Obama's Mistake

I have to agree pretty wholeheartedly with this email sent to Digby:

The NY Times thinks that President Obama has not responded aggressively enough to this spill. Let's be clear:

No way is this oil spill Barack Obama's fault.

The fault lies with the ideology and mores of the Republican party and its theory of government. Their solution to this country's energy's future is to drill anywhere and everywhere. In their theory of government, government has no right to control who, what, where and how the natural resources of this country or this planet are exploited or not exploited, resources that are needed by us all and are needed to protect us all. Like my friend Jim Gilliam said in a private email, government is supposed regulate corporate behavior not just be their willing partner/follower. This is a lesson that we all need to keep in mind and that includes the president.

In the Republican theory of government, government regulation is inherently evil or at least counterproductive. So under George Bush et al, the only regulation in the Gulf has been self regulation. This oil spill is the fault of Republican ideology.

And the Times is wrong again in saying that if BP lied to Barack Obama and misled him that is not his fault. The spill itself and even, at the moment, the seemingly futile attempts to stop the spill is the result of Republicans, down to using Halliburton's technology over another technology that is more successfully employed in Europe.

However, I think this is Barack Obama's burden and ultimately the Democratic party's burden. A month ago, Barack Obama embraced (or he thought he cleverly "co-opted") Republican ideas for how to solve our energy future. Most progressives bemoaned this, especially because he had seemed to learn the lesson of health care. He is wrong on the merits. And on the merits I think there is little disagreement. It was supposed to be another clever way to disarm right wing arguments. But it has boomeranged back into the President's face and the face of the Democratic party.

This is now the recurring riff of this presidency. And I hate to say it, but it is political malpractice.

Once again the president embraced Republican ideas to be/look bipartisan and open minded. But being Republican ideas, they have all the weaknesses of Republican ideas - just like with the health care bill being a system built on Republican ideas of the health care system - a LOOSELY REGULATED PRIVATE SYSTEM. Now the president has endorsed offshore drilling, which he still had the opportunity to repudiate clearly yesterday...but he merely temporized with an appeal to a temporary moratorium until "safe" ways are found.

Are there any safe ways? If this takes even 90 days to cap, that is 18 million gallons of oil filling the Gulf of Mexico. (I can't do the math but does that fill the Gulf ---what is the visual of that from space???)

Barack Obama is not just the President of the US, he is also the head of the Democratic Party. I hesitate to be political, especially since this is potentially an ecological disaster of vast proportions, but a Gulf full of oil through the summer, a Gulf that voters would have seen endlessly on their TV screens, would have been enough to beat the Republicans back (as well as over the head) in the midterm elections. They would have been crucified on their oil rigs.

But now is that possible? I don't think so. The Democrats running in the midterms are now hobbled in their ability to trash the Republicans, because they have to tiptoe around their own President's position. He has handcuffed them, he has almost forced them to zip their mouths shut on the issue. Indeed the inchoate anger will wrongly accrue to him, and the only thing the Democrats running may be able to do is either defend him or run away from him.

He is redefining the positions of the Democratic party in ways that many of us progressives are unhappy with on the merits. But in this case he is also losing the political benefits of being on the right side for all of us.

The comments quickly devolve into a "Obama is the same/no better/worse than Bush, which is horseshit, but the point in this essay that he is too quick to embrace or validate GOP positions is well-taken. He does. It is brutal irony that he went out on a limb only a month ago and endorsed a drilling plan that in the current light might as well be something George W Bush left in the Oval Office desk drawer.

Old School

Normally I only read newspapers on vacation: when they are dropped outside my hotel door, or left lying in an airport terminal. And I always relish the opportunity.

These days, between my new digs at Mrs F's grandmother, and my new job, there are multiple papers at my disposal...New York Times, WSJ, USA Today and the Detroit paper. In fact, I'm getting more of my news and information the old-fashioned way than I am online.

There's still something satisfying about reading an actual paper. And I definitely read more stories than I do online...they're sitting right there ready to be read, not off to the side requiring some incentive to click a link.

As usual, the Sunday New York Times has the most meat on its bones...

There was a good Frank Rich column on the fomenting of rage from the right... A very good Magazine article on what Obama's Wall Street regulatory plan should look like...(Krugman briefly weighs in on this today).

Even the generally annoying Mustache of Wisdom had a decent column—someone I would NEVER click a link to without being directed to—particularly one with a title as opaque as “Hobby or Necessity?”

And some stories just wouldn't work onscreen as well as it does in print. Like this frightening illustration-based story hypothesizing about an Israeli attack on Iran and what might ensue in today's version of The Six-Day War.

Friedman’s column was certainly bolstered by having read the big graphic story first, and the combination reaffirmed my stance on U.S.-Israeli relations, which boils down to this: I generally fall on the side opposing whatever Israel is up to at any particular moment. I think the United States pays far too much deference to Israeli interests, and that the relationship is extremely one-sided in who benefits from it.

