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Monday
Jan092012
The Commentariat -- January 10, 2012
My column in today New York Times eXaminer is on David Brooks' feigned surprise that liberals are MIA. I explain why that is and how Brooks himself fits into the picture. I think the "history lesson" is pretty interesting. The NYTX front page is here. You can donate to the online journal here.
Comments are open on today's Commentariat. Thanks to those of you who commented yesterday in this new format. It was such a pleasure reading comments in which people fundamentally disagreed, but did so in a way that was both substantive and respectful. Special thanks to Fred Drumlevitch for setting the tone. It is in this framework that we're all able to learn something and perhaps adjust our views. I know I did.
Susie Madrak of Crooks & Liars: why candidates who appeal to the center lose elections.
Nicholas Confessore & Eric Lipton of the New York Times: A $5 million check from billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson to a super-PAC that supports Newt Gingrich "underscores how last year’s landmark Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance has made it possible for a wealthy individual to influence an election. Mr. Adelson’s contribution to the super PAC is 1,000 times the $5,000 he could legally give directly to Mr. Gingrich’s campaign this year." ...
... Washington Post Editorial Board: "The rationale for limits on campaign contributions is that huge contributions such as this run the risk of corruption or the appearance of corruption. The Supreme Court’s shaky rationale in Citizens United was that independent expenditures do not pose such a risk. Mr. Adelson’s check underscores the foolishness of that assessment." The editors also point out that Romney's casual dismissal of a debate question about a super-PAC comprised of his friends and former staffers "offered about as succinct an illustration as we’ve seen of the flimsiness of the fiction that separates these candidate-specific super PACs from the candidates and of the danger that this development poses to a campaign finance system premised on limited contributions and full disclosure."
Won't You Go Home, Bill Daley? Oh, good. You Will. Greg Sargent: "Bill Daley’s departure is not exactly heartbreaking news for Hill Democrats and liberals, because Daley is directly associated with many of the failings liberal Dems saw in the White House before Obama’s turn towards a more aggressive populism. Daley was brought in to repair relations with the business community.... Daley’s olive branch went unrewarded, confirming liberal suspicions about the folly of hoping for improved relations. Liberals also saw Daley as representative of a kind of hidebound Beltway conventional wisdom that Obama’s election was supposed to be a reaction against." ...
... Ben Geman of The Hill: "Don’t look for many environmentalists to mourn the resignation of White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, who was scorned by some activists for presiding over the controversial decision last year to scuttle tougher Environmental Protection Agency smog rules. Critics on the left say Daley, who will be replaced by Office of Management and Budget chief Jack Lew, was too close to business interests." ...
... Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post on the Bill Daley Lesson: “'What he learned was that business refused to make nice regardless of what he did,' said one former White House aide of Daley. 'Wall Street was just never going to be there.'” ...
... Glenn Greenwald on Jack Lew's profitable days working at a CitiGroup hedge fund. Oh, and Lew likes working with Republicans, and they like him. And he told Sen. Bernie Sanders during (his confirmation?) hearing that he didn't believe deregulation led to the financial crisis. (And it don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime.) ...
... On the other hand, Norm Scheiber of The New Republic, who wrote a book on the subject, writes that liberals shouldn't get too worked up over Lew's tenure at Citi: "Lew was basically the chief administrator at Citi Alternative Investments, which runs the company’s portfolio of hedge funds and private-equity funds. That is, he was the guy who kept watch over the books and the paperwork, not a guy going out and placing multimillion-dollar bets or making hundred-million dollar deals."
Right Wing World
This Just In. M. J. Lee of Politico: "This is not a joke, but it’s kind of funny: Stephen Colbert would edge out Jon Huntsman in the South Carolina Republican primary. That’s according to a Public Policy Polling poll out Tuesday that found the late-night comic picking up 5 percent of the vote, compared with Huntsman’s 4 percent." CW: I hope some of you read the article on Colbert, which is still linked under Infotainment. The PPP results are exactly on point.
I like being able to fire people. -- Mitt Romney ...
