A sense of perspective

By Carl 

It's been interesting reading the national press coverage of Sandy. I haven't had much opportunity to review what you all have been saying about us behind our backs until this morning.

I like that Romney's bullshit about FEMA has come back to haunt him and that the bold and brave words he spoke in the quietude of calculation have become hot button panic topics for his campaign.

I understand the need to pander to your base and to attract leaning voters, but my thinking is, if you say something, have the guts to stick by it when gut check time comes. President Ford told us to drop dead when it mattered most. Yes, he regretted it and yes, ultimately he had to eat them, but you'll notice he still battled Jimmy Carter to a virtual tie, despite pardoning Nixon.

Maybe he had more latitude. Still, it's been an exercise in evolution to watch Romney wriggle like a catepillar on a hot grill.

Similarly, the "turn" in polling towards Romney seems to underestimate the damage that Sandy created in the telephone networks in the east, as well as being premature to Obama's handling of the crisis. When Governor Sammich Chris Christie, an erstwhile vice president name and likely candidate for the nomination in 2016, praises Obama not once but frequently, that's going to have a lot more import than any six Jeep ads either campaign can run, given Christie's "independent, tell-it-like-it-is" perception.

Finally, a few people have asked me for an assessment as to whether the national news has the coverage underreported, overestimated or just about right. I think it's safe to say that the true damage, the true horror of this event, is only just now being reported. Even this morning, another dozen homes went up in flames, 36 hours after the worst of Sandy had passed, because first responders couldn't get to the site.

Canals that contain enough toxins to qualify for Superfund sites overflowed into residential neighborhoods. The very real threat of typhoid, TB, and other afflictions of neglect (cholera leaps to mind) is now looming over large swaths of the city. The residents of lower Manhattan, poor and rich, have raw sewage drying in their streets and basements. The health effects of this crisis will not unfold in a manner consistent with a 24 hours news cycle. 

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Romney is so pathetically desperate he intends to play the Jimmy Carter card on Obama

By Michael J.W. Stickings

With time running out, Romney is getting more and more desperate. He needs something, anything, to stick, some late-campaign "game changer" (an overused but appropriate term) to give him a boost. But just how desperate is he? This desperate:

According to a highly reliable source, as Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama prepare for the first presidential debate Wednesday night, top Republican operatives are primed to unleash a new two-pronged offensive that will attack Obama as weak on national security, and will be based, in part, on new intelligence information regarding the attacks in Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens on Sept. 11.

The source, who has firsthand knowledge of private, high-level conversations in the Romney camp that took place in Washington, D.C., last week, said that at various times the GOP strategists referred to their new operation as the Jimmy Carter Strategy or the October Surprise.

Ridiculous, as Andrew Sullivan explains:

What's amazing to me is that they are still trying to reconjure Reagan's 1980 campaign! The man has been turned into a God and his policies and electoral tactics are like some kind of eternal creed to which these lost souls subscribe. But using the recent mess in Libya as Obama's equivalent of Carter's helicopter crash? Please. Obama had one such moment -- and he killed Osama bin Laden, something Dick Cheney couldn't do however many people he had tortured.

Basically, it seems, this "October Surprise" will amount to accusing the Obama administration of... of what? Confusion? Poor communications? I'll admit that Obama handled part of the aftermath poorly, specifically with respect to explaining who was responsible for the attack in Libya, but that's about it. It was Romney, remember, who tried to take advantage of a tragic situation to score political points, and who was slammed for it. And it's Romney who's been an utter embarrassment on foreign policy throughout the campaign who has projected ignorance and weakness, and who has proven to be unfit for the presidency.

Unless Obama personally ordered the ambassador's killing -- which, who knows, may well be the next arrow in the Republicans' quiver of lies -- I don't quite see how this works.

The revenge of the Carters

By Richard K. Barry

Thanks for listening, thirty years later. 

We are getting to the point in this presidential campaign where it's hard to have new thoughts. One of the ideas that a lot of us have had for a long time is about the extent to which the outcome would depend on the shape of the economy. Many said that it's very hard for an incumbent president to survive with an economy as weak as we are experiencing.

Many others, me among them, have said that this is only true if people are willing to take the leap and blame the incumbent for the weak economy even though, in this case, the crisis he stepped into was, let's be kind, presided over by a president from the other party.

I know it's hard to fully explain to voters how George W. Bush "created" the Great Recession, but he had been in office for nearly 8 full years when it happened and the economy had been in pretty great shape the last time a Democrat was in office. One can talk about the Republican penchant for tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation, but the fact is most people look at things in far more simplistic ways. When a Republican was in the White House four years ago things were crashing and burning. And, sure, President Obama hasn't "fixed" things as fast as we might have liked, but is it fair to blame him for that?

Most voters don't really think in policy terms. They think in matter-of-fact human nature terms. Even though Mitt Romney has done everything possible to distance himself from George W. Bush, everyone gets that they are basically the same kind of animal. And, as for Obama, everyone understands what it means to have to clean up someone else's mess and maybe even what it feels like to get criticized for not doing it fast enough.

