No. No. No. No. No. Not Happy

Been off-line most of the day. Come home and read the news. Not liking this. Just damn. We're in another war?

BENGHAZI, Libya — A coalition of American and European forces bombed Libyan targets by air and sea Saturday in the first phase of a military campaign to drive Moammar Gadhafi from power.

French warplanes fired the first shots in the broadest international military effort since the Iraq war, destroying government tanks and armored vehicles in the region of the rebels' eastern stronghold, Benghazi. Hours later, British and U.S. warships and submarines launched more than 110 Tomahawk missiles against Gadhafi's air defenses around the capital Tripoli and the western city of Misrata, which has been besieged by Gadhafi's forces, Pentagon officials said.

Obama says we won't send group troops. Good news as far as strategy goes, but small comfort. Everybody knows our air power can annihilate any country in short order. We're still in another fucking war, dammit. Not what I voted for.

Obama evolving

President Obama made a little speech yesterday before leaving for a much deserved vacation. He was modest about the stellar performance of the lame duck, claiming it as a win for the American people rather than himself. To this day, I still marvel at the contrast between him and our former Smirker in Chief. Even when I don't agree with him, Obama is a pleasure to listen to, in comparison.

Obama also expressed regret that the DREAM act failed, a disappointment I certainly share though I expected it. GOPers never have any trouble punishing innocent children for the sins of the parents. The most interesting point he made was about his evolving thoughts on gay marriage. He hints at supporting it in the future, so maybe he'll do something about DOMA down the line.

I am a little worried about this bit though:

“A lot of folks in this time predicted that after the midterm elections, Washington would be headed for more partisanship and more gridlock,” Mr. Obama said. Instead, he said, Washington politicians decided that it was time to find common ground.

“That’s a message that I will take to heart in the new year, and I hope my Democratic and Republican friends will do the same,” he said.

I'm not sure why the GOPers caved at the end here, but I doubt it's because they had a change of heart and decided to put the business of the people above their own partisan self-interest. What I'd like to believe is that the few sensible Republicans that crossed over did it just because it was the right thing to do and will continue on that track. But I figure it's more likely they realize the next session of Congress is going to be such a teabag slinging mess they wanted to help while they could. Thinking the GOP leadership is just regrouping to figure out new and more devious ways to sabotage civil society in order to tar Obama and regain the White House in 2012.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

The tax cut deal

Guess I do have time for one quick post. I have more to say about this deal Obama cut with the GOPers on tax cuts, but two quick thoughts for right now. One, in processing the information as it comes out, it seems to me that a lot of the anger from the far left is about being cut out of the process. As Ezra says, it's an OK deal, but it was struck without any outreach to the base. As was everything so far in Obama's administration.

But the presidency of Barack Obama has been more inside game than outside game. The tax cut deal is yet another example. On the face of it, it's not a bad deal. Republicans gets $130 billion in tax breaks for the wealthy, and Democrats get about $300 billion in more stimulative, more progressive breaks and unemployment benefits. That's more than anyone thought Obama likely to get from these negotiations. But it was a deal struck in a back room, without buy-in from the president's base, and then sold at a press conference were Obama lectured liberals about the compromises required to pass Social Security, Medicare, and the founding of this country, and the dangers of "sanctimony." As you might imagine, that didn't go over too well with liberals, and now we're in another of the occasional flare-ups between Obama and his base.

My first inclination was to fight it but as John Cole points out if we kill the deal, and it's possible we could do it, then what? We're down to the eleventh hour before the GOP effectively takes over the Congress. So what's Plan B? How is the left going to get the GOPers and Blue Dogs to extend UI benefits for millions of Americans who would be otherwise left with no income in the dead of winter? Much less the other stealth stimulus provisions that were added to the deal?

My second thought, which was actually my first reaction, is the Democrats could have and should have cut a much better deal than this. They should have held out for not just the UI benies, but also at least DADT and START and forced those votes first. And they could have, if they had this fight in May. But they wanted until it was too late and the bitter reality is this is the best we're going to get at this time. Killing the deal, imperfect as it is, won't gain us anything and in fact leave us with nothing just as the GOPers are about to take over with an even stronger hand.

