The hubris and overreaching of the left sets the stage for the political correction sure to come.
Jonah Goldberg
Los Angeles Times
The most remarkable, or certainly the least remarked on, aspect of Barack Obama's first 100 days has been the infectious arrogance of his presidency.
There's no denying that this is liberalism's greatest opportunity for wish fulfillment since at least 1964. But to listen to Democrats, the only check on their ambition is the limits of their imaginations.
"The world has changed," Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York proclaimed on MSNBC. "The old Reagan philosophy that served them well politically from 1980 to about 2004 and 2006 is over. But the hard right, which still believes ... [in] traditional values kind of arguments and strong foreign policy, all that is over."
Right. "Family values" and a "strong foreign policy" belong next to the "free silver" movement in the lexicon of dead political causes.
No doubt Schumer was employing the kind of simplified shorthand one uses when everyone in the room already agrees with you. He can be forgiven for mistaking an MSNBC studio for such a milieu, but it seemed not to dawn on him that anybody watching might see it differently.
When George W. Bush was in office, we heard constantly about the poisonous nature of American polarization. For example, Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg came out with a book arguing that "our nation's political landscape is now divided more deeply and more evenly than perhaps ever before." One can charitably say this was abject nonsense. Evenly divided? Maybe. But more deeply? Feh.
During the Civil War, the political landscape was so deeply divided that 600,000 Americans died. During the 1930s, labor strife and revolutionary ardor threatened the stability of the republic. In the 1960s, political assassinations, riots and bombings punctuated our political discourse.
It says something about the relationship of liberals to political power that they can overlook domestic dissent when they're at the wheel. When the GOP is in office, America is seen as hopelessly divided because dissent is the highest form of patriotism. When Democrats are in charge, the Frank Riches suddenly declare the culture war over and dismiss dissent as the scary work of the sort of cranks Obama's Department of Homeland Security needs to monitor.
If liberals thought so fondly of social peace and consensus, they would look more favorably on the 1920s and 1950s. Instead, their political idylls are the tumultuous '30s and '60s, when liberalism, if not necessarily liberals, rode high in the saddle.
Sure, America was divided under Bush. And it's still divided under Obama (just look at the recent Minnesota Senate race and the New York congressional special election). According to the polls, America is a bit less divided under Obama than it was at the end of Bush's 100 days. But not as much less as you would expect, given Obama's victory margin and the rally-around-the-president effect of the financial crisis (not to mention the disarray of the GOP).
Meanwhile, circulation for the conservative National Review (where I work) is soaring. More people watch Fox News (where I am a contributor) in prime time than watch CNN and MSNBC combined. The "tea parties" may not have been as big as your typical union-organized "spontaneous" demonstration, but they were far more significant than any protests this early in Bush's tenure.
And yet, according to Democrats and liberal pundits, America is enjoying unprecedented unity, and conservatives are going the way of the dodo.
Obama has surely helped set the tone for the unfolding riot of liberal hubris. In his effort to reprise the sort of expansion of liberal power we saw in the '30s and '60s, Obama has -- without a whiff of self-doubt -- committed America to $6.5 trillion in extra debt, $65 billion for each one of his first 100 days, and that's based on an impossibly rosy forecast of the economy. No wonder congressional Democrats clamor to take over corporations, tax the air we breathe and set wages for everybody.
On social issues such as abortion and embryonic stem cell research, Obama has proved to be, if anything, more of a left-wing culture warrior than Bush was a right-wing one. All the while, Obama transmogrifies his principled opponents into straw-man ideologues while preening about his own humble pragmatism. For him, bipartisanship is defined as shutting up and getting in line.
I'm not arguing that conservatives are poised to make some miraculous comeback. They're not. But American politics didn't come to an end with Obama's election, and nothing in politics breeds corrective antibodies more quickly than overreaching arrogance. And by that measure, Obama's first 100 days have been a huge down payment on the inevitable correction to come.
Sphere: Related Content
Showing posts with label LA Times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LA Times. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Obama recovery plan stimulates whining
We need to get money into the economy. Critics and obfuscators often focus on scoring political points instead.
By Michael Hiltzik
Los Angeles Times
You just can't please some people.
In the wake of President Obama's signing of a historically ambitious economic recovery program last week, the nitpickers and pettifoggers have come out in force.
The program's too big, the program's too small. It's got too many local make-work projects, it's got too many long-term projects. There are too many tax cuts, there are too few tax cuts. Eight bucks more in your week's take-home pay won't save anyone, let's give millions to corporations instead. And so on.
