participate in the making of public policy. Democrats need to push through their own agenda by picking off the few remaining decent Republicans and making it clear that the Grover Norquist "drown it in the bathtub" approach to government is no longer acceptable.

Wingnut economics is simple, stupid and appealing. The GOP will never abandon it. It’s their once and future meal ticket.

And there will be another K Street Project if they return to power.

Apocalypse. . .Now

2009-01-09T22:16:00.014-05:00

"Walt Kurtz was one of the most outstanding officers this country has ever produced. He was brilliant and outstanding in every way, and he was a good man, too. Humanitarian man, man of wit, of humor. He joined the Special Forces. After that his ideas, methods have become unsound. . .Unsound."

The Republican Party has utterly devolved.

Dwight Eisenhower. . .Ronald Reagan. . . Tom Coburn.

A bankrupt economic ideology clings to the inherent cruelty of its Gipperesque myths.

Will the Democrats ever decide to win this war?

The Care And Feeding Of Wingnuts

2009-01-07T13:46:00.013-05:00

On C-SPAN I’m watching James Inhofe--possessor, by consensus, of the lowest IQ in the Senate--warn the Republican base that Socialist Democrats are planning to muzzle the drug-addled Rush Limbaugh and the dim-witted Sean Hannity by re-instituting the Fairness Doctrine. I’m not sure how Pelosi and Reid should play this, but they need to understand the opposition party.

In terms of an effective governing philosophy, the Republicans bring nothing to the table. Any "compromises" that Democrats find necessary must be accompanied by a clear rejection of the GOP's phony "freedom" agenda. This is critical to any hope of cleaning up Bush's unholy mess.

The Fairness Doctrine should come back, but it’s not worth the distraction of Wingnut Armageddon.

Make Some Enemies, Please

2008-12-11T17:50:00.012-05:00

I’ve been planning to write a piece about Barack Obama’s unhealthy dependence on the Washington media, but Riverdaughter saves me the trouble:

The QC test for the Obama administration is the Villagers, that little bastion of political pundits and DC courtiers with the narrow minded collective conscious that is stuck in the fifties. They are the status quo. They are the power. Piss off a Villager and your job is misery for four long years. The Clintons know that the Villagers never forget. Their memories are lonnnnnnng. Their grudges never ending. They pass judgement on everything: Your marriage, your clothes, your children, your interns, your policies that might cost them a teensy bit more in taxes or anything that might make THEIR lives uncomfortable. You can’t do anything in DC without the approval of the Villagers. They control the horizontal and the vertical. Step out of line and your ass is glass.

Both Hillary and Obama knew that. But where Hillary was willing to take them on and was actually succeeding, pressing forward inch by inch against the hurricane force gusts of Villager hot air, Obama decided to gain their confidence. He bravely marched over to the Villager side and adopted all of their conventional wisdom. Hillary was a monster, women should be seen, not heard, the new FISA law is good, telephone companies were viciously maligned, the Iraq War isn’t nearly as bad as we thought, Michelle will make a great "Mom-in-Chief".

Obama bowed and dipped and flattered and danced a merry little Pavane. All was cheery and delightful. He was the perfect solution to their civil rights dilemma. Why, he is just like them, except a little darker. . . .

Now, Obama can make all kinds of promises and policies and have Jon Favreau insert "hope!" and "Change!" into every speech but Obama knows that if he proposes anything to displease the Villagers even one little bit, he’s going to be slung with a big, stinky albatross called Milorod Blagojevich for the duration of his four long years. And we have seen that Obama is very reluctant to court controversy. He’s not a fighter. He’s a "get out of town on the day of a tricky vote" kinda guy. He will not stand up to the Village because he is afraid of them. Before he can sign one bill into law, Obama is already a non-functioning unit.

So much for hope and change.

Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have been afraid to govern without the approval of the corporate media, so she had to be taken out during the primaries. They’re pretty sure Obama is someone they can do business with. For the sake of the country, they'd better be wrong.

The Five Amigos

2008-12-11T09:06:00.007-05:00

Shelby, Ensign, DeMint, Vitter, Coburn.

From the brilliant "free market" solons who brought you The Bush Economy comes their latest blockbuster: Screw Detroit! And Let The Chips Fall Where They May!

Meet the New Old Republicans. George W. Bush is now dead to them. He’s a socialist. They want to take the country back to the halcyon days of the 80's – the 1880s.

We’ve had two elections in a row in which the voters practically begged the Democratic Party to show some backbone. If Obama, Pelosi and Reid think the GOP base is in the mood to endorse any "post-partisan" solutions, they need to listen to some wingnut radio.

It’s getting nasty out there.

STFU

2008-12-10T14:58:00.011-05:00

I don’t know much about Rep. Donald A. Manzullo (R-IL), but I assume he gladly supported every irresponsible tax cut and disastrous piece of deregulation the Bush Regime inflicted on the American economy. I’m watching him now on C-SPAN grilling some poor bastard from Hank Paulson’s admittedly incompetent Treasury Department. The distinguished gentleman is grandstanding about an AIG executive who got a big bonus, insisting that the witness give him the kind of simple-minded, no-facts-required, constituent-stroking answer that his own lizard brain demands. It’s a disgusting spectacle indeed.

Calling H.L. Mencken!

Premature Wagon-Circling

2008-12-10T12:11:00.038-05:00

Josh Marshall and Will Bunch manage to get themselves all worked up over an extremely benign New York Times story that dares speak of Barack Obama’s career in Chicago politics. Bunch writes:

Most people run for office in THE CITY WHERE THEY LIVE--that caused Obama to cross paths with an interesting cast of characters, but in the case of Rod Blagojevich, it seems like once he took the measure of the man he didn't want much to do with him. He had little to do with Blago after 2006, didn't even ask him to speak at the Dem convention in 2008, and his people didn't give the governor the time of day regarding his recent Senate machinations. Obama mostly kept their "murky" world at arm's length, which is a reason why he is president-elect and why the notion that a machine hack like Blagojevich could even think about running for president in 2016 is almost proof of his insanity. [Emphasis added.]

The title of Bunch’s blog post–"Obama’s support of ethics reform is good news for the GOP"–is a ludicrously snarky distortion of an article that simply notes the unsavory political milieu that nurtured Young Obama. (One of the "interesting characters" in Barack's career is slumlord Tony Rezko--the Zelig of Chicago scandals--who was his early sugar daddy and who helped him buy a house. Marshall and Bunch can cover their ears all they want, but these are simply facts, and they don't sound too good.)

When Obama decided to run for president, he began to distance himself from his sketchier Chicago associates. That was a wise and necessary decision, but it doesn't seem to be enough for his internet groupies, for whom there’s no body of water–be it Lake Michigan or the Potomac River–that Barack can’t walk across.

What’s the difference between the Marshalls of 2008 and Bush worshipers circa 2002? Not much that I can see.

Live-Blogging Hardball

2008-12-09T19:28:00.002-05:00

Chris Matthews is about to trash George W. Bush for his lack of accomplishments. How times have changed! He couldn't get enough of Dubya's manlinesss before Iraq turned to shit. Now he wants to be Mr. Democrat.

Do we really need this douchebag in the Senate? I think not.

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing

2008-12-06T19:46:00.054-05:00

Eric Alterman writes:

Barack Obama's election to the presidency is the greatest electoral moment of my lifetime and unless you were around in 1932--or perhaps 1860--yours too.

Thank you, Nostradamus. I certainly hope Obama is another FDR. We need him to be. But it might be wise to reserve judgment until he does something worth a damn.

Alterman continues:

Listen, people, Obama will disappoint us. That's part of the job description. But somehow, our nutty political system has produced a president who is to politics what Duke Ellington was to an orchestra and a recording studio, what Muhammad Ali was to a boxing ring (and an empty microphone) and what Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band still are to 80,000 people in a football stadium. How wonderful to have our faith in the very idea of hope fully restored in this way, following eight years of full-throated fearmongering in the service of nothing but cronyism, corruption, ignorance and arrogance. How empowering to learn that the Bush/neocon vision of America has been signed, sealed and delivered to the ash heap of history.

No, no, no, no, no! This is embarrassing and an insult to Messrs. Ellington, Ali, Springsteen and Stevie Wonder.

Look, I’m as happy as the next bloke to be rid of Bush, but after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, I think I might have beaten McCain. And I don’t like Obama’s speeches. They don’t inspire me and I think they’re fake. So sue me. (Here’s the guy who writes them. Nice, huh? Boys will be boys, especially in Hope Town. Would Hillary Clinton’s top speechwriter still have his job were he to be seen on Facebook copping a feel with a Michelle Obama cutout? The question answers itself.)

In the rest of his column, Alterman takes to task tired Washington hacks like Richard Cohen and Mark Halperin for being mean to Barack. Big deal. I’m more concerned that as president, Obama will decide it’s in his own interest to suck up to them.

Why shouldn’t he? He promised the media he'd be post-partisan. And he had the left at "Hello."

Obamabots Are Easy, Negotiating Is Hard

2008-12-06T17:33:00.012-05:00

Tom Daschle gives a vague speech linking health care reform to a strong economy, and Greg Sargent falls into a swoon. Really now, Greg–what did you expect him to say? Talk is cheap.

Let's climb into Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine, shall we? When George W. Bush first proposed his disastrous $1.3 trillion tax cut in 2001, the then-Senate Majority Leader did everything but fetch him his pipe and slippers. Daschle's opening offer was $900 billion!

Universal health care really is important. Unfortunately, a lot of people will want to drown it in the bathtub.

Maybe Shatner can give Bashful Tom some pointers on playing hardball.

Bottom Of The Barrel

2008-11-30T18:35:00.016-05:00

Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) are on FOX News Sunday today defending the views of their respective parties.

Can you say mediocrity?

No wonder it's hard to get anything worthwhile through the Senate. These people are absolutely painful to watch. And they're going to be the centrist mediators in Obama Land!

