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Month: May 2011

Uhm no : Peterson Summit —Lawmakers and Budget experts conveneing to “discuss elements of potential fiscal bargain.”

“Elements of Potential Fiscal Bargain”

by digby

Via Atrios, I see the speakers list for the Pete Peterson Fiscal Summit is out:

** REMINDER: MEDIA ADVISORY***

Nation’s Lawmakers and Budget Experts to Convene at Fiscal Summit in Washington on May 25 to Discuss Elements of Potential Fiscal Bargain

Participants in Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s 2nd Annual Fiscal Summit to Include President Bill Clinton, Members of Congress, National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling, Governor Mitch Daniels, National Fiscal Commission Co-Chair Alan Simpson and Member David Cote, New York Times Columnist David Brooks and The Atlantic Business and Economics Editor Megan McArdle

Gosh I wonder what they’re going to say? It’s a little bit odd that they were unable to find even one person who hasn’t advocated cuts and partial or total privatization of Social Security but I guess it’s possible that all 70% of the American public who are against that already had plans.

*Yes Bill Clinton certainly did entertain that idea.

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Sacrificial Ham: Limbaugh demonstrates why everyone should be making Jared Bernstein’s point

Sacrificial Ham

by digby

Former Vice Presidential economic adviser Jared Bernstein’s new blog is very entertaining and informative. I urge you all to check it out daily.

Today he responds to a piece in the Washington Post by Robert Samuelson and adds this, which seems to me to be extremely important and something that Democrats would need to start pounding into people’s minds before the next election:

[H]e doesn’t stress enough the caveat that growth, while reliably positive, is still too slow. To generate the number of jobs needed to bring the unemployment rate down more quickly, we need some GDP quarters well above the recent average of about 3%. But most importantly, anyone thinking about the nature of this recovery needs to be very clear about this: the economic well-being of the broad middle class is not simply a function of macroeconomic growth. Such growth is, of course, necessary and welcomed. It is not sufficient. The question is whether the growth is reaching the middle class and lower-income families. The data on where growth is ending up arrive with a lag so we can’t fully answer this question yet, but some indicators are clearly worrisome. For example, corporate profits have been doing a lot better than average wages (the former has made up most of the ground lost over the downturn; the latter are recently declining in real terms). Now, profits often lead more broadly shared gains—that certainly was the story of the 1990s expansion, which ultimately did reach the middle class and the poor, at least for a New York minute in the latter half of the decade. But it was demonstrably not the case in the 2000s, the first recovery on record where the typical household’s real income went nowhere despite years of GDP and productivity growth. In stark contrast to the 1990s, poverty was actually higher at the end of the 2000s expansion than at the beginning. And as long as we’re worrying about the distribution of growth, as opposed to just its creation, let’s not make things worse by extending budget-bashing tax cuts that enrich those who already appear to have climbed out of the hole and are outpacing the rest. If one goal of the nascent economic expansion is to achieve more broadly shared prosperity than the last one, to renew the high-end Bush tax cuts, as in the Republican budget plan, is to start the race with an anvil around our necks.

There’s more at the link. People need to understand that they have a personal stake in the fair distribution of taxes beyond an abstract notion of fairness. They need to know that the great growth in wealth of the super-rich is literally coming at their expense. I don’t think they know that.

Certainly Rush Limbaugh’s audience doesn’t know it. Get a load of this exchange from a couple of months ago when I happened to come across this morning:

CALLER: I keep hearing on TV and you, “We just can’t afford it, and the sacrifice is gonna have to be shared.” And I’ve got a decent memory. I remember just a couple months ago when we couldn’t have increased taxes on the most wealthy, the people that have made more money over the last decade, over the last 40 years, really —

RUSH: Yeah, yeah.

CALLER: — than anyone else in America.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: Well, wages have, you know, kinda remained flat. What I want to know is when Andrea Mitchell, Mrs. Alan Greenspan, and when Rush Limbaugh say we need to share the sacrifice, what kind of sacrifices are you guys making? I mean, really?