The same thing happened when Obama announced a housing recovery plan Wednesday encompassing many of the provisions housing experts say are needed to spur more home buying and arrest the foreclosure wave. Among them are more low-interest loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, incentives for loan servicers to keep borrowers out of foreclosure, and new powers for bankruptcy judges to modify underwater home loans.
The next day, Rick Santelli, a market commentator and ex-futures trader on the financial news channel CNBC, staged an extended rant from a Chicago commodities pit about the injustice of helping people in distress, especially while there are still a few people around who aren't in distress.
Santelli asked "if we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages or would we like to, at least, buy cars and buy houses in foreclosure and give them to people that might have a chance to actually prosper down the road. And reward people that can carry the water instead of drink the water."
When the futures floor erupted in cheers, he swept his hand about the room and proclaimed theatrically, "This is America!"
Well, no. America is a place where 8 million families are threatened with losing their homes, not a futures pit filled with braying traders.
CNBC should have known that the proper response to Santelli's tantrum was to instruct him to put a sock in it. Instead, it re-ran the video incessantly while its anchors congratulated him for making a big noise.
It may be inevitable that government programs of this magnitude bring out flocks of screeching magpies, for they're big enough to have something for any critic to hate. One reader wrote me to object to "Pork-barrel Pelosi's" inclusion of a skateboard park and a Frisbee park in the stimulus bill, though it wasn't clear whether his chief objection was to skateboarders, recreational facilities or the Democratic speaker of the House.
The risk is that these cavils will obscure the virtues of the stimulus and housing programs. They will get money into the economy, which is 90% of the point.
What was drowned out by Santelli's outburst, for example, is that the housing proposal is aimed not at deadbeats but people who are still working and trying to pay their bills but have been rendered overextended by conditions in the credit and housing markets.
Furthermore, a certain amount of inequity is built into any government assistance program, but it gets trumped by society's needs in times like these. "Life is unfair," Tom Davidoff, a real estate expert at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, observes apropos of the housing bill. "We're doing this so the economy won't crash." For the record, he believes that most of the housing proposal is "healthy," though more help may be needed.
The experience of the New Deal's first year suggests that almost from the moment the stimulus money begins to flow, positive consequences will appear, including a stemming of unemployment, a halt to the deflation trend, and possibly a better tone in the capital markets.
If Obama has revealed a shortcoming in his first month, it's his failure to seize and hold the high ground of optimism; Bill Clinton was not far wrong when he said last week that Obama should be communicating confidence about his stimulus program a lot more forcibly. That was one of FDR's surpassing talents, and no one doubts that it contributed to recovery.
Among other things, Obama should make clear that much of the grousing is partisan. Just look at the Republican governors of Louisiana, Texas, Alaska, South Carolina, Mississippi and Idaho, who have said they will not or might not accept stimulus money for their states, none of which is known to be in roaringly good shape at the moment, budget-wise.
According to White House figures, the stimulus package would create or save a combined 424,000 jobs in those six states, so that makes nearly half a million Americans who no doubt will take it as an honor to be sacrificed for their governors' stand on principle.
And what is the principle, exactly? Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's spokesman griped to the Associated Press that accepting money to enhance unemployment benefits might force his state "to pay benefits to people who wouldn't meet state requirements to receive them." Barbour presumably expects us to defer to his judgment because Mississippi is so nationally famous for its generosity to the downtrodden.
These six paragons of integrity remind me of one of Shakespeare's whiniest characters. That would be Isabella of “Measure for Measure," who upon hearing about all the privileges granted the sisters in a convent she's planning to join tells the abbess sourly that she'd prefer something rather more dismal, thanks. (I paraphrase.)
At least Isabella was no poseur. Can we say that of the austerity governors? Several are lining up to run for president in 2012. (Surprise du jour: Sarah Palin's in the club.) Furthermore, they all know that there's no chance their states will actually be deprived of stimulus cash: Congress, detecting the acrid stench of partisan posturing on the wind, wrote the act so that state legislatures could accept the money over their governors' objections.
The proper approach to these complaints is to tune them out, because they merely represent political opportunism run wild. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) more or less defined the form when he carried on on CNN about how the stimulus package was a "slush fund for states" and "worse than nothing" and designed to "help a bunch of politicians."
Then, asked if his state should accept the money, he said of course it should: "You don't want to be crazy here." Sphere: Related Content
By Michael Hiltzik
Los Angeles Times
You just can't please some people.
