He can take heart on one thing. DNI James R. Clapper Jr. has added fuel to Gingrich’s Iranian rhetorical fire, which will make the Republicans day. From the Washington Post today:
U.S. intelligence agencies believe that Iran is prepared to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States in response to perceived threats from America and its allies, the U.S. spy chief said Tuesday.
Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said in prepared testimony that an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington that was uncovered last year reflects an aggressive new willingness within the upper ranks of the Islamist republic to authorize attacks against the United States.
Maybe that will take the sting out of Mrs. Reagan’s slap.
Few reporters have better sources inside Reagan World than NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who goes way back. With Mrs. Reagan still alive and undoubtedly very protective of the Reagan legacy as she sees it, there was little doubt that Newt’s claims wouldn’t go unchallenged.
Calling himself “the legitimate heir to the Reagan movement,” Newt Gingrich recently cited a 1995 speech by Nancy Reagan in which the former First Lady said that her husband “passed on the torch” to him.
… But as NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports, Gingrich appears to be taking that comment out of context.
Sources close to Nancy Reagan said the speech itself was written by the host at the Goldwater Organization – where Mrs. Reagan delivered the remarks – and that she was referring generally to Congress and not specifically to the former Speaker, Mitchell reported on her MSNBC program.
Mrs. Reagan isn’t going to let anyone use Ronnie’s legacy for their own aggrandizement, certainly not a political grifter like Newt, with his hangers-on like Sarah Palin.
But this whole thing isn’t really about Newt Gingrich vs. Mitt Romney. It is about the GOP establishment vs. the Tea Party grassroots and independent Americans who are sick of the politics of personal destruction used now by both parties’ operatives with a complicit media egging it on. In fact, the establishment has been just as dismissive of Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. – Sarah Palin on Facebook
Let’s hope Republican primary voters actually listen to Sarah Palin. If she could push herself on to center stage it would be a whole new circus act.
Sarah Palin finding common cause with Newt Gingrich, a man who wouldn’t be giving her the time of day if conservative Republicans who actually served with Mr. Gingrich weren’t shunning him because they actually know what he’s like as a leader.
The Republican establishment is trying to get rid of Newt because they don’t want a Goldwater blowout in November, with their main concern the House, as well as Senate possibilities, because there are a lot of them who believe none of the current crop of candidates can beat Pres. Obama, which is understandable. A sitting president is tough to beat by a great candidate and these guys aren’t great.
If Mrs. Palin was making that point in this self-important Facebook rant, that there isn’t a candidate to beat Obama so Republicans need to open the primary back up, that would actually make sense. However, that’s not what she’s doing.
This is mostly about Sarah Palin finding a way to get into the action. Reading her Facebook post, half of it is a complete regurgitation of Rush Limbaugh’s talking points, with Palin providing spin that includes herself. If she becomes irrelevant she loses her Fox News Channel ticket and then what does she do?
What a script.
Mrs. Palin even adopted Newt Gingrich’s grandiose remembrances of history to make her point, which like Newt, revolves around her, written by her ego.
I am sadly too familiar with these tactics because they were used against the GOP ticket in 2008. The left seeks to single someone out and destroy his or her record and reputation and family using the media as a channel to dump handpicked and half-baked campaign opposition research on the public. The difference in 2008 was that I was largely unknown to the American public, so they had no way of differentiating between the lies and the truth. All of it came at them at once as “facts” about me. But Newt Gingrich is known to us – both the good and the bad.
Newt Gingrich’s campaign admitted Wednesday night the former House speaker was inaccurate when he claimed his team offered several witnesses to ABC News to refute statements made by Gingrich’s second wife in a controversial interview aired last week. [...] On Wednesday, however, the campaign conceded the candidate was wrong, both in his debate answer and in his interview with CNN on Tuesday. – TRENDING: Gingrich campaign admits error
I’ve been waiting for Newt Gingrich to step in it and it’s happened.
It’s reminiscent of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Bosnia disaster, which came at a critical time, even though David Plouffe’s caucus strategy would easily outplay Mark Penn’s political malpractice and lack of preparation, credit and blame given fully and without flinching in my new book.
Will it be enough to blow Gingrich out in Florida? It should, because it’s representative of everything about him. But who knows, it’s a wacky year and Republican primary voters haven’t cared so far about anything but satisfying their emotions. It also depends if Mitt Romney or his Super PAC jumps on this, but I’d bet they will, because if I were running his strategy, I’d cranked up the ad machine and get one out post haste.
The revelation that Gingrich lied and tried to disgrace a good reporter, John King, with many in the media playing along, should be instructive to people. It didn’t seem to matter that King is a veteran reporter who had never been challenged before, though I wasn’t one of them, standing up for King’s clear decision to ask Gingrich about the hottest story of the day. Anyone looking at trends across the web, even places like Memeorandum, would have seen the proof. I believed he should have challenged Gingrich when he attacked him, and you can argue about starting with the question on Marianne Gingrich, but it’s King’s call and there’s nothing in his history that even hints he’s unethical, biased to one party or another, or isn’t good at his job.
Oh, if only there was a thought bubble above Pres. Reagan's head...
This latest embarrassment comes after a reader pointed me to Elliott Abrams’ piece yesterday and though I hold Mr. Abrams in particular contempt (see Iran-contra, for which Ronald Reagan deserved to be impeached), when it comes to the Reagan era he’s a source with deep knowledge.
“Measured against the scale and momentum of the Soviet empire’s challenge, the Reagan administration has failed, is failing, and without a dramatic change in strategy will continue to fail. . . . President Reagan is clearly failing.” – Newt Gingrich
Newt is getting carpet-bombed by the conservative chattering class and no one deserves it more. Who would know better about unethical gasbags than Tom Delay? From Politico:
“He’s not really a conservative. I mean, he’ll tell you what you want to hear. He has an uncanny ability, sort of like Clinton, to feel your pain and know his audience and speak to his audience and fire them up. But when he was speaker, he was erratic, undisciplined.” – Drudge, conservative media criticize Newt Gingrich
But have you seen BuzzFeed’s contribution on Newt, complete with art?
Ann Coulter, a Romney gal, delivers the best anti-Newt case there is: Reelect Obama Vote Newt! Mitt Romney’s got humongous general election challenges against Pres. Obama, but there is little doubt that Newt as the nominee would result in a Goldwater type landslide and for good reasons.
Newt Gingrich in the White House would be more dangerous than Sarah Palin.
