This is how Republicans use their balls-to-the-wall style to get their way:
Amazingly, Republicans are going with the bogus line that the estate tax deal represents an INCREASE, from 0 to 35%, because this year for the first time in modern history there was no estate tax. In this scenario, lowering the tax more than it ever was in the Bush era represents a compromise. I’m surprised they can say this one with a straight face.
And this is how Democrats let them get away with it:
But nobody’s really challenging them on it.
You have to admire the GOP. Such chutzpah. Such moxy. As crass as they are brazen. All blame, no shame.
Meanwhile House Democrats, after making a nice show of standing up to The Man, are about to fold on the tax deal like their Senate colleagues before them. We know this because Chris Van Hollen told us so:
“We’re not going to hold this thing up at the end of the day, but we do think that simple question should be put to test. We’re going to ask the Republicans and others, are they going to block this entire deal” over the level of taxes on estates?
What, are you getting bargaining tips from Obama?
Yes, Chris, they will. I think that's quite clear by now. They'renot saying "we're not going to hold this thing up at the end of the day" if you we don't get our estate-tax-cut. No, they're saying, I don't care if granny's tied to the track or Timmy's in the well, we're not budging on the death tax -- . that's what it's called, by the way. Oh, and it's an increase, so we're being quite generous. Take it or leave it, bitch.
The Obama tax cut: A one-stop schtupping by Republicans, just in time for Christmas
Eliot Spitzer interviews Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon about the House Democratic revolt he led this afternoon against Obama's tax-cut giveaway. Together they underscore the basic principles Democrats stand for -- income equality, a strong middle class, and jobs, jobs, jobs -- and how this deal not only violates them but takes us back to the failed Bush policies we thought we had escaped.
DeFazio said the vote in the Democratic caucus to reject the package was nearly unanimous, an unprecedented show of force against a Democratic president in his 24 years in congress.
"If you think the economics of the last eight years have worked great -- that is supply side, trickle down -- this would be even more supply side, and even more trickle down," DeFazio said. "And I don't think it's going to produce the results this president wants or needs in terms of putting people back to work."
He referred to the "failed economic team" of Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, and said this deal was just more "mush" from them.
I've been watching Spitzer's 8 p.m. show on CNN -- yes, he has a partner, but she fades so far into the background you'd barely know it -- and I plan to write something about it soon. If you're looking for a Democratic advocate who knows the facts, won't back down, and articulates progressive values in ways you wish the president would, watch Parker/Spitzer. Or Spitzer, at least.
House Dems are refusing to support the tax cut deal in its current form and holding out for changes to some of its most onerous elements, most prominently the estate tax provision. Yet all indications are that it's going to pass anyway, with overwhelming Republican support, and it seems to be moving forward in the Senate.
That's not to say that House Dems can't have some kind of impact on the deal. In a statement after the vote, Nancy Pelosi pledged that Dems would not allow the measure to move forward in its current form, vowing to "improve the proposal before it comes to the House floor for a vote."
But it's anyone's guess what kind of concessions House Dems can win, and more broadly, there's something poignant about this whole scene. House Dems have erupted in anger and frustration repeatedly in recent months, taking tough votes on big items on Obama's agenda that then died or got badly watered down in the Senate. House Dems wanted a bigger stimulus, and it didn't happen. Senate procedural dithering was largely what soured the public on the process, harming Dems in the midterms. Yet House Dems are the ones who took it on the chin and are headed into the minority.
And here you have the same frustrations playing out again. House Dems were able to pass just an extension of the middle class tax cuts. But to no avail: Like a rerun of a bad movie, it failed in the Senate, and Obama decided his only recourse was to cut a deal to extend the high-end tax cuts.
Now their fury has boiled over one last time, to the point where they're chanting "just say no" in unison. For many House Dems, seeing Obama make this deal was the ultimate sell-out.
As usual, House Democrats are the last firewall holding back the diluted and compromised policies of Obama and his Senate co-conciliators. A classic Pelosi move, actually. She may not prevail, but she has certainly sent a message. Obama, watch the master: This is how it's done.
With bargaining savvy like that, you'd swear she was a Republican.
More bad news from the tax deal, via David Dayen at Firedoglake:
Nancy Altman called the payroll tax cut in the Obama/McConnell deal the end of Social Security. In her view, the American political system circa 2010 doesn’t let taxes go back up, and so Social Security will face a revenue crisis faster with a reduced payroll tax. The money will come out of general revenue to pay for that payroll tax holiday, but that just makes Social Security more dependent on general revenue – and more vulnerable. That this is all coming at a time when knives have been unsheathed and are ready to hack away at Social Security makes it all the more dangerous.
