During serial interviews with local TV, the President is caught showing frustration with an aggressive Texas reporter who pushes hard about his unpopularity in the Lone Star state.
When it's over, with the camera still on, the Commander-in-Chief complains: “Let me finish my answers the next time we do an interview, all right?”
Life is imitating art again in the media hall of mirrors, as the President's reaction echoes a 2002 incident in "The West Wing" that may have inspired John Kerry when he was running for President in 2004.
Kerry, wearing a live mic, told voters his opponents were "crooked" and "lying." Back then, a New York Times column on "the gaffe," titled "Testing, Testing. Shrewd Politics or Kerry Foot-in-Mouth Syndrome?" suggested the Democratic candidate was taking a cue from the TV series:
"In one episode of the show two years ago, President Bartlet was giving a news interview and, once the interview was over, proceeded to disparage the intelligence of his Republican opponent, as the television camera kept rolling. There was a spate of stories critical of the president, but also, stories questioning the intelligence of Bartlet's opponents.
"The point of the episode was that President Bartlet had meant what he said and said what he meant.'The West Wing' has fans on the Kerry staff."
Whether President Obama was just annoyed at his Texas questioner or consciously letting off steam, the small uproar over his remark points up the disrespect for the nation's chief executive that has grown in this century, first with George W. Bush and now with his successor.
Nobody wants to go back to the overly compliant press of the past, but neither should any yahoo with a camera crew be badgering the President as he tries to get through to Americans about his deficit proposals.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
S&P: Degraded Downgrader
The Standard&Poor's warning on U. S. debt is being treated as Holy Writ, driving markets down and inspiring Chicken Little clucking in the financial world, but few are questioning the source.
We are not talking about the Vatican here but a for-profit company, owned by McGraw-Hill publishers, that has taken a public beating for over-rating the mortgage derivatives that led to an economic meltdown and is currently being investigated by the European Commission for "monopoly abuse" in its charges for debt data.
A skeptic might be tempted to think that S&P's bold stance has as much to do with its own rehabilitation as with macroeconomics. One equity-firm head puts it baldly:
"I have stopped paying any attention to anything that S&P says or does. Its performance over the past decade has revealed it to be incompetent and corrupt--it sold its AAA ratings to the highest bidder. It is the broker who lost all your money, the girlfriend who cheated on you, the partner who stole from you."
That said, the political world, including the White House, is welcoming the flawed messenger's message--that partisan jockeying over U. S. debt can spook lenders, including China, who are underwriting our deficits.
On the day of Pulitzer Prize announcements, the S&P flap is yet another reminder of how information flows in the 24/7 era of facts, factoids and fake news. For the first time, the national reporting award goes to journalism that did not appear in print--ProPublica's online series, "The Wall Street Money Machine."
Meanwhile, David Brooks, while keeping him at arm's length, deconstructs Donald Trump's appeal to "voters who believe that America could reverse its decline if only a straight-talking, obnoxious blowhard would take control."
To understand the world we live in, are these are only choices--a self-interested ratings service, non-profit investigative journalism or a self-promoting blowhard?
If they are, we are in trouble that goes deeper than debt.
Update: For reality-based reactions to the S&P spooking, one of journalism's sane voices, James Fallows, cites antidotes to the "(Needless) Hysteria."
We are not talking about the Vatican here but a for-profit company, owned by McGraw-Hill publishers, that has taken a public beating for over-rating the mortgage derivatives that led to an economic meltdown and is currently being investigated by the European Commission for "monopoly abuse" in its charges for debt data.
A skeptic might be tempted to think that S&P's bold stance has as much to do with its own rehabilitation as with macroeconomics. One equity-firm head puts it baldly:
"I have stopped paying any attention to anything that S&P says or does. Its performance over the past decade has revealed it to be incompetent and corrupt--it sold its AAA ratings to the highest bidder. It is the broker who lost all your money, the girlfriend who cheated on you, the partner who stole from you."
That said, the political world, including the White House, is welcoming the flawed messenger's message--that partisan jockeying over U. S. debt can spook lenders, including China, who are underwriting our deficits.
On the day of Pulitzer Prize announcements, the S&P flap is yet another reminder of how information flows in the 24/7 era of facts, factoids and fake news. For the first time, the national reporting award goes to journalism that did not appear in print--ProPublica's online series, "The Wall Street Money Machine."
Meanwhile, David Brooks, while keeping him at arm's length, deconstructs Donald Trump's appeal to "voters who believe that America could reverse its decline if only a straight-talking, obnoxious blowhard would take control."
To understand the world we live in, are these are only choices--a self-interested ratings service, non-profit investigative journalism or a self-promoting blowhard?
If they are, we are in trouble that goes deeper than debt.
Update: For reality-based reactions to the S&P spooking, one of journalism's sane voices, James Fallows, cites antidotes to the "(Needless) Hysteria."
Monday, April 18, 2011
Behind the Debt Limit Din
The noise level, as always, is high but whispers of sanity can be heard.
"What leaders don’t want to replicate," blogs New York Times' Richard Harwood, "is the brinksmanship that left the federal government within an hour of shutting down. On the debt limit, suspense itself could produce the falling confidence and rising interest rates that business and government both want to avoid."
But the barrier to bipartisan agreement is ideological posturing, Republican lust to tear down entitlements vs. Democratic desire to save as much of the social safety net as possible--an honest difference in values run amok.
In this climate, missing is the traditional influence of the "American ruling class," as E. J. Dionne describes it: "(T)he informal networks of the wealthy and powerful who often wield at least as much influence as our elected politicians accepted that their good fortune imposed an obligation: to reform and thus preserve the system that allowed them to do so well. They advocated social decency out of self-interest (reasonably fair societies are more stable) but also from an old-fashioned sense of civic duty. 'Noblesse oblige' sounds bad until it doesn’t exist anymore."
But politicians today, as much beholden to the 24/7 media din as wealthy patrons, are in a dilemma as Paul Krugman observes that "the two parties don’t just live in different moral universes, they also live in different intellectual universes...So when pundits call on the parties to sit down together and talk, the obvious question is, what are they supposed to talk about? Where’s the common ground?"
The common ground is survival of the American economy and, as Standard & Poor's lowers its outlook to negative, spooking global investors, Congress had better rush to loftier positions to escape an oncoming financial tsunami.
"What leaders don’t want to replicate," blogs New York Times' Richard Harwood, "is the brinksmanship that left the federal government within an hour of shutting down. On the debt limit, suspense itself could produce the falling confidence and rising interest rates that business and government both want to avoid."
But the barrier to bipartisan agreement is ideological posturing, Republican lust to tear down entitlements vs. Democratic desire to save as much of the social safety net as possible--an honest difference in values run amok.
In this climate, missing is the traditional influence of the "American ruling class," as E. J. Dionne describes it: "(T)he informal networks of the wealthy and powerful who often wield at least as much influence as our elected politicians accepted that their good fortune imposed an obligation: to reform and thus preserve the system that allowed them to do so well. They advocated social decency out of self-interest (reasonably fair societies are more stable) but also from an old-fashioned sense of civic duty. 'Noblesse oblige' sounds bad until it doesn’t exist anymore."