In other words, a bad economy is hard to overcome, but it was never that simple, much as Mitt Romney wanted it to be.

Another point, which is interesting given that Romney's people have tried to tie President Obama to Jimmy Carter, is that Carter was skewered for suggesting Americans might have to lower their expectations. True as that was, Reagan came along and said that Americans would never do that and he won.

Obama is too smart to even hint at what Carter said, but Americans are starting to come around to the message. They're getting it all by themselves. The world economy is in trouble. The kind of expansion the American economy saw in the twentieth century will never be seen again. And emerging economies will now demand at least a taste of the kind of affluence that had previously been allowed only to developed nations. They'll take our jobs and ask for less to do them.

In other words, Jimmy Carter is having his revenge and, as much as Mitt Romney is trying to be Ronald Reagan, Americans won't be fooled again.

On these points, here's Ross Douthat at The New York Times this weekend:

But Barack Obama would win if the election were held today, and probably by a relatively comfortable margin. My wintertime prediction, Mitt Romney's campaign strategy, the assumptions of Republicans and Democrats alike — all have been confounded by voters' refusal to lean the way the unemployment rate suggests they should.

Why is this? In part, it's the hangover from the Bush years, and the fact that Americans don't yet trust the Republican Party given how little the party seems to have learned and changed since 2008. In part, it's Romney himself, a deeply flawed candidate whose "47 percent" remarks look like the rare disastrous sound-bite that actually turns the polls against the candidate who uttered it.

But something deeper is going on as well. Remember that the economy is growing, however slowly, and most working-age Americans do have jobs. (A Bureau of Labor Statistics reassessment just found that there are now — finally — more Americans employed than when Barack Obama took office.) It turns out that dreadfully slow growth isn't nearly as politically damaging as decline, because voters can adapt to stagnation, and approach it as a kind of grim "new normal" rather than a disaster requiring an immediate response.

Isn't it rich that a Carter family member had a hand in getting the "47 percent" video released, just as Americans are coming to realize they understand we are going to have to live with a "new normal," like Jimmy Carter told them over 30 years ago.

The ballot question in this election may well be, "Who do you want in the White House as you adjust to the reality that life won't ever be as good as it once was?"

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Turning point

By Mustang Bobby

It seems that in every presidential campaign there comes a moment when it becomes very clear that we have reached a turning point. The choice becomes clear, and from that point on, it becomes a matter of running out the clock until the election. It's essentially over. Usually it's a gaffe or a mistake on the part of one of the candidates rather than a decisive move: Gerald Ford saying that there was no Soviet domination of Poland in 1976; Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan's "there you go again" in 1980; Michael Dukakis's bland response to a question about capital punishment in 1988, and John McCain's panic-stricken call to cancel the debates to deal with the financial crisis in 2008. Each of those snapshots, fair or not, went a long way to close the deal -- and the door -- on the choice in November

It may be too early to judge whether or not Mitt Romney shut the door on his presidential bid yesterday with his kneejerk and blatantly political response to the killing of four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, in Libya and the riots in Cairo. Clearly his campaign saw the events in Libya and Egypt as nothing other than a chance to make political hay, going so far as to release statements bashing the Obama administration before all the facts were known. And when the facts and the timeline became known, including the fact that a senior American diplomat had been killed, Mr. Romney and his staff not only did not back off from their first response, they doubled down on it.

As a lot of people from every aspect of the political spectrum have noted, Mr. Romney's response raises a lot of questions about his judgment and temperament, not just as a candidate in at tight race, but as a potential leader of the nation. Turning a tragedy into a series of campaign talking points is bad enough, but the failure or unwillingness to retract or temper the remarks as the facts become known reveals a character flaw that should raise a lot of questions. Ironically, Mr. Romney's reputation as an Etch-A-Sketch on the issues may have come into play; for once he was going to stand his ground even if it was crumbling away underneath his feet.

If Mr. Romney truly believes that President Obama and the White House actually sympathized with the mob that stormed the embassy in Cairo and murdered our ambassador in Libya even though the facts prove otherwise, then he's showing a serious lack of judgment for someone who wants to be president. If Mr. Romney doesn't believe that but still goes ahead with it anyway for the sake of his campaign, then he's showing a degree of cynicism and opportunism that clearly disqualifies him as a leader of all Americans, not just the people who voted for him. In either case it shows us the true measure of his character and trustworthiness, not to mention crisis management and the ability to address a complex and evolving event.

Does any of this matter to the average voter? It may not, but it's hard to tell immediately. Unlike the Romney campaign, voters take a while to react to events like this. We will know in a few weeks if this moment is the one that marks the end of the Romney campaign, but as I noted previously, there have already been signs that the campaign is in trouble. This may have been the one we'll all look back on and know that's when the door slammed shut on Mr. Romney's run for the White House. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Is it so obvious that Romney would have made the call on bin Laden?