UPDATE: Listening to Rush Limbaugh’s first hour, a regular habit during election season, this one has been stunning. “It’s happening…” Rush began today, talking about Newt being taken out in Florida; with Gingrich slamming Reagan something he said he didn’t know, being very defensive about it. “We can’t keep up with them starting in March,” Rush Limbaugh said before last break, talking about if the GOP nominee is picked early. This came after he said he was “stunned” at the revelations about Newt on Ronald Reagan. “World rocked about now…” then went to commercial break. … “Snerdly’s chin is on the floor,” Rush continues, after playing a clip of Newt Gingrich saying he was a Rockefeller Republican.
er… I mean Romney’s Super PAC… er… Rather, the Super PAC supporting Mitt Romney that has absolutely no contact with the candidate whatsoever is slamming Newt with Ronald Reagan.
Nate Silver reveals why. In the debates, Newt continually tries to associate himself with the Gipper:
Over the course of the 17 debates that he has participated in during this cycle, Mr. Gingrich has used the term “Reagan” 55 times, according to debate transcripts. By comparison, the nine other Republican candidates who have participated in the debates mentioned Reagan just 51 times combined. (Rick Santorum is a distant second to Mr. Gingrich with 14 mentions.)
What primarily stands between us and misrule, however, is the Constitution, buttressed by an independent judiciary. …He is the first presidential candidate to propose a thorough assault on the rule of law. – George Will
The bookend is a new ad buy from Citizens United, run by David Bosie and Newt Gingrich, showing an old clip of he and Callista touting Ronald Reagan. Burns & Haberman broke the story this morning. It’s obviously a hail Mary attempt a Christmastime to make Iowans feel warm and fuzzy.
But is there anything more hilarious than Mr. Gingrich going after Mitt Romney for negative advertising by a SuperPAC that favors him?
Meanwhile, the Concord Monitorendorsed Jon Huntsman today, while saying this about Newt (they weren’t crazy about Romney either):
With Gingrich, voters would get an unpredictable, unprincipled nominee and, should he be elected, a white-knuckle four years of an imperial presidency.
Newt has always been the biggest bomb thrower in politics, having established that practice as his primary weapon back in the ’90s, right up until the moment in Iowa when he didn’t have the money to answer back.
We’re hip deep in irony, folks. A man who’s threatening to send the marshal to arrest judges is bellyaching about SuperPAC money when it was the conservative Supreme Court of John Roberts who delivered the Citizens United verdict that made what’s happening to Gingrich in Iowa possible.
I mean, really, Newt.
Add it to Gingrich’s serial hypocrisy list, which is now too long to see the end.
George Will has never been so entertaining, even if some of his reasoning is down right zany, which is seen in bold below.
…Gingrich’s epiphany about judicial tyranny occurred in 2002, when a circuit court ruled unconstitutional the Pledge of Allegiance phrase declaring America a nation “under God.” Gingrich likened this to the 1857 Dred Scott decision that led to 625,000 Civil War dead. The Supreme Court unanimously overturned the circuit court’s “under God” nonsense.
Gingrich’s unsurprising descent into sinister radicalism — intimidation of courts — is redundant evidence that he is not merely the least conservative candidate, he is thoroughly anti-conservative. He disdains the central conservative virtue, prudence, and exemplifies progressivism’s defining attribute — impatience with impediments to the political branches’ wielding of untrammeled power. He exalts the will of the majority of the moment, at least as he, tribune of the vox populi, interprets it.
Atop the Republican ticket, Gingrich would guarantee Barack Obama’s reelection, would probably doom Republicans’ hopes of capturing the Senate and might cost them control of the House. If so, Gingrich would at last have achieved something — wreckage, but something — proportional to his swollen sense of himself.
But after the vote, Casey and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y) dismissed the Keystone project as “inside baseball,” arguing that middle-class families are more interested in getting a tax cut than an oil pipeline. [...] “I was responsible for putting it in this bill,” Reid said flatly. “That’s how legislation works. … Along with Manchin, Vermont Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders, both members of the Democratic caucus, voted against the payroll package. – Politico
(Click on the picture for scathing Wall Street Journal article on Newt.)
In the complaint against the former Freddie Mac executives, the SEC alleged that they and Freddie Mac led investors to believe that the firm used a broad definition of subprime loans and was disclosing all of its Single-Family subprime loan exposure. Syron and Cook reinforced the misleading perception when they each publicly proclaimed that the Single Family business had “basically no subprime exposure.” Unbeknown to investors, as of December 31, 2006, Freddie Mac’s Single Family business was exposed to approximately $141 billion of loans internally referred to as “subprime” or “subprime like,” accounting for 10 percent of the portfolio, and grew to approximately $244 billion, or 14 percent of the portfolio, as of June 30, 2008. – SEC CHARGES FORMER FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC EXECUTIVES WITH SECURITIES FRAUD
The latest AP-GfK Poll shows the American electorate has very complicated feelings about Pres. Obama, as well as his challengers. It’s another poll that supports what I’ve been writing for months and months, as well as in my book. Yes, Pres. Obama is beatable, deserving challenges, with a majority of people believing he doesn’t deserve reelection. However, the alternative isn’t inspiring at all.
Although the public would prefer Obama be voted out of office, he fares relatively well in potential matchups with Republicans Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Another bit of good news for the Democrat: For the first time since spring, more adults said the economy got better in the past month than said it got worse. The president’s approval rating on unemployment shifted upward — from 40 percent in October to 45 percent in the latest poll — as the jobless rate fell to 8.6 percent last month, its lowest level since March 2009.
But Obama’s approval rating on his handling of the economy overall remains stagnant: 39 percent approve and 60 percent disapprove.
In Pres. Obama’s speech before the 71st General Assembly of the Union for Reform Judaism, a critical element to Israeli security was mostly left un-mined. From the New York Times:
Less than a year before the presidential election, a pattern is emerging. The Republicans will outdo themselves to say the most provocative things they can to demonstrate they love Israel more than anyone else. And President Obama will counter by saying as little as he can about the Palestinians.
Obama on the peace process:
“As president, I have never wavered in pursuit of a just and lasting peace — two states for two peoples; an independent Palestine alongside a secure Jewish State of Israel. I have not wavered and will not waver.”
That’s the bare minimum a U.S. president should ever say. However, anyone attempting to make the case that Pres. Obama is anti-Israel is standing in ideological quick sand.
The Democrats provided an extensive list of what they see as bragging points, saying the bill:
Prevents policy riders that would have restricted funding for Planned Parenthood and eliminated funding for Title X family planning programs, severely limiting women’s access to health care.
Prevents restrictions that would have reversed President Obama’s policy allowing family travel and money remittances to Cuba.
Saves 60,000 New Head Start slots created by the stimulus act and spends more than $550 million for the Race to the Top program.
Boosts the Student Aid Administration with nearly $50 million in new funding for loan servicing and collections.
Preserves the AmeriCorps program by stopping a GOP provision that would have cut the program.
They also pointed to a string of riders that were cut from the bill, including items that would have:
Barred use of funds for the CPSC’s public product safety database, SaferProducts.gov.