... Garrett Haake & Carrie Dann of NBC News: "Mitt Romney held a rare press avail this afternoon to say the remark had been taken out of context." CW: It had been. But let's remember that Romney's team boasted about taking a remark by then-Senator Obama, editing out the first half of the sentence to completely change its meaning, then using the edited half-sentence in an ad. After having been excoriated in the press for the distortion, the candidate himself went right ahead and again distorted another remark President Obama made during a "60 Minute" interview. Romney has zero credibility. So far, I haven't heard Democrats jumping on Romney for his boneheaded "I like firing people" remark, much less using it in an ad to show that, you know, Romney thinks firing people is fun! ...
... "Up in the Air" with Mitt. Jim Fallows of The Atlantic: "... people with any experience on either side of a firing know that, necessary as it might be, it is hard. Or it should be. It's wrenching, it's humiliating, it disrupts families, it creates shame and anger alike -- notwithstanding the fact that often it absolutely has to happen. Anyone not troubled by the process -- well, there is something wrong with that person.... We might value him or her as a takeover specialist or at a private equity firm. But as someone we trust, as a leader? No -- not any more than you can trust a military leader who is not deeply troubled when his troops are killed." Thanks to commenter Trish R. for the link.
... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "An assault on Mitt Romney’s business career intensified Monday after the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination made an off-the-cuff comment that his opponents say shows he was a corporate predator who sought profits at the expense of workers." See also the New York Times story on New Hampshire primary voting in today's Ledes for more on Romney's self-inflicted wounds.
... Dana Milbank: "Mitt Romney is fast becoming the Scrooge McDuck of the 2012 presidential race. ...
... Matt Bai of the New York Times on "Why the Bain Attacks Could Stick to Romney: First, it takes Mr. Romney’s central rationale as a candidate and turns it into a bludgeoning tool.... Second, it casts doubt on Mr. Romney’s aura of electability.... And third, the Bain line of attack, more than anything else brandished against Mr. Romney to this point, might bring to the surface an instinctive concern that he’s emotively challenged." ...
... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: the real scandal of Romney's remark is what he really meant -- he was arguring for repeal of the Affordable Care Act, suggesting that healthcare coverage is best left to a a "free market economy" where employers would "fire" health insurance carriers they didn't like. (They can do that under the ACA, BTW.) But what Romney poses is a healthcare insurance system that works well for employees only if they never get sick. ...
... Derek Thompson of The Atlantic agrees with Cohn. ...
... Igor Volsky of Think Progress: And empirical evidence shows that Romney's "free-market" healthcare proposal isn't even economically-sound. It just doesn't work at any level. He's also arguing that people should pay more for their health care. What a plan! ...
... CW: AND I see Joan Walsh of Salon elaborates on the parenthetical point I made above: "Romney’s not being at all fair in the way he’s defended himself. He told reporters he was only talking about defending consumers from the supposed tyranny of the Affordable Care Act – and he lied about what it does. 'I don’t want to live in a world where we have Obamacare telling us which insurance we have to have, which doctor we can have, which hospital we go to,' Romney said at a press conference Monday. 'I believe in the setting as I described this morning where people are able to choose their own doctor, choose their own insurance company. If they don’t like their insurance company or their provider, they can get rid of it.'” Walsh of course also bolsters my point that Romney has no credibility. ...
... Here's Another Big Fat Romney Lie. Greg Sargent: "Mitt Romney declared over the weekend that there were times when he, too, worried about getting a 'pink slip.' Romney’s GOP rivals immediately pounced, with Rick Perry claiming: 'I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips, whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out.'" The truth is that young Willard's pink slip -- should he ever get one -- would be dipped in gold. His initial employment contract at Bain specified that if things didn't work out, he would get back his previous job & his old salary -- plus raises -- accompanied by a cover story that would insulate him from any implication he had been fired. CW: if you've ever lost a job, I'm just guessing these were not the terms etched into your pink slip.
... ** Occupy Wall Street Killed Gordon Gekko. Andrew Leonard of Salon: "What the Wall Street Journal euphemistically calls 'the rougher side of American capitalism,' in its Monday article examining the legacy of Bain Capital, is suddenly no longer in fashion. And there is no better proof of this than the spectacle of one of the great culture warriors of our time, Newt Gingrich, defecting to the other side.... In the 32 years since Ronald Reagan was elected president, there has never been more widely expressed antagonism and anger toward the practitioners of corporate-raider, leveraged-buyout, excessively compensated CEO, shareholder-value capitalism than there is now. And that’s Mitt Romney. That is who he is. He can flip-flop about everything else, but there’s no way to wriggle out of his essential nature. He’s the 1 percent." ...