I need some of that hope juice.

The Axelrod Supremacy

2008-11-26T08:38:00.021-05:00

David Axelrod is a lobbyist and an apparatchik in the Chicago Democratic Machine. Neither of those vocations particularly qualify him to assist Barack Obama in improving the lives of the American people. Even worse, Axelrod is Obama’s Karl Rove. Period. Here’s what he said to Chris Wallace this week:

Look, I — I've never — I've never accepted that — that comparison. I — my role with Barack Obama for the last six years has been to help the communications operation impart his message, his values and his vision to the American people. And I expect to continue to do that.

And you know, my role is circumscribed to those responsibilities. I'm not trying to rebuild the Democratic Party or any of these other — I think Mr. Rove had quite an expansive portfolio. I think mine is very focused.

So Axelrod lacks the grandiose ambition of Rove. He’s just Obama’s message guy. Is that supposed to reassure us?

The media loves being spoon-fed its heroic tales (see Bush, George W.) To a large extent, "Barack Obama" is a public relations construct from the shop of David Axelrod, and it's been wildly successful. Cool, post-partisan No-Drama Obama. Change We Can Believe In. Is Axelrod anxious to reinvent the wheel in 2012? He wants Obama to ruffle no feathers. The pundits are watching.

Woe to the political consultant who thinks he can toy with the media at will. They don't mind being manipulated, as long as it's not too obvious.

Axelrod won't want to make his own job more difficult. Whenever President Obama considers actually taking bold action instead of just making a speech, he'll try to talk him out of it. And I don’t think his White House office is going to be down the hall by the men’s room.

Division Of Labor

2008-11-24T17:00:00.016-05:00

The idea that Barack Obama was some kind of foreign policy savant never made much sense. Obamabots liked to talk about the supposed relevance of his multicultural background, but that was just campaign fodder for the gullible. Bottom line: Obama has no experience in world affairs. (His post-convention "Grand Tour" doesn't count.) Besides, managing the nation’s complex web of international relationships demands the kind of attention to detail that is clearly not his strong suit. Like his role model Ronald Reagan, Obama is more symbol and salesman than executive. Fortunately, he seems to recognize his limitations.

As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton is well suited to take the lead in shaping and implementing the Administration’s foreign policy. And Obama is clearly aware of her political strength. He knows she can do her job without requiring the approval of bottom-feeders like Chris Matthews or hand-wringers like Joe Klein.

The media is not the friend of the people. As he concentrates on domestic policy, Obama needs to follow Hillary’s lead if he wants to be a successful president. Screw the pundits.

Past Time For Leadership

2008-11-21T08:23:00.005-05:00

This is getting ridiculous:

Washington continued to be gripped by the drama surrounding Mrs. Clinton’s fate and the possibility that Mr. Obama might bring his toughest rival for the Democratic presidential nomination into his cabinet. Mr. Obama’s advisers said the talks had gone well, but would not say if an agreement to avoid conflicts had been reached, as the Clinton camp has indicated.

Instead of feeding the media’s Clinton obsession by leaking stories about leaks, the Obama team needs to name a Secretary of Treasury and then put together the mother of all stimulus packages–something that President Obama can sign the day he takes office. They need to do it now.

Bush and Paulson have exhausted whatever limited credibility they may have had. There’s economic wreckage everywhere you look.

What is the Obama team waiting for?

Wanted: Serious People

2008-11-20T08:41:00.006-05:00

Incompetent and gutless as Reid and Pelosi are, not every Democratic failure in Congress is their fault. The players on the field have to take some of the blame.

I’ve watched countless hours of C-SPAN ‘s House and Senate coverage. When the Republicans were in charge, my general reaction was usually Just wait till WE get to run the place again! We’ll show them how it’s done!

Now that the state of the union is a little dicey, and effective legislators are in demand as never before, things look different. Although rank-and-file Democrats aren’t saddled–like Republicans--with having to defend a completely discredited politico-economic ideology, few seem ready to provide alternative solutions. Indeed, some of them are just as small-minded, parochial, and poorly informed as the most risibly idiotic wingnut. And can we please do away with the five-minute opening statements preceding House committee hearings? The Congressional dumbness level would be instantly lowered, and they could cut down on bathroom breaks.

The coaches are responsible for only so much. It’s time for the players to step it up.

Designated Scapegoat

2008-11-19T18:54:00.014-05:00

In 1996, after his tabloid toe-sucking got him booted from the Clinton inner circle, Dick Morris decided to market himself as an expert on Hillary. The result hasn’t been pretty. Morris’s unbelievably dishonest interviews and increasingly ridiculous books (remember Condi Vs. Hillary?) have given wingnuts some of the red meat they crave, but for people keeping score, no pundit this side of Bill Kristol has such a lousy record. Going to Dick Morris for insight into the Clintons is like asking George W. Bush for advice on oil drilling.

But that’s plenty good enough for today’s MSNBC. This afternoon one of their anchors cited a typically hysterical post from The Toe Sucker's blog which postulated that a Machiavellian Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her equally amoral mate would do nothing but "undermine" the hapless President Obama at every turn.

Get used to this, folks, if Hillary takes the job. It’s an irresistible media twofer. They get to recycle their old Clinton-hating material even as they protect Obama by blaming his failures on an implacable enemy within.

The Media Borg is going to print and say whatever fits their chosen narrative. The template is already in place.

Clinton in the Cabinet

2008-11-17T19:20:00.039-05:00

Descend, dear reader, into the sewer that is the psyche of Maureen Dowd. (I myself no longer have the stomach for such an undertaking, so I've merely glanced at her latest dropping.)

Are you finished yet?

Of course it’s the same old crap! The mainstream media (and Ms. Dowd is its lodestar) is simply incapable of dealing intelligently with the Clintons. The stained blue dress is never far from their thoughts. And one of the iron truths of life is that journalism only gets worse. It’s going to stink more tomorrow than it does today, and so on. (Some form of Gresham’s Law seems to apply.) Best to ignore it.

So--what about the new media? Well, the boys at Open Left have been contemplating the prospect of Hillary at Foggy Bottom, and some of them are none too happy. Here’s a comment:

I'm Batshit Crazy over this. This is a nightmare. If I wanted Hillary in control of FP, I would not have busted my ass supporting Richardson, then Obama in the Primaries. Unless someone wants to convince me that it was entirely political posturing that Hillary has refused til the bitter end to apologize for her Iraq war support, I have no option other to conclude that she does in her heart feel that she made the right decision and that if she had to do it over again, would do the exact same thing. I guess you might argue that Obama is the only one truly in control and she won't do anything he doesn't want her to do, but I am severely worried about this. I do not want Hillary going rogue all over Obama's foreign policy. I don't want her any where near it. Seriously, what have Richardson and Clark done to deserve getting smacked around like this. Seriously, WTF? –supag32

This is a bit much for Chris Bowers, who responds, with Olympian detachment:

I don't care about the Clinton vs. Obama battle anymore. I can't even believe some people are still living through it. I care about the progressive vs. centrist struggle, and that is not, and never has been, the same thing as Obama vs. Clinton.

Uh, Chris . . . Have you ever read your own fucking blog? Before the election, you and Matt Stoller told us that because of her vote on the war, Hillary Clinton was little better than Dick Cheney. Only Barack Obama had the necessary vision to transform our foreign policy into something Samantha Power could endorse. Now you’re saying it’s okay for Hillary and her shitty judgment to help shape our future? WTF, indeed! (Don’t even get me started on Joe Biden. He used to be beyond the pale, too.)

I happen to greatly prefer Hillary’s judgment to Barack’s, but I must say I share some of supag32's confusion. We’re both trying to figure out what Obama actually stands for, once the votes are counted.

Don't Do It, Hillary!

2008-11-14T20:03:00.004-05:00

Anybody with half a brain can see that Obama's Secretary of State offer is just a way to get you off his back as he gradually scuttles universal health care. (Of course, I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks if you decide to take the job.)

Live-Blogging Hardball

2008-11-11T19:46:00.004-05:00

Chris Matthews--Bush voter, Clinton-hater emeritus, prospective Democratic candidate for Arlen Specter's Senate seat--is trashing Republicans big-time. Ron Christie feels his wrath. Yet, I'm feeling no love for Tweety.

Is this the new ObamaCrat Party? I hope not. Chris Matthews should be no more welcome than Joe Lieberman.

Barack will probably see it differently, considering NBC's role in the Clinton takedown .

We Stand For Anything

2008-11-10T19:34:00.007-05:00

Somebody needs to explain why it’s so scary-hard to kick Joseph L. ("Joementum") Lieberman out of the Democratic caucus:

President-elect Barack Obama has informed party officials that he wants Joe Lieberman to continue caucusing with the Democrats in the 111th Congress, Senate aides tell the Huffington Post.

Obama's decision could tie the hands of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has been negotiating to remove Lieberman as chair of the Homeland Security and Government Reform committee while keeping him within the caucus. Lieberman has insisted that he will split from the Democrats if his homeland security position is stripped.

No wonder the public views Washington Democrats as worthless and weak. They are! Lieberman campaigns against their own nominee and they negotiate with him.

The sad fact is that Obama and Reid are afraid of Joementum’s constituency. No, I don’t mean the "Connecticut For Lieberman" Party. I mean the Republicans and the Beltway pundits. They might question Barack’s bipartisan credentials.

Pathetic.

Do They Still believe In The Easter Bunny, Too?

2008-11-07T23:00:00.010-05:00

Matt Stoller is all upset about Rahm Emmanuel:

So get ready to be kicked in the face, which progressives have clearly argued is why Rahm is the ideal pick, ushering in a new spirit of take-no-prisoners Democrats. He'll also effectively protect Obama from attacks from the right, since they'll be way too scared of him to mention Emanuel's tenure on the board of Freddie Mac.

Stoller is also mad at MyDD, Daily Kos, and uber-Obamabot Josh Marshall (see links). Nothing to see here, they all say. Barack knows best.