Cut federal funding of National Public Radio
Stopped a new military chaplain training curriculum written after the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Ended the Home Affordable Modification Program, which aims to help homewoners avoid foreclosure
Prohibited use federal funds to develop and finalize EPA rules naming coal ash as a hazardous waste
Stopped the FCC from implementing new neutrality rules
Stopped federal spending to run and implement the heath reform law until 90 days after any legal challenges are complete.
Republicans also declared wins in adding many other restrictions, including blocking a phaseout of 100-watt incandescent lightbulbs, stopping express funding for a number of President Obama’s “czars,” cutting the budget overall, and placing restrictions on funding for the United Nations.
Yet it was some of the things that made it into the bill that attracted scathing denunciations from Republicans concerned about waste, especially in the defense budget.
[...] “There’s $3.5 billion of unrequested, unauthorized [spending] … projects like for Guam. You thought the Bridge to Nowhere was bad?” McCain said. “This is 53 civilian school buses and 53 repair kits for $10.7 million; $12.7 million for a cultural artifacts repository. That’s in the name of defense.
“I have amendments to save the taxpayers billions of dollars as associated with this bill,” McCain said. “But never mind because we’re going to go home for Christmas.”
We should not expect Gingrich to understand this until he understands that his work for Freddie Mac was not, as he laughably insists, in “the private sector.” – George Will
What George Will has done today is focus on Newt Gingrich’s “traditionalism,” which brings back former Speaker Dennis Hastert’s quote about Michele Bachmann.
“It had been a longstanding tradition in Congress to be fiscally conservative in every other district other than your own,” said John Feehery, president of QGA Communications and a top adviser to former Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert. “Bachmann apparently is being a traditionalist.” – Sam Stein
It’s a quote that makes my book in a section about conservatives and economic hypocrisy.
By trumpeting capitalism, using Mitt Romney’s experience at Bain Capital, Will brings to mind what David Brooks said about Donald Trump (which also makes it into my book) when he was riding high last spring.
He is riding something else: The strongest and most subversive ideology in America today. Donald Trump is the living, walking personification of the Gospel of Success.
Both Mitt Romney and Donald Trump made their money riding the bull, though in very different ways.
By contrast, Newt Gingrich has made his fortune by mining his government associations, like most former members of Congress, tapping into the “big government” money machine to enrich himself, using the very outlet conservatives are determined to “drown in the bathtub.”
Shorter Will: Newt is a opportunistic leach, sucking taxpayers dry, while utilizing their greatest enemy, “big government,” to do it.
It is not just a “capital crime,” it is the cardinal sin among conservatives.
It is also the foundation on which Mr. Gingrich’s serial hypocrisy is built.
It is decidedly un-conservative, as well as being inconsistent, something Michele Bachmann still has not had to face, because she’s not a leading contender.
Andrew Sullivan, takes issue with George Will and his defense of Romney’s Bain Capital photo.
And what Romney is revealing in that photo is pure worship and celebration of money and wealth – and the joys of rubbing it in the face of others.
It’s toxic. It’s ugly. It’s what helps drag conservatism down. You want a way to remind Reagan Democrats that the GOP is not their kind of show any more? The photo will do it. Can you imagine Reagan in that picture? Nah. Only the spoiled children of Reagan.
This from a guy with the Sarah Palin paternity fetish, who also believes intelligence is race-based. I actually feel sorry for Ron Paul, because today he got this guy’s endorsement.
It’s ironic. When Sullivan talks about “the spoiled children of Reagan,” he obviously doesn’t realize that one of those petulant adolescents is Newt.
A woman in the border city of Laredo, Texas who was angry because she had been denied food stamps killed herself and shot and critically wounded her two children late on Monday, authorities said on Tuesday. – Reuters
Yesterday on Sean Hannity’s radio show, he made a startling statement about the poor that revealed the right wing’s economic philosophy today: Even the poor live well in America. Hannity went on from there to talk about the poor having microwaves, air conditioning and on and on. Few people are more clueless.
It’s why I offer Newt Gingrich’s rip off of Reagan’s “Morning in America” campaign ad, which is the perfect example of the right’s disconnect with the 99%.
It is a rare day when Al Sharpton emerges as the voice of sagacity, but when Newt Gingrich has the microphone, all things are possible. – Kathleen Parker
The anger and desperation some people inside the 99% feel today has been witnessed in Occupy Wall Street in many cities. People not in this position often do not understand or even empathize with people’s deep frustration today, which can lead to desperate acts.
It’s part of the divide in this country and why many Americans looking at Democrats and Republicans don’t feel compelled to support either, but also are not enthused about 2012. People are asking, Does it really matter to Americans who is elected from the big two parties?
Both big parties have proven they don’t understand what’s going on outside their own entitled, corporate and Wall Street backed bubbles. It makes people even more desperate in the current economic times.
Watching the reaction of the Pakistanis after the NATO bombing incident that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers, it was hard not to wonder if this would escalate further. It just did.
Calling the event a “tragedy,” Pres. Obama did not offer an apology, mainly because the events that played out are being contested.
Pakistan’s government announced Monday that it will not participate in an upcoming conference in Bonn, Germany on Afghanistan’s future, in protest to this weekend’s bombing of two border posts in Mohmand by NATO forces that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers (BBC, Tel, AP, Reuters, ET, AFP). The decision came during a meeting of Pakistan’s cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who promised in an interview with CNN Monday that there would be no more, “business as usual” with the United States following the raid (CNN, Reuters, ET, AFP/Dawn). In a briefing Tuesday Pakistani Gen. Ashfaq Nadeem called the incident a “deliberate act of aggression” by the United States, and said Pakistan was still deciding if they will cooperate with an American probe of the attack, whose results are due to be released December 23 (AP, Dawn).
Pakistan and the United States continue to dispute the events surrounding the bombing, as U.S. and Afghan officials describe a joint commando patrol near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that came under attack from positions near or even inside the Pakistani army posts, while Pakistan has said the assault continued long after Pakistani forces identified themselves to NATO (Post, NYT, ET, BBC, AP, WSJ). President Barack Obama and other American leaders have called the incident a “tragedy” but refused to apologize (AFP/ET, Tel). The Pentagon said Monday that it would “carry on” in Afghanistan without supplies from Pakistan, which has closed its border to U.S. supplies, and Pakistan reportedly refused a request by the United Arab Emirates to review its decision to evict American personnel from the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan, which the Emirates are believed to control (AFP, ET, Dawn, AFP).
Pakistan is sending a chilling message that in the short term is saying they’re pulling out of any regional involvement on what happens with Afghanistan. Since Pres. Carter signed off on funding efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan, there hasn’t been a development like this that I can remember.
A nuclear power in this region, with an unstable domestic landscape to boot, is not a positive prospect to consider.
