McCaskill Sends a Lifeline to the Financial Sector

The best thing that could have happened to the financial sector was Sen. Claire McCaskill's (D-MO) bill limiting the salaries of companies receiving TARP funds to $400,000--the President's salary.

The bottom line is that Wall Street and the banking industry haven't responding to the current situation in a tenable way.

The United States is in a financial crisis because American financial institutions have failed and failed catastrophically. Individual leaders failed, institutions failed, and the business culture rooted in the early 80's failed. Beginning with the leveraged buyouts and takeovers of the early 1980's and continuing through the development of the derivatives market, the financial sector developed an enormous sense of entitlement, raised executive compensation to the stratosphere, and kept it there even after the companies began falling into crisis.

To recover from the crisis, the financial sector will have to replace most of its leaders, rebuild the companies, and dramatically change the business culture of financial institutions.

And the first order of change will be reigning in the pervasive sense of entitlement.

That's what Claire McCaskill was helping financial institutions with when she filed the bill to limit the executive salaries of companies receiving TARP money to $400,000. She was helping them change their business culture for the better.

Here's McCaskill talking to Huffington Post (another example of the prominence of blogs in contemporary Democratic politics).

QUESTION: Tell me how you came about introducing this bill.
MCCASKILL: I've been mad for a while, when first there was talk -- even within weeks of when we passed the initial half of the TARP money, [there were] rumors about bonuses, the fact that too many of these guys were holding unto the jobs even though they were running these companies into the ground. Reality didn't seem to be the order of the day. This culture, this idea, that these guys are entitled not just to their jobs but to excessive compensation, even when their companies were in moments of extinction because of the decisions they had made, just seemed unreal
to me.
Looking back, shouldn't legislation like this have been attached to the first installment of the Troubled Asset Relief Program?
Absolutely. Looking back, I just think none of us really comprehended that this culture was so calcified of entitled that multi-million dollar salaries are due, regardless of whether or not they perform (my emphasis). When all this started piling up - and I was having a conversation with someone this morning - and they said: 'None of them should make more than the president.' And he was right. None of them should be making more than the president. So I walked down the hallway and said draft it and we went to the floor and introduced it today.

I think this at least sends the signal that the party is drawing to a close. If you take this bill along with some of the other things my other colleagues are doing, Sheldon Whitehouse is focusing on $40 billion of deferred compensation that is still on the books for these guys and these companies. That needs to be wiped out.

McCaskill had some revealing things to say to NBC as well.

"We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street that are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer." And then the Missouri Democrat reloaded. "They don't get it . . . These people are idiots. You can't use taxpayer money to pay out $18-billion in bonuses... What planet are these people on . . . "

"Once they're off the public dole, once the taxpayers aren't footing the bill, then it's not as much our business what they get paid," she said. "But right now, they're on the hook to us. And they owe us something more than a fancy waste basket and a $15-million dollar jet. They owe us some common sense."

McCaskill added, "We must have our financial institutions survive, but not with a culture that thinks it's OK to kick the taxpayer in the shins while they drink champagne and fly in fancy jets."

Obviously, McCaskill is ticked off. Who can blame her besides a delusional like Rudy Giuliani? But the basic fact is that the private financial sector as a whole is not going to survive if the current culture of executive entitlement continues. The only way to finance the extremely high level of executive salaries, perks, and bonuses was to commit enormous financial resources to speculative bubbles like the derivatives market. If the culture of executive entitlement persists, financial companies will be going back down the road to ruin soon again . . .

And then they will have to be nationalized.

Claire McCaskill is sending the financial sector a lifeline. They should take it.

Blogs in the Political Architecture

Talking Points Memo had a story today on the complaints of Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Pete DeFazio (D-OR) concerning the relative lack of infrastructure projects in the Obama stimulus package.

Specifically, the congressmen complained about Larry Summers, the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, not being committed to infrastructure spending.

DeFazio even joked that "Harvard had it right" in firing Summers as president.

Rachel Maddow and other liberal blogs have been pursuing the "insufficient infrastructure" story for a week and the House did put $3 billion for mass transit back into their stimulus bill.

But what's most significant about the story is that blogs like Talking Points Memo have become a part of the communications architecture through which Democratic Party factions negotiate with each other.

Interesting.

Is It Obama's New Deal or Obama's New WWII

One of the benefits of receiving Ann Coulter's columns in my e-mail is the little sales pitches she makes for a purported stock genius named Mark Skousen, Ph.D.
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I wonder if Coulter gets compensated for that.
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What's interesting about today's pitch is that Coulter titled it "Obama's "New New Deal" -- and YOUR Money."
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But if I understand Obamanomics right, the Obama administration is thinks of its policy as a "New World War II" rather than a "New New Deal."
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What finally brought the American economy out of the Great Depression was the massive government spending associated with WWII.
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That's essentially what Obama wants from his stimulus package, a huge fiscal boost that lifts the economy out of its current downward spiral.
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That brings us to a big question.
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It's doubtful that the current stimulus package of $819 billion is big enough to be the fiscal equivalent of WWII. $819 billion is only 5.7% of our $14 trillion economy.
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But will he be able to get another big stimulus package out of Congress next year?

The Expansion of Health Insurance Begins

Good news on health policy--

The Democratic-controlled Congress moved a step closer to handing President Barack Obama an early health care victory Thursday as the Senate passed a bill extending government-sponsored health insurance coverage to about 4 million uninsured children.

The Republicans worry "that Democrats are using SCHIP to increase the government's role in providing health care."

And they are right.

Of course, expanding the government's role in health care is both a good thing and long overdue.

More Rod to Come

Rod Blagojevich may not be governor of Illinois, but does anybody really think his 15 minutes of fame are really over?

Too bad he couldn't marry Sarah Palin. They could have a great reality show.

Democratic Senate 65

There's been a lot of bogus chatter about the Republicans making gains if the economy doesn't pick up by the 2010 elections.

But it's far more likely that the Democrats will be nudging toward 65 votes.

Think I'm kidding.

Here's the run-down.

There are currently 59 Democrats and 41 Republicans in the Senate if we include Al Franken from Minnesota. And yes, Minnesota has elected a comedian over their incumbent Republican.

But Republican Senators from Florida, Missouri, and Kansas have already declared that they're not running for re-election. Of those three states, Democrats are good bets in Florida and Missouri. The situation for Republicans in Florida is dire because none of the prominent Republicans want to run. A Democratic takeover would also be a good bet in Kansas if Gov. Kathleen Sebelius decided to run.

That gets up to 61 with a decent shot at 62.

There's also two Republicans who are thinking of following Trent Lott's example and quitting mid-term. There's noise about Judd Gregg of New Hampshire joining the Obama administration as Secretary of Commerce and being replaced by a Democratic governor. Likewise, Kay Bailey Hutchinson is thinking about running for governor of Texas and Democrats would have a decent chance of winning an election to replace her.

That makes it 62 with a shot at 64.

Finally, Jim Bunning of Kentucky is the Republican who's in most trouble for re-election in 2010. In fact, he has so little chance of being re-elected that Republican leader Mitch McConnell shouts "dead man walking" every time he sees Bunning in the hall.

The Democrats would need everything to go right to reach 65. But that's a lot more likely right now than any kind of Republican renaissance.

Kissing Limbaugh's Stimulus Ring

Limbaugh's Butt--No. 4. Kissing Limbaugh's Ring--The Republicans are about hierarchy and yesterday they sorted out the new post-Bush order with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on top and Congressional Republicans following their cues. Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia, the Chair of the Republican Study Group in the House, had commented to Politico.com the day before that it was easy for Limbaugh and Hannity to be bomb throwers.

“I think that our leadership, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, are taking the right approach,” Gingrey said. “I mean, it’s easy if you’re Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don’t have to try to do what’s best for your people and your party. You know you’re just on these talk shows and you’re living well and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of that thing. But when it comes to true leadership, not that these people couldn’t be or wouldn’t be good leaders, they’re not in that position of John Boehner or Mitch McConnell."

Gingrey thought that Boehner and McConnell were in the "leadership position" because of their official positions as "Republican leaders." But Gingrey found out that it was Limbaugh who was in the "true leadership" position. After getting thousands of e-mails and telephone calls, the Georgia congressman felt that it was necessary to go on Limbaugh's radio show, apologize for his "foot-in-mouth disease" and praise Limbaugh to the skies as a "conservative giant." Even more important, Gingrey also had to accept Limbaugh's delusional claim that President Obama is only interested in bi-partisanship because Obama assumes his stimulus package will fail and wants "bi-partisan" cover.