Matt's right to be concerned, but not because of Rahm. Obama telegraphed this move months ago. It wasn't hard to see it coming.

Liberal Obamabots are like those frogs in a pan of cold water. Eventually they get boiled alive, and they won't even know it. (The comments to Stoller's post are hilarious.)

No Spores For Me!

2008-11-06T05:53:00.029-05:00

Hanging from a tree limb above Jill Ireland sure looks like fun, but I'm going to resist getting myself spored into Paradise.

Instead, I’ll boldly go where no Obamatron has ever gone–to the Planet of Skepticism. . . .

Beam me up, Scotty!

President-Elect Obama

2008-11-05T14:50:00.022-05:00

Not having drunk deep of the Trancendental Kool-Aid, I can’t share in the euphoria of his supporters, but I am happy the country won't have to endure another Republican administration. But that’s about as hopeful as I can get, until he shows me something more.

One request, Senator: Don’t be afraid to make a few enemies in the media. (They’re not on anybody’s side but their own.) It will be a painful new experience, but one that's essential to your self-actualization.

Toxic Endorsements: How I Voted

2008-11-04T18:24:00.031-05:00

I started out this election cycle as a strong supporter of Al Gore and didn’t begin looking seriously at other presidential candidates until fairly late in the process. Barack Obama then seemed (and still seems now) to be the least qualified of the bunch. Indeed, the entire rationale for his candidacy (before the hype metastasized into inevitability) centered around two speeches.

I wasn’t a fan of Obama’s 2004 address at the Democratic Convention. I remember thinking at the time–What did he just say? It sounded nice, I guess, but something was missing. Content, maybe. But everyone said it was great. He inspires people. Little did I know that one day it would be deemed a character flaw not to feel a thrill up your leg at the sound of his voice.

Then there was Obama's mysterious antiwar speech of 2003. The one delivered--quite uncourageously--in a hotbed of Chicago liberalism. The one followed by zero action. I didn’t like that one, either.

As the campaign went on, it became clear that we were going to have to choose between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Although their positions on issues were broadly similar, I found Clinton’s approach–particularly on health care–to be significantly bolder than Obama's, yet somehow more grounded in reality. She seemed to possess the courage and deep experience required to actually change things rather than just talk about them. Obama–to my knowledge–has never fought for anything not directly related to his own career advancement. Barring the creation of a more exalted position ("Supremely Grand Potentate Of The Galaxy"), I expect Barack’s presidential re-election effort to begin tomorrow.

In the battle for the nomination, the best person lost. But I’ve been voting for weak Democrats my whole life. Why should this time be any different?

Because–in the apocryphal words of Winston Churchill–there are some things up with which I will not put.

One of those things is a candidate stoking the fires of racism to win an election, which I believe Obama did when his back was against the wall in South Carolina. (Sean Wilentz bravely documented this outrage in the pages of The New Republic. He’ll be paying the price for years to come.) Not only was it a despicable course of action on its face, but it told me that, for Obama, nothing was more important than being president. That’s not change I can believe in.

Another is this.

Finally, and most importantly, I cannot vote for the nominee of my party when I believe that its selection process was rotten to the core. At some point, the powers that be–from Howard Dean to Nancy Pelosi to the corporate media–decreed that Barack Obama was going to win. The candidate who got the most votes was purposely denied a shot at the nomination by party bosses who manipulated the Michigan/Florida fiasco until it was safe to award undeserved delegates to Obama. I’m not voting for their hand-picked candidate. These are the people who have been more than happy to let George W. Bush run this country into the ground for eight years. I don’t trust them.

I can’t vote for Obama. I can’t vote for McCain. I did vote for the Democratic House candidate in my district–but not on the Democratic line. The party doesn't deserve it.

We’ll see how things look in two years.

Getting In Their Last Digs

2008-11-01T18:06:00.016-04:00

Matt Taibbi–the poor man’s, poor man’s, poor man’s Hunter S. Thompson--offers some "Campaign Memories" to an indifferent world in the current issue of Rolling Stone. No surprises here--Hillary Clinton is still a scheming monster, and John McCain sat on her lap learning how to fight dirty:

But when push came to shove, both politicians went completely Tonya Harding on Barack Obama. In an April debate in Philadelphia, the same Hillary who spent her husband's presidency unfairly bashed as a Marxist pariah squawked about Obama's relationship to Bill Ayers, pointing out that Ayers said on 9/11 he wished he had "done more." Months later, McCain said the same thing, wailing about how Ayers wished he had "bombed more." From Jeremiah Wright, to Obama's supposed vote for graphic sex ed for kindergartners, to the photos of Obama in Muslim garb Hillary's camp reportedly sent to the Drudge Report, to the "scandalous" information about Obama Bob Novak claimed the Hillary camp was holding, to Obama's connections to ACORN, to the constant lies and innuendo about Obama being a Muslim (he isn't, "as far as I know," Hillary told 60 Minutes), the Clinton and McCain campaigns were one long, unabashed, scorched-earth attempt at character assassination.

Here we go:

1) The Drudge story is a lie. 2) The Novak, ACORN, and sex ed stories have nothing to do with Hillary, and are just cheap, lazy-ass smears. 3) Barack Obama himself threw Jeremiah Wright under the bus, but not before dispatching his minions to excoriate Clinton for saying she would have left that church long ago. 4) Bill Ayers? Well, if Hillary Clinton is responsible for every syllable that comes out of Geraldine Ferraro’s mouth, I think it’s fair to ask Obama to comment on the behavior of his sketchier associates--particularly when they’ve blown stuff up! 5) Ah, the 60 Minutes distortion. Watch the video here. Steve Kroft asks Clinton three times if she thinks Obama is a Muslim, and the third time she finally uses the phrase, "as far as I know." (She looks like she’ll say anything to get Kroft to shut up. And since when does Hillary have to be an expert on Barack’s religious life?)

Nobody expects much journalism from Rolling Stone. (By the way, take a look at the current issue–it’s shrunk to the size of Entertainment Weekly.) And I wouldn’t be surprised if the next person to buy a copy of Matt Taibbi’s latest book is also the first. (I know a bit about these matters. Sales of The Great Derangement have been . . . less than brisk.) But Taibbi shows us that the newest new journalism can suck just as bad as the old stuff–and be just as dishonest.

Clinton/Obama

2008-10-31T19:26:00.009-04:00

That ticket--despite the howls of protest we would have heard from Keith Olbermann, Maureen Dowd and the usual gang of idiots--might have been transformational.

Instead, we have Barack Obama and Joe Biden crossing the finish line on a hope and a prayer.

There'd better be a lot of strong Democrats elected in 2008. We'll need every last one of them.

Why Do You Think They're Called Obamabots?

2008-10-30T16:46:00.009-04:00

Howard Fineman surely knows better than this:

It is eerily quiet at Barack Obama's headquarters, an open expanse that takes up the entire 11th floor of an office tower in Chicago's Loop. It's nearly as silent as a study hall, which is appropriate, since most of the 20- or 30-somethings in it wear jeans and T shirts. They could be working on their Ph.D.s or at a high-tech startup.

Yet, as unassuming as it seems, this is the engine room of a novel grass-roots machine that may soon have another purpose: to help Obama govern the country. If he wins, it also could cause him headaches: if you live by viral marketing, you can die by it, too. "His supporters have sky-high expectations and expect to be involved," says Will Marshall, who studied the Obama organization for the Democratic Leadership Council. "They are loyal but not easy to control." (emphasis added)

No comment necessary, but thanks to Riverdaughter.

Men of Words

2008-10-27T16:23:00.020-04:00

Michael Chabon at the Democratic Convention:

But I still had not heard what I had come to hear, what we had all come to hear, the speech of a lifetime (to date) by the greatest orator of his generation. One of the things that had served to discourage me over the course of the primary season was a general acceptance of the premise that oratory was a specious, feckless, inherently untrustworthy art. The Obama camp would rightly dispute the charge of offering only "pretty words," but they never seemed to argue the larger truth: that ultimately words were all we had; that writing and oratory, argument and persuasion, were the root of democracy; that words can kill, or save us; something along those lines. "You can only say what you can first imagine," as I heard Tobias Wolff (the short-story master, not the Obama campaign adviser) explain to a group of people at an Obama fund-raiser. It was a mark of Obama's fitness to lead, to me at least, that he possessed sufficient natural reserves of imagination to kick oratorical ass.

I don’t know if Barack Obama is "the greatest orator of his generation" (who’s the second greatest?), but I do know that Michael Chabon can't have been following the primaries very closely if he thinks Obama's speaking skills got disrespected. (My God, hasn't the man ever watched MSNBC?)

But the real problem with novelists writing about politics is that they get things backwards. In the eyes of history, "kicking oratorical ass" won’t mean a damn thing--might not even get you anthologized--unless you leave us with something besides your speeches.

Hillary Clinton was called a racist by the Obama Machine for daring to suggest that Lyndon Johnson deserved some credit for passing the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1960's. But she was correct. And what’s truly specious is people like Chabon attempting to equate Obama’s campaign rhetoric with the words of Lincoln or Martin Luther King. He hasn’t exactly earned it.

The Burner/Stoller Files

2008-10-23T16:52:00.060-04:00

Darcy Burner, a very fine Democratic candidate for Congress in Washington State, is in some hot water. The Seattle Times has published an article disputing her assertion that she "got a degree" in economics from Harvard. Although the evidence is a bit murky, it’s quite reasonable to conclude that her claim is a stretch. Not a huge deal, but probably something she wishes she could undo.

Well! The Harvard blogger boys will have none of that. They’ve scooted off to their keyboards to defend this fair damsel from Seattle's journalistic evildoers. The Matt Brothers–Stoller and Yglesias–use up a lot of bandwidth and throw down a lot of words, but damned if I know exactly what they’re talking about.