In the wake of President Obama's signing of a historically ambitious economic recovery program last week, the nitpickers and pettifoggers have come out in force.
The program's too big, the program's too small. It's got too many local make-work projects, it's got too many long-term projects. There are too many tax cuts, there are too few tax cuts. Eight bucks more in your week's take-home pay won't save anyone, let's give millions to corporations instead. And so on.
The same thing happened when Obama announced a housing recovery plan Wednesday encompassing many of the provisions housing experts say are needed to spur more home buying and arrest the foreclosure wave. Among them are more low-interest loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, incentives for loan servicers to keep borrowers out of foreclosure, and new powers for bankruptcy judges to modify underwater home loans.
The next day, Rick Santelli, a market commentator and ex-futures trader on the financial news channel CNBC, staged an extended rant from a Chicago commodities pit about the injustice of helping people in distress, especially while there are still a few people around who aren't in distress.
Santelli asked "if we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages or would we like to, at least, buy cars and buy houses in foreclosure and give them to people that might have a chance to actually prosper down the road. And reward people that can carry the water instead of drink the water."
When the futures floor erupted in cheers, he swept his hand about the room and proclaimed theatrically, "This is America!"
Well, no. America is a place where 8 million families are threatened with losing their homes, not a futures pit filled with braying traders.
CNBC should have known that the proper response to Santelli's tantrum was to instruct him to put a sock in it. Instead, it re-ran the video incessantly while its anchors congratulated him for making a big noise.
It may be inevitable that government programs of this magnitude bring out flocks of screeching magpies, for they're big enough to have something for any critic to hate. One reader wrote me to object to "Pork-barrel Pelosi's" inclusion of a skateboard park and a Frisbee park in the stimulus bill, though it wasn't clear whether his chief objection was to skateboarders, recreational facilities or the Democratic speaker of the House.
The risk is that these cavils will obscure the virtues of the stimulus and housing programs. They will get money into the economy, which is 90% of the point.
What was drowned out by Santelli's outburst, for example, is that the housing proposal is aimed not at deadbeats but people who are still working and trying to pay their bills but have been rendered overextended by conditions in the credit and housing markets.
Furthermore, a certain amount of inequity is built into any government assistance program, but it gets trumped by society's needs in times like these. "Life is unfair," Tom Davidoff, a real estate expert at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, observes apropos of the housing bill. "We're doing this so the economy won't crash." For the record, he believes that most of the housing proposal is "healthy," though more help may be needed.
The experience of the New Deal's first year suggests that almost from the moment the stimulus money begins to flow, positive consequences will appear, including a stemming of unemployment, a halt to the deflation trend, and possibly a better tone in the capital markets.
If Obama has revealed a shortcoming in his first month, it's his failure to seize and hold the high ground of optimism; Bill Clinton was not far wrong when he said last week that Obama should be communicating confidence about his stimulus program a lot more forcibly. That was one of FDR's surpassing talents, and no one doubts that it contributed to recovery.
Among other things, Obama should make clear that much of the grousing is partisan. Just look at the Republican governors of Louisiana, Texas, Alaska, South Carolina, Mississippi and Idaho, who have said they will not or might not accept stimulus money for their states, none of which is known to be in roaringly good shape at the moment, budget-wise.
According to White House figures, the stimulus package would create or save a combined 424,000 jobs in those six states, so that makes nearly half a million Americans who no doubt will take it as an honor to be sacrificed for their governors' stand on principle.
And what is the principle, exactly? Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's spokesman griped to the Associated Press that accepting money to enhance unemployment benefits might force his state "to pay benefits to people who wouldn't meet state requirements to receive them." Barbour presumably expects us to defer to his judgment because Mississippi is so nationally famous for its generosity to the downtrodden.
These six paragons of integrity remind me of one of Shakespeare's whiniest characters. That would be Isabella of “Measure for Measure," who upon hearing about all the privileges granted the sisters in a convent she's planning to join tells the abbess sourly that she'd prefer something rather more dismal, thanks. (I paraphrase.)
At least Isabella was no poseur. Can we say that of the austerity governors? Several are lining up to run for president in 2012. (Surprise du jour: Sarah Palin's in the club.) Furthermore, they all know that there's no chance their states will actually be deprived of stimulus cash: Congress, detecting the acrid stench of partisan posturing on the wind, wrote the act so that state legislatures could accept the money over their governors' objections.
