March 13, 2008
March 12, 2008
Robert Scheer: Spitzer’s Shame Is Wall Street’s Gain
Robert Scheer, TruthDig, March 12, 2008
Tell me again: Why should we get all worked up over the revelation that the New York governor paid for sex? Will it bring back to life the eight U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq that same day in a war that makes no sense and has cost this nation trillions in future debt? Will it save those millions of homes that hardworking folks all over the country are losing because of financial industry shenanigans that Eliot Spitzer, as much as anyone, attempted to halt? Perhaps it provides some insight into why oil has risen to $108 a barrel, benefiting most of all the oil sheiks whom our taxpayer-supported military has kept in power?
Sure, the guy, by his own admission, is quite pathetic in all those small, squirrelly ways that have messed up the lives of other grand public figures before him, but why is an all-too-human sin, amply predicted in early Scripture, getting all this incredible media play as some sort of shocking event? The answer is that, while having precious little to do with serious corruption in public life, it does have a great deal to do with stoking flagging newspaper sales and television ratings.
The sad truth is that reporting on major corruption, say, the rationalizations of a president who has authorized torture, doesn’t cut it as a marketing bonanza. Just days before this grand exposé, the president vetoed a bill banning torture, and instead of being greeted with horrified disgust, the president’s deep denigration of this nation’s presumed ideals was met with a vast public yawn. Torture, unlike paid sex, doesn’t have legs as a news story.
Sex sells, and frankly it would seem far more exploitative for the news media to pimp this tale to the public than anything that VIP escort service did with the pitiable governor. His behavior was not really any more wretched than messing around with a young and vulnerable White House intern who didn’t even get paid for her efforts, yet Bill Clinton survived that one, whereas Spitzer was presumed dead on the arrival of this “news.” The New York Times, which editorially has supported the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, whose vast White House experience clearly did not include corralling her husband, now editorializes contemptuously about Spitzer’s betrayal of the public trust as well as about his exploitation of his “ashen-faced” wife, who, like Hillary, stood by her man.
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David Sirota: The False Assumptions In the “Electability” Arguments
David Sirota, Credo Action, March 11, 2008
It seems the longer the presidential nominating contest goes on between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the more idiotic the pontificating and candidate spinning – especially when it comes to the so-called “electability” argument.
The Clinton campaign, as exemplified by surrogate Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA) this morning on Meet the Press when he said:
“She’s clearly the strongest candidate in the states that Democrats must win to have a chance. Look, it’s great that Barack Obama is doing wonderfully well in Wyoming and Utah and, and places like that, but there’s no chance we’re going to carry those states. Whether he gets 44 percent as opposed to 39 percent doesn’t matter, but we’re not going to carry those states. We do have a chance to carry the big four. We’ve got to in three of the big four. Hillary Clinton’s the strongest candidate to do that. That’s been proven by the voters in the–those states and hopefully by Pennsylvania as well.”
Let’s put aside the fact that the Clinton campaign is insulting the importance of a huge swath of the American heartland – a talking point that has been repeated throughout this campaign by Clinton surrogates. Let’s just take a look at the two questionable assumptions inherent in this “electability” claim.
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March 11, 2008
McCain’s Next Big Test: Economics 101
Jonathan Martin, Politico, March 11, 2008
When the February jobs report came out on Friday, economists grimaced and Wall Street blanched.
John McCain, however, said the news was “not terrible” – and Democrats pounced.
“Once again, John McCain demonstrated just how little he understands about the economy,” the Democratic National Committee declared in an e-mail to reporters.
McCain suffered in the Democratic translation of his remarks at a campaign stop in Georgia, as he had acknowledged the jobs news was “not good” and was not terrible only because the overall unemployment rate didn’t rise.
But the broadside was yet another example of what is already among the most popular lines of Democratic attack against McCain: that the Arizona senator lacks expertise on the economy and will be uniquely vulnerable on what is shaping up to be the overarching domestic issue of the campaign.
Reuters: McCain Budget Numbers Don’t Add Up
Andy Sullivan, Reuters, March 11, 2008
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – John McCain’s reputation for “straight talk” has helped him clinch the U.S. Republican presidential nomination but budget experts say his numbers do not add up.
McCain’s promises to reduce wasteful spending if elected president in November would not begin to cover the costs of his proposed tax cuts, analysts say.
He also has not yet explained how he would rein in the health-care and retirement costs expected to swamp the federal budget as some 77 million people retire from the U.S. work force in the coming decades.
On top of that, a President McCain would inherit a $400 billion budget deficit, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that cost nearly $200 billion per year and a similar bill for interest payments on the $10 trillion national debt.
Many experts said McCain’s proposals would make the fiscal picture worse.
“This is one of the most fiscally irresponsible plans we’ve seen by a presidential candidate in a long time,” said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
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March 10, 2008
Paul Krugman, The Face-Slap Theory
Paul Krugman, The New York Times, March 10, 2008
Friday’s employment report — which was so weak that it had many economists declaring that we’re already in a recession — was bad news. But it was actually less disturbing than what’s going on in the financial markets.
The scariest thing I’ve read recently is a speech given last week by Tim Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mr. Geithner came as close as a Fed official can to saying that we’re in the midst of a financial meltdown.
