TheCenterLane.com

© 2008 – 2024 John T. Burke, Jr.

Tsunami Of Disgust

Comments Off on Tsunami Of Disgust

You can count me among those who believe that the non-stop Republican Presidential debates are working to President Obama’s advantage.  How many times have you heard some television news commentator remark that “the big winner of last night’s Republican debate was Barack Obama”?  As Julianna Goldman reported for Bloomberg BusinessWeek, two recent polls have revealed that Obama is no longer looking quite as bad as he did a few months ago:

Forty-nine percent of Americans approve of how Obama is handling his job, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll and another conducted for CNN.  The rate was the highest in both surveys since a short-lived bump the president got following the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May.

Nevertheless, there is an unstoppable wave of criticism directed against the President by his former supporters as well as those disgusted by Obama’s subservience to his benefactors on Wall Street.   In my last posting, I discussed Bill Black’s rebuttal to President Obama’s most recent attempt to claim that no laws were broken by the banksters who caused the 2008 financial crisis.

The wave of disgust at Obama’s exoneration of the financial fraudsters has gained quite a bit of momentum since that outrageous remark appeared on the December 11 broadcast of 60 Minutes.  Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone focused on the consequences of this level of dishonesty:

What makes Obama’s statements so dangerous is that they suggest an ongoing strategy of covering up the Wall Street crimewave. There is ample evidence out there that the Obama administration has eased up on prosecutions of Wall Street as part of a conscious strategy to prevent a collapse of confidence in our financial system, with the expected 50-state foreclosure settlement being the landmark effort in the cover-up, intended mainly to bury a generation of fraud.

*   *   *

In other words, Geithner and Obama are behaving like Lehman executives before the crash of Lehman, not disclosing the full extent of the internal problem in order to keep investors from fleeing and creditors from calling in their chits.  It’s worth noting that this kind of behavior – knowingly hiding the derogatory truth from the outside world in order to prevent a run on the bank – is, itself, fraud!

*   *   *

The problem with companies like Lehman and Enron is that their executives always think they can paper over illegalities by committing more crimes, when in fact all they’re usually doing is snowballing the problem so completely out of control that there’s no longer any chance of fixing things, thereby killing the only chance for survival they ever had.

This is exactly what Obama and Geithner are doing now.  By continually lying about the extent of the country’s corruption problems, they’re adding fraud to fraud and raising such a great bonfire of lies that they probably won’t ever be able to fix the underlying mess.

John R. MacArthur, president and publisher of Harper’s Magazine, caused quite a stir on December 14, when an essay he wrote – entitled, “President Obama Richly Deserves to Be Dumped” – was published by the The Providence Journal (Rhode Island).  For some reason, this article does not appear at the newspaper’s website.  However, you can read it in its entirety here.  MacArthur began the piece by highlighting criticism of Obama by his fellow Democrats:

Most prominent among these critics is veteran journalist Bill Moyers, whose October address to a Public Citizen gathering puts the lie to our barely Democratic president’s populist pantomime, acted out last week in a Kansas speech decrying the plight of “innocent, hardworking Americans.”  In his talk, Moyers quoted an authentic Kansas populist, Mary Eizabeth Lease, who in 1890 declared, “Wall Street owns the country.. . .Money rules.. . .The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us.”

A former aide to Lyndon Johnson who knows politics from the inside, Moyers then delivered the coup de grace:  “[Lease] should see us now.  John Boehner calls on the bankers, holds out his cup, and offers them total obeisance from the House majority if only they fill it.  Barack Obama criticizes bankers as fat cats, then invites them to dine at a pricey New York restaurant where the tasting menu runs to $195 a person.”

*   *   *

What’s truly breathtaking is the president’s gall, his stunning contempt for political history and contemporary reality.  Besides neglecting to mention Democratic complicity in the debacle of 2008, he failed to point out that derivatives trading remains largely unregulated while the Securities and Exchange Commission awaits “public comment on a detailed implementation plan” for future regulation.  In other words, until the banking and brokerage lobbies have had their say with John Boehner, Max Baucus, and Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner.  Meanwhile, the administration steadfastly opposes a restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act, the New Deal law that reduced outlandish speculation by separating commercial and investment banks.  In 1999, it was Summers and Geithner, led by Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin (much admired by Obama), who persuaded Congress to repeal this crucial impediment to Wall Street recklessness.

