Obama presents himself as "a warrior for the working class" before the Congressional Black Caucus

President Obama addressed an annual convention of the Congressional Black Caucus on Saturday the 24th. Here are videos of his speech in two parts:

Part 1:



Part 2:



Obama is in full campaign mode here. He even casts himself as "a warrior for the working class." (Pt 2. 4.15 ) It's such a contrast to his usual cautious word-parsing that even the most jaded and pessimistic liberal is likely to get a brief shot of adrenalin from that. At the least, it's nice to hear a sitting President use the phrase "the working class," not considered a polite term by the Beltway Village.

I wouldn't want to underestimate the show business aspects of campaigns, especially Presidential campaigns, in this time in which distrust in government and political leaders have helped our media corporations turn politics into a celebrity game show. Many voters could well decide that it makes a better show for Obama to campaign as "a warrior for the working class" than Gov. Goodhair Perry to campaign as the countries lead executioner.

But past experience and current polling strongly suggest that, despite how strong as the celebrity culture around politics has become, an economy with 9% unemployment and no prospects obvious to the average person that it's likely to improve substantially in the immediate future is going to make a very tough election year for the political party holding the Presidency.

And even the best political showmanship has to have some consistency and, from an incumbent President, some substance to back it up. It's very incongruous for Obama to pose as "a warrior for the working class" while proposing to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits and as a President presiding over a genuinely bad economic situation with high unemployment.

And its a little hard to picture Obama as a "warrior" for anything in domestic politics when he's spent so much of his Presidency, especially the past year, preaching the virtues of bipartisanship and caving repeatedly to a Republican Party that clearly has no intention of cooperating with him on any constructive measures. Just after using that phrase for himself, he goes on to say he played golf with Bill Clinton that same day and refers to the wealthy as "folks like me." That doesn't go very well with posing as "a warrior for the working class." John L. Lewis he's definitely not.



Aside from several sound-bite moments, though, the speech underlines Obama's challenges in facing the 2012 election.

In the beginning of the speech, he cites a presentation by the Rev. Joseph Lowery in which Lowery compares Obama to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from the Biblical Book of Daniel, which Lowery also used to distinguish between "good crazy" and "bad crazy."

But it's one thing for someone else to compare you to Biblical characters. But doing it yourself can easily come off as I'm afraid Obama does here, as seeming to cast his Presidency as a divine mission.

He uses the story to introduce the lines: "You and me, we're all a bit crazy but hopefully a good kind of crazy. We're a good kind of crazy because no matter how hard things get, we keep the faith. We keep fighting. We keep moving forward." (Pt. 1, 3.15)

Shadrach, Meshach and ... Obama?

He describes the onset of the current depression without mentioning which party and what policies brought things to that point.

In describing his own policies, he frames them broadly in progressive terms but without clearly articulating an affirmative role for government.

He lists some reforms that he did get past. But there's the reality that the bank regulations are inadequate, protections against foreclosure are very poor, and consumer protection was hurt by Elizabeth Warren's rejection as head of the consumer agency. As election issues, the Republicans won't contest Obama over these issues directly; after all, they support weak bank regulations and foreclosures and oppose consumer protection. But the weakness of the economy and the high unemployment, as well as the factual inadequacy of foreclosure protection, will deprive his words of the confidence they should invoke among the general public.

Aound 9.30 in Pt. 1, Obama cites the improvements the Affordable Care Act has made to date, which is primarily the ability of parents to cover their children on their insurance up to age 26. But it's a reminder of how the 2014 implementation for the body of the ACA's provisions makes the whole plan hostage to the 2012 election in a way it didn't have to be. If the full act were taking effect now, that would have been a far more substantial improvement that would make it less likely that President Goodhair Perry will be able to repeal it in 2013. It would also have made a strong, favorable point in the campaign. As it stands, the ACA suffers from a negative image because the Republicans trash it in apocalyptic terms while the main benefits are still two and a half years away.

He goes into a peroration at around 13.40 in Pt. 1 against the Republicans. It's eloquent stuff. He gets in some effective mockery in the first minute or so of the 2nd part.

But his presentation defending his jobs program mainly discusses the value of tax cuts, the preferred framing of the Republicans on all economic issues. And he emphasizes the allegedly bipartisan nature of his jobs proposal.

Then he segways directly into defending his latest round of austerity proposals. However eloquent his presentation, pairing his modest jobs bill with his destructive austerity proposals inevitably weakens the favorable contrast between himself and the Republicans. He's basically conservative in his economic outlook, embracing the austerity economics that is having devastating consequences in the US and Europe right now.