RUSH: What do you mean by you guys?

CALLER: Well, like I said, you, Andrea Mitchell, all the rest of the rich folk in the media that love to get up on TV and radio and talk about how the sacrifice must be —

RUSH: I’m not avoiding your question. I’ll answer it here in just a second. I am not a proponent of shared sacrifice. I don’t believe in sacrifice, period. I think that’s an absolutely defensive, stupid, self-defeating way to go about life. This whole sacrifice business is a Democrat trick. It’s nothing more than a political spin game: We must have joint sacrifice. That means we must accept, we must universally accept bad times, must just accept them, and then all share equally in them. Sorry, I don’t participate in recessions. I am not gonna sacrifice to make somebody else feel good. I’m gonna keep doing what I do, and I hope to prosper at every moment of my life. I mean that’s what this country’s all about. Now, what do you think, what kind of sacrifice should I be doing?

CALLER: Well, I just want to know who’s gonna pay for the oil subsidies, and who’s gonna pay for these wonderful wars you love so much? I mean if we’re going to have these things that you want, Rush, somebody has to pay for it, and I’m sick and tired of —

RUSH: Wrong.

CALLER: — the people paying for it are the people making $50,000 a year. You’re making $25 million a year.

RUSH: I don’t look at life the way you do. There’s a reason somebody makes $25 million and there’s a reason somebody makes $25,000, and it’s not the guy who makes $25 million’s fault. There’s a reason and it’s not your job to come along and say that somebody is at fault, and it’s none of your business to come along and say it isn’t right and that somebody has got to make it fair by giving something up.

You are destined to fail in your own life if that’s your attitude about success. That somebody’s success is owing to somebody’s misery, therefore the misery must be honored. Wrongo, pal. Somebody in misery’s gotta be shown how to get out of it, not have it shared equally. It’s what I’ve never understood about people on the left. Okay, so you have misery out there, but not everybody’s feeling misery. Unfair. Solution? Make everybody miserable. Ergo, give us liberalism, it works. But sorry, I don’t participate in it.

…Whether you know it or not, we’re all sacrificing what otherwise could be a great life because of liberalism running this country right now. And of all things that you could call here to talk to me about and learn from, you’re sidetracked on $25 million versus $25,000 and somehow it’s unfair to spend money defending the country against people who want to kill you…

So I checked the e-mail during the break after this last caller and all this joint sacrifice business, and people are suggesting, “Rush, you do sacrifice. Why didn’t you tell that guy how much you pay in taxes?” That would not be classy, folks. That’s not the way to deal with this.

I mean to tell him that I pay more in taxes in one year that he’s gonna earn in his worthless life is not the classy way to do this, because that’s not what this clown actually means by sacrifice. You gotta understand this.

Joint sacrifice to liberals means more government. Even now with massive spending, high unemployment, foreclosures, to this liberal that called here and all the rest of them, the problem is not enough government; it’s not enough bureaucrats; not enough government benefits; not enough government. That’s what the left means.

The question is, when is it time for Washington to sacrifice? When is it time for unions to sacrifice? When is it time for government to sacrifice? When is it time for bureaucrats to sacrifice? When do they ever sacrifice? When does the government sacrifice? The government never sacrifices. Zilch, zero, nada.

I’m beginning to think that the best way to handle this is to have the government declared a “person” just as corporations are “persons.” Limbaugh already seems to think it is one — a sociopathic criminal, but a “person” nonetheless. The whole concept of democracy is obviously lost on him.

But just read the utter BS and understand that people listen to that and believe it. I have written before about the guy I once heard call in to thank Rush and tell him that he was happy to pay more in taxes if it meant his boss didn’t have to — it meant he was more likely to get a raise.

Let’s just say that if you listen to that disembodied voice droning on and on like that every single day you’re likely to get a little bit confused. At some point someone is going to have to challenge this brainwashing.