I hate it but there it is. Thinking the strategy now is for liberals and progressives is to regroup and figure out why we aren't more effective in swaying our legislators so they can make the president do what we want.

Sociopaths rule us

Building a bit on my earlier post about record breaking corporate profits, John Cole makes an additional point I meant to add on corporate caterwauling about Obama:

They got everything they wanted the last couple of years, the stock market has rebounded, bonuses are hitting records, corporate profits are at an all time high, no one went to jail for their obvious crimes, and they still aren’t happy and think Obama, who has been business friendly to a fault, is “hostile” to them.
At some point, we are going to have to realize we are dealing with sociopaths.

Read the link for the comment that inspired this quote. For crying out loud, Obama lost his base largely for being so corporate friendly. The fat cats of the Corporatocracy are making tons of money but they're still hell bent on destroying his presidency. And it's not because he's black. It's because he's a Democrat.

Catfood Commission takes its first scratch

I've been reading a lot of the reaction to the Catfood Commission chair's initial recommendations but my first take was why did they release this at all? It's just two guys' opinions that carry no weight, though it certainly captured the news cycle on all sides. I found myself wondering if it was one of those eleventy chess moves to force the GOP to get specific on how they're going to keep their promise to cut the deficit.

But whatever the reason, the shorter version is these two rich guys want to keep their Bush era tax breaks, cut their taxes even further and balance the books by forcing the poor and the middle class to make up the difference. Of all I've read, Kevin Drum put it best, illustrated with this handy chart. As he said:

To put this more succinctly: any serious long-term deficit plan will spend about 1% of its time on the discretionary budget, 1% on Social Security, and 98% on healthcare. [...]

This document is a paean to cutting the federal government, not cutting the federal deficit.

In other words, just another stab at realizing the conservative pipe dream of destroying our current form of government and restoring a feudal system with themselves as the new aristocrats.

It's a joke of a proposal but Atrios pins down the biggest hazard for the White House. It may well be a bi-partisan commission, but it was established by the president and it will hereby be called Obama's Deficit Commission. Bad optics for 2012 when the President's handpicked guys are calling to cut the most beloved social program in the country.

In any event, I fully expect this commission will turn out to be as effective as any previous ones. Meaning, they'll spend a lot of time and tax dollars to make recommendations that will be officially released long after the issues are decided and everyone will ignore them.

And one last thought. Not proposing changing it's nym, but Catfood Commission isn't really that apt. Catfood isn't all that cheap anymore. I can buy regular chunk light tuna cheaper than pet food, but of course, Ramen Noodle Commission just isn't as catchy.

[Much more commentary at Memeorandum yesterday and today.

Obama channels Atrios

Not sure why he waited so long, but Obama made a speech in support of rebuilding our infrastructure that Atrios could have made, if Atrios was given to making long speeches. As it is he's written that speech many times over in the last two years, in his trademark style. Certainly he's posted something similar to this quote more than once.

But the fact remains that nearly one in five construction workers is still unemployed and needs a job. And that makes absolutely no sense at a time when there is so much of America that needs rebuilding.

It was a good speech and it's great policy even if it is, once again, probably too modest a proposal. That's just Obama's style. But he is calling for major infrastructure investment. That's a change I'm willing to fight for. I just hope our President is now ready to take command in the inevitable battle.

Leave his Slurpee alone

You know how much I love Mark Knoller and his geeky stats fixation. He keeps track of everything including how many times Obama evoked Slurpee sipping. It's nearly supplanted his fixation on the Obamas trashing tater tots.

I suspect he enjoys that frozen confection himself now and again, perhaps with a big old plate of tater tots on the side. On one level it's kind of sad that this election has been so substance free that Mark has the room to indulge a piece like this, but have to love a guy who will use his national forum to defend his (presuambly) favorite foods.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Infrastructure spending

The news has been full of stories all week about how the Democrats and Obama wouldn't be asking for any additional spending for job creation, and would be going for tax cuts only, but today, I assume based on advance copies of his remarks, Obama is going for infrastructure spending after all.