But politicians today, as much beholden to the 24/7 media din as wealthy patrons, are in a dilemma as Paul Krugman observes that "the two parties don’t just live in different moral universes, they also live in different intellectual universes...So when pundits call on the parties to sit down together and talk, the obvious question is, what are they supposed to talk about? Where’s the common ground?"
The common ground is survival of the American economy and, as Standard & Poor's lowers its outlook to negative, spooking global investors, Congress had better rush to loftier positions to escape an oncoming financial tsunami.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
GOP Hoof-and-Mouth Circus
Dr. Rand Paul, who months ago was checking out patients' eyes, is on TV proposing to cut off the Federal budget at the knees.
Sarah Palin, who abandoned her own state for big bucks, is on the Wisconsin capitol steps, to praise a no-show Gov. Scott Walker for resisting "violent rent-a-mobs": "He's not trying to hurt union members. Hey folks, he’s trying to save your jobs and your pensions.”
Donald Trump, with a history of business and personal bankruptcies, is on the tube bragging, "“I'm a much bigger business man and have much, much bigger net worth. I mean, my net worth is many, many, many times Mitt Romney.”
Welcome to the GOP 2012 three-ring circus, where all the attractions are suffering from hoof-in-mouth disease but for now are vastly entertaining crowds with their crazed antics.
The scene recalls one in an old Paul Newman movie, "Hud," in which infected cattle are herded into a large pit to be killed by shooters in raincoats and then covered with dirt by a bulldozer.
Voters may be enjoying the Republican show now, but that bulldozer is waiting in the wings just in case one of the critters staggers into the White House and starts to bury us all.
Is this a great country or what?
Sarah Palin, who abandoned her own state for big bucks, is on the Wisconsin capitol steps, to praise a no-show Gov. Scott Walker for resisting "violent rent-a-mobs": "He's not trying to hurt union members. Hey folks, he’s trying to save your jobs and your pensions.”
Donald Trump, with a history of business and personal bankruptcies, is on the tube bragging, "“I'm a much bigger business man and have much, much bigger net worth. I mean, my net worth is many, many, many times Mitt Romney.”
Welcome to the GOP 2012 three-ring circus, where all the attractions are suffering from hoof-in-mouth disease but for now are vastly entertaining crowds with their crazed antics.
The scene recalls one in an old Paul Newman movie, "Hud," in which infected cattle are herded into a large pit to be killed by shooters in raincoats and then covered with dirt by a bulldozer.
Voters may be enjoying the Republican show now, but that bulldozer is waiting in the wings just in case one of the critters staggers into the White House and starts to bury us all.
Is this a great country or what?
Saturday, April 16, 2011
What-If: President JFK Jr.
In a fascinating new book, TV journalist Jeff Greenfield imagines alternate history in the past century--a 1960 assassination of President-Elect JFK to put LBJ in the White House for the Cuban Missile Crisis; Robert Kennedy's survival in 1968 to run against Nixon; and a 1976 victory by Ford over Carter to face the Iran hostage crisis.
Such what-ifs, underscoring how personalities and accidents affect history, suggest one for our times: Suppose John F. Kennedy Jr. had survived the plane crash that killed him in 1999 and gone on to a political career that put him in the White House now?
A plausible scenario would have him, with his background as publisher of a political magazine, running for the open New York Senate seat in 2000 and in a primary defeating Hillary Clinton with her recent baggage from the Lewinsky scandal and as a "carpetbagger" who had just moved into the state.
In 2008, with eight Washington years behind him, JFK Jr. would have been the ideal electoral antidote for the miserable Bush era, with newer Sen. Barack Obama on the ticket, to offer a combination of hope for the future and resonance of the Kennedy past to win the White House.
Most intriguing, given the same economic meltdown, Middle East muddle and fight over health care reform, is the question of how much traction GOP wall-to-wall resistance and Tea Party rage could have gained against a president invulnerable to charges of being a radical outsider who was not born in the U.S.A.?
If history is any guide, with the advice of uncle Ted and Camelot survivors, a second President Kennedy might have been as political cautious as his father but also more sure-footed than Obama has been in navigating the minefields of Congress and certainly less of a target of opportunity for wild slander.
Seeing Caroline Kennedy, now 53, on TV to promote her new book of poetry is a reminder of her failed attempt at being appointed to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat two years ago and that her brother at 50 would have been a year older than Obama is now.
Yet some of the old Kennedy problems might have persisted. Even with John Jr. more than a decade gone, a former long-time girlfriend now publishes a fond memoir of when he was People's "Sexiest Man Alive," involved not only with her but actress Darryl Hannah and journalist Christine Amanpour, among others.
But, in light of the Perils of Barack Obama today and the collection of clods vying to replace him, grateful voters would surely have been as forgiving as they were for his father. And after eight years as VP, Obama would have been in good shape to run as the first African-American president in 2016.
Such what-ifs, underscoring how personalities and accidents affect history, suggest one for our times: Suppose John F. Kennedy Jr. had survived the plane crash that killed him in 1999 and gone on to a political career that put him in the White House now?
A plausible scenario would have him, with his background as publisher of a political magazine, running for the open New York Senate seat in 2000 and in a primary defeating Hillary Clinton with her recent baggage from the Lewinsky scandal and as a "carpetbagger" who had just moved into the state.
In 2008, with eight Washington years behind him, JFK Jr. would have been the ideal electoral antidote for the miserable Bush era, with newer Sen. Barack Obama on the ticket, to offer a combination of hope for the future and resonance of the Kennedy past to win the White House.
Most intriguing, given the same economic meltdown, Middle East muddle and fight over health care reform, is the question of how much traction GOP wall-to-wall resistance and Tea Party rage could have gained against a president invulnerable to charges of being a radical outsider who was not born in the U.S.A.?
If history is any guide, with the advice of uncle Ted and Camelot survivors, a second President Kennedy might have been as political cautious as his father but also more sure-footed than Obama has been in navigating the minefields of Congress and certainly less of a target of opportunity for wild slander.
Seeing Caroline Kennedy, now 53, on TV to promote her new book of poetry is a reminder of her failed attempt at being appointed to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat two years ago and that her brother at 50 would have been a year older than Obama is now.
Yet some of the old Kennedy problems might have persisted. Even with John Jr. more than a decade gone, a former long-time girlfriend now publishes a fond memoir of when he was People's "Sexiest Man Alive," involved not only with her but actress Darryl Hannah and journalist Christine Amanpour, among others.
But, in light of the Perils of Barack Obama today and the collection of clods vying to replace him, grateful voters would surely have been as forgiving as they were for his father. And after eight years as VP, Obama would have been in good shape to run as the first African-American president in 2016.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Tea Party Movie
As if Tax Day weren't painful enough, it brings the premiere of "Atlas Shrugged: Part I," a film 50 years in the making that, from reviews, seems almost as long to sit through.
Nonetheless, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul and Tea Party members will be on the edge of their seats watching Ayn Rand's epic of how "men are slave to society and government, and destruction of the profit motive leads to the collapse of society" as a parable for their current struggle to save America.
But there are critics. On the Daily Show, Jon Stewart invokes the prophetess by showing a giant Paul Ryan robot crushing senior citizens with a copy of her other doorstop epic, "The Fountainhead," required reading for Ryan's staff members.
