An interesting opinion piece in the Times written by Frank Rich. An unapologetic liberal, he runs down the litany of the current imbroglio: health care reform legislation has been passed, and the right wing is apoplectic. Hell no is John Boehner's rallying cry to the few that listen to him; Don’t Get Demoralized! Get Organized! Take Back the 20! is Sarah Palin's motto on her Facebook page, which includes gun cross-hairs in Congressional districts she and her ilk want to target in November (target an apt verb in her case).
As tired as I am of all this bickering, posturing and rhetoric, Rich hits the nail on the head: If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.
That is spot-on: blacks, gays, liberals, all those that can be tarred by labels that include un-American, those are the targets for this nativist, reactionary anger. They have appropritated the monicker of Tea Party, as if their actions equate with what happened in Boston Harbor in December 1773. They are trying to make their actions equal to those of the rebellious colonists who fought the yoke of royal oppression, of taxation without representation.
They hold uyp Ronald Reagan as their hero: alleging he cut taxes, alleging he cut the size of government, both untrue allegations, they forget he ignored, and broke, the law and traded with the Iranian clerical government, so to provide illicit arms to the contra rebels in Central America.
March 28, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
The Rage Is Not About Health Care
By FRANK RICH
THERE were times when last Sunday’s great G.O.P. health care implosion threatened to bring the thrill back to reality television. On ABC’s “This Week,” a frothing and filibustering Karl Rove all but lost it in a debate with the Obama strategist David Plouffe. A few hours later, the perennially copper-faced Republican leader John Boehner revved up his “Hell no, you can’t!” incantation in the House chamber — instant fodder for a new viral video remixing his rap with will.i.am’s “Yes, we can!” classic from the campaign. Boehner, having previously likened the health care bill to Armageddon, was now so apoplectic you had to wonder if he had just discovered one of its more obscure revenue-generating provisions, a tax on indoor tanning salons.
But the laughs evaporated soon enough. There’s nothing entertaining about watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank. And as the week dragged on, and reports of death threats and vandalism stretched from Arizona to Kansas to upstate New York, the F.B.I. and the local police had to get into the act to protect members of Congress and their families.
How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.
No less curious is how disproportionate this red-hot anger is to its proximate cause. The historic Obama-Pelosi health care victory is a big deal, all right, so much so it doesn’t need Joe Biden’s adjective to hype it. But the bill does not erect a huge New Deal-Great Society-style government program. In lieu of a public option, it delivers 32 million newly insured Americans to private insurers. As no less a conservative authority than The Wall Street Journal editorial page observed last week, the bill’s prototype is the health care legislation Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts. It contains what used to be considered Republican ideas.
Yet it’s this bill that inspired G.O.P. congressmen on the House floor to egg on disruptive protesters even as they were being evicted from the gallery by the Capitol Police last Sunday. It’s this bill that prompted a congressman to shout “baby killer” at Bart Stupak, a staunch anti-abortion Democrat. It’s this bill that drove a demonstrator to spit on Emanuel Cleaver, a black representative from Missouri. And it’s this “middle-of-the-road” bill, as Obama accurately calls it, that has incited an unglued firestorm of homicidal rhetoric, from “Kill the bill!” to Sarah Palin’s cry for her followers to “reload.” At least four of the House members hit with death threats or vandalism are among the 20 political targets Palin marks with rifle crosshairs on a map on her Facebook page.
When Social Security was passed by Congress in 1935 and Medicare in 1965, there was indeed heated opposition. As Dana Milbank wrote in The Washington Post, Alf Landon built his catastrophic 1936 presidential campaign on a call for repealing Social Security. (Democrats can only pray that the G.O.P. will “go for it” again in 2010, as Obama goaded them on Thursday, and keep demanding repeal of a bill that by September will shower benefits on the elderly and children alike.) When L.B.J. scored his Medicare coup, there were the inevitable cries of “socialism” along with ultimately empty rumblings of a boycott from the American Medical Association.
But there was nothing like this. To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill, you have to look a year before Medicare, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both laws passed by similar majorities in Congress; the Civil Rights Act received even more votes in the Senate (73) than Medicare (70). But it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That’s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance.
The apocalyptic predictions then, like those about health care now, were all framed in constitutional pieties, of course. Barry Goldwater, running for president in ’64, drew on the counsel of two young legal allies, William Rehnquist and Robert Bork, to characterize the bill as a “threat to the very essence of our basic system” and a “usurpation” of states’ rights that “would force you to admit drunks, a known murderer or an insane person into your place of business.” Richard Russell, the segregationist Democratic senator from Georgia, said the bill “would destroy the free enterprise system.” David Lawrence, a widely syndicated conservative columnist, bemoaned the establishment of “a federal dictatorship.” Meanwhile, three civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.
That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.
In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to “You lie!” piercing the president’s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot.
If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.
They can’t. Demographics are avatars of a change bigger than any bill contemplated by Obama or Congress. The week before the health care vote, The Times reported that births to Asian, black and Hispanic women accounted for 48 percent of all births in America in the 12 months ending in July 2008. By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded.
