The Old New Englander

Making Lemonade

2011-12-17T22:41:00.000-05:00

The Des Moines Register has endorsed Mitt Romney in the GOP Iowa caucuses. The paper opines that Romney has shown sobriety, wisdom and judgment. Sobriety, well, yes. Wisdom? Judgment? Well, maybe judgment when he was governor of Massachusetts and backed the healthcare plan that, as he never gets tired of denying, served as a model for President Obama's. But the fact that he does keep denying that says much about his character, a factor that the Register ignores.

Making a virtue of hypocrisy, the paper praises Romney's asserted ability to "see the merits of tough issues from something other than a knee-jerk, ideological perspective." I guess that's one way to describe flip-flopping.

Perhaps more than anything, this endorsement is testimony to how weak the Rebuplican field is, and how far to the netherworld of the Right the party has strayed.

Saying it all

2011-12-17T20:05:00.000-05:00

Heard on NPR: "The United States invaded Iraq after the 9/11 attacks, which were plotted in Afghanistan."

On the faces of babes

2011-12-09T09:44:00.000-05:00

Source: Yahoo

The thing about Scott Brown

2011-12-09T08:34:00.000-05:00

A new poll has Scott Brown (R.MA) down 7 points in a match-up with Harvard Professor and Democratic senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren. Surprising, but it's 11 months before the election so perhaps not all that meaningful.

The thing about Scott Brown is that he's not all that bright. Listen to him. Do you sense a deep intelligence, curiosity about the issues that confront us, a quest to solve problems? If you do, please let me know. (I met Scott Brown briefly in his Senate office; he did not impress.)

Now, we don't always vote for the smartest candidate. Some very intelligent people cannot get along with others--they would not be good members of a representative body. Some geniuses have no sense of reality, of the practical. And as Sen. Roman Hruska said of Judge Harold Carswell after Nixon nominated him to the Supreme Court, "there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance?" Scott Brown may need to rely on that kind of "thinking" if he hopes to get re-elected.

Shocking!

2011-12-09T08:23:00.000-05:00

The EPA concludes that fracking pollutes groundwater. What ought to be shocking, but isn't, is the pushback from the company that operates the gas wells involved in the study, and from the governor of Wyoming, which gets 2/3 of its revenues from the Oil and Gas industry. What's public health when there's money at stake (and when it isn't your water that's being poisoned)?

Wow

2011-12-06T08:06:00.001-05:00

Dan Quayle--perhaps the leading current example of "forgotten but not gone"--will endorse Mitt Romney today. How many votes will that get Mitt? Quayle's immediate family? Maybe.

Do you think Mitt asked for this endorsement? Or did Quayle proffer it out of (a) good will; (b) a sense of civic duty or (c) a pathetic desire to get back in the limelight one more time?

What I'd like to ask Newt Gingrich

2011-12-01T17:25:00.000-05:00

Mr. Gingrich, you are a historian (as we all know). If you had been in your home state of Georgia in 1861, would you have supported secession, or opposed it? And if you would have opposed it, would you have gone to the north, as some Southern unionists did, to do so actively?

I don't think this is a "gotcha" question. It would be interesting to hear the answer and to reflect on what light it would shed on the candidate.

(It's a measure of the intellectual power of the Northern versus the Southern causes that among those from the South who served the Union were Adm. David ("Damn the torpedoes") Farragut and George H. ("The Rock of Chickamauga") Thomas. The most prominent northerner to serve the South was John C. Pemberton, remembered as the general who surrendered Vicksburg to Grant.)

In case you forgot

2011-12-01T16:02:00.000-05:00

Today (December 1) is the first day of meteorological winter. Cheer up, though: that means that March 1 is the first day of spring! And winter is the shortest season of the year.

"Politics is the name we give to the things we decide to do together"

2011-11-30T09:02:00.000-05:00

For better than thirty years, I've been proud to say that Barney Frank is my congressman. I'm still proud to say that, but now that he has announced he shall not run next year, I--like many of my Fourth District compatriots--am feeling bereft already.

It's too soon to say who will run for Barney's seat, although there will almost certainly be a gaggle. It's also as close to certain as it can be that whoever succeeds Barney will never be able to fill his shoes. If we are fortunate, his successor will follow in his footsteps.

Although known for his outsize personality, his quips and his often abrasive argument for positions he believes in, I suspect that Barney's star will shine brighter after he steps aside and we can observe his work from some distance. Although deprived of the chance for stardom that the Senate provides some of its less-numerous denizens, Barney's work in the House has been of immense value to his constituents, his fellows, and his country. The title of this post sums up his approach to government--one that is all too rare today.

We'll always remember you fondly, Barney.

(For those who might think I am suggesting a close relationship with the congressman by using his first name, let it be known that everyone in the Fourth calls him Barney. I have been at events where he has been introduced as "Congressman Frank," and I find myself starting to look around the room to see who is being referred to. I'm sure I'm not alone in that.)

The media is the...

2011-09-30T08:40:00.000-04:00

The Justice Department's Inspector General, which first reported the story of the alleged $16 muffin (see earlier post) has now blinked and admitted that the hotel where the muffins were served, along with coffee, tea, other pastries and fruit, was right that the cost was a bit under $15 per person, and included rental of the rooms where the conference in question was held.

The correction was picked up by Bloomberg, but how many outlets will give the debunking the same prominence that they gave the original (wrong) story?

Journalism has never been perfect, and will never be, but it hurts when a theme--or as the media types have taken to calling it, a meme--leads to erroneous stories being given great prominence, while as usual the truth never catches the lie. (Remember the McDonald's hot coffee case a few years ago?)

Last night Scott Pelley, on CBS, had a pretty good interview with David Barger, the CEO of Jet Blue. In the course of it, Barger opined that we need to get the deficit down. Shocking, I know. Pelley then mentioned that Rebuplicans insist on all cuts and Democrats want cuts and tax increases, to which, Barger said that he thought "a combination" was acceptable. Pelley then came back with a remark along the lines of "but neither side will compromise."

WAIT A DAMN MINUTE. Rebuplicans insist on NO tax increases (except maybe on working people by not extending the payroll-tax cut). Democrats say SOME cuts and SOME tax increases--notably, they have not taken a hard line on what percentage of any deficit reduction should come from one side or the other. So, one party is not willing to compromise, while the other is. Why is it so hard for news outlets to say that?

(As regular readers will note, this page does not believe that compromise is a good in and of itself. We have often opposed compromises and expect to do so again. But accuracy in reporting does seem to be pretty much an unmixed good.)

Rewind

2011-09-23T08:51:00.000-04:00

Presumably you've heard of the report from the Justice Department's Inspector General about excessive spending for food, travel and entertainment. If not you certainly will; in these times when government austerity is all the rage, the Rebuplicans are sure to trumpet this as another scandalous example of Democratic excess.

One of the items that has garnered the most attention is the IG's allegation that the Department paid $16 apiece for muffins at the Capital Hilton, in DC. My first reaction: I want the recipe!

Whoa. Maybe the report is wrong. Hilton International says that the inspectors mis-read its invoices, and AP says that the report--while allocating $4,200 for the muffins--also noted 15 gallons of "complimentary" coffee, 30 gallons of "complimentary" ice tea (should it be "ice tea" or "iced tea?") and 200 pieces of "free" fruit. Your Eco 101 professor will tell you that there's nothing "complimentary" or "free" in a case like this.

More significantly, according to the AP the cost per-person for the conference in question was $14.74, exactly 2 cents over what the Department allowed.

I don't know if Hilton is telling the truth, or if the AP report is accurate, although my own experience with events suggests that paying less than $15 per person at a decent hotel is one hell of a bargain. In any event, this is a reminder that it's always a good idea to look behind the headlines.

Shame

2011-09-23T08:37:00.000-04:00

It's a tough time to be part of the legal profession. The killing of Troy Davis by the state of Georgia shames us all, and shames a system that could allow the state to kill him.

The idea that a man could be denied a re-trial or at least a reprieve after seven (of nine) witnesses recant their testimony, and in the absence of physical evidence tying him to the crime, shows a system that exalts the wrong values.

Yes, I know, the legal system needs finality--that's why we have statutes of limitations. And the system is just that--a means of making decisions. Perfection in the results is not guaranteed. But a mechanism that does not permit credible claims of actual innocence in a murder case to be litigated before a man is killed cannot be called a justice system. Indeed, it is an injustice system.

We should be better than that.

The wheels of justice grind slowly

2011-09-23T07:59:00.000-04:00

Court rules that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is not liable for the attack on the World Trade Center.

The 1993 attack.

Fire the job creators!

2011-09-21T18:57:00.000-04:00

Suggest that corporations should pay for the benefits they get from doing business in the US, or that the rich should contribute more for the common good, and Rebuplicans will scream that those are the "job creators" and that charging them more will choke off employment. (Some of us call this the "bribe the rich" theory of economics.)

Well, if those are really are the job creators, they ought to be shown the door. Face it, the "job creators" are incompetent. Have you looked at the employment--or unemployment--figures? What jobs have those people created with their cushy tax rates and special provisions? Damn few.

If the "job creators" won't do their jobs, fire 'em. That's the American way!

Tell it like it is.

2011-09-21T18:47:00.000-04:00

The release of two Americans snared by Iran while hiking in Iraq is good news, but why has the media accepted the tale that the money paid to free them was "bail?" It was nothing of the kind. The two men were ransomed, pure and simple, and those to give Americans the news should say so.

So this is what it has come to

2011-09-14T09:14:00.000-04:00

At this week's Rebuplican debate, Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul (R.Tx) whether a previously-healthy 30-year-old man who chose not to buy health insurance, but who goes into a coma, should be left to die in a hospital emergency room. After Paul opined that government should not be involved, that "that's what freedom is about, taking your own risks," the audience erupted in cheers and laughter.

