Debt and taxes

By Carl 



It never ceases to amaze me, the ability of the uberrighteous to shoot themselves in the foot: 

Greenspan said he expected more turmoil on Wall Street.



"Considering the momentum in which the market went down over the last week, it's very unlikely — if history is any guide — that this isn't going to take a while to bottom out. So the initial reaction, in my judgment, is going to be negative," Greenspan said of S&P’s downgrade.



Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tried to reassure investors in a Sunday night interview but conceded he could not predict the reaction.



"It's hard to know what'll happen in this context," Geithner said on CNBC. "But, again, I think that everyone can be confident, both here and around the world, that treasuries are the most — these days — the most liquid — the strongest place to put your money at a time like this."

He said S&P "has shown really terrible judgment" and "a stunning lack of knowledge about basic U.S. fiscal budget math."

Actually, Mr.
Secretary, I think the S&P has this just right. After all, it's a
temporary arrangement that will have to be revisited sooner than you
expect, since the Federal tax on gasoline expires next month and budget
projections included that in the debt ceiling agreement. It is very
likely that tax will be at least scaled back if not eliminated, thanks
to the Teabaggers. You can't say this. S&P can.

We get the government we deserve. We are officially a banana republic.

A lot of fingerpointing went on this weekend, but ultimately, the blame rests in two places: The Bush administration and the Teabaggers.

After all, the only significant spending the Obama administration passed was the $787 billion stimulus package, a thickly-wrongheaded attempt to shore up the banking system when that banking system was responsible for the mess we found ourselves in AND will suffer now from the debt ceiling debacle, as interest rates will ratchet up.

Better he should have spent the money here, at home, on works projects designed to get people permanent jobs. There's so much we can use idle labor for, from replacing the national grid to upgrading bridges and tunnels, to just cleaning the damned streets. Jobs = income = spending = more jobs. It's not a hard calculation to make, and given how the banks rebounded better than expected...

How the Bush administration fits into all this? Well, the national debt in 2001 was somewhere around $6 trillion. It's now $14 trillion. Obama can rightly be blamed for $1 trillion or so (let's credit -- debit? -- him with the unnecessary extension of the Bush tax cuts, too), leaving... carry the one... $7 trillion dollars that Bush spent without the income to show for it.

Republicans: they do spend big.

The Teabagger mantra with respect to the debt ceiling was basically nihilist from the get-go: burn it down, let God sort it out.

All we have ever had to do was to roll back the Bush tax cuts, restore the Clinton tax rates (proven job creator, that) and history would have been happy and marked this as a remarkable time when the US yet again ducked a bullet. The idea of minimalist government is so ludicrous, so stupid, so moronic, that I seriously believe the "libertarians" who propose this ought to be locked away in a cage and put on display in the Coney Island freak show.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Bifurcated democracy

By Carl 

This was an interesting op-ed in yesterday's New York Times:

OUR nation isn't facing just a debt crisis; it's facing a democracy crisis. For weeks, the federal government has been hurtling toward two unsavory options: a crippling default brought on by Congressional gridlock, or — as key Democrats have advocated — a unilateral increase in the debt ceiling by an unchecked president. Even if the last-minute deal announced on Sunday night holds together, it’s become clear that the balance at the heart of the Constitution is under threat.

The debate has threatened to play out as a destructive but all too familiar two-step, revealing how dysfunctional the relationship between Congress and the president has become. 

The article talks about how presidents have decided to exercise power unilaterally, like Obama's Libyan adventures (although the practice goes back decades to Reagan and even Nixon,) while the Congress has been unable to rally itself to challenge the President's usurpation of power. Either the Congress is divided (like now) or reinforces the person holding the Oval Office (as under Bush the Younger).

This is what the punditry tells us we want, over and over again: divided government. Given what we've experienced for over three decades now (absent the six years of Bush the Younger) is this really what we want? An ineffectual Congress hamstrung by the tyranny of the minority and a Presidency who usurps power like a king?

Mind you, none of this is partisan: Republicans and Democrats have been to blame in BOTH branches. Clinton was forced to legislate by executive order, much as Obama is. Both Bushes declared wars without making a firm case to the American people as to the need for them (this wasn't dominoes toppling or any such credible threat.) Reagan tossed American troops around like candy and American armaments to enemies.