Actually, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that Gingrey had to kiss Limbaugh's ring. Timothy Noah of Slate observed years ago that lobbyists had higher status in Washington than most members of the House. The same was surely the case with Limbaugh and Hannity. What's changed is that Rush Limbaugh now has more clout than "leading Republicans" like Gingrey. Gingrey might have status within the House Republican Caucus but his lack of a national media profile meant that Gingrey is a nobody compared to Limbaugh.

Now, Phil Gingrey and other prominent House conservatives are going to be taking their cues from Rush Limbaugh rather than the other way around. George Bush might be gone, but right-wing delusions are going to dominate the Congressional Republicans more than ever.

By the way, Limbaugh was so nervous and had so many ticks as he was talking with Gingrey that it was hard not to think that he was still having some addiction issues.

The Stimulus Package--The Obama stimulus package passed the House of Representatives yesterday on a 244 to 189 vote without a single Republican voting in support. There's been two kinds of stories about the vote, the story of Obama's bi-partisanship "failing" in the mainstream media and the liberal blogs seeing the Republicans refusing compromise even though the Democratics bent over backwards to accommodate them. This is the Lucy and the Football story in which Obama and the House Dems did many of the things the Republicans wanted and they still pulled the football away and voted "no."

My own view is that the whole thing has a big win for President Obama so far. Obama fulfilled his No. 1 campaign promise of bringing a new kind of politics to Washington, met with the Republicans in all kinds of forums, and adjusted his plans. Obama more than met his obligation to meet the Republicans half-way, but the Republicans remained mired in the "tired partisanship of the past" and that hurt them. Even worse for the Republicans, House Republicans showed that they could be easily pushed around by right-wing talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh who are reviled by the American public at large. When Phil Gingrey kissed Limbaugh's ring, he lost moderate votes for Republican candidates all over the country and made the Republican Party an even narrower ideological group than it was before.

Getting no Republican votes might have been bad for bi-partisanship, but it's a big political plus for Obama.

The Banking System: A Bad Moon Rising

I was never that big of a Credence Clearwater fan, but I couldn't help thinking of "Bad Moon Rising" when I saw this tidbit in an article on the banking crisis from the Washington Post (via MSN).

The health of many banks is getting worse, not better, as the downturn makes it difficult for all kinds of consumers and businesses to pay back money they borrowed from these financial firms. Conservative estimates put bank losses yet to be declared at $1 trillion.

I think it's fair to say that the American economy doesn't need another trillion dollars in bad news.

Actually, it gets worse.

Author David Cho goes on to look at the credit crunch and argues that the ability of banks to make loans depended on the mortgage based securities that are now on the wrong side of worthlessness.

Some help from the TARP bailout, government officials said, may go to jump-starting the credit markets that finance roughly half the debt owned by businesses and households. During the boom years earlier this decade, investors bought pools of mortgages and other kinds of loans packaged into securities, providing fresh funding for bank lending. But this activity ceased after traders lost confidence that the market was accurately pricing the value of these securities and assessing their risk.

If "normal bank lending" was indeed contingent on the highly speculative market in derivatives and credit default swaps (CDS) that relied on mortgage backed securities, the banking system as a whole was profoundly distorted and unsustainable for any kind of long term.

No doubt following up on his sources in the Obama administration, Cho suggests that the solution would be to put the derivative and CDS markets on a "more solid grounding."

The Federal Reserve is poised to launch an initiative in coming weeks to restart a segment of these markets by offering to buy highly rated commercial paper, backed by assets such as credit card debt, student loans and auto loans. Officials are considering expanding this initiative to help free up loans for municipalities, small businesses, commercial real estate and other consumer debt.

I'm not an economist but this just sounds disastrous. On the surface, it looks like the fed is looking to build an economic castle on a new pile of quicksand. How much more reliable can "credit card debt, student loans, and auto loans" be as a backing for securities than home mortgages? Not very!

There's another problem. If the derivative and CDS markets are tied to things like credit cards, student loans and auto loans, then there will be pressure to offer flimsy loans as a way to keep priming the financial markets. Eventually, the banking system would start falling apart again because of the inability of credit instruments to provide an adequate grounding for the financial markets.

What the Obama administration needs to do is to build (or rebuild) a credit system that does not depend on the derivative and CDS market for the credit needed to make necessary commercial and consumer loans.

If the administration can't accomplish that goal through reconstructed private lending agencies, then they're going to have to do it through some sort of government system.

Good luck with that!

RSI Losing Power

No, it's not a metaphor.

The RSI family was privileged to be one of the 50,000 Kentucky families that lost power last night. Our lights went off at about 9:30--it seemed that a little knot of homes on our street all lost power--and stayed that way for eight hours as the drizzle kept coming down over the ice.

It wasn't too big of a crisis though. We broke out the candles and Miss Tween RSI and a friend went out sleigh-riding. Eventually, Miss Tween was farmed out to the friend's house and the rest of the family hunkered down for a "long winter's nap." The heat was out but everybody was able to sleep. The house is well-insulated. It didn't get that cold.

Today's another day.

Limbaugh's Butt--No. 3. How Can Cillizza Be Boring About Limbaugh?

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza's note on Rush Limbaugh's new prominence in American politics is an unbelievable bore. How does he do it? Looking at Limbaugh provides an extremely interesting perspective on political dynamics at the outset of the Obama administration. Plus, Rush Limbaugh might be the single most quotable human being in the United States of America (apart from Ann Coulter perhaps).

Yet Cillizza limits himself to one dull Limbaugh quote and goes on to quote a couple of Republican consultants who are trying very hard not to say anything. Here's one.

"Rush is a double-edged sword, he cuts both ways" said Phil Musser, a Republican consultant and former executive director of the Republican Governors Association. "Sometimes you love him, sometimes you cringe at his impolitic (he'd say honest) fusillados."

Talk about cringing, I cowered when I saw "impolitic fusillados." Musser must have spent too much time at all-white country clubs while he was growing up.

There are several facts to keep in mind here.

The most important is that Rush Limbaugh is extremely unpopular with the 80% of the population that aren't committed conservatives. Limbaugh knows this as well as anyone. People on the left despise him as a "Big Fat Idiot, (the book that made Al Franken a senator)" but moderates hate him just as much.

The mainstream media was pulling Limbaugh into the national spotlight even before Obama mentioned him. That's because GOP congressional leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have such a weak media presence. Cillizza quotes Haley Barbour retainer Ed Rogers as saying that the Republican leadership has not found "their voice or direction." That's weak, weak, weak! John Boehner doesn't have enough charisma to fill a shot glass. How's he ever going to find his voice?

The same with McConnell.

The emergence of Limbaugh provided Obama and his press secretary Robert Gibbs with the opportunity to tell Boehner and McConnell that they were either "with Obama or with Limbaugh." Because both of those choices are losers for the GOP leadership, Boehner and McConnell were probably trying to figure out how to stand "on the middle ground" for the first time in their lives.

At the end, Cillizza raises the question of whether Limbaugh's new prominence as a "Republican spokesman" is a good thing for the Republican Party.

Why raise the question when the answer is obvious? Having Limbaugh in the mainstream media is horrible for the Republican Party. They wouldn't do any worse if they dug up Saddam Hussein and made him a party spokesman.

John Boehner and the Art of Demagoguery

Last Friday, the Republicans focused on attacking the spending entailed by the Obama stimulus package working its way through the House. Republican leader John Boehner put it this way.

“How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives? How does that stimulate the economy?”

Where did Boehner get "hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives?" That's an interesting question. Here's the actual provision of the legislation from ThinkProgress.

State Option to Cover Family Planning Services. Under current law, the Secretary has the authority under section 1115 of the Social Security Act to grant waivers to states to allow them to cover family planning services and supplies to low-income women who are not otherwise eligible for Medicaid. The bill would give states the option to provide such coverage without obtaining a waiver. States could continue to use the existing waiver authority if they preferred.

The purpose of the legislation is to provide "family planning services" as part of a general effort to maintain health services for poor women.

As the Republican leader in the House, Boehner could have taken "the high road" and argued that "maintaining health services for poor women" provides little economic stimulus. In terms of economic consequences, the main effect of providing health services for poorer women would be to lower future health expenses. According to ThinkProgress, the figure would be $200 million over 5 years. More health services means fewer unwanted pregnancies, guarding against chronic illnesses like cancer, and things like that. Certainly, lowering health expenses is a worthwhile goal, but there's an argument there it wouldn't provide a significant economic stimulus.

In this context, Boehner could have suggested that family health services could be linked to the construction or remodeling of health clinics in low income areas or Obama's efforts to transform medical record-keeping. In that way, the economic stimulus from putting up new buildings and installing new computer systems would be directly connected to improved health outcomes.

But Boehner decided to take the low road--the very low road.