So this is what the GOP has come to. The crowd at last week's debate cheered mention of the 234 people that Rick Perry has put to death in Texas--never mind that in at least a few of those cases there was serious doubt about guilt, in some about the mental capacity of the condemned and in others still grave doubt of the competence of defense counsel.

I can't help but contrast this new, mean party with the Republicans of the past. I've written before about Capt. Tom Philip, of the USS Oregon, who cautioned his men at the Battle of Santiago, "Don't cheer, boys, the poor devils are dying."

I don't know whether Capt. Philip was a Republican, although I have read that he was a serious Christian and the nation was overwhelmingly aligned with the GOP in 1898. Even if the Captain was apolitical, it seems to me that the call to his men, who had just helped decimate the Spanish fleet, embodies part of a conservative but essentially decent spirit that is associated with traditional Republicanism. And, of course, there was Lincoln, one of the first members of the party, "Let us go forward, now, to bind up the wounds..."

Since the GOP became the party of big business and, later, of nativism, there has always been a strain of inhumanity. Think of the use of troops to break the railway strike of 1894, the Homestead Massacre and other incidents. And, let's be honest, those on the left have also been willing, on occasion, to celebrate violence and even death. There was the Haymarket Bombing, the bombing of the Los Angeles Times, and even Woody Guthrie's banjo, which was inscribed, "This machine kills fascists."

Still, it's unsettling to think that the kingmakers of one of our major parties may wear such callousness about their fellow humans as a badge of pride.

3-Way Deal

2011-09-12T13:49:00.000-04:00

Tim, T-Paw, Pawlenty has endorsed Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination. Romney, in turn, has endorsed Orrin Hatch (R.UT) for re-election. We understand that cash and future consideration are also involved in the 3-way deal.

Where did it go?

2011-09-10T21:56:00.000-04:00

Ten years after, it is hard to recall the unity that pervaded the nation--and most of the world--following 9/11. I remember seeing firefighters in Budapest lined up to honor their colleagues in New York, and to recognize their courage and sacrifice. In those days it was common to hear that we were all New Yorkers.

Tonight on NBC News, there was a piece in which people were asked how 9/11 had changed their lives. If you had asked me, in the days following the attack, how the world would change, I should never, ever have said that ten years on we would be beset with partisanship that focuses on trivial issues, or that the national interest would be a minor factor in our leaders' decisions when compared with narrow political advantage.

After 9/11, one of the mottoes we heard, over and over, was "Never forget." And yet most of us have forgotten the most important lesson of that awful day.

Where do we get people like this?

2011-09-10T21:46:00.000-04:00

This weekend, the nation is stopping to remember 9/11, those who lost their lives and those who tried to save others on that day.

In the latter category are then-Lt. Heather Penney and Col. Marc Sasseville. They were the pilots of the two F-16 fighters scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base to intercept Flight 93. As everyone knows, before the fighters could do that, the passengers and flight crew of that doomed plane fought back against the hijackers and stopped the plan to crash into the Capitol, at the cost of their own lives.

What few people knew until now is that those two Air Force fighters that were sent to intercept the doomed flight had no ammunition. No bullets. No rockets. No way to bring the airliner down. Except to crash into the plane. And that's what they planned to do. As Penney told The Washington Post, "We wouldn't be shooting it down. We'd be ramming the aircraft. I would essentially be a kamikaze pilot."

Where do we get people like this? People not only willing to chance death in the service of our nation, but who will volunteer to die in its defense. I mean to take nothing away from the people on Fight 93, but the choice they were given was to die in a horrible crash orchestrated by the hijackers and fighting back, almost certainly at the cost of their lives. Lt. Penney and Col. Sasseville were engaged in something even more brave: a willful and willing act of self-sacrifice.

We do not pay our service members enough for that kind of courage. But they don't do it for the money.

Best HST story ever?

2011-09-09T20:39:00.001-04:00

From Maureen Dowd in Wednesday's NYT, writing about an incident witnessed by her brother, Martin, when he was a Senate page:

As a page in 1952, Martin watched on the Capitol steps as my dad, a police detective in charge of Senate security, greeted Harry Truman as "Mr. President."

"Mike," Truman chided him. "Call me Harry like you always did."

Tonight's Speech

2011-09-08T21:26:00.000-04:00

Here is the message I sent the President tonight:

As I watched your speech tonight, I asked myself, "Where has this President been for the past two and one-half years?"

Tonight, you were the President we thought we elected in 2008.

Thank you, but don't stop now. Keep it up, Mr. President! Don't look at the polls, don't look at the pundits. Look at the people for whom you spoke tonight--the unemployed, the dispossessed, the millions who have taken it on the chin for decades. Speak for them, Mr. President, right up to Election Day, and after. Be our President, not our campaigner in chief.

Oxygen

2011-09-07T09:45:00.000-04:00

Truth, distilled.

I heard this comment on the BBC's coverage of Libya. Unfortunately, I was driving at the time and did not catch the name of the man who said it:

"Democracy is like oxygen. When you have it, you don't enjoy it."

'Nuff said

2011-09-06T21:22:00.000-04:00

What the President forgot

2011-09-06T21:21:00.000-04:00

Back in the 00's, we liberals chortled at supporters of the Bush administration who derided members of the reality-based community. And we might well still laugh at those on the Right who believe in faith-based answers to problems susceptible to solutions based on actual knowledge.

President Obama is certainly a member of the reality-based community. As a general rule, that is a good thing in a President. But Mr. Obama seems to have forgotten that one function of a leader is to change reality.

I had a professor in law school who said, "If you don't like the facts, change the facts." He did not mean that we should falsify, but that when the situation was still evolving, we should try to influence the course of events in our client's favor. In many instances, president's can do that, through appointments (including recess appointments), executive orders, the issuance of regulations and simple presidential leadership.

The president can change the terms of debate. That is, he (or she) can change perceptions of reality--which in many instances is to change reality itself. He (or she) can speak to Congress or directly to the people. If s/he makes an effective case, the voters will tell members of Congress what to do. And the members ignore such a message at peril to their careers.

One of the requisites for effective leadership is measured boldness--an appreciation of what the public will accept that proves superior to that of others--in Congress or the punditocracy. Think of FDR's 50,000 airplanes and the New Deal or JFK's promise that America would reach the moon in 10 years. No serious person thought that such goals were possible before the presidents expressed them. Indeed, serious people said that FDR and JFK were crazy. And they were right--while FDR said that the United States would produce 50,000 aircraft in four years, we produced more than that number in 1944 alone. Kennedy's 10-year time span turned out to be just over eight. Those were instances of leaders who changed reality.

To this point, Mr. Obama's leadership has lacked boldness. He has had a good grasp of what can be achieved--let's not forget health-insurance reform and the Dodd-Frank Act (among other measures) were given little chance. But many of us have the nagging feeling that the President's grasp has exceeded his reach.

This week, Mr. Obama will have a chance to show more boldness and more effective leadership in the way that he attacks the problem that threatens a new economic crisis. It's an opportunity he has to grasp, not just for his presidency, but for the good of the nation.

Obama blinks again

2011-09-01T08:47:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, the President formally requested to address a joint session of Congress on September 7th. Apparently because that would conflict with a televised debate of Rebuplican nonentities, a/k/a the GOP presidential candidates, Speaker Boehner refused. As far as I can tell, it is unprecedented for Congress to refuse a presidential request for a joint session. And it's not as if there's nothing important to talk about.

As you have probably heard by now, the President blinked and agreed to talk to Congress on September 8th. Instead of competing with the Rebuplican debate, he will be opposite the opening night of NFL football. Just guessing, but the reception he gets from the GOPhers might be rougher than some NFL defensive lines present.

I think the President made a mistake--not that the timing is a major issue. Still, if Mr. Obama had asked me, I would have suggested that he go ahead and make his speech on September 7th, and if Congress does not want him in the Capitol that night, he should do it from the Mall out front. Set up a stage, and lights, and invite the voters. He's going to be talking over the heads of Congress and to the American people anyway, why not do it openly?

The GOPhers think this is a good thing

2011-08-31T08:34:00.000-04:00

The New York Times reports that at least 25 CEOs earned more than their companies paid in federal income taxes last year. These are not small or obscure companies. The list includes Boeing, eBay, Verizon, and GE (whose CEO, Jeffrey Imelt, is the chair of President Obama's council on competitiveness).

Yeah, we know, "Corporations are people, too." No, they're not. Verizon may be run by human beings (I know a bit about how that company is managed and one might question that), but to say that it is people is like saying that a huge earthmover or crane is simply the person at the controls. No. At some point, size takes over and the organization loses all but the most tenuous connection to the people it employs, its officers, directors and its stockholders; the connection is even more muted because of the differences among those groups. As one of my professors said, a long time ago, at some point a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind.

And don't bleat about how high our corporate taxes are and how they discourage American competitiveness. That's Eco 101, but in the real world things are a lot more complex. The fact is that the US is still by far the largest economy--and market--in the world. International corporations need to be here. Let them pay for the privilege. Make them pay more for the privilege. One of the first things we should do is to tighten rules that let companies use slick accounting to keep profits offshore.

One idea that I have had is to tax companies according to their size. Small, efficient companies would be taxed at a lower rate than large, inefficient ones. (And at the same rate as large, efficient ones, although efficiency tends to go down as size goes up.) The concept--I haven't got beyond concept--would be to give companies a choice: their tax rates would be set by their return on investment or their gross income, although the tax would be levied only on net income. Companies could change their election, but only after a period of years.

I'm not an economist, and can't calculate exactly how all this would all work out. If there ARE any economists out there, let TONE know and perhaps we can explore the idea.

More S&P looneyness

2011-08-18T21:29:00.000-04:00

Not content with downgrading the United States, S&P has downgraded a number of cities and counties.

Why? Because these governmental entities have too much of their money in US Treasury securities.