The ascension of hard-liners in Israeli politics has made much of this more obvious (or less thinly-veiled), and there is a lot to be added into the equation from Freidman's column about the attitudes at play, too. But even The Mustache is giving Israel too much leeway by implying that Israeli interest in Middle East peace has diminished primarily because of economics and a lack of focus. Those certainly factor in the politics of everyday citizens (in Israel and elsewhere), and I think explains how Israeli politicians that behave like a Dick Cheney fantasy team could come to dominate the government, but it leaves aside what I believe is a very deliberate process of dismantling any movement towards Arab-Israeli peace agreements.

I finished reading that timeline of an attack on Iran, and wondered “what does the Israeli regime have to lose by doing something like this?”

Then I refreshed myself on the Six Day War, the events leading to it, and the fact that so many of the same players—then young military leaders, now high government officials—are involved, and I wonder, “When will Israel go ahead with this crazy shit, and is there anything Obama can do to stop it or react differently?”

P.S. This really started as a light-hearted post on the nostalgia of reading newspapers...

Cage Match

This is pretty good...

SOTU

I'm on deadline, and in the office working, so I have the speech going on on my desktop as I work, but there'll be no live-blog or even comprehensive reaction from me this time 'round.

Quickly? I thought it was a pretty good speech. Filled with some of the usual SOTU boilerplate, but his strongest speech since taking office.

Highlights:

• Fuck the bankstas
• Calling the Democrats pussies, grow a pair and get some shit done.
• Calling the Republicans obstructionist assholes, and to get serious or GTFOTW.
• Calling out the Supreme Court right to their face.
• DADT repeal

Lowlights:

• Not telling Congress how to finish health care reform—Pass the Damn Bill, etc.
• Stupid freeze. Though, the release was clearly a red herring, as this wasn't really the meat of the speech, imo.

That's all for now, Seacrest out!

Not Digging It

If you thought the news was bad last week, the front page of Digby's Hullabaloo is enough to make stick your head in the oven.

First, the media is officially turning on Obama:

In case you were wondering, the consensus on all the Sunday gasbag shows is that Obama is an abject failure because of his radical leftist ideology and that his only hope of even maintaining the presidency, much less winning a second term is to take a sharp turn to the right and enact the Republican agenda. Several commentators, including such luminaries as political cross dresser Matthew Dowd on ABC, insisted that the first thing the president has to do is pick a huge fight with the Democrats to show the country that he isn't one of them. Cokie said he should have asked John McCain from the beginning what he was allowed to do.

The historians and expert political observers on Fareed Zakaria's CNN show all agreed that Obama is no Reagan, a president who never governed ideologically and always worked across party lines. Oh, and he needs to be a president or a prime minister, but nobody could agree on exactly what that means except that he should try to be more like Scott Brown, the white Barack Obama, except without all the liberalism.

That was to be expected, of course, these worthless idiots have spotted their own chum in the water and are gearing up for the feeding frenzy.

What is more disappointing is that Obama is preparing to add his own blood to the mix and in very visible and culpable ways:

Talking Deficits:

But evidently, the president does want to politically tie his hands securely behind his back by putting the deficit at the top of the agenda and making sure that the nation sees it as bigger threat to its well-being than the fact that we have 10% unemployment, a moribund real estate market and an economically crushing health care system. [...]

It goes without saying that actually delivering anything of value to the country is now off the table but I'm sure that between a fierce concentration on budget balancing and sounding really annoyed at bankers, the voters will be perfectly satisfied, so that's good

And, of course, part and parcel with the media turning is the revocation of all excuses and history—they no longer want to hear about Bush—it's all on Obama now, and only other Democrats are fair game...

Bush Who?

The Republicans have run against Jimmy Carter for the past 28 years. In fact, they're still running against him.Republicans understand two simple things. You must name your enemy and you must imbue that enemy with the characteristics people hate about themselves. The Democrats used to do it quite well themselves, but after Carter they lost their nerve. (I think the Villagers joining the Republicans with their utter disdain for anything that smacks of liberal idealism completely spooked them and they have never recovered.) If the party cannot run against the catastrophic failure of Bush governance, much less against the catastrophic failure of Republican ideology, then they literally have nothing to run on but empty slogans. And that doesn't cut it once you're in office and you haven't delivered. They need to name the culprits --- if they don't, they'll become the enemy themselves, by default.

2010 fucking sucks.

What Happens Now

I had a big post breaking down the potential ramifications of the Senate race in Massachusetts for either result almost ready to go when I had to put it down for a couple hours. Now the results are in and you might think that was all wasted.

Wrong.

Most of my conclusions ended up in the same place whether Coakley or Brown won.