Osama bin Laden picking Pakistan to hide away seems to have been foreshadowing and the result of the U.S. never quite understanding what we were dealing with in this country going all the way back to Ronald Reagan.
“Look, I was an independent at the time of Reagan Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.” – Mitt Romney
The ads below from the DNC targeting Mitt Romney are priceless. They also reveal how screwed up the primary process for Republicans is this year and point to the reason Pres. Obama has the biggest chance of getting reelected.
Having no core has its consequences. That seems to be the conservative theme this year. Because if conservative Republicans had a center, any political compass at all, their candidate would be Jon Huntsman. He’s the only candidate running, the only one, to have endorsed Paul Ryan’s extreme economic plan. Getting out of foreign entanglements is no longer a conservative principle. The neoconservative hangover is still crippling conservative sensibilities, making a mockery of William F. Buckley’s party.
It’s also why Mitt Romney’s still the best bet to win the nomination, even if Jon Huntsman is now the strongest cross-over candidate they’ve got.
Once upon a time, Romney’s economic background was a true threat to Obama. It could still be, depending on what happens with the economy, with a lot of election year energy also depending on whether Occupy protests rev up in the spring again and gain traction next year. Regardless, Mitt’s 1% persona, corporations are people too patter, will hang around his neck now. Before Occupy, Romney looked a lot better than he does today.
The opening of the first Romney ad below is not only hilarious, it’s sheer genius.
The sequel is longer, devastating and playing in a swing state near you.
“I’m like everybody, I want more action. But I understand that [Pres. Obama's] trying not to piss off a lot of people. But I believe wholeheartedly if he’s back in, he’s going to do some gangsta sh—.” – Chris Rock, Politico
Thanksgiving week began with a rhetorical explosion of Democratic, progressive and liberal disgust met with defensiveness, which was a continuation of what’s been building throughout Pres. Obama’s first term. The latest defense comes from the estimable Nicolas Kristoff and joins the list of equally unimpressive efforts, which culminates with this all being about “grumpiness toward the incumbent during a difficult time.” That is another wishfully lame assessment of an American electorate who passed “grumpiness” some time ago.
The quote above from Chris Rock came in early November, but it follows the current mood, as well as what I’ve written many times before about Mr. Obama and entitlements, for instance. Somebody’s going to “reform” entitlements, so everyone needs to decide which is better to get the blame, Democratic or Republican politicians. It’s a fitting end, because the big two parties have gotten us into this mess, which has led to a political system long overdue for upheaval and realignment, which has begun, the completion of which will take years and several election cycles.
Chris Matthews finally let his frustrations out with Alex Witt recently as well. It was one of the more extraordinary events from the notorious career Clinton hater, someone who earned a significant role in my book.
Coming on MSNBC made Matthews’ grousing more amazing, because there isn’t much political reality to be seen from MSNBC’s primetime coterie of hosts. The entire network has taken a dive into Democratic denial, which could be driven by the lack of sanity on the Republican side and betting it’s the smart move, but which is actually decidedly out of sync with most Americans, who are sick of both big two parties. Being the bookend for Fox News Channel might have seemed like a good idea once, but now just comes off as equally unwatchable.
From the interview with Matthews:
“There’s nothing to root for. What are we trying to do in this administration? Why does he want a second term? Would he tell us? What’s he going to do in his second term, more of this? Is this it? Is this as good as it gets? Where are we going?” – Chris Matthews with Alex Witt
What Mr. Matthews still doesn’t understand, though he’s certainly got a lot of company, as Mr. Kristoff proves today, is that even if Pres. Obama answered his questions it wouldn’t mean anything, because it’s coming from a man with no internal compass and people now realize it. Pres. Obama’s style is not moored in leading people to consensus from his own foundational principles that would give us something firm to grasp, but instead is predicated on culling consensus from what’s presented from others, which can change with the wind.
Of course, this in no way means he can’t win reelection. However, there’s a reason Dan Baltz points to the Center for American Progress recent report that states 2012 will be “no election for the faint-hearted.” The uncertainty is also why the news that Democrats are out fundraising Republicans for House races is so important to Democrats, in case Obama loses.
Last week a video circulating had one Obama supporter give a flatly delivered, unenthusiastic case on why he wasn’t disappointed by Pres. Obama, which I rebutted easily with Obama’s history, while simultaneously you had Jonthan Chait give a long-winded whine about liberals. From Chait’s piece:
Harry Truman has become the patron saint of dispirited Democrats, the fighting populist whose example is invariably cited in glum contrast to whatever bumbling congenital compromiser happens to hold office at any given time. In fact, liberals spent the entire Truman presidency in a state of near-constant despair. Republicans took control of Congress in the 1946 elections and bottled up Truman’s domestic agenda, rendering him powerless to expand the New Deal, as liberals had hoped he would after the war had ended. Liberal columnist Max Lerner decried Truman’s mania for “cooperation” and his eagerness “to blink [past] the real social cleavage and struggles,” attributing this pathological eagerness to avoid conflict to his “middle-class mentality.” (Some contemporary critics have reached the same psychoanalysis of Obama, substituting his bi-racial background as the cause.) The New Republic’s Richard Strout lamented how “little evidence he has shown of being able to lift up and inspire the masses.” The historian Richard Pells has written that in the eyes of liberals at the time, “the president remained an incorrigible mediocrity.”
An exception to this trend, but only a partial exception, is Franklin Roosevelt, the most esteemed of the historical Democratic president-saints. Roosevelt is hard to compare to anybody, because his achievements were so enormous, and his failures so large as well (court-packing, interning Japanese-Americans). But even his triumphs, gleaming monuments to liberalism when viewed from the historical distance, appear, at closer inspection, to be riddled with the same tribulations, reversals, compromises, dysfunctions, and failures as any other. Roosevelt did not run for office promising to boost deficit spending in order to stimulate the economy. He ran castigating Herbert Hoover for permitting high deficits, then immediately passed an austerity budget in his first year. Roosevelt did come around to Keynesian stimulus, but he never seemed to understand it, and in 1937 he reversed himself again by cutting spending, helping plunge the economy into a second depression eventually mitigated only by war spending.
I’ve written, as Chait did this past week, on J.F.K. being dragged to civil rights by Martin Luther King, Jr. In my book, in a chapter titled “Blaming Bill” that makes a similar case on liberal schizophrenia, I also write about Bill Clinton’s mistake on derivatives, his help campaigning and electing Blue Dog Democrats while making labor the villain, not to mention Clinton’s free trade penchant, which is being channeled by Pres. Obama, as the former president’s economic policies make the latter’s possible. It’s juxtaposed against the pastime of progressives to blame Bill Clinton for everything, which is often cited by Obama fans as what’s happening to our current president, though I also lay out a conclusive case of just how different the situations were for these two men entering the presidency.