Now let me get this straight: These cities and counties are being penalized for investing in the safest securities in the nation. So if they had invested in riskier bonds, debentures, stocks, etc., that would have been better?

Does that make sense to anyone? Except S&P, of course.

(Remember that after S&P downgraded the US, nervous investors fled the markets for...U.S. Treasuries. And we trust these people to provide guidance to investors?)

Gold bubble

2011-08-18T21:14:00.000-04:00

The price of gold is now more than $1800 per ounce. (That's a troy ounce, which is a little heavier than a conventional ounce.)

An ounce of gold is a cube about 2/3 of an inch on each side. More than $1800.

Gold is going to prove to be a bubble.

You heard it here first.

What's different this time

2011-08-18T21:05:00.000-04:00

William Black, litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board during the S&L crisis and now a law professor, tells NPR why no one is going to jail as a result of the financial melt-down, and what the regulators' strategy should be. Listen.

Another boondoggle

2011-08-18T20:57:00.000-04:00

Yet another obvious waste of the taxpayers' money. The New York Times reports that the Justice Department is investigating whether Standard & Poor's improperly rated dozens of mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the financial crisis.

Well, of course they did. Isn't it obvious? Indeed, it's been clear for years that S&P and the other big rating firms, Moody's and Fitch, were either totally incompetent, willfully blind in the service of the bottom line or corrupt in certifying as AAA investments that were junk.

So why do we need an investigation?

The greatest line

2011-08-17T09:04:00.000-04:00

Wolf Blitzer interviewed President Obama and reminded him that he got his daughters a dog as a present after winning the 2008 election. What, Blitzer wanted to know, would he get them if he wins reelection next year?

When I'm reelected, what I'll be getting them is a continuation of Secret Service so that when boys want to start dating them they are going to be surrounded by men with guns. That's their gift.

Thanks to TalingPointsMemo for the report.

Why Mitt Romney cannot be elected President

2011-08-17T08:41:00.000-04:00

Mitt Romney might well be the strongest Rebuplican nominee against President Obama, at least on paper, but he cannot be elected. Why? I hear you asking. In one word--or one name--Seamus.

You don't remember Seamus (pronounced like the private eye in a Black Mask mystery, shamus)? He was the Irish Setter that the Mittster tied to the top of the family car before the Romney's drove 600 miles to a vacation in Ontario.

No one can be elected President who is cruel to dogs. There are too many dog lovers who vote.

If Mitt locks the GOP nomination, I, for one, am going to order a whole bunch of bumper stickers that say:

ASK SEAMUS

ABOUT MITT

I'll let you know where to order yours when--and if--the time comes.

A useful yardstick

2011-08-15T08:22:00.000-04:00

Michele ("The Madwoman of Minnesota") Bachmann is touting her success as a small-businesswoman to show that she would be effective at restoring the economy if she should be elected President.

Seems to me that's like saying your experience coaching a pewee football team fits you to replace Bill Belichick.

If he debated a post it would be hard to say who won

2011-08-14T21:24:00.001-04:00

Rick Perry has joined the contest for the Rebuplican presidential nomination. Down in Texas, where he's from, they have a saying about people who try to appear bigger than they have any right to be: "All hat and no cattle."

In Perry's case, it's all hat and no brains. Listen to him. The man is dumb as a post. He makes Michele Bachmann sound like a brain trust.

In his announcement, the governor pledged that if elected he'll spend every day trying to make Washington as inconsequential in our lives as possible.

How would he do that?

Maybe he'll eliminate FEMA, so that the federal government won't get involved in natural disasters.

Maybe he'll eliminate the FDA, so that the federal government won't certify the safety of drugs before they go on the market.

Maybe he'll eliminate the Department of Agriculture, so that federal inspectors won't check the safety of meat before it reaches our tables.

Maybe he'll cancel the FAA, so that airline schedules won't be regulated and pilots won't have to take orders from federal bureaucrats.

Maybe he'll wipe out the Federal Highway Administration so that we don't have to look at those boring signs, all the same, on interstate highways. Maybe he'll stop spending our tax dollars on interstate highways.

Surely, he'll cut back on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and assure that each of us can own the assault rifle, shoulder-fired missile and IED of our choice.

We know he'd gut the EPA, because private industry has done such good job at assuring clean water to drink and air to breathe.

He'd certainly try to nail the new Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, because ordinary citizens don't need protection from predatory lenders or credit-card issuers.

Yes, there are limitless opportunities to pare the federal government, as long as you don't care about the health, welfare and safety of the American people

Back by popular demand

2011-08-14T20:44:00.000-04:00

I thought we had pretty well seen the end of TONE, but here we are, back through the demands of our regular readers (both of them) who clamored (very quietly) for its return.

No promises on how long we'll stay, but for now at least, we're back!

Where is the poet to do it justice?

2011-06-07T07:56:00.000-04:00

A couple in Florida forecloses on a Bank of American branch after the bank wrongfully tried to foreclose on their home.

To quote Barry Fitzgerald, "Warms the cockles of me heart!"

That sound you hear is flip-flopping

2011-05-25T09:52:00.000-04:00

No, it's not Mitt Romney. The Mittster does not have a monopoly on flip-flopping among Rebuplicans.

Turns out T-Paw is a pretty good flipper himself, as Michael Tomasky illustrates.

Build on this

2011-05-25T08:17:00.000-04:00

Can Democrats build on Kathy Hochul's upset win in NY-26? Unless GOPhers manage to backpedal faster than Bobby Orr getting back to meet an odd-man rush, the answer is: Yes. Rebuplicans stand to be crushed next year, broken on the wheel of their plan for Medicare--that is, the plan to kill it.

But if Democrats want to build something more lasting than the Rebuplicans did in 2010, they need to win over voters on more than Medicare. The Times quoted a couple of Republican voters who pulled the lever (well, actually, pushed the button) for Hochul: "'I have almost always voted the party line,” said Gloria Bolender, a Republican from Clarence who is caring for her 80-year-old mother. “This is the second time in my life I’ve voted against my party.'” "'Pat Gillick, a Republican from East Amherst, who also cast a ballot for Ms. Hochul, said, “The privatization of Medicare scares me.'” If Hochul is to be more than a one-term congresswoman, she's going to have to find common ground with people like this. Constituent service is one way to do that, but in these contentious times, it's likely to be more important to find issues on which there is common ground. In suburban and exurban conservative districts, suspicion of big banks and Wall Street might be one of them. Can that be used to get these voters to support reforms such as the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that has been such a lightning-rod for Rebuplicans beholden to those very interests? Perhaps. Indeed, the biggest risk for Democrats may be that so many of their own people are in thrall to the same masters.

Just another reason for Democrats to re-discover their roots.

The conventional wisdom: wrong again

2011-05-25T08:02:00.000-04:00

Democrat Kathy Hochul has won the special congressional election in NY-26, one of the most conservative upstate districts. The Tea Party candidate, Jack Davis, faded at the end. Indeed, once again, the conventional wisdom proved wrong: As late as last week, the MSM was attributing the close race to Davis' presence siphoning off votes from Jane Corwin, the Rebuplican candidate. Even TalkingPointsMemo bought into this line.

But When Davis' support melted away, a substantial part of it went to Hochul, as did the undecided.

Best line of the week

2011-05-23T13:40:00.000-04:00

Or the month. Maybe of the year.

Comment on a story about Harold Camping's reaction to finding that he was wrong that Saturday would be the Rapture:

"Oh cheer up Harold. We all make mistakes. Its not the end of the world."

It's all over

2011-05-23T07:47:00.000-04:00

Hold the phone. The Republican race is over. Herman Cain has officially announced his candidacy for the nomination.

Maybe true

2011-05-23T07:46:00.000-04:00

Tim (the Man Who Vetoed Money for Infrastructure Before the I-35 Bridge Collapse) Pawlenty has announced that he is in the Rebuplican presidential race. That's a relief to GOPhers battered by the run for the exits of respected national leaders like Mike Huckabee, Mitch Daniels and, of course, Donald Trump. Not to mention the self-inflicted damage incurred by New Gingrich as a result of his sudden brush with honesty last Sunday.

Pawlenty's announcement--in a web video--is entitled "A Time for Truth," demonstrating that--especially in Rebuplican hands--veracity is an elastic concept. Think of how Gingrich said that anyone who quoted his comments on Paul Ryan's budget proposal would be spreading a falsehood. According to Pawlenty, this country is in big trouble. Some of us would say that's because Obama and the Democrats have had only a couple of years to undo the disaster that was W. Or we might say that Pawlenty's words are really meant as a preduction of the future: what would happen if he and his party take over the White House and enshrine ignorance in the Oval Office.

(Note that Pawlenty is running in the Rebuplican presidential race. That's not the same as the race for the presidency. As the public learns more and more about what the GOPhers want to do to the nation, the possibility that Mr. Obama will be defeated next year diminishes with each passing day.)

Dropping like flies

2011-05-18T09:10:00.000-04:00

Rebuplican candidates for President are dropping like flies. First Mike Huckabee. Then Donald. Then Newt Gingrich angered the "conservatives" by dissing Paul Ryan's budget. Now New has been revealed to have owed more than $250,000 to Tiffany's in 2006. That will help his populist credentials. (In Newt's defense, clearly he was just trying to help the wealth trickle down. Oh, and he was presumably spending it on his current wife, not his next one--a welcome change from past behavior.)

Last night, Chris Matthews called Sarah Palin "profoundly stupid." (Usage alert: isn't that a contradiction in terms?) Matthews may be revealing his misogyny, because also yesterday Rick Santorum, yet another as-yet-unnanounced Rebuplican candidate for the Oval Office, told an interviewer that John McCain doesn't understand torture. Yes, he really did. Talk about profound stupidity. Say what you may about McCain (and this page has), if anyone in the United States government understands torture, it's him.

Oh, and Michele Bachmann says she may "move up" her decision on whether to run for President.

Fun times!