In my desperate attempt to find a silver lining in what seemed likely, I ended up comfortable with the feeling that Coakley losing might actually be a good thing. No. I'm not going all FDL and becoming a "kill the bill" fanatic—I want the bill passed, and I'm starting to think the Republican upset might help that process.

Here are the things I think were an inevitable result of this election, no matter who won:

1. Bragging Rights -- The GOP declares the election a referendum on the Democrats at large and Obama in particular. The GOP smells blood in the water and is emboldened in their obstructionism and nihilism and ratchet up the rhetoric. Brown winning also makes their framing an easier sell, but even a narrow Coakley win would have been treated the same way.

2. "This is excellent news for John McCain." -- The media follows the GOP on No. 1. Since Brown pulled it out, they have a collective weeks-long orgasm. That is the result they wanted. It sets up the narrative for the year and the midterms, and makes their lives easy. These underdog and rebellion stories write themselves. But make no mistake: even a Coakley win would've been framed as a loss and a rejection of Obama, because it wasn't a blowout.

3. Massive Diaper Change -- Blue Dog and conservative Democrats shit their pants and run for the fucking hills on EVERYTHING. Funny how that works: A Republican loses? Then they weren't conservative enough, the party hunkers down and moves to the right. A Democrat loses? They weren't conservative enough, the Democrats abandon everything and run to the right like a goddamn bear is chasing them. This effect holds simply because it was close. Doesn't matter who won.

So what does all of that tell you? If Coakley had won 51-49 none of that would have changed. The only difference now is 59 Democrats instead of 60.

And. That. Shouldn't. Fucking. Matter.

This isn't the Republican party. The "60-vote super-majority" never was a given, and never would be. You don't think Evan Bayh isn't drooling at the chance to be the new Joe Lieberman? He just passed his first audition tonight by being the first Dem in front of a camera, scolding the party for drifting too far left.

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For the sake of Argument, let's pretend for a moment Coakley had won:

The first order of business is Health Care Reform. Coakley's win sends the process right back into the quagmire of gutlessness and stupidity that has taken a a year to get us to this point—which is: still without a pasable bill. So, the existing Senate and House bills would go to conference, and there's no guarantee that what emerged would be as good as either current bill or that it would pass. In general, the longer it takes, the less likely it would pass, but in this climate, do you think after watching the bloodbath in Massachusetts the fence-sitters in the party are going to man-up or dither? The intra-party finger-pointing and second-guessing would be paralyzing in a conference.

And it would only get worse from there. Enough candy-asses are going to run to the right after a race this close, that 60 might be unattainable on any given legislation.

But, since Coakley lost, the mirage of a super-majority is exposed and the pursuit of 60 more futile, it might actually change both the tactics and the strategy from the Democrats. On HCR, the only way to pass the package now is to avoid the conference committee by eliminating the need to combine two bills.

Send the Senate bill as-is to the House, promise House progressives their concerns (mostly budgetary) will be handled in 50+1 reconciliation and have Pelosi gather 218 votes. It then goes straight to Obama's pen.

Failure to pass health care reform is not acceptable and the current scenario actually makes the process of enacting the legislation easier. Yes, it's a ballsier move, but by skipping the conference, the Senate vote has already happened—it negates Brown's 41st vote, or Lieberman's eventual stab in the back, etc.

If Reid, Pelosi and Obama are unable or unwilling to go that route and prevail, then I honestly believe they would not have gotten it done with Coakley's vote either.

Proof We Elected the Right Guy

Thanks to 60 Minutes and Mark Halperin's new 352-page gossip column, by now you've all heard that:

• Harry Reid used the word "Negro" and he should resign. (1)

• Bill Clinton told Ted Kennedy that Obama is a coffee-slave. (2)

• Sarah Palin is a pathological liar and dumber than a box of Todd's snowmobile parts (3)

• Poor John Edwards is the totally innocent filling in the Oreo cookie of his nasty, harpy wife and seductive mistress. (4)

• Cindy McCain was busted making out with someone other than her husband. (5)

So how does that prove Obama was the right candidate to become President? As Balloon Juice commenter JenJen astutely points out:

You know, one important point completely missed by our Awesome Liberal Media as they thumb through the index of Mark Halperin’s shitty book is this: There are literally ZERO revelations about the President, or his campaign staff, in this book. Nada. Goose Eggs. Nothing. And that says a lot about our President, and his campaign staff, who apparently were far too aware to give Halperin even one toss-off quote.

(1) Reid made a clumsily-worded but entirely valid and accurate statement on racism in America. Much as I hate Reid, this isn't the reason he should lose his job.

(2) According to the hearsay from an unnamed source regarding a second-hand conversation with a now-deceased person.

(3) 100% true.

(4) Because between chemo treatments, terminal cancer patients should be watching their husband's backs and keeping their dicks zipped for them.

(5) "This is excellent news for John McCain."

Stupidest Blog Post of 2010, Already?

Who else but Ann Althouse? Scroll down and read a few random comments for the full effect.