As near as I can tell, I guess, Darcy's economics "degree" hinges on her having written a thesis joining her "major" and her "minor" (or whatever it is they call those things in Cambridge). It's not clear to me that she actually wrote such a thesis, but then, I don’t really care that much. And Darcy Burner needs to cut her losses.

Look, I understand the importance of pushing back on the media, but professional bloggers need to stop mainlining their own spin. Sure, Darcy took courses in economics, but in the political world, you aren't going to be able to pass that off as earning a degree. Not when it takes multiple paragraphs to explain it all. That’s just the way it is, boys.

The outrage from the Matts is all very ridiculous and all very tribal–Samantha Power writ small.

UPDATE 1: Stoller's latest post on this topic includes (in the comments) the following email from the reporter in question:

Thanks for your note. Even Darcy Burner doesn't claim that she actually has a degree in economics. I wasn't hasty. I spent quite a bit of time yesterday talking to officials at Harvard about Burner's degree, and they all agreed she does not have a degree in economics. So for me, it comes down to the claim Darcy Burner made in her debates, which you can see on the video. Did she claim to have a degree in economics? Yes. Does she have one? No.

Reasonable people can disagree about the way we played the story or the way I wrote it, but in the context of the national economic crisis, the way Burner characterizes her expertise in economics matters. That's why I wrote the story.
I hope that's helpful.
Emily Heffter Seattle Times

If the liberal blogs aren't careful, they're going to start losing credibility.

UPDATE 2: Some people still can't accept the fact that Darcy doesn't have an economics degree. Matt, Matt, Matt. . .She may be the intellectual heir of John Kenneth Galbraith, but she doesn't have a degree, even though she said she did. What's the big deal? She's a great candidate and deserves to win. (I may have to re-register at Open Left to point this out, just so they can kick me out again. A badge of honor, these days.)

1952 . . . . 2012

2008-10-22T10:04:00.021-04:00

Introducing . . . the next Republican ticket.

Minnesota Viking

2008-10-22T07:49:00.017-04:00

If there’s one candidate who deserves to be elected this year, it’s Al Franken. Over the last decade, no Democrat has done more for the cause. His literary efforts to inject some steel into the flaccid spines of our leaders in Washington may have proven insufficient, but fans of his Air America show will tell you that he’s exactly what the Senate needs right now. He’s the Democratic Anti-Obama. He knows why he’s running for public office, and it's not because he wants to "change the tone" or "transcend politics." (Hard to believe, but he really doesn't think this election is all about his own wonderfulness.)

When Harry Reid and his hand-picked President come to Senator Franken and tell him what watered-down piece of legislation he needs to support, he’s going to do the right thing--and he’d better. We’ve got enough Claire McCaskills.

Decisions, Decisions

2008-10-21T09:27:00.006-04:00

Open this in a new window. It’s a good, non-hysterical list of reasons why a Democrat might not want to vote for Barack Obama.

Comments:

1. The real problem is how easily Obama jettisons his allies when they become inconvenient. His quiet resignation from Trinity Church on a Saturday night was about as chickenshit a move as a politician can make. He got away with it, though. The media sent his Philadelphia speech on race–the one compared to Lincoln’s Second Inaugural–straight down the memory hole.

2. Disagree.

3. Absolutely. Especially egregious was his refusal to provide leadership on Iraq.

4. Mostly true. It’s not so much that he hasn’t accomplished a great deal. It’s that he hasn’t really tried very hard.

5. Not quite accurate. They’re both pretty arrogant, but Obama could use a little of Bush’s stubbornness. With Barack, pretty much everything is on the table. Scary.

6. A little sleazy, but not a deal-breaker. It might tarnish his halo if the media pursued it, which they won’t.

7. Ditto.

8. This is the big one, and it speaks to something rotten in the Democratic leadership. (I would also note Obama’s willingness to play the race card during the primaries. I have a real problem with that).

9. Disagree. Way over the top.

10. Decent propaganda video. Par for the course this election season.

Two weeks to go.

More Powell

2008-10-20T08:36:00.015-04:00

On Obama and world affairs:

I have watched him over the last two years as he has educated himself, as he has become very familiar with these issues. He speaks authoritatively. He speaks with great opposition into the challenges we're facing of a military and political and economic nature. And he is surrounding himself, I'm confident, with people who'll be able to give him the expertise that he, at the moment, does not have. And so I have watched an individual who has intellectual vigor and who dives deeply into issues and approaches issues with a very, very steady hand. And so I'm confident that he will be ready to take on these challenges on January 21st.

If that’s supposed to reassure me, it’s not working. I’ll grant that Obama is good at speaking (with a teleprompter), is probably okay at thinking, and damn well better be great at staffing. It’s leading that I wonder about.

Back before it became a complete waste of time, I used to venture onto the liberal blogs and ask a simple question: In the years since he gave his now-celebrated antiwar speech in 2002, what has Barack Obama actually done to bring an end to the conflict in Iraq? This struck me as a legitimate line of inquiry, since Obama was using his early opposition to the war to bludgeon his Democratic rivals and to trumpet his own superior "judgment." I would invariably receive in response a fusillade of insults, along with numerous references to Hillary Clinton’s AUMF vote, but as for an answer to my question–

Crickets. I’m still waiting.

Powell Doctrine

2008-10-19T11:11:00.003-04:00

The pipsqueaks I referenced in the previous post are doubtless having one of their weekly conniptions, but Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama this morning was about as good as it gets. I don’t quite share his assessment of the man’s character and judgment, but he made a persuasive case nonetheless.

Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon liked to talk about the importance of standing in the arena, and they weren’t wrong. Powell has been there, even if Obama hasn’t. (I refuse to count running for president as qualifying experience.) He deserves to be listened to.

Der Kommissars

2008-10-18T13:53:00.002-04:00

No wonder they never get anything done. Does everything always have to be Armageddon?

Gods and Monsters

2008-10-18T10:20:00.017-04:00

I would never vote for John McCain or any other Republican (except maybe Schwarzenegger, because–well, he’s Arnold.) And his campaign certainly has taken a nasty turn lately. But the Obamasphere is truly sounding like the Shrillosphere, and I’m not sure that's helpful to anybody.

Even garden-variety cases of Republican hardball are now cast by Obamabots as shocking evidence that John McCain isn’t fit to walk the earth, let alone serve as president. (Obama’s internet minions remind me of the attendees at Saddam Hussein’s old Baath Party meetings, each trying to out-loyal the other before they’re all taken out and shot.)

The deification of Barack Obama began in earnest with the simultaneous demonization of Hillary Clinton. When she was finally vanquished, there was much rejoicing, only to be replaced by widespread doubting of the faith as Obama made a sharp right turn. But soon, with wondrous fury, the flock came to focus its wrath on the Republican Satan, and the Holy War resumed.

Always unmentioned, of course, are the methods used by the Master to get where his is today. I will never forget the reprehensible racial politics he employed so effectively in South Carolina and beyond. It’s still 50/50 whether he gets my vote.

There’s a lot of truth in comparing Daily Kos to Free Republic. They both can be pretty vile. And I'm sure that that if Obama were losing badly, we’d see lots of really bad stuff.

Maybe even this bad.

On Biting The Hand That Feeds You

2008-10-17T17:54:00.010-04:00

Paul Krugman today:

What we need right now is more government spending — but when Mr. McCain was asked in one of the debates how he would deal with the economic crisis, he answered: "Well, the first thing we have to do is get spending under control."

If Barack Obama becomes president, he won’t have the same knee-jerk opposition to spending. But he will face a chorus of inside-the-Beltway types telling him that he has to be responsible, that the big deficits the government will run next year if it does the right thing are unacceptable.

He should ignore that chorus. The responsible thing, right now, is to give the economy the help it needs. Now is not the time to worry about the deficit.

Krugman doesn’t say so, but based on his writing during the primaries (when his skepticism about Obama caused so many true-believing heads to explode in the liberal blogosphere), I’ll bet he’s worried about Barack’s presidential backbone--and with good reason.

For the last year, Obama has grown accustomed to receiving media treatment so soft and fuzzy that even Saturday Night Live took note. Do you really think he’s eager to start living without it?

The Sunday Morning Bloviators are going to decree that 2009 is the year for all good Americans to tighten their cheap plastic belts. Deficit spending and universal health care are out. Hair shirts and penny pinching are in.

Nothing will piss off the media more than a new president who doesn’t do as he’s told. After all we've done for you, young man. . .

The End of the Beginning

2008-10-16T17:22:00.056-04:00

The presidential debates can now assume their place in the annals of bad history. Barack Obama did what he needed to do last night, while John McCain came up short. We’re going to get a Democrat in the White House next year, thanks largely to the greed and incompetence of the Wall Street/Washington Nexus.

For Obama, the market meltdown has been both a blessing and a curse. The good news is that he’s likely to win the election by a comfortable margin, and the inevitable wingnut tales of "voter fraud" should pose no threat to his legitimacy. The bad news is that the magnitude and complexity of our economic troubles will make it difficult for him to control his own party's agenda.

It’s like this: The Republicans are about to get fired by the voters, and dire national straits have forced Obama to campaign on a laundry list of legislative proposals rather than on a spirited defense of his own dubious qualifications or on his pretty vision of a post-partisan America. That’s not how he and Axelrod planned things. "Change We Can Believe In" wasn’t merely a slogan. It was Obama's chief selling point and the source of much of his potential political power. Now it seems utterly trivial. He’s already deep in the weeds of policy, and there aren’t any good choices.

Obama’s presidential role model Ronald Reagan had it easy by comparison. He–like Bill Clinton--could point to a long track record of success as a governor. When he arrived in the White House, he was able to give the same speech every day–on cutting taxes and shrinking government–and then make things happen. Reagan could lead and others could follow.

Obama’s presidency will begin, in effect, with a grim post-election lame-duck session of Congress, starring Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, with Barack himself waiting in the wings to join them in January for Act Two. A troika for our times. . .