If Congressional Republicans want to maintain a politburo-like homogeneity in opposition to the Democrats, that’s their right. If they want to replay the petulant Gingrich government shutdown of 1995 by boycotting hearings and, as John McCain has vowed, refusing to cooperate on any legislation, that’s their right too (and a political gift to the Democrats). But they can’t emulate the 1995 G.O.P. by remaining silent as mass hysteria, some of it encompassing armed militias, runs amok in their own precincts. We know the end of that story. And they can’t pretend that we’re talking about “isolated incidents” or a “fringe” utterly divorced from the G.O.P. A Quinnipiac poll last week found that 74 percent of Tea Party members identify themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, while only 16 percent are aligned with Democrats.
After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, some responsible leaders in both parties spoke out to try to put a lid on the resistance and violence. The arch-segregationist Russell of Georgia, concerned about what might happen in his own backyard, declared flatly that the law is “now on the books.” Yet no Republican or conservative leader of stature has taken on Palin, Perry, Boehner or any of the others who have been stoking these fires for a good 17 months now. Last week McCain even endorsed Palin’s “reload” rhetoric.
Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Seemingly so, and if G.O.P. leaders of all stripes, from Romney to Mitch McConnell to Olympia Snowe to Lindsey Graham, are afraid of these forces, that’s the strongest possible indicator that the rest of us have reason to fear them too.
•
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Thanks ever so much - Ευχαριστώ ποτέ τόσο πολύ
UE AL RESCATE
Líderes de la Unión Europea comenzaron hoy su cumbre en Bruselas, después de anunciarse el compromiso entre Francia y Alemania por la crisis financiera en Grecia | Ver nota
Fear Strikes Out
The day before Sunday’s health care vote, President Obama gave an unscripted talk to House Democrats. Near the end, he spoke about why his party should pass reform: “Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made ... And this is the time to make true on that promise. We are not bound to win, but we are bound to be true. We are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.”
And on the other side, here’s what Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House — a man celebrated by many in his party as an intellectual leader — had to say: If Democrats pass health reform, “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation.
The correction below states that the Newt meant Great Society programs. What were those programs? Medicare? What would he have done?
I’d argue that Mr. Gingrich is wrong about that: proposals to guarantee health insurance are often controversial before they go into effect — Ronald Reagan famously argued that Medicare would mean the end of American freedom — but always popular once enacted.
Not the only time Reagan was wrong.
But that’s not the point I want to make today. Instead, I want you to consider the contrast: on one side, the closing argument was an appeal to our better angels, urging politicians to do what is right, even if it hurts their careers; on the other side, callous cynicism. Think about what it means to condemn health reform by comparing it to the Civil Rights Act. Who in modern America would say that L.B.J. did the wrong thing by pushing for racial equality? (Actually, we know who: the people at the Tea Party protest who hurled racial epithets at Democratic members of Congress on the eve of the vote.) And that cynicism has been the hallmark of the whole campaign against reform.
Cloaked in opposition to Big Government. Their hero Reagan spoke the same crap, yet presided over a great expansion of the federal government.
Yes, a few conservative policy intellectuals, after making a show of thinking hard about the issues, claimed to be disturbed by reform’s fiscal implications (but were strangely unmoved by the clean bill of fiscal health from the Congressional Budget Office) or to want stronger action on costs (even though this reform does more to tackle health care costs than any previous legislation). For the most part, however, opponents of reform didn’t even pretend to engage with the reality either of the existing health care system or of the moderate, centrist plan — very close in outline to the reform Mitt Romney introduced in Massachusetts — that Democrats were proposing. Instead, the emotional core of opposition to reform was blatant fear-mongering, unconstrained either by the facts or by any sense of decency.
It wasn’t just the death panel smear. It was racial hate-mongering, like a piece in Investor’s Business Daily declaring that health reform is “affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color.” It was wild claims about abortion funding. It was the insistence that there is something tyrannical about giving young working Americans the assurance that health care will be available when they need it, an assurance that older Americans have enjoyed ever since Lyndon Johnson — whom Mr. Gingrich considers a failed president — pushed Medicare through over the howls of conservatives.
And let’s be clear: the campaign of fear hasn’t been carried out by a radical fringe, unconnected to the Republican establishment. On the contrary, that establishment has been involved and approving all the way. Politicians like Sarah Palin — who was, let us remember, the G.O.P.’s vice-presidential candidate — eagerly spread the death panel lie, and supposedly reasonable, moderate politicians like Senator Chuck Grassley refused to say that it was untrue. On the eve of the big vote, Republican members of Congress warned that “freedom dies a little bit today” and accused Democrats of “totalitarian tactics,” which I believe means the process known as “voting.”
Without question, the campaign of fear was effective: health reform went from being highly popular to wide disapproval, although the numbers have been improving lately. But the question was, would it actually be enough to block reform? And the answer is no. The Democrats have done it. The House has passed the Senate version of health reform, and an improved version will be achieved through reconciliation.
This is, of course, a political victory for President Obama, and a triumph for Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker. But it is also a victory for America’s soul. In the end, a vicious, unprincipled fear offensive failed to block reform. This time, fear struck out.
