Clinton/Obama

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?

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

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

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

Introducing . . . the next Republican ticket.

Minnesota Viking

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

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

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

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

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

Gods and Monsters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.