I have frequently discussed the criticism directed at Obama from the political Center as well as the Left (see this and this).  I have also expressed my desire to see Democratic challengers to Obama for the 2012 nomination (see this and this).  In the December 20 edition of The Chicago Tribune, William Pfaff commented on John R. MacArthur’s above-quoted article, while focusing on the realistic consequences of a Democratic Primary challenge to Obama’s nomination:

John MacArthur’s and Bill Moyers’ call for the replacement of Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate next year is very likely to fail, and any Democratic replacement candidate is likely to lose the presidency.  As a veteran Democratic Party activist recently commented, this is the sure way to elect “one of those idiots” running for the Republican nomination.  Very likely he is right.

However, the two may have started something with interesting consequences.  Nobody thought Sen. McCarthy’s challenge was anything more than a futile gesture.  Nobody foresaw the assassinations and military defeat to come, or the ruin of Richard Nixon.  Nobody knows today what disasters may lie ahead in American-supervised Iraq, or in the dual war the Pentagon is waging in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The present foreign policy of the Obama government is fraught with risk.

As for the president himself, the objection to him is that his Democratic Party has become a representative of the same interests as the Republican Party.  The nation cannot bear two parties representing plutocratic power.

The current battle over the payroll tax cut extension reminded me of a piece I wrote last August, in which I included Nate Silver’s observation that it was President Obama’s decision to leave the issue of a payroll tax cut extension “on the table” during the negotiations on the debt ceiling bill.  My thoughts at that time were similar to William Pfaff’s above-quoted lament about the nation’s “two political parties representing plutocratic power”:

As many observers have noted, the plutocracy has been able to accomplish much more with Obama in the White House, than what would have been achievable with a Republican President.  This latest example of a bipartisan effort to trample “the little people” has reinforced my belief that the fake “two-party system” is a sideshow – designed to obfuscate the insidious activities of the Republi-Cratic Corporatist Party.

It’s nice to see that the tsunami of disgust continues to flow across the country.


wordpress stats

Obama Presidency Continues To Self-Destruct

Comments Off on Obama Presidency Continues To Self-Destruct

It’s been almost a year since the “Velma Moment”.  On September 20, 2010, President Obama appeared at a CNBC town hall meeting in Washington.  One of the audience members, Velma Hart, posed a question to the President, which was emblematic of the plight experienced by many 2008 Obama supporters.  Peggy Noonan had some fun with the event in her article, “The Enraged vs. The Exhausted” which characterized the 2010 elections as a battle between those two emotional factions.  The “Velma Moment” exposed Obama’s political vulnerability as an aloof leader, lacking the ability to emotionally connect with his supporters:

The president looked relieved when she stood.  Perhaps he thought she might lob a sympathetic question that would allow him to hit a reply out of the park.  Instead, and in the nicest possible way, Velma Hart lobbed a hand grenade.

“I’m a mother. I’m a wife.  I’m an American veteran, and I’m one of your middle-class Americans.  And quite frankly I’m exhausted.  I’m exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for, and deeply disappointed with where we are.”  She said, “The financial recession has taken an enormous toll on my family.”  She said, “My husband and I have joked for years that we thought we were well beyond the hot-dogs-and-beans era of our lives.  But, quite frankly, it is starting to knock on our door and ring true that that might be where we are headed.”

The President experienced another “Velma Moment” on Monday.  This time, it was Maureen Dowd who had some fun describing the confrontation:

After assuring Obama that she was a supporter, an Iowa mother named Emily asked the president at a town hall at the Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah what had gone wrong.

*   *   *

“So when you ran for office you built a tremendous amount of trust with the American people, that you seemed like someone who wouldn’t move the bar on us,” she said.  “And it seems, especially in the last year, as if your negotiating tactics have sort of cut away at that trust by compromising some key principles that we believed in, like repealing the tax cut, not fighting harder for single-payer.  Even Social Security and Medicare seemed on the line when we were dealing with the debt ceiling.  So I’m just curious, moving forward, what prevents you from taking a harder negotiating stance, being that it seems that the Republicans are taking a really hard stance?”