Editors' Note: March 23, 2010
The Paul Krugman column on Monday, about the health care bill, quoted Newt Gingrich as saying that “Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation. The quotation originally appeared in The Washington Post, which reported after the column went to press that Mr. Gingrich said it referred to Johnson’s Great Society policies, not to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
March 22, 2010-Op-Ed Columnist
Fear Strikes Out-By PAUL KRUGMAN
And on the other side, here’s what Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House — a man celebrated by many in his party as an intellectual leader — had to say: If Democrats pass health reform, “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation.
The correction below states that the Newt meant Great Society programs. What were those programs? Medicare? What would he have done?
I’d argue that Mr. Gingrich is wrong about that: proposals to guarantee health insurance are often controversial before they go into effect — Ronald Reagan famously argued that Medicare would mean the end of American freedom — but always popular once enacted.
Not the only time Reagan was wrong.
But that’s not the point I want to make today. Instead, I want you to consider the contrast: on one side, the closing argument was an appeal to our better angels, urging politicians to do what is right, even if it hurts their careers; on the other side, callous cynicism. Think about what it means to condemn health reform by comparing it to the Civil Rights Act. Who in modern America would say that L.B.J. did the wrong thing by pushing for racial equality? (Actually, we know who: the people at the Tea Party protest who hurled racial epithets at Democratic members of Congress on the eve of the vote.) And that cynicism has been the hallmark of the whole campaign against reform.
Cloaked in opposition to Big Government. Their hero Reagan spoke the same crap, yet presided over a great expansion of the federal government.
Yes, a few conservative policy intellectuals, after making a show of thinking hard about the issues, claimed to be disturbed by reform’s fiscal implications (but were strangely unmoved by the clean bill of fiscal health from the Congressional Budget Office) or to want stronger action on costs (even though this reform does more to tackle health care costs than any previous legislation). For the most part, however, opponents of reform didn’t even pretend to engage with the reality either of the existing health care system or of the moderate, centrist plan — very close in outline to the reform Mitt Romney introduced in Massachusetts — that Democrats were proposing. Instead, the emotional core of opposition to reform was blatant fear-mongering, unconstrained either by the facts or by any sense of decency.
It wasn’t just the death panel smear. It was racial hate-mongering, like a piece in Investor’s Business Daily declaring that health reform is “affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color.” It was wild claims about abortion funding. It was the insistence that there is something tyrannical about giving young working Americans the assurance that health care will be available when they need it, an assurance that older Americans have enjoyed ever since Lyndon Johnson — whom Mr. Gingrich considers a failed president — pushed Medicare through over the howls of conservatives.
And let’s be clear: the campaign of fear hasn’t been carried out by a radical fringe, unconnected to the Republican establishment. On the contrary, that establishment has been involved and approving all the way. Politicians like Sarah Palin — who was, let us remember, the G.O.P.’s vice-presidential candidate — eagerly spread the death panel lie, and supposedly reasonable, moderate politicians like Senator Chuck Grassley refused to say that it was untrue. On the eve of the big vote, Republican members of Congress warned that “freedom dies a little bit today” and accused Democrats of “totalitarian tactics,” which I believe means the process known as “voting.”
Without question, the campaign of fear was effective: health reform went from being highly popular to wide disapproval, although the numbers have been improving lately. But the question was, would it actually be enough to block reform? And the answer is no. The Democrats have done it. The House has passed the Senate version of health reform, and an improved version will be achieved through reconciliation.
This is, of course, a political victory for President Obama, and a triumph for Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker. But it is also a victory for America’s soul. In the end, a vicious, unprincipled fear offensive failed to block reform. This time, fear struck out.
Editors' Note: March 23, 2010
The Paul Krugman column on Monday, about the health care bill, quoted Newt Gingrich as saying that “Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation. The quotation originally appeared in The Washington Post, which reported after the column went to press that Mr. Gingrich said it referred to Johnson’s Great Society policies, not to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
March 22, 2010-Op-Ed Columnist
Fear Strikes Out-By PAUL KRUGMAN
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Country First?
In her column, Maureen Dowd features the Democrats as giddy over their ability to actually get something done, to pass legislation.
The Democrats held hands, held their breath and jumped over the cliff — not that it was a radical bill. And, mirabile dictu, nothing awful happened. The markets went up. The polls went up. Their confidence went up.
And the Republicans? John McCain threatened Democrats, telling an Arizona radio affiliate that “there will be no cooperation for the rest of the year” from Republicans. So much for “Country First.” (He’s so clueless that he came on the Senate floor and said, “Let’s stop this legislation, and let’s start from the beginning.”)
For the rest of the year? There has been no cooperation for the past year. In part, that is a result of the extreme right eing of the Republican party becoming dominant. Litmus tests, purity tests are the norm, and one of the primary enforcers has been Rush Limbaugh. His reaction to the passage of the House bill?
they won yesterday. They won because they held congress and the presidency and therein lies the lesson. We need to defeat these bastards. We need to wipe them out. We need to chase them out of town. [...] “They must my friends, be hounded out of office. Every single Democrat who voted for this needs to know, safe district or not, they are going to be exposed and hassled and chased from office. We now have leftist radicals in charge of your healthcare decisions rather than doctors”
The Democrats held hands, held their breath and jumped over the cliff — not that it was a radical bill. And, mirabile dictu, nothing awful happened. The markets went up. The polls went up. Their confidence went up.
