Month: February 2009

The Smartest Men In America

by digby

Joan Walsh sez:

Watch Saturday Night Live’s hilarious takedown of Congressional Republican leadership. Dan Ackroyd returned to play John Boehner with Darrell Hammond as Mitch McConnell, and together they lead a debate over who’s smarter, Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, ponder whether to impeach Obama now or in April, and plot a creative line of attack against Sasha and Malia Obama, noting “The whole country is waiting to see those kids taken down a peg!”

You can click here for the vid.

It’s especially funny in light of today’s article about Little Newtie Junior in the NY Times. I’ve said this before, but I really believe it’s true. The country put up with juvenile tabloid media and right wing political sociopaths during the 90s because things were going pretty well. They aren’t now, and the Republicans are nuts to try to relive their glory days. But it’s their privilege and they are well within their rights to do it.

The problem is that they have just enough juice to take the country down with them if the Dems allow them to meddle in legislatio (or worse, get involved in any kind of “entitlement reform”) when they have made it clear that their strategy is to screw the economy for political advantage. If this article in Politico is correct, it sounds like the white house now recognizes that their fetishizing of bipartisanship actually handed the Republicans a big fat club. All they had to do was say no and Obama had “failed.”

And they need to figure out how to shake loose the village conventional wisdom and make a better case to the American public. Obama’s popularity is not a magic bullet — recall that the most loathed president in history once had a 90% approval rating.

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Shrink Wrapped Thieves

by digby

From the “why are we listening to them?” files:

The reconstruction effort, intended to improve services and convince Iraqis of American good will, largely managed to do neither. The wider investigation raises the question of whether American corruption was a primary factor in damaging an effort whose failures have been ascribed to poor planning and unforeseen violence.

The investigations, which are being conducted by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, the Justice Department, the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command and other federal agencies, cover a period when millions of dollars in cash, often in stacks of shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills, were dispensed from a loosely guarded safe in the basement of one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces.

Former American officials describe payments to local contractors from huge sums of cash dumped onto tables and stuffed into sacks as if it were Halloween candy.

Think about that. The people who are now keening over “reckless spending” are the same ones who blindly sent pallet-loads of shrink wrapped hundred dollar bills to a war zone and didn’t bother to keep any records. Now we find out that much of it found its way into the pockets of the people who were dispensing it. Gosh, what a surprise.

I don’t know if you can find a better example of straight up GOP corruption than this. They invaded a country for no reason, looted the treasury and then handed out the money to all their friends in conservative movement, their contributors in the military industrial complex — and even the active duty military itself, apparently. It was a huckuva scam. And yet, Barney Frank is the only elected Democrat I’ve heard make this case. Even now, the Iraq war is so sacred that the Democrats are still afraid to use the fact that the Republicans basically stole three trillion to discredit their phony arguments about the profligacy of the stimulus.

That’s the beauty of the hissy fit. All their shrieking over the years about “supporting the troops” and “General Betrayus” made them immune from criticism about their looting of the treasury on that debacle in Iraq. Now that their fiscal mismanagement has brought the country to its knees and the only way to prevent a catastrophe is to have the federal government spend money to stimulate the economy and help the taxpayers keep roofs over their heads and food on the tables, they are staging a full-fledged tantrum over spending.

I don’t want to hear anyone say even one more time that this is an ideological argument about fiscal responsibility. They wouldn’t even allow anyone to ask what the price tag was for their Iraq debacle lest they be called out for treason. And, as predicted, it turns out they spent (and lost!) vast sums of of money. If this is a matter of sincere differences rather than opportunistic partisan obstructionism, then the difference it’s about priorities, not ideology. Less face it, both parties will spend money on imperial ambitions (although only one really knows how to turn a profit at it.) Where they fundamentally differ is that the Republicans refuse to spend money to help the American people when they really need it.