By Richard K. Barry

With the White House Corespondents' Dinner just concluded, we've all been having some fun talking about political humor. On that point, I have to give Mitt Romney credit for a good line. An obvious line, but still a good line.

It had to do with the suggestion, by Obama's team, that Romney might not have made the decision to go after bin Laden if he had been in a similar position.

Romney's comment was, "Even Jimmy Carter would have made that decision." Good one. It works because Republicans like to riff on their perception that Carter was reluctant to use military force during his presidency and also that he is a symbol of general liberal incompetence.

It's interesting to bring up Carter in the context of the bin Laden raid. Recall that it was Carter who ordered the raid to free American hostages in Iran, a mission that went terribly awry.

The difficulty of the decision by Obama was not whether he wanted to authorize a mission to kill bin Ladin but whether he was willing to take the political risk associated with failure, especially on a mission so deep inside Pakistan.

Maybe Mitt would have made that call, but considering his penchant for embracing both sides of every issue, maybe not.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

This day in history - July 15, 1979: Jimmy Carter does not use the word "malaise" in a speech

By Richard K. Barry

In one of the more interesting examples of an important political speech that did not contain the word most associated with it, President Jimmy Carter, on this day in 1979, gave his so-called "Crisis of Confidence" speech, which is more commonly known as the "malaise" speech, though that word is never used.

In the speech, Carter spoke of "this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation," which apparently suggested malaise to a lot of people.

A year and a half later Ronald Reagan was president. The moral of the story would appear to be: don't ever get all philosophical with the American people, and for god's sake don't try to tell them the truth about themselves. That's never a good idea.

Better to tell them what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear, if your goal is to win elections.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Waits & measures

By Carl 

Another year over, another year deeper in debt. 

Our lives are a constant stream of measurements, of statistics.

How much do you make? Were you on time? You weigh what? Did you get enough? Twelve inches in a foot. 100 pennies in a dollar. 60 seconds in a minute. Four cups to a quart.

It's funny how we've allowed our world, our culture, to be defined by one measurement after another. It's all weights and measures. We've trivialized measurement so much that, when we really need it, we can't have it.

"Give me the odds, doc? Fifty-fifty? Worse?"

You'll never get a straight answer to that from any doctor who cares about his malpractice insurance premium (yet another measurement derived from the measurement of his vulnerability to a lawsuit). Some court will decide -- will measure -- his judgement and hold him accountable if things don't go the way you want them to.

Our world has become a yardstick. We even measure the unmeasurable: The Beatles are better than Led Zeppellin, but "Stairway To Heaven" is the greatest rock song ever written.

Who the hell decided that? Why was it even necessary? Both bands make great music, and you could stack "Hey Jude" up against "Stairway" any day and derive enormous pleasure from either or both.

Worse yet is how we measure each other. It's one thing to hold yourself up to a standard of your choosing. That's how we grow and pursue happiness, that delectable intangible that the American Founders thought so important as to enumerate it amongst our God-given rights.

For example, I write better today than I did when I started blogging more than six years ago (!!!) I take better photographs for taking a course, and just shooting photos. These are demonstrable facts in my view. This is growth. I know these are facts because I like my writing and photos better today than I ever have.

It's when we apply these measurements to other people that trouble begins.

Exhibit A -- "You're just like my ex!"

That's your basic unfavorable expression, no matter the context, and serves as a warning.

Exhibit B -- "You should do this."

Friends of mine who've spent any time talking to me will tell you, I think "should" is the most dangerous word in the English language. It's so loaded with value measurements and personal opinion that it ought to be banned, except for parents talking to young children and priests talking to novitiates.

You can try this exercise on your own, I won't bore you with myriad examples.

We hold people up to a light, and look thru them as if they lived in a tiny glass orb and examine them. Instead of accepting them for who they are, we pull out a clipboard and a checklist and begin to tick off measurements: She's hot, he's getting C's, she's Jewish, he's an only child, she has money, he's a gambler. All these are added together and some arbitrary denominator is applied to adjudge good or bad.

None of this is about who that person or those people are, but about how those values fit in with ours.

How they add to our lives.

These can be applied situationally: "I need to get laid," means that "she's hot" can override the fact that she's only sixteen or a crack addict. That one measure derives the most immediate reward.

But in exploiting her, you exploit yourself.

"He's getting Cs" means an Ivy League school is probably out of the question, so you lower your sights and adjust your parenting.

Our world isn't full of men and women, our brothers and sisters. It's filled with competitors, all of whom we gauge on a scale, on a ruler, to assess how we're doing. For some weird reason, it matters to us where we are on the ruler, without any consideration given at all to the possibility that maybe we shouldn't even be on the ruler!

Are we happier for this ruler? I think not.

How can you measure the value of a sister or brother? Of the homeless guy down the street? Of the undocumented worker selling portraits in Times Square? All contribute to our lives each day, some in directly noticeable ways, others in ways that filter through to us from a maze of convolutions and twists: six degrees of separation, and all that.

