It's the Economy, Stupid

Tonight I'm not going to wait for the Times trolls to reject or bury my comments. (See update below.*) Here's a two-fer:

Paul Krugman hopes that President Obama, who is scheduled to propose new economic measures next week, will come up with bold initiatives.

The Constant Weader hopes so, too, but is a realist. BTW, this is an unexpurgated version of my comment. The original was more circumspect in describing Rahm Emanuel's remark:

... politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth.
-- Paul Krugman

               ... My nomination for your Bartlett's entry.

As for President Obama's doing anything bold next week, it's unlikely. Pundits love comparing Presidents: Obama is like/not enough like FDR; he's like Carter; or the theme du jour, he's like Hoover. I'd say he's more like the husband of his primary opponent. If you recall, President Clinton started out bold: for example, eliminate discrimination against gays in the military, balance the out-of-control budget. This was followed by never mind & school uniforms. I'm afraid with Mr. Obama, we're in school uniform territory.

Here's some evidence:

The President's Deficit Commission, larded with old geezers like Alan Simpson, who likens Social Security to "a milk cow with 310 million tits!" (exclamation Simpson's) President Obama knew what he was getting when he chose the members of the commission; I am not alone in thinking the Deficit Commission is an excuse for cutting Social Security benefits.

Meanwhile, McClatchy ran a story today that says Republicans, ConservaDems & other Democrats in tight races are poised to ensure that tax cuts for the rich will be extended. Somebody has to pay for those new yachts the super-rich will be buying with their tax savings -- might as well be old folks who are no longer economically productive.

As for the Administration's interest in jobs, jobs, jobs, car czar Steve Rattner's new book provides a window into how much the Obama Administration cared about labor. Rahm Emanuel's comment about the United Auto Workers: "Fuck the UAW." And Robert Gibbs let us know what the White House thought about progressive proposals: those of us who espouse them should be drug-tested. Michael Scherer writes a long article in Time about how profoundly disappointed the jobless are in Obama -- he has not kept his campaign promises and folks are still out of work. Tim Geithner and other Administration leaders are pretty sanguine about this.

Christina Romer, who is giving up her job as head of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, supposedly to help her son with his homework, gave a "valedictory" speech at the National Press Club this week in which she pretty much admitted she had no idea how to improve the economy. (Good luck with your homework, Master Romer.) "To this day," she claimed, "economists don't fully understand why firms cut production as much as they did or why they cut labor so much more than they normally would." She argued that "almost all analysts were surprised." 

As for measures to stem foreclosures & otherwise save the housing market, the Administration is completely clueless. Secretary Donovan says he's "concerned," but that doesn't stop him from boasting about the few foreclosures the Administration has averted.

The editors of the New York Times wrote last week that if President Obama had some good ideas to salvage the economy, this would be the time to announce them. But the truth is that Republicans & ConservaDems would block any bold initiatives, so all President Obama can do, and sadly all he is inclined to do, is propose a few conservative business incentives -- you know, something as innovative & effective as school uniforms. In other words, he will be following Romer's bromide even as she exits:

What we would all love to find -- the inexpensive magic bullet to our economic troubles -- the truth is it almost surely doesn't exist.

Meanwhile, across the op-ed page, David Brooks has completely lost touch with reality. (Okay, Brooks' mental breakdown may have happened some while back, & his recent vacation didn't help matters.) He invents a preposterous scenario, or what he calls an "alternate history," in which the President & the Congress take Brooks' advice. They forget about the stimulus & healthcare reform & pass some kind of Republicanny energy bill instead. Oh, and everything works out for the best & the nation hums happily along.

The Constant Weader comments:

Add this to your alternate history, please, for a touch of verisimilitude:

U.S. unemployment at 16 percent, same as Ireland's. Real wages plummet for Americans who do have jobs.

Small businesses go under at record rates. Start-ups, practically nil.

Healthcare costs skyrocket; emergency rooms crammed; uninsured, unemployed Americans dying in droves.

No Glenn Beck tent revival because the Washington Mall is already filled with a tent city & a stench is rising from the Potomac.

Republican Senators block the energy bill.

I ought to have added:

Teachers, other public workers are laid off in droves.

Local property taxes rise sharply; delinquencies double; sheriffs conduct record number of home auctions.

California is the first state to declare bankruptcy, thirteen other states are expected to follow soon.

Bridge over the (Pick-a) River collapses, dozens feared dead; engineers say bridge was in terrible disrepair. Chunks of concrete from I-4 off-ramp fall on car, occupants killed. Et-cetera.

Finally,

The super-rich build higher fences around their homes & spend more time on their bigger & better yachts -- hey, they can afford it.

* Update: they cut only my comment on Krugman, which was the substantive one.