Less hilarious is Paul Krugman, calling the Ryan plan "a sick joke. The only real things in it were savage cuts in aid to the needy and the uninsured, huge tax cuts for corporations and the rich, and Medicare privatization. All the alleged cost savings were pure fantasy."
Yet the Ayn Rand fantasy lives, not only in the hearts of Tea Party politicians but even an online dating service for Objectivists, who can find selfish soulmates and get together to watch the movie, munch popcorn and mutter about the moochers who are stealing their hard-earned wealth.
Meanwhile, even the review of conservative P. J. O'Rourke in the Wall Street Journal is headed "Atlas Shrugged. And So Did I," complaining that the movie "treats its source material with such formal, reverent ceremoniousness that the uninitiated will feel they’ve wandered without a guide into the midst of the elaborate and interminable rituals of some obscure exotic tribe."
But in Washington, the tribe is far from obscure, fueling a debate on the nation's economy with ideas from tracts that were considering loony nonsense by conservatives and liberals in the last century but are being celebrated on hundreds of movie screens now.
Update: One of the kinder reviews (on the Atlantic blog) says "the movie seems less like a story than a sort of visual concordance...Each element is religiously mentioned, but very little of it is adequately explained, much less dramatized. I suspect that for people who haven't read the book, the result is incomprehensible. What remains is a bunch of self-impressed windbags boring each other over drinks. I live in Washington DC. At least around here, that sort of thing is a live event, not movie material."
If you can call Washington "live."
Nonetheless, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul and Tea Party members will be on the edge of their seats watching Ayn Rand's epic of how "men are slave to society and government, and destruction of the profit motive leads to the collapse of society" as a parable for their current struggle to save America.
But there are critics. On the Daily Show, Jon Stewart invokes the prophetess by showing a giant Paul Ryan robot crushing senior citizens with a copy of her other doorstop epic, "The Fountainhead," required reading for Ryan's staff members.
Less hilarious is Paul Krugman, calling the Ryan plan "a sick joke. The only real things in it were savage cuts in aid to the needy and the uninsured, huge tax cuts for corporations and the rich, and Medicare privatization. All the alleged cost savings were pure fantasy."
Yet the Ayn Rand fantasy lives, not only in the hearts of Tea Party politicians but even an online dating service for Objectivists, who can find selfish soulmates and get together to watch the movie, munch popcorn and mutter about the moochers who are stealing their hard-earned wealth.
Meanwhile, even the review of conservative P. J. O'Rourke in the Wall Street Journal is headed "Atlas Shrugged. And So Did I," complaining that the movie "treats its source material with such formal, reverent ceremoniousness that the uninitiated will feel they’ve wandered without a guide into the midst of the elaborate and interminable rituals of some obscure exotic tribe."
But in Washington, the tribe is far from obscure, fueling a debate on the nation's economy with ideas from tracts that were considering loony nonsense by conservatives and liberals in the last century but are being celebrated on hundreds of movie screens now.
Update: One of the kinder reviews (on the Atlantic blog) says "the movie seems less like a story than a sort of visual concordance...Each element is religiously mentioned, but very little of it is adequately explained, much less dramatized. I suspect that for people who haven't read the book, the result is incomprehensible. What remains is a bunch of self-impressed windbags boring each other over drinks. I live in Washington DC. At least around here, that sort of thing is a live event, not movie material."
If you can call Washington "live."
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Gun-to-the-Head Governing--With Blanks
Don't bother to send in the clowns, they're here (see the 2012 GOP hopefuls), but it's those in Congress who are armed and dangerous, threatening to turn the world's richest nation into a gambling saloon for financial markets.
As last week's shutdown shootout cuts turn out to be illusory, Capitol Hill zealots prepare to repeat it with the vote over raising the debt ceiling and spook world buyers of U.S. bonds into raising rates, as they have in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Iceland, leading to higher deficits and even more borrowing.
Tea Party cowboys see themselves as riding to the rescue of an economy strapped to the railroad tracks, but their ignorant antics are threatening to shoot the hostage in the head and themselves in the foot.
The GOP could have pre-written its reflexive response to the President's proposal to cut borrowing by $4 trillion over 12 years with cuts in military and domestic spending as well as higher taxes on the wealthy.
But the stand of Boehner and McConnell is statesmanlike compared to that of Rand Paul and his ilk, who want to make a last stand at the fiscal Alamo over last week's agreement.
Wall Street is warning sane Republicans not to keep going to the brink, but the Congressional leadership will have a hard time restraining its newcomers from shooting up the debt ceiling debate.
Voters of all persuasions have already registered revulsion over this kind of gun-to-the-head governing but, when they start to see the real-life consequences, will they begin to rise up in outrage to sink the Tea Party and its cargo?
Update: An objective economic analysis finds the Ryan Plan "was generated by manipulating a model that would not otherwise produce this result, and that the basis for this manipulation is not supported either theoretically or empirically.
"This is indeed unfortunate, since it might encourage some legislators to believe that slicing federal debt dramatically can produce long-run gain without short-run pain...Unfortunately, we expect budget hawks to advance this argument during the coming debate over whether to raise the debt ceiling. That would be an especially bad time to make the mistake of assuming the answer."
Translation: The Tea Party gun is loaded with blanks.
As last week's shutdown shootout cuts turn out to be illusory, Capitol Hill zealots prepare to repeat it with the vote over raising the debt ceiling and spook world buyers of U.S. bonds into raising rates, as they have in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Iceland, leading to higher deficits and even more borrowing.
Tea Party cowboys see themselves as riding to the rescue of an economy strapped to the railroad tracks, but their ignorant antics are threatening to shoot the hostage in the head and themselves in the foot.
The GOP could have pre-written its reflexive response to the President's proposal to cut borrowing by $4 trillion over 12 years with cuts in military and domestic spending as well as higher taxes on the wealthy.
But the stand of Boehner and McConnell is statesmanlike compared to that of Rand Paul and his ilk, who want to make a last stand at the fiscal Alamo over last week's agreement.
Wall Street is warning sane Republicans not to keep going to the brink, but the Congressional leadership will have a hard time restraining its newcomers from shooting up the debt ceiling debate.
Voters of all persuasions have already registered revulsion over this kind of gun-to-the-head governing but, when they start to see the real-life consequences, will they begin to rise up in outrage to sink the Tea Party and its cargo?
Update: An objective economic analysis finds the Ryan Plan "was generated by manipulating a model that would not otherwise produce this result, and that the basis for this manipulation is not supported either theoretically or empirically.
"This is indeed unfortunate, since it might encourage some legislators to believe that slicing federal debt dramatically can produce long-run gain without short-run pain...Unfortunately, we expect budget hawks to advance this argument during the coming debate over whether to raise the debt ceiling. That would be an especially bad time to make the mistake of assuming the answer."
Translation: The Tea Party gun is loaded with blanks.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Gender on the Agenda Again
The President proclaims Equal Pay Day "to recognize the full value of women's skills and...acknowledge the injustice of wage discrimination."
Rupert Murdoch isn't buying it, as the Wall Street Journal insists "There Is No Male-Female Wage Gap" and that the day is "dedicated to manufactured feminist grievances."