Instead of framing a serious criticism of "maintaining health services" as economic stimulus, Boehner focused on contraception in a way that impugned an association with promiscuity or abortion or impugned that women's health was not a serious matter.

At the same time, Boehner made up a figure of "hundreds of millions of dollars" and attached it to legislation. The ultimate result was that Boehner deceptively represented the Obama administration and the Democrats as squandering an enormous amount of money on something that's "morally questionable" on the one hand and impugned the seriousness of women's health on the other.

In other words, it was a neat bit of demagoguery.

To top it all off, Boehner made his sensational claim about contraceptives on Friday and thus guaranteed that the Sunday news shows would be about "hundreds of millions of dollars for contraceptives." The result was that he put the Democrats on the defensive for an entire 48 hour news cycle.

No doubt Boehner and other Republicans were happy over winning a small victory on Monday.

What this means is that we're back to the 2008 election in which Obama focused on the big picture and the McCain campaign fought hard to win the daily news.

In fact, McCain managed to create a lot of headlines with his "Celeb" ads. Likewise, a lot of people on the left (like me) wanted the Obama people to be more aggressive in response.

But Obama won handily and I suspect that he'll also win handily on the stimulus package.

Mongiardo Declares

Today, Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo of Kentucky announced that he is running for the Senate seat held by Republican Jim Bunning.

The conventional wisdom is that Mongiardo has a good shot to win. Running against Bunning in 2004, he came within 23,00 votes despite being an obscure state senator from Hazard. This time, Mongiardo will have a higher profile, be a more experienced campaigner and will have access to a ton of money from the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee.

That gives him a shot.

The conventional wisdom might be right here because Bunning is such an obvious target. I've seen Bunning speak. Known mostly as a Hall of Fame pitcher for the Phillies and a sharp-elbowed politician, the 77 year-old Bunning's political fastball is just as far gone as his brushback pitch. He made a fool of himself in 2004 by phoning in a debate and making denigrating remarks about Mongiardo (an Italian-American) looking like one of Saddam Hussein's sons.

And the expectation is that Bunning will make a fool of himself again.

At the same time, Mongiardo hasn't exactly proven that he's a big league political hitter while serving as lieutenant governor in the lackluster Beshear administration.

So, the question is whether Mongiardo has enough political talent to take on a guy who's fading as obviously as Bunning.

If Mongiardo gets the Democratic nomination, he'll have a good shot on the basis of turnout.

Mongiardo will get majorities in Louisville, Lexington, and rural Eastern Kentucky and he has a good shot at winning if he can inspire higher levels of off-year turn out in those areas.

That's because turnout most likely won't be that high in GOP strongholds. Bunning is the kind of guy who's almost impossible to get excited about and I don't think that preventing the Senate Democrats or defeating the relatively colorless Mongiardo is going to motivate Republican voters either.

Depressed Republican turnout hurt John McCain. It will kill Jim Bunning.

Krugman and the Lions of Conventional Opinion

Last night, Crooks and Liars had a story on ABC's This Week program entitled Paul Krugman Takes Sam Donaldson to School on This Week.

But the reality of the situation was not so encouraging.

Krugman was on the program with George Stephanopoulos, Sam Donaldson, George Will, Cokie Roberts, and Carly Fiorina.

And he was the only one on the panel who didn't just ASSUME that tax cuts were the best way to address the economic crisis.

In the end, Krugman was just the token liberal on a panel that reiterated the conventional wisdom.

Would Bank Nationalization Be So Bad?

One of the arguments against the nationalization of banks like Citigroup and Bank of America is that government officials can't manage banks:

So far the Obama administration has signaled that it is trying to avoid that day, and members of its economic team — among them Mr. Geithner and the president’s top economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers — made the case during the Asian financial
crisis in the 1990s that governments make lousy bank managers.

But would "government bankers" really be worse than the current generation of major bank management which has lost hundreds of billions of dollars?

The answer to that is probably no.

Much Worse Than Cocooning

You have to give David Frum credit for trying. Frum served as a Bush speechwriter and wrote a horrible book with Richard Perle, but he does seem to be trying to get a grip on what's wrong with the Republican Party.

Our party has been crippled by an all-pervading assumption at the center that if you just don’t talk about bad news, it will go away: whether it’s an extravagant wardrobe decision - or a bad job creation record. Our leaders cocoon themselves, refuse to hear unwelcome news, and reward yesmanship.

But that doesn't come close to getting it.

The Republican Party and its conservative base go way beyond "cocooning." In fact, they've become deeply committed to maintaining an alternative reality. For the Republicans, it all gets down to the conviction that "Bush was right" and imagining a weirdly distorted world in which such a conviction was justified.

In terms of the war in Iraq, this means that "the invasion was right" despite the lack of WMD's, the failure to understand Shiite/Sunni sectarianism, and the bizarre idea that Iraq would become a beacon of liberty in the Middle East.

That's not to mention the 4,000 American combat deaths.

"Bush was right" also means that Republicans believe that Guantanamo, torture, and extraordinary rendition have been the only thing that's been keeping the country safe for the last seven years.

What the Republicans have been saying about Obama's turning back from Bush's terror policies has been so off the wall that Matthew Yglesias declares himself "gobsmacked" by all the nonsense.

Here's a few examples of the weird stuff Yglesias hass been hearing from the right.

The fact that the Bush administration has let dangerous terrorists go free means
Obama should keep innocent people detained.
The fact that the Bush administration screwed up the paperwork on detainees shows that there was more wisdom to Bush’s policies than Obama acknowledged on the campaign trail.
Obama’s promise of change was empty and hypocritical because it will take time to implement his executive orders.
The “Guantanamo” issue is primarily about the physical location of the facility rather than the legal status or treatment of the detainees.
Since many liberals live in San Francisco, anyone who thinks it would be ill-advised to transfer prisoners to a museum in the San Francisco Bay that hasn’t been a prison for decades is a hypocrite.

It goes on.

"Bush was right" means that "deregulation was right' even though the failure to regulate the financial industry has put the country on the edge of a depression.

It also means denying the vast amount of research on climate change, not giving a damn about the environment, and being opposed to most kinds of social progress.

"Bush was right" mantra also declares that the only way to combat sexually transmitted diseases is abstinence and that pharmacies shouldn't make contraceptives available to women.

In other words, they want to turn back the dial to the fifties.

The problem for the Republicans is that they remain committed to their alternative universe even though their views are rejected and ridiculed by an increasing majority of the American public.

That's a lot worse than cocooning.

Limbaugh's Butt--No. 2

Byron York of National Review Online raises an interesting point concerning Obama's statement to the Republican leadership that "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done":

With George W. Bush now off the stage, it may be that Obama and some of his fellow Democrats view Limbaugh, and not John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, or any other elected official, as the true leader of the Republican opposition.

York doesn't deal with the obviousness of Obama's argument that the Republicans won't be able to participate in the stimulus package legislation if they listen to Limbaugh. That's because Limbaugh is opposed to anything like an 800 billion stimulus package. Limbaugh's a small government Republican. He doesn't believe that government intervention to address the recession is appropriate, or that government intervention work. Assuming that Obama himself doesn't believe his own stimulus package will work, Limbaugh thinks that Obama is using the stimulus bill to further Democratic political goals.

To make the argument about me instead of his plan makes sense from his perspective. Obama's plan would buy votes for the Democrat Party, in the same way FDR's New Deal established majority power for 50 years of Democrat rule, and it would also simultaneously seriously damage any hope of future tax cuts. It would allow a majority of American voters to guarantee no taxes for themselves going forward. It would burden the private sector and put the public sector in permanent and firm control of the economy. Put simply, I believe his stimulus is aimed at re-establishing "eternal" power for the Democrat Party rather than stimulating the economy because anyone with a brain knows this is NOT how you stimulate the economy. If I can be made to serve as a distraction, then there is that much less time debating the merits of this TRILLION dollar debacle.

Literally speaking, Obama's right. The Republicans can't meaningfully participate in stimulus negotiations if they "just listen to Rush Limbaugh."

So why did Obama make the comment?

My opinion is that Obama mostly likes to throw a sharp elbow at the Republicans every once in a while just to show that they're not going to push him around.

But if Obama's comment did have a deep political connotation, I think it would be the opposite of what York says. Instead of viewing Limbaugh as the "true leader of the Republican opposition," Obama might be trying to give Limbaugh more exposure as a way to weaken the Republicans. It's important to emphasize that non-conservative America largely perceives Limbaugh as a combination of moron and racist buffoon. No surprise there. Whether Limbaugh is using "Barack the Magic Negro," making comments about the Baltimore Ravens, or talking about bending over for Obama, there's no doubt that he's America's most prominent racist buffoon as well as an important Republican leader.