How far we've come

2011-05-11T08:13:00.000-04:00

There was a time when we actually enforced the antitrust laws. Indeed, I took antitrust from Donal Turner, who was the chief of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division under LBJ.

Which leads me to ask who in his or her right mind would think that Microsoft should be permitted to purchase Skype--a service that it could (and should, if it wants to be in the business) easily develop on its own.

On code names

2011-05-06T09:10:00.000-04:00

Some American Indians have expressed anger (or disgust) over the use of the code name Geronimo for Osama bin Laden. One one level, the name may have been meant to pay tribute to the wiliness of both the al Qaeda leader and the chief of the Chiricahua Apaches. But tying the courageous Indian leader who was defending his ancestral lands against invaders to a mass-murdering religious fanatic was, at best, insensitive.

Which brings up one of my pet peeves: the whole use of code names these days. I'm thinking particularly of names for military operations--"Iraqi Freedom," "Desert Storm," but the example of Geronimo/bin Laden shows the same confusion.

Code-names are supposed to be CODE. They are meant to conceal, not reveal. Historically, the names given to operations had nothing to do with the objective; that was the whole point. So, the invasion of North Africa was Torch, of Sicily Husky and of Normandy--as we all know--Overlord. None of the titles had anything to do with the target. During WWII, the names were picked at random from a long list (sometimes a name was rejected as being perhaps too revealing or perhaps embarrassing if known).

That's the other thing about code-names: they are not revealed at the time; that would defeat the purpose. They are held secret until revealing them will not hurt anyone.

What we have today is clumsy propagandizing meant to evoke heroic warmaking. Arrogant foolishness.

Will they ever learn?

2011-05-06T08:36:00.000-04:00

"Raid Account, Hastily Told, Proves Fluid"

The title of a piece in the NYTimes this morning, recounting the shifting descriptions of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The article goes on, "it was a classic collision of a White House desire to promote a stunning national security triumph — and feed a ravenous media — while collecting facts from a chaotic military operation on the other side of the world."

Now it's become a self-inflicted wound. Not serious, but wholly unnecessary.

I've never been in the Oval Office or the Situation Room. I've never dealt with vital issues of national security. But I don't need that kind of experience to know that talking about the details of an operation like this, especially within the first forty-eight hours, is just plain dumb. Even in today's world of instantaneous communications, the story is going to change as it's examined. The chances that the details will look better when re-examined are slight, and if that occurs, the original story will still be the one people remember.

For a White House full of very smart people, this was just stupid. And it was totally foreseeable, because it happens every time there is a story like this. Remember, "Brownie, you're doin' a heck of a job?"

What the administration should have said was: "United States forces killed Osama bin Laden at a hideout in Pakistan on May 1st. His body was positively identified. His remains were treated with respect and in accord with Muslim custom, and he was buried at sea. Further details will not be forthcoming at this time."

At a joint news conference with Harry Truman, Winston Churchill told reporters, "I think no comment is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again. I got it from Sumner Welles [FDR's trusted aide]." Mr. Churchill was a wise man.

Joke's on them

2011-05-03T20:49:00.000-04:00

In the dear dead days beyond recall--that is, before the announcement that US forces had killed Osama bin Laden--Donald Trump wore a bulls eye at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. (For those who have forgotten, it was last Saturday night.) As you have probably heard, host Seth Meyers (allegedly of another Saturday Night Live, though you couldn't prove it by me) noted that The Donald had announced that he was running for President as a Rebuplican, "which is surprising, because I thought he was running as a joke."

Good line, but grossly unfair to Mr. Trump, because--as we know--the Rebuplican Party is a joke.

But seriously, why haven't you heard any of the commentariat note that the weakness of the Rebuplican presidential field (something that has been mentioned) is directly related to the party's intellectual bankruptcy? The mix of fallacy, foolishness and outright lies that pass for thought on the Right must be toxic to any serious political debate. Oh, a few of the Rebuplican leaders--I'm thinking of Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan--can sound sensible when producing a sound bite or a set speech. But as Paul Krugman has shown in his columns, what passes for reasoning quickly crumbles when challenged by real knowledge and thought that is not constrained by "conservative" cant.

To make this argument, I ought to be able to show a plausible Rebuplican candidate who is not running, because he or she cannot stomach--or surmount--the bunkum that the party now celebrates. I cannot do so, but I think that is because the anti-intellectualism of the Right has so hollowed out its intellectual basis that there is nothing left.

-30-

Don't cheer, boys

2011-05-02T07:45:00.000-04:00

The killing of Osama bin Laden is a signal achievement in the struggle against those who would use terror as a legitimate weapon to impose their narrow, rigid view of the world on others. It was a necessary step, once he was located. Had I been the President, I should have ordered it.

Yet I cannot celebrate the death of any person, even one who has brought so much death and suffering to so many others.

For a long time, I have admired Capt. Tom Philip, commander of the U.S.S. Oregon at the Battle of Santiago during the Spanish-American War. As the Spanish ships came out of the harbor, the overwhelmingly superior US fleet engaged them. When one of the Spanish ships began to blaze, sailors on the Oregon began to shout. "Don't cheer, boys," Capt. Philip called out. "The poor devils are dying." The simple humanity of that statement moves me.

And so my feeling this morning is, Let's not cheer. Let us, instead, regret the necessity to take human life in defense of human dignity.

Second coming?

2011-04-13T07:43:00.000-04:00

Four years ago, when I started working for Barack Obama, I hoped that he would be the second coming of FDR. Now I'm afraid that he's turning out to be the second coming of Grover Cleveland.

Marking time

2011-04-12T08:58:00.000-04:00

Today is the 150th anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter that started the Civil War.

Saturday, April 9th, was the 144th anniversary of Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

What Mr. Obama should be doing

2011-04-11T08:35:00.001-04:00

This morning on NPR, Cokie Roberts, dependable voice of Conventional Wisdom, said that for President Obama, "it's all about the independents;" according to her, that was the reason that the President dug in his heels over the social-issue riders that the most radical Rebuplicans wanted to stick on the budget deal.

She may well be right, but that's not a good thing. In fact, it exposes a central fallacy of Mr. Obama's approach: He should not be trying to appeal to independents. He ought to be working at changing their minds so that they become Democrats.

Fighting a rear-guard action to protect the English language

2011-04-11T08:30:00.001-04:00

NEW ARRIVALS

JUST IN

store on Newbury Street in Boston

Thanks for the clarification. We should never have known.

.....

You will almost certainly read or hear that Japan is marking the one-month anniversary since the country was devastated by the earthquake and tsunami. Even the Voice of America used that locution.

Well, no, the Japanese aren't. There's no such thing as an anniversary for a period of less than a year. "Anniversary" comes from annus, Latin for year, and versus, which did not mean "against" as it does now, but "turning." (There's no 18-month anniversary, either.)

Oh, and 12 months from an event is not the one-year anniversary--a clumsy and ugly phrase that is an outgrowth of the mis-use of anniversary. It's the first anniversary.

Read this

2011-04-11T08:16:00.000-04:00

John Thompson, the unjustly and illegally convicted man whose $14 million verdict against the New Orleans DA was stolen from him by the reactionaries on the Supreme Court a couple of weeks ago, had an op-ed in yesterday's Times. He destroys the decision, not in legal but in human terms. And those are the terms that matter, because in the end the law deals not in abstract principles, but in real life.

Read his article. Read it even if you have to sign up and pay to get the Times on line. (As ab aside, why shouldn't we on-line users be prepared to pay the cost of bringing us the news?)

Bad policy, bad politics

2011-04-09T08:18:00.000-04:00

The deal that congressional leaders and the White House signed off on last night is bad policy, because the budget cuts on which Democrats caved will hamper economic recovery and hurt the very people that government is supposed to help.

It is bad politics for Democrats, because having signed on they cannot criticize Rebuplicans for hampering recovery, and cannot blame Rebuplicans for reviving the shades of Herbert Hoover.

And the Rebuplicans can go on, virtually unfettered, with their war on working- and middle-class Americans, women and anyone else who is not in their base.

Once again, Democrats--including President Obama--have failed to draw a line in the sand.

The bullies won. Again.

The Best

2011-04-08T20:06:00.000-04:00

The best--I mean it, the best--commentary I have seen on the Rebuplican program and what Americans really think of it appears in, of all places, something called the Ironton Tribune. Ironton seems to be in southern Ohio. (There's also one in South Dakota, I think.)

Read it and see what you think. If you scroll down through the comments, you'll see that I could not resist. And you'll see that I was the only one of those commenting who agreed with the writer.

Bad sign

2011-04-07T20:20:00.000-04:00

I just sent an email to the White House, telling the President to show a little backbone and stand up for the people who elected him. But when I went to the White House site, I found that when entering the topic of my message, there was no option for "budget."

HAVE THEY TAKEN LEAVE OF THEIR SENSES?

2011-04-07T20:13:00.000-04:00

Or only their backbones? Just heard Larry O'Donnell say that negotiators--presumably including Democrats in the Senate, and the White House--are now discussing budget cuts of 35 to 39 billion dollars to avoid a government shut down.

It's hard to agree with the Tea Party demagogues, but Shut It Down. Make the case--it shouldn't be that hard, because it's true--that Rebuplican intransigence, duplicity and selfishness are responsible. Put it to them.

If we Democrats don't have the guts to stand up for those who are forced to depend on government for the essentials of of daily life, we don't deserve to govern.

What a disgrace.

A different angle

2011-04-06T10:36:00.000-04:00

Most of the attention given to Rep. Paul Ryan's (R, WI) budget proposal has been focused on his plan to turn Medicare into yet another subsidy for health insurers. (Why are Rebuplicans so sure that Americans like health insurers more than gummint bureaucrats? Seems to me that if there is one group below bureaucrats in the popularity scale, it's health-insurance people.)