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Not Enough Shock Doctrine

by dday

Digby mentioned the enormous corporate tax cut embedded in the California budget deal, the only permanent tax change in the whole bill. She didn’t mention that the deal actually hadn’t been secured. For some insane reason, they announced the “deal” before getting the votes, which only empowered the few Republicans needed for passage. So there was an all-night session, on Valentine’s Day, which ended up falling one vote short in the State Senate. In between we were treated with much hilarity, including the GOoPers in the State Assembly trying to oust their Minority Leader for daring to even put together this deal, and then the ringleader resigining his Minority Whip position in protest. The key vote in the Senate objected to any money being used for children’s health programs and ultimately torpedoed the deal on those grounds. Despite the fact that there was this huge corporate tax cut, and worse, a hard spending cap which would really drown state government in the bathtub, Republicans couldn’t abide what were essentially flat or even regressive tax increases. Brian Leubitz pretty much sums it up:

This process has been a disaster. The worst of everything that we’ve been going through for months, even years, with the Republicans. This is a fancy stick-up, with a patina of legitimacy. Who knows if a deal will be reached, but at this point there can be no question from the High Broderists who caused this. Every newspaper, every television station, every radio station should do what the Media News group did and call out the Republicans for their stickup of the state.

So now the state will get a lot of stimulus money that they probably can’t even use because they don’t have the cash reserves. The education cuts, most of which have to happen by March 15 to prepare for the next school year, will come down hard, maybe harder than necessary. Welfare recipients and students and those expecting a tax refund won’t get their money. And the state will spiral downward, cutting against any upward movement from the stimulus.

This is what happens when the entire process is co-opted by an anti-tax jihad that’s been in place for 30 years, when the media just de-camps and a state of 38 million is governed under virtual secrecy, and Republicans are emboldened to ask for more and more and more with absolutely no political consequences. If you thought national sausage-making was abhorrent, welcome to California.

Is it time for a federal mediator yet?

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Funny About Love

By Dennis Hartley

With Valentine’s Day upon us, I thought that I would share my top ten favorite romantic comedies with you tonight. So in a non-ranking alphabetical order, here we go:

Amelie– Easily the best European import since Wings of Desire, Jean-Pierre Juenet’s beautifully realized film explores similar themes of humanist romanticism, albeit with a lighter touch. Audrey Tautou literally lights up the screen as a “gregarious loner” who decides to become a guardian angel (sometimes benign devil) and commit random acts of anonymous kindness. The plight of Amelie’s “people in need” is suspiciously similar to her own-those who need that little push to come out of self-imposed exiles and revel in life’s simple pleasures. Of course, our heroine is really in search of her own happiness and fulfillment. Does she find it? You’ll have to see for yourself. Whimsical, original, unpretentious and life-affirming, Amelie is guaranteed to melt the most cynical of hearts.

Gregory’s Girl – Name the last “coming-of-age” teen comedy you saw that didn’t rely on a barrage of dick jokes or sex with pastries for laughs. I would have to go all the way back to 1981, for writer-director Bill Forsyth’s delightful examination of puppy love, Scottish style. Gawky teenager Gregory (John Gordon Sinclair) goes gaga for Dorothy (Dee Hepburn), a fellow soccer player on the school team. Gregory receives love advice from an unlikely mentor, his little sister (Allison Forster). His male classmates offer advice as well, but of course they are just as clueless as he is (although they put on airs of having deep insight on the subject of girls, naturally). In fact, Forsyth gets a lot of mileage out of that most basic truth about adolescence-the girls are usually light years ahead of the boys when it comes to the mysteries of love. Not as precious as you might think, as Forsyth is a master of low-key anarchy and understated irony. Some viewers may have trouble navigating the thick Scottish accents, but it is well worth the extra work. Also starring Clare Grogan, whom 80s music fans may recall as lead singer of Altered Images and Red Dwarf fans will recognize as the original “Kristine Kochanski”.