This stupidity kicked off by Glenn Reynolds.

Glimmer of Hope? Or, Massive Tease?

Read this post by Ezra Klein (who in my opinion has this HCR shit down better than just about anyone) and explain to me why the Senate can't pass something now that meets President Lieberman's vendetta-based objections, and have Obama sign it into law. The day after that happens, they start the reconciliation process and take a Public Option and shove it right down the collective throat of Lieberman, Ben Fucking Nelson, President Snowe and every other "Centrist" asshole that's made this process a nightmare.

Did I forget to mention the GOP? No. They are irrelevant.

--

The only way for Reid and even Obama to regain standing with me after this fiasco is if that is the endgame. If not, then I find it impossible to believe any of them had serious intentions about real reform.

No excuses.

Dick of the Week: BOGO Edition

As obvious a choice as Joe Lieberman is, giving him D.O.W. is almost akin to blaming the scorpion for stinging the frog—it's his nature. So it's a "Buy One Get One" sale on Dicks this week: Joe Lieberman, and his fucking caddy, Harry Reid. Because the fact that Joe Lieberman is able to torpedo the Health Care Bill—again—and walk away intact, is all on Reid.

Health Bill in Peril After Lieberman Pulls Support for Senate Deal [link]
In a move that senior leadership aides say has left them stunned, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) that he will filibuster a tentative public option compromise unless it's stripped of its key component: a measure that would allow people aged 55-64 to buy insurance through Medicare.

"Stunned" leadership? Why? Smart bloggers saw this shit coming a mile (or thirteen months) away.

If Harry Reid or anyone else was actually "stunned" by what Lieberman is doing they're as fucking stupid as they are weak, and twice as incompetent.

Reid and Obama fucked this up last year when they blinked and let Lieberman keep his Committee chair and seniority. They thought they could put a leash on him... It was one of a long line of stupid, weak moves by Reid, and a surprisingly boneheaded play by Obama.

Lieberman wasn’t needed to give the Dems 51 and the majority, and all that came with that (which would have been worth it), he was simply padding the lead short of 60.

For them to think he would reliably vote with Dems in exactly this type of situation is the height of naivety. If anything should be clear after his campaigning for McCain, it’s that he doesn’t give a shit about the Democratic party or agenda, only himself and jockeying for whatever comes after this term, because he sealed his fate with the voters a long time ago.

His move towards McCain was a calculated and transparent play towards a position in that Cabinet. He gambled and lost and should have been castrated for it. Instead, Reid's steely spine, Obama's Vulcan mind, and Rahm's gigantic balls got together and decided to let Holy Joe keep his chair, committees and seniority—making a guy who by all rights should be a pariah of both parties and sitting by himself in a Senate cloakroom into President Joe Lieberman with a special preemptive veto power.

Last year, I didn't want Lieberman banished simply for satisfaction—though that was high on the list—it was because I KNEW he was a self-interested traitor they couldn't control. Certainly not Reid. And not even Obama.

He was going to screw them. Hard. And at the time and place of HIS choosing. That this would happen was inevitable, and entirely predictible. Yet it wasn't exactly preventable...

The math dictates that Lieberman would be able to position himself as the 60/40 fence-sitter whenever he wants to, but the fact that he can do that at will and retain all of the benefits of a four-term Democrat is what's outrageous.

Lieberman's relevance stems from only two things:
1. That he can camp out on the 60/40 line.
2. He holds Chairmanship of the Oversight Committee.

Number one ensures Lieberman can piss on the Democrats any time he wants, and number two immunizes him from discipline: Reid cannot simply yank Joe’s seat between Senate sessions without a vote—meaning Lieberman gets another year to find the Oversight Keys he lost during the Bush Administration and use his Committee to run all over Obama or actively scuttle any investigations of the prior Administration.

Punishing him at that point will have the optics of a cover-up and/or protecting Obama.

That's the critical thing they fucked up thirteen months ago. Lieberman would still be a self-important asshole, and still be the GOP’s 41st vote—but he’d be neutered otherwise.

UPDATE: Rahm Emmanuel and the White House told Reid to "give Lieberman whatever he wants," which Reid quickly did, so the public option is out, and so is Medicare Buy-In, triggers or anything else. All to secure the vote that Lieberman will withhold for some other reason next week. Well-played you dumbasses. The 55-64 vote ought to turn out in droves for you guys next year.

UPDATE 2: Booman reminds us that Reid was fucking this up more recently as well...

Harry Reid empowered [Lieberman] when he decided to put the public option in the base bill (and why did Reid feel that was necessary?). Lieberman was freed to oppose anything in the bill he doesn't like without actually being responsible for killing health care reform. Had Reid just used the Snowe-trigger, the bill would have passed rather easily, and Lieberman wouldn't be able to fight for changes in the Conference Report because there are no amendments allowed to a Conference Report. Now you know why I argued against going for a public option in the Senate's base bill.