Ryan Grim asked the exact right questions, and Republicans were unusually blunt with him.
Republicans acknowledged that the expiration of the tax holiday will be treated as a tax increase. “Once something like this goes into place, a year from now, when it expires, it’ll be portrayed as a tax increase,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). “So in a body like Congress, precedents matter and this is setting a precedent. I think that certainly is going to create some problems down the road if it passes.”
They know what they're up to. Most of the time they play sketchy word games to cover their tracks, like saying small businesses will be hurt by the upper-income tax cuts, when they know only 3 percent will be affected. But sometimes they're so giddy they just can't fake it. And why should they when they win whether they hide it or not? If I had just rolled the president, I'd let my guard down and feel pretty cocky, too. It's also reliably, undeniably true: This will be hard, if not impossible, to reverse. They know it, we know it, Obama knows it. This is a bad precedent, and anyone with eyes and half a brain can see it.
The rightward march continues, under a Democratic president, no less. Yeah, that's why I voted for him.
Obama thinks he's the king of compromise, and he may well be in a Louis XVI sort of way. But progressives aren't mad because he compromises; it's because he compromises too soon, too often and too readily, bargaining away so-called core principles on the cheap. He's like the Crazy Eddie of policy giveaways, with prices so low he must be insane.
Or, as Anthony Weiner says, Obama goes from "zero to compromise in 3.5 seconds.”
I know some economists say Obama got a better deal than predicted, and that the package represents a "stealth stimulus" that might nudge growth up about a point. But most of the stimulative effect of the deal will come from the middle class and payroll tax cuts and unemployment extension -- which are more likely to be spent than tax cuts for the wealthy. And these policies are popular enough on their own without buying them for the price of bling money for billionaires.
Of course, this would have required stirring up a brouhaha in the media. But it's bonus time, guys. Goldman Sachs has gold in sacks just itching to get out out -- it's canvas, after all. And the banksters want out of the society-imposed austerity box they've been living in-- though, at 20,000 square feet, it's still a good deal. Flaunting it a little is no longer heads-on-pikeworthy, so they're ready to rip. Back in the real world, though, the rest of us are stocking up on Fancy Feast, and wondering how we're going to afford that X-Box or NERF blaster our kids are eyeing. Let's just say we're feeling less than sympathetic to the "ski or sun?"quandry this Christmas. We're ripe for a major media shitstorm, one even the average Joe -- plumbers and all -- can relate to. And, conservative as it is, don't think the media can resist a good upper-class smackdown every now and then, especially at Christmas. This is, after all, the time of year all the movie Scrooges and Grinches get their comeuppance.
But forget the bad bargaining and, perhaps, bad faith. Why does stimulus have to be stealthy? Why can't we let it out of its hiding place and give it room and air and license to roam? Why can't we say: We need to jolt the economy, and businesses, already flush with $2 trillion on the sidelines, can't grow without customers with money in their pockets? Why can't we say: The free market is just peachy till it isn't, and then government has to step in temporarily to help the economy help itself? Would that be so hard?
Apparent-ly.
Instead, we;re negotiating on Republican terrain -- we're talking about TAX CUTS, which, middle class or rich, are still not as stimulative as unemployment benefits or other forms of direct aid. Or, god forbid we champion a grand infrastructure and green-jobs program that not only puts money into the economy and creates jobs, but gives Americans -- of both the red and blue variety -- something to rally behind? It might get us out of our twin economic and emotional funks. Why aren't we fighting for this, programs that have the triple bonus of helping people in need, juicing the economy, and advancing progressive solutions? A fourth bonus? Bonuses for Goldman.
How do you change a 40-year conservative narrative of "tax cuts good, government bad" if you don't even try? You can't, especially if, as I fear, Obama actually buys that narrative.
On Meet the Press on Sunday, John Kerry framed a message Democrats could have used to fight for middle class tax cuts and an extension of unemployment benefits while letting the upper-income tax cuts expire, a core promise repeated by Obama hundreds or thousands of times on the campaign trail. If Kerry -- he of the awkward phrasing and Pinocchio demeanor -- could do it, certainly the dapper and supposedly eloquent Obama could have.
As James Fallows notes, Democrats often feel silly using Fox-like redundancy to underline points ad infinitum, like a barking parrot or Tourette's sufferer. Or Glenn Beck. But I repeat myself.
But if you have any doubt it works, just look at what the Republicans accomplished today, and wonder no more. Fallows is on board, though.
