The Commentariat -- September 22

Boomers, PBS Loves You. Elizabeth Jensen of the New York Times: "A group of public broadcasting executives is putting together an online and broadcast initiative that ... [is] hoping to make public television a mainstay for 45- to-65-year-olds.... The core of the project, called Next Avenue, will be a Web site with original and aggregated content from public and nonprofit partners — organized around health and wellness; money and financial security; and a category called living and learning — that is expected to start April 1."

Borzou Daragahi & Ramin Mostaghim of the Los Angeles Times: at home, "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ... is under withering attack from all political directions."

A Plague on America. David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "House Republicans on Thursday will issue a legislative blueprint called 'A Pledge to America' that they hope will catapult them to a majority in the November elections. Its goals include a permanent extension of all of the Bush-era tax cuts, repeal of the newly enacted health care law, a cap on discretionary federal spending, and an end to government control of the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." ...

... Never, Ever Trust a Republican. Zaid Jilani of Think Progress: after calling the reconcilation process of passing financial bills "undemocratic," and "an extraordinary & unprecedented abuse," Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, who could become chair of the House Budget Committee, says Republicans may have to use reconciliation.

Ishaan Tharoor of Time interviews Markos Moulitsas on his book American Taliban.

Statements that would never be tolerated against Jews or Israel are regularly made and tolerated against Palestinians. -- Matthew Duss

Matthew Duss of the Center for American Progress in a Boston Globe op-ed points out the double standard in treatment for Marty Peretz for his many anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian comments & of Helen Thomas for her one comment against Jews.

Robert Scheer of TruthDig on the impending exit of Larry Summers: "Obama’s effusive praise on Tuesday went well beyond the requirements of professional pink-slip courtesy and suggests that he is still in denial over the role of key Democrats like Summers in getting us into this mess." ...

... BUT. Summers Is Not as Bad as You Think. Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic thinks progressives may have reason to miss Larry Summers. ...

... Glenn Thrush & Kendra Marr of Politico: "...it’s highly likely Obama’s pick will be either a woman or a business leader – and preferably both, said several people familiar with the situation." CW: because what the public demands is more evidence that Obama is not antagonistic to big business.

Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post: "One unfortunate side effect of a dramatic shift in the political winds is that the party that suddenly has momentum thinks it can claim vindication for every nutty notion spouted by its leaders. Republicans ... [are] declaring that all Americans are suddenly demanding to cut every tax, dismantle every federal agency and leave it to the free markets to regulate business behavior. Oh - I almost forgot - we now apparently also believe that global warming is a hoax."

You're on Your Own, Kids, Part 1. Los Angeles Times: "Major health insurance companies ... have decided to stop selling policies for children rather than comply with a new federal healthcare law that bars them from rejecting youngsters with preexisting medical conditions." ...

... You're on Your Own, Kids, Part 2. Washington Post: "Republican lawmakers on Tuesday stalled a Senate measure to allow children of undocumented immigrants to get on a path to citizenship, and accused the Obama administration of seeking amnesty for illegal immigrants through administrative changes within the Department of Homeland Security."

Center for Tax Justice: "Last week, 31 House Democrats signed a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in support of extending the Bush tax cuts for all taxpayers, and thus opposing President Obama's proposal to allow the tax cuts to expire for the very rich. New data ... show that two-thirds of the House Democrats who signed that letter represent districts that have less than the average share of taxpayers rich enough to face higher taxes.... Further, the claim made in the letter that these very rich taxpayers 'are responsible for 25 percent of national consumer spending' is simply incorrect." (pdf)

Scott Ritter, a singular voice of reason during the build-up to the Iraq War who correctly argued Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, writes in TruthDig of the current situation,

The president and the American people will all too soon come to recognize that the quagmire in Iraq is far from over.... 50,000 American troops remain in Iraq, configured into six 'advisory and assist' brigades that are structurally identical to their 'combat' counterparts.... The Obama administration’s so-called strategy for Iraq lacks any discernable benchmarks for success.

       ... Thanks to Sharon E. for the link.

Dana Goldstein of the Daily Beast cites President Clinton on the upcoming elections & on his global initiative. Clinton chastized the media for not fact-checking Republican & tea party claims. And he warns disaffected Obama supporters:

Like everything else you do when you’re mad, there’s an 80 percent chance you’re making a mistake. You’ll get the exact result you don’t want. -- Bill Clinton

Michael Scherer of Time: "White House aides are preparing for the possibility that Rahm Emanuel may step down as chief of staff as soon as early October if he decides to run for mayor of Chicago, according to a person familiar with deliberations in the West Wing."