And the Republicans? John McCain threatened Democrats, telling an Arizona radio affiliate that “there will be no cooperation for the rest of the year” from Republicans. So much for “Country First.” (He’s so clueless that he came on the Senate floor and said, “Let’s stop this legislation, and let’s start from the beginning.”)
For the rest of the year? There has been no cooperation for the past year. In part, that is a result of the extreme right eing of the Republican party becoming dominant. Litmus tests, purity tests are the norm, and one of the primary enforcers has been Rush Limbaugh. His reaction to the passage of the House bill?
they won yesterday. They won because they held congress and the presidency and therein lies the lesson. We need to defeat these bastards. We need to wipe them out. We need to chase them out of town. [...] “They must my friends, be hounded out of office. Every single Democrat who voted for this needs to know, safe district or not, they are going to be exposed and hassled and chased from office. We now have leftist radicals in charge of your healthcare decisions rather than doctors”
Friday, March 19, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
How Obama Wins in 2012
A story in The Daily Beast on17 March, written by a former Repubican operative, Mark McKinnon.
Despite sagging poll numbers, the president has bottomed out, and Republicans still lack the leaders and the ideas to beat him, argues former Bush strategist Mark McKinnon.
All of my Republican friends are acting as giddy as kids at Christmas. They are delighting in the misfortunes of the Democrats. They believe, accurately, in my opinion, that the health-care bill is political suicide—at least in the short term. So, if the health-care bill passes, Republicans take the House in the fall. And if the health-care bill doesn’t pass, the Democrats look feckless and incapable of getting anything done, and they still lose the House in the fall.
The political environment is as toxic as we’ve ever seen. President Obama entered office during one of the most troubled and challenging times in our history. He got dealt a bad hand, but many argue that he and his party have played a bad hand badly.
But something very interesting and counterintuitive is happening with Obama. The NBC-Wall Street Journal poll published Tuesday has two findings that are at odds with one another. First, only 17 percent of the American public approve of Congress. That’s the lowest sounding ever recorded for Capitol Hill. And it’s hard to imagine just who makes up that 17 percent, beyond friends and family. Obama’s approval ratings, on the other hand, hover well above his colleagues'—at a healthy 48 percent.
Let’s drill down on that a bit. It’s hard to imagine that things will get any worse for Obama during his presidency. The economy may not be roaring by 2012, but it’s likely to be better. Whatever happens with the health-care bill, assuming it does ultimately pass, it will have had time to take effect and will probably be less onerous than feared. Most soldiers will be out of Iraq and perhaps progress will be apparent in Afghanistan. No president has been reelected with an approval rating below 47. And, so Obama, at what is probably the lowest point in his presidency, still has a strong enough approval rating to win a second White House term. And that’s before a reelection campaign in which he and his team will probably spend $1 billion.
A billion dollars? Well, it has been trending that way over the last few elections.
Let’s also assume for the sake of argument that the Republicans do take the House this fall. If they do, it’s a blessing for Obama—because then there will be shared responsibility and he can blame-shift accountability for all the failures of Congress. He will replay Bill Clinton’s playbook from 1994. Besides, you have to beat the other team by putting players on the field who have better talent and skills. If the players on the stage are Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner, whose unnatural-looking spray tan and gleaming teeth make him look like the host for The Price Is Right, or Mitch McConnell, who comes across like a funeral director, Obama’s going to look like Babe Ruth. And to win, you have to have better ideas. At this point, with a respectful nod to Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republicans look more like a glue factory than an idea factory.
Well, perhaps resemble Ruth the player, not Bambino the man, with his spindly legs and big belly. Yet the point is spot-on: Boehner resembles an untrustworthy operative, and McConnell looks as if high beams were shining in his eyes.
So to all my Republican friends, I say, don’t start poppin’ the Champagne yet. Obama has taken the worst possible political pounding and he’s still on his feet and looking pretty strong.
As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono.
Despite sagging poll numbers, the president has bottomed out, and Republicans still lack the leaders and the ideas to beat him, argues former Bush strategist Mark McKinnon.
All of my Republican friends are acting as giddy as kids at Christmas. They are delighting in the misfortunes of the Democrats. They believe, accurately, in my opinion, that the health-care bill is political suicide—at least in the short term. So, if the health-care bill passes, Republicans take the House in the fall. And if the health-care bill doesn’t pass, the Democrats look feckless and incapable of getting anything done, and they still lose the House in the fall.
The political environment is as toxic as we’ve ever seen. President Obama entered office during one of the most troubled and challenging times in our history. He got dealt a bad hand, but many argue that he and his party have played a bad hand badly.