Repetition and consistency of message have become great strategic strengths of the right. On Fox, from Rush, from the Republican leadership, you hear the same themes day after day. They allow their audience to "frame" each day's items in the news. "Oh, I see, the Democrats are supporting 'job-killing tax hikes' once again." Democrats, by contrast, can seem embarrassed and and afraid of seeming "unoriginal" if think they are making points that are "obvious," or that they've already made. But this is one to hammer home until it's absolutely clear:
This is how Fallows boils it down:
"You care about unemployment? We're committed to extending benefits that can help families stay above water, hold onto their houses if possible, and have at least some spending power as they keep looking for work. You need a tax break in a recession? We agree -- we want to cut taxes for every household in the country. And that's why we're in a fight with the Republican minority that is determined to stop tax relief for you, and deny help to families who've lost jobs, unless we give huge extra tax cuts for the people who've already enjoyed the greatest tax-cut benefits and are least likely to spend that money to keep the economy strong. We're saying: tax cuts for everybody on income up to $250,000 -- and for money above that, to control the deficit, let's go back to the rates of the 1990s, when the economy boomed. They're saying: no tax cuts for anybody, unless there's a special bonus for people at the very top.
"We're all for compromise -- but not with bad, destructive, budget-busting ideas. That's why we're drawing the line here."
Oh, what could have been. Or still might, if Congressional Dems hold fast.
Progressives, with their pesky little concerns about income inequality, unemployment, and lost homes, got fucked again. And what did I tell you? Ezra Klein is impressed:
...The White House disappeared into a closed room with the Republicans and cut a deal that they'd made no effort to sell to progressives. When the deal was cut, the president took an oblique shot at their preferences, saying "the American people didn’t send us here to wage symbolic battles or win symbolic victories." And this came a mere week or two after the White House announced a federal pay freeze. The pattern, for progressives, seems clear: The White House uses them during elections, but doesn't listen to, or consult them, while governing. In fact, it insults them, and then tells them to quiet down, they got the best bargain possible, even if it wasn't the one they'd asked for, or been promised.
If you're worried about stimulus, joblessness and the working poor, this is probably a better deal than you thought you were going to get. "It’s a bigger deal than anyone expected," says Bob Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "Both sides gave more expected and both sides got more than expected." The White House walked out of the negotiations with more stimulus than anyone had seen coming. But they did it in a way that made their staunchest allies feel left behind, and in many cases, utterly betrayed.
That the Obama administration has turned out to be fairly good at the inside Washington game of negotiations and legislative compromise and quite bad at communicating to the public and keeping their base excited is not what most would have predicted during the 2008 campaign. But it's true.
The administration is only good at the "inside Washington game of negotiations and legislative compromise" if you believe they are, in fact, stealth Republicans instead of Democrats, constantly ceding ground and seeding the turf for their wealthy donors..
Which I do.
And it's "only a better deal than you thought you were going to get" if the deal is made by capitulators who make promises they have no intention of keeping, and, even with the polls and the facts and decency and morality on their side, they give in without the fight the issue deserves.
Which they did.
And Ezra Klein can only write this tripe if he is a Stepfordized beltway liberal-turned-insider who needs to grease the wheels of Washington access so he, too, can end up with his own show on MSNBC.
A few weeks back I wrote about a funny exchange between Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi and David Gergen of CNN in which Taibbi's bomb-throwing, F-bombing style clashed with the ever-staid, ever-upstanding Gergen. The CNN pundit was opining about the business community's unhappiness with Obama, despite the record profits and massive bonuses accrued on his watch. Taibbi couldn't take it any longer, blurting out, "Fuck the business community!" Gergen, dumbfounded, echoed his words in a way suggesting heresy: "Fuck the business community? That's what you said?"
But that wasn't even the weirdest part. Gergen seemed surprised byTaibbi's rough edges and made a few remarks to that effect that never made it into the magazine. Taibbi didn't know what to make of it, and then it came to him -- Gergen, it seems, had gone through the entire interview thinking he was talking to Matt Bai of the New York Times. That explained it: Matt Bai -- who, like Gergen, preaches the gospel of bipartisanship -- is the last person Gergen would have expected to use such incendiary language. You don't climb the D.C. journalistic ladder pissing off others on the way up. And, if there's anything you never say, it's "Fuck the business community." You gotta fluff those feathers, not ruffle them.
Taibbi sees Bai as a prototype: the liberal journalist who turns on his own as he learns to go along to get along in Washington.