In Congress, John Boehner can't even get a centerpiece of legislation passed trying to keep the party's dog-and-pony show from tearing each other up. When Pelosi was in charge, she had to placate Blue Dog Democrats, rather than muscle them into line.

Hell, about the only thing any Congress since 1990 has been able to agree upon is that Bill Clinton needed to be impeached and a bunch of Asian deserts bombed!

This has effectively emasculated an entire branch of government. Power seeks a vacuum. It's almost understandable that the president would unilaterally legislate.

Plus, members of Congress don't have to take a stand on anything controversial. Take the EPA actions earlier this year to regulate greenhouse gases. Now, long time readers of this blog know there are few people more concerned with global climate change than me. Maybe Al Gore. So while I don't have a problem with Obama taking the bull by the fumes... so to speak... I worry about the fact that Congress didn't vote on this.

Note: it wasn't voted down. The bill stalled before a vote could be taken. It's probably still in the hamper, waiting to be aired out. Look at what this saves Republicans from, say, Montana, where people believe climate change is real and a problem. The party would insist they vote against the EPA actions. Their constituencies would say "We need a better Congresscritter." No responsibility, yet they can parade around touting how angry they are that they didn't get their say.

The more a controversial issue remains undecided, and the more critical that issue becomes, the less likely it is Congress will ever actually take action. And the more likely it is they will cede that issue to the Executive branch. Fine for a liberal like me when a semi-liberal like Obama is in charge, but what happens when another Dumbya hits the Oval Office? One a little more clever?

Congress will still feel this is expedient.

But it is unhealthy. It is unhealthy for an economy, it is unhealthy for a Constitution and it is deep unhealthy for a society and its people.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

"An agreement in our time"

By Distributorcap

President Obama needs to add Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People to his reading list -- because since taking office in January 2009, he has done neither very well. One way not to win at negotiating is by working ass backwards -- in other words, focusing on avoiding the worst possible outcome instead of offering up the best. When Obama went on television last night to announce a deal was finalized to raise the debt ceiling, it was like he said "That was one tough negotiation, but hey, at least they didn't kill us." For weeks, Obama and the Democratic leadership have cowered in the corner, afraid that the Teabaggers would pull the trigger and cause the financial dominoes to fall over the globe. With that defensive posture went any chance of compromise. It was a rock 'em, sock 'em boxing match fixed before the first punch was thrown.

Rule 1 of negotiation: don't use your end point as the starting point. You don't start with trillions in cuts! Start with trillions in both revenues and stimulus, then negotiate down to some sort of midpoint -- and it might not be the midpoint you want -- but it won't be the low end. Rule 2 of negotiation (as told by Golda Meir): do not negotiate with terrorists. When you see the other side is a bunch of ignorant sociopaths bent on burning the village to save the village, do NOT be afraid to threaten. The 14th Amendment should have been Obama's Entebbe.

Instead, this capitulation will be his Munich.

The Republicans knew exactly what they were doing and that Obama would fold even if he held four aces. It has become very obvious to everyone (except the White House) that this president lacks any vision. A man with some of the most extraordinary oratorical skills in decades cannot see the forest for the weeds. He is simply too afraid and too professorial to think boldly and brazenly. A vision cannot exist unless you are willing to fight for it. George W. Bush had a vision (be it a warped and evil one, but he had one) and he fought for it (or at least Cheney pulled the strings for it). Bush's folly in Iraq got the lifeline it needed, a surge in military power, when #43 had a 28% approval rating and a Democratic Congress.

You have to be willing to look bad to look good, you have to be willing to be wrong to end up being right, you have to be willing to fail to succeed. Time and time again, Barack Obama has shown he does not want to risk looking bad to anyone, even to an opposition dedicated to destroying his presidency.

The final chapter of the Obama presidency was likely written yesterday. Obama looks bad, veered wrong, and has disappointed his supporters. As for failing, it is America that has failed, not Obama.

The GOP & the national debt: A history of symbolism and hypocrisy

Clinton's surpluses, Bush's deficits & the value of balanced budget amendments • Debts don't matter, perception does • GOP fights responsibility to govern • Symbolism over solutions • GOP laws protect GOP lawmakers from their own irresponsibility

By Nicholas Wilbur

Constitutional amendments aren't a laughing matter, but they quickly become the butt of the joke and the source of mocking ridicule when they are pursued as a blatant sabotage tactic meant to undermine the economic recovery and score political points in the lead up to the 2012 election.