... Ken Vogel of Politico: "Before Newt Gingrich’s super PAC paid $40,000 for the stinging anti-Mitt Romney documentary that’s roiling the GOP presidential campaign, Jon Huntsman’s allies expressed interest in it.... The board [of a pro-Huntsman PAC] 'decided not to move forward with it' because 'we simply saw it too late to seriously consider,' [Fred] Davis [who advises the PAC] told Politico. Still, he predicted the film’s portrayal of Romney as a cold-hearted 'corporate raider' could be used to devastating effect.... 'Think "Swift Boats,’” he said of the movie, calling the introduction 'very well made and powerful stuff' that seemed 'to be accurate portrayals of various individuals and situations.'” Gingrich has not released the full video, but he does have a trailer up on his Website (The trailer is in yesterday's Commentariat.) ...
... New York Times Editors: Mitt "Romney claims his background as a businessman provides him with an understanding of the economy and the ability to fix it. His opponents — particularly Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Rick Perry — say their political experience provides the same advantage. In truth, none have offered anything but tired or extremist economic prescriptions.... Mr. Romney ... was ... a buyer of flailing companies who squeezed out the inefficiencies (often known as employees) and then sold or merged them for a hefty profit. More than a fifth of them later went bankrupt.... This kind of leveraged capitalism ... is one of the reasons for the growth in the income gap.... For voters worried about the economy, neither a past record of buyouts nor lobbying should inspire any confidence."
... Republican strategist Matthew Dowd in an ABC News blogpost: Mitt Romney's Bain Capital years may yet prove to be a liability in Republican primaries. "While many still say the Republican party’s base is that of Wall Street and corporate America and big business, the real base of the Republican Party has become much more about working class (especially white males) in rural and small town areas of the country."
... AND here is Glenn Kessler's rating of Romney's job-creation claims. Kessler writes, "... if he is to continue to make claims about job creation, the Romney campaign needs to provide a real accounting of how many jobs were gained or lost through Bain Capital investments while the firm managed these companies — and while Romney was chief executive. Any jobs counted after either of those data points simply do not pass the laugh test."
Dan Primack of CNN Money: "Newt Gingrich has spent the past several days assailing Mitt Romney's business background, suggesting that the former private equity executive 'looted' companies and 'left people unemployed.' But here's an interesting note Gingrich doesn't mention: Upon leaving Congress in 1999, the former Speaker joined private equity firm Forstmann Little & Co. as a member of its advisory board."
News Ledes
President Obama spoke to staff at the EPA:
New York Times: " swept to victory in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, turning back a ferocious assault from his Republican rivals who are working to slow his march to the Republican presidential nomination." The Washington Post story is here. The Post has county-by-county results here. ...
... New York Times: "As New Hampshire voters began casting ballots in the nation’s first primary, [Mitt] Romney found himself on the unfamiliar terrain of defending his business pedigree against fellow Republicans as his challengers tried to tap into a populist sentiment. He played into the criticism with a handful of missteps, with rivals jumping on him for having suggested that he, too, has feared getting 'a pink slip.'” ...
... AP: "Voters in the tiny New Hampshire village [of Dixville Notch] famed for casting the first ballots in the nation's first presidential primary found themselves in a tie Tuesday between Republicans Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Nine ballots were cast in New Hampshire's Dixville Notch just after midnight. Romney and Huntsman received two votes each. Coming in second with one vote apiece were Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul. For the Democrats, President Barack Obama received three votes."
New York Times: "In his first public address in months, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on Tuesday lashed out at the Arab League for isolating Syria, taunted rebels as traitors and vowed to subdue what he cast as a foreign-backed plot against his country."
AP: New Jersey "Assembly Republican leader Alex DeCroce ... collapsed and died around 11 p.m. Monday in a men's room at the Statehouse.... The death threw into turmoil the Legislature's reorganization plans for Tuesday and caused Gov. Chris Christie to delay his annual state-of-the-state address. The Assembly and Senate greatly scaled back swearing-in ceremonies for new members. Christie planned to deliver remarks about DeCroce on the floor of the Assembly in lieu of his scheduled address." The New Jersey Star-Ledger story is here.