See, contrary to my “die hard Clintonite” mantle (given to me by the Washington Post, no less), I’m no stranger to Democratic discontent. It’s why my recovering partisan present is a natural. In fact, anyone paying attention to my history of writing going back into the ’90s will see that it’s the one constant in my life, seen best in my vote for Reagan in ’80.
Chait resurrects a beauty from the history books on that one:
The Times’ editorial board captured the liberal view of the era when it relayed the joke of a voter with a gun to his head who’s asked to choose between Carter and Ronald Reagan and replies, “Shoot.”
So furious was I at Carter, a combination born out of waiting in gas lines in New York City, a place in decline at the time, while watching the hostage crisis play out, with Teddy Kennedy’s hopes going up in smoke with Roger Mudd, it made voting for Reagan easy. Anger’s like that at the voting booth; emotion a powerfully irrational catalyst.
Who can forget candidate Obama hoisting Ronald Reagan up as an example over William Jefferson Clinton time and again? Chait does it as well. However, Mr. Chait ends his attempt at defending Pres. Obama with a thank you to his critics. Oh, the irony, which he misses completely, making his own defense of the President schizophrenic.
Republican Reagan-worship is a product of a pro-authority mind-set that liberals, who inflate past heroes only to criticize their contemporaries, cannot match. If recent history is any guide, they are simply not capable of having that kind of relationship with a president. They are going to question their leader, not deify him, and search for signs of betrayal in any act of compromise he or she may commit. This exhausting psychological torment is no way to live. Then again, the current state of the Republican Party suggests it may be healthier than the alternative.
It brings me back to a place I know well. Not so much looking for an ideological leader, as a human being with an unflinching compass and undeniable character to stand up against Congress and politicians of both parties. A lightning rod of a person who rails at the injustices and isn’t afraid of anything, including outcome. An individual outside of the corporate and political systems that has brought us to the brink.
However, even though this person no doubt exists somewhere it won’t matter as things stand today. Because the system our founders put together wasn’t driven by two locked in ideological political parties that after two hundred years have reached the only ending they could: stalemate.
In the end our American democratic republic wasn’t made from political parties, but from a diverse group of leaders standing on their own principles, as well as self interest, with compromise and deals made possible out of necessity, not ideology. There is no necessity to compromise today because the political parties to which our politicians belong won’t allow this natural occurrence to manifest. The only thing that can alter that fact is more political individuals elected outside the system.
But first we have to tear the two party system down, which is what the Tea Party began doing, with Occupy Wall Street offering another angle, which holds more hope, because there is not party alliance at its hub, though it’s clear there are more similarities with Democratic principles at its core.
As an side, Libertarianism, as seen through politicians like Ron Paul, the only person talking war and peace in real terms, offers an alliance for Democrats and even Republicans sick to death of the militancy of their own conservative wings, which has gained more ground under Pres. Obama. But again, this can only happen with more independent minded and not beholden to party politicians getting elected.
It won’t be done completely in 2012, but the system has already begun to shake. The bad news is that we are going to elect a few more weak leaders before it’s over. That’s the case whether Barack Obama gets reelected or Mitt Romney takes the presidency, though the case for Mitt with some will lie in what might be possible from him, which comes coupled with what is known not to work already with Pres. Obama.
The likelihood that the American electorate will just keep throwing the bums out until we reach a moment when the person we’re electing means more than the party he or she represents is where American politics is being pushed today.
Voting for a Democratic or Republican politician simply because of their brand simply isn’t working anymore. Certainly we can all at least agree on that.
“Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News. Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all.” – Fox News Viewers Know Less Than People Who Don’t Watch Any News
There’s a lot of caterwauling about this new Mitt Romney ad, because it attributes a John McCain quote to Pres. Obama. However, that lament misses the point.
A statement from Romney’s camp in their own defense, from Ben Smith:
We used that quote intentionally to show that President Obama is doing exactly what he criticized McCain of doing four years ago. Obama doesn’t want to talk about the economy because of his failed record.
Right now, as Newt Gingrich enjoys his surge-ette, Romney’s challenges remain with the Republican base, people who rely on Fox News Channel for their information. They’re not going to care about the accuracy of Romney’s material. They’ll simply like the message.
Low information voters suck up negative ads, which are traditionally iffy on facts. This is the second study that reveals FNC watchers aren’t getting the truth through the news they watch from Mr. Ailes.
Not only does Romney’s hit Pres. Obama on the economy where he’s vulnerable, but it positions Mitt Romney as Mr. Optimism, channeling what worked so well for Ronald Reagan, even if Mitt Romney doesn’t ever mention the Gipper’s name.
There isn’t anything good to say about what leaders have done so far to deal with America’s economic challenges. Before the 2010 mid-term elections, Pres. Obama and the Democrats didn’t even bother with an economic message, then after the elections Obama caved on his campaign pledge and Democratic economics to embrace the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest. As for Republicans, with the right in charge we’ve gotten Paul Ryan’s plan to gut Medicare, while Grover Norquist continues to have more power than logic or Ronald Reagan’s legacy that used to be the guiding light of Republicans.
Ronald Reagan wouldn’t have paid attention to Norquist or the Tea Party. Of course, he couldn’t get nominated today by right wingers who control the primary process. But let’s say he was in charge today. Mr. Reagan would have had no problem raising taxes. It’s exactly what he did in the 1980s, something Republicans conveniently forget. Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan man, whom I’ve quoted before:
Almost immediately upon enactment of the 1981 tax cut, Reagan came under enormous pressure to do something about the federal budget deficit. While his preferred approach was to cut spending as much as necessary, it was not politically possible to so. His aides began pressuring him to support a tax increase. Conservative activists were appalled that Reagan would even consider such a thing, but he eventually endorsed the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. According to a Treasury Department analysis, it raised taxes by close to one percent of GDP, equivalent to $150 billion per year today, and was probably the largest peacetime tax increase in American history.[11]
This was just the first of many tax increases that President Reagan endorsed and signed into law. There were 11 major tax increases during his administration. And this doesn’t count the fact that Reagan intentionally delayed the start of tax indexing, which was part of the 1981 tax bill, until 1985 so as to capture a lot of anticipated bracket-creep for the Treasury. In fact, it was the failure of inflation to come in as fast as White House economists expected that created much of the deficit problem. I estimate that lower than expected inflation and the loss of bracket creep was responsible for about half the budget deficit in 1981 and 1982.[12] It’s also worth noting that the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was revenue-neutral in the long run, was a fairly substantial revenue-raiser its first year, increasing taxes by $18.6 billion or 0.41 percent of GDP.[13]
The right excavating, then channeling their inner Reagan, however slightly, could actually save Republicans from the Gingrich-Cain-Perry catastrophe they’re currently facing. Back to the Washington Post:
Tensions have mounted in recent days as two of the GOP’s most fervent anti-tax stalwarts on Capitol Hill — Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Tex.) — have lobbied party colleagues behind the scenes to forgo their old allegiances and even break campaign promises by embracing hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes.