President Obama on Monday is to call for as much as $50 billion in government spending to start up a long-term public works plan emphasizing transportation projects – roads, rail and airport runways – over the next six years.

Of course, asking for it and getting it are two different things.

Mr. Obama will lay out the plan, which is intended to promote the creation of construction jobs over the coming year and beyond, during a trip to Milwaukee on Monday afternoon, where he will observe Labor Day by attending a union festival. It would require Congressional approval, as it envisions extending and revising a broad transportation policy bill that is usually renewed every five years or so, but has been stalled in Congress.

It's not likely the Congress will suddenly become a model of efficiency and common sense and will start passing bills before November. Still it's a fight worth having and if they play the optics right for a change, it will really highlight how the GOP/Blue Dog obstructionisim is hurting the recovery. So there's that.

Krugman is shrill

Obama is supposed to give a pep talk on the economy next week. Doesn't look too encouraging to me. Instead of going bold with a demand for a big stimulus that will be spent outright on jobs, the rumor mill is saying it's going to be tax cuts. Which the GOP will vote against anyway. Krugman tells Obama to fight because it's the right thing to do.

But politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth. The economic theory behind the Obama stimulus has passed the test of recent events with flying colors; unfortunately, Mr. Obama, for whatever reason — yes, I’m aware that there were political constraints — initially offered a plan that was much too cautious given the scale of the economy’s problems.

As Kruman says, the President has the facts and it is a fight worth having. Even though he would likely lose the fight, it would draw a clear line between the party's positions and it's a fight for good policy, which might actually cheer up "the base" whatever that's supposed to be these days.

This was also a great point he made in his post.

Oh, and don’t tell me that Germany proves that austerity, not stimulus, is the way to go. Germany actually did quite a lot of stimulus — the austerity is all in the future. Also, it never had a housing bubble that burst. And with all that, German G.D.P. is still further below its precrisis peak than American G.D.P. True, Germany has done better in terms of employment — but that’s because strong unions and government policy have prevented American-style mass layoffs.

How about that? Stong unions and good government policy protect domestic jobs. What a concept. Too bad the Democrats can't grasp it. Too busy dancing to the GOP narrative to notice I guess. Sometimes they remind me of that pathetic old drunk in the old Westerns that dances around the bullets the bad gunman guy shoots around his feet.

Obama versus Bush tax cuts

Almost missed this one. Those wacky liberals at the Wall Street Journal provided some context to the Bush tax cuts spin. The chart says it all.

Via Bob Cesca who points out "it appears as if keeping the Bush tax cuts in place would force people earning $60-150,000 to pay slightly more." I'm guessing that's about the top range of income of most of the tea party protesters. Not they'll ever comprehend it, or believe it unless they see it on Fox. Which they won't.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Obama fights back

I have mixed feelings about the remarks Obama made about Boehner at a town hall meeting. I'm happy that he's fighting forcefully against the GOP on their own ground. It's a far cry from the placid bi-partisan platitudes of a year ago. But I'm sad our political discourse has been reduced to sparring by meaningless soundbyte. And even sadder that such a large percentage of our population prefers it that way.

On the hand I'm amused that Joe Scarborough took his own swipe at the Boehner this morning, effectively calling him a lazy drunk.

"After five o'clock, six o'clock at night he's disengaged -- at best," Scarborough continued. "You can see him around town. He does not have, let's say, the work hours of Newt Gingrich. ... Every Republican I talk to says that John Boehner, by five or six at night, you can see him at bars."

Of course it means nothing coming from Morning Joe. He plays the same game as Tweety does, alternately trash talking one party or the other, more by design than principle. Their inner script is calculated towards ratings, not on firmly held convictions. Also useful for establishing their neutrality, since they can claim to piss off both sides equally.

That's showbiz I guess but a hell of bad way to inform the electorate.

[ A $5.55 fundraiser. Please help if you can]

Last word on Obama's speech

I'm not going to talk about the damn speech anymore after this. I made my slightly less cranky, somewhat more rational defense at DetNews today. But the new guy at Balloon Juice, who actually works in the energy industry said about the same things I did, only much more eloquently.

