Posts tagged with Republicans
1. The closer the Bush administration got to being able to get the hell outta Washington, the quicker the rate of job loss became.
2. The more time that the Obama administration had spent in office, the slower the rate of job loss becomes.
3. The more Republicans blame Obama for a flat economy, the more slowly jobs are lost in this recession.
We’ll check back in with this graph after the jobs bill passes the Senate.
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I sincerely dislike people who lie when it matters. It matters when such lies are propagated by those with the power to effect other people’s lives. Some do it so shamelessly, without a flinching glare of remorse. Collins knew better. I’m not really sure what she had to gain from being the mouthpiece for the GOP’s new meme, but I do know what she has to lose.
We all kind of expect this sort of business though. While Collin’s claims were disreputable, unprofessional and plain deceitful, they didn’t come as much of a surprise. Leaves one to wonder what that implies about our society, our political culture; how the blatant propagandizing and demagoguery casts its shadow upon our collective notion of what to expect.
This whole segment reminded me greatly of Salman Rushdie’s novel “Shame”, the first novel I read after going through an extended phase of non-fiction reading. At one point, Rushdie chooses to advance his ruminations on exactly where all that extra, un-felt shame goes in this world:
“Where do you imagine they go? – I mean emotions that should have been felt, but were not – such as regret for a harsh word, guilt for a crime, embarrassment, propriety, shame? – Imagine shame as a liquid, let’s say a sweet fizzy tooth-rotting drink, stored in a vending machine. Push the right button and a cup plops down under a pissing stream of the fluid. How to push the button? Nothing to it. Tell a lie, sleep with a white boy, get born the wrong sex. Out flows the bubbling emotion and you drink your fill … but how many human beings refuse to follow these simple instructions! Shameful things are done: lies, loose living, disrespect for one’s elders, failure to love one’s national flag, incorrect voting at elections, over-eating, extramarital sex, autobiographical novels, cheating at cards, maltreatment of womenfolk, examination failures, smuggling, throwing one’s wicket away at the crucial point of a Test Match: and they are done shamelessly. Then what happens to all that unfelt shame? What of the unquaffed cups of pop? Think again of the vending machine. The button is pushed; but then in comes the shameless hand and jerks away the cup! The button-pusher does not drink what was ordered; and the fluid of shame spills, spreading in a frothy lake across the floor.
But we are discussing an abstract, an entirely ethereal vending machine; so into the ether goes the unfelt shame of the world. Whence, I submit, it is siphoned off by the misfortunate few, janitors of the unseen, their souls the buckets into which squeegees drip what-was-spilled. We keep such buckets in special cupboards. Nor do we think much of them, although they clean up our dirty waters.” (Rushdie, Shame 124)
The recent enthusiasm over the President’s “question time” with House Republicans and now Senate Democrats that were aired live on most of the national news networks has led to the petitioning by bloggers and wonks alike for more of these unscripted, televised dialogues. The petition thus far has collected almost 3,000 signatures (mine included), punctuated by notable media figures such as Nate Silver, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Andrew Sullivan and David Corn.
America could use more of this — an unfettered and public airing of political differences by our elected representatives. So we call on President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner to hold these sessions regularly — and allow them to be broadcast and webcast live and without commercial interruption, sponsorship or intermediaries.
Harold Ford, the carpetbagging politician scoping out his chances for a NY Senate run, blogs! What does this new fact mean for New Yorkers and Ford’s potential electoral opponents? Well you can be sure he will be taking every opportunity to trash Sen. Gillibrand and Democrats in general. Of most the notable elements in his anti-Democrat platform that this blog now pushes : “no bank tax is needed right now in New York…The scheduled trial for the 9/11 conspirators in New York City should be moved”
But not to be left out, Ford gives props to the epic-ly consequential victory of Scott Brown :
“SCOTT BROWN’S victory last week in the Massachusetts Senate race…marked the third time in three months that the Democratic Party has lost the support and trust of independent voters. The message these voters sent was clear. With one out of five Americans unemployed or underemployed, President Obama and the Democratic Party need to shift attention away from health care and toward a bold effort to create jobs, improve the economy and rein in the size of government”
So after this statement, am I still to believe that he is a Democrat? Sounds more like he belongs in the Connecticut for Lieberman Party.
Within the larger context of the national political dialogue, this was somehow lost.
Turns out that Obama has had his hands full rectifying the poor governing habits of previous administration – starting with reestablishing and supporting the regulatory agency’s role in our government. The appointment of public officials who legitimately claim ‘expert’ status in their fields into relevant regulatory agencies is only step 1. What needs to follow is the use of these people’s expertise and knowledge to positive ends, specifically in making the laws we already have work like they were designed to:
“Republican presidents didn’t just undermine scientific administration by making poor appointments; they also slashed or held down the regulatory agencies’ budgets, forcing them to cut personnel. This was a particular problem in the all-important area of enforcement: If regulatory agencies can’t conduct inspections and enforce rules, it doesn’t matter how tough those rules are.” (Judis, “The Quiet Revolution”, 2.1.10)
The relevance this has to our national dialogue though, is huge. The economy, health care, energy – the ability to tackle these issues hinges upon the government’s ability to erect a regulatory regime that is both fair and beneficial to the public at large. Think of the financial sector (particularly, think “Too Big To Fail”). Think of the mayhem that the banking giants have already conclusively proven they can cause when existing regulations fail or when enforcement of those regulations is impossible. That alone is cause to applaud Obama’s initiative to resuscitate our meek regulatory agencies and begin the return to scientific administration.
As a side note, the effort by Obama should work to calm the general public’s dissatisfaction with Congress – as more pressure would be relieved from the idea that we need to make new legislation in order to solve some of our problems. Seems to me like the White House should have played up this notion at least a little, especially during that month or two this summer where all that was coming from the GOP were different versions of the same diatribes against “big government”.
Robert Gibbs is right now feeling the pressure from ABC’s Jake Tapper on why Obama needed to go through an executive order to establish a “debt commission”. Tapper is harping on this fact that because of Republican filibuster threats, Democrats in Congress are forced to try and secure 60 votes for even non-controversial legislature, but Tapper keeps trying to frame this as evidence of Democrat’s and Obama’s inability to govern. As Tapper says “you guys control the House and Senate – why are you not able to make the tough decisions?”, Gibbs continues to smile and returns to the President’s message prompting the minority party to help try and solve problems rather than secure political victories.
This dispute between Tapper and Gibbs in still going on, Tapper seems to draw the conclusion that a piece of legislature’s inability to garner 60 votes must imply that this is bad legislature (using the debt commission as an example). I guess it is easier to ignore the realities of legislating and making good policy when trying to corner the Press Secretary – this would have been a much more poignant interchange if not for Tapper’s insistence that the problem is Obama’s unwillingness to “man-up and make the tough decisions”.
For spending about 10 minutes on this in the briefing, I don’t think anything of substance was communicated to the press. Tapper secured some sound bytes, maybe a small quote about the WhiteHouse’s view of politicking, but that is about it.
…and everything in between