If Congress can’t come up with a way to cut $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years, the Budget Act will do it for them unless some sort of postponement is worked out. A look at the deadlines that must be met and what happens if they’re not:
The two conservative lawmakers have pushed the increases as part of their work on the bipartisan congressional “supercommittee” tasked with finding at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reductions by a Thanksgiving deadline. Their plan, which also addresses entitlement spending, would generate at least $300 billion in new tax revenue over the next decade by overhauling the tax code to lower rates but also eliminate deductions and loopholes.
A long time ago I was on a conference call with George Soros, along with several other progressive new media writers and bloggers. One thing he said always struck me: how important it is to have a strong, viable Republican Party, parties to challenge one another.
Democrats have failed miserably on economics, starting with not bothering to make the case for progressive financial policy.
Republicans seem hamstrung by the right wing rabble. An identity crisis may be just the thing to wake up people that Grover Norquist’s no tax extortion is killing this country and drowning it in the bathtub.
Interestingly, Olsen is reportedly from Wisconsin, the state that Gov. Scott Walker ignited with his anti-democratic view of economic equality.
As a reminder, Pres. Obama and the Democrats did not mount any economic message for the 2010 midterms. Then after getting their… um.. hats handed to them in December, Pres. Obama made a deal with Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts. Now that candidate Obama is on the campaign stump, however, he says he won’t extend them again.
Of course, now that Pres. Obama’s own political future is on the line he’s sounding like a class warrior who has religion. One by one on cable, the talking heads proclaim he’s “back,” his message is winning, etc.
It’s not hard to believe Pres. Obama’s populist message, conveniently timed and politically motivated, is winning. The message to back up the middle class and working stiffs, one that I’ve been drilling home for years, is always a winner. It’s just unfortunate that Mr. Obama only finds it when his own fortunes need a lift.
It’s also why I laugh out loud when David Axelrod or team Obama go after Mitt Romney, making the argument that slick Mitt will say anything to get elected. If that charge sounds familiar it should. Yes, Mitt Romney is a Wall Street jackal. Obama’s not in that league, but he doesn’t have any problem taking campaign contributions from those who are. You decipher the difference.
Ronald Reagan started sapping the American dream in the 1980s, which lasted for 12 years.
The Bush tax cuts and two wars off the books in the 2000s did the rest.
When Pres. Obama came into office, the economic die was already cast.
Unfortunately, Obama chose to hire Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, the latter the man who convinced Pres. Bill Clinton to dismantle Glass-Steagall, though when Clinton finally signed the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, Congress had passed it with a veto proof majority. An apology from Clinton is hardly enough, but you would have thought Barack Obama would have learned before entering office what these actions had wrought. Instead, he doubled down on known economic quantities and friends of the establishment, moneyed class. People who helped the economic crisis occur.
Elizabeth Warren offered Pres. Obama a glimmer of hope and a way out of the mess Geithner and Summers had made of his economic message. Unfortunately, Tim Geithner had no intention of letting her gain power and Obama had no intention of using his presidential clout to make sure the woman who understood the financial plight of we the people had any.
From Confidence Men, the book that sent the White House into swift damage control, by Ron Suskind:
“… Only those in his inner circle at Treasury, though, can read what’s behind that expression: a string of private efforts across the past year to neutralize Warren. The previous fall, Geithner huddled with top aides to develop what one called an “Elizabeth Warren strategy,” a plan to engage with the firebrand reformer that would render her politically inert. He never worked out a viable strategy–a way to meet with Warren without drawing undesirable comparisons–and so, like the president, he didn’t.
What the Treasury Department did do, unbeknownst to Warren, was embrace demands from the banking industry to create a bureau under the condition that Warren would not be allowed to lead it. [...] The industry managed to get the proposed agency shrunk into a bureau that would live under the auspices of the Federal Reserve…
It may seem like all of the events currently swirling are unrelated and happening separately, but as days and weeks pass there is a common thread running through them all and it’s not going away.
After-tax income for the highest-income households grew more than it did for any other group. (After-tax income is income after federal taxes have been deducted and government transfers—which are payments to people through such programs as Social Security and Unemployment Insurance—have been added.)
CBO finds that, between 1979 and 2007, income grew by:
275 percent for the top 1 percent of households,
65 percent for the next 19 percent,
Just under 40 percent for the next 60 percent, and
Glenn’s got a new book out, With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. The interview above with Rachel Maddow is worth your time.
One focus of Glenn’s book, which I haven’t yet read, evidently is the pardon of Richard M. Nixon, something that rocked my world when it happened. When Gerald R. Ford died, I minced no words, writing “I Can’t Forgive Ford,” plus a follow up piece. I think our country suffered greatly for Nixon not being fully investigated and tried for the crimes he committed as president. A subtle message was also sent.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I watch Occupy Wall Street unfold, giving birth to state Occupy movements. I think back to Eliot Spitzer, who opened the door for his enemies, but who was on a trail that Wall Street tycoons couldn’t afford him to follow. Spitzer paid dearly for his stupidity and we lost a sheriff.
It’s ironic that Democrats like Eliot Spitzer and Bill Clinton were made to walk the plank, Clinton being impeached, but yet Richard M. Nixon was allowed to resign, and Ronald Reagan skated on Iran-Contra, something far more dangerous than a consensual fling with an intern.
A lot more people who robbed this country from the comfort of their Wall Street offices need to pay. Our political class and the parties who protect these people, because they pay their way into power are failing us even further if they don’t.
TM NOTE:Speaking of books, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Mahablog, Skippy, Newshounds, and Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice, where I also post weekly. All of these blogs offered a free ad to me to get the word out on my book. Joe also has encouraged me to also write about the book on his site, for which I’m very grateful. Class acts, all.
That’s the opener to the story. It’s a beauty, isn’t it?
Rich. Unattached. Ready to rumble Republicans who don’t want Romney.
I’m not rich, though as a liberal I feel politically homeless these days and I’d like to see a combative, competitive and conclusive 2012 decision. Watching Obama toy with Rick Perry is not the contest America deserves. So, all I can say is run, Chris, run.
Leading social conservatives feel differently (see video).
Did anyone see “Morning Joe” today? It was quite interesting how Scarborough outlined the down sides for Christie, which included that he’s not been in office long, but also that if he turns this opportunity down he won’t get another. Somebody on set also mentioned that Christie might not even win reelection for New Jersey governor, but he has a real shot at the GOP nomination.
Further fueling this nonsense is Gov. Christie, on invitation through Nancy Reagan, speaking on American exceptionalism at the Reagan Presidential Library this evening.