New York Times: a U.S. Coast Guard ice-breaker and a Russian tanker try to get emergency fuel to Nome, Alaska. It is not going well. And the question arises: how could Nome run out of fuel?
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Reader Comments (8)
The article by Andrew Leonard of Salon, referenced in today's The Commentariat is delicious!
There is, indeed, tremendous irony in seeing The Newt--and other Republican presidential candidates--characterizing Romney as a greedy robber baron, when this is exactly the form of unfettered, ruthless capitalism that they themselves want to return to.
Check out James Fallowes at The Atlantic http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/why-you-cannot-say-you-like-firing-people/251123/
No one who has a pinkie bone of empathy could ever use the words, "I like to be able to fire people..." without being sure to serve it in enormous helpings of sarcasm. Firing is a process that hurts the firer and the firee, as Fallowes makes abundantly clear. Romney's history in business makes clear that firing someone is not something that gives him pause. Yes, a president needs to be strong and willing to make hard decisions... but that's the point, they should be hard.
Mitt Romney says he would be in a better position to "fix the economy' because of his business experience. By his logic, he would not be capable of addressing issues of fixing infrastructure - he is not an engineer; water and clean air policy - he does not have a chemistry background; education - he has never been a teacher; health issues - he is not a doctor.
He is trying to sell Americans a bill of goods that his experience in one limited area of business makes him uniquely qualified to move our economy forward. If that were true, there are thousands of business people out there who could make the same claim. What's Romney's advantage?
I agree, Victoria. Krugman on his NYTimes blog makes exactly the point that people in business are particularly unqualified to succeed in government, since the things that work in business are exactly the things that don't work in government. Austerity make work for the individual or business, but it sends government into a downward spiral that only exacerbates an economic recession.
CW: I've copied this late-posted comment from @Fred Drumlevitch on yesterday thread because I especially liked the first graf:
@Kate Madison:
On stereotyping: Consider religious belief as a basis by which people have been stereotyped. Religion can range from prosperity theology to the view that people are their brothers’ keepers. It can range from a belief that humans have a fundamental, God-given right to use up all of the Earth’s resources for their own benefit, to the view that people are tasked by God to be protective stewards of the natural environment. It has been the handmaiden of Nazism, and also fought against it. It has rationalized a belief that God wants slavery and segregation, and been the inspiration for the risk of life and limb by churchgoers aiding the civil rights movement. So while there have been many offenses against humanity and nature done in the name of religion, and I myself am not religious, I am obliged to acknowledge that under some circumstances, religion has been a highly beneficial force, and some of its believers have been, and should be, an inspiration.
My point is that too much stereotyping and ideological purity are counterproductive in many ways, not the least of which is with regard to achieving political victory in elections in a democratic republic, as well as moving the country forward in a beneficial manner.
One small correction to my earlier post: I meant to say that I significantly agree with “Zee” (rather than “JJG”) with regard to firearms legislation; I don’t remember from past discussions what JJG’s position on the subject was, but from lengthy recent discussions at Sardonicky (mostly not involving myself), I do have a fairly clear sense of Zee’s position. And I know that my beliefs are not unique among left-wing Democrats.
As far as your claim that voting for Bernie Sanders is undesirable, I’ll reiterate the point I’ve made at least twice before at RealityChex: It depends on the state in which you live. My assessment is that in Arizona, Obama has absolutely no chance of victory. Therefore, given the Electoral College per-state winner-take-all system that applies in all states but one, a vote for Bernie or other protest candidate, or failure to cast a presidential ballot, by me wouldn’t prevent a potential Obama win. (That is, provided that the old proposal of a multi-state compact to award their electoral votes en masse to the nationwide popular vote winner has not been passed and implemented; I or some other reader on this forum will need to verify that). Those living elsewhere need to make their own assessments.