What numerical analysis leads us to the inescapable conclusion that Bill Gates made billions of dollars using the sweat and labor of hundreds of millions of people, who developed and used his products and gave him feedback, thus improving computers? Similarly, what is his responsibility back to society? According to the measurerists, there ought to be some way for him to pay us back beyond the distinctly unmeasurable "he sells us software." And yet, these measurerists are the same folks who bridle at the "death tax", which is really just a way for society to extract from a person's body of work that portion of which can be attributed to the advantages of living in that society.

We can't measure the important things in our lives. What is love? How much did my mother love me? How much do I love my lover? How much do I love ice cream? How happy am I? How happy can I be? How afraid am I? How healthy am I?

We can tally nearly everything in our lives, and still not discover our place on the ruler.

Some would choose to ignore the unmeasurable (helloooooooooo, conservatives!) If it can't be measured, it doesn't matter. There is no meaning unless we can study, allocate and quantify precisely the effort we need to expend in order to feel comfortable with that unmeasurable. I'd bet that many marriages and relationships fail under the delusion that somehow a husband or wife need only put in de minimis effort and get a satisfactory return.

It is this same pointed choice to ignore the unmeasurable that we fail to act in a timely fashion on a whole raft of problems, from global climate change to foreign relations to the decline of the electric grid, and we chastise those who can logically put two diverse facts together to come to a conclusion that is not readily apparent or immediately measurable.

Jimmy Carter, for example, is reviled by the right as the worst president of the 20th century (on a technicality, it's possible: George Bush the Junior did not serve until the 21st). Yet the man had vision. As an example, he foresaw out of the OPEC crises that America would need a more permanent solution to its energy problems and tried to shift the focus from cheaper oil to learning to live with more expensive oil while working on the technology necessary to solve a vexing problem. He created the Departments of Education and Energy (funny how conservatives howl about the one but embrace the latter). He gave the Panama Canal back to Panama, thus stifling American imperialism in Latin and Central America, and opened the door for democracy in South America.

And now, South America is emerging as a world power in its own right.

All of these looked at the time like bad decisions made by a weak president, but how much would you give to go back to 1977 armed with video of $3-a-gallon gasoline, at a time when it retailed for 35 cents a gallon?

We only act when there is demonstrable damage to be done to an objective measurement. This is why so often the arguments for a policy come down to the economic cost/benefit analysis. Those arguments get your attention, when you can show that investing a dollar now can save you a buck three-eighty next year. This is why it took a blackout in 2003 to even start a dailogue about the electric grid. and why it took an attack on the World Trade Center to get us to pay real attention as a people to the plight of the Muslim world and our role in it.

Ironically, that economic argument may get your attention but it never wins the argument. Usually, the unmeasurables win the argument.

Think about it: Health care ought to be an inalienable right for every American. It's part of that whole delectable intangible in the Declaration I alluded to earlier, the inalienable right of life. Yet the arguments now and have for a while focused on the cost of the program.

Can you measure a life's value? Can you measure the value of good health in leading a productive, happy life? How much freer are we for having good health? I'd argue a lot. Does society have a duty to look after all its people? Does your health affect mine?

Those are winning arguments in any civilized society, it seems to me. Right now, we're not at that stage, but once we get there, we will have healthcare for Americans, of Americans, and by Americans.

We just have to wait.

How long?

How are you measuring time? 

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Jimmy Carter vs. Fox News (and MSNBC)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I like Jimmy Carter, I really do. But:

Jimmy Carter said Sunday that Fox News commentators including Glenn Beck have "deliberately distorted" the news.

Speaking on CNN’s "Reliable Sources" Sunday, the former Democratic president took aim at the cable news channel climate, often a target for President Obama as well who says he tries to avoid the cable chatter.

"The talk shows with Glenn Beck and others on Fox News, I think, have deliberately distorted the news. And it's become highly competitive," Carter said. "And my Republican friends say that MSNBC might be just as biased on the other side in supporting the Democratic Party, the liberal element."

The ex-president said opinions about the two channels was "part of give and take" in politics in the United States. Carter also believes CNN has suffered from trying to remain nonpartisan in comparison to Fox and MSNBC. 

"And I think CNN, more than others, has kind of tried to play the middle to their detriment as far as viewership is concerned and profits are concerned," Carter said.  

First, it doesn't take an ex-president to realize that Fox News deliberately distorts the news. Thanks for stating the obvious.

Second, Carter shouldn't say anything at all about MSNBC if he doesn't know what he's talking about, which would seem to be the case. MSNBC is not the Fox News of the left. There are liberal opinions expressed on MSNBC, just as there are conservative opinions expressed on Fox News, but MSNBC does not distort the news and is not the propagandistic mouthpiece for the Democratic Party as Fox News is for the Republican Party.