But something very interesting and counterintuitive is happening with Obama. The NBC-Wall Street Journal poll published Tuesday has two findings that are at odds with one another. First, only 17 percent of the American public approve of Congress. That’s the lowest sounding ever recorded for Capitol Hill. And it’s hard to imagine just who makes up that 17 percent, beyond friends and family. Obama’s approval ratings, on the other hand, hover well above his colleagues'—at a healthy 48 percent.
Let’s drill down on that a bit. It’s hard to imagine that things will get any worse for Obama during his presidency. The economy may not be roaring by 2012, but it’s likely to be better. Whatever happens with the health-care bill, assuming it does ultimately pass, it will have had time to take effect and will probably be less onerous than feared. Most soldiers will be out of Iraq and perhaps progress will be apparent in Afghanistan. No president has been reelected with an approval rating below 47. And, so Obama, at what is probably the lowest point in his presidency, still has a strong enough approval rating to win a second White House term. And that’s before a reelection campaign in which he and his team will probably spend $1 billion.
A billion dollars? Well, it has been trending that way over the last few elections.
Let’s also assume for the sake of argument that the Republicans do take the House this fall. If they do, it’s a blessing for Obama—because then there will be shared responsibility and he can blame-shift accountability for all the failures of Congress. He will replay Bill Clinton’s playbook from 1994. Besides, you have to beat the other team by putting players on the field who have better talent and skills. If the players on the stage are Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner, whose unnatural-looking spray tan and gleaming teeth make him look like the host for The Price Is Right, or Mitch McConnell, who comes across like a funeral director, Obama’s going to look like Babe Ruth. And to win, you have to have better ideas. At this point, with a respectful nod to Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republicans look more like a glue factory than an idea factory.
Well, perhaps resemble Ruth the player, not Bambino the man, with his spindly legs and big belly. Yet the point is spot-on: Boehner resembles an untrustworthy operative, and McConnell looks as if high beams were shining in his eyes.
So to all my Republican friends, I say, don’t start poppin’ the Champagne yet. Obama has taken the worst possible political pounding and he’s still on his feet and looking pretty strong.
As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono.
Depends on your point of view
President Obama was interviewed by Bret Baier of Fox News; that is, he consented to be interviewed by the Fox guy. These days my sympathy for, and support of, the President flags, but these Fox people are quite a breed.
I saw some of the interview on Countdown (with Laurence O'Donneell; I can not abide Olbermann these days). Granted, MSNBC is biased on the liberal side, so the excerpts played dovetailed with their point of view. Nonetheless, in one exchange Baier kept interrupting the President and reading him excerpts from letters received by Fox complaining about the Democrats and the President. In turn, the President said that he receives hundreds and thousands of letters completely counter to the letters Baier quoted. So, it depends on your perspective.
Fox has its own way of looking at things. Here is one article appearing today: Obama's Presidency Is On the Line -- And It Shows by Andrea Tantaros - FOXNews.com. Bret Baier's questions for President Obama revealed the uncertainty of our leader and the direction of our country.
Say what? It is an opinion piece, but, where is this person coming from? The extreme right wing, surely.
El Universal, Mexico City, has this story on its website: EU debe ayudar más a México: WP
El periódico estadounidense The Washington Post asegura en su editorial de este jueves que la estabilidad del país es tan importante como la de Irak, Afganistán o Pakistán.
That editorial is Is the U.S. doing enough to help dying Juarez?
THE BRUTAL slaying of three people connected to the U.S. consulate in Juarez, Mexico, last weekend has called attention to a crisis that is getting too little attention and resources in Washington: Mexico's desperate battle against drug traffickers. For Juarez, and for the democratic government of Felipe Calderón, this has become a fight for survival -- a war as bloody and as important as those being fought in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan. But though Mexican stability is a vital interest of the United States, the federal government's investment in the problem is far below what it should be, on both sides of the border.
I saw some of the interview on Countdown (with Laurence O'Donneell; I can not abide Olbermann these days). Granted, MSNBC is biased on the liberal side, so the excerpts played dovetailed with their point of view. Nonetheless, in one exchange Baier kept interrupting the President and reading him excerpts from letters received by Fox complaining about the Democrats and the President. In turn, the President said that he receives hundreds and thousands of letters completely counter to the letters Baier quoted. So, it depends on your perspective.
Fox has its own way of looking at things. Here is one article appearing today: Obama's Presidency Is On the Line -- And It Shows by Andrea Tantaros - FOXNews.com. Bret Baier's questions for President Obama revealed the uncertainty of our leader and the direction of our country.
Say what? It is an opinion piece, but, where is this person coming from? The extreme right wing, surely.
El Universal, Mexico City, has this story on its website: EU debe ayudar más a México: WP
El periódico estadounidense The Washington Post asegura en su editorial de este jueves que la estabilidad del país es tan importante como la de Irak, Afganistán o Pakistán.
That editorial is Is the U.S. doing enough to help dying Juarez?
THE BRUTAL slaying of three people connected to the U.S. consulate in Juarez, Mexico, last weekend has called attention to a crisis that is getting too little attention and resources in Washington: Mexico's desperate battle against drug traffickers. For Juarez, and for the democratic government of Felipe Calderón, this has become a fight for survival -- a war as bloody and as important as those being fought in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan. But though Mexican stability is a vital interest of the United States, the federal government's investment in the problem is far below what it should be, on both sides of the border.