That tortured argument has all the logic of the claim that tax cuts for the richest Americans are good for the economy but, as I write this, my eyes light on a framed scroll on the wall for efforts to pass the "Equal Rights Amendment" to the Constitution in 1979.
It failed, of course, and women's equality today is glibly asserted by citing numbers in the President's Cabinet and on the Supreme Court. But as always, political sound-bites cover up the reality of people's lives.
From years of editing women's magazines and co-writing a book on divorce, a different picture emerges, particularly among millions of single mothers struggling to survive on what the legal system provides for them.
The one area of American life in which women achieved "equality" was new no-fault divorce laws, which leave middle-aged women with children in poverty while former husbands thrive.
Ironically, TV screens are showing HBO's bloated remake of "Mildred Pierce," about the trials of such women in the bad old days of the last century, with about as much resemblance to the original movie as a tract on whaling to "Moby Dick."
The heroine is victimized by everyone but redeemed by baking pies and serving food. As a vintage weeper, it may make viewers feel good that their lives are so different now, but in the light of Equal Pay Day, are they really?
Rupert Murdoch isn't buying it, as the Wall Street Journal insists "There Is No Male-Female Wage Gap" and that the day is "dedicated to manufactured feminist grievances."
That tortured argument has all the logic of the claim that tax cuts for the richest Americans are good for the economy but, as I write this, my eyes light on a framed scroll on the wall for efforts to pass the "Equal Rights Amendment" to the Constitution in 1979.
It failed, of course, and women's equality today is glibly asserted by citing numbers in the President's Cabinet and on the Supreme Court. But as always, political sound-bites cover up the reality of people's lives.
From years of editing women's magazines and co-writing a book on divorce, a different picture emerges, particularly among millions of single mothers struggling to survive on what the legal system provides for them.
The one area of American life in which women achieved "equality" was new no-fault divorce laws, which leave middle-aged women with children in poverty while former husbands thrive.
Ironically, TV screens are showing HBO's bloated remake of "Mildred Pierce," about the trials of such women in the bad old days of the last century, with about as much resemblance to the original movie as a tract on whaling to "Moby Dick."
The heroine is victimized by everyone but redeemed by baking pies and serving food. As a vintage weeper, it may make viewers feel good that their lives are so different now, but in the light of Equal Pay Day, are they really?
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
The President's Human Shields
Like the smart kid beset by schoolyard bullies, Barack Obama is turning to wonkish jocks for protection.
Leaks from The Speech reveal he will be relying on his Commission on Deficit Reduction and perhaps Congress' Gang of Six for bipartisan cover but also raise a question: If the President is taking a centrist stance against Republican extremism, who speaks for those who take a (dirty word alert) Liberal position? Where are the champions of what used to be a major view in American politics?
As Ezra Klein points out, Obama's failure to cite the Commission earlier has shifted the ground of the deficit debate to "a compromise between a centrist plan like Simpson-Bowles and a hardline conservative plan like Ryan’s, that’s not going to produce something Democrats are happy with, and Obama will be blamed for not taking the initiative and forcing everyone to simply consider Simpson-Bowles when he had a chance."
On the heels of the President's apparent tower-of-jello posture comes word that the Gang of Six is ready to follow up with its own compromised version of the Deficit Commission's proposals.
When Barack Obama took office, did anyone dream that a major issue now would be a debate over how and when to dismantle Medicare?
The only ray of hope in all this is an expression of overwhelming public disgust over last week's shutdown charade with voters calling the spectacle “disgusting,” “frustrating,” “messy,” “disappointing” and “stupid.”
If the President hides behind bipartisan human shields this week, the adjectives are not likely to turn more positive.
Leaks from The Speech reveal he will be relying on his Commission on Deficit Reduction and perhaps Congress' Gang of Six for bipartisan cover but also raise a question: If the President is taking a centrist stance against Republican extremism, who speaks for those who take a (dirty word alert) Liberal position? Where are the champions of what used to be a major view in American politics?
As Ezra Klein points out, Obama's failure to cite the Commission earlier has shifted the ground of the deficit debate to "a compromise between a centrist plan like Simpson-Bowles and a hardline conservative plan like Ryan’s, that’s not going to produce something Democrats are happy with, and Obama will be blamed for not taking the initiative and forcing everyone to simply consider Simpson-Bowles when he had a chance."
On the heels of the President's apparent tower-of-jello posture comes word that the Gang of Six is ready to follow up with its own compromised version of the Deficit Commission's proposals.
When Barack Obama took office, did anyone dream that a major issue now would be a debate over how and when to dismantle Medicare?
The only ray of hope in all this is an expression of overwhelming public disgust over last week's shutdown charade with voters calling the spectacle “disgusting,” “frustrating,” “messy,” “disappointing” and “stupid.”
If the President hides behind bipartisan human shields this week, the adjectives are not likely to turn more positive.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Obama's Next Great Speech (Ho-Hum?)
The familiar pattern emerges: Aides spin a preview, he delivers an admirable speech, nothing changes.
How did Barack Obama morph from an inspiring orator to a professorial President without the power to lead? Yes, yes: a crashing economy, wall-to-wall GOP resistance, Tea Party insanity... Granted, but there must be more.
"I'd rather be a really good one-term president," he said a year ago, "than a mediocre two-term president." As of now, there is doubt that he will be either.
Wednesday's speech on deficits offers another chance to lead, but a sinking suspicion suggests more of the same.
"Despite the ferocious opposition he has faced since the day he took office," Paul Krugman writes, "Mr. Obama is clearly still clinging to his vision of himself as a figure who can transcend America’s partisan differences. And...win re-election by positioning himself as being conciliatory and reasonable, by always being willing to compromise.
"But...the nation wants--and more important, the nation needs--a president who believes in something, and is willing to take a stand."
It's more complicated than that, of course, but these past two years underscore the classic dilemma about oratory: differing public responses to Cicero ("How well he speaks") and Demosthanes ("Let us march!").
If the President wants to mobilize Americans to back him against the Republican blueprint to tear down their government, more than Ciceronian eloquence is needed.
He will have to abandon illusions he can persuade Boehner, McConnell, Paul Ryan and the GOP 2012 pygmy aspirants to reason with him and risk engaging now in the confrontation that is coming next year in any case.
Barack Obama is no Truman, in temperament or intellect, but now would be the time to study the 1948 campaign in which "Give 'em Hell Harry" tore into a "do-nothing, good-for-nothing Congress"--and won reelection.
A "really good one-term president" would be mobilizing Americans against Tea Party madness now, remembering Truman's insistence that "The buck stops here." If he takes that advice, Obama may find controlling the debate about bucks can determine what happens at the ballot box.
How did Barack Obama morph from an inspiring orator to a professorial President without the power to lead? Yes, yes: a crashing economy, wall-to-wall GOP resistance, Tea Party insanity... Granted, but there must be more.
"I'd rather be a really good one-term president," he said a year ago, "than a mediocre two-term president." As of now, there is doubt that he will be either.
Wednesday's speech on deficits offers another chance to lead, but a sinking suspicion suggests more of the same.