Limbaugh himself recognizes the extent to which moderates hate him.

Perhaps recognizing this, Obama might be referring to Limbaugh as a way to undermine the Republican leadership. If McConnell and Boehner are going to be recalcitrant, Obama is going to remind them that they're being just like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity and that such right-wing extremism is a political loser.

And I think it's a great idea. The more national audiences see and here of conservative extremists like Limbaugh, the less they're going to be attracted to the Republican Party.

Days and Nights of Limbaugh's Butt

Are we going to be seeing days and nights of Rush Limbaugh's butt?

The answer is probably yes.

The skies are aligned so that everybody wants to be exposed to Limbaugh (or as Miss Tween RSI says, Lip Balm).

Conservatives want more Limbaugh because they want to hear somebody saying what they think. Sure they have Fox but Fox isn't enough now. It's important to remember the extent to which the Republican Party has been hollowed out over the last three years. Bush is not only out of office but nobody in the Bush administration emerged with any credibility to "speak for conservatism." Other "Republican spokesmen" like George Allen, Rick Santorum, Ralph Reed, or Roy Blunt were defeated, retired, retreated, or implicated in the Jack Abramoff scandal.

As a result, Rush Limbaugh is becoming even more important to Republicans than he used to be. When Limbaugh said he didn't want Obama to succeed, he was speaking for millions of Republicans who think Obama's a Muslim, black nationalist, or the anti-Christ.

All of this also makes Rush Limbaugh more of a figure with the mainstream media as well. So-called "liberal media" outlets like CNN are doing stories on Limbaugh. Notwithstanding their insider political skills, Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have less than zero media charisma. But Limbaugh has tons of charisma and he often has provocative things to say that make good headlines.

So we're going to be hearing more from Limbaugh now that the Democrats are in control, not less.

And this is just fine for liberal outlets like The Daily Show and Huffington Post. More than anything else, the really liberal media hungers after right-wing buffoonery to ridicule for the benefit of their core audience.

And Rush Limbaugh delivers the buffoonery better than anyone alive.

Here's Limbaugh at his homoerotic, weenie best on having to bend over and take it from Obama.

We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president.

What's significant here is that the Limbaugh "bend over, grab the ankles" comment was covered by ThinkProgress, Democratic Underground, and Daily Kos. The Daily Show had a great little segment with a picture of Limbaugh's butt at the end.

Over on the more mainstream media, MSNBC also featured the story.

Given that everybody in the media now has a stake in "The Limbaugh Experience," it looks like Limbaugh's butt is going to be a daily experience.

Now That Obama is Meeting Some Republicans

Obama had some sharp words today for Republicans today:

President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.

"You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done," he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

To be fair to Obama, he said that Republicans shouldn't "just" listen to Limbaugh not that Republicans should stop listening to El Rushbo.

Still, it makes me wonder.

Obama served eight years in the Illinois Senate from heavily Democratic Chicago and two years in the U.S. Senate where he worked with reasonable Republicans like Dick Lugar of Indiana.

Maybe Obama's going to be a lot less "post-partisan" when he finds out that most Republican Senators are more like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly than Dick Lugar.

Abortion is a Good Thing

President Obama came out with a positive statement on abortion on the anniversary of Roe v Wade.

"On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose.While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue, no matter what our views, we are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make. To accomplish these goals, we must work to find common ground to expand access to affordable contraception, accurate health information, and preventative services.On this anniversary, we must also recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights and opportunities as our sons: the chance to attain a world-class education; to have fulfilling careers in any industry; to be treated fairly and paid equally for their work; and to have no limits on their dreams. That is what I want for women everywhere."

Atheists Can Take Heart

Obama "forgot" to bring a Bible to his second swearing in last night. Of course the big surprise is that nothing significant happened as a result. I'm sure Jesus said somewhere that the world would come to an end if the President of the United States was sworn in without a Bible. Something's just got to be wrong.

Obama and the Final Delusion

Conservative columnists like Charles Krauthammer have been consoling themselves with a final delusion that the Obama administration would continue the policies of George Bush

Except for Richard Nixon, no president since Harry Truman has left office more unloved than George W. Bush. Truman's rehabilitation took decades. Bush's will come sooner. Indeed, it has already begun. The chief revisionist? Barack Obama. Vindication is being expressed not in words but in deeds -- the tacit endorsement conveyed by the Obama continuity-we-can-believe-in transition. It's not just the retention of such key figures as Defense Secretary Bob Gates or Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner, who, as president of the New York Fed, has been instrumental in guiding the Bush financial rescue over the past year. It's the continuity of policy

But the Bush Legacy Project has already had a bad day today, and it still isn't noon.

On Day Two of his administration, President Barack Obama began overhauling U.S.
treatment of terror suspects, signing orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, review military trials of suspects and ban the harshest interrogation methods.

MSN views the closing of Guantanamo as the most important item here, but by now it should be evident that mandating that interrogators follow the Army Field Manual and banning torture (in other words, "the harshest interrogration methods) is more important.

Banning practices defined as torture is one more indication that the Obama administration is going to treat torture as a crime.

Major figures in the Bush administration might find that "their legacy" includes defending themselves against criminal charges.

"Our Caroline" Out of Senate Contention

It's out that Caroline Kennedy "withdrew" from consideration to replace Hillary Clinton in the U. S. Senate. Actually, Kennedy only "withdrew" after Gov. David Paterson informed her that she wasn't going to be picked.

In other words, she was rejected first, and then withdrew her name to save face . . . sort of.

The only way Kennedy was going to be chosen was if everyone took her as "Our Caroline," the beloved daughter of the martyred John F. Kennedy.

But it's extremely difficult to be "beloved" without having a compelling media presence.

And Caroline Kennedy. . . you know, like she wasn't very good in front of the cameras.

So, Gov. Paterson pulled the plus and Caroline Kennedy now joins the 4.5 million adult New Yorkers who aren't going to be a U. S. Senator.

What now for Caroline?

Personally, I hope that she gets involved in government in some other way. Kennedy is smart and capable. Now she needs to figure out the best way she can serve the Obama administration.

Yet More! It looks like there's uncertainty about whether to withdraw in Caroline Kennedy's camp. Bungling the withdrawal of her candidacy is a sign that Caroline should have sought a Republican nomination for the Senate. That would have given her some goofball authenticity.

Rumors of Competence: Obama's First Day

Are there any allegorical figures for political competence? Allegorical figures of liberty like Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People above are famous. Figures of justice, virtue, and wisdom also abound. But what about the know-how it takes to enact what is right in a complex and contraditory environment?

What about competence?

In some ways, political competence is more like an artisan skill than anything else. In political competence, elements of creativity and technical skill are mobilized to provide a practical benefit for others. The Bush administration put such a high value on values, loyalty, and membership in the conservative movement that they downgraded competence as a political virtue. The Bush people didn't want to promote peace in the Middle East or solve the problems betweent he U. S. and Iran. So there was no question about employing competence in these areas. They didn't want to forcefully regulate the financial industry, pharmaceuticals, or agriculture either. The Bush people let FEMA fall apart and haven't put it back together again despite Katrina.

It will take a long time for the federal government to regain the competence level it had when George Bush took the oath of office in 2001.

But there is a rumor of competence on the horizon. According to The Jewish Week, the Obama administration is going to appoint George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East. Mitchell is a former Senator and Democratic majority leader from Maine who was instrumental in forging peace between the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Given that Mitchell has such a stellar reputation for persistence, even-handedness, and integrity, appointing him would be a sign that Obama wants to forge a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. According to The Jewish Weekly, the Bush administration was mainly interested in letting the Israelis do what they want. Therefore they did not need or want somebody as competent as Mitchell to work on a settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians.

But the rumor of Mitchell's appointment is a sign that the Obama administration might actually want to accomplish something.

So, It Was John Roberts?

Aah! So, it was John Roberts who goofed up the big moment of Barack Obama's nomination. I knew he was conservative, but didn't realize he was such an ardent member of the vast right-wing conspiracy.

Is anybody talking "proscription" here?

Live-Blogging the Obama Inauguration

11:05, I'm at the Morehead State student union live-blogging the Obama inauguration. My family is in Washington and I expect to hear from them over the next hour.

Right now, ABC is taking the Soviet perspective on the inauguration--focusing on the big Cadillac limos, the cops, and security; showing Senators, Supreme Court Justices, and Cabinet designees. George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson are talking gibberish in low, serious tones.

There's Susan Rice (UN Ambassador) and Carol Browner (global warming czar).

Hey, there's Eric Holder, the Attorney General designate who said that waterboarding is torture.