To understand the gravity of the situation, you have to know what the Fed did last summer, and again last fall.
As late as August the favorite buzzword of financial officials was “contained”: problems in subprime mortgages, we were assured, wouldn’t spread to other financial markets or to the economy as a whole.
Soon afterward, however, a full-fledged financial panic began. Investors pulled hundreds of billions of dollars out of asset-backed commercial paper, a little-known but important market that has taken over a lot of the work banks used to do. This de facto bank run sent shock waves through the financial system.
The Fed responded by rushing money to banks, and markets partially calmed down, for a little while. But by December the panic was back.
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March 9, 2008
House GOP Funk Worsens
John Bresnahan and Josh Kraushaar, Politico, March 9, 2008
For National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.), every week seems to bring a new set of problems. On Saturday night, things got even worse.
With Democrat Bill Foster’s victory in the Illinois 14th District special election, Democrats now hold the seats occupied only 21 months ago by former Speaker Dennis Hastert (Ill.) and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Texas) – the two GOP lawmakers who ran the House from 1998 to 2006.
Since September, Cole has faced a barrage of bad news:
* The NRCC lags behind the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee by nearly $30 million in cash on hand.
* GOP House leadership endured an embarrassing scuffle when Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) tried to fire Cole’s top two staffers, during which Cole threatened to resign.
* There has been a wave of retirement announcements by veteran Republican lawmakers that will force the NRCC to defend what were once seen as safe GOP seats.
* Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) was indicted on 35 federal corruption charges, which puts another Republican-controlled district in play.
* And the FBI continues its criminal investigation into a brewing accounting scandal that centers on the former NRCC treasurer’s activities.
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March 8, 2008
Angry Boeing Supporters Target McCain
Matthew Daly, The Associated Press, March 8, 2008
Angry Boeing supporters are vowing revenge against Republican presidential candidate John McCain over Chicago-based Boeing’s loss of a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract to the parent company of European plane maker Airbus.
There are other targets for their ire – the Air Force, the defense secretary and even the entire Bush administration.
But Boeing supporters in Congress are directing their wrath at McCain, the Arizona senator and nominee in waiting, for scuttling an earlier deal that would have let Boeing build the next generation of Air Force refueling tankers. Boeing now will miss out on a deal that it says would have supported 44,000 new and existing jobs at the company and suppliers in 40 states.
“I hope the voters of this state remember what John McCain has done to them and their jobs,” said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., whose state would have been home to the tanker program and gained about 9,000 jobs.
“Having made sure that Iraq gets new schools, roads, bridges and dams that we deny America, now we are making sure that France gets the jobs that Americans used to have,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill. “We are sending the jobs overseas, all because John McCain demanded it.”
Mehlman and Rove Boost McCain Campaign
David Paul Kuhn, Politico, March 8, 2008
John McCain is getting much more than President Bush’s endorsement and fundraising help for his campaign. He’s getting Bush’s staff.
It’s no secret that Steve Schmidt, Bush’s attack dog in the 2004 election, and Mark McKinnon, the president’s media strategist, are performing similar functions for McCain now.
But other big-name Bushies are lining up to boost McCain, too.
Ken Mehlman, who ran Bush’s 2004 campaign, is now serving as an unpaid, outside adviser to the Arizona Republican. Karl Rove, the president’s top political hand since his Texas days, recently gave money to McCain and soon after had a private conversation with the senator. A top McCain adviser said both Mehlman and Rove are now informally advising the campaign. Rove refused to detail his conversation with McCain.
The list could grow longer. Dan Bartlett, formerly a top aide in the Bush White House, and Sara Taylor, the erstwhile Bush political adviser, said they are eager to provide any assistance and advice possible to McCain.
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March 7, 2008
David Sirota: Hope in the Time of NAFTA
David Sirota, TruthDig, March 6, 2008
Reading articles about Hillary Clinton attacking NAFTA can lead you to believe The Onion has taken over America’s news bureaus.
Clinton spent the last 10 years repeatedly praising the trade deal in speeches, most recently calling the job-killing accord “good for New York and America.” Yet, journalists barely mention that record as they transcribe her assertions that “I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning.”
This week, such media negligence went from pathetic to absurd, as a CNN headline blared, “Clinton hammers Obama on NAFTA.” Political scribes breathlessly recounted how the New York senator criticized her opponent-a longtime NAFTA critic-over a thinly sourced television report claiming his adviser, economist Austan Goolsbee, told Canadian officials to not take the campaign’s anti-NAFTA platform seriously. Clinton said the uncorroborated allegations, seeded by Canada’s right-wing government, showed “the difference between talk and action.” Most journalists regurgitated her charges without noting the difference between Clinton’s new fair-trade talk and her decade-long pro-NAFTA actions (nor did they note that the same report said Clinton advisers also did what Goolsbee was accused of).
Of course, Bill Clinton signed NAFTA after pledging to oppose expanded cross-border trade until Mexican wages rose. So Hillary Clinton’s dishonesty, which sealed her Ohio primary win, is nothing new in politics.
What is new is the fact-free coverage. Whereas diligent reporting marked the original NAFTA debate, today’s media reduce trade discussions to vapid cartoons-ones so inane that a leading NAFTA booster is rewarded with glowing headlines for pretending she never supported the accord.
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