Ouch! It may behoove the president-elect to do some extended vacationing in Hawaii this November. Right, Axl?

(Cue gratuitous awesome video)

Why the Liberal Blogosphere Sucks

2008-10-12T21:26:00.004-04:00

Josh Marshall:

I've started giving serious thought to the high likelihood that Barack Obama is about to inherit this mess.

No sense rushing into things.

The Coming Obama/McConnell Regime

2008-10-12T17:51:00.014-04:00

Anglachel says:

What should be a celebratory election for me, the downfall of the Reaganauts, leaves me feeling angry and betrayed. The accidents of political and economic fate have brought us an anti-leader, someone who occupies a symbolic space without embodying the substance of what those symbols represent. I read people like Digby telling us that we have to settle for the importance of symbolism rather than actual substantive legislation and we should be fine with this, and I wonder how the the Left Blogosphere became more complacent than the DLC they revile so much. How is this different than being a Blue Dog Democrat? When did triangulation come back into vogue, except this time standing squarely on a party platform that holds rejection of partisan stances as its primary political purpose?

It's very strange. Barack Obama told us exactly how he planned to win the election, and exactly how he planned to govern, and he still locked up all the the liberals. To oppose him came to be seen as . . .unthinkable.

Perhaps Obama will change course. Perhaps he'll recognize that fate has handed him an opportunity to fulfill what started out as a mere campaign strategy.

Doesn't he need to find something to put in his next memoir?

A Port In The Storm

2008-10-10T16:41:00.032-04:00

FOX is still FOX. MSNBC is unwatchable. CNN is a bore. What’s left for the discriminating news junkie?

CNBC, my friends. The market meltdown has humbled them. Their financial experts have now joined the rest of us poor American slobs scrambling to make a buck, and--unlike Mika Brzezinski and Campbell Brown--they actually know what they’re talking about. Why should I subject myself to Chris Matthews acting out his personal issues on Hardball when a few clicks down the dial Dylan Ratigan is kicking ass and taking names on the economy? Throw in John Harwood, Maria Bartiromo, Rick Santelli–I’m hooked.

I’m going to continue to watch CNBC religiously until I figure out what the LIBOR rate is. That may take awhile.

The January Man

2008-10-09T20:26:00.025-04:00

Peggy Noonan appeared on Meet the Press this past Sunday to promote her new book, Patriotic Grace, a plaintive cry for bipartisanship aimed at an American populace battered senseless by eight years of Republican misrule. Such anodyne political products (Unity '08, anyone?) usually hit the marketplace with a thud (although Noonan’s effort may fare better by virtue of its brevity and its lucidly maudlin prose), but that never stops our Serious Pundits from insisting that The People are clamoring for Magical Consensus. It's the Holy Grail of Broderism and still a force to be reckoned with.

Of course, we never heard any urgent calls for bipartisanship when Michael Isikoff was conspiring with Linda Tripp to lay a perjury trap for Bill Clinton, or when Ari Fleischer was telling us that we had to watch what we say in a time of war, or when John Kerry was being swiftboated. That’s because the corporate media doesn’t find anything scary about Republicans controlling all the levers of power. (Will the nightmarish Bush-Cheney years alter their calculus?) A Democratic president in 2009 is going to have to resist a phalanx of journalists pressuring him to compromise away every progressive proposal he puts on the table.

On that score, I think Tom Watson misses the point:

Now, I know we're all supposed to be singing from the same hymnal on the left these days - the positive plans of the Obama-Biden juggernaut and all that , the change brand - but I'm breaking ranks. To this Democrat, used to suffering through disastrous election nights in the full knowledge that the results will further ruin his country, Obama's instinct to go for the vicious final punch, the head-snapping lights out political blow, is a thing of beauty.

He goes on to quote the great James Wolcott:

My rooting interest is less about Obama himself than about how big a hurt he can put to the Republican Party. I don't want the Republican Party simply defeated in November, I want to see it smashed beyond all recognition, in such wriggling, writhing, anguished disarray that it can barely reconstitute itself, so desperate for answers that it looks to Newt Gingrich for visionary guidance, his wisdom and insight providing the perfect cup of hemlock to finish off the conservative movement for good so that it can rot in the salted earth of memory unmissed and unmourned in toxic obscurity.

That’s a little strong for me, though I share his basic sentiment. But let's face it: Engaging in vicious electoral politics has never been difficult for Obama. Just ask Alice Palmer or Hillary Clinton. The problem is this: After November 5, John McCain, in all likelihood, will be history, and Barack Obama will have to lead the country. Only then will we find out what "bringing people together" means in Obamaspeak.

I’m not optimistic.

Leadership Vacuum

2008-10-08T13:50:00.005-04:00

Robotic "town hall" questioners set the tone for a tedious presidential debate that Barack Obama won by default. Age and a soul-killing political marriage to George W. Bush have made John McCain a shell of his old warrior-self. His stage presence, particularly at the start of the debate, was awkward. His attacks on his opponent’s character fell flat. And his best moment on policy came when he stole an idea from his erstwhile drinking buddy Hillary Clinton, the Banquo’s Ghost of this dismal campaign.

We can forgive the audience for still exhibiting numbness from the Wall Street meltdown, but presidents are supposed to be made of sterner stuff. It’s been nearly two weeks since their last debate, and neither candidate has elevated his game. Surely Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan would have found a way by now to tie their policy prescriptions to an overarching positive theme, but last night all we heard was a nearly rote repetition of what was said in Mississippi. I have often taken a dim view of Obama’s "hope" rhetoric, but now we might actually need some of it–or at least the markets do. But caution is Obama’s watchword: The economy is tanking under Republican rule . . . John McCain is a Republican . . . Don’t take chances!

(A final note on moderators: Is there some law saying that during every debate they must raise the spectre of an entitlement apocalypse? Is it due to the temporal proximity of Halloween? Do they always have to lump Social Security in with Medicare as if they were one program? Brokaw did it twice.)

Biden/Palin Debate

2008-10-02T23:35:00.010-04:00

Forget the bloggers who told us Sarah Palin had to look presidential. That’s not how it works. She just had to look vice-presidential. (How do you think Spiro Agnew and J. Danforth Quayle got elected?) By that standard, she hit a home run. She appeared confident, respectful of her opponent, and far more comfortable selling Republican economic snake oil than John McCain appeared last Friday. Above all, she exuded the dreaded "sunny optimism" that made Ronald Reagan so formidable. Joe Biden’s jackhammer pounding on McCain was effective in its own way–and much more truthful–but he was so damn gloomy that I found myself looking forward to Palin’s perky responses. Yes we can, Sarah!

Both candidates were extremely well-prepared, and Palin executed to perfection–with plenty of style points--the "Dubya Strategy" of never going off message. Gwen Ifill might as well have been a cardboard cutout.

Overall, I’d give a slight edge to Palin. Factoring in the low expectations, it was a substantal win. She’s certainly not a national embarrassment tonight.

The World According to Matt

2008-10-02T10:25:00.005-04:00

The usual suspects really need to get out more. They’re as clueless as ever. Despite having Paul Krugman and the vast majority of the people who actually know something warn that we’ll be in a world of hurt without this admittedly awful bailout bill, they’re keeping track of who’s been naughty or nice in the Senate. Byron Dorgan? Gold Star! Jim Webb? Sellout! And watch out, Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton–we’re going to primary challenge your sorry, right-wing asses! (I guess that means they’ll have to impeach Obama.)

The final tally was 74-25. So let’s hold off on the Medals of Valor for Wyden, Tester, et al. A "nay" vote is as close to a freebie as its gets. If the bill passes, they can say they had a better idea. If it fails to pass, and we have a depression, the House will get the blame. If it fails to pass, and the country muddles through, they’ll break their arms patting themselves on the back for saving the taxpayers $700 billion.

Nice work if you can get it.

Eleven Things That Are Probably True

2008-09-30T20:45:00.012-04:00

On a secret ballot, the bailout bill would have passed the House.

85% of House members read the bailout bill.

75% of House members comprehended the bill.

10% of House members never read any bills.

25% of House members gave no thought at all to the merits of the bill.

97% of House members–bill or no bill!-- believe their constituents are extremely fortunate to be represented by such as themselves.

The pusillanimity of Congressional Democrats during the Bush years has made it impossible for the public to take them seriously during a crisis.

On economic matters, responsible Republicans are almost extinct. "Free market" ideologues and the remnants of Delay’s K Street gang are fighting for control of the party.

A Democratic president who thinks he can pass good legislation by working closely with Republicans is misguided.

Members of Congress, for a period of one year, should refrain from making any public statements referencing the wholly imaginary legislative prowess of their colleagues. The following words and phrases are particularly grating in this context, and may not be used: stellar, outstanding, "reach across the aisle," tireless, thankless, bipartisan, nonpartisan, "through the wee hours," stalwart, extraordinary, "the American people," hard-working, "strong leadership of ____," stewards, "We’ll stay here as long as it takes," selfless, backbreaking, and yeoman.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is incompetent. She can’t count votes and she can’t give a good floor speech. Who’s next?

Mississippi Debate: Not Quite a Draw

2008-09-27T19:33:00.015-04:00

Barack Obama won.

For voters who watched only the first half-hour, it was a knockout. John McCain has yet to figure out how to fold his "reform" message into his economic message. It’s a mess. Last night, lacking the stomach to mount a vigorous defense of boneheaded Republican economic theory, he babbled on about earmarks so relentlessly that Obama finally had enough, pointing out that his opponent was obsessing about budgetary chump change. (It’s about time a Democrat took this tack. $18 billion? That’s it? Pork barrel spending is the price of representative democracy. I’d like to see more of it, if it would facilitate good legislation on the big stuff.)