Bai is one of those guys -- there are hundreds of them in this business -- who poses as a wonky, Democrat-leaning "centrist" pundit and then makes a career out of drubbing "unrealistic" liberals and progressives with cartoonish Jane Fonda and Hugo Chavez caricatures. This career path is so well-worn in our business, it's like a Great Silk Road of pseudoleft punditry. First step: graduate Harvard or Columbia, buy some clothes at Urban Outfitters, shore up your socially liberal cred by marching in a gay rights rally or something, then get a job at some place like the American Prospect. Then once you're in, spend a few years writing wonky editorials gently chiding Jane Fonda liberals for failing to grasp the obvious wisdom of the WTC or whatever Bob Rubin/Pete Peterson Foundation deficit-reduction horseshit the Democratic Party chiefs happen to be pimping at the time. Once you've got that down, you just sit tight and wait for the New York Times or the Washington Post to call. It won't be long.
Bai is the poster child of those guys. So naturally Gergen must have been shocked to see, well, Matt Bai screaming kill-the-rich brickbats at him over coffee and pastries. I had a good laugh imagining that somewhere, at that very moment, David Gergen was telling someone what an asshole Matt Bai is. I wonder if anyone's filled him in on the mistake yet.
Michael Kinsley, Dana Milbank, and Jake Tapper are a few others in that long line. Soon joining their ranks? Villager and Obama apologist Ezra Klein. Yes, he's now defending Obama's tax cut capitulation. But, then, you knew that.
An atheist group put up a billboard on one side of New York's Lincoln Tunnel saying of Christmas, "You Know It's a Myth."
Stephen Colbert, a devout Catholic in real life, takes considerable umbrage at this. "A myth? What part of three kings following a star through a desert to bring presents to an immaculately conceived baby-god they dreamt about sounds like a myth to you?"
The Catholic League was none too pleased either. It "counterpunched," in the words of a spokesman, with a billboard of its own on the other side of the tunnel: "You Know It's Real: This Season, Celebrate Jesus."
Ever biblically correct, Colbert responds: "Yes, just like Jesus says, if someone slaps you on the cheek, counterpunch!"
The video is at right. (For some reason, a tag is broken when I put it in a post, but not in an adjacent column. My html-challenged mind reels.)
Greg Sargent is back yelling at "the left" for not standing with Obama for not standing up for us:
Facts of life: The reality is that it's increasingly obvious that all the Bush tax cuts are going to be extended. The only real question at this point is what Dems get in return. The reality is also that the left is going to continue lashing Obama mercilessly as weak if the White House walks away with a bad deal and doesn't find a way to negotiate from a position of strength in future standoffs with the GOP.
Sure, the usual suspects will say it's good for Obama to get attacked from the left. But the drumbeat encouraging the perception of Obama as weak and prone to capitulation -- which is beginning to gain traction in the mainstream media, fair or not -- could in the long run could become the narrative and result in a real political problem that stretches beyond the base.
Here's a fact of life: We'll stop calling Obama weak, when he stops acting weak. I mean, really: "if the White House walks way with a bad deal and doesn't find a way to negotiate from a position of strength," then ... they should stop doing that. They should walk away with a good deal, negotiating from a position of strength. If Obama wants to end the perception, he should end the reality. If this becomes a political problem, good. Maybe he'll respond by ... not acting weak.
I would encourage he not wait for "future standoffs" to perfect this art. No time like the present. Once rolled, always rolled and all that.
I'm not even sure "weakness" is the most salient part of this diagnosis. It's probably more apt to say Obama doesn't stand behind his promises. I'm not sure that's more flattering, but I'll bite. Why does he do this? It could be out of weakness. It could be due to incompetence. It could be a lack of principle. Maybe it's all three. Either way, not good.
Granted, the Republicans are nasty, bad boys, as Larry Craig might say. But what do you do to nasty, naughty bad boys? You spank them. Hard.
Craig would.
Incidentally, if this idea of weakness bleeds into the mainstream media, it's not because they're listening to us. It's because they have eyes, or, more likely, ears -- if the Republicans say it, it must be true. And if anyone, especially Obama, believes we have this kind of pull with the media, then they should by all means listen to us. It'd certainly be a first.
The real question is what Mr. Obama and his inner circle are thinking. Do they really believe, after all this time, that gestures of appeasement to the G.O.P. will elicit a good-faith response?
What’s even more puzzling is the apparent indifference of the Obama team to the effect of such gestures on their supporters.One would have expected a candidate who rode the enthusiasm of activists to an upset victory in the Democratic primary to realize that this enthusiasm was an important asset. Instead, however, Mr. Obama almost seems as if he’s trying, systematically, to disappoint his once-fervent supporters, to convince the people who put him where he is that they made an embarrassing mistake.
Whatever is going on inside the White House, from the outside it looks like moral collapse — a complete failure of purpose and loss of direction.