Play It Again, Sam – I don’t know what it is about this particular Woody Allen vehicle (directed by Herbert Ross), but no matter how many times I have viewed it over the years, I laugh just as hard at all the one-liners as I did the first time I saw it. Annie Hall and Manhattan may be his most highly lauded and artistically accomplished projects, but for pure “laughs per minute”, I would nominate this 1972 entry, with a screenplay adapted by Allen from his own original stage version. Allen portrays a film buff who is obsessed with Humphrey Bogart. He fantasizes that he’s getting pointers from Bogie’s ghost (played to perfection by Jerry Lacy) who advises him on how to “be a man” and attract the perfect mate. He receives more pragmatic assistance from his best friends, a married couple (Diane Keaton and Tony Roberts) who fix him up with a series of women (the depictions of the various dating disasters are hilarious beyond description). A classic.

Modern Romance (1981) – Writer-director Albert Brooks nearly single-handedly invented the genre of “cringe comedy”, paving the way for Ricky Gervais and Larry David. In his best romantic comedy (co-written by frequent collaborator Monica Johnson), Brooks casts himself as a film editor who works for American International Pictures. His obsessive-compulsiveness makes him great at his job, but a royal pain-in-the-ass to his devoted girlfriend (Kathryn Harrold), who is becoming exasperated with his penchant for impulsively breaking up with her one day, then begging her to take him back the next. There are many inspired scenes, particularly a protracted sequence where a depressed Brooks takes Quaaludes and precedes to “drunk dial” every woman he’s ever dated (like Bob Newhart, Brooks is an absolute master of “the phone bit”). Another great scene features Brooks and his assistant editor (the late Bruno Kirby in one of his best roles) laying down some low budget Foley tracks in the post-production studio for an ultra-cheesy sci-fi movie. Brooks’brother, Bob Einstein (a regular on Curb Your Enthusiasm) has a funny cameo as a sportswear store clerk. Also with George Kennedy (as himself) and real-life director James L. Brooks (no relation) as Brooks’ boss.

Next Stop Wonderland – Writer/director Brad Anderson’s intelligent and easygoing fable about love and serendipity made me a Hope Davis fan for life. Davis plays a laid back Bostonian who finds her love life set adrift after her pompous environmental activist boyfriend (Philip Seymour Hoffman) suddenly decides that dashing off to save the earth is more important than sustaining their relationship. Her story is paralleled with that of a charming and unassuming single fellow (Alan Gelfant) who aspires to become a marine biologist. Both parties find themselves politely deferring to well-meaning friends and relatives who are constantly trying to fix them up with dates. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to tell you that these two are destined to end up together! The film seems to have been inspired by A Man and a Woman, right down to its breezy bossa nova/samba soundtrack.

She’s Gotta Have It – “Please baby please baby please baby please!” One of director Spike Lee’s earlier, funny films (his debut, actually). A sexy, hip, and fiercely independent young woman (Tracy Camilla Johns) juggles relationships with three men (who are all quite aware of each other’s existence). Lee steals his own movie by casting himself as the goofiest and most memorable of the three suitors- “Mars”, a hilarious trash-talking version of the classic Woody Allen nebbish. Lee milks maximum laughs from the huffing and puffing by the competing paramours, as they each jockey for the alpha position (and makes keen observations about sexist machismo and male vanity along the way). Spike’s dad Bill Lee composed a lovely jazz-pop score. Despite being a little rough around the edges (due to low budget constraints) it was still a groundbreaking film in the context of modern independent cinema, and an empowering milestone for an exciting new wave of talented African-American filmmakers who followed in its wake.