As if in revolt against their responsibility as leaders, Republicans have sidestepped the real debt negotiations in Washington, D.C., and have instead proposed balanced budget amendments in the House and Senate that ignore both the economic repercussions and the partisan political climate required for passage of such measures.

Similar to their retreat from debt ceiling negotiations and their hollow, half-hearted attempts to repeal President Obama's health care law, Republicans are demonstrating to the American people that they would rather rile the conservative base with symbolic gestures and partisan votes than offer legitimate solutions and workable compromises that help solve the real problems facing the United States.

Here's why a balanced budget amendment won't happen, why it shouldn't happen, and why Republicans don't care one way or the other if it does happen.

A Brief History

Congress hasn't voted on a balanced budget amendment since 1997.

Similar to GOP leaders today, Republicans in the 1990s so feared the effects of growing debts that they sought a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, as they believed only a legal requirement would be a strong enough motivation for the government to balance its books.

Their efforts failed, but President Clinton kept his vow to eliminate annual deficits without a balanced budget amendment. By the end of his second term, Clinton had amassed a budget surplus of nearly $560 billion, prompting both the Office of Management and Budget and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in 2001 to predict budget surpluses reaching $5.6 trillion and the complete elimination of the national debt by FY 2011. 

Obviously that didn't happen, as a swift change in fiscal priorities by Clinton's successor erased the surpluses within a year. During his eight years in the White House, President Bush would never sign a single balanced budget bill.

The American Presidency Project

What's noteworthy here is that Republicans sought permanent measures to balance the budget under an administration that didn't need a constitutional amendment to reach such ends, then abandoned the strategy for the next 14 years while a Republican president added $4.97 trillion to the national debt over his two terms.

Within a year of another Democratic president's election, Republicans were once again talking about a balanced budget amendment. On Tuesday, July 19, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives brought a bill to a vote with that end in mind.

As a general observation, the fact that Clinton created budget surpluses without a balanced budget amendment says something about the necessity of such measures. The fact that Congress will forever retain the power to say no to a president’s spending initiatives only further undermines the value of a balanced budget amendment.

The Potential for Fiscal Sanity

In response to President Obama's weekly radio address on July 16, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) reminisced about the good old days – or day – when he nearly saw his proposed balanced budget amendment enacted. It failed by one vote.

"Think of how different our fiscal picture would be if we'd passed one in 1997," he said. "Fourteen years later, our nation faces a debt crisis of epic proportions. Our national debt has gone from roughly $5 trillion in 1997 to over $14 trillion today. That's more than $45,000 for every man, woman, and child in America."

Indeed, things would be different.

Had Congress found that last vote, and had three-quarters of the states voted for ratification, as is required to amend the constitution, the 1997 bill, which was slated for implementation in 2002, would have severely hampered President Bush's agenda.

According to the 1997 balanced budget amendment:

Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that fiscal year, unless three-fifths of the whole number of each House of Congress shall provide by law for a specific excess of outlays over receipts by a rollcall vote.

With a deficit of $377 billion in FY 2003, the second round of Bush's tax cuts would never have become law, as a BBA would have required 67 Senate votes to allow spending to exceed revenues. The 2003 tax cuts squeaked by with a mere 51 votes – and that only after Vice President Dick Cheney, the Senate president, ended a 50-50 deadlock with his tie-breaking vote.

Democrashield

Arguably, the 2001 tax cuts wouldn't have passed, either. Many Democrats were on the fence about the estimated $1.7 trillion cost, and many economists already were predicting budget deficits within two years as reports warned of exaggerated estimates for GDP growth and significantly lower surpluses. If a BBA had been in place in 2001, the 58 votes in the Senate wouldn't have been enough to make them law, either.

Other than the wars, which undoubtedly would have been cut short due to spending restraints, Bush's other cash cow, the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, also would have failed in the Senate for lack of a supermajority.

If Republicans had been as worried about deficit spending during Bush's spend-thrift years as they were during Clinton's surplus years, we'd be better off for it, financially. The pock mark on our national conscience that is the Iraq war would have ended at "Mission Accomplished." The government's books would be in the black. The debt likely would have been paid off.

That said, Congress didn't need a balanced budget amendment in order to keep President Bush in check. The simpler solution to excessive spending is to vote down any unnecessary spending initiatives that add to the deficit.