I'd like to focus on another aspect of the proposal: Ryan wants to reduce the top corporate and personal income tax rates to 25%. That's because, as we all know, the rich and powerful don't get enough reward for what they do. Remember, these are The Folks Who Brought You the Great Recession.

What's really interesting is that Ryan and his ilk reason that slashing the top rates will encourage economic activity and so there will be no net loss of tax revenue (although even more of it will come from people at the bottom end of the income curve). In fact, they argue that net tax revenues will actually increase.

Think of the implications: Slash the top tax rate to zero and what would we have? So much tax revenue that we'd be able to pay for every imaginable government program (well, at least for huge DOD cost overruns, subsidies for corporate farmers and other assorted boondoggles). Indeed, the government would be taking in so much money that we'd have to RAISE taxes to CUT government revenues, before government has ALL the money!

As you no doubt recall (those of you over 30 anyway), this is the same crock that the supply-siders sold in the 1980's. It was discredited then and it's still dreck. Yet the Republicans, shameless as ever, go on peddling it. Clearly, we need not only to slay this idea--and all of the junk that the Rebuplicans are trying to put over on us--but to drive a huge wooden stake through its heart.

Now, what are we going to have to do to get what passes for mainstream media to see this?

Is this the message she wants to be sending?

2011-04-06T10:23:00.000-04:00

Bristol Palin earned more than $260,000 for warning about the dangers of teen pregnancy in 2009.

Hmm. What do you think she would have made if she hadn't been pregnant as a teen?

It's war

2011-04-01T08:35:00.000-04:00

"Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."

Col. John Parker

Lexington Green

April 19, 1775

In case you haven't noticed, the Right has declared war on the rest of us.

Last week, an assistant district attorney in Indiana had to resign after it came out that he had sent emails to Gov. Scott Walker (R.WI) suggesting that an agent provocateur be employed to carry out a mock attack on the governor as a means of discrediting union supporters. He was the second prosecutor from the Hoosier State to be forced out over the tumult in Wisconsin; earlier, another assistant district attorney resigned after we learned that he had suggested that the protesters in Madison be met with "live ammunition."

These images of violence are not isolated. Remember Sharron ("Obtuse") Angle suggesting "Second Amendment remedies" during last year's campaign?

Half-serious (?) suggestions for violence are a small and--so far--minor part of the assault on those who do not share the agenda of the hard Right and their allies (implausibly, the banks, Wall Street, most large corporations). There is, as you have heard at great length, the attack on labor rights being waged in such at first blush unlikely venues as Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio. The war on labor and working people is not an isolated phenomenon.

There is a bill in the US House that would make it impossible for unions to win representation elections; the White House has threatened a veto, a very unusual move for this administration.

While Tea Party extremists in Congress say they will accept nothing less than a $61 billion slash at the parts of the budget that aid those who cannot help themselves, investments for the future and other worthwhile objects, Democrats are touting a "breakthrough" to avoid a government shutdown that will involve a whack of $30 billion.

The best description of the effect of Rebuplican extremism that I have seen came from, of all people, the food writer Mark Bittman. In an op-ed piece in The Times, Bittman notes that "The budget proposes cuts in the WIC program (which supports women, infants and children), in international food and health aid (18 million people would be immediately cut off from a much-needed food stream, and 4 million would lose access to malaria medicine) and in programs that aid farmers in underdeveloped countries. Food stamps are also being attacked, in the twisted 'Welfare Reform 2011' bill." He goes on to state the simple truth:

These supposedly deficit-reducing cuts — they’d barely make a dent — will quite literally cause more people to starve to death, go to bed hungry or live more miserably than are doing so now.

That is what we have come to.

The Right's war is total. It ranges from sanctifying the rights of wealth to destroying women's privacy in the quest to outlaw abortion. While we may chortle over the silliness of Newt Gingrich's contortions over Libya, they are symptoms of the single-minded aim of those on the Right not simply to overawe and defeat their opponents in elections, but to crush them. When Scott Walker and his cronies--allegedly heirs of the law-and-order Rebuplicans of the 1960's and 1970's--threaten to ignore a court order holding up their cherished union-busting law, they make it clear that the ends are all, and that means have become meaningless.

Yes, friends, it's war.

What will we do now? Will we continue to be nice guys? Will we continue to assume that those on the other side of the divide (it's much more than an aisle) are reasonable people? Or will we remember Col. Parker and tell the Right that if it wants a war, it will have one?

Doesn't look good

2011-03-17T13:25:00.000-04:00

Video of what appears to be a low-level flyover of the stricken nuclear plan in Japan. The damage is much more widespread and obvious than the photos we've been seeing, probably file photos and videos.

Dumb questions department

2011-03-17T08:27:00.000-04:00

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R. TX), a man who is a walking argument for an IQ test for members of Congress, asked FBI director Robert Mueller, "How is your outreach going with Baptists or Catholics?" Gohmert was trying to question the FBI's overtures to American Muslims, and by implication associate Muslims with violence, disloyalty, whatever. Clever guy.

Unfortunately, Mueller blew the opportunity, replying lamely that the FBI's citizens academies involve "individuals from a wide segment" of local communities.

What he should have said was, "Congressmen, we don't need outreach programs to those communities, because they haven't been stigmatized by bigots like you and your political allies."

No flies on us

2011-03-16T08:00:00.001-04:00

The world dithers while Muammar Khadaffi batters the Libyan people. It's always easy to find reasons to do nothing. (My favorite is the widely-heard observation that no-fly zones in Iraq and Yugoslavia were followed by more military action. If that sounds like an attractive piece of reasoning, look up post hoc ergo propter hoc in your dictionary.)

Meanwhile the ever-shifting eye of the MSM has shifted to Japan.

But think of it this way: If Khadaffi gets his way, more people will die in the Libyan revolt (in a nation of only six or six and one-half million) than in Japan from the earthquake and tsunami. And probably the nuclear catastrophe, too.

The difference is, we can do a lot to prevent slaughter in Libya.

NPR under attack

2011-03-16T07:54:00.000-04:00

I see that the Rebuplicans in the House are going to vote on denying federal funds to NPR (and, I assume) CPB tomorrow. If they succeed in this, and in getting the Senate to go along, we leftists will just have go get together and make up the difference. Then we can turn NPR into the kind of liberal news and cultural outlet that the wingnuts have ways thought it is.

Echoes

2011-03-11T15:24:00.000-05:00

The House Homeland Security Committee, chaired by Rep. Peter King (R, Lon Guyland), began its hearings into the purported radicalization of American Muslims. TONE is mightily tempted to dilate at length on the absence of hearings on the radicalization of the Rebuplican Party, but it seems more appropriate to remember the words of Joseph Welch to Joseph McCarthy at a similar juncture in our history:

Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

That sound you heard from Madison last night

2011-03-10T08:19:00.000-05:00

was the door closing on Rebuplican hopes to recapture the White House next year. (The sound was not too loud, because the GOPhers' chances were already slim to the vanishing point.)

I think it's safe to say that Americans don't like bullies. And if there were any doubt to fair-minded people--who still hold the balance in this country--the Rebuplican steamroller of workers' rights in the Badger State put an end to them. Not to mention any question about the party's respect for truth. As a Wisconsinite told talkingpointsmemo:

It's not just the budget bill needs a quorum -- the big issue is that *any* bill with fiscal implications is supposed to have a quorum in the Wisconsin state Senate. So there are two choices here:

1. Collective bargaining has fiscal implications, and so the bill will be blocked in the courts and ruled unconstitutional.

2. Collective bargaining DOES NOT have direct fiscal implications, and Gov. Walker has been lying this entire time by making the case that it's fiscally necessary.

So either the state R's just passed an illegal bill, or Walker has been lying this entire time and really is just interested in union-busting.

For another example of the Rebuplican respect for truth, see todays NYT.

The trouble with lies is that they catch up with you. That's why David Mamet has one of his characters say to another in Glengarry Glenross: "Always tell the truth--it's the easiest thing to remember."

Every day, more Americans come to realize that the GOP stands for three things: 1) Money; 2) Power; and 3) The power of money.

Sometimes there is progress

2011-03-09T14:56:00.000-05:00

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has signed a bill--passed by both houses of the legislature--abolishing capital punishment. He has also commuted the sentences of 15 men on death row. This is a major step forward--a major state abolishing the death penalty through legislative, not court action.

Somebodies being dumb

2011-03-08T08:03:00.000-05:00

Mitt Romney is going around the country trying to run away from his past. Specifically, from his history as governor of Massachusetts. More specifically, from the healthcare reform that he sponsored, which was one of the progenitors of the national reform that Congress passed in 2009.

For a smart guy, the Mittster is being remarkably dumb. The more he tries to avoid his history, the more his opponents will tag him with it; he'll have to spend more time defending himself than he would if he were straightforward. (Those who followed Mitt's campaign in 2008 will recall that that was a feature of his effort then. He has not learned from his history.)

Mitt would be smarter to take the opposite tack. He should say, "The Massachusetts healthcare reform package was imperfect. So is Obamacare [let him use the word; to digress, I think Democrats should take the name on as a badge of honor]. But it has many good features. In today's world, everyone needs healthcare, and insurance is the way we pay for it. No one except an insurance executive wants people to be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. No one wants a cancer patient to be told that he can't get more treatment, because his insurance has a limit and that limit has been reached. So, let's reform Obamacare, not repeal it. And, you know, if you look at my home state of Massachusetts, almost everyone does have health insurance, the state has a lower unemployment rate than most, it did not suffer as much from the recession and it is coming out of the recession better than other comparable states. The work we did in Massachusetts had a lot to do with that."

Mitt won't say that, of course. He doesn't have the guts to go against the Rebuplican tide. And he's probably right that the message I have outlined will not get him the nomination. But the one he is trying to peddle won't, either, and if by some mischance he is nominated, he'll go down to ignominious defeat against President Obama.