Miscellany

I STILL WANT HIM ON MY TEAM
Half the lefty blogosphere, including our good friend, Toast, have their panties in a bunch over Matt Taibbi's latest Obama-beatdown in Rolling Stone. It's not Taibbi's best article—and I say that because I was unable to get through it—and he seems to have botched and/or stretched some things to make a point, but count me with John Cole and Kevin Drum, and then John Cole on Drum—Taibbi's larger point handily outweighs any flaws in the article, and focusing only on Taibbi's scatological writing style or the disputed "facts" is really missing the forest. As for Tim Fernholz's "takedown" of Taibbi, I'm not so impressed, and I counter with Felix Salmon, or Taibbi himself.

Let me repeat something I said at Toast's (again):

I have a high tolerance/threshold for Taibbi's style and his conclusions and implications—even if speculative and ultimately proven wrong.

Why?

Because he and NPR's This American Life seem to be the only two entities in the whole of the fucking media that care enough to look into this stuff at all.

And he is one of the very few columnists with a national outlet (RS) that is attacking the Administration from the left.

Does Taibbi drive too fast and have his eyes closed some of the time? Sure. But he's a useful balance to the rest of the fucking establishment media that won't even take the car out of the garage.

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POTY > POTUS
August J Pollak thinks TIME is going to name Sarah Palin its "Person of the Year." Much as that thought makes me want to retch, he makes a good case. Losing works out nicely for Palin, I suppose—fame, $$$ and attention without actually having to do anything or have responsibilities...

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WORTHLESS
The House passed a "sweeping financial regulation" the other day, though, several Democrats jumped ship to scrap a key component designed to help ordinary citizens—the "cram-down" provision:

Republicans were successful in killing an amendment sought by housing advocates that would have given bankruptcy judges the ability to rewrite terms of mortgages so borrowers could remain in their homes. Judges can do this for second or vacation homes, luxury yachts and other areas where consumer debt is involved, but current laws prohibit reworking the terms of first mortgages.

Numerous Democrats joined GOP lawmakers in defeating this amendment — sometimes referred to as a cram-down provision, since judges could impose terms on banks — on the grounds that it could weaken bank finances and represented too steep a change from current practice.

And they did it without a Lieberman of their own... Since banks getting slowly paid off on a mortgage at a lower rate is less short-term profitable than foreclosing on people now, it had to go.* Even though in the long run it would probably be better for everyone—banks included—and would actually, you know, allow people remain in their homes? Pathetic. Especially since this has already cleared the House before.

*What was Matt Taibbi thinking—there's no banking conspiracy...

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RICKEY LIVES
I was about to take the slackers at ATK to task for the paucity of posts over there—even with the big free agent signing of Mr. Henderson, when I decided to check Rickey's previously moribund site—lo and behold—Rickey's back from the grave and ready to party.

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UNGOVERNABLE
Matt Yglesias explains the current state of the union... Pretty tough to disagree.

Stay Classy, Sarah!

Speaking to the conservative talker Rusty Humphries today, Sarah Palin left the door open to speculation about President Obama’s birth certificate.

“Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?” she was asked (around 9 minutes into the video above).

“I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers,” she replied.

“Do you think it’s a fair question to be looking at?” Humphries persisted.

“I think it’s a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting records—all of that is fair game,” Palin said. “The McCain-Palin campaign didn’t do a good enough job in that area.”

Not to get all Andrew Sullivan on you...but if she wants to see a birth certificate for Obama, she make an even exchange for Trig's.

There are honestly more questions surrounding the proof of the birth of her last child than there are about Obama's. Even Glenn Beck isn't sailing on the U.S.S. Birther.

[h/t Balloon Juice]

Frying Pan...Fire...and Now, Gasoline?

I've spent exactly zero time seriously considering options in Afghanistan. Plenty of people have spent countless days, weeks, months and even years contemplating strategy for the current U.S. scenario and beyond. There seem to be no good options, and its likely there never were. The best thing that could have happened would have been for Bush/Cheney to stay on task, kick Taliban and AQ ass and come back with Osama Bin Laden in the first six months there and pulled out.

That never happened obviously, and now our time there is approaching a decade and it is only worse, messier and more complicated, and somehow the stakes are raised exponentially. Obama campaigned on finishing that job by focusing on Afghanistan and winding down in Iraq. I don't think there is a plausible way to do either, and he is truly fucked politically and strategically as far as I can tell.

He's supposed to unveil the results of his long deliberation tonight, and I fear the pressure to double down on Afghanistan will win out and we will only dig ourselves in deeper.

It's a very difficult situation, and, after Bush's grotesque mismanagement, no options are anything but varieties of awful. But everything I hear sounds like conventional drift to me - Bush's policy with a much more interesting and intelligent discussion beforehand. So instead of staying in neo-colonial occupation against an insurgency that now feeds off US intervention with no real strategy, we will stay in neo-colonial occupation against an insurgency that now feeds off US intervention with lots of super-smart defenses of the indefensible. Great.