The Assurance of Fiscal Doom

There are two sides to every coin, and on the other side of the balanced budget debate there is the damning economic impact of such strict financial obligations in times of recession.

In what now ought to be regarded as prophet-like foresight, President Clinton and the majority of Democrats opposed the GOP's balanced budget amendments in 1990s on the grounds that it would spell economic doom in the event of a future downturn.

When faced with a strong Republican majority in Congress that was intent on passing a balanced budget amendment, Clinton softened to the idea, but with conditions: "I don’t believe we need it," he said, a statement he was already in the process of backing up, "but if we have it, it ought to be able to be implemented in a way that actually works and gives the country what it needs to manage a recession because... someday down the road we’ll have another bad patch in the economy."

When the Great Recession hit, federal revenues plummeted nearly $400 billion in two years, falling in 2009 to a near-60-year low of 14.8 percent of GDP. Under a balanced budget amendment, that $400 billion deficit would have to be offset with a) spending cuts and/or tax increases, or with b) deficit spending legislation to allow the government to spend more than it collected, both of which would have required supermajorities in Congress.

Government Receipts vs. Outlays, 1962-2009

Given the partisan political climate in D.C. today, it's safe to say that a BBA would be economically disastrous. With supermajorities required for deficit spending, America would have lost an additional 3.3 million jobs during the Great Recession, as Congress would not have had the votes needed to pump $800 billion into the economy via the 2009 stimulus bill (which passed in both houses of Congress with only simple majorities). When the CBO made its 3.3 million estimate, unemployment was 9.7 percent, with 15 million people out of work. Without the stimulus bill, unemployment in would have reached 12 percent.

And that doesn't include however many more workers would have been added to the unemployment statistics if the government let the auto industry go bankrupt, if Congress had let the banks crash, and if Obama had ignored the housing crisis.

As Clinton warned Congress in the 1990s:

The balanced budget amendment is, in the first place, bad economics. As you know, the Federal deficit depends not just on Congressional decisions, but also on the state of the economy. In particular, the deficit increases automatically whenever the economy weakens. If we try to break this automatic linkage by a Constitutional amendment, we will have to raise taxes and cut expenditures whenever the economy is weak. That not only risks turning minor downturns into serious recessions, but would make recovery from recession far more difficult. Let's be clear: This is not a matter of abstract economic theory. Contractionary fiscal policy in the 1930s helped turn an economic slowdown into a Great Depression. A balanced budget amendment could threaten the livelihoods of millions of Americans. I cannot put them in such peril.

He didn't put them in such peril. And neither will President Obama.

Political Playmaking 
Passing a constitutional amendment with majority control of only one branch of Congress isn't an easy task.

Republicans know this. Fortunately, they don't care. As backward as it may sound, their BBA proposal isn't about taking action. It's about symbolism.

Like every major legislative initiative Republicans have fought for this year, the party's proposal to amend the Constitution has nothing to do with achieving pragmatic and effective legislative solutions to real national problems. It has to do with perceptions.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted on Tuesday, July 19 on a bill that would cut spending and balance the federal budget.

The "Cut, Cap, and Balance" bill passed along party lines in the House. It is doomed in the Senate, and the president has already threatened a veto if a miracle happens and it somehow receives a majority in the upper chamber.

As evidence to just how serious Republicans are about lowering the debt and balancing the budget, the "balanced budget amendment" portion of the bill was not an actual amendment. It was a call for an amendment, which explains why it passed the House without a two-thirds majority. 

Republicans essentially drafted a bill that said, "We think the government should cut spending, cap total outlays based on average GDP growth, and send a balanced budget amendment to the states for ratification, but we're not actually going to write a bill that accomplishes those ends."

Sen. Hatch's latest balanced budget amendment faces the same hurdle the House bill does: odds. Though it has the support of every Republican in the Senate, "every Republican" is only 47 votes, far short of the 67 needed to send the bill to the states for ratification.

But that doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter what Republicans accomplish, or even that they've failed to uphold virtually every promise on which they based their 2010 midterm election campaigns. It doesn't matter that "Obamacare" is still in place or that the deal they negotiated in April to cut spending by a full $100 billion actually increased spending by more than $3 billion.