Third, CNN is an appallingly crappy network. And if you think it "plays the middle" by trying to be objective, you haven't been paying attention. CNN regularly pushes Republican narratives and talking points and allows the extremism of the Republican right to be presented as equal to the centrism of the Democratic right, as if the "center" is somewhere in between, while ignoring (or treating as extreme and unworthy of consideration) the progressivism of the left altogether.

But thanks for coming out, Mr. President.

Obama, take off the gloves -- against your own party

By Edward Copeland

During the lengthy 2008 primary season, I didn’t immediately rush to Barack Obama’s candidacy. I began with John Edwards, but the longer it wore on, the more Obama won me over. He did it with one simple fact. It wasn’t an issue. It wasn’t the chance to make history. It was because he was the first presidential candidate from either party that I felt spoke to voters, i.e. me., as an adult, without that air of condescension you get from most politicians who talk down to you or the ones who are so partisan or dumb you feel as if you are listening to first-graders.

Alas, while this makes me feel good as an American and is why I still admire Obama as a president, I think it explains a lot about the many bumps in the road his administration has faced and continue to face six months into his tenure: He’s not dealing with a nation of adults and, even more importantly, he’s not dealing with a Congress populated by adults. Perhaps his lack of experience really was a problem. He didn’t spend enough time in the Senate to realize that the culture of incumbency among both Democrats and Republicans have created a culture of nothing but spoiled, whiny rich kids.

Obama does have the nickname “No drama Obama,” but he’s going to have to lose that moniker and shove an iron boot up the ass of his own party in Congress. He’ll have the American people on his side: They hate Congress. He has the power to call them into special session in perpetuity. Piss them off. Find new progressive candidates that he’ll threaten to support in primary challenges to them. Separate the true reformers from those who are bought and think they are above it all.

There is a reason that progressives, deprived so long from any access to power, want it all and want it right now, but they need to be reasonable as well. There’s always an excuse from Congress. When the Dems took over Congress in 2006, they couldn’t override a veto or stop a filibuster. Now, when they have “60,” it’s not really 60 since they’ve had ailing senators and erstwhile seat-fillers such as Specter and Lieberman filling those ranks. The bigger truth is that very few lawmakers on Capitol Hill have any principles beyond their own re-elections and goodies. Just watch their own sense of entitlement when someone such as Barney Frank is asked semi-tough questions by a reporter and goes ballistic, throws a hissy fit and storms off a TV interview time and time again.

Obama must start treating them as the spoiled brats that they are. He’s paying a price by letting them screw up the stimulus package and now health care. I had my own concerns, since I actually was satisfied with my health insurance and extremely dissatisfied with the system itself, especially hospitals and their billing practices. Obama made the mistake again by letting Capitol Hill lead the way and the mess has grown worse as polls are showing that those who have health insurance, except for the horror stories or those without any, fear getting what they know and have figured out screwed up by vague promises by multiple gangs that can’t shoot straight but who are bankrolled by health insurers, the AMA and pharmaceutical companies. They should have led with reform of the system. Tough love, my friends.

This week, he even let Democrats in the House remove from a defense appropriations bill the first step to ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

The Republicans are flying around with lies and nonsense but they are doing it so incompetently that I think what the Democrats are doing is worse. Obama must stand up. He is the leader of his party. I noticed by a chance a few weeks ago the Senate voting on continued funding for Senate operations to the tune of more than $5 billion. Who knows what the cost for running the House is?

Obama needs his Sister Souljah moment and that Sister Souljah should be Democratic lawmakers. Don’t let them go home. Recruit fresh blood to run against the entrenched. Imagine if Obama backed Joseph Sestak against Specter in the Pennsylvania Senate primary. Specter only switched to survive and he’s 80 years old for God’s sake. Despite growing dissatisfaction with Obama’s policies, polls still find him personally popular and he only has popularity to gain by taking Congress to the woodshed.

Find someone to challenge Harry Reid as Senate majority leader, since he’s the worst we’ve had in quite some time. The last time a Democratic president let a Democratic Congress get away with whatever they wanted was during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. Barack Obama is too smart and skilled a politician to meet that same fate. He needs to embrace some of that Chicago-style politics to figuratively bust some heads for the good of the country and his party.

Guns v. butter

By Carl

Apropos of my column yesterday about denial and America comes this story:

President Obama's address Tuesday to a joint session of Congress will have a heavy emphasis on the economy and will try to strike an optimistic tone, aides said.

That's a sign Obama has heard the criticism, including from former President Clinton, that he needs to mix sober talk with an upbeat bottom line.

"He believes we will meet these challenges and lift ourselves out of this" recession, one top aide said. "He will say, 'The best days are ahead of us.'"

First, you'll note that this isn't being called a "State Of The Union" address. That will likely come later this year, once the stimulus package has begun to work its way through the economy (figure in May).

More important, comparisons have been drawn between Obama's recent doom-and-gloom speechifying and Jimmy Carter's, which has given a talking point to the mainstream media, beholden as it is to conservative talking points, owned as it is by conservative white men.