So what are Democrats to do? The answer, increasingly, seems to be that they’ll have to strike out on their own. In particular, Democrats in Congress still have the ability to put their opponents on the spot — as they did on Thursday when they forced a vote on extending middle-class tax cuts, putting Republicans in the awkward position of voting against the middle class to safeguard tax cuts for the rich.
It would be much easier, of course, for Democrats to draw a line if Mr. Obama would do his part. But all indications are that the party will have to look elsewhere for the leadership it needs.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has a new ad up challenging Obama to live up to his pledge to end the Bush tax cuts for the rich. The PCCC has been urging this for a while. But what's new here is the in-his-face tactic of airing it in Iowa, the place where Obama made this promise three years ago before going on to win the Democratic caucus there. It was Iowa caucus-goers, in turn, who propelled Obama's campaign and launched him on his inexorable rise to his party's nomination in 2008. As Greg Sargent puts it:
This means actual voters will see the spot, the first hitting Obama from the left of the new cycle. ... The spot demands that Obama stick to his promise and not "cave" to Republicans by extending the tax cuts for the rich.
"We're bringing our ad to the place President Obama made his core campaign promise of letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire," Green tells me. "There is no room for compromise on an issue where the promise is so clear and where the Republicans are standing with the wealthiest 2% of Americans against the entirety of the American people."
Between this spot and the new one unveiled this morning by MoveOn, it's clear that the left has settled on a strategy of actively trying to damage Obama politically with the base and with left-leaning independents by painting him as weak, to force him to draw a harder line against Republicans. The left, clearly, has no intention of stopping with these efforts.
Um, no we don't, although I don't buy the premise we're trying to "damage" him. As Talk Left's Armando always counsels, it's not wise to invest too heavily in a politician. It's his or her ideas and policies that we should get behind, or, rather, our policies, the ones we want a leader to implement. In the case of the PCCC's ad and other forms of advocacy from "the left," we're just trying to get "our" politicians -- the Democrats -- to do what we voted for them to do, and now pay them to do and hope and expect that they will do. If that means putting pressure on Obama, that's what we'll do. If that means embarrassing him among voters he'll need a second time around, we'll do that, too. If it means running through the streets naked -- well, I'll get back to you on that. But damage him? Putting aside the dubious ethics and mean-spiritedness that implies, what good would that do us? We need him to be strong and forceful, so he can make "our" case with others not already on board. If he's damaged, he'll be useless. You could make the case, actually, that he's already damaged and we're just trying to "fix" him -- not the GOP way, silly -- so he can carry out our plans. You know, the ones he promised he'd do. I don't care how or why he does the right thing; I just want him to do it.
I also think it's wrong to say we're "painting him as weak." He is weak. That's evident. Anyone can see it. The Republicans certainly do. I always picture Republicans off in their cave, or wherever they plot their evil moves, laughing and marveling at how easy Obama is to roll.
If anything should rile his anger, it's this. And if anything moves Obama to action, it's his own sense of pride and self-preservation. Again, whatever works, baby.
But while "we're" at it, I don't think it's useful to use the term "the left," particularly by a blogger presumably in that category. What is considered "left" these days is probably closer to what used to be called the center. But the goalposts have moved so far right, what is now considered "center" is really "right," and what is now called "right" has lurched into wing-dingery, middle-fingery territory. The media uses "left" to connote a scary fringe too loony to listen to. But we weren't too scary back in '07 and '08 when Obama rode our cheers and dollars and votes into the Democratic convention, and then the White House. We weren't his foil back then; we were his base. And if there's a cardinal rule of elections, particularly midterm elections, it's: Don't Piss Off Your Base.
He did, and lost big on Nov. 2. He has two more Novembers to get it right.
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland isn't afraid to say what he thinks, and he thinks fellow Dems shouldn't be either. Venting to Sam Stein, Strickland said:
"I think there is a hesitancy to talk using populist language," the Ohio Democrat said in a sit-down interview with The Huffington Post. "I think it has to do with a sort of intellectual elitism that considers that kind of talk is somehow lacking in sophistication. I'm not sure where it comes from. But I think it's there. There's an unwillingness to draw a line in the sand."
..."I mean, if we can't win that argument we might as well just fold up," he said. "These people are saying we are going to insist on tax cuts for the richest people in the country and we don't care if they are paid for, and we don't think it is a problem if it contributes to the deficit, but we are not going to vote to extend unemployment benefits to working people if they aren't paid for because they contribute to the deficit. I mean, what is wrong with that? How can it be more clear?"
Addressing the president's self-analysis -- offered after a bipartisan meeting with congressional leadership on Tuesday -- that he hadn't done enough outreach to Republicans, the Ohio governor was equally blunt.
