There Is No Plan

After a short, and barely respectable lull in their nasty ‘rhetoric’, the GOP is once more gearing up to repeal Obama’s Healthcare overhaul in the House.

Nobody seems to notice that the Senate spent a year watering the current law down to weak tea, but still has a Democratic majority, and that sitting in the White House is a President who called Health Care reform a landmark piece of legislation.

I think it’s a fair bet to suggest that whatever lunatic scrawl the House pass is going to be regarded with nothing less than utter disdain by the Senate and President.

In short, the whole Repeal Health Care shenanigan is a total waste of time. Talk about the bridge to nowhere. This is the fart to nowhere. Read the rest of this entry »

Cheaper Tea? How Dare you!

Americans are “mythmakers”. There’s nothing they love better than discarding the inconvenient bits of a story to fit their purpose, whether that purpose is to sell mattresses or glorify the nation’s founding.

A classic example of this is The Boston Tea Party of 1773. Indeed, so central a story is it in American Folklore that it’s the inspiration for the ‘party’ of the same name, currently running amok in American political life. The Tea Party believes in lower taxes, and cutting the deficit (go figure), and one of its favorite banner quotations is “No Taxation Without Representation”, which just happened to be a big favorite around the time of the orginal Boston Tea Party.

What today’s three-cornered hat wearing nutters don’t realize is that the use of the term “No Taxation Without Representation” was a rather convenient cover for what the Boston Tea Party of 1773 was really about.  To explain why requires a brief overview of something which people pay little attention to these days. History. Read the rest of this entry »

The Tea Party is one unhappy camper.

The fuse was lit on Tuesday night, when the Tea Party prevented the GOP from taking the Senate even though Rubio, Paul, and Johnson are now in one way or another Tea Party Senators who trashed some pretty stiff Democratic (or in the case of Florida, Independent, opposition).  Regardless of that. the Republican Senate leadership was more than a little unhappy about not getting all those juicy chairmanships, and they began to grumble. It’s small comfort to them that the co-opting of Tea Party energy by GOP leaders was a critical part of the independent switch from Democrat to Republican that led to the hurt on Obama on November 2.

Sure, their House counterparts can claim what looks like a pretty profound short-term victory out of it,  But the writing is on the wall.  Underpinning this ‘success’ is a sacrifice that will ultimately doom the GOP. I predict that by 2016, the Tea Party will begin to field its own candidates fighting Republicans and Democrats, splitting the right wing vote and consigning the GOP to the dustbin of history.

What makes me so confident? Here are a few reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

But is it too late?

Last night, Barack Obama finally put the hurt on the Republicans. Listening to Senator John Kyl’s floundering and blustering at the State of the Union address shows that it clearly hit home. Obama did what he had to do. He diverted blame for the economic shit sandwich firmly to the Bush Administration and told America that he hated the bank bailout in no uncertain terms. His frank, confident tone was a breath of fresh air, a pleasant surprise that left us wondering, where his this guy been for the last year?

It took the shock of the Massachusetts upset to get the President thinking he needed to be speaking the people’s language. And he did just that. It’s a long shot to suggest that a single speech will change the course of events in a significant way, but it could – if it’s the beginning of a full-on, sustained populist campaign. The speech was peppered with great sound bites, but one of the themes I was impressed by (partly because I’ve been touting the idea for 18months) was the idea that the government should be run like the American family. Bringing the business of government down to a human level is always a great idea with voters.

In my last post, I suggested that the President get on the road, work out of Air Force One, and talk to the people in this country that are really hurting. Getting into campaign mode, at the same time as attacking Wall Street,  pushing the “good for business” aspects of Healthcare reform and other stimulus efforts, as well as enacting serious efforts to stem the foreclosure crisis will really help. As for the deficit, the message is a smart one. Let’s cut it! Except that we can’t in any meaningful way – and because economic recovery will do the job far better. People (who’ve wholeheartedly drunk Reaganomic kool-aid) like the idea.  But deep down they know that actually cutting the deficit during the dark times would hurt them so they aren’t really interested in actually doing it.

Keep it up, Mr. President. Don’t make this a one shot lighter.

Don’t ask why, but I just relistened to Dolly Parton’s song, “9 to 5″ for the first time in many years. Even though it was written thirty years ago, it’s an anthem for the times we’re living in. It reminded me that the harsh recession (and maybe depression) we’re in isn’t just about economic statistics, or even jobs lost or lives destroyed, it’s about who we, as Americans, are at our very core.

Take a listen, study the lyrics.

Tumble outta bed

Dolly in "9 to 5". Her fellow secretaries were played by Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, at the time two of the most politically progressive actors in Hollywood.

And stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
Yawnin, stretchin, try to come to life
Jump in the shower
And the blood starts pumpin
Out on the streets
The traffic starts jumpin
And folks like me on the job from 9 to 5
Chorus:

Workin 9 to 5
What a way to make a livin
Barely gettin by
Its all takin
And no givin
They just use your mind
And they never give you credit
Its enough to drive you
Crazy if you let it

9 to 5, for service and devotion
You would think that i
Would deserve a fair promotion
Want to move ahead
But the boss won’t seem to let me in
I swear sometimes that man is out to get me
Mmmmm… Read the rest of this entry »

a fresh faced bill clinton in 1993. he came from hope, he ended up nowhere.