It doesn't sound very tough for him to say we're going to "ask" millionaires and billionaires to pay a more fair share of taxes. (Pt. 2, 1.25) The pitch for more tax equity is good for an election issue. It would be much more effective if in the lame duck session of the last Congress in late 2010 Obama hadn't agreed so cheerfully to extent the Bush tax cut for the upper brackets.

It's always been one of Obama's greatest political assets that he can be eloquent and inspiring and is very telegenic. Neither Mitt Romney nor Gov. Goodhair is going to match him on those theatrical advantages.

But in first post-Citizen's United Presidential race, that is not going to be enough. And in terms of being able to draw a sharp contrast to the Republicans and get his base and sympathetic independents out to the polls, Obama may have already jumped the shark. Michael Tomasky writes in Republican Days of Wrath New York Review of Books 09/01/2100; link behind subscription):

One keeps thinking that surely this [Republican obstructionism in Congress] all has to end sometime, but for now there is no end in sight, which is a crucially important point to understand. To movement conservatives such as [Eric] Cantor and Paul Ryan, the victory they secured against Obama in the debt deal — in my view, the political and even moral low point of his presidency, and one from which he may never recover — is not a culmination of anything. It is a beginning. Wyoming Senator John Barrasso told Fox News right after the deal was agreed to: "This [debate about the debt ceiling] is just round one in a fifteen-round fight ... of cutting of spending. We need to realistically take a look at all the spending in this country ... ." [my emphasis]

Tags: 2012 election, barack obama, michael tomasky

The Big Bad Deal compromise

This was Obama's presentation on 07/31/2011 praising the debt-ceiling agreement and bragging it would reduce discretionary domestic federal spending to the lowest level since the Eisenhower Administration, something the Democratic President apparently thinks is a good thing.



Here's an alternative take from Scott Bateman, featuring the President's own words:


Actual Audio: Obama on the Debt Deal from scottbateman on Vimeo.

Meanwhile, Jamie Galbraith prior to the Senate vote was saying Vote 'No' to the Debt Deal and Call in the Constitution New Deal 2.0 08/2/2011. His reasons:

On the economics: by slowly choking off public services, public investment and regulation, the deal sets the economy on a path to strangulation. Every dollar cut from the budget, now or later, is a dollar less of private income. Less private income means less consumption, less private business investment, fewer jobs. Tax revenues will fall, and the deficits and debt will in the end not be reduced. The so-called "cloud of debt" will not lift. Contrary to the foolish claim made by the White House today, there is no magic by which "lifting a cloud of uncertainty" produces growth. There is no confidence fairy.

On dishonesty: the proposed cuts would reduce discretionary public spending as a share of GDP to what it was before the government had any major role in transportation, housing, education, safety, health, medical research or environmental protection. To where it was before the NIH or the CDC, before HUD, before the EPA, before OSHA, before the Department of Education. This is a false promise: those cuts cannot and will not be found. To promise them is to play to the gallery of the ignorant. To pretend that to make them would be good policy is to repudiate the entire past half-century. To make them would bring on a disaster, in many small and large ways, as the physical structures and legal and institutional protections built up over decades crumbled and fell apart. [my emphasis]

At least Social Security and (maybe) Medicare survived actual cuts in services in this round. But:

And while Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid escaped in the first round, they are set up to fall in the second. The deal creates a new junta to force those cuts before the end of this year. The process is repellent, cruel, undemocratic, and designed to leave blood on the ground but not on anyone's hands. [my emphasis]

What we've seen is a genuine breakdown in our democratic system, with unpopular oligopolistic economic policies being jammed through in the face of basic economic knowledge and good sense. When do we stop saying that the US is "becoming" a Banana Republic and acknowledge that the transition has occurred?

Michael Tomasky puts it sensibly in Obama Gives It All Away Daily Beast 07/31/2011:

This is the lowest moment of Obama's presidency. It makes Bill Clinton signing of the welfare reform bill of 1996 look like the founding of the Peace Corps. Even the things he supposedly got out of this deal could vaporize. Defense cuts on par with domestic cuts? After the military contractors' lobbyists get to work? I'll believe that when I see it. Of course Obama did get one concession: no second debt-ceiling vote until 2013. By which time, if he doesn't fundamentally change his way of doing business, he may very well be in retirement.

In political-science terms, Tomasky is right in the bolded statement. But in a more fundamental systematic sense, the low point of Obama's Presidency was his decision not to prosecute the torture perpetrators of the previous Administration. The assumptions implicit in that decision about the rule of law, the role of democratic government and the politics of facing an authoritarian opposition party are now visibly disintegrating his ability to govern. Without some unexpected crisis in which Obama displays a previously-unseen ability to deftly exploit, the Republicans with their control of one House of Congress and most of the federal judiciary are now running the show.