Sherman’s March – Documentary filmmaker Ross McElwee is truly one of America’s hidden treasures. McElwee, a genteel Southern neurotic (think Woody Allen meets Tennessee Williams) has been documenting his personal life since the mid 70’s and managed to turn all that footage into some of the most hilarious, moving and thought-provoking films that most people have never seen. Audiences weaned on the glut of “reality TV” of recent years may wonder “what’s the big deal about one more schmuck making glorified home movies?” but they would be missing an enriching glimpse into the human condition. Sherman’s March actually began as a project to retrace the Union general’s path of destruction through the South, but somehow ended up as rumination on the eternal human quest for love and acceptance, filtered through McElwee’s personal search for the perfect mate. Despite its daunting 3 hour length, I’ve found myself returning to this film for repeat viewings over the years, and enjoying it just as much as the first time I saw it. The unofficial “sequel”, Time Indefinite, is worth a peek as well.

Someone To Love (1987) – The perfect Valentine’s Day movie…for dateless singles (ahem.) Writer-director Henry Jaglom’s films tend to polarize viewers. Jaglom reminds me of Ross McElwee in some ways; although his films aren’t technically “documentaries”, he is like McElwee in the sense that his work is highly personal, usually steeped in the obsessive navel-gazing reviews of his own relationships with women. In Someone to Love, Jaglom plays (surprise surprise) a film director, who invites all of his friends who are currently “in between” relationships to join him at a condemned movie theatre on Valentine’s Day for a get-together. Once they arrive, Jaglom admits a small deception-he wants each to explain why they think they are alone on Valentine’s Day, and he wants to document the proceedings on film. Very talky-but fascinating. Featuring Andrea Marcovicci (who had recently broken up with Jaglom at the time of filming), Sally Kellerman, musician Steven Bishop, and, erm, Orson Welles (don’t ask).

The Tall Guy – Whether it slipped under the public’s radar or was simply a victim of poor marketing is up for debate, but this gem of a sleeper should be required viewing for all romantic comedy fans. Deftly directed by British TV comic Mel Smith with a high-brow/low-brow blend of sophisticated cleverness and riotous vulgarity (somehow he makes it work), this is the stuff cult followings are made of. Jeff Goldblum is an American actor working on the London stage, who is love struck by an English nurse (Emma Thompson). Rowan Atkinson is a hoot as Goldblum’s employer, a London stage comic beloved by his audience but an absolute backstage terror to cast and crew. The most hilariously choreographed scene of “wild sex” ever put on film is worth the price of admission alone; and the extended set-piece, a staged musical version of The Elephant Man (a mercilessly funny Andrew Lloyd Webber parody) literally had me on the floor.

Two for the Road – A swinging 60s version of Scenes from a Marriage. Director Stanley Donen (Singin’ in the Rain) whips up a masterful cinematic soufflé here, folding in a sophisticated script by Frederick Raphael, a generous helping of Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn, and topping it all off with a real cherry of a score by the great Henry Mancini. Donen follows the travails of a married couple over the years of their relationship, by constructing a series of non-linear flashbacks and flash-forwards (a structural device that has been utilized since by other filmmakers, but rarely as effectively). While ostensibly a “romantic comedy”, Two For the Road is, at its heart, a thoughtful meditation on the nature of love and true commitment. Finney and Hepburn have great on-screen chemistry (and both were at the peak of their physical beauty-which doesn’t hurt). Colorful European locales provide additional icing on the cake. This is one of those films (like The Way We Were) that some people form an emotional bond with.

…and here’s 10 more that I’ve also been, um, romantically linked with over the years:

Harold and Maude
High Fidelity
Hotel de Love
I Married a Witch
It Happened One Night
Never Again
Singles
The Tao of Steve
A Touch of Class

Timebomb

by digby

If you have some time to delve into something moving and important (that is depressingly getting absolutely no attention,) read this series on Salon by Mark Benjamin on the returning veterans. It’s really stunning.

Preventable suicides. Avoidable drug overdoses. Murders that never should have happened. Four years after Salon exposed medical neglect at Walter Reed Army Medical Center that ultimately grew into a national scandal, serious problems with the Army’s healthcare system persist and the situation, at least at some Army posts, continues to deteriorate.