After Perry’s disastrous introduction, though if the wacky right-wing has anything to say about it he’s not dead just yet. Gov. Christie might be a little nervous that this national presidential spotlight isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and isn’t as easy as it appears.
It’s just sad coming from Melissa Harris-Perry. In a piece she did for The Nation recently, the purpose of which was to throw a lighted match into the Democratic base camp, she goes straight to the race card and doesn’t prove her case.
President Obama has experienced a swift and steep decline in support among white Americans—from 61 percent in 2009 to 33 percent now. I believe much of that decline can be attributed to their disappointment that choosing a black man for president did not prove to be salvific for them or the nation. His record is, at the very least, comparable to that of President Clinton, who was enthusiastically re-elected. The 2012 election is a test of whether Obama will be held to standards never before imposed on an incumbent. If he is, it may be possible to read that result as the triumph of a more subtle form of racism.
Pres. Clinton “enthusiastically” re-elected? Is she kidding? Between NAFTA and welfare reform, not to mention the debacle of DADT, not to mention the blow back from the failed raid in Somalia (aka Black Hawk Down), Clinton was creamed by so called “liberals” back in the ’90s for his policies. …and turn out in ’96 was abysmal.
I also don’t relate to Joan Walsh on the one point of agreement she admits to with Harris-Perry. That any disappointment, which I’ve always called uninformed voting, is due to the fact that “a black man for president did not prove to be salvific for them or the nation.” I didn’t expect Mr. Obama to be anything close to Martin Luther King, Jr. It never occurred to me. Nobody is King.
Barack Obama is a brilliant political performer, with no experience when he first ran for president, but a lot of savvy, who saw a perfect moment and took it. I voted for Barack Obama and Joe Biden because I knew they’d be better on foreign policy than McCain-Palin, not because Obama was black. Though it was a thrilling moment in American history to see Barack, Michelle and their children standing together when he won.
The other problem with Harris-Perry’s case is the lessening of enthusiasm that reaches across segments of the Democratic Party. From Joan’s piece:
As long as we’re looking at the president’s racial support, let’s look broadly. While white liberal support for Obama has almost certainly dropped, so has his support within every group. Why are Latinos abandoning Obama? Two thirds of Latinos voted for the president in 2008; the Gallup tracking poll showed Latino support dropping to 44% at the end of August, though it jumped up above 50 percent this week. Overall, the president is polling in the 40s among Latinos since the end of June. And while black support remains strong, it’s declined, too. Obama won 95 percent of black voters in 2008, and his approval rating hovered in the 90s for most of his first two years. This week, it’s at 82 percent, and it’s been steadily in the 80s since February. That’s still high, but it’s not the enthusiastic, near-unanimous support that elected him.
The president himself acknowledged the rising volume of African American discontent in his speech to the (increasingly critical) Congressional Black Caucus Saturday night.
But that’s not the worst of Ms. Harris-Perry’s argument.
If old-fashioned electoral racism is the absolute unwillingness to vote for a black candidate, then liberal electoral racism is the willingness to abandon a black candidate when he is just as competent as his white predecessors.
I’ll let David Sirota school Ms. Harris-Perry, because you’ve likely already read the pieces I wrote warning about Barack Obama’s policy prescriptions starting back in January 2007. A snippet of Sirota, with the original filled with embedded links and sources to prove the case he makes below.
This is a president who as a candidate railed on adventurist wars and promised to seek congressional authorization for new wars — and then turned around and initiated new adventurist wars without congressional authorization.
Obama is also a man who criticized Bush-era civil liberties policies as a candidate and then as president not only extended those policies — but, in many cases, actually made them worse. Among other things, he has pressed for longer Patriot Act extensions than congressional Republicans, added bipartisan legitimacy to warrantless wiretapping (which he explicitly promised to end) and claimed autocratic powers that even the extremist Bush administration never dared to claim (for example, the power to assassinate American citizens without charge).
And let’s not forget trade and healthcare. Candidate Obama promised to renegotiate NAFTA and reform the corresponding free-trade template that has cost Americans so many jobs. He also repeatedly pledged to champion a public option to compete with private health insurers and promised to push for legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. Now, President Obama is pushing a new series of NAFTA-like deals in Panama, South Korea and Colombia. And, as we now know, he didn’t merely try but fail to pass a public option or the Medicare drug-negotiation provisions — he actively used his power to eliminate those provisions from the final healthcare bill.
Taken together, we see that Obama — as opposed to Clinton, who at least paid (often empty) rhetorical homage to liberalism — has proudly and publicly stomped on the very progressive promises that got him elected.
I also don’t remember Clinton ever touting Ronald Reagan as Barack Obama has done. Clinton also gave hell to Republicans regularly, on camera and with feeling. I don’t remember Clinton selling out women’s reproductive healthcare by codifying Hyde in legislation. Oh right, Hillary wouldn’t have let him.
But I’m not surprised to read a piece from a strong Obama supporter blaming white liberal disaffection with Pres. Obama on racism.
Ten years into our involvement in the war in Afghanistan, in the mountains southwest of Kabul in the Tangi Valley, an elite group of Army Rangers were pinned down in a fight, when they called in their “Immediate Reaction Force,” according to reporting by Danger Room. It would be another elite U.S. fighting force, Navy SEALS, who would respond, but would end up blown out of the sky. It’s not Desert One, this mission having an even more desperately reckless cast to it. What was worth risking our finest elite force, around 7% of the total according to some experts, in a country that continues to revert back to it’s origin of a tribal nation?
“The Taliban knew which route the helicopter would take,” one unnamed Afghan official tells AFP. “That’s the only route, so they took position[s] on the either side of the valley on mountains and as the helicopter approached, they attacked it with rockets and other modern weapons.” “It was a trap that was set by a Taliban commander,” the official added. – Did a New Taliban Weapon Kill a Chopper Full of Navy SEALs?
The Taliban Haqqani network, operating in the extremely dangerous Wardak province, includes the most brutal fighting insurgents in Afghanistan, so any mission against them is high risk. U.S. Navy SEALS, as well as their Afghan counterparts, a translator and a working dow, came in via a U.S. Army A Special Operations MH-47G Chinook helicopter, seen as the best among these fighting machines but incredibly slow, bulky and vulnerable when navigating in between steep terrain. There are no defenses to deploy when a Chinook is within range of an RPG, though there are speculations that a newer weapon was involved. It was the worst single day loss of life since entering Afghanistan in 2001, with reports saying many of the Navy SEAL Team 6 who took down Osama bin Laden perished this day.
As the latest and worst news from Afghanistan continued to sink in, late yesterday, Pres. Obama addressed the S&P downgrade as the stock market plummeted, finishing with words about the horrific carnage that happened over the weekend. With words coming out of his mouth invoking his belief in America, the President’s grim facial features belied the pep talk that was weirdly surreal. It turned into the Twilight Zone when he got to the end, invoking the spirit of the fallen heroes while using the word “succeed” in the same sentence as Afghanistan.