What matters is that they appear to their constituents as fiscal hawks who fought to the death against Obama's "socialist" regime. Effective governing, in the eyes of the GOP constituency, means refusing to negotiate even if the country's financial solvency is on the line. This strategy works out quite well for Republicans considering that every budget proposal they've offered would tank the economy and add to the already high unemployment level. (Not implementing any of their proposals actually saves them the embarrassment of having to defend the results of those proposals.)

Politics for Republicans is about symbolic legislative maneuvers and ideological posturing. Because they won't even attempt to lobby Democrats for their support, a balanced budget amendment will meet the same fate as their health care repeal attempts.

As the past six months have shown us, real solutions to real problems don't matter.

The Party of Symbols is waging a shadow war.

_______________________________________________

Related Links:

David Broder, in 1994, wrote that the largest flaw in the BBA proposal "is that it would give a minority of the Congress permanent veto power over fiscal policy by requiring a three-fifths vote for a deficit budget."

In The New York Times, Nov. 6, 1993, Clinton says of the GOP's BBA proposal: "[I]t would promote political gridlock and would endanger our economic recovery."

From the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 6, 1993: "Government and private economists generally agree that a quick move to actually bring the government's books into balance – either by cutting spending or by raising taxes – would knock the economy back into deep recession."

Jon Perr on the GOP's BBA farce.

The New York Times: Bush signs 2003 tax cuts.

The cost of war: a running tally.

Paul Krugman on the Bush Tax Cuts.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

The Pottery Barn Rule for the economy: You broke it, you own it (that means you, George).

By Richard K. Barry

Back in June, Matthew Yglesias wrote about how annoyed some Democrats were that President Obama wasn't doing a better job of reminding people that the dismal state of the economy was George W. Bush's doing. Yglesias went on to say that despite the criticism it would appear that a strong majority of Americans do understand that Obama was handed a large pile of crap and do put a lot of the blame on W.

As an NBC/WSJ poll indicated:

The American public isn't blaming Obama for the current economy, with more than six in ten respondents still saying he inherited the country's economic problems from his Oval Office predecessor. Also, while a combined 47 percent believe George W. Bush and his administration are "solely responsible" or "mainly responsible" for the current economy, just 34 percent in the poll say the same of Obama and his administration. 

Brendan Nyhan responds by saying, I think correctly, that we shouldn't put too much stock in this. As he writes:

Campaigns are giant engines of political accountability that drive election results towards what we would expect given the fundamentals. For better or worse, Obama will own the economy by next fall, though it is possible that he will be judged less harshly since Democrats just took back control of the presidency in 2009.

All of that is true, but it's also true that George W. Bush's name rarely gets mentioned as an example of good economic stewardship when Republicans are pointing to their own political role models. It always about Reagan (which is an entirely different discussion).

It's also true that the Republican narrative is about how Obama made things worse, which is another way of saying that their guy made things bad to begin with. This is what the GOP is left with: "Our guy was a fucking abomination, but your guy didn't clean up his mess fast enough." Yeah, that's an argument.

Yes, the guy currently holding the job wears the bad economy on election day. But I think Nyhan is also right when he says that Obama will be judged less harshly because of the magnitude of the mess he was handed and the relatively limited amount of time he has had to deal with it. The key here is that there are degrees to which one is held responsible for anything.

Politics is always about getting votes on the margins, about winning marginally more votes in areas where you are strong and losing marginally fewer votes in areas where you are weak.

So, yes, Obama will wear the economy, but 60 percent of electorate saying that a Republican president created the mess to begin with is going to make it that much easier to pick up those marginal votes than if there really was no one else to legitimately blame.

Simple point, and not a very exciting thesis, but it's true and important.

By the way, haven't seen a lot of those George W. Bush billboards lately with that annoying message: "Miss Me Yet?" (heh, heh)

No, George, we still don't miss you. Not even Republicans, apparently.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

The Sweet Smell of Sour Grapes

by Distributorcap

I love the smell of racism sour grapes in May

 Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2003 - when President Bush declared "Mission Accomplished"

Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011 - just before President Obama gave the order to invade his compound

Four months since the American population (well those that bothered to vote) opted to give the Teabag Republican party another chance to mess up America (after all 8 years of Bush, and 6 years of Congressional majorities was not enough) - it is quite apparent that the GOP (and their leaders patrons allies on the right like Fox, Rush, Koch Industries) have jumped right back to the future with same bag of one trick pony policies:

1. cut taxes for the rich
2. dismantle any social safety net for the not-so-rich

However, the brainiacs on the right have a new Prime Directive for their Federation of Nutjobs:

• 3) say anything and everything to disparage and ruin Obama.