"Despite the ferocious opposition he has faced since the day he took office," Paul Krugman writes, "Mr. Obama is clearly still clinging to his vision of himself as a figure who can transcend America’s partisan differences. And...win re-election by positioning himself as being conciliatory and reasonable, by always being willing to compromise.
"But...the nation wants--and more important, the nation needs--a president who believes in something, and is willing to take a stand."
It's more complicated than that, of course, but these past two years underscore the classic dilemma about oratory: differing public responses to Cicero ("How well he speaks") and Demosthanes ("Let us march!").
If the President wants to mobilize Americans to back him against the Republican blueprint to tear down their government, more than Ciceronian eloquence is needed.
He will have to abandon illusions he can persuade Boehner, McConnell, Paul Ryan and the GOP 2012 pygmy aspirants to reason with him and risk engaging now in the confrontation that is coming next year in any case.
Barack Obama is no Truman, in temperament or intellect, but now would be the time to study the 1948 campaign in which "Give 'em Hell Harry" tore into a "do-nothing, good-for-nothing Congress"--and won reelection.
A "really good one-term president" would be mobilizing Americans against Tea Party madness now, remembering Truman's insistence that "The buck stops here." If he takes that advice, Obama may find controlling the debate about bucks can determine what happens at the ballot box.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
The Donald, Apprentice President
How can you satirize someone who does it himself every day?
Today's Trumpery is a letter to the New York Times attacking columnist Gail Collins, which malicious pencil pushers there have left unedited: "Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers), is not at a very high level."
Collins responds evenly, noting, "I once got an aggrieved message from him in which he misspelled the word 'too.'"
Literacy aside, the issue is Trump's embrace of the "Birthers" in his phantom pursuit of the Presidency, undeclared so far in order to protect his network exposure on "The Apprentice," even as polls begin to show him being taken seriously by potential Republican primary voters.
"More power to him," says another undeclared TV candidate, Sarah Palin, about Trump's "investigation" of Barack Obama's Hawaiian birth, while attempting to stay "credible, rational and moderate" on what she calls a "perplexing" issue.
In this pre-2012 jockeying, credible, rational and moderate are long gone in the rear-view mirror as the self-promoting Empty Suit of all time completely erases the line between politics and buffoonery to make Ronald Reagan's Hollywood background look like Jeffersonian scholarship.
For a small taste of what his candidacy would do to American society, roll out the recent Comedy Central roast, in which Trump sits complacently as show business has-beens and never-will-bes raunchily critique his relentless self-promotion, bankruptcies, hyperactive sex life and hairdo.
The height of wit is attained by social critic Snoop Dogg, observing, "Donald's saying he wants to run for president and move into the White House. Why not? It wouldn't be the first time you've pushed a black family out of their home."
If this candidacy flies, network TV's surrender to cheap reality shows will have infected American society to its core. Trump-Palin? Palin-Trump? Whatever. The ratings will be high.
Update: NBC, Trump's "Apprentice" home, shoots down his Birther baloney with an interview of the Hawaiian official formerly in charge of the records he disputes, pointing out, among other things, that a Republican governor in 2008 was backing McCain and would surely have disputed her verification of Obama's certificate if there had been any basis for doing so.
There is also the small matter of his birth announcement appearing in Hawaii's two newspapers, but that presumes that Trump and the Birthers can read.
Today's Trumpery is a letter to the New York Times attacking columnist Gail Collins, which malicious pencil pushers there have left unedited: "Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers), is not at a very high level."
Collins responds evenly, noting, "I once got an aggrieved message from him in which he misspelled the word 'too.'"
Literacy aside, the issue is Trump's embrace of the "Birthers" in his phantom pursuit of the Presidency, undeclared so far in order to protect his network exposure on "The Apprentice," even as polls begin to show him being taken seriously by potential Republican primary voters.
"More power to him," says another undeclared TV candidate, Sarah Palin, about Trump's "investigation" of Barack Obama's Hawaiian birth, while attempting to stay "credible, rational and moderate" on what she calls a "perplexing" issue.
In this pre-2012 jockeying, credible, rational and moderate are long gone in the rear-view mirror as the self-promoting Empty Suit of all time completely erases the line between politics and buffoonery to make Ronald Reagan's Hollywood background look like Jeffersonian scholarship.
For a small taste of what his candidacy would do to American society, roll out the recent Comedy Central roast, in which Trump sits complacently as show business has-beens and never-will-bes raunchily critique his relentless self-promotion, bankruptcies, hyperactive sex life and hairdo.
The height of wit is attained by social critic Snoop Dogg, observing, "Donald's saying he wants to run for president and move into the White House. Why not? It wouldn't be the first time you've pushed a black family out of their home."
If this candidacy flies, network TV's surrender to cheap reality shows will have infected American society to its core. Trump-Palin? Palin-Trump? Whatever. The ratings will be high.
Update: NBC, Trump's "Apprentice" home, shoots down his Birther baloney with an interview of the Hawaiian official formerly in charge of the records he disputes, pointing out, among other things, that a Republican governor in 2008 was backing McCain and would surely have disputed her verification of Obama's certificate if there had been any basis for doing so.
There is also the small matter of his birth announcement appearing in Hawaii's two newspapers, but that presumes that Trump and the Birthers can read.
Saturday, April 09, 2011
Eleventh Hour Lovefest
In a windup worthy of the WWF, Washington budget wrestlers bounce off the canvas to take bows and hug one another for the cheering crowds.
In the Senate, Harry Reid is so carried away that, hours after calling the GOP "shameful," he praises every Republican in sight including John Boehner's chief of staff and, most of all, Mitch McConnell, who gushes back that Congress has made history, instead of repeating the history of the Newt Gingrich-Bill Clinton government shutdown.
For skeptics who suspect that the match was fixed from the start, Dana Milbank points out, "If negotiators were driven by logic, the possibility of a shutdown never would have arisen. Instead, they decided to go to DefCon 1 over a skirmish involving a fraction of 1 percent of the federal budget."
But for an evening with no Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert, the late-night entertainment value of the "showdown" should not be underestimated. If Linda McMahon, the doyenne of professional wrestling, had won that Connecticut Senate seat, she would have been proud.
Boehner is apologizing to Tea Party fans for not having taken it all in the SmackDown, but there will be other nights to build an audience for what looks like a continuing hit show.
Update: The President, unblinking optimist that he is, at least in public, puts the best face on the farce in his Weekly Address:
"Like any compromise, this required everyone to give ground on issues that were important to them. I certainly did. Some of the cuts we agreed to will be painful--programs people rely on will be cut back; needed infrastructure projects will be delayed. And I would not have made these cuts in better circumstances. But we also prevented this important debate from being overtaken by politics and unrelated disagreements on social issues."
Translation: The Republicans brought a gun to a knife fight, but we dodged the bullet.
In the Senate, Harry Reid is so carried away that, hours after calling the GOP "shameful," he praises every Republican in sight including John Boehner's chief of staff and, most of all, Mitch McConnell, who gushes back that Congress has made history, instead of repeating the history of the Newt Gingrich-Bill Clinton government shutdown.
For skeptics who suspect that the match was fixed from the start, Dana Milbank points out, "If negotiators were driven by logic, the possibility of a shutdown never would have arisen. Instead, they decided to go to DefCon 1 over a skirmish involving a fraction of 1 percent of the federal budget."