This story is no longer just about lack of medical care. It’s far worse than sighting mold and mouse droppings in the barracks. Late last month the Army released data showing the highest suicide rate among soldiers in three decades. At least 128 soldiers committed suicide in 2008. Another 15 deaths are still under investigation as potential suicides. “Why do the numbers keep going up?” Army Secretary Pete Geren said at a Jan. 29 Pentagon news conference. “We can’t tell you.” On Feb. 5, the Army announced it suspects 24 soldiers killed themselves last month, more than died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Read all the articles together if you can. And then pour yourself a stiff drink.

I was watching In The Valley Of Elah the other night on cable. It’s quite a good movie, in my opinion, trying as it does to tackle some of the ways in which war attacks the characters and consciences of those involved. But it occurred to me as I was absorbing its implications at the end that as much as we can all agree that war is hell and that you can’t really ever find a decent moral basis for such an organized lethal activity, there is something about a blatantly wrong war like Iraq that creates new depths of moral and psychological quicksand.

It’s bad enough that humans still engage in this barbarism at all. But I’m not a pacifist and I believe in the concept of self-defense, so my admittedly sometimes dark reading of human nature tells me that it’s still inevitable from time to time. Colonial wars and resource grabs are awful, always have been. There’s no excuse for them. But I have to say that these modern “psychological” wars, where allegedly sophisticated global masterminds are using armies and weaponry to “send a message” may be the worst of all. Carefully calibrated assaults on populations for psychological purposes are so awful for everyone concerned that they may actually be making war worse rather than better.

And I think it’s that kind of methodical, almost scientific approach (which doesn’t work, by the way) that’s what’s making so many of our own troops lose it. After a while, some of them just can’t rationalize “liberating” so many people from their lives — for lies.

Take the time to read the series. It’s very good and Salon should get some applause for doing that level of fine long form journalism in these ADD-riddled times. It’s necessary.

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The Props

by digby

Atrios asks:

I really do wonder what it would take for the Villagers to realize people don’t like Republicans and their stupid shit anymore.

Who are these “people” he speaks of, I wonder? The Villagers are the representatives of Real America, especially when real Americans refuse to live up to the values and expectations the villagers have assigned to them. They decide for us who our candidates should be and then they decide whether or not what they do once they are elected is popular. We don’t need to worry our pretty little heads about all this except to watch their shows and be impressed by their vast knowledge of everything. (In fact, if it weren’t for that ridiculous nonsense about requiring that actual “people” vote in elections, we could dispense with any real participation at all and just turn Washington into a reality TV show and a web site.)

One would think that ridiculous nonsense would affect politicians, who do have to answer to their constituents, but the Republicans don’t play that way. They have a much more important constituency of brainwashed dittoheads who live in a conservative feedback loop of wingnut propaganda and resentment guiding their decisions. They think in bigger terms, giving themselves permission to demagogue and lie with impunity, often confusing their constituents so that they think the Republicans actually care about them.

It doesn’t always work, however. The current crop of Republicans think their comeback requires a reprise of the Republican Revolution. (One of the hallmarks of conservatism is, after all, living in the past.) But, if the polls Atrios references are true, they may be making the same mistake they’ve often made, which resulted in huge losses of approval in the public . In fact, if it weren’t for the village media pimping their scandals and covering for them, we wouldn’t have had George W. Bush for the last eight years to leave us in this mess .

I think that we may have begun to make some headway on the election front, what with these internets and tubes and all. But I’m not as sanguine about any effect on the political establishment. Their self assurance is awesome and as we’ve seen these past three weeks, their ability to influence actual governance is as powerful as ever. I’m not sure what the answer to that problem is, but it’s clear to me that until the beltway establishment is challenged and its power dispersed, the status quo will remain intact.