President Obama can no longer blame the Republicans and Fox News for his poor approval ratings.  He has become his own worst enemy.  As for what Obama has been doing wrong – the title of Andrew Malcolm’s recent piece for the Los Angeles Times summed it up quite well:  “On Day 938 of his presidency, Obama says he’ll have a jobs plan in a month or so”.

Lydia Saad of the Gallup Organization provided this report on the President’s most recent approval ratings:

A new low of 26% of Americans approve of President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy, down 11 percentage points since Gallup last measured it in mid-May and well below his previous low of 35% in November 2010.

Obama earns similarly low approval for his handling of the federal budget deficit (24%) and creating jobs (29%).

*   *   *

President Obama’s approval rating has dwindled in recent weeks to the point that it is barely hugging the 40% line. Three months earlier, it approached or exceeded 50%.

The voters have finally caught on to the fact that Barack Obama’s foremost mission is to serve as a tool for Wall Street.  In Monday’s edition of The Washington Post, Zachary Goldfarb gave us a peek at Obama’s latest gift to the banksters:  a plan to provide a government guarantee of mortgage backed securities:

President Obama has directed a small team of advisers to develop a proposal that would keep the government playing a major role in the nation’s mortgage market, extending a federal loan subsidy for most home buyers, according to people familiar with the matter.

The administration’s reaction to curiosity about the plan was a tip-off that the whole thing stinks.  Mr. Goldfarb’s article included the official White House retort, which was based on the contention that the controversial proposal is just one of three options outlined earlier this year in an administration white paper concerning reform of the housing finance system:

“It is simply false that there has been a decision to move forward with any particular option,” said Matt Vogel, a White House spokesman.  “All three options remain under active consideration and we are deepening our analysis around how each would potentially be implemented.  No recommendation has been made to the president by his economic advisers.”

And if you believe that, you might be interested in buying some real estate located in  . . .

Zachary Goldfarb explained the plan:

Fannie, Freddie or other successor firms would charge a fee to mortgage lenders and banks and use the money to create an insurance pool to cover losses on mortgage securities caused by defaults on the underlying loans.  The government would be the last line of defense in case of another housing market meltdown, using taxpayer money to cover losses only if the insurance pool ran dry.

The Washington Post report inspired economist Dean Baker to expose the ugly truth about this scheme:

It would be difficult to find an economic rationale for this policy other than subsidizing the financial industry. The government can and does directly subsidize the purchase of homes through the mortgage interest deduction.  This can be made more generous and better targeted toward low and moderate income families by capping it and converting it into a tax credit (e.g. all homeowners can deduct 15 percent of the interest paid on mortgages of $300,000 or less from their taxes).

There is no obvious reason to have an additional subsidy through the system of mortgage finance.  Analysis by Mark Zandi showed that the subsidy provided by a government guarantee would largely translate into higher home prices.  This would leave monthly mortgage payments virtually unaffected.  The diversion of capital from elsewhere in the economy would mean slower economic growth and would kill jobs for auto workers, steel workers and other workers in the manufacturing sector.

For these reasons, if President Obama was really against big government and job killing measures, he would oppose this new scheme to subsidize mortgage securitization.  On the other hand, if the goal is to ensure high profits and big salaries for top executives in the financial sector, then a government subsidy for mortgage securitization is good policy.

Frustration with the inevitability that the 2012 Presidential Election will ultimately become a choice between two corporatists has inspired a movement to encourage a Democratic Primary challenge to Obama.  The organization – StopHoping.org – is based on this simple objective:

The majority of U.S. citizens favor protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; taxing the rich; cutting military spending; and protecting the environment.  We don’t have a candidate . . . yet.  Potential candidates supported on this site will be notified and encouraged to run.

I hope they succeed!