"I saw what CNN said after that meeting yesterday. A line saying the president said he should have been willing to work with the GOP earlier. What? After all of this you don't realize these people want to destroy you and your agenda?" he asked. "How many times do you have to be, you know, slapped in the face? Look what they did with health care.
"I mean, I understand a reluctance to reach the conclusion that I think a reasonable person can reach: that [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell was speaking the truth when he said his goal was not to govern, not to develop public policy, but his goal is to defeat this president in 2012. And I think when the base understands that that's what's at stake, the base is going to be much more willing to engage and to join the fight. The base is going to be less willing to join the fight if they don't see the clear differences. The differences are there, for God's sake."
Strickland will be out of a job come January, having lost in a close re-election fight to John Kasich. So perhaps he'll have the time -- and fortitude? -- to run against Obama in a primary.
There. Now I have something to cheer me up in these dismal days of Democrats.
I've been running around with my hair on fire about Obama not fighting for the issues he ostensibly cares about. Now, it seems, so are some Senate Democrats:
...Senate Dems privately lit into Obama yesterday (Thursday) at a tense caucus meeting, complaining that he was not showing enough passion and was being overly compromising in the face of Republicans who are determined to destroy him.
(Sherrod) Brown didn't comment directly on what happened at caucus, but he confirmed that the general sense among Senate Dems is that Obama needs to be more confrontational towards Republicans, in order to make the difference between the parties clearer. "The caucus broadly wants to see the president stand up and fight and make the distinction clearer than any of us have so far," Brown said.
Brown warned that reaching a compromise on extending the Bush tax cuts temporarily would only further set back Dem efforts to draw a sharp contrast with the GOP. "He needs to articulate every day that he's fighting for the broad middle class, while Republicans are for the rich," he said.
Brown also suggested it would be a setback to such efforts if Obama and Dems embrace cuts to Social Security and Medicare, as Obama's fiscal commission leaders have suggested.
"The president has to make clear whose side we're on," Brown said. "The Republicans want to privatize Social Security and cut Medicare. Democrats are on the other side, advocating for the middle class. We need to affirmatively and strongly make that contrast."
We'll see. These are more than just words to senators like Sherrod Brown and Al Franken, who aren't afraid to make noise and break furniture to bring about progressive change, even if it means jeopardizing their careers. As for Obama and his former colleagues in the caucus meeting? Let's hope they have similar fire to stand up against the rightward assault of the GOP and the beltway punditry. Otherwise, we're goners.
As usual, Paul Krugman says it like no one else can:
The fact is that one of our two great political parties has made it clear that it has no interest in making America governable, unless it’s doing the governing. And that party now controls one house of Congress, which means that the country will not, in fact, be governable without that party’s cooperation — cooperation that won’t be forthcoming.
Elite opinion has been slow to recognize this reality. Thus on the same day that Mr. Simpson rejoiced in the prospect of chaos, Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, appealed for help in confronting mass unemployment. He asked for “a fiscal program that combines near-term measures to enhance growth with strong, confidence-inducing steps to reduce longer-term structural deficits.”
My immediate thought was, why not ask for a pony, too? After all, the G.O.P. isn’t interested in helping the economy as long as a Democrat is in the White House. Indeed, far from being willing to help Mr. Bernanke’s efforts, Republicans are trying to bully the Fed itself into giving up completely on trying to reduce unemployment.
He quotes Alan Simpson gleefully imagining a debt-ceiling lift in exchange for harsh spending cuts. "And boy, the blood bath will be extraordinary," said the "moderate" former senator, blood dripping from his lips like Edward Cullen feasting on a mountain lion. Yes, this is the "center" David Gergen and his ilk want Obama to move towards. What they don't say is who lives in this mythical center -- Far-right Republicans passing as centrists; Fox Democrats charading as progressives; Rubinesque figures fattening the administration; and Gergen himself, hoping for a tax cut on helium, for media gasbags everywhere.
Obama won't listen to us, but maybe he'll listen to billionaire friends like Warren Buffett:
"...I think that people at the high end -- people like myself -- should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it."
...The billionaire brushed aside Republican arguments that letting tax cuts expire for the wealthy would hurt economic grow
"They say you have to keep those tax cuts, even on the very wealthy, because that is what energizes business and capitalism," anchor Amanpour said.
"The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on," Buffett explained.
I would say it hasn't work for closer to -- ever, but that's just me.