A President walks a difficult line, to be sure, which is why we will accept little white lies from him (or her). He can't appear too optimistic or too pessimistic.

Let's take Jimmy Carter as an example. Here was a man who truly was as honest as a President could afford to be. He spoke plainly about the need to conserve energy (the man was a visionary) and to analyze the country's mood, speaking to the general malaise we were suffering.

And got hammered for both.

In Obama's case, his emphasis on looking forward will be a tonic against the whining, mewling little children on the right wing, who talk about deficits and debt as if it was something they suddenly discovered after 8 years of Bush spending us into oblivion. After all, what's a trillion dollars to help your countrymen, when you spent at least that much on a nation 6,000 miles away that you will never visit populated by people who don't particularly like you much.

That's not to say that the deficit is nothing important... even if Dick Cheney said we could safely ignore it. It is, and Obama is correct to address the need to tighten belts.

There are, however, precious few places where one can cut spending much and have a measurable effect on the deficit as a whole. In 2008, entitlement spending, apart from Social Security and Medicare -- both of which are funded off-budget under their own trust funds, but which represent roughly 43% of tax revenues, about $1.3 trillion -- is roughly 27%, of which about 2/5 is mandatory. Interest on outstanding debt is another 10% (and rising).

Leaving defense spending of 21% (absent the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which have always been unbudgeted, until the Obama administration).

So factor in the defense budget of $626 billion, plus another $500 billion for the wars, and you see that defense spending rivals and might even exceed the budget for any other individual entitlement.

US defense spending is twice the combined defense spending of the rest of NATO. The US spends roughly 47% of the world's defense spending, meaning that if we avoid pissing the entire world off, we have more weapons than we could possibly need. Ever. Right now.

That's not to say that we should stop finding more and better means of defending ourselves. It just means that we can make do with what we have for a while, and do not need shiny new aircraft carriers every year or spanking new planes every quarter.

It means, in short, making Federal spending fall more into line with the actual revenues received from the various states. Fortunately, most of the governors who lined up against the stimulus package have been from states who net more in Federal spending than they contribute in taxes!

They don't want the money? Fine. No problem. We'll leave that money on the table, and cut defense spending, close bases and cancel contracts. I got no problem with that.

We are, quite literally, at a place where we can and must choose butter over guns. You can't eat a bullet, unless you intend, you know...

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

None of them knew what to do

By Carol Gee


Former Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter, President-elect Barack Obama, and President George W. Bush posed for a group picture in the Oval Office of the White House Wednesday. (White House photo by Eric Draper.) It was a momentous occasion, requested by President-elect Obama and hosted by our current president (OCP). First there was a private meeting at which reportedly, the old heads advised our new president-to-be on how he could avoid being caught in a White House bubble of group-think, and how a President Obama could make it more possible for his people to bring him bad news. At the end there was a dynamite photo-op for everyone, during which these distinguished gentlemen were discussing the current Oval Office rug.

In an escalating Israeli/Palestinian conflict, at the same time half way around the world, there were people working very hard to kill each other . The headlines had been very troubling for several days: The Raw Story: A Norwegian doctor reports that "Israel intentionally targeted civilians"* (1/5/09). McClatchy: "Airstrike kills 3 at Gaza school-UN"* (1/6/08). Informed Comment: "Israel/Gaza Cyberwar and parallels to Abu Ghraib*" (1/6/09). And, recently, Informed Comment: "Something Horrible has been Discovered"* (1/7/09) Cole's post linked to The Telegraph/UK headline: "Gaza medics describe horror of strike which killed 70" (1/8/09).

Any talk of the Middle East? One could wonder whether the Oval Office occupants had anything to say in their meeting about how the United States has been forever unable to help generations of these determined combatants achieve a lasting peace. In turn each of these powerful "leaders of the free world" have been singularly unsuccessful as Middle East peacemakers. Warmakers, yes; temporary agreements, yes; but peacemakers with permanence, no.

Madeleine Albright's book, "Madam Secretary" recounts a great deal about how hard former presidents have tried for peace. About Carter, elected in 1976, she said:

President Carter was one of our most intelligent chief executives and one who showed a fierce dedication to conflict prevention and individual human dignity both during and after his term in office. He was a proactive President who achieved much in foreign policy, including the historic Middle East Peace Accords at Camp David. . . . Politically, however he was unlucky.

About Bush 41, Albright observed, regarding her work in the Clinton administration in 1997:

People were worried about Saddam's weapons and asking what we were going to do. . . No serious consideration was given to actually invading Iraq. The senior President Bush had not invaded when given the chance with hundreds of thousands of troops already in the region during the Gulf War.