When Lehrer turned to foreign policy, McCain evened things up by projecting strength and reminding voters of his experience. Obama looked presidential enough, but his mastery of the material almost worked against him. Fewer facts and more focus on the big picture would have been more effective. (But thankfully, we’re long past 2000, when the media spin-meisters decreed that Al Gore’s sighs and whispers trumped his intellectual qualifications. Eight years of watching Dubya govern by the seat of his running shorts has made intelligence acceptable again.)

I was glad to see Obama stand fairly strong when Lehrer pressed him on what he would sacrifice on the altar of the Big Bailout, but I would have rather he had said, essentially: Nothing, Jim. The Washington media is always looking for another Paul Tsongas. They won’t be satisfied until Social Security is privatized or gone. Let’s take a lesson from the Republicans. They never give an inch on their tax cut promises, no matter how many wars they start or budgets they bust. That’s why they’re the tax cut party. We need to stand on our solutions, not shrink from them.

I have a lot of problems with Barack Obama. I don’t like the way he obtained the Democratic nomination, and I have doubts about his commitment to fulfilling his promises. But he looked good last night.

I hope he thanks Hillary Clinton for the mortal combat she provided in the primaries. He wouldn’t have won the debate without her.

Step One

2008-09-23T19:07:00.015-04:00

As Barack Obama might say. . .Let's be clear.

The wingnut "free market" outrage over the Paulson/Bernanke bailout is 99% phony. Modern Republicans--having long ago abandoned Eisenhower's sensible capitulation to the New Deal--are oligarchs. It's not really their fault. That's just the price of admission to their party. Trickle-down now, trickle-down forever! Just service the people who do the trickling, and prosper!

Most Republicans are simply trying to bullshit their way through the current crisis so they can go back to business as usual--tax cuts, deregulation and corporate welfare. Democrats need to act accordingly.

Krisis Kids

2008-09-20T16:17:00.005-04:00

Bush, McCain, Obama. Is this the best we’ve got?

You know you’re in trouble when Dubya looks like the competent one. At least he was smart enough to stay in the gym and let Henry Paulson try to save capitalism.

Newly-minted populist avenger John McCain blustered his way across the stage like an angry-mad Lear, contradicting himself hourly and scaring the horses. Barack Obama gave us more of his tinny campaign rhetoric before finally posing--in fine "Where’s Waldo?" fashion--in a reunion tableau of Bill Clinton’s old economic advisers, saying nothing. (Wasn’t Obama supposed to have turned the page on Clintonism? Oh, never mind.)

Neither of these guys is ready to win a debate on the economy.

MSNBC: Emergency Executive Intervention!

2008-09-16T18:07:00.002-04:00

I was on vacation when Keith and Chris totally jumped the shark on Obama.

I defy anyone to watch more than ninety seconds of this.

Markos Moulitsas Gets Tough

2008-09-13T17:45:00.015-04:00

He helped take down Hillary, but that was just a warm-up. Now he’s itching to sink his brass knuckles into some soft Republican face-flesh.

I'm not about to revert to writing puff pieces about Obama thinking that his magic "new politics" bullshit will carry us to victory. He may or may not believe that crap, but I don't. We're going to win this thing the way campaigns are won -- by playing hardball. Politics is a blood sport. Republicans understand this and never flinch from flinging the shit. We won't win until we learn to fight back in kind. And I'm more than happy to get down in the mud with our friends on the Right so Obama doesn't have to.

Recent history vindicates the "tough and aggressive" path. We went toe to toe against Rove and his machine in 2006, and our math beat his. I have no doubt we're in for a two-peat this year, and it'll happen because we won't back off from exposing the GOP for the den of lies and corruption it has become.

Very gallant, Markos. There’s just one problem: 2006. Back then, I was with you every step of the way, and what did it get us? Nancy "9%" Pelosi.

The voters have since taken a dim view of Democratic spinelessness. They’re not going to elect a Milquetoast. (That's why McCain is one debate away from living in the White House.)

Obama will have to fight his own battles.

Live-Blogging Hardball: Same As It Ever Was

2008-09-11T17:12:00.006-04:00

Lest anyone think that a chastened Chris Matthews has decided to attempt serious journalism, take note of his gratuitous slamming of the Clintons for not supporting Obama to his satisfaction.

Matthews' crazy agenda will always come first on Hardball. Can't MSNBC find anybody better? His act is so 1998.

Wanted: Low Information Voters

2008-09-11T10:13:00.005-04:00

But it depends on what information they’re low on.

When Barack Obama was battling Hillary Clinton, a "low information voter" was defined by the media as either: a) a woman who liked Hillary, or b) a struggling member of the white working class who wasn’t satisfied with Obama’s rhetoric on the economy and was probably a racist anyway.

Meanwhile, Axelrod was coasting to victory by deploying his own army of low information voters. For the Obama campaign, the only essential information a voter needed was the recognition that Barack was the greatest change agent in human history. That was enough to make you respectable.

But now John McCain, in predictable Rovian fashion, has kneecapped Axelrod by going at Obama’s strength. He’s running as Change Agent Emeritus, and–so far–it’s working.

Obama’s response–when he’s not getting sidetracked with dumb attacks on Sarah Palin–is to roll up his sleeves and talk incessantly about what he’s going to do to make people’s lives better. I’m sure he’s sincere, but–to put it bluntly–he sucks at it. He comes across as the poor man’s Hillary Clinton.

My advice, Barack: Stick with what you’re good at. Put your jacket back on, round up an audience of true believers, and give the voters more "soaring rhetoric." Let Joe Biden and your other surrogates do the heavy lifting.

Allowing Republicans to dictate your strategy isn’t the way to win.

Sharing the Blame--Not!

2008-09-10T08:48:00.011-04:00

Digby writes:

For a time it was considered an act of heresy to even suggest that running a campaign purely on the basis of when you "came to Obama" might not hold up over the long haul. (And that's not to say that running the campaign on "the sisterhood of the traveling pantsuit" would have been any more successful ---the same problems existed for Clinton.) Democrats decided to take their shoe-in and turn it into a nail biter because they wanted a huge symbolic victory for either African Americans or women. I took pride in that --- it's a bold gamble. But I've never thought there wasn't a cost.

And I always felt that Democrats should have run hard against conservatism itself so that a majority of voters would reject the GOP brand no matter who was wearing it. Instead we saw airy campaigns rife with symbols of liberal progress and the promise of some new post partisan agreement that only one side had signed on to. Indeed, they have all spent way too much time for the last year extolling the other side, genuflecting to their icons and pretending that there was some national consensus that everyone wanted Democrats to stop their vicious partisanship --- when they hadn't lifted a finger. It's been maddening to watch.

Wrong. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been in the cross-hairs of the Republican Party for most of her adult life. She’s the most famous Democrat in the world! She couldn’t run a "post-partisan" campaign if she wanted to. That’s Obama’s contribution to the annals of Democratic stupidity.

Hillary did get tired of being called a racist by the Obama campaign and a bitch by the media, and she fought back with a little female solidarity. Barack might now be finding that useful had he been self-confident enough to put her on the ticket.

Lazy-Ass "I Told You So" Post

2008-09-08T05:48:00.017-04:00

No one knows what’s going to happen in November, but I wrote the following on another blog back in February:

Thus far, Barack Obama has been subjected to virtually no media scrutiny and--much more importantly--has been the target of no Republican attacks. It is therefore ludicrous to make any claims about his ability to defeat John McCain. It's like saying the Dolphins will beat the Patriots provided the Patriots don't take the field.

John McCain and Hillary Clinton have been around for a long time. They have rich, compelling and complicated biographies full of many successes and not a few failures. The public knows who they are. Democrats who think they can turn McCain into a flip-flopper or Hillary into Miss Congeniality are living in a fantasy land. A few things can be done at the margins, but these candidates cannot redefine each other. They will try, of course, but the public will soon tire of it. A McCain-Clinton race will end up being more about issues than personas. The Democrat will win that race.

Barack Obama's campaign was going nowhere until Obamamania spread throughout the land. There's a very good reason for this--when the spotlight was on him alone, he couldn't deliver. His paper-thin resume and lack of a coherent agenda made people wonder what all the fuss was about. Only when he became bathed in the reflected light of his supporters' adoration did he become viable. His campaign has now reached the stratosphere, but it's the political equivalent of a Ponzi scheme. It's fundamentally about nothing--by design.

Obamamania will weaken. The media and the Republicans are going to put the spotlight back on the candidate. He has defined his movement, but he has not defined himself. I don't know what he's going to come up with, but it had better be good.

Just for the record.

Taylor Marsh Chimes In

2008-09-07T17:23:00.012-04:00

Riding shotgun on the caboose of the Obama Train hasn’t jarred loose all of her smarts. She knows it’s time for the menfolk to help with the dishes:

Some say Hillary should step in. Not going to happen. It's why I've been writing the posts I have about Palin. There is no way Clinton is going to mix it up with a woman who has a fraction of the experience, gravitas, and years of political time put in. HRC will focus solely on McCain - Bush.

Palin is Biden's job. It comes with the added burden of schooling the press between now and the vice presidential debates on what a man can say to a woman when he's in a political dogfight with her. Right now, given what I've seen and read, it's doubtful Dems have a clue. Because Palin doesn't just represent some vice presidential nominee. McCain's team has hooked her to the future of the Republican Party itself and the base has bought in all the way.

Taylor’s right to be concerned. Joe Biden’s partisan gearbox has two positions: Overdrive (when he’s on the campaign trail) and Park (when he’s questioning Sam Alito).

Smash-up on Palin Street?

Sarah Palin's Sure-Fire "Gaffe Repellent" (Extra-Strength “DUBYA” Formula!)

2008-09-05T05:50:00.025-04:00

George W. Bush is the Michael Phelps of cluelessness, but have any of his idiotic statements ever landed him in hot water? No! And it’s all because he takes "staying on message" a lot more seriously than he takes the PDB.