But I don't care about that. ABC would do a lot better if they did face in the crowd interviews.

"The elites they will always be with us"--but elites didn't make it possible for a black guy to be elected president and elites didn't make Barack Obama's campaign.

"There's Al and Tipper Gore."

The "pageantry" might look different to people who are there, but the whole thing looks like a march of death to me.

11:14, I wonder what some of the African-American blogs are saying.

Here's brotherpeacemaker at Afro-Spear.wordpress.com.

A lot of people like to talk in the most simplistic of terms that Mr. Obama’s election is now an indication that racism is over and that the people in the black community no longer have an excuse for the under achievement that permeates the black community relative to other communities. But then people turn around and see Mr. Obama as the rare exception instead of the general rule of black people. He speaks so well. Black people are indeed inferior. It’s just that every now and then you will find that rare black person that can transcend his or her inherent black inferiorities.

Bottom line is that from Dr. King’s perspective, it wasn’t about the individual. It wasn’t about the achievements of a few black people. It was about the black community. We can celebrate the fact that Mr. Obama is the latest member of an extremely small, elite fraternity. We can support him in his endeavors as he tries to bring something that resembles respectable leadership back to the oval office.
The black community should be very proud of this moment.

More elites are being officially introduced to the inauguration crowd. A few minutes ago, it was Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, now Bill and Hillary.

None of elites has a hat on--hopefully there won't be any William Henry Harrison cases of somebody dying because they didn't dress for inaugural cold.

Oops. Carl Gibson from MSPR wanted to interview me. I told him that Obama has about six years to turn things around. That's a lot more optimistic and less Republican-fearing than most observers. But I'm sure I'm right. Reagan and George H. W. Bush got 11 years. Obama will get at least half that.

A student sitting next to me compared the procession to The Green Mile--Obama's last steps.

Brotherpeacemker is right about Obama's election not meaning the end of racism in the United States. But it is a sign that racism is weakening on the very important surface of electoral politics.

It's a huge deal.

11:39. There's Obama moving out of the capital toward the inauguration stand, the first black guy to be sworn in as president. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein were in front of him and two black cops were escorting them.

Forty years ago, there were almost no black public officials, almost no black cops in that kind of setting, and no powerful women.

Excellent.

Obama is coming out. He gives a hug to John Lewis as an offical passing of the torch from the Civil Rights generation to the "Making Good on Civil Rights" President.

Obama's smarter than ABC News and he's working both the high ranking and the ordinary parts of the crowd.

Another fifteen minutes of speeches before the swearing in.

Look at the crowd--that's more powerful than anything Diane Feinstein is saying. Ooh. Feinstein is making an inadvertent reference to Malcolm X's famous "The Ballot or the Bullet" speech.

Here comes Rick Warren--now mostly known as homophobe, calling for a "new birth of clarity." That's a weak kind of gruel. Oh man, what was Warren doing in pronouncing the name of Obama's kids--MELIA and SASHA!

That got a big laugh from the crowd here

That's a real hat that Aretha Franklin is wearing--singing My Country Tis of Thee.

Joe Biden is taking the oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States." Hopefully, he'll do a better job of that than "Constitution-Wrecker" Dick Cheney.

11:59. The big moment is almost here.

They're playing "Simple Gifts"--Mrs. RSI and I socilize with a circle that sings Simple Gifts at EVERY gathering we have. This is really cool.

And the band they have for the occasion is great--Yitzhak Perlman, YoYo Ma, etc. It's a stirring song. I'll remember this for a long time.

12:04pm. Barack Obama hasn't taken the oath yet. But he became president at noon.

And Obama blew the oath of office. Well, I'm certainly going to feel a lot better the next time I screw up. If Barack Obama can screw up the oath of office, I can forgive myself for a lot of things.

12:07, now the speech

Obama moves quickly to two points:

1. The fidelity of the people to the founding ideals and documents of the Country
2. The Crisis--the war against terror, the economy, and failing schools

Guaranteeing that the crisis will be met.

Obama is going through the sacrifices that our ancestors made "for us."

To begin the work of remaking America.

Laying a new foundation for growth--infrastructure, science, health care, new energy, eductional transformation,

Against cynicism

Reminding that the success of the economy depends on real prosperity and opportunity.

More when I see the text.

Tonight at the MLK Service

I'm here in Morehead, KY while the RSI family is in Washington for the inauguration. Tonight's MLK service was the best we've had in the 19 years I've lived in Kentucky. There was a very nice counter-point between the two speakers. Speaking quickly and building to crescendo after crescendo, a black Baptist minister emphasized Barack Obama's roots in the black church. According to Rev. C. B. Akins, Obama didn't learn how to think in terms of "change you can believe in," "yes we can," and "hope" while he was at Harvard and Columbia. He learned that way of thinking in the black church in Chicago.

And Rev. Akins was precisely right.

Rev. Akins also portrayed Obama's victory as part of the struggle for racial uplift in which African-Americans have been engaged from at least the 18th century to today. Akins named Denmark Vecsey along with Nat Turner, Sojourner Truth, W. E. B. DuBois, and Ida Wells Barnett as people who made Obama's victory possible and did not hesitate to cite those who were violent or radical.

But Akins started by offering Obama as a model for people who need uplift today.

It was all very well done--and . . . well, uplifting.

Part of what made Rev. Akins so effective is that he followed a local white minister, Rev. Molly Smathers, who spoke movingly about how her and her family dealt with racism in the Lexington, KY area. One topic that gets very little play in the media is the personal connundrums and discouragement that many non-racist whites experience as they deal with racist relatives, co-workers, fellow students, and casual acquaintances. Throughout the election season, I've been struggling over how to deal with my mother's racism toward Obama without sparking a huge counter-productive confrontation. Finally, I told her how much I had hated racism all my life and how happy I was going to be when Obama was elected.

Rev. Smathers talked movingly of her father's response to MLK's assassination, the way her son had punched a kid at his local school for using the n-word toward a black friend of his, and some incidents that occurred during the civil rights movement.

Because Rev. Smathers didn't have a large volume of black friends or historical references, she couldn't speak with the depth of Rev. Akins. But that was fine. It was a significant bit of integration that Rev. Akins and Rev. Smathers could bring together white and black experiences of dealing with racism in this way.

Certainly, I appreciated it. I think Martin Luther King would have liked it too.

A New Republican Disorder: Bush Fatigue

Michelle Malkin is complaining that Republican office-holders are knucking under to the tide of Obama popularity.

Malkin conceded that it's appropriate to show some deference to the occasion, but she complained that Republican lawmakers aren't standing their ground.

"Especially in the Beltway," she said, "they are more wrapped up in who got invited to what dinner and who didn't. And my criticism of the GOP establishment, as they've rolled on every [Obama Cabinet] nomination, is they are completely out of touch with how fly-over America feels about this spectacle."

Given that Obama's poll numbers are in the 70's, "fly-over America" must be shrinking rapidly if its opposed to the spectacle of Obama's nomination.

Not that Malkin--who lives in a DC suburb--would know.

But Malkin is right about Congressional Republicans. They're not putting up anything like determined resistance to the incoming Obama administration. It doesn't look like Republicans in the House or Senate are going to do much to obstruct Obama's Cabinet apppointments, stimulus package, or withdrawal from Iraq. Of course, they might not have much choice. The Democrats have a 70 seat majority in the House, 57 seats in the Senate, and access to votes from Senate Republicans like John McCain, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Arlen Specter, and Joe Lieberman.

After all these years, Republican moderates have finally become players.

Hmm. Maybe I haven't really taken Lieberman back yet.

In the final analysis, it may be that Congressional Republicans aren't "standing their ground" because they've been exhausted by eight years of fighting for the Bush administration.

The Democrats were certainly worn out in 2001. There was a palpable exhaustion to Democrats in the first months after Bush was inaugurated. They didn't put up much of a fight on Bush tax cuts, Bush's absurd claims to executive privilege, or the invasion of Iraq. But the Democrats weren't just "spineless," they had been ground down by the constant fighting over the Clinton presidency and weren't in any condition to fight an aggressive new Republican administration. In fact, memories of the "Clinton Wars" were one of the reasons why Democratic elites weren't very enthusiastic over Hillary's candidacy.

The Republicans might be in the same position now. It's important to remember that the Bush administration were almost as arrogant toward the Congressional Republicans as they were toward the Democrats. Rush Limbaugh is famous for saying that he was tired of carrying water for Congressional Republicans. Congressional Republicans might have gotten tired of carrying the water for the Bush administration.

And who can blame them.

Bush fatigue: Republicans caught it.

Finally!

One More Day!