That's Andrew Sullivan, who also accurately laid out the political fallout from that (and any, really) scenario yesterday:

As Obama appears to be intensifying the lost war in Afghanistan, with the same benchmark rubric that meant next-to-nothing in the end in Iraq, he does not seem to understand that he will either have to withdraw US troops from Iraq as it slides into new chaos, or he will have to keep the troops there for ever, as the neocons always intended. Or he will have to finance and run two hot wars simultaneously. If he ramps up Afghanistan and delays Iraq withdrawal, he will lose his base. If he does the full metal neocon as he is being urged to, he should not be deluded in believing the GOP will in any way support him. They will oppose him every step of every initiative. They will call him incompetent if Afghanistan deteriorates, they will call him a terrorist-lover if he withdraws, they will call him a traitor if he does not do everything they want, and they will eventually turn on him and demand withdrawal, just as they did in the Balkans with Clinton. Obama's middle way, I fear, is deeper and deeper into a trap, and the abandonment of a historic opportunity to get out.

[...] I fear Bush's wars will destroy Obama as they destroyed Bush. Because they are unwinnable; and because the US is bankrupt; and because neither Iraq nor Afghanistan will ever be normal functioning societies in our lifetimes.

You want empire? Then say so and get on with it - with far more forces, and massive cuts in domestic spending to rebuild thankless Muslim population centers thousands of miles from home for decades into the future.

You do not want empire? Then leave.

Those are the presidential level choices.

And neither Bush nor, it seems, Obama has the strength to make them.

That sounds extreme, but I think it's more or less accurate.

At Obsidian Wings, I've been scrolling past Eric Martin's writings on Afghanistan for months, if not longer—solely because I haven't cared enough to bother reading it. I just stopped and read his post from yesterday, and I think it's the most cogent argument for getting the fuck out one could make. Here's a bit:

As discussed on this site on numerous occasions, one of the oddest arguments for escalating/perpetuating our military presence in Afghanistan is the stated fear that our withdrawal would destabilize Pakistan. Implicit in this formulation is the presumption that our ongoing military occupation of Afghanistan (and concomitant military/political activity in Pakistan) is having a stabilizing effect in Pakistan itself. This nostrum about the therapeutic value of large numbers of US forces pursuing US interests through force, like many of the widely accepted foreign policy myths, lacks supporting empirical evidence.

In fact, the empirical evidence is all pointing in the opposite direction. Pakistan today is far less stable than it was when we first invaded: there are raging clashes between the government and militant forces causing refugee crises numbering in the millions, there has been an increase in the frequency and intensity of domestic terrorist attacks, the Pakistani population is increasingly anti-American and increasingly radicalized, there is a crisis in leadership - with the current President, Asif Zardari nursing approval ratings in the sub-Cheney realm, etc.

[...] The fault lines along which Pakistan is being rended are in large part the result of Pakistan's own dysfunctional political culture and national security obsession with India. The latter has led to a hypermilitarization of society, a weak dedication to democratic rule, a warped economy made to serve the military class, skewed government spending objectives, a too-powerful intelligence apparatus and an unhealthy willingness to cultivate religious extremists as putatively useful proxies (in this, the US and Pakistan shared common cause in Afghanistan in the 1980s).

Eventually, Pakistan will have to reckon with these pathologies and find ways to normalize its own political culture. However, while the United States did not create these problems, by forcing Pakistan to accede to our agenda, against its own perceived interests and over the objections of a distrustful population, we are making it more likely that these flash points erupt rather than unwind according to a slower, more natural process.

Read the whole thing. And pray that Obama (or someone close to him) did too.

Foxes Grizzly Bears and Henhouses, etc.

Matt Taibbi's latest financial exposé is in the new Rolling Stone, and it is as infuriating as it is thorough and detailed. It's long—one of those features that when you read the actual magazine was page after page of nothing but columns of text, that "continued on page 96," then 104, then 132...

In it, Taibbi breaks down how the biggest investment banks—namely Goldman-Sachs and Morgan Stanley—conspired, often with the help of the federal government, to cannibalize two of the other Top 5 banks since there were no more suckers on Main Street left to screw over.

Did I mention that it's infuriating? Yes, it is infuriating—but it's a special kind of anger that is tempered by overwhelming dismay that nothing was done at the time to stop it, nothing is being done now to stop it, and nothing ever will be.

Most of the crooks responsible are still running those same banks, only now gambling with our money and making obscene profits with it. And the guys no longer working for those banks? Don't worry about them—they're working for Obama's financial team.

I want to vomit.