BTW: The media is resurrecting the word “shrill,” which really takes me back. In fact, there is a lot about this period that strangely reminds me of the run-up to the war. It’s that disorienting sense you get when lots of folks are telling you that you’re hysterical and overwrought for noticing that “serious” people are either outright lying or are completely full of shit.

I remember a good friend of mine telling me flat-out back in 2002 that “they” would never let George W. Bush invade Iraq. Another one told me just the other day that there was no way that the Obama administration could ever get away with cutting the safety net. It sure seems like it should be true.

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Taking Their Cut No Matter What

by digby

I gotcher disaster capitalism for yah, right heah:

The average Californian’s taxes would shoot up five different ways in the state budget blueprint that lawmakers hope to vote on this weekend. But the bipartisan plan for wiping out the state’s giant deficit isn’t so bad for large corporations, many of which would receive a permanent windfall.

About $1 billion in corporate tax breaks — directed mostly at multi-state and multinational companies — is tucked into the proposal. Opponents say the breaks will do nothing to create jobs, and the Legislature has rejected such moves repeatedly in the past. But now, to secure enough Republican votes to pass a budget that would raise taxes on everyone else, the Legislature is poised to write them into law with no public hearings at a time when the state treasury is almost out of cash.

The tax breaks were inserted into the spending plan during private meetings between legislative leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Less than 24 hours before today’s scheduled vote, the proposals had not yet been printed in bills and made available to the public, but legislative leaders acknowledged them.

Most of the cost to the state — or $690 million — would come from changes in the way corporate taxes are computed, lowering the amount owed by many large companies. Smaller tax breaks are included for Hollywood production companies and small businesses that hire new employees.

“This is a pure giveaway for the vast majority of corporations that will benefit,” said Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Assn., a union-backed nonprofit. “They will walk away with a great deal of money at everybody else’s expense.”

GOP lawmakers, aided by a small group of Democrats, have been pushing the tax breaks for years, along with such companies as NBC Universal, Genentech and Intel, as well as the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Taxpayers Assn. They say the breaks are an incentive for businesses to expand operations in California — or at least not to leave.

The lawmakers have previously sought unsuccessfully to leverage their votes on a state budget, which can pass only with a two-thirds majority, for the tax breaks. This year they had more leverage, because the compromise requires them to support $14 billion in temporary tax hikes on average Californians, something they had vowed never to do.

Those tax hikes will force most California adults to pay hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars more each year in a combination of higher vehicle license fees, sales taxes, gasoline taxes and income taxes. Dependent-care credits claimed by millions of families would be cut by about $200 annually. The increased taxes would remain in effect for two to four years.

Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher (R-San Diego), said the proposed corporate tax breaks are intended to keep the recession from spiraling deeper in California while unemployment is soaring.

“We have a tax code that incentivizes moving jobs out of the state,” he said. “It only makes sense to change that. . . . We want to be a state that welcomes job creation. The benefits of this will be substantial.”

Conservatism has been stripped of everything but its essence — cheap thugishness. I honestly can’t remember a time in the last 30 years when they weren’t holding a gun to the states’ head no matter what the economic climate. If times are good they have to cut taxes. If times are bad they have to cut taxes. It’s no wonder that the regular folks decided they shouldn’t have to pay taxes either.

I guess it puts the federal stimulus package in perspective. The reason the Republicans didn’t vote for it was simply because it didn’t include enough goodies for their corporate owners. In that sense, I guess it was a huge win for liberal principles.

Oh, and in a delicious bit of irony, I’m sure you recall that Schwarzenegger won office in a recall. And that recall was based upon a hissy fit engineered by the Republicans over Gray Davis’ attempt to pay the states’ bills by reinstating a modest car registration fee. Now, the same man who arrogantly strutted around calling Davis a girly man has presided over the worst economy in a generation, having done absolutely nothing while times were relatively good to set the states’ finances right and is now raising taxes on everything in sight. (Except certain corporations, of course, which are getting breaks because they will leave if they don’t, just like the banks which are “too big to fail.” It’s never easy to govern this state, but Arnold certainly made it sound that way when he ran his substance free campaign.