Bad to Be on the Bottom

An item from today's Lexington Herald-Leader:

residents of [Kentucky's] 5th Congressional District have the shortest average life expectancy of those of any congressional district in the country.

My home of Morehead is in Kentucky's 5th Congressional district and it's easy to see where it's true. It's very difficult to tell the age of a lot of people I meet or people I see in Walmart. Even people in their 20's can have a broken down look that makes you wonder if they're in their forties or fifties. Likewise, Mrs. RSI and I have met women in their early forties who see themselves as more elderly than my 73 year old mother and dress accordingly.

The Herald-Leader implies that Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Hal Rogers bear considerable responsibility for the pervasive poverty that results in low life expectancies. They're not totally wrong. As Republicans, McConnell and Rogers are attached to the small government perspective that results in fewer federal programs and less federal money coming into the region. There isn't that much private investment in the region. So, the lack of federal money really hurts.

But, it is also fair to note that Hal Rogers has been active on economic development issues during his tenure in Congress. The Forward in the Fifth program, Center for Rural Development, Pride Program, and Southern and Eastern Kentucky Tourism Development Association (SEKTDA) have all been worthy efforts even though they haven't resulted in structural economic change.

I Could Have Laughed to Death

Matt Taibbi's take on elite opinion idiot Thomas Friedman is that funny. The left has generally been turning its attention from the Bush administration to incompetents in the Democratic coalition. Friedman is a daily target for bloggers like Glenn Greenwald while John Kerry and Joe Biden have been taking some hard hits from the Daily Show.

Because the Obama administration has not yet taken shape, the media field surrounding the Obama administration is also indeterminate. No one knows how the sub-fields of the right-wing media, mainstream media, and the left media are going to function or how much weight each of these fields is going to have over the next eight years (making the big assumption that Obama is going to win re-election).

Right now however, I think it is safe to say that the emerging left-wing media is the dynamic element in the contemporary media landscape. Television personalities like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Rachel Maddow, blogs like The Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Digby, and Glenn Greenwald, and op-ed columnists like Paul Krugman have supplanted organs like The New Republic as opinion-makers on the left.

However, the mainstream media and conservative media have become such big question marks that it's impossible to get a read on the field as a whole. To what extent will the mainstream media be cheerleaders for President Obama and his administration? If they decide to focus on celebratizing Obama and his family, cheerleading might be their main function? But liberal bloggers also point out that elements of the media are seeking to coalesce around right of center opinion concerning the economic stimulus package, Bush administration war crimes, and the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Perhaps the mainstream media will become the chief public source of right-of-center questioning of the Obama administration.

But that's far from being written into stone.

It's difficult to get a read on the conservative media as well. Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox, and the elements in the conservative media that drive opinion among conservative activists have been unreserved in their opposition toward Obama. But elite media figures like William Kristol, George Will, and David Brooks don't like being limited to "preaching to the choir" and are wary of popular conservative constituencies like religious conservatives and hard-core small government types. Given certain conditions, it's easy all of these figures supporting Obama over their erstwhile conservative constituencies.

But, people like Matt Taibbi are the media wild-card. If large audiences of informed readers start laughing themselves to death over Tom Friedman columns, the media landscape is going to start tilting toward the left.

An Almost Final Word on George Bush

My almost final word on George Bush is that I didn't have much interest President Bush's fairwell address. I didn't pay attention to the exit interviews either.

When you take away the blundering invasion of Iraq, the economic collapse, the crimes against humanity, and the crimes against competence, George Bush just isn't that interesting.

Ultimately, George Bush has to be seen as a failed president. I believe that historians will find that Bush administration negligence had a substantial role in bringing about 9-11. They'll find that Bush's people viewed the aftermath of 9-11 as an opportunity to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein and launched a clever campaign to conceal both their war objectives and the fact that the decision was made so early. Given the ideological character of the fight over warrantless wiretapping and torture, there probably won't be much agreement over whether Bush administration figures were war criminals. However, historians will determine that Bush administration economic policies and deregulation mentality hurried along the financial collapse. There isn't much discussion of the effect of the Bush administration on the capacity of American government, but I'm willing to bet that future historians will find that the Bush years resulted in a broad deterioration in the skill level and fundamental competence of the federal government.

In the final analysis, Bush reminds me of Buchanan and Hoover in being a president whose failure is so monumental that he's going to usher in fundamental changes in American government and society. Does that mean that George Bush is the worst president in American history?

Probably not.

It looks like Barack Obama is going to be successful in using the economic stimulus package to push health care reform and jump-start government efforts to promote a transition to a green energy economy.

Those are fundamental changes but are not as far reaching as the Civil War or the New Deal. In this sense, George Bush wasn't as big a failure as Buchanan or Hoover because his failures are not connected with cataclysms like the Civil War or Great Depression.

Here lies the significance of the surge. Because Bush's surge policy in Iraq has been moderately successful, the Obama administration can maintain America's imperial role in the world. The Bush administration really would have been "the worst" is they had failed so badly that the U. S. had to fundamentally change its role in the international system.

But Bush did screw up badly enough to be included in the bottom three.

More Flexible Than I Thought

Well, real winter has come to this section of Kentucky. It was 15 degrees out this morning, just as frigid and sunny as a 15 degree day in Michigan or upstate New York.

That puts the RSI family in a bad way. Our house has large windows that catch a lot of sun but also let in a fair amount of cold. The furnace doesn't work that well either.

But the cold also brings out some unnoticed talents. While walking on N. Wilson Ave., I slipped on the ice and did a full split without ripping up any of my 54 year-old muscles.

Guess I'm more flexible than I thought.

Cheney Lied About the People Who Died

Why does Dick Cheney think that the Iraq invasion was worth 4,500 American combat deaths and the more than 100,000 Iraqis who died.

Mostly because Cheney didn't give a damn about any of the Americans or Iraqis who died.

For Cheney, the war was worthwhile because neo-conservatives were able to achieve their long-standing goal of overthrowing Saddam Hussein.

A secondary goal was getting out without being completely humiliated. The surge accomplished that.

More than 100,000 Iraqis might be dead, the Maliki government is rife with corruption, and the country is much closer to being a Somalia-type failed regime than a stable democracy.

But Cheney's satisfied because he got everything he wanted.

What a guy.

I Hope Obama Wasn't Too Bored

Well, the big blog news this evening is that Barack Obama had dinner with conservative pundits George Will, Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, and William Kristol.

I hope he wasn't too bored.

Reporters expect that liberal bloggers like myself will be "outraged."

Nevertheless, Obama's choice of dining partners seem likely to cause its fair share of hair-pulling and eye-rolling. As the pool reporter, Ken Bazinet of the New York Daily News, penned in his write up: "This is for real, folks. The bloggers are going to love this one."

I don't know why.

It's not like Glenn Greenwald, Josh Marshall, Digby, and the folks at Daily Kos and Huffington Post can begrudge the president-elect the time he spends listening to conservative pundits. With the exception of Will, the big-time liberal bloggers all pay close attention to these writers themselves.

Likewise, bloggers don't view these Kristol, Brooks, et., al, so much as "conservatives" as they see them as members of the "village" of politicians, commentators, and lobbyists who constitute the permanent American political elite.

In this sense, Obama isn't so much stroking conservative opinion as acquainting himself with leading members of the elite.

Does this mean that conservatives are going to have an influence over Obama's views on the stimulus package, the brutal Israeli invasion of Gaza, Guantanamo, torture, and other issues.

I don't think so.

Remembering back to Palestinian scholar Rashid Khalidi's reports of his dinners with Obama, it appears that Obama has a knack for making people think he agrees with him while remaining uncommitted.

I imagine conservative luminaries will find the same thing.

Of course, I'd like it better if Obama was spending more time with Rashid Khalidi.

Joe the Plumber--Real Right-Winger

Joe the Plumber is back, reporting from Israel and talking about the media:

"To be honest with ya, I don't think journalists should be (allowed) anywhere near . . . war," Wurzelbacher told other reporters in the Israeli town of Sderot. "You guys report where our troops are at, what's happening day-to-day, you make a big deal out of it. I think it's asinine. "I like back in World War One and World War Two when you go to the theatre and you'd see your troops on the screen and everyone be really excited and happy for them."

"Now, everyone's got an opinion," he added.

Wurzelbacher added that "war is hell and if you're going to sit there and say, 'Look at this atrocity,' well, you don't know the full story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it."

Joe the Plumber's right. We don't know the full stories behind the atrocities. That's because the atrocities are usually worse than the media say. We don't know half the atrocities either because the media doesn't get to report them.

War is hell and the public needs to know exactly how deep into hell their countries are.

But maybe that's not quite what Joe meant.