 

wordpress stats

Because He Is A Tool

Comments Off on Because He Is A Tool

November 13, 2008

The “Tool Watch” continues.  In the days after the historic 2008 Presidential election, intrigue abounds as to the future political career of Joe “The Tool” Lieberman.  Lieberman was re-elected to the Senate in 2006 as an Independent candidate (after having lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamot).  The Tool realized that his betrayal of the Democrats could result in the loss of his many important appointments, should Obama get elected.  Joe had already “sold his soul” to Bush, Cheney and Rove in his quest for re-election.  At that point, he had no choice but to “go for broke” by endorsing John McCain.  However, The Tool went beyond that.  He spoke ill of Obama at the Republican Convention.  He followed McCain around throughout the Presidential campaign, giving rally speeches himself, in addition to serving as McCain’s “nodder” when McCain would question Obama’s patriotism.  The Tool questioned Obama’s patriotism with his own allegations that Obama placed allegiance to the Democratic Party ahead of his allegiance to the country.  The Tool evoked further outrage from Democrats by campaigning for “down ticket” Republicans, while stumping around the country for McCain and Palin.  Now that Obama has been elected President, many Democrats are hungry to avenge The Tool’s malicious acts by stripping him of the appointments earned while in good standing as a member of the Democratic Party.  The most notable of these is his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.  President-elect Obama has expressed his desire to see Lieberman remain in the Senate Democratic Caucus.  Obama has said nothing about The Tool’s numerous committee and subcommittee memberships or chairmanships.  In keeping with his “No Drama Obama” image, the President-elect appears to have distanced himself from any “blood feuds” involving Lieberman.

My animosity toward The Tool is based on the fact that he is a pathetic ass-kisser.  He knew that his committee appointments would be in jeopardy in the event of an Obama victory.  Accordingly, he didn’t simply endorse John McCain.  He followed McCain around as a stray dog, looking for a new home.  Those of us with the experience of having worked with such people, know that these individuals don’t deserve much in the way of respect.  One of the reasons we enjoy watching “action movies” is because the “ass-kisser” is usually the first person to get killed (by either the hero or the villain).  It seems as though justice and karma are well-served in these movies, when such cretins get their due.

Many people who consider themselves “liberal Democrats” seem anxious to make The Tool an example for future, would-be defectors.  On November 12, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow expressed her concern that the Lieberman case could set a precedent, regardless of what action the Senate Democrats might take in light of The Tool’s transgressions.  Her November 10 program included an interview with Steve Clemons of The Washington Note website.  Mr. Clemons suggested removing Lieberman from his chairmanship of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs because of the The Tool’s fear mongering on the subject of homeland security throughout the 2008 campaign.  Clemons emphasized the proposition that Lieberman should not be able to use homeland security or national security as a foundation to batter Democrats who want a smarter national security policy.

Rachel Maddow discussed this subject again on November 12, with Indiana Senator Evan Bayh.  Senator Bayh discussed the possibility that Lieberman might be unwilling to suffer the indignity of being stripped of his appointments and thus relegated to the status of backbencher.  Bayh worried that under such circumstances, The Tool  might self-destruct:  resign from the Senate and allow Connecticut’s Republican Governor (Jodi Rell) to appoint a “pure Republican” to replace Lieberman.  To Bayh, this would be a more undesirable alternative than putting up with a traitor.  His logic seems based on the rationale that because Lieberman is such a tool, the Democrats could make him their tool once again.  Bayh suggested a two-part compromise.  First, Lieberman should be allowed to retain his chairmanship of the Committee on Homeland Security with “oversight”.  Bayh pointed out that a committee chairman could be replaced at any time.  If those overseeing The Tool reached the conclusion that he should be ousted, it would only then become appropriate for such action.  The second part of Bayh’s proposed compromise would involve an apology from Lieberman for his antics during the 2008 campaign.  I would like to suggest another alternative.  In the event Lieberman might be unwilling to make such an apology, the Senate Democrats should demand that The Tool have the word “Craftsman” tattooed on his forehead.

