November 20, 2008
I receive many strange comments on this website that I simply delete. Although I am a strong proponent of First Amendment rights, I exercise my option of deleting defamatory remarks, spam-based “comments” and miscellaneous lunacy. That final category includes a comment I received a while ago from an alleged female, focused on Michelle Obama. The rant included this statement: “Someone should look into Michelle …” I felt inclined to reply with the following:
An obstetrician actually did look into her and found two African-American babies, who were sired by Barack Obama. Are you scared yet?
Throughout the Presidential campaign, the crazy stuff about Michelle kept turning up all over the media. Monday, November 17, was a landmark day for that ignominious chapter in “news” coverage. You may remember Fox News anchor E.D. Hill, who, on June 6, called attention to Michelle’s “terrorist fist jab” with Barack. Fox News subsequently removed Hill from its America’s Pulse program. On November 17, TVNewser reported that the Fox News Senior Vice-President of programming, Bill Shine, informed TVNewser of his decision not to renew Hill’s current contract with Fox, which expires within the next few months. A small step for Fox, but a giant leap for … uh … Fox.
From a more rational perspective, another item about Michelle appeared on today’s Daily Beast website. The article, “Michelle’s Closet Agenda”, was written by Geraldine Brooks. Ms. Brooks summarized the theme of her posting with this statement:
The point of this long-winded anecdote is not to add more fuel to the bonfire of the vanities surrounding the fact that, my God, we’re finally gonna’ have another first lady like Jackie who knows how to dress. The point is twofold: Michelle seems to be able to do everything she sets her mind to, and to do it at a high level of excellence. And, more importantly: she knows this, and isn’t about to be “handled” into any role in which she is not supremely confident and comfortable.
This point emphasizes an aspect about Michelle that many people find threatening. They saw it all before with Hillary Clinton: A woman who attended law school with her husband at Yale, who went on to have an active and successful legal career. Although Barack is two years older than Michelle, she graduated from Harvard Law School three years before our President-elect graduated from that same institution. While working as Vice-President for Community and External Affairs for the University of Chicago Hospitals, Michelle was earning approximately $273,000 per year, in comparison with Barack’s $157,000 salary as a United States Senator representing the State of Illinois.
Michelle’s stint as First Lady follows that of Laura Bush, who did not have much to say during her husband’s eight-year tenure. Nevertheless, book publishers are stomping on each other’s toes in the quest to obtain the publishing rights to Laura’s memoirs. As for Michelle, many are expecting a First Lady who might have a little more to say, than did Laura Bush. There is a great deal of doubt as to whether Michelle will become as involved in government as was Hillary Clinton, during her days promoting expanded health care. Despite that, many people are anxious to get a little more insight from Michelle than we heard from Laura Bush. One of the first commentators to express this craving was Jason Zengerle. After Michelle’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, Mr. Zengerle had this to say in the August 25 edition of The New Republic:
Michelle Obama introduced herself as a sister, a wife, a mother, and a daughter–which are all incredibly important identities. But those identities don’t reveal her full person–the Princeton and Harvard Law grad, the corporate attorney, the hospital executive–which were parts of her life that she barely mentioned. Instead, she gave us predictable pap like “the Barack Obama I know today is the same man I fell in love with 19 years ago.”
Many pundits are hungry for more incisive, quotable wisdom from our next First Lady. They will surely get it. They will know better than to scrutinize Michelle’s statements for gaffes. Joe Biden has proven himself as the new administration’s most abundant source of those. Why look elsewhere?
Bait And Switch
October 19, 2009
On Friday, October 16, Aaron Task interviewed Elizabeth Warren for his online TV show, Tech Ticker. In case you don’t remember, Ms. Warren is the Harvard law professor, appointed to chair the Congressional Oversight Panel which has attempted to trace the money thrown into the infamous slush fund known as TARP — the Troubled Assets Relief Program. Mr. Task questioned Professor Warren as to whether, after all this time, we can expect a full accounting as to where the TARP money went. Professor Warren responded: “No. I think there is no chance that we will get a full accounting of it.” She explained the reason for this is because former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson never asked for an explanation “on the front end” (when the TARP bailout program began) concerning what the recipients planned to do with this money, nor was any documentation of expenditures requested. As an aside, the folks at The New York Times were kind enough to put together this TARP scorecard, for keeping track of which institutions pay back the money they received. Of course, these amounts do not include all the loans, “backstopping” and other largesse provided to Wall Street by the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Treasury. For that information, we can look to this Bailout Tally Report, prepared by Nomi Prins for her book: It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses,and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street.
During the interview with Aaron Task, Elizabeth Warren expressed particular concern over the fact that former Treasury Secretary Paulson failed to put any restrictions on the use of the TARP bailout funds prior to their dispersal, despite the explanation to the taxpayers that this money would be used to remove the “toxic assets” from the banks’ balance sheets. Worse yet, as she explained: “The toxic assets are still there, by and large” because the TARP money was used by the Wall Street banks to “make bets”. The bait-and-switch tactic used by Secretary Paulson was exposed by Professor Warren when she criticized how the banks used that money:
Professor Warren also noted that nothing had been done to contain “systemic risk” after the financial crisis because those institutions requiring bailouts as they were considered “too big to fail” have grown even larger. This subject was addressed by Rolfe Winkler of Reuters, who questioned whether these institutions, such as Goldman Sachs, are really indispensable:
Elizabeth Warren’s reaction to the issue of what has been done with those profits — the huge, record-breaking bonuses paid to the people at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, was to describe the situation as so inappropriate as to leave her “speechless”. Fortunately this sentiment is shared by a number of people who are already taking action in the absence of any responsible government activity. The Gawker website has announced its initiation of what it calls the “Goldman Project” as a way of pushing back against this atrocity:
The folks at Gawker aren’t the only ones taking action. When the American Bankers Association holds its annual meeting in Chicago on October 25-26, it will be confronted with a (hopefully) large protest led by a coalition of labor, community and consumer groups, called the “Showdown in Chicago”. Visit their website and do whatever you can to help make this event a success. The arrogant influence peddlers in Washington need to get the message: Clean things up or get thrown out.