With regard to your point about “… noticing how much excessive Obama-bashing and useless whining is going on in our progressive movement”, I would assert: 1) that while significant criticism is visible on the electronic forums, it is not that much when considered across the whole spectrum of potential pro-Democratic voters, many of whom get their entire political knowledge from television, friends, and relatives; 2) that a show of displeasure is warranted, and is being done (at least by some) with the hope that it will not be useless. There have been several notable American historical instances (FDR on economic matters, Kennedy and Johnson on civil rights) where pressure from left of the administration’s positions gave a Democratic president political cover to do what was morally right but otherwise politically problematic.
@Zee: thanks for the compliment.
@Marie: thanks for the compliment on your January 10 Commentariat introduction.
@Fred Drumlevitch:
I agree with you in substance about the stereotyping of religious beliefs. I think people's religious beliefs are usually a reflection of themselves, rather than the other way around. You can get what you will out of most religious texts, and "good" people will let the enlightened passages be their guide, while "bad" people will let passages that can be interpreted to serve their narrow self-interests dominate their theology.
One of the points I think @Kate Madison also made speaks to the same issue you do: that decisions have to be based on balance. "Balance" does not mean the same thing as "moderation" or "splitting the difference." It means you take two competing good values -- like the right to free speech and the executive's duty to preserve & protect in the Constitution -- and you decide which of those has more weight in a given situation. The answer is not always clear-cut. This was a point David Souter made in his Harvard commencement address (2010, I think). But I would apply it to many other situations, and sometimes the precepts in competition are two (or more) "bad things." That's how I've voted for years. It's part of the calculation that goes into how I decide which chore I'm going to do (tho sometimes here the time factor outweighs the relative distaste for the tasks before me).
As for your argument on voting however you want in a state that is solidly red or solidly blue, I do recall that in 2000, people in solid blue states agreed to participate in "exchanges" with Florida Nader voters: that is, though they had planned to vote for Gore, they would vote for Nader in Oregon or wherever if the Florida Nader voter would vote for Gore. I think I read that about 6,000 people participated in these exchanges (my number may be off). If a few thousand more had done so, maybe we would not have suffered thru 8 years of you-know-hoo. I have no idea if the dynamic will work out that way this year, but it's an idea -- one that is obviously based on trusting a stranger, unless you have a trusted friend in another state with whom you can exchange votes.
I'd like to comment on the Jan. 9 discussion regarding third-party supporters or disenchanted liberal Obama-haters. Unless we can get the money out of politics, hopefully through a collective effort like the Move to Amend project, http://movetoamend.org/occupythecourts, the President and Congress will continue to serve special interests that are not necessarily in our nation's interest. Corporations have decreasing vested interest in the well-being of our citizens so we cannot count on their values and motivations to lead to any national security, whether financial or social. The liberals, like me, who have been disappointed in Obama need to make it a priority to change that which ties his hands - his and Congress's dependence on corporate money and lobbyists. The only way to force that change is to support efforts to reverse the Citizens United decision, to force campaign finance reform and then to elect people that will vote those changes into law. We need legislators at both the national and state level that are willing to work for the people, who are not required to beg for money and can instead focus their attention on coming up with intelligent solutions to make government effective rather than depending on organizations like ALEC to write legislation that is reversing many progressive accomplishments and serves only to support private enterprise.
Like some have mentioned here, I will not donate to Obama, but I will vote for him. If he cannot get elected on his record, then he doesn't deserve to have a second term. If he feels his hands have been tied by a do nothing Congress but cannot speak out against the money problem (that explains why the Blue Dog Democrats didn't support him when necessary) and vow to support campaign finance reform, then I fear little will change whether he wins a second term or a third party candidate gets elected. I am sick and tired of the appeals for money I receive every day asking for my help in defeating the people who are supported by corporate or wealthy individuals' money. The real benefactor of all this money is the media, who has failed and only facilitates the demise of our democracy through the shirking of their journalistic responsibilities. I'd rather my money be used to support local businesses and charities that actually do some good in my community rather than be used in the production of more disgusting commercials for candidates clamoring to join this corrupted system.
Marie,
Your commentary in NYTimes Xaminer today was particularly good. I know, I know, David Brooks's logic is frequently very easy to dismantle in order to show the flaws in his thinking, but your writing today was particularly strong in providing great historical development. I knew about the Southern strategy, but had no idea about Powell's roll in kicking off the corporate strategy. Great writing!