UPDATE: Some excerpts:

What really happened to Bear and Lehman is that an economic drought temporarily left the hyenas without any more middle-class victims — and so they started eating each other, using the exact same schemes they had been using for years to fleece the rest of the country. And in the forensic footprint left by those kills, we can see for the first time exactly how the scam worked — and how completely even the government regulators who are supposed to protect us have given up trying to stop it.

This was a brokered bloodletting, one in which the power of the state was used to help effect a monstrous consolidation of financial and political power. Heading into 2008, there were five major investment banks in the United States: Bear, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Today only Morgan Stanley and Goldman survive as independent firms, perched atop a restructured Wall Street hierarchy. And while the rest of the civilized world responded to last year's catastrophes with sweeping measures to rein in the corruption in their financial sectors, the United States invited the wolves into the government, with the popular new president, Barack Obama — elected amid promises to clean up the mess — filling his administration with Bear's and Lehman's conquerors, bestowing his papal blessing on a new era of robbery.

To the rest of the world, the brazenness of the theft — coupled with the conspicuousness of the government's inaction — clearly demonstrates that the American capital markets are a crime in progress. To those of us who actually live here, however, the news is even worse. We're in a place we haven't been since the Depression: Our economy is so completely fucked, the rich are running out of things to steal.

Hank Paulson's moment of glory:

[...] early on the morning of Friday, March 14th, Bear's CEO, Alan Schwartz, struck a deal with the Fed and JPMorgan to provide an emergency loan to keep the company's doors open. When the news hit the street that morning, Bear's stock rallied, gaining more than nine percent and climbing back to $62.

[...]

The rally proved short-lived — Bear ended the day at $30 — but it suggested that all was not lost. Then a strange thing happened. As Bear understood it, the emergency credit line that the Fed had arranged was originally supposed to last for 28 days. But that Friday, despite the rally, Geithner and then-Treasury secretary Hank Paulson — the former head of Goldman Sachs, one of the firms rumored to be shorting Bear — had a sudden change of heart. When the market closed for the weekend, Paulson called Schwartz and told him that the rescue timeline had to be accelerated. Paulson wouldn't stay up another night worrying about Bear Stearns, he reportedly told Schwartz. Bear had until Sunday night to find a buyer or it could go fuck itself.

Bear was out of options. Over the course of that weekend, the firm opened its books to JPMorgan, the only realistic potential buyer. But upon seeing all the "shit" on Bear's books, as one source privy to the negotiations put it — including great gobs of toxic investments in the subprime markets — JPMorgan hedged. It wouldn't do the deal, it announced, unless it got two things: a huge bargain on the sale price, and a lot of public money to wipe out the "shit."

Wait. It gets better...

So the Fed — on whose New York board sits JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon — immediately agreed to accommodate the new buyers, forking over $29 billion in public funds to buy up the yucky parts of Bear. Paulson, meanwhile, took care of the bargain issue, putting the government's gun to Schwartz's head and telling him he had to sell low. Really low.

On Saturday night, March 15th, Schwartz and Dimon had discussed a deal for JPMorgan to buy Bear at $8 to $12 a share. By Sunday afternoon, however, Geithner reported that the price had plunged even further. "Shareholders are going to get between $3 and $5 a share," he told Paulson.

But Paulson pissed on even that price from a great height. "I can't see why they're getting anything," he told Dimon that afternoon from Washington, via speakerphone. "I could see something nominal, like $1 or $2 per share."

Just like that, with a slight nod of Paulson's big shiny head, Bear was vaporized. This, remember, all took place while Bear's stock was still selling at $30. By knocking the share price down 28 bucks, Paulson ensured that the manipulators who were illegally counterfeiting Bear's shares would make an awesome fortune.

What's most frustrating about the whole affair is that due to the banks controlling their own regulators and having infiltrated agancies like the Fed, much of this was legal—and if something they wanted to do wasn't, they'd have that regulation changed, dropped or simply not enforced.

Even if Obama (or anyone else) suddenly decided to crack down and haul these crooks in, it's likely they couldn't even be charged with anything.

The critical part of Taibbi's story is his explanation of naked short-selling and how it was the weapon of choice in taking out Bear Stearns and Lehman. Just go read it.

UPDATE 2: This also comes on the heels of TAL's recent update to last year's seminal "The Giant Pool of Money."

Nobel Follow-Up

The video by Rachel Maddow (below) and a few other things I read have made me more receptive and understanding of Obama. Lindsay Beyerstein (now writing at ObWi) makes a very good point here:

If the 2008 election happened in Africa or the Middle East it would seem obvious that an opposition leader who restored the rule of law and set about reintegrating his country into the family of nations would be racking up points towards a Nobel Peace Prize before he even took the oath of office.

Change I Can Believe In?