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Sorry folks, no cutting Social Security either

No Cutting Social Security Either

by digby

I’m sure these poll results will have the Villagers clucking again about the irresponsible parasites of he American public who refuse to accept that penury in their old age is a patriotic duty:

Fresh polling from Ohio, Missouri, Montana and Minnesota published first by TPM show voters in the states overwhelmingly oppose any cuts to the Social Security entitlement program, even in the name of reducing the national debt. The coalition of progressive groups which sponsored the survey say the polls send a clear message to the Democratic Senate incumbents up for reelection in each state: cut Social Security and you’ll incur the wrath of an angry electorate. Public Policy Polling (D) conducted the polls, which were sponsored by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy For America, MoveOn.org and CREDO Action. All four groups are strongly opposed to making cuts to Social Security, which some — including President Obama’s debt commission — have said are necessary to put the government’s fiscal house in order for the future. The PPP numbers, gathered between late April and last week, suggest the electorate is on the side of the progressives. The polls were conducted in the home states of Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown (OH), Claire McCaskill (MO), John Tester (MT), and Amy Klobuchar (MN), all of whom are up for reelection in 2012. The results (each poll surveyed more than a thousand people has a margin of error of about 3%):

In order to reduce the national debt, would you support or oppose cutting spending on Social Security, which is the retirement program for the elderly? Ohio: 16% support, 80% oppose
Missouri: 17% support, 76% oppose
Montana: 20% support, 76% oppose
Minnesota: 23% support, 72% oppose

Selfish bastards.

I have an idea. Let’s have the morally superior super-wealthy take the lead on this. We raise their taxes and close all their loopholes first. Then the rest of us will pony up once we see how much that raises. Their fine example will surely inspire the rest of us to give up our selfish, greedy ways.

Maybe the fellow who ran up this bar tab in Las Vegas could be the first one:

Update:

More from the AP:

They’re not buying it. Most Americans say they don’t believe Medicare has to be cut to balance the federal budget, and ditto for Social Security, a new poll shows. The Associated Press-GfK poll suggests that arguments for overhauling the massive benefit programs to pare government debt have failed to sway the public. The debate is unlikely to be resolved before next year’s elections for president and Congress. Americans worry about the future of the retirement safety net, the poll found, and 3 out of 5 say the two programs are vital to their basic financial security as they age.

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“The Tea Party itch has not been scratched”: How the Ryan plan went down

“The Tea Party Itch Has Not Been Scratched”

by digby

Any political observer with even a modicum of sense could see that the Ryan Plan was going to be a complete disaster. And most of us have been wondering ever since what the hell made them go for it. Politico has a fascinating inside story today which says that they were warned — but they went ahead anyway:

It’s been more than a month since Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his lieutenant, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va) boldly positioned their party as a beacon of fiscal responsibility — a move many have praised as principled, if risky. In the process, however, they raced through political red lights to pass Ryan’s controversial measure in a deceptively unified 235-193 vote, with only four GOP dissenters.
The story of how it passed so quickly — with a minimum of public hand-wringing and a frenzy of backroom machinations — is a tale of colliding principles and power politics set against the backdrop of a fickle and anxious electorate.

The outward unity projected by House Republicans masked weeks of fierce debate, even infighting, and doubt over a measure that stands virtually no chance of becoming law. In a series of heated closed-door exchanges, dissenters, led by Ryan’s main internal rival — House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) — argued for a less radical, more bipartisan approach, GOP staffers say.

At a fundraiser shortly after the vote, a frustrated Camp groused, “We shouldn’t have done it” and that he was “overridden,” according to a person in attendance.

A few days earlier, as most Republicans remained mute during a GOP conference meeting on the Ryan plan, Camp rose and drily asserted, “People in my district like Medicare,” one lawmaker, who is now having his own doubts about voting yes, told POLITICO.