As stupid as most Republican leaders are (and they are) - they are smart enough to realize that saying the most reprehensible, false and hateful things about President Obama is the one thing that will generate the most media attention.

In this short period of time - the lunatics Republicans in the House have managed to pass bills on abortion, eliminating Medicare, and subsidizing the insanely profitable oil companies. They have also managed to spend lots of money for an law firm to defend DOMA. What they haven't done of course is produce any sort of policy to help turn the economy around or set a path for job creation (but they do want to eliminate Unemployment - insurance that is, not real unemployment). On top of their complete ineffectiveness as a governing party and outright lies to the electorate, the lengths the Republicans will go to - to confirm their own self-aggrandized superior talent - is nothing short of incredible.

This includes some of the most utterly overtly disparaging and covertly racist things about Obama they can dream up or find in the Honolulu Hall of Records.

When President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden last Sunday, it brought the soap opera known as the All My GOPs to a new low in American history.

The words and thoughts that have been coming out of the mouths of the GOP/Right this week reminds me of Hitler in the bunker - despite a world crashing around them from their own insane policies - they will fight to the end to justify their own past actions no matter how wrong they were or how much they have destroyed in their wake.

It didn't take long before the usual cast of characters began their blatant and not-so-subtle trashing of the President for doing exactly what their hero, President George W. Bush, only wished he could have done.

Let's start with the King of Insanity himself - Glenn Beck. Beck called Obama's trip to Ground Zero "slimy" and "disgusting" on his radio show. Beck of course said that the visit to the WTC site was "shameless" and nothing more than victory lap and a political stunt.

Of course walking around the rubble of the collapsed towers with a bullhorn shouting " I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people -- and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!" is a case study in subdued, classy behavior.

Next AT BAT is Andrew Card, Bush's former Chief of Staff. Card is a man obviously not playing with a full deck. Andy, who likes to give the appearance of moderation, thoughtfulness and integrity - proved this week that he is nothing more than Glenn Beck in a nicer suit.

In an interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel, Card said that Obama has "pounded his chest" too much over the death of Osama bin Laden, particularly by going to Ground Zero earlier this week, the site of the 9/11 attacks. "He can take pride in it, but he does not need to show it so much."

Of course landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier in a flight suit and declaring "Mission Accomplished" in front a giant banner hanging on the ship (before the mission is accomplished) was really a solemn ceremony meant to honor the victims on 9/11, and had nothing to do with politics.

All of us - liberal, moderate, conservative, non-political should get down on our knees and starting thanking whichever-god-you-want that the GOP never exploited 911 for political gain.

Card is an ass^nth - I wonder why he didn't give this same interview to an American paper - a little cowardly methinks. Card further stepped into Barney's poo when he said his issue is not with anything Obama has said about his decision to launch the raid on bin Laden's compound, but rather with Obama's actions. Amazing.

Next up in murderer's row is John Yoo - the world's biggest cheerleader for torture. The man who somehow see things in the Constitution that us mere mortals could not see and decided that the President (Republican only, not Obama) has the right to do anything he wants - anything. Yoo-hoo said that Obama had made a serious mistake by not capturing bin Laden and milking him for information on potential future terror attacks.

Of course Yoo's main man - Bush - is the one who said "Who knows if he’s hiding in some cave or not. We haven’t heard from him in a long time. The idea of focusing on one person really indicates to me people don’t understand the scope of the mission. Terror is bigger than one person. He’s just a person who’s been marginalized. I don’t know where he is. I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you."

That was just the tip of the iceberg.  Other reactions from the GOP, teabaggers and those on the Right, while less obvious on the hate, are just as nauseating in their tone.

Rick "Man on dog" Santorum said "9/11 families and everybody else in America should be furious at this president that he’s walking abound taking credit for, you know, getting Osama bin Laden. He didn’t get Osama bin Laden! The president of the United States simply said — courageous act, give him credit for saying yes — but that’s all he did, is say yes. He didn’t do the hard work. The people he’s going after did the hard work. And that is an outrage."

David "I never met a politician I couldn't buy" Koch gave Obama zero credit for the successful mission, telling reporters, “I don’t think he contributed much at all.” Koch called the president “a hardcore socialist” and minimized his role in the operation, explaining, “All that Obama did was say ‘yea’ or ‘nay.’”