And on a totally unrelated note, it looks like John Cole has a new dog.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Why is George Will on my teevee?

I admit that some 35 years ago, I kind of liked George Will. He was a young, ridiculously earnest conservative and yeah I was young too. I thought he was so cute in that signature bow tie. But my youthful infatuation faded decades ago, along with Will's acuity. Yet, every single blessed Sunday, he is on the bobbleheads spewing some absurd nonsense, a revered pundit of The Village who reassures them weekly that the conventional wisdom still holds. Small wonder our political discourse is so stupid.

Steve Benen flags Will's latest inanity. Seems Mr. Will thinks "President Obama is 'being unfairly blamed' for the response to the BP oil spill disaster." However, he's very happy that this is happening to our president because it "just strikes at the narrative of competence." Yes, Georgie boy has jumped on the "ZOMG, Obama has failed to stop the gusher in the Gulf so this proves the government can't do anything right" meme.

Steve has the perfect response to Will and the rest of the media desperately trying to give this narrative legs.

Here's an idea for assignment editors: publish a piece with specific steps federal officials should take but haven't. Because at this point, unless we can fix the leak with useless media palaver, there's not much point to the breathless speculation, nebulous criticism, and finger-pointing.

Sadly, I doubt they'll take that message to heart. Have a bad feeling we'll be listening to this sort of meaningless drivel for many weeks to come.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Obama Fail Watch: Day 37

Slow news cycles breed inane punditry. Looking at the latest twist in the media narrative I see some half-hearted efforts to revive the failed Obama's Katrina meme and the beginnings of the new stenographic, GOP friendly story line -- Obama's failure to personally stop the damn gusher is proof positive the government can't do anything right. His presidency is doomed. John Cole catches the latest attempt to stick that meme, and responds with the rant that was raging in my head. This graf sums it up.

I’m all for constructive criticism, but flailing around over things that no one can control is just driving me nuts. Why hasn’t Obama done more to stop the leak? I dunno. Why didn’t Obama do more to save John Murtha and Dennis Hopper! Why won’t he wave his magic fucking wand and bring world peace! Why is unemployment at 10%? Why are we all going to die one day!

Because sometimes things don’t have solutions or answers, you losers. Try acting like you are a little older than five for a change.

Really. Read it all. It's not the exact words I would use, but he captures my reaction to the internets today, perfectly. No mas. Adding, por favor.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Says it all

"Instant folk art for Rand Paul" via Maddow Blog.

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Major Fail for Jake Tapper

As regular readers know, I've become rather fond of Jake Tapper. For an MSM guy, he's really been trying to be more responsible in his journalism and to break the he said/she said model of reporting. So it was enormously disappointing to see him deliver this ridiculous post today on his ABC blog.

Three days after he decried the lack of civility in American politics, President Obama is quoted in a new book about his presidency referring to the Tea Party movement using a derogatory term with sexual connotations.

In Jonathan Alter’s “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” President Obama is quoted in an interview saying that the unanimous vote of House Republicans vote against the stimulus bills “set the tenor for the whole year ... That helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans.”

Tea Party activists loath the term “tea baggers,” which has emerged in liberal media outlets and elsewhere as a method of mocking the activists and their concerns.

As Jake notes in a weasel-worded update, "some liberal bloggers" pointed out he was missing the key context that the teabaggers named themselves and apparently thinks because some anchors on competing stations used it to mock the tea party people, that excuses his failure to put the President's quote in context. He always fails to mention what relevance other commentators actions have on a single remark made by Obama.

John Cole has more and also reminds Mr. Tapper that Obama's statement was true.

Even more offensive is that lost in the attempt to manufacture a gotcha moment (I’m sure this accusation of Obama’s incivility will fly up memeorandum and generate lots of traffic, so “Mission Accomplished!” with that), it is lost that what Obama said is absolutely correct and the GOP is the source of a lot of the actual poisonous rhetoric in our current political climate. It WAS the Republican behavior that set the tenor for everything this year. You’d think that observation would be important.