Recalling D-Day

Constant Weader: I've been listening to my Uncle Frank Waterhouse's war stories for close to 60 years, but the first time I knew he saw action on D-Day was a few years ago, when I took an oral history from him about another war in which he served. His mention of his D-Day service was, astoundingly, sort of an "aside." Frank served in the Army Air Force & Air Force for 20 years, he set at least one flying record (probably more, but he's never mentioned any others) & was a SAC test pilot. He lives in Washington state.

Frank flew four or five missions before D-Day, bombing inside of France.  On D-Day, Frank’s crew took off at 2 a.m. in a formation of 36 B-24s.   Frank, who was the co-pilot, and the pilot, named Beckham, thought they were following the lead element.  But “when the sun came up, we didn’t see anybody; we couldn’t find our group.  We had been following a light, but the light was some other group.  It’s a wonder a whole mess of people didn’t run into each other that night.  We unloaded our bombs after daylight close behind the lines.”  Frank was 19 years old on D-Day. 

 “In later missions, we went to Munich, and to Ulm, which we bombed three days in a row.  On one mission, we started to go to Berlin, but the weather was bad.  One time we hit an oil storage facility – there was smoke and fire up to our altitude.”

 Despite the months of training in the States, it seems the Army Air Force shorted the pilots on some pretty basic training – like how to land the planes they were to fly into combat.  Frank said, “In Boise, they had allowed me to try one landing, which I did with an instructor who had ultimate control of the plane.  I really couldn’t tell who landed that plane – he or I.  That was my only landing before I got to England.  In England, I did some test runs of the B-24 so I could get some landings in.  I made maybe four or five landings on tests.”

Groups who had arrived before Frank’s had a requirement of 25 missions.  The famous Memphis Belle (a B-17) flew with Frank’s group on one mission:  “she hadn’t got her 25 by then.”  As American forces “broke the Germans’ back” and their air defenses “weren’t as severe, they extended the tours to 30 missions.  But the German ack-ack had radar, and when we would make evasive maneuvers the ack-ack would start.” 

The formation of 36 planes had four “elements,” with one flying above, one below to the left, one below to the right and one behind.  “When you’re in the lower left element the pilot couldn’t see the lead, so it was up to the co-pilot to fly the plane and the pilot would relieve me temporarily.  I didn’t have to worry about being cold because I was sweating so much.

“But it was cold.  We wore heated gloves and heated boots.  We called our seats coffin seats; they were shaped like a coffin top facing forward so we could see where to fly.  They protected us underneath and behind, but we wore flak suits on our chests and helmets like ground soldiers to protect us from German ack-ack.  One day we were flying a mission near Paris and I thought I’d been hit.  I shouted to Beckham, ‘I think I’ve been hit.’  But I hadn’t been hit at all.  A heated glove had shorted out.

“The German ack-ack would follow us.  Unless you were the lead ship, they didn’t use a navigator, so our navigator became the lead bombardier.  The others would drop their bombs when he dropped his.  On a mission to Hamburg, the ack-ack was coming within two feet of the nose and I couldn’t tell what was going on in the rear.  I called to Finley, a bombardier, who was a Texan, ‘Are you okay, Finley?’  He didn’t answer, and I kept calling.  Finally I heard, ‘Shut up, Waterhouse.’  Finley was okay.

“I don’t think our plane was ever actually hit.

“After awhile, they upped the tours to 35 missions.  Toward the end of my tour, the rest of the crew went home except Johnson, who was the navigator, and me.  I flew with another crew and a pilot named Bruland.  He was shot down after I left, but I later found him listed as a member of the Second Air Division, so he made it.  In formation, we led the lower left element.  Flying the lead in a lower element was called ‘flying with your head up.’  On my military record there’s a little blurb that says, ‘Element lead on 20 missions.’"

Souter v. Simpletons United

... the Constitution is no simple contract, not because it uses a certain amount of open-ended language, but because its language grants and guarantees many good things, and good things that compete with each other and can never all be realized, altogether, all at once.
-- Justice David Souter

On rare occasions, the Constant Weader is smart enough to let wiser fellows do the talking. In his Harvard commencement address, Justice David Souter explains why it isn't easy to interpret the Constitution. This is a tightly-packed analysis, though Souter makes it as understandable to the layperson as possible. If you want to know what the Third Branch of the federal government is supposed to do, this is as good an explanation as you're likely to hear.

BTW, I noticed some newswriters (like Boston Globe reporter Jonathan Saltzman) characterized the speech as one in which the Justice "defends judicial activism." Well, no, he doesn't. I should say, rather, than he does quite the opposite. Don't believe everything you read in the papers.

Harvard Commencement Speech, Parts 1 thru 3:

Here's the text of Justice Souter's remarks, as prepared.

Update: CW: if you haven't read enough of my marvelling at how smart David Souter turned out to be (admittedly, he benefited from low expectations), Linda Greenhouse, in recapping Justice Souter's Harvard commencement address does the same. I also recommend the reader comments, particularly Nos. 13 & 20.

Update 2: Dahlia Lithwick in Slate: "David Souter finally tells America to grow up."