In Albright's Chronology of her diplomatic work are included these pertinent entries: 11/4/92 - Bill Clinton elected President. 6/26/93 - U.S. bombs Iraqi intelligence headquarters in retaliation for assassination attempt against former President George Bush. 9/13/93 - Israeli and Palestinian leaders sign Oslo Declaration of Principles. 1/23/97 - MKA sworn in as 64th secretary of state. 10/15/98 - Middle East talks result in Wye River Memorandum. 7/11-25/2000 - Middle East summit. 9/28/2000 - Israeli politician Ariel Sharon visits the Temple Mount/Haram alSharif, violence breaks out. January 2001 - Last efforts to negotiate Middle East settlement failed.

"More than meets the eye." Following shortly after that we saw the Republicans take over. For a time the Middle East appeared to be quiescent. It was not of great concern to George W. Bush, until the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. That tragic loss of American life set the U.S. on a path in the Middle East that largely ignored the unsolved conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Walls went up, Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas won an election, Ariel Sharon left the picture and tensions grew. The war in Lebanon happened. In all of these things the U.S. efforts were absent or made relatively little difference. All eyes have been on Afghanistan and mostly, Iraq.

President-elect Obama has promised to turn attention form Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. And he is not talking much about Israel and Palestine, reminding that "we have one president at a time." At the end of last year an important article appeared on Steve Clemons' blog, The Washington Note: "Daniel Levy: What Next on Israel/Gaza? Why Should Americans Care?" (12/28/08). This brilliant thinker asked a number of important questions that should have prompted some actions or answers from the Republican administration or former Republican leaders or opinion makers.

But these are the stories that appeared. From at-Largely came this story: "John Bolton continues to have no clue but plenty of propaganda..."* (1/5/09). See also Think Progress: "Gaza Crisis Means We Should Attack Iran Now"# (1/1/09). And this appeared at ThinkProgress: "Perino: Ground Invasion Will Help ‘Create A More Stable And Secure Area’ For People Of Gaza"* (1/5/09). AlterNet asks my question: "Why Do So Few Speak Up for Gaza?"* (1/7/08). And now this happy news -- AlterNet: "Israeli Militants Poised to Resettle Gaza After Assault"* (1/7/09).

I have not listened to the news today. Absolutely everything might have changed. It will not make any difference what the Bush administration does because, as Politico says: "Gaza reshuffles [the] Israeli political deck" (1/8/09) for Barack Obama. And none of his predecessors in the Oval Office can tell him what to do, because they do not know. None of them figured out the magic formula. Perhaps there is none. But one thing upon which you can count is that our new President will give it his best. He sees the world with very different eyes than the people in the picture, and that is a good thing.


Hat Tip Key: Regular contributors of links to the leads are "betmo"* and Jon#.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

What leaving Iraq could do

By Carol Gee

Lawmakers talk about the way forward out of Iraq -- Leaving Iraq could mean that citizens of both countries could have a say in what eventually happens. For the very first time two leading members of the Iraqi parliament (speaking through translators) appeared at a hearing of a House of Representatives Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Tuesday. Political science Professor Nadeem Al-Jaberi and Sheik Khalaf Al-Ulayyan, wished to be identified as Iraqis rather than Shiia and Sunni, respectively. Surprisingly in accord with many of their points of view, the two men were very impressive witnesses. Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass) chaired the panel which was only lightly attended by House Members. He said of Al-Jaberi that he had "trained a generation of Iraqi political scientists." The Sunni Sheik, Al-Ulayyan, impressive in white robe and turban, had risen to the rank of General in the Iraqi armed forces prior to the invasion.

All the lawmakers involved, both U.S. and Iraqi, will demand that any joint "status of forces" agreement be ratified by the legislators representing the peoples of each country. Leaving Iraq could mean political party realignments in both countries. There was a good deal of sentiment for waiting for such a deal until a new U.S. administration takes office. At the very least, however, the "Iraq lawmakers want U.S. forces out as part if a deal, " according to the 6/4/08 Reuters article. To quote:

A majority of the Iraqi parliament has written to Congress rejecting a long-term security deal with Washington if it is not linked to a requirement that U.S. forces leave, a U.S. lawmaker said on Wednesday.

Rep. William Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat and Iraq war opponent, released excerpts from a letter he was handed by Iraqi parliamentarians laying down conditions for the security pact that the Bush administration seeks with Iraq.

The proposed pact has become increasingly controversial in Iraq, where there have been protests against it. It has also drawn criticism from Democrats on the presidential election campaign trail in the United States, who say President George W. Bush is trying to dictate war policy after he leaves office.

Getting out of Iraq will mean the release of certain Iraqis from U.S. custody. Leaving Iraq could mean justice for the first time in several years for innocent men from Guantanamo and from secret prisons in Europe and around the world, who must be repatriated to their homelands. Now it turns out that our prison ships must also be part of that solution. It will be no small task. This story in The Guardian* (6/2/08) is headlined, "US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships." To quote:

The United States is operating "floating prisons" to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees.

Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's legal director, said: "They choose ships to try to keep their misconduct as far as possible from the prying eyes of the media and lawyers. We will eventually reunite these ghost prisoners with their legal rights.