Time To Toss The Tool

Comments Off on Time To Toss The Tool

November 6, 2008

November 5 (the day after Election Day) left us with a nearly breathless Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball.  His guests included their correspondent, David Schuster, who had attended the election night speech by Barack Obama in Chicago’s Grant Park.  Schuster described the scene in Grant Park, immediately after the west coast results were announced at 11:00 p.m. (Eastern Time).  Strangers were hugging each other and crying.  This could have only happened in Chicago.  I had been in Grant Park on several occasions to celebrate many a Bulls championship, back in the day when Phil Jackson was coach and Michael Jordan defied the laws of gravity.  The post-championship celebration in Grant Park became a rite of summer:  the weather was just getting nice and Fourth of July was right around the corner.  I still return to Grant Park for the annual Independence Day fireworks show (that actually takes place on July 3) even though I now live a long way from there.  The consensual spirit of Chicago’s people brings life to the theories expressed by Carl Jung.  Myth, archetype and symbol hold important places in the collective soul of that community.

Chicago has its own approach to politics, as well.  The city’s history is rich with tales of “back alley” politics, giving rise to legendary figures and laying waste to contenders.  As a result, I can’t keep my mind off the subject of what might be in store for Senator Joe “The Tool” Lieberman of Connecticut.  The remark by Stephen Colbert during Indecision 2008 on Comedy Central, caught my attention.  After the announcement that Obama had won 64 percent of the vote in Connecticut, compared to McCain’s 35 percent, despite McCain’s unfailing support from The Tool, Colbert wondered:  “Where could the people of Connecticut have learned such disloyal behavior?”  As you may recall:  Lieberman was re-elected to the Senate in 2006 as an Independent candidate (after having lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamot).  Although they were irked by The Tool’s mercenary act to preserve his own political skin, the Democrats struggled to keep Joe in their “Big Tent”.  The Senate Democratic Caucus (or Conference) currently consists of 49 regular Democrats and 2 Independents, one of whom is Joe “The Tool” Lieberman, who calls himself an “Independent Democrat”.  Prior to the 2008 election, the Democrats had been desperate to maintain their 51-percent majority in the Senate, so they did all they could to make sure The Tool was a happy camper.  All that changed when Barack Obama became the presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee.  Many commentators saw in Obama, not only a winner, but one with long enough coattails to bring more Democrats into the Senate.  The Tool realized that his betrayal of the Democrats could result in the loss of his many important appointments, should Obama get elected.  He had already “sold his soul” to Bush, Cheney and Rove in his quest for re-election.  At that point, he had no choice but to “go for broke” by endorsing John McCain.  However, The Tool went beyond that.  He spoke ill of Obama at the Republican Convention.  He followed McCain around throughout the Presidential campaign, giving rally speeches himself, in addition to serving as McCain’s “nodder” when McCain would question Obama’s patriotism.

It is now time for the Senate Democrats to throw The Tool under The Trash Talk Express, before it departs for that great bus barn in the sky.  It has been widely reported that The Tool is scheduled to meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, at some point this week.  My familiarity with Chicago politics leads me to believe that on his way to this meeting, The Tool will be alone in a dark alley.  He will reach a spot alongside a blue dumpster and that will be the signal.  Suddenly, Democratic Senators will step out from their positions, in the shadows, to surround him.  The Tool will be cut  … and he will be cut quite thoroughly.  He will be cut from the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.  He will be cut from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (where he is Chairman).  He will be cut from the Senate Armed Services Committee.  He will be cut from the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, including its Subcommittees on: Clean Air and Nuclear Safety, Private Sector and Consumer Solutions to Global Warming and Wildlife Protection (where he is Chairman).  He will also be cut from the Subcommittee on Public Sector Solutions to Global Warming, Oversight, and Children’s Health Protection. He will be left, writhing on the back bench of the Senate.  “Backbenchers” have no influence to peddle  …  or, perhaps I should say:  They have difficulty raising campaign contributions.

The Tool assumed that by joining himself to McCain’s hip, he could secure the Vice-Presidential nomination or a high-level Cabinet appointment.  This must have appeared as his only route to avoid obscurity.  It didn’t work.

The Tool now has a “date with destiny” somewhere in a dark alley   .  .  .