But for an evening with no Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert, the late-night entertainment value of the "showdown" should not be underestimated. If Linda McMahon, the doyenne of professional wrestling, had won that Connecticut Senate seat, she would have been proud.
Boehner is apologizing to Tea Party fans for not having taken it all in the SmackDown, but there will be other nights to build an audience for what looks like a continuing hit show.
Update: The President, unblinking optimist that he is, at least in public, puts the best face on the farce in his Weekly Address:
"Like any compromise, this required everyone to give ground on issues that were important to them. I certainly did. Some of the cuts we agreed to will be painful--programs people rely on will be cut back; needed infrastructure projects will be delayed. And I would not have made these cuts in better circumstances. But we also prevented this important debate from being overtaken by politics and unrelated disagreements on social issues."
Translation: The Republicans brought a gun to a knife fight, but we dodged the bullet.
Friday, April 08, 2011
Middle East Money Pit vs. Mugging Old Ladies
In Baghdad, Robert Gates is reassuring troops they will be paid, eventually, no matter what happens in Congress, even as he tells them they may be staying longer than scheduled.
"If folks here are going to want us to have a presence," the Defense Secretary says, "we're going to need to get on with it pretty quickly in terms of our planning."
While politicians fight the Battle of Washington over a pittance for abortion funding and other social issues, the American money pit in the Middle East keeps getting deeper.
More than $1.1 trillion after the Bush Administration promised that Iraq oil would pay for its reconstruction, U. S. money is still pouring in as foreign companies vie to extract profits from the nation's natural resources.
Yet, in all the posturing over a fraction of budget deficits, not a word is heard to question huge American expenditures for what is becoming more and more an illusory War on Terror in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and who-knows-where-else.
Pay the troops by all means, but at the same time start the debate over saving billions by getting them out of harm's way.
Bank robber Willie Sutton once explained his vocational choice by pointing out, "Because that's where the money is." If John Boehner, Paul Ryan and the Tea Party had been advising him, Sutton would have been out mugging old ladies for their Medicare checks.
"If folks here are going to want us to have a presence," the Defense Secretary says, "we're going to need to get on with it pretty quickly in terms of our planning."
While politicians fight the Battle of Washington over a pittance for abortion funding and other social issues, the American money pit in the Middle East keeps getting deeper.
More than $1.1 trillion after the Bush Administration promised that Iraq oil would pay for its reconstruction, U. S. money is still pouring in as foreign companies vie to extract profits from the nation's natural resources.
Yet, in all the posturing over a fraction of budget deficits, not a word is heard to question huge American expenditures for what is becoming more and more an illusory War on Terror in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and who-knows-where-else.
Pay the troops by all means, but at the same time start the debate over saving billions by getting them out of harm's way.
Bank robber Willie Sutton once explained his vocational choice by pointing out, "Because that's where the money is." If John Boehner, Paul Ryan and the Tea Party had been advising him, Sutton would have been out mugging old ladies for their Medicare checks.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Metaphor of the Day
Life seldom provides the perfect image for politics but, as John Boehner and Harry Reid struggle to extrude an agreement to avert a government shutdown, a man in nearby Maryland is found glued to a Wal-Mart toilet.
Surgical treatment at a nearby emergency room is required to detach the seat, a more successful procedure than Dr. Obama's attempt at the White House last night to get Congress unstuck.
Call in Comedy Central.
Surgical treatment at a nearby emergency room is required to detach the seat, a more successful procedure than Dr. Obama's attempt at the White House last night to get Congress unstuck.
Call in Comedy Central.
Two Different Wars on Poverty
Half a century after LBJ, America is on the brink of another "War on Poverty," this one not to ease the misery of millions but make them pay for tax cuts for the rich and comfortable.
Behind all the budget gabble is a reversal of Johnson's "Great Society" that provided a safety net for the poorest Americans with Medicare, Medicaid, Federal aid to education and, not incidentally, civil rights, all of which led to prosperity until a decade ago when unregulated greed began to undermine it.
Now, those most responsible for an economic meltdown are proposing to reverse it by going back to policies that led to the Great Depression. In his first Inaugural, FDR railed against "the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish" and proposed a return to "ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit."
Republicans may be leading the charge backward, but the failure is bipartisan, a concentration on numbers with little discussion of those values behind them.
When the game of shutdown chicken ends, the President, instead of coaxing Congress to play nice, will have to set out an agenda that is faithful to the legacies of FDR and LBJ and give Americans a choice between those humanitarian traditions and Tea Party selfishness.
From the Johnson era, there is a clue to the direction Obama should take. In the 1960s, the Great Society was flourishing until LBJ became mindlessly enmeshed in Vietnam and squandered his legacy, both fiscally and politically.
Now, amid reports that the White House is remaking its national security team, would be the time to rethink our enormous investment in the Middle East and find ways of reducing that instead of making budget cuts on the backs of the most vulnerable Americans.
We don't know what pouring more money into roiling Arab countries will do for American security, but we do know what redirecting much of it back home would do for our social and political well-being.
Behind all the budget gabble is a reversal of Johnson's "Great Society" that provided a safety net for the poorest Americans with Medicare, Medicaid, Federal aid to education and, not incidentally, civil rights, all of which led to prosperity until a decade ago when unregulated greed began to undermine it.
Now, those most responsible for an economic meltdown are proposing to reverse it by going back to policies that led to the Great Depression. In his first Inaugural, FDR railed against "the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish" and proposed a return to "ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit."
Republicans may be leading the charge backward, but the failure is bipartisan, a concentration on numbers with little discussion of those values behind them.
When the game of shutdown chicken ends, the President, instead of coaxing Congress to play nice, will have to set out an agenda that is faithful to the legacies of FDR and LBJ and give Americans a choice between those humanitarian traditions and Tea Party selfishness.
From the Johnson era, there is a clue to the direction Obama should take. In the 1960s, the Great Society was flourishing until LBJ became mindlessly enmeshed in Vietnam and squandered his legacy, both fiscally and politically.
Now, amid reports that the White House is remaking its national security team, would be the time to rethink our enormous investment in the Middle East and find ways of reducing that instead of making budget cuts on the backs of the most vulnerable Americans.
We don't know what pouring more money into roiling Arab countries will do for American security, but we do know what redirecting much of it back home would do for our social and political well-being.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Paul Ryan's Not-Palin VP Audition
As Washington continues to make April the most confusing and "cruelest month" in memory, at least half of the 2012 Republican ticket is becoming clear.
For clowns contesting for the top spot, Paul Ryan has positioned himself as a young, wonkish, issue-oriented counterweight--next year's knowledgeable not-Palin for Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Michele Bachmann, Haley Barbour et al and even Palin herself, freeing them to blather Tea Party and Social Conservative banalities while hiding behind his "expertise."
The irony would be a GOP VP candidate who seems to know too much replacing one who clearly understood little of anything. The question is: Which would be worse?
In a campaign, Ryan could easily gloss over criticism of his manifesto such as that of Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, "This isn’t a serious proposal; it’s a strange combination of cruelty and insanely wishful thinking" and the two Pinocchios it earns in rigorous fact-checking for "dubious assertions, questionable assumptions and fishy figures."