Tomasky is obviously right about the bolded following, as well:

... entitlements [Social Security and Medicare] are next on the GOP’s list. Take my word for it: The Republicans who will serve on the "super-committee" of 12 senators and House members who’ll be charged with determining the next round of cuts by Thanksgiving are going to aim squarely at entitlements, especially Medicare and Medicaid. Now, entitlements need reform and savings, no doubt about that. [This is a nod to conventional pundit wisdom, left vague enough to not specify what Tomasky thinks those need to be. - Bruce] If Republicans were interested in a good-faith way in shoring up the programs for the long-term even if it meant, say, that Medicare wouldn't kick in until age 67 for people now in their 40s, that would be one thing. [I.e, Tomasky thinks this disatrously bad idea is a desirable thing to do. - Bruce] But in fact, they want to destroy it. And Medicaid’s position is even more precarious. We spend too little on it as it is - the barest minimums for poor people's health costs, which inevitably result in higher-cost treatments down the road. This December, liberals will be counting on Barack Obama to defend those programs. What a disgrace that that is now a frightening proposition. [my emphasis]

Tags: barack obama, debt ceiling, james galbraith, michael tomasky

Tomasky on Obama's postpartisan utopianism

The one time I heard the late great Molly Ivins speak live and in person was in the mid-1990s. She told about her first encounter with a bunch of Rush Limbaugh cultists. It was at a town meeting for some Democratic Congressman in the Texas panhandle. A bunch of Limbaughists were blasting him for supporting a budget compromise than involved a tax increase. The Congressman was fruitlessly trying to explain that he was doing his best to make an intelligent decision on behalf of the country and the district.

One of the Limbaugh fans responded, "We didn't send you to Washington to make intelligent decisions! We sent you there to represent us!!

That's how I've come to feel about Obama playing Mr. Reasonable when his opposition on the debt-ceiling negotiations are acting like a bunch of chattering trolls who are more interested in burning down the building than in discussing what kind of new paint job it needs.

Mr. President, we sent you to the White House to protect Social Security and Medicare from the Republican Wrecker Party. We didn't send you there to give the bobbleheads of the punditocracy thrills up their legs by proposing slashing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And all in the nominal pursuit of an agreement with an opposition party who clearly has no intent of doing anything but wrecking your Presidency.

Michael Tomasky, Obama Should Stop Being Reasonable Daily Beast 07/28/2011 admits to having been a believer in Obama's postpartisan imagery. But know he's burnt out on the whole rigamorole:

I was with him at the beginning — his conviction that politics could be better and more deliberative was one of the things I found appealing about the man. But that ship sailed long ago, and Obama’s position has declined from admirable principle to indefensible fetish.

Tomasky is definitely one of the more substantive journalists and commentators who gets big play in the mainstream press.

But how did such a large proportion of the commentariat settle on the goofy idea that you can gave democratic politics without partisan conflict?

The conflicts in American society and politics are real. Wall Street gamblers won't full freedom to gamble with impunity and public bailouts if their bets go badly wrong. Most people want to have some reasonable assurance that their jobs and savings won't evaporate because some unaccountable hedge fund manager or investment banking CEO did some reckless and stupid.

Oil companies want to be free to do offshore drilling at minimal cost and not suffer any financial or legal consequences when their carelessness makes an oil rig blow up, kills a number of workers and pollutes the entire Gulf of Mexico. Most people would rather than oil multinationals subject to sensible legal restrictions and also would rather not have a bizillion barrels of oil screwing up the Gulf of Mexico for years or decades.

Those are real, substantive differences. If one side gets their way, the other side loses. A good-faith negotiation over one of them might produce a solution that contains something both sides like. But the differences are real. If financial speculators are allowed to run wild with no accountability, it will screw up the economy for everyone else. If there are reasonable regulations to stop financial buccaneers and fraudsters from crashing the whole financial system, financial buccaneers and fraudsters may miss some opportunities to steal and defraud. Even the famous Solomonic solution wound up with one side winning, the other losing.

While Tomasky's main points seem to be valid, Obama has a responsibility as head of state, head of government and leader of the Democratic Party. It was a failure on all three fronts to stage a budget negotiation in the context of the debt ceiling limit. And to attempt to use that debt ceiling limit as political cover for himself and as a political club against his own Party and base to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

The Republicans are acting as a wrecker party. But they've been doing that for the last twenty years, including when they held the Presidency. But Obama recklessly facilitated their irresponsibility in this situation.

Tags: barack obama, debt ceiling, michael tomasky

Michael Tomasky on Old Right isolationism

President Dwight Eisenhower with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles: models of peaceful restraint?

