June 2nd, 2009
Love how the snark oozes just a hair below the surface:
(CNN) — It appears President Obama has to step up his reading pace if he wants to beat his predecessor in one particular measure: how many books a president can polish off a year.
In an interview with the BBC Tuesday, Obama said he is currently reading Joseph O’Neill’s 270-page novel “Netherland,” a book Obama first said he began back in April.
If Obama is close to finishing the novel, that puts him on less than a 10 book-a-year pace, far less than the close to 100 books President Bush was reportedly able to finish in the same amount of time.
[...]
In 2006, Bush read 95 books to Roves 110: a Herculean pace of nearly two books a week — in an election year to boot — for the ex-president. But, according to Rove, Bush’s reading slowed a bit in the final years of his presidency, finishing a not-too-shabby 51 books in 2007 and at least 40 in 2008.
And if that’s not impressive enough, Rove also said Bush found time to read the Bible “from cover to cover” every year.
What can one say, except, Yeah, right!? One hundred books per year my [blip]!
I wish he had read the August 6, 2001, President’s Daily Brief: Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.
March 2nd, 2009
For quite a while I’ve been hoping to see a time when an American president would come along to echo FDR’s struggle against the forces of greed and “selfishness,” that brought our nation to its knees in the 1930s, and which have done so again.
Unexpectedly, at least to me, though I enthusiastically voted for him, it seems that the American president that I’ve been waiting for has, alas, come along, in the form of Barak Obama. I will put aside president Obama’s budget, which has been described as finally treating us as adults, and focus on his recent FDResque style.
On his recent Saturday address, president Obama sounded a populist message that, I believe, will give him some leverage when taking on the “selfish” interests that are so entrenched in Washington, DC. Of course, just like FDR, president Obama recognizes and reminds us that any move against these entrenched forces will be met with deeply rooted resistance, and that the fight will be arduous.
Here’s the passage from the president’s Saturday morning address, on his proposed budget, that has given me such hope:
I realize that passing this budget won’t be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington. I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families. I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries. In other words, I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:
So am I.
The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long, but I don’t. I work for the American people.
What I love about this passage is the strength that it reflects, and, also, president Obama’s acknowledgement that he works for US, the American people.
Moreover, I also hear echoes of one of my favorite FDR quotes in president Obama’s statement, which is something I’ve been wanting to hear from a Democratic president for a long time now.
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.
I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.
Franklin Roosevelt’s Address Announcing the Second New Deal
October 31, 1936
In my lifetime, president Obama is the closest I’ve come to hearing echoes of FDR, and his commitment to economic security for all.
Here’s president Obama’s address, it’s well worth watching:
February 22nd, 2009
If, like me, you’ve been consumed by news of the economy, with all of its dark and somber predictions, you probably have been searching for a metaphor or narrative to capture how it all feels.
As an example of the type of dire predictions that we’re hearing, in his latest column Paul Krugman referred to a passage from a Federal Reserve meeting where it was commented that, “[P]articipants anticipated that unemployment would remain substantially above its longer-run sustainable rate at the end of 2011, even absent further economic shocks; a few indicated that more than five to six years would be needed for the economy to converge to a longer-run path characterized by sustainable rates of output growth and unemployment and by an appropriate rate of inflation.”
The bottom line is that we’re in for a prolonged period of economic pain; and, while the recovery package that president Obama will help, it simply will not be enough to, as Krugman put it, stop the pain.
David Sirota, writing on the same theme, puts it far more poetically and, having driven the route, my mind’s eye immediately recognizes the imagery and landscape:
Why did President Obama choose to come all the way to Denver, Colo., to sign the economic recovery package this week? Did he throw a dart at a map?
[...]
This is the presidential candidate who launched his campaign at the site of Abraham Lincoln’s historic “house divided” speech and who delivered his own famous address on race at Philadelphia’s Constitution Center. So it’s a safe wager that the president had a metaphor in mind when he celebrated the bill’s passage along the Front Range. And what a perfect metaphor it was: The setting told America – if subtly – that the toughest terrain is yet to come.
Denver, after all, is more than a heartland locale that screams “outside the Beltway” – it is an outpost that warns visitors. From 19th century pioneers to 20th century beatniks to 21st century roadtrippers, most cross-country travelers on romantic odysseys west believe they’ve almost completed their voyage when they first hit the Denver city line. They look at the tumbleweed and ranchland on the outskirts of town and tell themselves they can smell the Pacific Ocean’s salty mist. Then they see that wall of snow-capped peaks and realize the most grueling trek is still ahead.
That’s where we are right now – in the euphoric, sky’s-the-limit journey that began on election night, America is standing here in Denver contemplating a menacing horizon.
The stimulus bill, while essential, was merely our gentle rise up through the Great Plains. In unleashing a flood of deficit spending and avoiding tax increases, the legislation didn’t threaten moneyed interests, didn’t alter the existing economic topography, and therefore didn’t attract the withering hostility from business groups that typically prevents hope from becoming change. While Republican potholes slowed the trip, the bill’s refusal to ask anyone for any sacrifice guaranteed its ratification.
From here, though, the highway starts looking like Interstate 70 at Idaho Springs – steeper and more treacherous. The avalanches of corporate money, and the gale-force gusts of lobbyist opposition that the stimulus evaded will now be ever-present as bills to tighten financial regulation, strengthen union rights, limit carbon emissions and transform our health care system begin marching forward.
[...]