Oh, and the Rebuplicans are being dumb in their refusal to recognize the need for real reform of the nation's healthcare system. As in their refusal to recognize reality in so many other forms. Don't be misled by the mid-term elections: Americans are waking up to the intellectual bankruptcy of what used to be the Grand Old Party.

A new motto for the GOP

2011-03-05T18:49:00.004-05:00

IGNORANT AND PROUD OF IT!

(See following post for one example.)

Is this the same guy?

2011-03-05T17:35:00.005-05:00

As I recall from 2008, Mike Huckabee was a very conservative but decent guy, characterized by good humor and a tolerant attitude. He sure has changed. I'd guess that the presidential bug has really dug deep in him, but maybe this is what comes from too much time hanging around the toxic precincts of Fix Schmooze.

You probably saw this story: Huckabee was asked by a "conservative radio host," Steve Malzberg, about President Obama's background. (Republicans have not paid so much attention to a president's upbringing since Abe Lincoln, "the Railsplitter.") Malzberg, whose grasp of facts is at best shaky, said, " How come we don’t have a health record, we don’t have a college record, we don’t have a birth certificate — why, Mr. Obama, did you spend millions of dollars in courts all over this country to defend against having to present a birth certificate?"

None of those assertions is true, but Huckabee didn't bother to correct his host, or to enhance the radio audience's understanding. Instead he wandered off: “I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough," he began. Then he said, “If you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.”

That statement, too, is devoid of facts. Mr. Obama did not grow up in Kenya; he did not set foot in that country until he was 26, and then on a short visit. He did not grow up with his father, whom he met only twice after the man left the President's mother when Mr. Obama was a baby. Clearly, he did not hear tales of the Mau Mau at his father's or grandfather's knees.

One of the things notable about this story is Huckabee's amazing ignorance of American history; I mean the guy is a conservative who achieved high office and is seeking an even higher office. But the former governor seems to think there is something essentially different about stories of British imperialists persecuting freedom-loving fathers and grandfathers in Africa from the stories we hear as children, about British imperialists persecuting our forefathers. (Coincidentally, today is the anniversary of the Boston Massacre.)

When it was pointed out that Mr. Huckabee had engaged in fiction, his spokesman, Hogan Gidley, the executive director of the former governor's PAC, said that Huckabee "simply misspoke," and that “he meant to say the president grew up in Indonesia."

Now, that makes sense. It's so easy to confuse a nation in Africa characterized by high plains, large mountains and people with a pastoral background with one strung through Asia on more than 1,000 islands. And who of us has not mistaken the Serengeti Plain for Borneo? Or British overlords with the Dutch?

What really gets to me is the utter contempt for the American people that Huckabee shows. "Simply misspoke?" Huh? At least he could have asserted that he spoke in ignorance--although that is highly unlikely as well; too much thought must have gone into the comment about Kenya and the Mau Mau movement (the leader of which, Jomo Kenyatta, became the first president of an independent Kenya). The fact is that Mr. Huckabee lied (that is, he told a knowing and intentional untruth), and that he tried to cover it up with another lie.

Sadly for the party that gave us Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Eisenhower, this incident is now par for the course for today's Rebuplicans. They have become the Party of Ignorance.

Anniversary

2011-03-04T07:45:00.002-05:00

Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as President (for the first time), 150 years ago today.

FDR was inaugurated for the first time 78 years ago today.*

They still live in our hearts.

*The date of inauguration was changed to January 20th during FDR's first term.

The big lie

2011-03-01T07:35:00.002-05:00

Guess how much Wisconsin taxpayers are paying for state workers' pensions.

You're wrong. Unless you guessed $00.00. That's right, the Badger State's taxpayers don't pay any part of the pensions. The workers do, because their pensions come out of deferred compensation--that is, money that's owed to them as wages, but that they have elected (through their collective bargaining agreements) to defer and put into the pension system.

It is true that taxpayers would have to make up shortfalls if the projections of payouts fall short (i.e. retired workers live too long). But that is the product of short-sighted public officials who made overly-optimistic projections to make the deal seem sweeter to employees. (The plans are defined-benefit plans; if Gov. Walker really wants to save money down the road, he should negotiate with public workers so that new contracts, or perhaps newly-hired workers, go into less generous defined-contribution plans. But then again, saving money isn't what he's really about.)

You can read the details here, from Tax.com, and a further commentary here, from Forbes.com, of all places.

We tell the truth in our jests

2011-02-28T09:54:00.003-05:00

From a friend of a friend:

A public union employee, a tea party activist, and a CEO are sitting at a table with a plate of a dozen cookies in the middle of it. The CEO takes 11 of the cookies, turns to the tea partier and says, "Watch out for that union guy. He wants a piece of your cookie."

Last American veteran of WWI dies

2011-02-28T08:17:00.002-05:00

Frank Buckles, the last surviving American veteran of WWI, has died at age 110.

He must have been some guy. He enlisted at 16, by lying about his age. He served in France, although behind the lines. He came to Washington for the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day, November 11, 2008, to be at a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. He was back in Washington a year later--he must have been 108--to testify before Congress on a proposal to designate a National WWI Memorial on the National Mall.

Oh, and he also survived being a POW in the Philippines during WWII.

Wow.

Where'd they get the flags?

2011-02-27T18:32:00.002-05:00

If you've been watching the news from Libya--and how can you not be?--you've seen the opposition (or should we call them rebels, or just the people?) flying black, red and green flags with a crescent and star. That was the Libyan flag under the monarchy that Qaddafi overthrew in 1969.

So, where did they get all the flags? There seem to be too many for them to have been made in the past couple of weeks. Have people been saving them all these years, dreaming of the day when the dictator would fall? Has there been an underground movement making flags as a means of resisting tyranny?

If you know, or have an idea, let us know.

If ya can't join 'em, beat 'em

2011-02-27T17:59:00.004-05:00

Note: This is a re-write of an earlier post

As fervor to bust unions rises among Rebuplicans (and, sadly, some independents), we've been seeing the MSM interview working people who voice anger at public-employee unions. Polls suggest that the anger is not as widespread as the media--most of which has surrendered to the easy path of mistaking the presentation of opposing views (however fringe) as fairness--implies.

Worse, none of the reports I have seen ask this question: Why aren't more people in unions? More specifically, If people in unions are better-paid, have more benefits and enjoy more job security than unorganized workers, wouldn't it be a good thing for more people to join unions?

Questions like these may seem obvious, but they must not be. Or, they are ignored and obscured by those who don't like the answers? (Part of it is certainly short budgets, short deadlines and shortsightedness by reporters and editors.) Unfortunately, not enough speakers who are on the side of working people are asking questions like these, and when they are asked it is not done often enough or at sufficient volume.

Again, we see progressives getting beaten down, objecting but not really digging in for a long struggle to change minds clouded by sustained, well-funded barrages from the plutocrats. The Right was willing to spend decades taking its foolish ideas from the realm of derision and fantasy to the center of the national stage. Progressives--who, after all, have truth (that's small "t" truth, not large "T" truth) on their side, must be willing to fight as hard. Perhaps what's happening in Wisconsin will wake us up, finally.

Speak up!

Rebuplicans

2011-02-27T17:36:00.002-05:00

Readers may have noticed that this page has been referring to Rebuplicans lately. Readers may also know that for the past few decades--or longer, an article in Wikipedia puts its origin in 1940--members of that party have consistently referred to my party, the Democratic Party, as "the Democrat Party." That is a slur. It is meant to convey disrespect: Members of the GOP cannot be bothered to learn the true name of their political opponents' party.

The other night, Lawrence O'Donnell interviewed Scott Fitzgerald (yes, that is said to be his real name), the majority leader of the Wisconsin State Senate. O'Donnell went out of his way to be polite to Sen. Fitzpatrick, but the senator repeatedly referred to his colleagues across the aisle as "Democrat senators." Unfortunately, although understandably, O'Donnell did not correct Mr. Fitzhugh. The governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, shows a less subtle condescension and contempt for the opposing party.

On this page, anyway, members of the other party will be known henceforth as Rebuplicans until they learn to call our party the Democratic Party. Feel free to join us and get others to do the same. Who knows, if it spreads, maybe the Rebuplicans will learn some respect. Not a small thing. It is, after all, one of the keys to democracy.

More wisdom

2011-02-24T09:47:00.002-05:00

I recently found a terrific blog on politics and life by DEK Rivers, and it's based in Wisconsin! (I happened upon it before the recent blow up). I much recommend Caffeinated Politics.

Here's a small sample:

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by really smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."

Mark Twain

What would Twain have made of America today?

Knowledge vs. Wisdom

2011-02-24T09:43:00.002-05:00

Thanks to Ron Dean and Barry Roseman, plaintiffs' employment lawyers, for this quotation:

"Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad."

Miles Kington

The Rebuplian DOMA problem

2011-02-24T08:11:00.002-05:00

As you have no doubt heard, the Obama administration has declared that the fraudulently named Defense of Marriage Act is so patently unconstitutional that the Justice Department will no longer defend it.

Rebuplicans are predictably outraged. But they have a problem here. DOMA declares marriage to be the union of a man and a woman. But GOPhers are resolutely anti-union these days.

So where does that leave them?

(If you respond that the GOP must have become the party of divorce, you're right. Divorced from reality, at any rate.)

Words for these times

2011-02-23T07:46:00.002-05:00

Proof that history does repeat itself, that the same battles need fighting, over and over again.

Come all you good workers

Good news to you I'll tell,

Of how the good old union

Has come in here to dwell.

Which side are you on, boys?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on, boys?

Which side are you on?

My daddy was a miner

And I'm a miner's son.

I'll stick with the union

Til every battle's won.

Which side are you on, boys?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on, boys?

Which side are you on?

They say in Harlan County,

No neutrals are there there.

You'll either be a union man,

Or a thug for J.H. Claire.

Which side are you on, boys?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on, boys?

Which side are you on?

Oh, workers can you stand it?