"By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been 'through the system' since 2001. The US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by immediately revealing who these people are, where they are, and what has been done to them."

What will happen to the mercenary forces when the U.S. leaves Iraq? Leaving Iraq could break the strangle hold that private contractors have had on the U.S. military budget. The war profiteers will be forced to find other lucrative ways to make their huge profits. The following blurb from Pam's House Blend (6/2/08) explains that the private contractor Blackwater has been allowed by the U.S. government to purchase a Brazilian made fighter. The author leaves us with this natural question: "Blackwater starting its own mercenary air force for use against whom?"

Getting out of Iraq may mean a chance for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. Leaving Iraq could remove one of the primary irritants -- occupation of Iraq -- to radical jihadis and oppressed people in the Middle East. The story regarding former President Jimmy Carter's long term opposition to current U.S. mid-east foreign policy is from Chris Floyd Online* (5/26/08) and headlined, "Hay Ride: Jimmy Carter Crosses the Line." To quote:

Former President Jimmy Carter had come to Hay-on-Wye for the annual literary festival, and held forth in a wide-ranging interview before a large crowd. Carter denounced the policies of the so-called "Quartet" -- the U.S., EU, UN and Russia -- which have led to the strangulation of Gaza and immense suffering to the people "imprisoned" there, in Carter's words.

We cannot yet imagine all that leaving Iraq could do. Millions of us would like to begin that imagining. But it needs to be remembered that electing Senator John McCain to the U.S. presidency would end all such dreams.

*Hat tip to betmo at life's journey for a number of these links.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

This is going to hurt. A lot.

By Carl

If you're old enough to remember the Carter administration (1977-1981), then you'll remember the ugly phenomenon, unprecedented in a free-market economy, of stagflation.

Loosely defined, stagflation is when the economy is stagnant (i.e. a recession, in which economic activity slows) coupled with hyperinflation (when prices skyrocket through the roof).

The Carter stagflation hit when OPEC decided to play games with the price of oil. Since America was far and away the single largest consumer of OPEC oil, this was targeted directly at us, likely as a result of several foreign policy factors (Iran being number one among them).

Now that oil is flirting with its all-time record highs, as adjusted for inflation, as improbable as it may seem, we look likely headed down the stagflation path once again.

It's hard to describe what living in those times was like. The prime rate was up around 20%, while inflation ran at a then-unheard of (in America) rate of 15% (some studies indicate inflation may actually have reached higher levels in the past, like during the Civil War, but there's no clear measure of these incidents).

So the government was borrowing money at credit card rates, while families were seeing their incomes deteriorate at about one and a half percent a month, meaning if you made $30,000 a year, which was a really comfortable salary in 1979, by the end of that year, effectively you were making $25,000, but still paying taxes at the $30,000 rate, I should add. Further, banks stopped lending money at points in the incident, because if prime lending rates were 15%, say, but inflation was 16%, they were actually losing money in the deal.

Let's look at the current situation, tho: the housing market has cooled off and begun to drop nationwide. Housing prices have traditionally been the source of "wealth" in America, a fairly nebulous term that really means, "in a pinch, can I sell my home for more than I paid and pay down my credit cards?"

So long as the answer was "yes," people felt secure and kept on buying. Now the answer is "Eh. Not so much!"

This morning, we've seen clear signs that the economy is in serious trouble. While the Producer Price Index, the average cost to produce a good and bring it to market, shot up 3.2% on an annual basis in November, retail sales were up only 1.2%.

Which means that the entire increase in retail sales can be attributed ONLY to inflation (and the PPI doesn't include direct energy costs!), meaning the consumer economy dropped by about 2% in November. People bought 2% less in November. Period.

The consumer markets make up about 70% of the gross domestic product (the entire economic activity of a nation), so we'll call this a drop of about 1.75% in the economy.

In other words, a recession. A contraction. Not a good thing.

In current economic theory, you fight inflation by raising interest rates. This tightens available credit, forcing companies to put off infrastructure investment, and also means people like you and me pay more interest on our credit cards.

But the Fed has had to lower interest rates in response to the crippling sub-prime mortgage crisis, which has rippled now into prime mortgages. Anyone who believed this crisis was contained in the sub-prime markets is an idiot, including Ben Bernanke.

No rational borrower in his right mind is going to see Ditech.com offering 0% adjustable rate mortgages and not bite their banker's ass about paying 5%, even on a fixed rate loan! Hell, I bitched about paying 1.9%!

This clearly ripples through the credit markets, and is a far larger problem than we've been led to believe.

And don't think this is only an American problem. England's Northern Rock bank debacle shows that it's at least hitting the EU, and many central bank heads believe that we might see the first global stagflation in history.

You wanted to be a war president, Herr Bush? You will be, in 2008. A global stagflation will mean more poverty, more starvation, more angry young men and women in the streets of poor countries with weak tyrannical leaders.

The pieces are in place, ladies and gentlemen, for a true World War III. And we have only ourselves and our greedy overlords to thank.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)