In 1993 Clinton arrived on a heady wave of enthusiasm, dedicated to undoing some of the excesses of Reaganism. He made a few stumbles, he announced a sweeping healthcare initiative and he got nowhere. There are many reasons for his failure. The sheer newness of the administration, presentation issues, and this – he got very limited support from a Democratically controlled Congress. That opened the door for Gingrich’s charges of stasis and corruption that led to the Contract for America, and sweeping mid-term victories. That broadly was the end of the Clinton Administration as an effective liberally-driven government. It’s the main reason that the Reagan Revolution was not shattered. Clinton became merely a painful interregnum.

Cut to 15 years later.  Obama is getting it right. The budget is a great document, the bipartisan experiment is over, the decision to leave troops behind in Iraq is correct, and the healthcare, energy, and education agendas are on course. Now it’s up to the Democratically elected Congress to respond. Obama’s charm offensive is wasted on the GOP. Obama appears to have realized that. The true targets of his charm offensive should be members of his own Senate caucus with a more conservative viewpoint. Read the rest of this entry »

potus has his brain in gear.

There are an awful lot of liberals breathing easier after the release of President Obama’s first budget. Krugman, who had been as close to castigating the President as any columnist on the left was almost unequivocally supportive. The budget’s focus on healthcare and education as key to our long term economic revival as well as boosting the middle class in a meaningful and intelligent way is a great starting point for recalibrating American economic and social policy. It sets up a battle royal with the Republicans, and will put Obama’s political savvy on the line. Rahm Emmanuel will also get battle-tested for the first time. Convincing Blue Dog Democrats of the need for a fundamental shift away from Reaganomics and its terrible legacy will be tough, but Obama is starting to display the calm under fire that suggests it can be done.

It’s been mentioned before on this blog, but you’ll be hearing an awful lot about The Two Ladies of Maine, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. At least one of them is required to beat the inevitable GOP filibuster.  Maine’s two senators are about to become the most important people in the history of the state. They are sure to drive a hard bargain as they together become the last vestige of Obama’s short dalliance with bipartisanship.

Obama is all about popularity. But he forgets that popularity is least important after you’ve just won an election. He went out of his way to court the GOP on his stimulus bill, and despite an awful lot of bipartisan BS, not one voted knuckle-dragger for it.

For a President apparently more politically savvy than most on arrival in the White House, he let himself down badly. He forgot that Bipartisanship BS is only meant to be trotted out for winning elections. After they’re over, you kick the losers when they’re down. But Obama’s flaw is that he hates the idea of being hated. So instead, the President got an earful of whining from the GOP who had ample opportunity to diss the plan, and Obama ends up looking like an unconvincin blowhard, after only a week on the job.

The lesson of the day is pretty simple. The GOP is more right-wing, doctrinaire and disagreeable than ever. They’re MO is very simple. If the President had ignored them they would have bleated on that nobody listens. If the President gives them the time of day, they give him the finger. Neither apporach is without costs, but the former is a far better alternative, considering that right now Republicans are more discredited than at virtually any time since Roosevelt.

Politics is not a pretty business. It never was and it never will be. The sooner Obama realizes that the better, because right now he’s at risk of becoming a victim of his own magnanimity. Most kids learn it in the school yard. There are certain people that are just dangerous to be friends with. Obama apparently missed that memo.

i want to be loved...

Obama is leading like a President who wants to be loved. In case he hasn’t noticed, he’s about as loved and admired as anyone can be without levitating.

It’s time to try something a little different. Like leading.

This morning the President announced that he’d ordered the EPA to ‘review’ the block on California’s strict emission regulations.

Everybody knows what that review is going to do. It’s going to remove the block on California’s strict emission regulations. By delaying he just gives his enemies a chance to rally their lobbyists.

Last week, Obama met with GOP house leaders and asked for their input on the economic stimulus package.

Everyone knew what was going to happen. The GOP did give Obama their input. It consisted of a single finger. With America on the brink in so many respects, we really don’t have time to chit chat, especially with a Republican party that’s on the verge of marginalizing itself. What they say isn’t important. We need to ignore them. That will make them look even more truculent and outmoded than ever.

The trend here is simple. Obama wants his enemies to be his friends. That’s very sweet, but it’s going to get frustrating real fast.

I’ve been hearing an awful lot of talk these days about how Obama is using bipartisanship as a Trojan horse to get good policies through the quagmire.

Not going to work. There isn’t a quagmire. We run the show. With the help of Senators Spector, Collins, and Snowe, and a strong whip in the Senate, we have total filibuster-proof control. The days when preventing the tyranny of the majority are gone. Bipartisanship is only good when the other side agree to what you want to do your way.

Now is not the time for offering compromises. We won. They lost. It’s our turn to lead. And if the people don’t like it. They can vote us out next time.

It’s called democracy.

I once directed a feature film. The experience taught me more about leadership than anything I’ve ever done. These are the rules; 1. Keep your mouth shut unless it matters. 2. Be decisive. 3. Keep it brief. 4. Never ask for advice. Keep your game face on. 5. Forget about being liked.

Great film directors are not nice people on set.

Presidents are always on set.

aren't they sweet together. not

Rick Warren is a more agreeable and far smarter version of Focus on the Family’s repugnant James Dobson. If you’re going to try and turn the country into some kind of boring Christian nation, you don’t harangue people to do it, like Dobson. You have to jolly them towards the Rapture, with a Starbucks latte and a good time.

Warren is, sadly, a very influential man in certain quarters. He will look upon his appearance at Obama’s inauguration as a huge victory for his roly-poly propaganda approach. He’ll stir up his troops in favor of the new President, he’ll be able to show nice pix of him blessing the new Prez, and he’ll be able to say, look what kind of influence I have. It’s a huge ego trip for him.

Oh, and he’s being used by Obama quite brilliantly. Read the rest of this entry »