Yeah you would think that, if you weren't just looking for a "clever" way to slam Obama. Further as Josh notes, teabaggers was the standard group ID in the beginning. However once the teabaggers realized how stupid the name was and decided to take offense at being called what they named themselves, many of us began to refer to them as tea partiers. While it's true some on the left still use the term in a derogatory fashion, I seriously doubt President Obama used it mockingly then or has even used the term since that interview.

In any event, Tapper's disappointing excuse to take a dig at our President is his post was simply dishonest. The genesis of the term was entirely relevant to the context and Jake offers no evidence that Obama used it in a mocking tone at the time. It's a major failure to inform and a transparent attempt to tar the President's integrity. Sadly it provides more evidence that the White House Press Corps is simply, if subtly, punishing the President for taking away their keys as gatekeepers to the White House. Sadly, lame hit pieces like Tapper's will only hasten their irrelevance and lose any support they might have among lefties like me.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

In a world without Fox

Granted it's a softball situation, but the interviewer is asking about common societal myths there. I found it to be a fascinating interview with Obama by the Indonesian press.



Not sure why I liked this so much, but I did. Maybe because it's so refreshing to see a media person treat Obama with warmth and respect instead of trying to trip him up with inane gotcha questions designed solely to catch a lazy soundbite and gin up fake controversy. {Via Andrew Sullivan]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Shouting at clouds

Internet Adage: Slow news cycles cause blog wars.

Thinking that this is only going to get worse since it's Easter break and Congress is out on recess until the 12th. It's inevitable. Whenever the news gets slow, bloggers start spatting. Of course, the intercine battle against FireDogLake has been going on for some time and I've pretty much tuned it out myself but this is interesting if it's true. How Jane Hamsher spends her PAC money. I'd advise taking it with a grain of salt until it plays out further, but I suspect we'll be seeing more about this story over the next few days.

The perennial question: McCranky McCain, liar or early Alzheimers? Boggles the mind to think of the mess we would be in if he had somehow won in 08.

Wondering what's President Obama done for you lately? Don't agree that the Afghan escalation was a good thing, but otherwise it's a pretty impressive list.

This is aging but timeless and Billmon is always worth a read. Obama and the dark arts of the GOP spin machine.

And not without feeling a little guilty do I rejoice that Beck continues to cost Fox revenue. Apple removes all ads from Fox, not just Beck's show, but because of Beck's show.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Crazy

Even though I vented a bit yesterday about instant outrage at Obama based on unnamed sources floated in a WaPo report, it doesn't mean that I think Obama or the Democrats are handling the partisan gridlock in a particularly effective way. Avedon has a great post on the lesson they could all learn from Alan Grayson on that score and gets quote of the day.

Or, to put it another way, if Obama really wants bipartisan support, he should sound like a liberal. When Republicans feel like the voters will take revenge on them for not being able to answer liberal questions, even they will find they need to vote for those whacky liberal programs.

I see reams of unsolicited advice to the President that often strikes me as implusive, over-reactive, impractical or otherwise useless, but if I had an ear in the White House, I'd certainly suggest Mr. Obama take this advice to heart. Thinking the problem is the false notion that voters wanted them to stop fighting inside the Beltway, when in fact they wanted our elected leaders to stand up and fight for liberal policy after all those years of conservative policy brought us to the brink of ruin.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

What drives me crazy

I feel all boring, lecturing school marmish about this, but damn it really does drive me crazy. The nebulous entity known as *the left* was winning the health care reform argument this week. There was serious pushback on the GOP narratives, even in TV media and of course the Bunning fiasco was a PR nightmare for the GOPers. Obstructionism illustrated. Kos posted a new poll showing the "tide is turning in 2010." Democrats are winning. The Republican panic was palpable.

The GOP needed to change the storyline quick and Fox cheerleading alone wasn't going to do it. Enter the Kaplan test prep. Fred Hiatt bravely leaps to the cause and floats an "unnamed source" rumor about the KSM trial that pisses off the left. News cycle filled with lefties bitching out Obama and his adminstration. Mission accomplished.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]