Trent Franks said on Frank Gaffney’s (another fine example complete whack-o racist) Secure Freedom Radio show, said "President Obama is too concerned with exploiting the issue for political reasons to do what’s necessary to protect this country”

Not to be left out of the party - the Princess of the North Country Sarah Palin never mentioned President Obama by name, instead she said, ‘We thank President Bush for having made the right calls to set up this victory.”  Nothing like a little revisionism to pepper up the plotlines.

Former hack mouthpiece to Commander Codpiece himself, Ari Fleischer, was more "polite," saying “both presidents deserve credit.”

What's interesting about the words from entitled folks like Beck, Card, Yoo, Santorum, Koch, Franks, Palin and Fleischer (not leave out Trump, Limbaugh, Krauthammer, Ingraham, Malkkkin, and others) is that none of them have ever learned the meaning of "graciousness." Imagine being Andrew Card or David Koch, supposedly mature adults (Palin and Beck are most definitely not mature adults), who never ever have to admit they have made a mistake or apologize. They can make all the racial insinuations against the President they want and due to their stance or clout (or money) never have worry about being called out on their evil.

In the GOP's world, no Black [Muslim, Kenyan, Socialist] man was ever supposed to be elected to the job they own (the Presidency) and then - OMG - beat them at their own game, with his own rules. This is exactly what this whole post-Nov 2008 GOP meltdown has been all about. This is also why the Republicans simply can not handle the truth about the past week. Koch, Santorum, Beck, and Palin are fine with Jamaican nannies and NBA centers, but a Black president protecting the security of the country - that is just way too much for such simpletons to process.

I wish these clowns on the right would stop with the euphemisms and just call him the "N-word" already. You just know that they are biting their tongues not to let it slip out. It's killing them that the Black/Muslim/Kenyan/Socialist President can succeed so spectacularly where they have failed so miserably.

The jealousy we are witnessing before our very eyes is a great plot device for Erika on All My Children - but is such an ugly emotion when coming from a bunch of incompetent and evil nincompoops bent on leading the country. They gushed over President Bush when he carried out a plastic turkey to the troops fighting the war he lied his way into - but can not even thank President Obama for taking out the man that killed 3,000+ innocents - and gave their Dear Leader the excuse he needed to go to war.

Anyone with half a brain can see how incredibly childish the right wing and Republican leadership has become - and the elimination of Osama bin Laden was just the straw that broke the elephant's back. I can only hope the very people that voted for these clowns also see it.

Somehow I doubt it.

Reality bites (Rick Santorum in the ass)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

At Thursday night's GOP "presidential" "debate" in South Carolina, Rick Santorum said that President Obama deserves zero credit for killing Osama bin Laden:

9/11 families and everybody else in America should be furious at this president that he's walking abound taking credit for, you know, getting Osama bin Laden. He didn't get Osama bin Laden!

Basically, Obama just gave the order, which was easy enough to do (as if there were no question at all, as if the mission weren't risky at all -- clearly Santorum has no idea what it means to be president and to have to make decisions like this). It was Bush who did all the work. 

It's predictable enough that all five Republicans went after Obama and that Santorum in particular, who is so desperate to gain traction (but who really doesn't have much of a shot of actually winning), said something so ridiculously stupid, something that goes beyond even what most other conservatives are saying in response to the mission. This isn't just denying Obama full credit, or trying to share some of the credit, this is saying that Obama did virtually nothing and is shamelessly taking undeserved credit for something he knows he didn't do.

Aside from the facts that Obama was closely involved in the planning stage of the mission and was making the key decisions all along -- and, indeed, there were other options and things could have gone differently -- what Santorum gets wrong is just how differently Obama has approached the "war" on terror compared to Bush:

[A]s Michael Hirsch writes today in the National Journal, President Obama was sucessful in catching Bin Laden precisely because he broke with Bush's terror policies. The conservative "assessment couldn't be further from the truth," Hirsch writes. "Behind Obama's takedown of the Qaida leader this week lies a profound discontinuity between administrations — a major strategic shift in how to deal with terrorists," from Bush's bombastic and overly expansive "war on terror," to Obama's "covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaida and its spawn."