As he has been doing on talk shows, the handsome, smooth-talking 41-year-old Congressman would project sound-bite seriousness to offset anti-Obama rants of the GOP presidential candidate, a quality that might have helped in 2008.
Tactically, it would be a good move for Republicans who have been beclouding voters' intelligence for a decade to have their own pseudo-intellectual on the ticket. For the rest of us, it would be adding the ultimate injury to insult.
At least with McCain and Palin, we knew what we would be getting. With whoever and Ryan, the picture would not be nearly as clear.
For clowns contesting for the top spot, Paul Ryan has positioned himself as a young, wonkish, issue-oriented counterweight--next year's knowledgeable not-Palin for Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Michele Bachmann, Haley Barbour et al and even Palin herself, freeing them to blather Tea Party and Social Conservative banalities while hiding behind his "expertise."
The irony would be a GOP VP candidate who seems to know too much replacing one who clearly understood little of anything. The question is: Which would be worse?
In a campaign, Ryan could easily gloss over criticism of his manifesto such as that of Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, "This isn’t a serious proposal; it’s a strange combination of cruelty and insanely wishful thinking" and the two Pinocchios it earns in rigorous fact-checking for "dubious assertions, questionable assumptions and fishy figures."
As he has been doing on talk shows, the handsome, smooth-talking 41-year-old Congressman would project sound-bite seriousness to offset anti-Obama rants of the GOP presidential candidate, a quality that might have helped in 2008.
Tactically, it would be a good move for Republicans who have been beclouding voters' intelligence for a decade to have their own pseudo-intellectual on the ticket. For the rest of us, it would be adding the ultimate injury to insult.
At least with McCain and Palin, we knew what we would be getting. With whoever and Ryan, the picture would not be nearly as clear.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
New Age of Reason
Washington is acting out that old story of the farmer with a reluctant mule and the neighbor who offers to reason with the animal, then bashes its head with a plank.
"I thought you were going to reason with him." "I am, but first I have to get his attention."
Farmer Obama and Neighbor Boehner are standing over a dazed government with no sign that they can get it moving by week's end and deliver crops of services to those who depend on them.
But, to switch clichés, Republicans also have Paul Ryan out playing good cop to the Tea Party's bad cop with budget cuts of $6.2 trillion over ten years, a proposal that David Brooks, without reading the fine print, enthuses over, writing that Ryan "has grasped reality with both hands."
Some reality! Ryan's proposal puts a glaze of reason over a radical "welfare reform" to punish the old and disabled while keeping the future secure for the rich.
All this comports with the topsy-turvy ideas of Ryan's philosophical mentor Ayn Rand. In her loony world, the weak are "moochers," sapping the strength of the strong and the rich. To see what Ryan really wants, watch Rand's movie, "The Fountainhead," in which the architect hero blows up a public housing project because sponsors changed his plans.
"I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life," he insists. "Nor to any part of my energy, nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim...The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing."
Such is the new Age of Reason for America, where pure selfishness is granted equal time with the hard work of making choices for a difficult future.
Brooks is right on one point, that this may be a "moment of truth for President Obama. Will he come up with his own counterproposal, or will he simply demagogue the issue by railing against 'savage' Republican cuts and ignoring the long-term fiscal realities...
"And what about the Senate Republicans? Where do they stand? Or the voters? Are they willing to face reality or will they continue to demand more government than they are willing to pay for?"
Good questions, but can we starting reasoning together without using heavy planks or phony posturing?
"I thought you were going to reason with him." "I am, but first I have to get his attention."
Farmer Obama and Neighbor Boehner are standing over a dazed government with no sign that they can get it moving by week's end and deliver crops of services to those who depend on them.
But, to switch clichés, Republicans also have Paul Ryan out playing good cop to the Tea Party's bad cop with budget cuts of $6.2 trillion over ten years, a proposal that David Brooks, without reading the fine print, enthuses over, writing that Ryan "has grasped reality with both hands."
Some reality! Ryan's proposal puts a glaze of reason over a radical "welfare reform" to punish the old and disabled while keeping the future secure for the rich.
All this comports with the topsy-turvy ideas of Ryan's philosophical mentor Ayn Rand. In her loony world, the weak are "moochers," sapping the strength of the strong and the rich. To see what Ryan really wants, watch Rand's movie, "The Fountainhead," in which the architect hero blows up a public housing project because sponsors changed his plans.
"I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life," he insists. "Nor to any part of my energy, nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim...The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing."
Such is the new Age of Reason for America, where pure selfishness is granted equal time with the hard work of making choices for a difficult future.
Brooks is right on one point, that this may be a "moment of truth for President Obama. Will he come up with his own counterproposal, or will he simply demagogue the issue by railing against 'savage' Republican cuts and ignoring the long-term fiscal realities...
"And what about the Senate Republicans? Where do they stand? Or the voters? Are they willing to face reality or will they continue to demand more government than they are willing to pay for?"
Good questions, but can we starting reasoning together without using heavy planks or phony posturing?
Monday, April 04, 2011
Running Through Sand for Reelection
Barack Obama brings to mind a world-class athlete I once saw, slogging through deep sand to strengthen his legs for competition.
In Libya and Washington, the President is doing just that, certainly not by choice, but it could help get him into condition for the 2012 marathon.
With only days left to avoid a government shutdown, he is pushing through Republican resistance even as they unload an even bigger pile of muck for the year ahead.
“We want to get spending and debt under control," says House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, "and we want to get the economy growing, and we want to address the big drivers of our debt, and that is the entitlement programs. We have a moral obligation to the country to do this.”
As always, the GOP is grading morality on a highly skewed upward curve.
“It seems to be the same old, same old,” says Chris Van Hollen, the Committee's ranking Democrat. “It's going to be continued big tax breaks for millionaires and big corporate special interests like oil companies and deep cuts in education for kids and health care for seniors.”
The President will likely avert this week's shutdown (even John Boehner can remember as far back as Newt Gingrich), but his campaign challenge will be to beat back the ruinous Tea Party surge toward dismantling government rather than trimming it back--and then communicate that choice to the voters.
Meanwhile, the stalemate in real sand is in Libya, a near-war in which the only grains of hope are rumors that younger Qaddafis may be ready to beach their aging patriarch, a move that might get the White House unstuck there.
On the day that marks the end of basketball's March Madness, it may be of interest that the athlete running through sand back then in the 1970s was the New York Knicks' Clyde Frazier. His team won it all the next year.
Update: The President makes it official--by email to supporters, kicking off what may be a $l billion campaign that should help shake out some of the sand from his shoes.
In Libya and Washington, the President is doing just that, certainly not by choice, but it could help get him into condition for the 2012 marathon.
With only days left to avoid a government shutdown, he is pushing through Republican resistance even as they unload an even bigger pile of muck for the year ahead.
“We want to get spending and debt under control," says House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, "and we want to get the economy growing, and we want to address the big drivers of our debt, and that is the entitlement programs. We have a moral obligation to the country to do this.”
As always, the GOP is grading morality on a highly skewed upward curve.
“It seems to be the same old, same old,” says Chris Van Hollen, the Committee's ranking Democrat. “It's going to be continued big tax breaks for millionaires and big corporate special interests like oil companies and deep cuts in education for kids and health care for seniors.”