At the same time, GOP pollsters, political consultants and House and NRCC staffers vividly reminded leadership that their members were being forced to walk the plank for a piece of quixotic legislation. They described for leadership the horrors that might be visited on the party during the next campaign, comparing it time and again with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to ram through a cap-and-trade bill despite the risks it posed to Democratic incumbents.

“The tea party itch has definitely not been scratched, so the voices who were saying, ‘Let’s do this in a way that’s politically survivable,’ got drowned out by a kind of panic,” a top GOP consultant involved in the debate said, on condition of anonymity.“The feeling among leadership was, we have to be true to the people who put us here. We don’t know what to do, but it has to be bold.”

Another GOP insider involved to the process was more morbid: “Jumping off a bridge is bold, too.”

For “beacons of responsibility” they sure put out a crappy plan. That’s one of the problems that Politico fails to address — the plan itself was debunked over the course of the first week and Ryan’s reputation for seriousness and “brio” took a major hit.
The article goes on to describe how the GOP believes they just have a messaging problem. (uhm no.) And there are some choice quotes from head-scratching Democrats wondering what in the hell came of the Republicans. If this article is correct, it is a leadership problem.

Cantor caught Hill reporters by surprise when he said, nonchalantly, that the Republican budget would be a “serious document that will reflect the type of path we feel we should be taking to address the fiscal situation, including addressing entitlement reforms.”

But there were also internal motivations in the decision to go big on Medicare, rooted in Boehner’s still tenuous grasp of the leadership reins, according to a dozen party operatives and Hill staffers interviewed by POLITICO.

Republican sources said Boehner, who has struggled to control his rambunctious new majority, needed to send a message to conservative upstarts that he was serious about bold fiscal reform — especially after some of the 63 freshmen rebelled against his 2011 budget deal that averted a government shutdown.

Then there’s the ever-present friction between Boehner and Cantor, who, along with Minority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), has positioned himself as the next generation of GOP leadership and champion of the conservative freshman class.

Boehner’s camp said the speaker has always supported the Ryan approach — which would offer vouchers to future Medicare recipients currently younger than 55 in lieu of direct federal subsidies — and proved his support by voting for a similar measure in 2009.

“Boehner has said for years, including leading up to the 2010 election, that we would honestly deal with the big challenges facing our country,” said his spokesman, Michael Steel. “With 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring every day, it is clear to everyone that Medicare will not be there for future generations unless it is reformed. The status quo means bankruptcy and deep benefit cuts for seniors. It’s clear who the real grown-ups in the room are. We’ve told the truth and led, while the Democrats who run Washington have cravenly scrambled and lied for partisan gain.”
[…]
Still, even if Boehner had opposed the plan — and his top aide, Barry Jackson, expressed concerns about the political fallout to other staffers — he probably couldn’t have stopped the Ryan Express anyway, so great was the push from freshmen and conservatives.

Ok, I get it. The freshman all came in high on power, believing that they had a mandate to ruthlessly slash government spending. But how hard would it have been for Boehner to point out that they’d just won their seats because they’d convinced a bunch of elderly people that Obama was trying to kill them by destroying Medicare? Oh, and by the way, if they want to stay in office they’d need those elderly people to vote for them again?

Boehner’s freshmen are a handful, no doubt about it. But it’s his job to manage that and he made a mistake with this one. He allowed them to alienate seniors, the one group they desperately need to keep if they are to be competitive. He sets the agenda and he should have chosen something far less politically damaging to feed to his slavering freshman vultures. It shouldn’t be hard. They hate everything about government. They couldn’t find something other than the government’s most popular programs right out of the gate?

The article says they are trying to figure out how to save the situation. They clearly haven’t done so. Last week they forced Newt Gingrich to grovel and squirm for days for insulting their plan and former Tea Party dreamboat Scott Brown twisted himself into a pretzel finally deciding today that he wasn’t going to support it, writing:

“The sooner Congress addresses this, the less painful it is likely to be — but more difficult adjustments will be required if we delay,” he wrote. “We should start by making improvements to the traditional Medicare plan.”