Oh, tell me how you can.

Will you be a lowdown scab,

Or will you be a man?

Which side are you on, boys?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on, boys?

Which side are you on?

Don't scab for the bosses,

Don't listen to their lies.

Us poor folk hasn't got a chance,

Unless we organize.

Which side are you on, boys?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on, boys?

Which side are you on?

(later verse)

They say down in Hinds County,

No neutrals have we met.

You'll either be for Meredith,

Or a Tom for Ross Barnett.

Which side are you on, boys?

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on, boys?

Which side are you on?

Florence Reece (except last verse)

Evolutionary question

2011-02-23T07:41:00.001-05:00

Your editor has no more doubt about evolution than he does that the Sun will rise tomorrow. Well, no more than he would have if he believed that the Sun actually rises.

But here's a challenge for proponents of Darwin's theory: Why don't earthworms sleep late?

A Christmas Story

2010-12-23T21:02:00.002-05:00

I've noted before that, although I'm not a Christian, I love Christmas. Not for the theology--that won't surprise you--but for the spirit. Yes, the Christmas spirit. Tomorrow night, as we do every Christmas Eve, the lovely Diane and I will watch Miracle on 34th Street (the original, 1947, B&W version, of course), and at the end I'll tear up.

One reason that it's easier for a non-Christian to love this season is that it never came with any of that baggage that that bedevils (you should pardon the expression) so many for whom the holiday has religious and family trappings. I can appreciate the spirit of Christmas in its essence. Of course, the spirit I cherish was largely constructed by American business and Hollywood. The miracle on 34th street, after all, was that Macy's would put customers ahead of profits (and in so doing, as the actor portraying RH Macy notes, make even more profits).

But enough Scrooge.

Tonight's CBS Evening News had a truly wonderful Christmas story, about a young (really young) man who truly knows the spirit of Christmas. Take a look. Oh, and go here to learn more about how you can get in on the goodness.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Good news--for me, at least

2010-12-19T10:42:00.002-05:00

Just saw a story that asserts that my home state, Massachusetts (a commonwealth, actually), is one of the 10 worst states for retirement. Whew! I don't want to spend my retirement (when and if) among a bunch of old people, any more than I want to be surrounded by tourists when I travel. When I travel, I want to be the only tourist (well, with the lovely Diane), and when I retire I want to be among younger people.

So, all you alte kakas out there: Go to Florida!

Insanity

2010-12-16T07:40:00.002-05:00

You have no doubt head the saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If that's the case, then our attitude toward guns is the very definition of insanity.

In Panama City, Florida, the other day, a man stood up at a school board meeting and started taking potshots at the School Committee. In Sacramento, a young mother, a supervisor at a bookstore, was killed after a man apparently walked into a barber shop and started shooting. The mother was found in a position that led police to conclude that she heard the firing and placed her body to protect her 2-year old son. He will now grow up without a mother. Meanwhile, TPM reports that a plan to reduce gun smuggling to Mexican drug cartels has languished at the Justice Department out of fear of NRA influence.

Insanity.

The tax psychosis

2010-12-13T20:43:00.003-05:00

The prevailing attitude toward taxes in this nation--at least so far as the mainstream media are concerned--may best be described as a psychosis, that is, a derangement characterized by a loss of contact with reality. This disease has grown over the past 30 years, to the point where it now dominates our politics.

Reality is that the nation faces great challenges: an educational system that has been overhauled and surpassed at all levels by countries in both Europe and Asia, the immense financial burden of war, a deteriorated infrastructure, a high-tech sector that is losing ground daily to foreign competitors, and a dependence on foreign energy sources that is only increasing, to name a few. Yet every serious attempt to deal with these problems--and to restore the United States to a position of leadership--is crippled by a reflexive refusal to consider any increase in the levies on those who can easily afford to pay more, who are also those who by every measure get the greatest benefits from government.

Not surprisingly, the tax psychotics are also bullies. Anyone with the courage to question their delusion is bullied and shouted down. They have to do that, because no rational defense of their position can be mounted.

Like many sane people, Democrats have been hesitant to challenge the delusion. Instead of calling the tax psychosis was it is--crazy--Democrats have temporized, tried to avoid conflict and attempted to reason. To no avail.

The anti-tax movement did not start out by being loony (although elements of the movement got there quickly). In the hands of its initial proponents, opposition to taxes was an expression of a belief that government was too large. And there are still those who espouse the need for smaller government, although few indeed are the members of this camp whose positions are consistent. But even the "starve the beast" camp of Grover Norquist et als has been obscured by a simple, reflexive and complete rejection of any tax hike, no matter how needed or equitable it might be.

The tax psychosis has crippled the United States. It distorts the debate about vital national issues and limits the range of solutions to problems that have have led to our national decline. It empowers the forces of reaction and fear.

Unless and until the progress of the tax psychosis is reversed and room for a healthy, real debate about tax policy created, there will remained hobbled, at home and abroad.

Future posts will pose some suggestions about how to counter the tax psychosis. Your suggestions will be welcome.

True intellectuals

2010-12-13T08:50:00.002-05:00

Democrats tend to consider themselves more thoughtful and, truth to tell, more intelligent than Republicans.

But consider: It is said that the mark of a true intellectual is someone who can keep opposing thoughts in his or her head at the same time. And Republicans, as we know, believe that we must not tax the rich at the same time that they think that diminishing the deficit immediately has to be our first priority.

The price

2010-12-08T20:03:00.002-05:00

"Why didn't you people shoot?" With those words Adm. Wilhelm Canaris, chief of German military intelligence, greeted his new deputy, Col. Erich Lahousen, formerly his opposite number in the Austrian service.

What would have happened had the Austrians resisted the forced annexation of their country? No one knows, of course. Had the Austrians fought (there was substantial division in that country over the Anschluss), they would have had to pay a price in blood, and most probably Germany would have prevailed. But it seems safe to assert that the butcher's bill would have been lower than it turned out to be. In all probability, many fewer Czechs, Poles, French, Norwegian, Dutch, British, Russians and Americans would have died to destroy Nazi Germany.

Had the world resisted Hitler earlier, the cost would have been even lower. When the German Army marched into the Rhineland in 1936, its orders were to turn around if the French put up a hand and said Stop.

I do not for a moment mean to equate Republican congressional leaders with Hitler. The point is that there is always a price to pay for standing up to bullies, and the cost gets higher the longer the bullies are allowed to prevail. Worse, that cost curve provides further justification for refusing to fight We saw that yesterday, when the President argued angrily that the cost of further resistance to Republican obstructionism on the Bush tax giveaways is too high. What he ignored is that the price has risen precisely because he has not been willing to fight back. Had he and his administration stood up to the GOP earlier, many fewer people would have had to suffer before the Republicans knuckled under--as they would have been forced to--on issues like taxes and unemployment compensation.

Ultimately, the West was forced to stand up for Poland, a nation that was geographically isolated and profoundly undemocratic. But by September 1, 1939, there was no choice. Even then, the Allies' unwillingness to take risks led to the occupation of Western Europe.

So far, Barack Obama has refused to learn from history. But he is a smart man and there is yet time for the light to dawn. Let's hope that the fury of his supporters and allies wakes him from the stupor that has taken up much of his first two years.

The President's defense

2010-12-08T10:19:00.002-05:00

Did you see President' Obama's spirited defense of his "compromise" with the Republicans?

This is called--as the President should recall--putting lipstick on a pig.

How come?

2010-12-01T08:45:00.002-05:00

Today's Times reports that the President's commission on the national debt lacks to votes for a comprehensive plan.

There are essentially three ways to bring the federal budget into line and, ultimately, to reduce the national debt: 1) For the economy to grow fast enough so that increases in federal revenues are greater than increases in spending. 2) To raise taxes. 3) To cut spending.

How come the deficit commission concentrates almost all of its energy on the third of these? As do Republicans and a surprisingly high percentage of commentators who ought to know better. As far as raising taxes are concerned, the deficit commission's chairs, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, would concentrate on extracting more from the middle- and working-classes while letting the affluent off pretty much scot-free. They pay no attention to the first source of needed funds.

Does that make sense to you? Me, neither. But maybe that's because we're not rich enough. Or being paid by those who are.

What the President should say

2010-12-01T08:37:00.002-05:00

Last night, I suggested that President Obama should announce that he will veto any extension of the Bush tax cuts for those earning over $250,000. On thinking about it, he should be more clear. Here is the kind of thing he should say:

The Bush-era tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 will expire at the end of this month. They are history. They will not be restored. I will veto any measure that extends those tax cuts. If Congress sends me a bill that extends the Bush tax cuts for all taxpayers, I will veto it. If Congress attaches an extension or reenactment of the tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 to a defense-authorization bill, I will veto it. If Congress attaches an extension or reenactment of the tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 to a bill raising the debt limit, I will veto it. I trust that I have made myself clear. It is time for Congress to get on with the business of the nation, to pass measures that will be effective in bringing the nation out of recession and in starting to plan how we are going to deal with our huge load of debt once the economy is strong again. It is past time to talk about tax cuts for those who can well afford to pay a little more for the benefits that they receive from this nation.

Saying it all

2010-11-30T20:16:00.002-05:00

A letter in The New York Times exposes the foolishness of those who believe that Wikileaks' disclosure of American diplomatic traffic is a welcome example of transparency. Thanks to Ilya Shlyachter of Cambridge, Massachusetts:

You seem to believe that disclosing diplomatic conversations will not have a dangerous chilling effect on the diplomats’ work. But are you willing to have your internal editorial discussions published? To have others decide what will and what won’t compromise your news-gathering methods? Would that not chill your ability to work.

We’ll know the answers when WikiLeaks publishes a trove of secret New York Times documents.

What am I missing?

2010-11-30T20:13:00.001-05:00

Why doesn't President Obama simply announce that he will veto any tax bill that includes continued tax relief for people earning more than $250,000?