The proper approach to these complaints is to tune them out, because they merely represent political opportunism run wild. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) more or less defined the form when he carried on on CNN about how the stimulus package was a "slush fund for states" and "worse than nothing" and designed to "help a bunch of politicians."
Then, asked if his state should accept the money, he said of course it should: "You don't want to be crazy here." Sphere: Related Content
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Will Leon Panetta be the next body under Obama's bus?
by Andrew Malcolm
Los Angeles Times
It's been a bumpy few days on the new Obama administration bus, what with all the bodies throwing themselves under the shiny chassis -- Tom Daschle, Nancy Killefer and the ones yet to come from the transition team that missed the bones in Bill Richardson's closet and Daschle's and Geithner's and Killefer's tax returns.
In public, stand-up political bosses like Barack Obama are, well, stand-up, obediently shouldering the full blame like medicine from Mom. Americans like that and turn very forgiving when they hear it. So, Obama did that so sincerely and stoically on every TV network last night.
The buck stops here and all that, which drew hearty praise today from Robert Gibbs, Obama's own press secretary. But, in private, those bosses really, really don't like to have to do that. And someone will pay. If he/she hasn't already.
Meanwhile, word outta Washington late today that the congressional confirming committees, also embarrassed, are taking a closer look at the documents of some preexisting Obama nominees such as, oh, say, former California representative, Bill Clinton chief of staff and proposed CIA chief Leon Panetta. The Senate Intelligence Committee (no, that's not being sarcastic) takes up Panetta on Thursday morning.
Apparently, his reports to ethics officials indicate the onetime congressman who hung around Washington anyway is now worth nearly $4 million, which makes hanging around Washington seem a worthy pastime for washed-up pols. Last year Panetta took in about $1.2 million in investments, consulting and speaking fees, plus other income from corporate boards like BP and banks that have now failed or taken bailout money like Wachovia. Let's all do that.
All this despite being so intimately involved in the Obama campaign.
Panetta also got thousands of dollars from at least one security-related company that he might be dealing with from his secret CIA director's office in the Langley Batcave that carries the annoyingly Republican Bush name on it.
Panetta's appointment hit its first bump minutes after the announcement when committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein revealed in one of those too-controlled voices that she had not been informed in advance, a very serious breach of political manners in the Washington world that's akin to loud burping at the queen's dinner.
Now our blogging pal Mark Silva in the Swamp has more details on the developing Panetta problems, indicating some senators may have more questions in the morning.
Sphere: Related Content
Los Angeles Times
It's been a bumpy few days on the new Obama administration bus, what with all the bodies throwing themselves under the shiny chassis -- Tom Daschle, Nancy Killefer and the ones yet to come from the transition team that missed the bones in Bill Richardson's closet and Daschle's and Geithner's and Killefer's tax returns.
In public, stand-up political bosses like Barack Obama are, well, stand-up, obediently shouldering the full blame like medicine from Mom. Americans like that and turn very forgiving when they hear it. So, Obama did that so sincerely and stoically on every TV network last night.
The buck stops here and all that, which drew hearty praise today from Robert Gibbs, Obama's own press secretary. But, in private, those bosses really, really don't like to have to do that. And someone will pay. If he/she hasn't already.
Meanwhile, word outta Washington late today that the congressional confirming committees, also embarrassed, are taking a closer look at the documents of some preexisting Obama nominees such as, oh, say, former California representative, Bill Clinton chief of staff and proposed CIA chief Leon Panetta. The Senate Intelligence Committee (no, that's not being sarcastic) takes up Panetta on Thursday morning.
Apparently, his reports to ethics officials indicate the onetime congressman who hung around Washington anyway is now worth nearly $4 million, which makes hanging around Washington seem a worthy pastime for washed-up pols. Last year Panetta took in about $1.2 million in investments, consulting and speaking fees, plus other income from corporate boards like BP and banks that have now failed or taken bailout money like Wachovia. Let's all do that.
All this despite being so intimately involved in the Obama campaign.
Panetta also got thousands of dollars from at least one security-related company that he might be dealing with from his secret CIA director's office in the Langley Batcave that carries the annoyingly Republican Bush name on it.
Panetta's appointment hit its first bump minutes after the announcement when committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein revealed in one of those too-controlled voices that she had not been informed in advance, a very serious breach of political manners in the Washington world that's akin to loud burping at the queen's dinner.
Now our blogging pal Mark Silva in the Swamp has more details on the developing Panetta problems, indicating some senators may have more questions in the morning.
Sphere: Related Content
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