In other words, the mission to kill Osama bin Laden was planned and succeeded not in spite of Obama, or regardless of Obama, but because of Obama. This is not to say that another president wouldn't have made the same or similar decisions and wouldn't have similarly succeeded, but it's just plain wrong to suggest that Obama deserves none of the credit or even just some of the credit.

This is politics, I know, and the truth matters little to extremist partisan ideologues like Santorum. But it's yet another example of just how reality-denying the Republicans really are.

And it's only going to get worse.

(photo)

"We, the People" abdicate

By Carl 

Every so often, maybe every two or three years, I'm asked by at least one person why I haven't run for office. "You'd make a great Congressman/Senator/President," they'll say.

I suppose it's true: I am pretty bright, can communicate well, have a large measure of compassion, and geet the human condition without being a soppy bleeding heart. My passion in life is to make connections that other people miss, to understand why something happens, which is the first step in making sure it does or does not happen again, as the case may be. 

There are plenty of reasons why I have not. I suck at fundraising, for one thing. I never ask for money, even if I could, absent the occasional ad to sell my photographs or to hawk a book or my writing, or what have you.

But here's the real reason I haven't and probably never will run.

I'm human.

I'm no better than you or you or him or her, at the end of the day. That immediately disqualifies me from public office. It shouldn't, but it does. And I think you can trace the roots of many of the problems that beset this nation to that inarguable fact.

We the people insist our politicians be better than we are. Under all the glue-huffing about Teabaggers and elitists and egghead liberals, we want our politicians to be smarter, handsomer, richer, better hung (or have bigger breasts), more articulate, and -- goshdarnit! -- more moral than we could ever hope to be.

We've created a fantasy class. In exchange, under the assumption of superiority, we've handed these people the keys to the bar and told them to lock up after we've gone to sleep.

We're asleep. The bar's still open.

Politicians are human, but we expect them to be superhuman. Do you see a disconnect here? If a politician betrays even the slightest humanity, we ridicule him or her.

I'm not talking about morons like Bachmann or Palin or Trump (who claims to be different from politicians, but I perceive that difference in the same way that malaria is different from a bad cold). Or even George W. Bush, who's reach exceeded his grasp and we all paid a heavy price for it.

I'm talking about how anytime anyone pokes his or her head above the foxhole, shots get fired, yet we expect them to leap up and take more ground, to lead us.

Take any presidential candidate of the past twenty years, including the ones who won (absenting Bush). John Kerry by all rights could have won (and in many lights did win) the 2004 election: a decorated war veteran, long-serving senator, a brilliant policy man, but brought down hard by a smear campaign that any American in his or her right mind would have laughed off as ridiculous if they had read it in a novel.

Clinton won, twice, but only because he had a core of support that anybody but Bush had to win, and Ross Perot was too scary to conceive of voting for (yet, tell me you didn't think some of what Perot espoused had some interest).

In all these elections, the issues favored Democrats: in 1992, we were in a mild recession and had twelve years of Reagan/Bush scandals. In 1996, Clinton was beseiged by know-nothing Gingrichites hellbent on destroying liberal America and jerking the country rightward. In 2004, Bush hadn't created a single job during his administration, had allowed 9/11 to take place and had the lowest approval rating of any President running for re-election, ever.

Look at what happens: Candidates can't win on issues, because those issues get swamped in the muck of the campaign. Money is flung, and after the Citizens United decision, more money will be flung at candidates, smearing them personally and ignoring the issues in favor of scare tactical talking points.

All because a guy is human.

And we the people have allowed this to happen, because we eat up Clinton's affairs or Obama's birth certificate or Palin's pregnancies.

No. Worse. We allow a small but loud minority to dominate the discussion. We presume that, because they're so loud and so "grass-rootsy" that somehow they've earned their say.

Notice that there's a corollary, an unwelcome development about this: because issues stop mattering, politicians stop caring about issues. This creates a vacuum, into which other, very human desires, rush.

Power. Greed. Politics no longer becomes about who does the best job of governing but about who can grab hold of and control power the longest.

In 1964 and 1965, when the Civil Rights, Economic Opportunity , and Social Security Acts were passed, they were passed by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats, mostly liberals, who wanted to do good. They saw injustice across this land. They saw that 12% of the populace was suffering mercilessly at the hands of people who wanted nothing to do with them for no other reason than they were different. They worked together to change that.

Could that happen now? No. Not because there are no longer any mountains to climb and conquer, but because it's not about governance, it's about power.

And neither side is winning.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)