Here's how it works:

Prior to any interrogatory situation, our President stocks his addled brainpan with about a dozen "answers," plus a few random quips and smart-sounding sentences. Subsequently, upon hearing a question, he quickly scans this Liliputian database and emits whatever pre-approved response seems appropriate. And though his dyslexia often scrambles his syntax (making him sound stupid), and his ignorance often causes him to choose an inappropriate response (making him sound incomprehensible), Bush’s strict adherence to a rigid system of message management makes it virtually impossible for him to "gaffe-out."

Extremely knowledgeable politicians like Joe Biden get cocky and get into trouble. Bill Clinton at the top of his game could wing it. Everybody else needs to buckle down. (Barack Obama has learned the value of staying on message. Early in the primaries he thought he could bullshit his way through anything. That got old quick. You haven’t you heard him declare war on Pakistan lately, have you?)

Nobody can compete with Bush when it comes to regurgitating his talking points. He is, after all the Decider, and, like Stephen Colbert, he’s proud of "thinking with his gut." (Words are a nuisance and of no importance.) But if Sarah Palin employs some variation of the Bush formula during her debate with Biden–and she really doesn’t have time to do much else--only Democrats will need to hold their breath.

Woman's Work

2008-09-04T14:48:00.011-04:00

Sarah Palin makes Axelrod nervous. TPM to the rescue!

Where's Hillary?

Well, she's--

Not on the ticket. Not asked to be on the ticket. Not vetted.

Not doing enough!

Meltdown

2008-09-04T08:45:00.012-04:00

Matt Stoller this morning:

This party is aroused by a raw primal screeching bitterness. I don't know if independents see Rudy's prime time speech like I see it, but what I see is a vicious white mob who laugh and sneer at people losing their homes in the name of small town American values and who hate community organizers standing up for those people.

If Stoller's candidate is going to make his experience as a community organizer the centerpiece of his resume, when the candidate himself is emphasizing the importance of overhauling our foreign policy, he'd better expect to get hammered.

The primaries are over. Deal with it.

As for "raw primal screeching bitterness," I guess Stoller doesn't read the comments on the Obama blogs.

Organizing and Governing

2008-09-03T09:11:00.014-04:00

For his most fervent acolytes, Barack Obama’s experience as a community organizer in Chicago is at the core of what makes him so special. But Republicans are likely to cast it as a waste of time:

"When I started organizing, I understood the idea of social change in a very abstract way," Obama told me last year. "It was to some extent informed by my years in Indonesia, seeing extreme poverty and disparities of wealth and understanding sort of in a dim way that life wasn’t fair and government had something to do with it. I understood the role that issues like race played and took inspiration from the civil-rights movement and what the student sit-ins had accomplished and the freedom rides.

"But I didn’t come out of a political family, didn’t have a history of activism in my family. So I understood these things in the abstract. When I went to Chicago, it was the first time that I had the opportunity to test out my ideas. And for the most part I would say I wasn’t wildly successful. The victories that we achieved were extraordinarily modest: you know, getting a job-training site set up or getting an after-school program for young people put in place."

So Obama went to law school and then began a political career during which he has never stopped anywhere long enough to accomplish very much. (It seems he’ll wait until he becomes all-powerful.) Much of the sound and fury emanating from Denver last week was designed to obscure a skimpy resume. He doesn’t need to bring attention to it now by dissing Sarah Palin for being mayor of a small town and governor of a big state. (Size matters. Just look at the map--very impressive on TV.)

And this is just stupid.

Dan Quayle was never taken seriously, but his boss, George H. W. Bush, had no trouble beating Michael Dukakis senseless. Sarah Palin may turn out to have problems, but if the Democrats aren’t careful, they’re going to get blamed for all the increasingly gratuitous piling-on by the media.

Alaskan folk heroes are made, not born.

Notes From Outside The Loop

2008-09-01T07:51:00.025-04:00

Massachusetts is no left-wing "People’s Republic." (It’s been a long time since Nixon/McGovern.) In the Commonwealth's radio landscape, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting Rush Limbaugh or some homegrown, faux-populist, Republican tool. Right-wing broadcasters are still a force to be reckoned with, particularly with Sarah Palin now on the scene to push their manly buttons. Expect the wingnuts to turn up the volume on the Attack Machine to "11" as the campaign gets hotter.

Barack Obama had a good convention (from the little I saw of it), but he remains very beatable. He needs to make this election entirely about John McCain’s unacceptability. When the afterglow of "Thursday Night in Denver" has faded, the transcendent awesomeness of Obama-as-Savior will only be observed from within the friendly confines of Keith Olbermann’s skull. It's going to be trench warfare in the real world.

Is Hillary Clinton off the media’s shit list? Though many who watched her amazing speech ended up feeling depressed that the best woman had lost–and lost unfairly!–the pundits were beside themselves with joy as they witnessed the spectacle of their favorite female punching bag shoveling dirt (at least temporarily) on her own uppity aspirations. If Obama goes down to McCain, it’s hard to imagine Chris Mathews and Company having the stomach to blame Hillary for it. (Bill, on the other hand . . . He’s still white trash, and he makes no secret of his contempt for his beltway betters.)

By traditional standards of what constitutes "experience," we now have two tiers of candidates: Biden/McCain and Obama/Palin. Democrats would be well advised to just leave Sarah alone. Let her make her own mistakes. And does Obama really want to see Joe Biden, of all people, have to help deconstruct her resume? Is there any chance that the venerable Gaffe Master can avoid wading hip-deep into the rancid stream of sexism that runs through the Democratic Establishment? (Obama's Blogger Boys are already there.)

John McCain was actually quite effective with Chris Wallace on Sunday. He’s using Sarah Palin to take the tarnish off his old maverick image--they'll run as the dynamic duo of change--and he might get away with it. On Friday, I was sure he'd trot out Romney so he could tap into the Mittster’s proven ability to sell Republican economic snake oil, but now I suspect that McCain might, at long last, have become disgusted by his own craven flip-flopping on Bush’s disastrous tax cuts. With Wallace, he kept mumbling his way through his "keep taxes low" pledge as if he knew he'd have to raise them. McCain is going to serve only one term. Perhaps, as part of his legacy, he wouldn’t mind restoring some fiscal sanity to the Republican Party. In any case, Democrats need to keep pounding him on economic fairness. He doesn’t want to talk about it.

Finally–is this guy a piece of work? He was ubiquitous during the Obama selection process touting the wisdom of the party elders. Now he just needs to get lost.

Uh-Oh

2008-08-18T06:51:00.005-04:00

The super-super-delegates are getting nervous. They want Obama to start acting more like Hillary:

“I particularly hope he strengthens his economic message — even Senator Obama can speak more clearly and specifically about the kitchen-table, bread-and-butter issues like high energy costs,” said Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio. “It’s fine to tell people about hope and change, but you have to have plenty of concrete, pragmatic ideas that bring hope and change to life.” Or, in the blunter words of Gov. Phil Bredesen, Democrat of Tennessee: “Instead of giving big speeches at big stadiums, he needs to give straight-up 10-word answers to people at Wal-Mart about how he would improve their lives.”

Be careful what you wish for. It’s a little late in the game for a makeover, and Barack won't look comfortable hiding his light under a bushel so he can drone on about farm policy. He'll just be prompting voters to ask themselves how a man with no previous accomplishments is going implement all his wonderful specifics.

If morphing himself into a compassionate wonk doesn't work, there's always Plan B. Ultimately, the candidate of hope and change may be forced to run a simple scorched-earth campaign portraying John McCain as an older, scarier George W. Bush.

Whatever it takes to win.

One Degree of Lieber-ation

2008-08-13T13:52:00.011-04:00

If McCain puts this douchebag on the ticket, I'll vote for Obama, if only to contribute in some small way to Joementum's third consecutive coast-to-coast smackdown.

On the flip side, nothing better illustrates Democratic spinelessness during the Bush years than the Party's treatment of Ned Lamont in 2006. As you'll recall, it was so important to Harry Reid and Company that the Senate not be deprived of Lieberman's wise counsel that they wouldn't lift a finger to help elect a real Democrat, even after Lamont won the Connecticut primary. (Barbara Boxer still has some explaining to do.)

No one--including Hillary Clinton--gets any props for this travesty, but Obama's behavior was too much even for Lord Kos. If Barack manages to get himself elected, I hope he doesn't look to the party leadership for continued guidance. The prospect of Obama, Reid, Dean and Pelosi marching arm-in-arm down the yellow brick road to take power is a bit nauseating.

Nothing Is Ever Barack's Fault, Part 217

2008-08-12T19:07:00.005-04:00

Hillary Clinton wanted no part of Mark Penn's suggestion that she attack Obama for being insufficiently All-American. Nevertheless, Greg Sargent writes:

The question, of course, is how does the idea that senior advisers and Hillary rejected Penn's approach square with the fact that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright (along with other associations) became such a big issue in the campaign? Ultimately the media broke the Wright story, though that hardly rules out the possibility that some Hillary advisers were partly responsible for making that happen.

When the Wright story broke, the Hillary camp was initially reticent about it for a time, until Hillary herself responded to a question at an edit board meeting by saying: "He would not have been my pastor."

Wrong answer, Hillary. You needed to have Barack's back at all times. Of course, now you'd have to throw Rev. Wright under your own bus. Oh, wait--

You don't have one, loser!

Edwards Fallout

2008-08-09T16:15:00.011-04:00

Josh Marshall sees big trouble ahead for John McCain:

Just as Bill Clinton's public undressing in the Lewinsky scandal led indirectly to the exposure of several high-profile Republican affairs, Edwards' revelation will inevitably put pressure on the press in general to scrutinize John McCain under something more searching than the JFK rules they've applied to date. I assure you that this dimension of the story occurred to every reporter even tangentially involved in reporting this race soon after the Edwards story hit yesterday afternoon.