If he did that, he would call the Republicans' bluff.

Are the Republicans willing to go to the nation and say, "Yes, we raised your taxes, because the President would not agree to tax relief for the wealthy?"

I say, Let them.

The secret to delicious Thanksgiving turkey

2010-11-20T19:56:00.002-05:00

I know that regular readers come here for iconoclastic commentary on politics and public affairs, but in this era of national anxiety, I thought we would do our part to allay that concern by providing the solution to what worries millions and millions of Americans at this time of year: How to make that perfect Thanksgiving turkey. As it happens, TONE knows the secret, and we conceive it to be our duty to share it with the nation. Indeed, with the world, the Internet being what it is.

So, go get a pencil and a piece of paper, because we're only going to say this once.

Here it is:

Remember to defrost the turkey early enough to get the bag of innards out of the cavity before you put it in the oven. Oh, yes, and remember to reach in and pull the bag out.

That's it.

For all the debate about brine, bags, deep-frying, whatever, the truth is that turkey is just about the easiest dish you can cook. Turn on the oven and let it heat to 325 or 350 degrees, put the bird in and, after a sufficient amount of time, take it out. Remember that, and don't get caught up in all that dithering about how to cook the turkey.

OK, a couple more hints: You can start the bird at 425, then turn the heat down after 30-45 minutes, to get the outside crisper. you can also help a crisp exterior, and maintain a moist interior, by basting the turkey every 15-25 minutes. Use whatever oil you prefer: canola, olive, peanut, motor....

One more thing: If you don't get soften the bird sufficiently to pull the bag out before it goes in the oven, roast it for an hour or so, then take it out and pull it out then. You won't notice the difference.

Oh, and if you feed your guests enough wine, beer, hard cider (TONE's preference, an authentic early American touch) or whiskey, they won't care what the turkey tastes like.

Happy Thanksgiving.

The hangover

2010-11-03T08:29:00.003-04:00

Now comes the hangover. Like someone who has gone on an epic bender, the voters are sleeping it off; they probably will be in a stupor for some months. Slowly, they'll begin to wake, and as they do the awful uncertainty in the gut, followed by nausea, will make itself known. Then the headache will begin to pound, and voters across the nation will ask themselves, What have we done?

The hangover will last two years, at least. Let's hope that, like the person who comes to realize that drinking too much is no fun, the electorate will sober up for 2012. I, for one, am confident that we will.

(Note to readers: This is likely to be the last post for a while. I am preparing to conduct a trial that seems likely to last until Thanksgiving. Trying cases is an all-consuming occupation.)

England or Spain?

2010-10-31T20:20:00.002-04:00

If you had been a dispassionate observer of the European political scene in 1585, you would almost certainly have said that Spain was far and away the most dominant power. With its Empire in the Americas sending huge amounts of treasure to the mother country each year, Spain was much the richest of nations. It's armies dominated Europe, using a military system based on blocks of pikemen with arquebusiers at the corners that rolled over opponents. Through its dynastic connections with the Hapsburg emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, Spain's domains were spread across Western Europe.

England, in contrast, was a small nation on the periphery of the continent; it shared the British Islands with Scotland, a traditional ally of England's enemy, France. The English had a substantial fleet, but no regularly organized navy to speak of, and no standing army beyond a palace guard. Although prospering from trade and fishing, the English were poor when compared to the Spanish.

As we can see now, by the mid 1580's Spain had passed its zenith and was on a downward curve that would lead, with a only a few brief intervals, to the poor, weak and divided nation that emerged from the blood-soaked exhaustion of its Civil War in 1939. England would go on to establish the greatest empire the world has seen--for two hundred years it was literally true that the Sun never set on it--be a power of the first rank for three and one-half centuries and the Earth's richest nation for much of that time. England--later the United Kingdom--survived the loss of the American colonies that became the United States and the rise of the Napoleonic and two German empires; it outlasted them all.

Spain, confident in its wealth and power, sank into centuries in which it lived off its assets and watched is political horizons to become steadily more limited. England, in contrast, gave freer rein to its citizens, rewarding initiative and encouraging innovation. Where the Spanish aristocracy continued to rule even as it became increasingly entrenched and entrusted, England permitted commoners to rise and even to rule.

The question facing the United States today is whether we will be like England or Spain. Are we on a path of irreversible decline or will the American system prove resilient and regenerative? Actually, we may first have to face a preliminary question: Do we care enough to accept the challenge of being the world's leader? (For those who believe that this is only question of empire-building, see Tom Friedman's column today.)

This is a much larger question than whether Democrats or Republicans should control Congress, or the importance of the Tea Party. Indeed, the scope of the issue dwarfs the mean, petty, self-destructive quarrels that constitution our politics.

And the American people are quite aware of the challenge the nation faces. On NPR, both E.J. Dionne and David Brooks--who agree on little--reported that they have found a wide and deep-seated feeling (or maybe fear) that the United States is in decline. Indeed, I suspect that much of the rage that is said to power the electorate this year represents frustration with apparent decline at just the moment when we--the World's Only Superpower--should be supreme.

The party that dominates American politics in the next quarter century--and perhaps much longer--will be the one that recognizes and acknowledges this issue and can mobilize the nation to confront it. Which one will it be: Democratic? Republican? Or some new grouping?

The activist Constitution

2010-10-31T16:52:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, the lovely Diane and I watched Hubert H. Humphrey, The Art of the Possible, a terrific documentary on one of the most underrated figures of Twentieth-Century American politics. The close of the program is Humphrey explaining the inspiration he found in the Preamble to the Constitution. The opening words of the Preamble, "We the People," embodied for Humphrey the essence of American democracy: that all power and all sovereignty derive from the citizenry. That's a truth that's all to easy to overlook--a lesson for political leaders and would-be leaders of both Left and Right.

But what really affected me was the way that Humphrey proceeded to explain how the Preamble formed the basis of his view of the Constitution and, indeed, of the role of the federal government.

The Preamble reads:

WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

As Humphrey noted, each of the verbs is active: to "establish" Justice; justice does not spring up on its own. "Insure" domestic tranquility: we must act to assure a civil society. "Provide" for the common defense: we must make the efforts necessary to defend the nation. "Promote" the general welfare; it does not come automatically. "Secure" the blessings of liberty: we cannot simply expect that freedom will flower, we must work to make liberty real.

As the Preamble sets the tone for the Constitution that is the foundation of the United States government, Hubert Humphrey argued that it should set the tone for our politics as well. In doing so, he also refuted those who would take a cramped and narrow view of government's role.

(Your editor worked very, very hard as a volunteer for Humphrey's 1968 presidential campaign. Hubert Humphrey was a good and gentle man, but tough enough to come within a whisker of winning that year; indeed, had the Left turned out, he would have been President. I recall how I walked around in a near-stupor for days after the election, unable to believe that the American people had chosen moral midgets like Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew over men with the stature of Hubert Humphrey and his running mate, Edmund Muskie.)

Post hoc

2010-10-26T07:39:00.003-04:00

As most of those who read this post yesterday probably realized, I indulged in the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc (after therefore because) in suggesting that, had President Obama taken a stronger position against the big banks, Wall Street and the health insurers, we might have had no financial or health care reform.

What I assumed was that the political equation would have been the same if the White House had come down on the side of more change than they were in light of the President's tepid positions and that, therefore, the outcome for reform would likely have been worse (even) that it has been. Yet the power of the President is the power to persuade, as Richard E. Neustadt wrote in Presidential Power in 1960. (The link is to a later edition.) Had Barack Obama taken to the airwaves and the stump to call for real, top-to-bottom financial reform, had he espoused single-payer national health insurance, or the replacement of fee-for-service with other approaches to charging for health-care services, or just the breakup of huge health insurance companies to insure competition in the market, he could have changed the terms of debate. That, if accompanied by adroit political handling, might have led to very different results, to the benefit of the nation.

So, we'll never know what might have happened. More's the pity, especially as we are faced with the substantial likelihood that the next two years (at least) will see even more division as the forces of reaction block progress on almost all vital issues.

Were the liberals right?

2010-10-25T07:50:00.002-04:00

If Obama had pushed to break up the big banks and weaken the huge investment banks (banking and investment banking used to be entirely separate lines of business; they should be again), Republicans would have had a lot more trouble in arguing that the Administration is in bed with Wall Street, and perpetrating the lie that it was the Obama, rather than the Bush Administration that bailed out the banks.

If Obama had taken on the health insurers, Republicans would have had a harder time assailing the Administration over "Obamacare," and particularly at the charges that health care reform will raise rates.

On the other hand, we might not have health care reform or financial reform on the books, even in their highly imperfect forms.

One thing is, however clear: The President should have been much stronger at criticizing Republican obstructionism from the beginning, and he should have made it clear that the bills he signed had many flaws and were only first steps toward real reform. The political people in the White House should have resisted the understandable, nay, inevitable, urge to celebrate the passage of health care and financial reform and urged the President to make the signing ceremonies muted affairs at which he noted the progress that had been made, but coupled that with strong statements that we need to go much further--with specific statements of the direction that further change should take.

Oh, and Mr. Obama should not have surrounded himself with people who were in the Wall Street club. He didn't do that on health care, and so you don't see Republicans attacking the administration for being too cozy with the health care establishment.

Shake the tree, you never know what will fall out

2010-10-22T13:50:00.003-04:00

Some fallout from Virginia Thomas' misguided attempt to obtain an "apology" from Anita Hill.

This will not surprise most thoughtful people who, I suspect, long ago concluded that Prof. Hill was telling the truth, and that Clarence Thomas either perjured himself or engaged in the most massive self-deception in his quest to join the Court.

Some of us have not forgiven such examples of Senatorial rectitude as John Danforth (then R. MO), Arlen Spector (R/D PA) and Alan Simpson (then R WY) savaged Prof. Hill although they must have known that she was telling the truth and that Thomas was not.