JoeMyGod: "Sen. Saxby Chambliss [R-Ga.] has confirmed that the 'All faggots must die' comment left here on JMG earlier today did indeed come from his Atlanta office."

The Jon Stewart Decade

Jon Stewart on Oprah, Parts 1 & 2:

What Base?

Bob Herbert: "... black voters ... have been hammered disproportionately by the recession and largely taken for granted by the Democratic Party.... The idea that we had moved into some kind of postracial era was always a ridiculous notion.... What has taken a toll is the perception that the president has consistently seemed more concerned about the needs and interests of those who are already well off, who are hostile to policies that would help working people and ethnic minorities, and who in many cases would like nothing better than to see Mr. Obama fail."

The Constant Weader comments:

Two points. First, this from Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times, reporting on President Obama's CNBC townhall meeting of yesterday that was supposed to be about "Investing in America":

During the Q&A, "an African-American woman who identified herself as a chief financial officer, a mother and a military veteran," said to the President, "I'm exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for. I've been told that I voted for a man who was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class and I’m waiting sir, I'm waiting. I still don’t feel it yet."

Here's the exchange:

That lady speaks for me, & for millions of others, of every racial stripe. I don't know why Stolberg even mentioned the questioner's race, because the woman's complaint had nothing to do with race. But her race does speak to Herbert's point -- that black Americans aren't getting from the President what they had hoped for. Neither am I, and I'm white.

During the 2008 primary campaign, I had a discussion with some well-meaning white Democrats who appeared to favor Hillary Clinton because she was white. I was an Obama supporter, & I promised them that if Barack Obama became President, within weeks white people would be thinking of him as "the President," not as "the black President." I was wrong about that, because I hadn't counted on Rush Limbaugh & Newt Gingrich & Glenn Beck & all the other right-wing entertainers thinking up every way they could to keep reminding people Mr. Obama is black: "Imam Obama," "Kenyan anti-colonial," "racist."

But. When I'm not railing against the Rush/Newt/Glenn coterie, when I am able to push them to the back of the bus, as it were, I see Mr. Obama as "the President," & I applaud or criticize his policies & remarks on their merits, not within any racial context. I'm 65 years old, I grew up in the segregated South, & I didn't know any black people till I went to college (in the North). So yes, as a child, I did notice people's skin color. Frankly, now I don't, & I have to think about it when somebody asks the race of a person. Race, to me, is not a defining characteristic. I realize I would likely not have the luxury of that indifference were I not white.

Even better, I know plenty of people, including my own children, who are a generation (or more) younger than I for whom race was never definitive. They just don't think about it. So I think millions & millions of Americans do live in post-racial America. That there are still people on the right who will exploit racism, like the execrable Andrew Breitbart who published the heavily-edited Shirley Sherrod tape, & that there are still people who will fall for it, like the President himself, is a filthy stain on our country. It's true the media keep these racist creeps in a place of prominence, but that is because it is the business of the news media to expose evil.

Racial bigots are now their own minority, & their numbers continue to dwindle, which, of course, is one reason the ragtag remainder are squawking so loudly. The rest of us moved on some while back.

Karen Garcia "just can't relate":

Maybe the reason Obama has such trouble firing up his original base is that most of us just can't relate to these black-tie, thousands-of- dollars-a-plate fundraising affairs. We watch TV clips of the galas, and shrug, and think "there is no way I would ever get invited to THIS shindig."

It just struck a jarring note that the impeccably dressed president would urge the Black Caucus to head on back to the barber shops and beauty parlors to gin up the support of black voters. It occurred to me that the President doesn't have a clue about how most black people, white people, any kind of people, actually live these days. I think he got the hair care locales idea from some political ad from the 70s, depicting regular folks just hanging out. Either that, or his speechwriters have been watching too many reruns of "Roseanne" and "The King of Queens".

I don't know about you, but I can't really afford to go to the beauty parlor for a shampoo and a haircut. Hell, I can barely afford a bottle of shampoo. Any politician looking for me at the local salon will be out of luck. You might find me in my kitchen with a pair of shears trimming my bangs, though.

And then I read about the the fundraiser in tony Greenwich, CT the other night at a private home for a very exclusive and very rich bunch of limousine Democrats. I heard that the President dissed the crazy lefties again for just not letting that public option thing go. If a video of that particular speech exists, I wouldn't watch it - I am already disgusted enough.

So, the President is worried about reinvigorating the base. And I ask - what base?