Historical memory
Yesterday I blogged about two recently published books dealing with the history of the Crusades. Therein the reviewer quoted one of the authors (Holy Warriors, Jonathan Phillips): Why does something that happened 900 years ago, and that ended "ignominiously," "resonate so powerfully across the modern world"?
This article provides a hint of an answer, and it merely goes back 100 years.
Armenia Condemns Turkey's Threat to Expel Workers
By MARC CHAMPION
ISTANBUL—Armenia on Wednesday condemned a threat by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to expel Armenians without papers from his country, as tensions between the two neighbors rise over a bloody history and wavering efforts to reopen their border.
Mr. Erdogan told the BBC's Turkish-language service late Tuesday that of some 170,000 ethnic Armenians working in Turkey, only 70,000 were Turkish citizens. "We are turning a blind eye to the remaining 100,000," he said. "Tomorrow, I may tell these 100,000 to go back to their country, if it becomes necessary, because they are not my citizens."
Rather a personalized style of governing, stating it in the first person. And how does it suddenly become necessary?
Allowing the Armenians to work in Turkey without papers was a "display of our peaceful approach, but we have to get something in return," he said.
Ah, quid pro quo.
Tuesday's threat comes as Turkey seeks to dissuade the U.S. Congress from recognizing as genocide the slaughter of as many as 1.5 million Armenians in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire. It also comes as Armenia has been threatening to pull out of a deal that would reopen its border with Turkey and set up a joint commission to examine the 1915 massacres.
"These kinds of political statements do not help to improve relations between our two states," Armenia Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan told the county's parliament Wednesday, according to agency reports. "It immediately for us brings up memories of the events of 1915."
That's it right there: memories of 1915, both resonate and are useful rhetorical tools.
Turkey has reacted angrily to recent resolutions in the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Swedish parliament, which recognized the 1915 atrocities as genocide. Ankara withdrew its ambassadors from the two countries. Turkey maintains that the 1915 death tolls are exaggerated and weren't genocide because they took place during a civil war in which hundreds of thousands of Turks also died. Most Western historians believe the killings of ethnic Armenians did constitute genocide.
On Tuesday, Mr. Erdogan blamed the Armenian diaspora—often the families of those who fled or were killed in 1915—for driving the resolutions. He called on governments in the U.S. and elsewhere not to be swayed.
Sounds a familiar argument.
On Wednesday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon told reporters the Foreign Affairs Committee resolution had damaged relations with Turkey, but that a full vote on the House floor remained possible, despite White House opposition. "Congress is an independent body, and they are going to do what they decide to do," Mr. Gordon told reporters, the Associated Press reported.
This isn't the first time that Mr. Erdogan and other Turkish officials have hinted they could take action against the thousands of Armenians who do mostly menial labor in Turkey without work visas. Officials from the prime minister's ruling Justice and Development party were quick to say Wednesday that no expulsion is imminent. Still, Mr. Erdogan's sharp comments come in the midst of a tense game of brinksmanship among Armenia, Turkey and the U.S. administration. Turkish officials have expressed frustration at the Obama administration's failure to lobby more strongly against the House Foreign Affairs Committee resolution, which passed by just 23 votes to 22, speculating that it was done to pressure Ankara into ratifying the deal with Armenia.
Well, if true, it is useful as a political ploy.
The U.S., meanwhile, has done little to hide its frustration with the reluctance of NATO member Turkey—currently a member of the 15-nation United Nations Security Council—to back tougher international action against Iran's nuclear fuel program. Iran says its nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A14
This article provides a hint of an answer, and it merely goes back 100 years.
Armenia Condemns Turkey's Threat to Expel Workers
By MARC CHAMPION
ISTANBUL—Armenia on Wednesday condemned a threat by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to expel Armenians without papers from his country, as tensions between the two neighbors rise over a bloody history and wavering efforts to reopen their border.
Mr. Erdogan told the BBC's Turkish-language service late Tuesday that of some 170,000 ethnic Armenians working in Turkey, only 70,000 were Turkish citizens. "We are turning a blind eye to the remaining 100,000," he said. "Tomorrow, I may tell these 100,000 to go back to their country, if it becomes necessary, because they are not my citizens."
Rather a personalized style of governing, stating it in the first person. And how does it suddenly become necessary?
Allowing the Armenians to work in Turkey without papers was a "display of our peaceful approach, but we have to get something in return," he said.
Ah, quid pro quo.
Tuesday's threat comes as Turkey seeks to dissuade the U.S. Congress from recognizing as genocide the slaughter of as many as 1.5 million Armenians in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire. It also comes as Armenia has been threatening to pull out of a deal that would reopen its border with Turkey and set up a joint commission to examine the 1915 massacres.
"These kinds of political statements do not help to improve relations between our two states," Armenia Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan told the county's parliament Wednesday, according to agency reports. "It immediately for us brings up memories of the events of 1915."
That's it right there: memories of 1915, both resonate and are useful rhetorical tools.