It's typical, and sad, that the hoary rules of journalism -- a homonym could have worked as well -- require that Amanpour give the obligatory "other side": "But they say they really need it and they say it really works and I know they're lying and I could check it, but this is easier" -- when the evidence, and the man directly in front of her, prove otherwise. If the Republican "argument" -- and that's giving it way more credence than it deserves -- is pure bullshit, it should be treated as such, and not accorded the respect of a valid, sincere position. In his insightful piece on the Senate last summer, George Packer quoted Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet on an anecdote he heard after he was appointed to fill the Colorado Senate seat of Ken Salazar:
Bennet repeated a story he had heard about a new congressman giving his maiden speech: “And then some more veteran guy came over and said, ‘Son, you’re talking like this place is on the level. It’s not on the level.’ As the fifteen months or so have gone by that I’ve been here, the less on the level it seems.”
If it's not on the level, and everyone knows it, why can't journalists adapt to this realization, and report the distilled truth of a story, and not the propaganda one side in particular keeps slinging? It's not like journalists aren't cynical or aren't afraid to say what they think is really going on, despite what some politician is saying. They have no trouble reading eyes or minds or cod pieces to derive what they perceive to be true, beyond mere words. And that's not even based on anything real, just some novel they think they're writing, like mini Maureen Dowds colorizing their gray worlds. So why can't they use the brains god gave them for a higher purpose? Yes, yes, I know: because that would be hard.
Matt Taibbi really ruffled David Gergen's feathers in this Rolling Stone post-election Q&A that also included Democratic pollster Peter Hart. This part is too, too, too, too funny:
Gergen: ...(T)here's a tendency in today's Democratic Party to turn away from someone like Bob Rubin because of his time at Citigroup. I served with him during the Clinton administration, when the country added 22 million new jobs, and Bob Rubin was right at the center of that. He was an invaluable adviser to the president, and he is now arguing that one of the reasons this economy is not coming back is that the business community is sitting on money because of the hostility they feel coming from Washington.
Taibbi: I'm sorry, but Bob Rubin is exactly what I'm talking about. Under Clinton, he pushed this enormous remaking of the rules for Wall Street specifically so the Citigroup merger could go through, then he went to work for Citigroup and made $120 million over the next 10 years. He helped push through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which deregulated the derivatives market and created the mortgage bubble. Then Obama brings him back into the government during the transition and surrounds himself with people who are close to Bob Rubin. That's exactly the wrong message to be sending to ordinary voters: that we're bringing back this same crew of Wall Street-friendly guys who screwed up and got us in this mess in the first place.
Gergen: That sentiment is exactly what the business community objects to.
Taibbi: Fuck the business community!
Gergen: Fuck the business community? That's what you said? That's the very attitude the business community feels is coming from many Democrats in Washington, including some in the White House. There's a good reason why they feel many Democrats are hostile — because they are.
Taibbi: It's hard to see how this administration is hostile to business when the guy it turns to for economic advice is the same guy who pushed through a merger and then went right off and made $120 million from a decision that helped wreck the entire economy.
Quite an achievement to get David Gergen to say "fuck." Saying "Fuck the business commuity?" is better yet, even if intoned with proper incredulity. It could be a Drudgeworthy lie wrapped in a headline, if only that other Matt cared to smear him.
I thought Gergen was just an overpaid candyass with a squishy caramel center. Who knew he had such fire in him? It reminded me of election night when Gergen snapped at Eliot Spitzer on CNN for supposedly hogging the limelight. Gergen is so used to his clique of millionaire milquetoasts -- blathering on endlessly about deficits and uncertainty -- that he always seems stunned to hear a different point of view.
Gergen's "pivoting back to the center" shit usually earns nods and grave looks on CNN. But Taibbi was having none of it:
Gergen:If Obama is going to govern as well as prosper politically, he has to pivot back toward the center. He must embrace some sort of Social Security reform, just as Clinton did with NAFTA, even though his base will scream about it. He must also enlarge his inner circle by bringing in people who have the trust of the business community. One of the surprises for me has been that even though Obama rescued the banks, the alienation of the business community has reached a point that is threatening the recovery. Business people are sitting on a lot of money and not investing it because there is so much uncertainty about taxes, health care, financial regulations and energy. Obama's got to be more of a partner with the business community.
Taibbi: I have to disagree. The notion that the business community is disappointed with Obama because of what he's done in the past two years, I just don't see that. They're sitting on a lot of money, but they're sitting on it because he gave it to them.
Gergen: You don't think they're disappointed?