Sexual misconduct alone won't take down a good politician. Two additional factors are usually required: hypocrisy and a skimpy record of accomplishment. Bill Clinton and Larry "Wide Stance" Craig lost a little dignity, but were able to survive; John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer became instant roadkill. If Josh and his press pals think they have something on McCain, they'd better come up with more than the Iseman Affair or a few gin-soaked tales of post-Vietnam debauchery. Unless a McCain sex scandal involves recent and egregiously irresponsible behavior or the pitter-patter of little (or even not-so-little!) feet, it will backfire on whoever tries to peddle it.

Few things are as loathsome as the spectacle of the media in full Moral Outrage Mode, but they're correct when they point out that Edwards' phoniness turned out to be genuine. We didn't really know the guy at all. That's why the Edwards "revelation," should it become lodged in the public consciousness, has the potential to damage Barack Obama. Obama, like Edwards, is fundamentally a mystery man with no accomplishments who is all about talk and image rather than character. (I'm not vouching for McCain, and I would never vote for him. I'm just saying I don't know who Obama is. That's his problem, not mine. He's running too early.)

PUMAs are having all the fun!

2008-08-04T18:46:00.005-04:00

By the end of her presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton was firing on all cylinders. She had jettisoned (too late!) the idiotic Mark Penn and was at last making a compelling case for herself. Even as a corrupt Democratic Party Establishment and a savagely gleeful media were evicting her from the race, her supporters were embracing and internalizing a vision of the country under her leadership. (They had already concluded that Barack Obama was an extremely weak candidate, both politically and substantively.)

Meanwhile, Obama himself seemed to have fallen under the influence of Mark Penn's evil twin. His campaign had essentially adopted the "inevitability" strategy that proved so catastrophic for Hillary. Loyal Obamabots (when they weren't trashing the Clintons) did little but pound away at the arcane details of the Delegate Math in an attempt to make Hillary go away. The strategy worked, but not without a cost.

Euphoric (if ungracious) in victory, Obama supporters looked forward to getting back to spreading their progressive message of Hope and Change to the broader electorate. Alas, Barack had other plans. In accordance with his "post-partisan" general election strategy, he immediately engaged in a frenzy of sellouts and flip-flops which, had they come from Hillary Clinton, would have led to her being tarred and feathered on the major blogs all the way to Denver.

Obamabots might have taken their medicine without complaint if their man's numbers had remained strong, but as they watched all traces of his Excellent European Adventure vanish into the polling ether, and as they now see John McCain's heretofore pitifully unfocused campaign come out of its stupor, they're beginning to get restless. Some have become supplicants:

. . .You stand today at the head of a movement that believes deeply in the change you have claimed as the mantle of your campaign. The millions who attend your rallies, donate to your campaign and visit your website are a powerful testament to this new movement’s energy and passion. . . .We recognize that compromise is necessary in any democracy. We understand that the pressures brought to bear on those seeking the highest office are intense. But retreating from the stands that have been the signature of your campaign will weaken the movement whose vigorous backing you need in order to win and then deliver the change you have promised.

(Can a sternly worded letter be far behind?)

Others are just grouchy:

So frankly, Obama should be blowing McCain out of the water. Congressional approval ratings are hovering at 9% and Bush is in the high twenties and has been for years, so this is a realigning period. That Obama is in the high forties and McCain is in the low forties seems to be leaving a lot of votes on the table. That might change, I'm not making an argument about what the campaign should or should not do, as they have a strategy and it's more important for them to execute their strategy effectively than to do what outsiders in the cheap seats think they should do. I'm just pointing out why it feels so awful for movement progressives.

Everybody's very polite, but clearly the thrill is gone, and it's not coming back. Obama supporters are looking at three months of trench warfare against the Republicans, and all they they can really talk about anymore is the awfulness of John McCain.

No wonder PUMAs get so many Obamabots into a lather. Quixotic as their cause may be, they don't have to fake anything.

Obama : Clinton : : Symbol : Wonk (I'll take the Wonk)

2008-07-31T10:18:00.009-04:00

Over at MyDD and TPM they're mad at Dana Milbank. They think he's quoting Obama out of context when he writes:

Inside, according to a witness, he told the House members, "This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for," adding: "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."

The full context, according to the blogger boys, should have included the following:

A Dem leadership aide who was in the room has emailed me and other reporters this: "His entire point of that riff was that the campaign IS NOT about him. The Post left out the important first half of the sentence, which was something along the lines of: 'It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol ... ."

That's the context that's supposed to make Obama look humble? He's informing an audience of Congress Critters that even though millions of people see him as the symbol of American Greatness, it's not really about Barack at all! It reminds me of the old line about the egotistical Hollywood actor who says, "But enough about me. What do you think of me?" He's not fooling anyone.

Barack Obama is no less arrogant than George W. Bush. After 9/11, Bush was able to make his particular brand of arrogance work for him politically. It's doubtful that Obama can pull that off, but the real problem is not his abundant self-esteem, it's his view of himself as a "symbol." In this, he is absolutely correct, and it's the reason he will be a weak president.

Bill and Hillary Clinton are not symbols. They are policy wonks with out-sized public personalities who can survive--and sometimes thrive--without the help of the corporate media. Obama's political strength derives from his exploitation of a cool, carefully constructed and strangely impersonal image as a unifying symbol of hope. Under no circumstances may he allow that image to be tarnished, which is why he will never engage in any serious battles with forces on the right. He'll cave if he has to.

That's why he's so hard to pin down on substance.

Another Nervous Nellie in Obama Land

2008-07-25T17:40:00.018-04:00

Remember when the Netroots told us that Barack walked on water and Hillary was pond scum? Well, it turns out she might have to be on the ticket. The Democratic Party is experiencing an enthusisam shortfall:

As I said, my first choice is Biden. But beyond that is my determination that we win. And that may, I said may, require the excitement -- the big bump -- that would be produced by the picture of these two fighters joining hands and joining forces. They looked amazing in Unity, New Hampshire. Maybe that show needs to go national.

If Obama's not exciting enough, then what good is he? He can't run on his record, because he doesn't have one. (He's the anti-Nixon.) The truth is that his political survival requires that he surround himself with a protective aura of positive buzz. The problem is that he's not brand-new anymore. He's new (anybody's new compared to McCain!) but he's not brand-new. From now on, positive buzz about Obama will have to be manufactured. (I doubt he'll ever again get 200,000 Germans to listen to him speak, unless he actually does something.)

People don't necessarily object to being manipulated by politicians--or movie studios or advertisers or sports teams--but they're not going to buy what they don't think they need. We know from the primaries that Obama doesn't wear well. It wasn't just that Clinton got stronger. Obama himself seemed to evaporate upon exposure to real people and real problems. An essential phoniness came through.

It's no surprise that Obama's trip abroad isn't giving him a bounce in the polls. It's such an obvious photo-op extravaganza that it merely reinforces what makes voters uneasy about him in the first place. The powder-puff press coverage--complete with a full body massage by Brian Williams on the Nightly News--isn't helping. Everybody knows that unless Obama acts like Chevy Chase in European Vacation, the media is going to make him president-in-waiting. The whole thing has all the credibility of professional wrestling.

M. J. Rosenberg is as doctrinaire an Obamabot--and Clinton-hater--as you'll find in the blogosphere. If he's sending out an SOS to Hillary, you know they're scared.

Won't get fooled again

2008-07-23T14:23:00.023-04:00

Todd Beeton at MyDD thinks this ad is ineffective. He says that "mocking Barack Obama as a media darling" didn't work for Hillary, so it won't work for McCain. After all, she really was getting shafted by the press, and McCain isn't.

Well, as George Bush would say, "Fool me once. . .Shame on. . .You can't get fooled again!" Voters who observed the media cramming Obama down the throats of Democrats during the primaries may be resistant to another round of it. And the deification of the junior senator from Illinois is completely out of control. Check this out (h/t The Confluence). Tiger Beat journalism at its finest.

Hasn't she been fired yet?

2008-07-21T19:34:00.009-04:00

Life is too short to spend many nanoseconds reading Maureen Dowd's columns, but I thought I'd check in on Sunday to see if Clark Hoyt's recent rap on the knuckles had any effect on her snippy attitude. After enduring sixteen little paragraphs of tiresome, disjointed snark about Barack Obama's trip abroad, I came to the heart of the whole sorry mess:

Instead of obtaining the girdle of the Amazon warrior queen Hippolyte, Obama has to overcome the hurdle of the Amazon warrior queen Hillary. He has to figure out how to let her down easy on the vice presidential deal, while wooing the frantic Clinton
sisterhood and Hillraisers who would rather see a McCain Supreme Court than support the glib, cocky young guy who presumptuously sped past their gal.

No dorky ombudsman is going to tell the Head Heather at Washington High how to behave! She gets out her old copy of Edith Hamilton's Mythology to dress things up with talk of girdles and Hercules, but it's still the same old shit. Obama has to prove his manliness. Hillary is a sexless bitch (when she's not simply a "gal.") And then there's "the frantic Clinton sisterhood" and their icky problems. Thank God Maureen and her friends don't know any of them.

I guess it's just MoDo being MoDo. It still sucks.

Forget the cover

2008-07-18T19:02:00.009-04:00

The Barack Obama who emerges from the mean political streets of Chicago in Ryan Lizza's excellent New Yorker piece is a far cry from the man whose silver tongue got Chris Matthews' pant leg fluttering in February. He comes across as a slick, malleable and ruthless politician, who--even more than most of his fellow narcissists--sees little difference between his own well-being and that of the multitudes blessed to vote for him. Had this Obama been better known during the primaries, he might not have been able to get away with playing the race card so brilliantly in South Carolina, and he wouldn't be the Democratic nominee today. (Timing is everything, and--as Lizza points out--Barack's is "impeccable.") The article helps dispel many myths about Obama, from his supposed distaste for lobbyists to his allegedly superior judgment on matters of war and peace . (As Saltzman told me, “He was a Hyde Park state senator. He had to oppose the war!”)

We're going to have to keep an eye on this guy at all times.