TALKING THE TALK
Obama made a speech to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization, the other day, and Andrew Sullivan wasn't impressed. Of course he wasn't. He has a visceral hatred for the group for some reason, and he's grown impatient with Obama's talk-to-action ratio. Not that I can blame him...he's got a very personal stake in the matters addressed (aside from DADT). Here's my take: until Obama can increase the action in that ratio, he needs to lower the talk. I (and Sullivan) understand the amount of shit on his plate, and the political challenges Obama faces with all things gay—but that, and the fact he's only nine months in office, only excuses the lack of action. The talk is all up to him. I know an invitation by the HRC is probably impossible for him to decline, but if I were Obama I'd be embarrassed to deliver that speech having walked NONE of the walk.

BOOBY PRIZE
And that is a natural lead-in to the Nobel Prize. My first reaction was the same as most of Obama's critics: "Are you fucking kidding me? What has he done?" Now, with a bit more background on the process, it seems it is not unusual for people to receive the award in anticipation of or for potential actions. That's clearly the case here. Along with a statement about the USA's rejection of the Bush/Cheney regime.

But the timing for this would have been better had Obama had a chance to act on anything of real substance. I understand it's designed to motivate him, but it ends up making everyone involved look stupid. And despite catcalls from the right about this feeding Obama's alleged narcissism, it's probably the LAST thing Obama wanted to deal with right now.

And here's what else...I really don't care to hear another excellent speech about Obama's plans to undo the Bush/Cheney doctrine until he actually does any of it.

UPDATE: Excellent analysis and breakdown by Rachel Maddow.

The False Sense of Urgency of Now

While the political world is all abuzz with health care reform bullshit... whether there'll be public option or not, etc... one thing that isn't getting nearly enough attention is this:

None of these plans take effect for three years.

THREE. FUCKING. YEARS.

That nugget'll be buried deep in whatever article you're reading, but for all the bullshit happening on or around the dance floor on this issue, none of it really makes a fucking difference for the people getting fucked by their insurance now. Or next year. Or the year after that. Or the year after that.

The Democrats could pass the greatest single-payer plan on Earth, and since they are so fucking stupid and cowardly they will let TWO elections cycles go by before anyone benefits from it, and they are rewarded for delivering it. They could, alternatively, pass the worst piece of shit corporate giveaway possible, knowing they can run for their House seat twice before having to face hte pissed off voters they sold out.

At this point I'm not sure I give a shit what plan comes out what Committee of Congress and what Obama ends up signing. No matter how good it is (and I'm not saying it will be good at all) we have to wait three goddamn years to get it.

Screw Baucus, Reid, and all the corporate whores on the Hill. And screw Obama too. This whole thing is a gigantic fucking tease.

Nostrodennis

Dennis Kucinich has a diary up at Kos, where he predicts what he thinks will happen with health care reform...

1. House will make a big deal about keeping/putting a public option in HR3200 because it competes with insurance companies and will keep insurance rates low.

2. The White House will refer to the President's speech last week where he spoke favorably of the public option.

3. The Senate will kill the competitive public option in favor of non-competitive "co-ops". Senate leaders like Kent Conrad have said the votes to pass a public option were never there in the Senate.

4. The bill will come to a House-Senate Conference Committee without the public option.

5. House Democrats will be told to support the conference report on the legislation to support the President.

6. The bill will pass, not with a "public option" but with a private mandate requiring 30 million uninsured to buy private health insurance (if one doesn't already have it). If you are broke, you may get a subsidy. If you are not broke, you will get a fine if you do not purchase insurance.

This legislative sausage will be celebrated as a new breakthrough and will be packaged as health insurance reform. However, the bill may require a Surgeon General's warning label: Your Money or Your Life!

The bill that Congress passes may pale in comparison to the bill that millions of Americans will get every month/year for having or not having private health insurance.

It will take four years for the new legislation to go into effect. During that time, we are going to build a constituency of millions in support of real health care, a constituency which will be recognized and a cause which is right and just: Health Care as a Civil Right.

Join our efforts. Sign the petition. Contribute. Insure a democratic future.

Thank you.

Dennis

---
Dennis J. Kucinich (OH-10)
U.S. House of Representatives

If I were a betting man, my money'd be on something very close to that.

No Option On the Public Option

A petition in support of a strong public option from ActBlue and BoldProgressives.org—two major Democratic base operations that got Obama and the Democratic majorities elected:

PETITION TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: "We worked so hard for real change. President Obama, please demand a strong public health insurance option in your speech to Congress. Letting the insurance companies win would not be change we can believe in."

In the space to add comments, I added this:

All the polling and support for your agenda was made clear last Novmeber. Do not be swayed by a vocal minority, a craven media or the timid among our party. Now is the best chance for the bold action on health care that ALL of this country needs. Reform of the insurance industry will mean nothing without a public option. Bargaining away the public option in search of Republican support that will not materialize is foolish, and selling out to industry is inexcusable.

Now is the time for leadership. Now is the time to deliver the change you promised.

Step The Fuck Up

Bill Moyers calls Obama out. Watch it.