Taibbi: I'm sure they would have preferred the Republican agenda, where they would get 100 percent of what they want. Under Obama, they only got 90 percent. He bailed out the banks and didn't put anybody in jail. He gave $13 billion to Goldman Sachs under the AIG bailout alone and then did nothing when Goldman turned around and gave themselves $16 billion in bonuses. He passed a financial-reform bill that contains no significant reforms and doesn't really address the issue of "too big to fail." FDR, in the same position, passed radical reforms that really put Wall Street and the business community under his heel.
Gergen: If you talk to many CEOs, you'll find that they're very hostile toward Obama.
Taibbi: Who cares what these CEOs think? I don't care — they're 1/1,000th of a percent of the electorate. They're the problem. Obama needs to get other people's votes, not their votes.
I'm not sure if there's a video of this, but I'd love to see it, if only to see Gergen blasted out of his comfort zone. "Fuck" did seem to trickle readily off his tongue, though, so maybe in his off hours he's a mad cusser.
Greg Sargent keeps asking, OK, tough guys, if you're tired of Obama's wuss-laden rhetoric of concilation and compromise, what, exactly, do you propose he do instead? What can the guy do in the face of Republican resistance and defiance? He is, after all, only one man (albeit the most powerful man in the world). The Congress could take the lead on issues like enacting middle class tax cuts and repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, so why is he alone expected to lead on these issues? (Uh, because he's the leader of the free world?) Whaddaya think the guy is, Superman?
Turns out, yes, he is Superman, if only he'd flick the kryptonite:
First, go full throttle where he can on his own -- executive orders, rulemaking powers, and so forth. And second, lay down a clear vision and agenda in the full expectation that Republicans will oppose it, and use the presidential bully pulpit to wage a massive communications offensive hammering them relentlessly for their opposition and intransigence.
Armando at Talk Left has repeatedly challenged the insistence among progressives that Obama can't be expected on his own to move mountains and part seas, although I do vaguely remember promises of that sort from '08. But, to diminish the power of the presidency is not only short-sighted, but foolhardy and self-flagellating, like monks batting themselves with planks. As Armando wrote in a post titled "Obama's still big, it's the presidency that got small":
...Folks are again trotting out the poor Obama, "if only people had President Obama's back" line. Earlier this week, it was about Obama's powerlessness regarding the Bush tax cuts. Today, Balloon Juice argues the Obama Administration can't try Khalid Sheikh Mohammad in a federal court in New York...
These "defenses" of Obama are not helpful, to the discourse or to Obama. As I previously wrote:
...But suppose it is true [--] Then why should we care much if he is reelected? Shouldn't we then just focus all our attention on the Congress?
Of course, it is not true. In fact, the very reason many of these same Obama apologists hated the bad Clinton Triangulation so much is it is not true. Bill Clinton was able to "triangulate" because the Presidency is in fact the most powerful political office. Stupid to act as if the Presidency became small when Obama became President.
It's also not historically accurate. As Eugene Robinson says:
We don't define periods in American history by who held the majority in Congress. It was the Reagan Era, not the Tip O'Neill Era - just as we're now living in the Obama Era, no matter what John Boehner or Mitch McConnell might hope.
Or what the Obama apologia-sphere may tell itself.
There are many levers of power Obama can pull even without Congress' help, says Robinson
,,,Obama has the power to help jump-start the real estate market by issuing orders that could speed the untangling of the foreclosure mess - and also begin to move the vast inventory of foreclosed properties that weighs so heavily on home prices.
He can shape the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the implementation of health-care reform in ways that will produce the quickest and greatest benefits for working families... This wouldn't just be good policy, it would be good politics as well. Demonizing "Obamacare" and financial reform as abstract concepts worked well for the Republicans in the midterm campaign, but it won't be a viable strategy if people see - and like - the concrete results.
Bush didn't act like his powers were limited, by any means, and progressives didn't run around with their hair ablaze and eyes agape because Bush didn't pour every drop of power from his waterboarding jug. And don't tell me there wasn't a small, still part of yourself that didn't admire him for it, not the policies or practices or full-on thuggery, but his day to day ability to get his way -- or at least look like he did. As Armando says:
I always return to the George W. Bush example in 2001, where Bush LOST the popular vote, faced a 50-50 Senate and still got his agenda through the Congress. That the agenda was disastrous is not the point. The point is what people like Yglesias are saying is that in terms of dealing with Congress, George W. Bush was much more effective than Barack Obama can possibly be. And that is just sad.
At this point, excusing Obama's possible failures on health care reform seems the most important goal for many. If that is the new focus of progressive blogging, that speaks volumes about Obama . . . and progressive bloggers.
Being bold and wrong is nothing to aspire to. We lived through eight years of that. The higher power progressives seek pairs good policy with audacity, something we thought we were getting in Obama, but so far has been just a very good sales job.