If the shoe were on the other foot, the Republicans would be recalling Arnold right now. Just like the corporations, they always take advantage of disasters to further their own agenda.

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Reboot

by digby

If you missed Moyers last night, you should check out the interview with MIT economics professor Simon Johnson. Very interesting stuff. The banking crisis makes my head hurt almost as much as seeing Dan Burton preening on TV about fiscal responsibility. But Johnson explains it well:

Johnson explains to Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL that the U.S. financial system reminds him more of the embattled emerging markets he encountered in his time with the International Monetary Fund than that of a developed nation. As such, Johnson believes that the U.S. financial system needs a “reboot,” breaking up the biggest banks, in some cases firing management and wiping out shareholder value. Johnson tells Bill Moyers that such a move wouldn’t be popular with the powerful banking lobby: “I think it’s quite straightforward, in technical or economic terms. At the same time I recognize it’s very hard politically.”

Without drastic action, Johnson argues, taxpayers are merely subsidizing a wealthy powerful industry without forcing necessary systemic changes: “Taxpayer money is ensuring their bonuses. We’re making sure that banks survive. And eventually, of course, the economy will turn around. Things will get better. The banks will be worth a lot of money. And they will cash out. And we will be paying higher taxes, we and our children, will be paying higher taxes so those people could have those bonuses. That’s not fair. It’s not acceptable. It’s not even good economics.”

Johnson expands these arguments on his blog, THE BASELINE SCENARIO:

“[W]eakening the big banks and their bosses should not be seen as an unfortunate side effect of beneficial medicine. It is exactly what we need to do under these circumstances. Unless and until these banks’ economic and political influence declines, we are stuck with too many people who know exactly what they can get away with because their organizations are “too big to fail.”

And weakening these banks (or actually having some of them go out of business and be broken up) as part of a comprehensive system reboot – with asset revaluations at market prices and a complete recapitalization program – will help return the credit system to normal.

The politics of this are complicated. Certainly, I don’t think any more bailouts as they have been defined are politically possible. But Johnson believes it’s urgent that the administration takes strong, quick action to “reboot” the system and makes a convincing case as to why. If he’s right, they need to get it together because Geithner’s presentation was universally panned by virtually everyone including the markets and the situation is deteriorating.

Here’s how Johnson sees it:

“The situation we find ourselves in at this moment, this week, is very strongly reminiscent of the situations we’ve seen many times in other places. But they’re places we don’t like to think of ourselves as being similar to. They’re emerging markets. It’s Russia or Indonesia or a Thailand type situation, or Korea… I have this feeling in my stomach that I felt in much poorer countries, countries that were headed into a really difficult economic situation, when there’s a small group of people who got you into a disaster, who were still powerful, and disaster made them more powerful… Don’t get me wrong – these are fine upstanding citizens who have a certain perspective and a certain kind of interest, and they see the world a certain way… That web of interest is not my interest or your interest or the interest of the taxpayer. It’s the interest, first and foremost, of the financial industry in this country.”

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Ownership

by digby

I think Arlen speaks the truth. The Republicans are hedging their bets. They want to be able to use the stimulus as a bludgeon (just think of the pork stories!) and want to be on record against it for 2010. But just in case the pointy headed economists are right, they do need to take care of their rich benefactors. If America’s owners really didn’t want this to pass they would have twisted some corporate Democrats’ arms. (Conversely, if they really wanted it to be bipartisan, they would have twisted some Republicans’ arms.)

Of course, they do have the next financial system bailout to think about. Perhaps they are just keeping their powder dry for a real centrist, bipartisan lovefest.

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Political Brains

by digby

I have always liked Drew Westen and I appreciated his book for making a good case that winning elections required appealing to emotion. The successful Obama campaign was a testament to his theories. People were hungry for inspiration and they got it in Barack.