Turkey has reacted angrily to recent resolutions in the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Swedish parliament, which recognized the 1915 atrocities as genocide. Ankara withdrew its ambassadors from the two countries. Turkey maintains that the 1915 death tolls are exaggerated and weren't genocide because they took place during a civil war in which hundreds of thousands of Turks also died. Most Western historians believe the killings of ethnic Armenians did constitute genocide.
On Tuesday, Mr. Erdogan blamed the Armenian diaspora—often the families of those who fled or were killed in 1915—for driving the resolutions. He called on governments in the U.S. and elsewhere not to be swayed.
Sounds a familiar argument.
On Wednesday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon told reporters the Foreign Affairs Committee resolution had damaged relations with Turkey, but that a full vote on the House floor remained possible, despite White House opposition. "Congress is an independent body, and they are going to do what they decide to do," Mr. Gordon told reporters, the Associated Press reported.
This isn't the first time that Mr. Erdogan and other Turkish officials have hinted they could take action against the thousands of Armenians who do mostly menial labor in Turkey without work visas. Officials from the prime minister's ruling Justice and Development party were quick to say Wednesday that no expulsion is imminent. Still, Mr. Erdogan's sharp comments come in the midst of a tense game of brinksmanship among Armenia, Turkey and the U.S. administration. Turkish officials have expressed frustration at the Obama administration's failure to lobby more strongly against the House Foreign Affairs Committee resolution, which passed by just 23 votes to 22, speculating that it was done to pressure Ankara into ratifying the deal with Armenia.
Well, if true, it is useful as a political ploy.
The U.S., meanwhile, has done little to hide its frustration with the reluctance of NATO member Turkey—currently a member of the 15-nation United Nations Security Council—to back tougher international action against Iran's nuclear fuel program. Iran says its nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A14
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Mideast Flap Hits Jerusalem's Streets
Palestinians Clash With Israeli Police in 'Day of Rage,' as U.S. Lawmakers Press White House to Change Its Tone
Hundreds of Palestinians clashed with Israeli police, and a special U.S. envoy delayed a peace-talks mission to the region amid tensions over planned construction in East Jerusalem.
The conflict also flared in Washington, as Republican and Democratic members of Congress pressed the Obama administration to tone down its criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government for its plan to build 1,600 homes in the disputed territory.
The administration saw Israel's announcement, during a visit last week by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, as a slap in the face amid intensified U.S. efforts to mediate indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Protests Tuesday moved the dispute into the streets, in the most widespread unrest in Jerusalem in years. Palestinian protesters, many responding to a call by the Hamas militant group for a "day of rage," hurled Molotov cocktails and stones, set tires ablaze and blocked roads.
The protests appeared timed to follow the rededication on Monday of a Jewish synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City, which Hamas said was part of a plot—denied by Israel—to destroy the al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites.
Israeli police, who had deployed 3,000 officers around the city, responded to some protesters with stun grenades and rubber-coated bullets. Police also turned back buses headed to Jerusalem carrying Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who planned to join the demonstrations. The Palestinians said dozens were injured in the clashes, which flared in the morning and continued through the day.
"We are calling for the third Intifada to be sparked now,'' said spokesman Fawzi Barhoum of Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, referring to Palestinian uprisings against Israel.
Peace talks are now in limbo, though U.S. officials said special Mideast envoy George Mitchell hoped to return to the region in the coming days. The diplomatic flap has plunged the longtime allies into one of the worst chills in relations in decades.
Senior U.S. officials said Tuesday that the future course of the diplomacy depended on how Mr. Netanyahu responded to Washington's demand that he reverse the decision on East Jerusalem construction and agree to a more vigorous embrace of the peace process. These American officials said they had expected Mr. Netanyahu's government to provide an official communication Tuesday, but now were anticipating the response Wednesday.
"We thought it was important to be informed by the Israeli positions on some of the issues that the secretary discussed with the prime minister'' before sending Mr. Mitchell to the region, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.
He added that Mr. Mitchell wouldn't hold meetings with the Palestinians or Israelis until after a meeting of the so-called Quartet working on Mideast peace—Russia, the European Union, the United Nations and the U.S.—on Thursday and Friday in Moscow.
Members of the U.S. Congress pressed the Obama administration to revise its approach. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the second-ranking House Republican, said he expressed concern to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel late Monday that the administration was shifting U.S. policy.
Mr. Cantor said the George W. Bush administration had recognized that certain neighborhoods in disputed East Jerusalem, including the site of the proposed construction, had become fundamental parts of the Jewish state, and stressed that the U.S. shouldn't be pressing Mr. Netanyahu to return these areas as part of the peace process.
"The administration is taking a very clear stance … everything is back on the table," Mr. Cantor said, referring to all lands Israel gained after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The White House confirmed Mr. Cantor's conversation with Mr. Emanuel, but contested the Republican's position. "The United States has a longstanding difference with Israel over building in East Jerusalem that runs across multiple administrations of both parties," said a National Security Council spokesman.