Bonus material: Working on a Song
"The Joe the Plumber Song" (apologies to Dr. Hook)

He's a real right winger, he's got an itchy trigger
and he's loved everywhere he goes
He talks about taxes and he talks about guns
and you know his name is Joe


(rest of song under construction)

Sarah Palin: The White Oprah?

The conservative on-line magazine Newsmax has an item about Sarah Palin becoming "the White Oprah." Actually, it would be more accurate to refer to Palin as becoming the "white conservative Oprah."

Why not?

Everybody would win.

Sarah Palin would win because she's now too big for Alaska and needs a national stage.

Conservativism would win because they really need a cult figure who's more alive than Ronald Reagan.

And there would be nothing better for the left than having Sarah Palin on national television for an hour every day. My left-wing feet get very happy thinking about Palin's patter about the real meaning of Pentacostalism, God's plan for the Israelis and Palestinians, and why all those little embryos should be kept in cold storage rather than used for health research.

Personally, I can't wait to see Fox's launch of Sarah! She'd practically be a recruitment machine for the left.

Barbie Without Barbie Commercials

Should parents who support feminism ban Barbies from their households? Salon has an article on a discussion between two parents in separate households about how they gradually accepted Barbie for their daughters despite their initial desires to ban them.

On Friday, Babble hosted a parental "smackdown" over Barbie. In one corner: Jeanne Sagera, a parent who once had "feminist outrage" over Barbie but ultimately gave in and allowed her daughter to play with the infamous plastic female. In the other: Mike Adamick, who never wanted a Barbie in his house, but ultimately gave in and allowed his daughter to have one. Let's get ready to agree!

"Now I've seen the actual impact of Barbie up close and I'm not too worried" So, despite dubbing it a "smackdown," it wasn't so much a face off between warring parenting views as it was commiseration over giving in to the pull of plastic-perfect doll. Sagera writes that she was anti-Barbie until she witnessed her daughter's joy at receiving a mermaid Barbie. Then she rationalized that, though Barbie has "impossibly big boobs and and impossibly small waist," she is "hardly the only doll to be lacking in realism."

Barbies are a feminist problem because they're one of the leading representations of women in terms of the destructive appearance ideal of being very thin and having large breasts at the same time. Barbies can be harmful to girls because they encourage girls to believe that they need to look like Barbies and that they should consider plastic surgery and be perpetually worried about their weight in the effort to attain the Barbie ideal. There might be a problem with boys as well. Awareness of Barbies might also encourage little boys to believe that the only attractive girls are the ones who look like Barbies.

The RSI household is unique in that I teach feminist political thought and am aware of feminist issues while Mrs. RSI is fairly traditional in being loyal to women as a gender but not particularly interested in feminism. I think Mrs. RSI likes it that I have a feminist awareness, but it fairly cautious about it herself.

As our daughters started to reach "Barbie age," the Barbies came in because Mrs. RSI had no particular problem with them. I remember being reluctant but eventually giving in. Barbies are cheap if you just buy the doll and don't get committed to the various Barbie fantasies and all of the clothes and accessories that go with that. I have to admit that I'm fairly favorable toward anything that's cheap and a Barbie was a $7 birthday or Christmas present in an expensive world. So I started buying Barbies for the girls as well.

But Barbies weren't harmful in our house either. That's mostly because the girls had no context for adapting a Barbie ideal. The RSI household does not have television. So, they saw no Barbie commercials, no clothes commercials, no make-up commercials, and no hair commercials. Not being pervasively exposed to the "Barbie ideal" through the media, the girls did not associate the Barbie ideal with their Barbies. If I remember correctly, Miss Teen RSI was mostly interested in decapitating the Barbies and playing with them in the tub while Miss Tween RSI liked to line up all her dolls--Barbies and non-Barbies alike--and give them time outs. Miss Tween RSI got a lot of time-outs herself. I guess she wanted to share the wealth.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of the story. It's hard to say at this point, but my guess would be that my daughters have adopted the Barbie ideal without associating it with Barbies. Miss Teen RSI is a slave to make-up and dresses in middling fashion and there's no reason to think that Miss Tween won't be. It's extremely difficult for girls to escape from fashion whether they get it from their Barbies or not.

The Obama Landscape

One of the things that's hard to figure out is the layout of the American political landscape as the Obama administration takes shape.

Here's a hint: one question is what the Obama administration is going to do when the Republicans reject compromise on the economic stimulus package.

The first weeks of the Obama administration will be probably dominated by the efforts to pass a large-scale stimulus package to counter the effects of the deepening recession.

Obama laid out the general contours of the stimulus package again today. It will be worth close to $800 billion with about 60% new spending and 40% tax cuts and the new spending will be oriented toward education, health care, alternative energy, and infrastructure spending. Thus, the new spending is going to be a vehicle through which the Obama administration seeks to enact longstanding Democratic domestic policy priorities.

Although Obama proposed middle-class tax cuts during the campaign, the prominence of tax cuts in the mix is already seen as a compromise gesture toward Republicans.

But the Republicans are going to reject the compromise. The Republicans can accept the tax cuts, but they will reject the new government spending. Republican spokespeople already have their arguments lined up. The Republicans claim that large scale government spending didn't work during the Great Depression and it won't work now. They'll also claim that Obama is promoting "hysteria" about the economy and that the current recession doesn't require such drastic remedies. Finally, the Republicans are setting themselves up to argue that Congress isn't giving the stimulus package the detailed committee consideration that it needs.

But the bottom line is that any compromise with the Obama administration on government spending will be unacceptable to conservative activists. The hard right that would rather have a depression than more large-scale government spending. As a result, Mitch McConnell will refuse compromise and do everything in his power to scuttle the stimulus package.

So, the question is what will the Obama administration do when it becomes clear that the Republicans will be recalcitrant?

Will they totally cave and abandon the spending programs in favor of the massive tax cuts that the Republicans want? That's what the Democratic Congressional leadership did on Iraq war funding. They gave Bush everything he wanted without condition.

Or will they mostly cave and go for a token program of government "investments" in a package largely devoted to tax cuts? That's what the Democrats did on warrantless wiretapping and telecom immunity legislation last year and Obama himself went along with it. The Democratic leadership got very little of what they wanted while mostly giving away the store on telecom immunity. Even the Republicans were surprised.

Or will Obama and the Democratic leadership call out the Republicans for refusing to do what's necessary in the face of a rapidly deteriorating economy and fight them?

This is what it's going to get down too. Barack Obama has a strong instinct for bipartisanship and compromise. The Republicans have just as strong an instinct for rejecting compromise.

Something will have to give.

What Is Harry Reid Good For?

Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake is not my favorite liberal blogger. Her blackface rendition of Joe Lieberman is still the most racist thing I've ever seen out of the left blogosphere.

But Hamsher might be spot-on about the clumsy way Democratic majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada has handled the Roland Burris fiasco in the Senate.

Basically, Hamsher argues that Reid tried to bluster his way through indicted Blago's nomination of Roland Burris to replace Barack Obama but had every one of his bluff called by Blagojevich, Burris, and the Republicans.

Here's part of Hamsher's post:

I want to play poker with Harry Reid. Really I do.
Rather than call for a special election in Illinois, Reid sends a letter to Blagojevich signed by everyone in the Democratic caucus asking him to step down. They assert that they will not seat anyone he appoints.

Harumph.

Blago wipes his ass with it and appoints Burris anyway.

Burris holds a press conference and announces he will be in D.C. on Tuesday to be sworn in with the rest of the Senate. Bobby Rush plays the race card. Reid does not see the handwriting on the wall.

He counters by calling Secretary of State Jesse White, who has already said he won't sign Burris's certification, and encourages him. What White is doing is most certainly outside his legal authority -- the Secretary of State doesn't have veto power. But Reid not only gives White a high five, he tells him they'll use this to keep Burris from being seated.

Then he smugly chortles about how he'll manipulate Senate procedure and punt to the Rules Committee, and assures everyone that they will drag things out for months if necessary until Blago is impeached and his successor appoints someone else. And he does it in the press.

Upon reading this, Cornyn announces that Franken won't have a signed certification either, and the GOP will use it to keep him from being seated,

And Hamsher keeps going in a funny and telling post. It's all true. It's all embarrassing for Reid and it might just be the beginning of many leadership failures for the Congressional Democrats.

But I'm also wondering if Reid's manuevering didn't have the effect of minimizing the damage.

The real danger of the nomination of Roland Burris was that it would infect Senate Democrats with with the taint of Blago's corruption from the beginning of this session of Congress.

But even if Reid eventually caves, that won't be the case.