But I never agreed with him and some other advisers, that people didn’t also need to vote on the basis of substantive political argument. If you don’t ground politics in ideas, it’s nothing more than show business (or religion.) And while the Republicans are great showmen, they very definitely ground their politics in ideology. They sell it with emotion, to be sure, and it’s completely incoherent when you scratch beneath the surface, but it’s there. It’s what they call “principle” and it brainwashes people to sell out their own self-interest without knowing they are doing it. (I don’t know how many dittoheads are out of work, without health care, or losing their homes, but I would imagine there a more than a few who hysterically called their representatives in high dudgeon over something that could help them personally.)

Anyway, there is a consequence to refusing to fight campaigns on ideology and present those ideas as a cogent set of political principles. Right now, the Democrats are basically assuming that people are hurting enough to find the Republicans reprehensible for trying to obstruct the help they need. That’s a pretty risky strategy.

I certainly don’t mean to suggest that Dr Westen doesn’t see what’s happened, because he certainly does:

What are the lessons learned-for Democrats, for Republicans, for Obama and for everyone else? Plus Judd Gregg’s withdrawal.

The major lesson learned is that the Democrats have just succeeded in taking a mandate, a landslide presidential election, and a super-majority in the House and Senate and handed over all power to a legislative tribunal consisting of three moderate Republicans in the Senate (and perhaps Joe Lieberman, whose face was prominently displayed on television over the last couple of days), who are now in a power-sharing arrangement with the President of the United States and the majorities of both houses of Congress. They are now in the position to scuttle, alter, or place limits on any legislation the Obama administration proposes, and to funnel the goals of the residual conservative Republicans who remain in the House and Senate into any legislation by saying, “Sorry we won’t vote for this if you don’t do x, y, and z,” which will generally be the policies that brought us into the crisis we’re in. Instead of Senators Collins, Snowe, and Specter being where they were two weeks ago, on the ropes, having to worry every day about their re-election in their states, which voted for President Obama and the change he promised, they are now in the position to tell the President what he can and can’t do over the next four years, and the White House has just assured their re-election by giving them so much positive press, power, and air time. When Republicans held less than 60 seats in the Senate and wanted to push through legislation, right-wing judges, etc., we never heard about how they lacked the 60 seats to pass whatever they wanted.

They played hardball, telling Democrats that if they dared to even consider a filibuster they would use the “nuclear option,” and Democrats curled up in the fetal position and waited until the Republicans had so badly damaged the country that the American people simply couldn’t vote for them anymore, and said, “We want the other guys.” Well, the other guys are in now, and they seem to have convinced themselves that they have neither the power nor the mandate to do the people’s business the way the people asked them to do. For those Americans who thought they might see things like comprehensive health care reform come out of this Congress and this Presidency, good luck. Unless the Democrats dramatically change course or the new President puts his foot down and reminds the American people who they voted for, any new legislation will have to pass muster with co-presidents Collins, Specter, and Snowe, and their shadow cabinet of Cornyn, Boehner, Shelby, and McConnell. The new co-presidents will not be able to do the kind of damage their party did over the last eight years, but they will be able to prevent the Democrats from fixing it—and to allow the radical conservatives to say “I told you so” in two years and take back large swaths of the House and Senate. If somehow this stimulus package succeeds, they will be able to claim that it was their changes, their tax cuts, and their “fiscal restraint” that worked.

I agree, of course. But I think the American people thought they were voting for someone who could magically change Republicans into partners. And that invited the Republicans to prove them wrong.

*I should also say that I recognize that the shallow nature of our political discourse is the fault of the media — and, yes, the people themselves. But Democrats do themselves no favors by looking for magic bullets. What Westen (and Lakoff before him) prescribed was invaluable. But they were never adequate. Ideology matters and the Democrats have to explain theirs and attack the Republicans’. I honestly don’t know why this is news to anyone. That’s politics.

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