The road called “reform” that cuts through this craggy political landscape is littered with legislative corpses, as these interests have done – and will do – everything possible to protect their bottom line. Obama seems to know this reality, saying the stimulus bill is only “the beginning of the end” of the economic emergency. He is carefully plotting his next tactical decisions – when to stage particular climbs, which passes to traverse, what cliffs to avoid. But with the stakes so high – with unemployment rising, the health care crisis worsening and the planet on the brink of incineration – one decision must be a foregone conclusion: the decision about whether to proceed.
Turning back now, or staying here in Denver for fear the ascent is too tough, is no longer an option. We’re past the point of no return.
I wonder what things will be like when I and my fellow travelers arrive at the Pacific.
February 16th, 2009
“Do you approve or disapprove of the job the Republican leaders in Congress are doing?”
51% disapprove
Pew Research Center Poll. Feb. 4-8, 2009.
N=1,303 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3
Josh Marshall, over at TalkingPointsMemo.com, captures something that I’ve given a couple of thoughts this past week. Understandably, if you watched the coverage over the stimulus bill you probably thought that president Obama was out of sync with Americans and that republicans, somehow, were now representative of public opinion. Of course, you would’ve been utterly and 110% wrong; however, according to the mainstream establishment media, especially cable news, republicans were gaining traction with their message of opposition against the stimulus bill and, thereby, against president Obama.
More importantly, however, than where the media thinks the momentum lies in the back-and-forth of a debate, the arguments or frames that the media decide to present to the public regarding policy do, in fact, influence public opinion. And, by this standard, the establishment media, given the last 25 years of conservative dominance of Washington, D.C., is simply predisposed hardwired to be more accommodating to the republican propaganda arm message machine. Washington, D.C., is a town that remains dominated by a conservative infrastructure composed of think thanks, media consultants, corporate lobbyists that are fundamentally attuned to the conservative ideology, and, therefore, composed of media producers with rolodexes filled with the numbers and contact information of conservative spokespersons ready to provide a quote, or to appear on-camera.
ThinkProgress.org ran the numbers and, as suspected, these illustrate that establishment media is dominated 2-to-1 by republican spokespersons, which is why consumers of establishment media may have thought that republicans were up and that president Obama was down in the court of public opinion:
As Media Matters has documented, during the Bush administration, the media consistently allowed conservatives to dominate their shows, booking them as guests far more often than progressives. The rationale was that Republicans were “in power.”
It appears that old habits die hard. Even though President Obama and his team are in control of the executive branch and Democrats are in the majority in Congress, the cable networks are still turning more often to Republicans and allowing them to set the agenda on major issues, most recently on the debate over the economic recovery package.
[...]
In total, from 6 AM on Monday to 4 PM on Wednesday, the networks have hosted Republican lawmakers 51 times and Democratic lawmakers only 26 times. Surprisingly, Fox News came the closest to offering balance, hosting 8 Republicans and 6 Democrats. CNN had only two Democrats compared to 7 Republicans.
As Josh Marshall points out, there seems to be a big disconnect between the establishment media in Washington, D.C., and the rest of America:
“It’s eerie — I read the news from the Beltway, and there’s this disconnect with the polls from the Midwest that I see all around me.”
That’s from Ann Selzer, the Iowa pollster who’s an expert on public opinion throughout the midwest, as quoted by Ben Smith.
It really is the big story of the first weeks of the Obama administration. In Washington, it was a battle royale between the new president and an emboldened Republican minority. At times they seemed to have him on the ropes. And yet in the country at large, Obama remains super popular. And the GOP is wildly unpopular.
[...]
The city remains wired for the GOP. Not that it’s done them a great deal of good of late. But it remains a key part of understanding every part of what is happening today.
If the dynamic described above is true, and I believe that it is, it may take a while before the mainstream establishment media starts reflecting the shift in the balance of power that has come about in the country, given how unlikely it is that news producers and editors will empty out their trusty rolodexes.
February 14th, 2009
The fight over the stimulus bill has presented observers and participants many lessons, I just hope that president Obama and his advisors take note and adjust — which I’m confident that they will.
Lesson Nº 1: So-called bipartisanship, while useful as a tool to contrast oneself against the opposition, poses limits on the offensive tactical options available to use against the opposition. Therefore, bipartisanship, in and of it self, cannot be the metric that the Obama administration offers as the yard-stick to measure the success of their initiatives. Because, as we saw during the early coverage of the stimulus fight, the mainstream establishment media will mindlessly focus on the so-called bipartisanship narrative, and ignore the substance behind any policy proposals.
Lesson Nº 2: President Obama must be the face of the Democratic party, and of his administration’s proposals. It’s clear that the GOP (Grand Obstructionist Party) strategy is to paint the faceless “Democratic led Congress” as the enemy; because, the calculus must go, they believe that they cannot win head-to-head fight against the photogenic, media-savvy, and very popular president Obama. Therefore, as we saw in the latter half of the stimulus fight, president Obama must use the bully pulpit to present himself as the voice and face of the Democratic agenda.
Lesson Nº 3: Use president Obama’s popularity to contrast himself against the opposition. The best example of this, again, came in the latter half of the fight over the stimulus bill, when president Obama embarked on a campaign-style town hall meeting tour, that reminded the DC establishment media why Obama won the presidency; and, too, that GOP obstruction is out-of-step with the public, which overwhelming backs our president’s policies.
Lesson Nº 4: Finally, president Obama must remember that he and the Democratic party won with overwhelming public support, and that he has a mandate to change the course that the country has been in over the past eight years. Therefore, in spite of the timidity that’s always urged by establishment insiders in the media and in the halls of the capital, president Obama must assert his popular mandate and now shy away from pursuing a bold progressive agenda.