Reid fought the nomination in the name of preventing Blagojevich from making a Senate appointment that Blagojevich has already been indicted in federal court for trying to sell. It was the right thing to do and Reid had to do it or it was going to look like "business as usual" in Washington.

True, Reid was ineffective in fighting the Burris nomination. True, Reid looked stupid. He looked like he was racially insensitive as well.

But in fighting the Burris nomination, Reid did manage to cut his losses in a no-win situation for the Senate Democrats.

And that's pretty much what Harry Reid is good for, acting with stubborn, hedgehog resolve to cut the losses for the Democrats when they can't really win.

It's not exactly visionary leadership, but it's the best Senate Democrats can do.

Lucky to be Good . . . or Great!

Having started reading the management guru book Good to Great, I'm getting the idea that luck is a big part of corporate success. CEO's of good companies, great companies, and not-so-great companies attribute their results to luck.

As a result, luck must have something to do with it.

Unsurprisingly, Collins disagrees. In the first couple of chapters, he attributes the success of "Good to Great" companies to the "Level 5 leadership" of "humble but determined" CEO's.

Hopefully, it'll get better.

A New Adventure

Fresh off our somewhat less than triumphant trip to Huntington, the RSI family is planning an expedition to the Obama inauguration.

Burdened by an evil head cold, RSI is rather grumpy about the idea.

The Brilliance of the Panetta Appointment

Barack Obama's nomination of Leon Panetta to head the CIA is an excellent move and should help Obama manage many of the problems of the CIA. Panetta was a 7-term Congressman from California who served as the head of the Office of Management and Budget and Chief of Staff during Bill Clinton's first term between 1993 and 1997. Since the 2000 election, Panetta' has been circulating as part of this country's policy elite. Panetta frequently appears on television to discuss politics, heads up his own public policy institute, and was a member of the Iraq Study Group.

Unlike Rudy Giuliani, it appears that Panetta actually went to the meetings.

Like all of Obama's legal and intelligence appointments, Panetta is "committed to breaking with some of the past practices" of warrantless wiretapping, torture, and rendition of suspects to be tortured in other countries.

But that's not the end of the story.

The CIA is not the same as the Department of Justice or the Office of Legal Counsel. John Yoo may have proposed the guidelines that allowed illegal practices like torture. Attorney General John Ashcroft may have signed off on those illegal practices and the "Principles Committee" of Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice and others may have approved the specific implementation of those practices.

But it was CIA personnel who implemented the illegal practices authorized by the upper levels of the Bush administration legal apparatus. CIA people did the interrogating, supervised the waterboarding, set up the stress positions, calibrated the sensory deprivation, and engaged in all the other practices that constituted torture. CIA personnel also supervised the extraordinary rendition (i.e., kidnapping and torture) program and kept in touch with the interrogation apparatus in countries like Egypt and Romania.

In other words, CIA personnel carried out the crimes against humanity authorized by their superiors. Many if not most of those people believed that what they were doing was productive, important, and morally right.

And they're still going to be working for the CIA.

So will all the operatives who disapproved of Bush administration practices and/or leaked about them to the media.

As a result, the Obama CIA will probably be divided between those who were unhappy with the approach and those who are unhappy about moving away from the Bush approach. And it will probably be a big mess. There will be lots of complaints to the mainstream media, bloggers, and friendly members of Congress. Back-biting will flourish, pseudo-scandals about "intelligence failures" will emerge, and morale will be low.

That's why Panetta is such a good appointment. Panetta's a hard-headed guy who knows what he's doing bureaucratically and represents himself well on television. He's as good a bet as anyone to be able to manuever through all the land mines that are going to come out of the CIA over the next four years. What makes Panetta such a great pick is not so much that he wants to get away from Bush legacy. Rather Panetta is capable of dealing successfully with all the problems involved in getting away from the Bush legacy.

Good call Mr. President-elect.

Let Coulter Be Coulter

CANCELING COULTER. It's been announced that Ann Coulter's appearance on Tuesday's Today Show to promote her new book was canceled. That's a bad idea. It was also a bad idea for Media Matters to launch a campaign against Coulter's television appearance. Keeping Coulter out of the public eye is bad political morality and bad politics. If anything, sensible people on the left should be trying to make Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh even more prominent than they are now.

Why is an embargo on Ann Coulter bad political morality?

One word: censorship.

Whether we on the left like it or not, Ann Coulter is a major figure in American society. She also makes her living primarily as a writer and promotes her books through media appearances and interviews. Coulter is best known for her television appearances, but she also gives interviews to talk radio and magazines and does speeches at universities and mega-churches. Preventing Coulter from making public appearances in venues that would otherwise welcome her is a form of censorship. As John Stuart Mill argued in On Liberty, freedom of thought involves promoting ideas as well as publishing them. By seeking to prevent Coulter from appearing on Today, Media Matters was circumscribing her ability to promote her ideas, limiting the discussion of her ideas in the public realm, and thereby censoring her.

Given that censorship is bad political morality in any kind of free society, Media Matters is morally wrong in their effort to get NBC to cancel Coulter's appearance.

WORTH HER WEIGHT IN GOLD. It's also important to emphasize that keeping Coulter off the Today show is bad politics. In many ways, Ann Coulter is the most recognizable face of movement conservatism in the United States. Where conservative celebrities like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly all live in their own version of right-wing caves, Coulter is out in the world mesmerizing audiences with her daring defiance of contemporary political morality, i.e., "political correctness." Where Limbaugh et al., gingerly venture over the line into racism, homophobia, and misogyny, Coulter goes all in by arguing that women shouldn't have the right to vote, calling John Edwards and Al Gore explicatives for being gay, and calling African-Americans everything but the n-word.

This is why the left hardly has a better friend than Ann Coulter. Coulter is the telegenic face of conservative hatred of black people, gays, women, Hispanics, Jews, and women. Not that the non-white, non-male, and non-Christian population hasn't already gotten the message, but Coulter is a constant and especially prominent reminder that the Republican Party is the party of social bigotry in the United States.

In other words, Ann Coulter is worth her weight in gold to the left. If anything, Media Matters and Huffington Post should be booking more shows for Coulter rather than keeping her from appearing on already scheduled programs.

So, let Coulter be Coulter. It's the right thing to do and it's good liberal politics.

The Downside of Sainthood

It's widely acknowledged that Mrs. RSI is a saint, not least for tolerating all my blogging about her.

But sainthood has its downside.

Today, Mrs. RSI accepted an offer of part-time employment with the local school system . . . and promptly negotiated her pay rate down five dollars an hour.

Gotta Love Her.

Speed Bump in the Sit-Com Life

Mrs. RSI and I joined some friends for an evening in Huntington, WV on Saturday. We had dinner, shared some wine, and made some witty comments. I told an especially funny story about how I got a new package from UPS every day.

A gratifying and relaxing evening was had by all.

Well, not exactly.

Let's begin with Mrs. RSI. She had been struggling all week with mold at her mother's house in Florida and was looking forward to coming home on Saturday. But the first sign of pratfalls to come happened when connecting flight to Atlanta was delayed for a couple of hours in Sarasota.

It turned out that delay didn't matter. That's because because she was delayed for eight hours by fog and mechanical problems in the Atlanta airport. Finally, a weary Mrs. RSI was able to catch a flight for Charleston, WV rather than her initial destination of Lexington, KY.

And even the Atlanta delay had an element of luck. Mrs. RSI's Delta ticket said Sarasota to Atlanta to Lexington but the Delta computer had Sarasota to Atlanta to Memphis to Cincinnati to Lexington.

Given weather conditions and "mechanical difficulties," it might have taken her a week to make that trip.

Although Mrs. RSI's luggage did arrive at the Lexington Airport sometime around midnight.

My day was a lot simpler. Following up on Friday night's awful virus disaster, I spent seven hours on the phone with Microsoft and McAfee technicians where I battled their technicians to a standstill. It turned out that my almost complete ignorance of computers was well-matched with the impenetrable South Asian accents of the technicians.

Let's just say that progress was slow.

But I did get to have dinner with our friends in Huntington and thoroughly enjoyed our package discussion.

Then I had to drive to Charleston to pick up Mrs. RSI. Fortunately, I got lost three times going to the Chuck Yeager Airport in Charleston and got to the airport only one hour before Mrs. RSI's much delayed flight.

And then we had a lot of laughs driving to the hotel in Huntington and telling each other about all the disasters we had barely avoided.

Yes, the sit-com life.

Nothing better.

However, when we were getting ready to leave this morning, we saw that our car had been vandalized. Somebody pulled the front bumper away from the car and almost sliced totally through the bumper.

I think it will be covered by insurance but it's nasty stuff.

And, having hit one of the speed bumps in our sit-com way of living, we drove our battered car home.