The President will likely avert this week's shutdown (even John Boehner can remember as far back as Newt Gingrich), but his campaign challenge will be to beat back the ruinous Tea Party surge toward dismantling government rather than trimming it back--and then communicate that choice to the voters.
Meanwhile, the stalemate in real sand is in Libya, a near-war in which the only grains of hope are rumors that younger Qaddafis may be ready to beach their aging patriarch, a move that might get the White House unstuck there.
On the day that marks the end of basketball's March Madness, it may be of interest that the athlete running through sand back then in the 1970s was the New York Knicks' Clyde Frazier. His team won it all the next year.
Update: The President makes it official--by email to supporters, kicking off what may be a $l billion campaign that should help shake out some of the sand from his shoes.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
March Madness Cinderellas
In 1950, an underrated team won both the NCAA and NIT basketball tournaments, a feat never accomplished before or since. They played for tuition-free City College of New York, which had no scholarships or country-club campus to attract the best high-school talent.
For those city kids, basketball was like life--threading through tight spaces under pressure, seeing openings and seizing them, making moves while keeping track of where others are, using every second and every inch to score in a game where bodies and brains are always in motion.
At City College, from which I had graduated and was then working in publicity, the game was a religion. We prayed for grace over the hardwood floor of Madison Square Garden and, that year, it came. Our undersized five, sons of Jewish immigrants and black kids whose ancestors had been slaves, won it all.
They were immediately hailed as the "Cinderella Team," but in less than a year, the fairy tale was over. Six of them were indicted for taking bribes from gamblers.
In our office, we had to deal with the uproar. Columnists and commentators who had spread the myth rushed to tear it down. Politicians viewed with alarm. Clergymen sermonized over Moral Decay. Adolph Rupp of Kentucky, dean of the coaches whose teams we had beaten, remarked that such corruption was only to be expected of niggers and kikes-- shortly before his pure Aryan players were arrested on similar charges as were those from other colleges.
Athletes were royalty when they brought in money and prestige, then denounced when they took something for themselves. Unlike those who played for the rah-rah universities, at City College there were no rich alumni to slip them spending money and/or keys to sports cars, only courtside gamblers to pay for going over or under the expected margin of victory.
Coaches and administrators were blind and deaf until prosecutors stepped in, then "shocked, shocked" that there was gambling in the casino. What those kids did was stupid and wrong, but their naivete was painful. None spent any of the money, its value was symbolic. One had stashed his in a shoebox in his mother's closet, and a week before they were caught, another had borrowed ten dollars from me. Now their sports lives were over.
Six decades later, that issue is still unresolved. As colleges and coaches with multi-million dollar contracts are enriched by "amateur" sport, the debate goes on at higher volume than ever before, and even the NCAA's (paid) president agrees that paying students should be "a subject we explore."
In this Final Four, as always, my sympathies will be with the underdogs as they strive only for the glory of it all.
For those city kids, basketball was like life--threading through tight spaces under pressure, seeing openings and seizing them, making moves while keeping track of where others are, using every second and every inch to score in a game where bodies and brains are always in motion.
At City College, from which I had graduated and was then working in publicity, the game was a religion. We prayed for grace over the hardwood floor of Madison Square Garden and, that year, it came. Our undersized five, sons of Jewish immigrants and black kids whose ancestors had been slaves, won it all.
They were immediately hailed as the "Cinderella Team," but in less than a year, the fairy tale was over. Six of them were indicted for taking bribes from gamblers.
In our office, we had to deal with the uproar. Columnists and commentators who had spread the myth rushed to tear it down. Politicians viewed with alarm. Clergymen sermonized over Moral Decay. Adolph Rupp of Kentucky, dean of the coaches whose teams we had beaten, remarked that such corruption was only to be expected of niggers and kikes-- shortly before his pure Aryan players were arrested on similar charges as were those from other colleges.
Athletes were royalty when they brought in money and prestige, then denounced when they took something for themselves. Unlike those who played for the rah-rah universities, at City College there were no rich alumni to slip them spending money and/or keys to sports cars, only courtside gamblers to pay for going over or under the expected margin of victory.
Coaches and administrators were blind and deaf until prosecutors stepped in, then "shocked, shocked" that there was gambling in the casino. What those kids did was stupid and wrong, but their naivete was painful. None spent any of the money, its value was symbolic. One had stashed his in a shoebox in his mother's closet, and a week before they were caught, another had borrowed ten dollars from me. Now their sports lives were over.
Six decades later, that issue is still unresolved. As colleges and coaches with multi-million dollar contracts are enriched by "amateur" sport, the debate goes on at higher volume than ever before, and even the NCAA's (paid) president agrees that paying students should be "a subject we explore."
In this Final Four, as always, my sympathies will be with the underdogs as they strive only for the glory of it all.
Friday, April 01, 2011
No Boots on the Ground, Only Sneakers
The whatever-it-is in Libya gets more convoluted daily as Defense Secretary Gates tells Congress there will be no U.S. boots on the ground "as long as I'm in this job," while non-uniformed C.I.A agents soft-shoe their way in to find out who the rebels are and what they need.
In the Senate, John McCain proclaims that "Hope is not a strategy" as Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen reports the no-fly mission has been hampered by bad weather.
So much for the military situation. With obvious White House help, David Brooks enthuses over a "Squeeze and See" strategy to "ratchet up the pressure...reaching out to senior Libyan figures to encourage defection (the foreign minister has already split, and more seem to be coming).
"There is an effort to broadcast television signals into Libya to rival state TV. In the liberated areas, the multilateral alliance is sending aid to build civil society and organize the political opposition. The U.S. is releasing billions of confiscated Libyan dollars to the opposition to ensure its staying power."
Sounds good, but at the same time we learn that our Treasury Department has exempted from financial sanctions the Arab Banking Corporation, an institution almost 60 percent owned by the Libyan Central Bank.
Meanwhile, a trickle of high-level defections and rumors of Qaddafi peace overtures in London feed hope this water-drop torture of a non-war may actually end in the foreseeable future.
If it does, Obama will have earned his Peace Prize by winning a war without actually fighting one. Any bets?
In the Senate, John McCain proclaims that "Hope is not a strategy" as Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen reports the no-fly mission has been hampered by bad weather.
So much for the military situation. With obvious White House help, David Brooks enthuses over a "Squeeze and See" strategy to "ratchet up the pressure...reaching out to senior Libyan figures to encourage defection (the foreign minister has already split, and more seem to be coming).
"There is an effort to broadcast television signals into Libya to rival state TV. In the liberated areas, the multilateral alliance is sending aid to build civil society and organize the political opposition. The U.S. is releasing billions of confiscated Libyan dollars to the opposition to ensure its staying power."
Sounds good, but at the same time we learn that our Treasury Department has exempted from financial sanctions the Arab Banking Corporation, an institution almost 60 percent owned by the Libyan Central Bank.
Meanwhile, a trickle of high-level defections and rumors of Qaddafi peace overtures in London feed hope this water-drop torture of a non-war may actually end in the foreseeable future.
If it does, Obama will have earned his Peace Prize by winning a war without actually fighting one. Any bets?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)