Nearly a dozen pro-Israel Democrats also urged the White House to smooth relations with Israel in a bid order to quickly resume peace talks. "We need to disentangle bilateral relations from the peace process," said Howard L. Berman of California, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "The talks need to go forward."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israeli President Shimon Peres on Tuesday also stressed the sustainability of the U.S.-Israel alliance and the need for reconciliation. "We cannot afford to unravel the delicate fabric of friendship with the United States," Mr. Peres said.
Mr. Netanyahu on Monday characterized Israel's decision to build new homes in East Jerusalem as consistent with past governments and has said it should have no bearing on the prospects of Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Mr. Netanyahu's aides have complained that the U.S. has inflated the rift unnecessarily, giving Palestinians an excuse to boycott talks.
An aide to Talab el-Sana, an Israeli Arab member of the Israeli parliament who attended the demonstrations, said Mr. Netanyahu's government "is dangerous and irresponsible, and is leading the region to a third Intifada."
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A10
* MIDDLE EAST NEWS
* MARCH 17, 2010
By JOSHUA MITNICK in Tel Aviv and JAY SOLOMON in Washington
Hundreds of Palestinians clashed with Israeli police, and a special U.S. envoy delayed a peace-talks mission to the region amid tensions over planned construction in East Jerusalem.
The conflict also flared in Washington, as Republican and Democratic members of Congress pressed the Obama administration to tone down its criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government for its plan to build 1,600 homes in the disputed territory.
The administration saw Israel's announcement, during a visit last week by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, as a slap in the face amid intensified U.S. efforts to mediate indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Protests Tuesday moved the dispute into the streets, in the most widespread unrest in Jerusalem in years. Palestinian protesters, many responding to a call by the Hamas militant group for a "day of rage," hurled Molotov cocktails and stones, set tires ablaze and blocked roads.
The protests appeared timed to follow the rededication on Monday of a Jewish synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City, which Hamas said was part of a plot—denied by Israel—to destroy the al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites.
Israeli police, who had deployed 3,000 officers around the city, responded to some protesters with stun grenades and rubber-coated bullets. Police also turned back buses headed to Jerusalem carrying Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who planned to join the demonstrations. The Palestinians said dozens were injured in the clashes, which flared in the morning and continued through the day.
"We are calling for the third Intifada to be sparked now,'' said spokesman Fawzi Barhoum of Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, referring to Palestinian uprisings against Israel.
Peace talks are now in limbo, though U.S. officials said special Mideast envoy George Mitchell hoped to return to the region in the coming days. The diplomatic flap has plunged the longtime allies into one of the worst chills in relations in decades.
Senior U.S. officials said Tuesday that the future course of the diplomacy depended on how Mr. Netanyahu responded to Washington's demand that he reverse the decision on East Jerusalem construction and agree to a more vigorous embrace of the peace process. These American officials said they had expected Mr. Netanyahu's government to provide an official communication Tuesday, but now were anticipating the response Wednesday.
"We thought it was important to be informed by the Israeli positions on some of the issues that the secretary discussed with the prime minister'' before sending Mr. Mitchell to the region, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.
He added that Mr. Mitchell wouldn't hold meetings with the Palestinians or Israelis until after a meeting of the so-called Quartet working on Mideast peace—Russia, the European Union, the United Nations and the U.S.—on Thursday and Friday in Moscow.
Members of the U.S. Congress pressed the Obama administration to revise its approach. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the second-ranking House Republican, said he expressed concern to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel late Monday that the administration was shifting U.S. policy.
Mr. Cantor said the George W. Bush administration had recognized that certain neighborhoods in disputed East Jerusalem, including the site of the proposed construction, had become fundamental parts of the Jewish state, and stressed that the U.S. shouldn't be pressing Mr. Netanyahu to return these areas as part of the peace process.
"The administration is taking a very clear stance … everything is back on the table," Mr. Cantor said, referring to all lands Israel gained after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The White House confirmed Mr. Cantor's conversation with Mr. Emanuel, but contested the Republican's position. "The United States has a longstanding difference with Israel over building in East Jerusalem that runs across multiple administrations of both parties," said a National Security Council spokesman.
Nearly a dozen pro-Israel Democrats also urged the White House to smooth relations with Israel in a bid order to quickly resume peace talks. "We need to disentangle bilateral relations from the peace process," said Howard L. Berman of California, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "The talks need to go forward."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israeli President Shimon Peres on Tuesday also stressed the sustainability of the U.S.-Israel alliance and the need for reconciliation. "We cannot afford to unravel the delicate fabric of friendship with the United States," Mr. Peres said.
Mr. Netanyahu on Monday characterized Israel's decision to build new homes in East Jerusalem as consistent with past governments and has said it should have no bearing on the prospects of Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Mr. Netanyahu's aides have complained that the U.S. has inflated the rift unnecessarily, giving Palestinians an excuse to boycott talks.
An aide to Talab el-Sana, an Israeli Arab member of the Israeli parliament who attended the demonstrations, said Mr. Netanyahu's government "is dangerous and irresponsible, and is leading the region to a third Intifada."
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A10
* MIDDLE EAST NEWS
* MARCH 17, 2010
By JOSHUA MITNICK in Tel Aviv and JAY SOLOMON in Washington
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