“Their loss is a stark reminder of the risks that our men and women in uniform take every single day on behalf of their country,” Obama said from the White House. “I know that our troops will continue the hard work of transitioning to a stronger Afghan government and ensuring that Afghanistan is not a safe haven for terrorists. We will press on and succeed,” the US president said. – US will succeed in Afghanistan: Obama
Every time Pres. Obama comes out to speak now there is a vacuousness to his purpose that goes well beyond what words can hide. It’s like he doesn’t even believe himself anymore, as he babbles on without presenting a single plan. The least he could have done was call Congress back to Washington.
The crisis of economic confidence…
The out of touch talk about “We will press on and succeed” in Afghanistan…
It’s clear individual Democrats in Congress better take up the charge on jobs and growth, because Pres. Obama is acting politically paralyzed.
The good news for Obama is that his poll numbers remain decent amidst his floundering. Everything else, however, is reminiscent of the run-up to 1979 when America seemed incapable of acting like a great nation amidst economic, energy and foreign policy crises that were overwhelming the current occupant of the White House.
America ended up handing the country to Ronald Reagan, who ballooned the deficit, raised taxes over and over, and deserved impeachment after Iran-Contra, but got away with it because it was a different time and an assassination attempt had bonded Pres. Reagan to the people.
There is an out of control, out of touch, out of sync feeling Pres. Obama reveals every time he takes to the podium. He’s been incapable of leading the events playing out during his presidency, instead just reacting to them. Obama needs to change this perception and he has until Thanksgiving to do it.
Democrats reacted with outrage as word filtered to Capitol Hill, saying the emerging agreement appeared to violate their pledge not to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits as well as Obama’s promise not to make deep cuts in programs for the poor without extracting some tax concessions from the rich. When “we heard these reports of these mega-trillion-dollar cuts with no revenues, it was like Mount Vesuvius. . . . Many of us were volcanic,” said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.). – As Obama, Boehner rush to strike deal, Democrats are left fuming
Huffington Post Wins Debt Ceiling Headline of the Week
Only in the Obama era would Democrats be using Ronald Reagan to get Republicans to remember their revolution. So, Huffington Post wins the new media headline this week, which follows up on what Dems did as well.
I’m out until Monday because of an injury, so first I’d like to thank Joyce and Art for jumping in and helping out. [It's hell being a middle-aged jock, but a lot of fun (for those of you who follow my gym rat passion, no, it didn't happen lifting weights.] Anyway… I just had to write something quick on the latest story lines developing, as Pres. Obama gets ready for a town hall today, trying to schmooze the American people, likely using the premise of his gauzy op-ed in USA Today, into believing that what’s coming down the pike is remotely positive for the Democratic party’s health, let alone the country’s.
The only important thing to get done is a debt ceiling increase.
If we had Democrats in Congress that were there to do something other than prop up their own party’s guy in the Executive Branch there would be a lot less “volcanic” posturing and a lot more standing up for Democratic party principles. Obama’s legacy means little compared to the people who will suffer at the hands of his let’s make a big deal presidential approach. Though I question how serving up entitlements, while only getting promises on taxes and revenue, is any deal a Democrat should even think about at all.
And let’s not be gullible. Pres. Obama isn’t a potted plant. If Bill Daley is making concessions to Speaker Boehner, as is being reported, it’s because Obama wants it to go down that way.
Cut, cap and… baloney passed. Shocker, the Tea Party crazies are running the congressional asylum. Passing anything that has no chance of getting through the Senate, let alone a veto by Pres. Obama, is such a waste of energy. Watching some of Cantor’s bloviating on the House floor makes me wonder what’s wrong with some people in Virginia.
Of note, Reps. Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul voted no, because as presidential candidates to be taken seriously when eying the general election audience they can’t flaunt lunacy.
Of course, some Democrats voted for it too, but mainly to keep a primary challenge away, which anyone can appreciate, with Jim Cooper doing so as well even though he’s in a very blue district.
But it’s quite interesting how the House Democratic Caucus dealt with the event this morning. They sent out the above audio excerpt of Pres. Ronald Reagan’s 1987 radio address.
“Congress consistently brings the Government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar. The United States has a special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations. It means we have a well-earned reputation for reliability and credibility – two things that set us apart from much of the world.”
These words are lost on sober politicians. They’d call Reagan a RINO. …or worse. Hell, he’d get a primary challenge.
The same people who invoke Reagan over and over again have no clue of his history of raising taxes 11 times during his presidency. This includes Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the other wingnut bloviators.
As for what Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan man, thinks of the amateurism of the Tea Party balanced budget amendment. He calls it a “phony.”
Where have all the serious conservatives gone?
As for serious Democrats, after what the Gang of 7 served up, we’ll see if the Progressive Caucus budges on entitlements. The pressure will be intense, because House members sent a letter to Speaker Boehner saying they want to take a vote on it, including Jim Cooper. From The Hill:
“We applaud this effort and ask that you provide the opportunity to vote on this proposal as part of any request for an increase in the debt ceiling before the Aug. 2 debt ceiling deadline,” Wolf and Cooper wrote.
Cooper has been involved in New Democrat discussions over the debt limit in recent days. Members of the business-friendly coalition, which comprises 43 Democrats, talked about the Gang of Six proposal at a meeting Tuesday, and its leadership, led by chairman Rep. Joe Crowley (N.Y.), released a statement supporting a “grand bargain” on deficit reduction and the debt limit. Cooper is also a member of the more conservative Blue Dog coalition.
The plan would be held at the Senate desk until a Social Security fix is found, and if that fix does not get the 60 votes required, the rest of the deficit plan is voided. The reform must ensure 75 years of solvency for Social Security, according to the Gang of Six, but how to achieve that is left up to the Finance Committee. If Finance cannot agree, a group of 10 senators — five from each party — can bring a reform bill to the floor.
… Chained CPI would cause Social Security benefits and tax deductions to be lowered, the use of which has been loudly opposed by seniors’ lobbying groups. To address senior concerns, the plan exempts Supplemental Security Income from the shift for five years and provides a minimum benefit equal to 125 percent of the poverty line for five years.
Social Security is solvent for 25 years now and lowering COLA is insane. What are these Democrats thinking? They need to find a better way to “strengthen” Social Security.
What we need is a straight up, 11th hour debt ceiling increase if need be, nothing more and that’s what I’m hoping for, which as a last resort could still be the devious McConnell plan. Visualize it, people.
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Watching the reaction of the Pakistanis after the NATO bombing incident that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers, it was hard not to wonder if this would escalate further. It just did.