Michael Tomasky has a book review in the just-released issue of the online Democracy Journal, Ron Paul's America Spring 2008, reviewing Ain't My America: The Long, Noble History of Anti-War Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism by Bill Kauffman (2008). Tomasky writes:

The Republican Party has become, in short, a party of empire. The conservative movement is now a movement dedicated to American hegemonic dominion. And, given the lack of debate, both will likely remain that way for some time. These statements are true not only of the major presidential candidates, but of the vast majority of Republicans in Congress, most conservative foreign-policy think-tankers, and most high-level GOP operatives involved in policy-making. If the travesty that was our invasion of Iraq has not had the power to change these facts, it is difficult to imagine what set of circumstances could.

Tomasky uses most of the review to describe the impulses and assumptions that Kauffman presents as the foundation of his brand of Old Right isolationism (though Tomasky doesn't use that term).

Here's a generous summation of the dogma by Tomasky:

Kauffman’s America is, or was, a place that was content to be small (he uses the phrase "little America" several times to represent his national beau ideal). He is among those who believe that the United States was born a republic, but that it relinquished its republican-ness–most specifically the absolute liberty of its citizens–the minute it started hankering for a piece of the global action. The thirst for power, writes Kauffman, perverted all else, disfiguring the national character, imposing vast taxes upon the citizenry, subordinating liberty to the penchant for loyalty oaths and Patriot Acts, and (not least among its crimes) sending young soldiers off to die for no good reason, creating generations of fatherless children and leaving wives, as Kurt Weill put it, to bewail their dead in their widow’s veil.

But Tomasky argues, citing Kauffman, that "most of the opponents" of wars in the 19th century "were people who fit within the tradition of cantankerous conservatism that Kauffman describes and admires." Tomasky writes:

This remained the case throughout the nineteenth century. Manifest Destiny, the war in Mexican-American War, the misadventure in Hawaii in the 1880s and ’90s, and of course the fateful Spanish-American War were all noisily opposed by forces that saw them as imperialist adventures, although not through the left-wing lens with which we associate such rhetoric today. Instead, their opposition–centered around the Anti-Imperialist League, which started in New England and had spread to a dozen cities by the time of the Spanish-American War–was isolationist, traditionalist, and constitutionalist (as they saw it). They were bankrolled in part by Andrew Carnegie.

This is, at best, misleading. The opponents of the Mexican-American War, famously including Abraham Lincoln, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, opposed the war because they saw it as a war backed by Southern slaveowners for the acquisition of more slave territory. And though the critics of the turn-of-the-century imperialism included conservatives, people like Mark Twain and William James don't fit that description very well.

But Tomasky is on more solid ground in describing and critiquing the isolationist view of the 20th century. I might word it differently. But his description of Woodrow Wilson is basically correct:

I agree with Kauffman, in part, about World War I: Woodrow Wilson was a liar, an abominable foe of rights and liberties, and a racist to boot. At the same time, I think there was something dignified in his aspirations for the post-war world. More to the point, Kauffman’s narrative is punctured here just a bit by the fact that a lot of the anti-war energy was now coming not from the nativist-isolationist right but the ideological left, some of whose figures (Randolph Bourne, for example) he admires as well and tries, with limited success, to herd into his corral.

And according to Tomasky, Kauffman goes through the same contortions as other Old Right isolationists typically do to paint That Man Roosevelt as a terrible warmonger prior to the Second World War. This weakness is also very typical of those who advocate that viewpoint:

Kauffman is entitled to his views, but a conscientious author who wants to argue that America would have done just fine to stay out of World War II cannot ignore the question of likely consequences. Kauffman basically ignores it all. His speculation about what might have happened amounts to two sentences: It might have been an epic disaster; on the other hand, Hitler and Stalin might have bled each other dry. That’s all he has to say about the matter. And he says it with scarcely more gravity than if he were speculating on what might have happened if Lindsay Lohan had gotten someone else to take the wheel that fateful night of her most recent DUI.

I can almost forgive Tomasky's screw-up on the Mexican-American War in exchange for this:

I have to chuckle when I see Eisenhower praised by people like Kauffman for the way he left office (his farewell address), since he came into office green-lighting CIA coups that Harry Truman and Dean Acheson had resisted on two hemispheres (in Iran and Guatemala), with hideous consequences.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm sick of hearing Eisenhower's Presidency described as a model of moderation and peaceful restraint. That Iran coup in 1953 is haunting us big-time until this very day. And will continue to do so for quite a while.

He concludes with the useful observation that some of the isolationist historical work at least calls our attention to aspects of our history that deserve more scrutiny.

Tags: isolationism, michael tomasky, old right