(I can just hear Newt whining, “How come he gets to say that?”)

This is a huge political problem for the GOP. It could fade if the Democrats allow them to take it off the table. (The Politico article says that Joe Biden’s bi-partisan group may do that, but it’s hard to see how they can unless Democrats are total fools. Oh wait …) But there’s nobody to blame except for Boehner, Cantor and Paul Ryan for this mess. And I have a sneaking suspicion that they’ll pay for it with their jobs. The Democrats may be fools, but the Republicans are ruthless when their leadership fails them. Just ask Newtie. He knows all about it.

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“We are looking for a renegade”

“We are looking for a renegade”

by digby

James Fallows dug up Jon Huntsman’s 2008 Sarah Palin nomination speech. Hoo boy.

Huntsman sounds in this clip as if he had a terrible sore throat that day. I can imagine him thinking now — or perhaps even, with prescience, back at the time — “Hmmm, I wonder what it would take to lose my voice entirely before I have to go on stage?” It you watch even the first five seconds, you’ll get the idea — of his state-of-voice, and of the speech’s tone. But it would be a shame to miss the 70 seconds that begin at time 0:50. For whatever it signifies*, here is Jon Huntsman introducing the then-next-vice-president of the United States.

Fallows thinks this could work in his favor by showing that he’ll carry the party line. But I doubt it.

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No soup for you: States cutting off unemployment benefits. Soooo 2009.

No soup for you

by digby

Sadly, because we have economically illiterate psychos with veto power in our government, nothing will be done about this and the unlucky citizens who don’t happen to be billionaires are going to be asked to “share the sacrifice” some more:

Some of the states that have drained their unemployment insurance funds are cutting the number of weeks that a laid-off worker can count on those benefits. Legislators are trying to limit tax increases for businesses to replenish the pool and are hoping the federal government keeps stepping in when the economy slumps.Michigan, Missouri and Arkansas recently reduced the maximum number of weeks that the jobless can get state unemployment benefits. Florida is on the verge of doing so. Unemployment in those states ranges from 7.8 percent in Arkansas to 11.1 percent in Florida.The benefit cuts come as legislatures deal with the damage that the recession inflicted on state unemployment insurance programs. The sharp increase in the number of people who lost their jobs drained the reservoir of money dedicated to paying out benefits.About 30 states borrowed more than $44 billion from the federal government to continue payments to laid-off workers. Many states hastened the insolvency of their funds by keeping balances at historically low levels going into the downturn.The burden of replenishing the funds and paying off the loans will fall primarily on businesses through higher taxes, but the benefit cuts are an effort to limit the tax increases.

I don’t know that people understood that when the Republicans were talking about “starving the beast” the beast they were talking about was the American worker. Now they know.

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Coalition tangle: changing the rules in an age of partisanship

Coalition Tangle

by digby

Robert Cruikshank has written a fascinating post at DKos on the issue of coalition building (motivated, I think, by the re-emergence of some of the old online Obama wars.) He compares the Republican and Democratic coalitions, of course, and points out the differences in solidarity and discipline (and the fact that the Democratic coalition is much less cohesive ideologically.)

He characterizes the GOP coalition compact as being “everyone shall get their turn” so they will all vote in line with all the coalitions’ causes and issues. But he’s put his finger on a specific point that I haven’t heard articulated before and it strikes me as hugely important:

Members of the conservative coalition do not expect to get everything all at once. An anti-choice advocate would love to overturn Roe v. Wade tomorrow. But they don’t get angry when that doesn’t happen in a given year. Not because they are self-disciplined and patient, but because they get important victories year after year that move toward that goal. One year it could be a partial-birth abortion ban. The next year it could be defunding of Planned Parenthood. The year after that it could be a ban on any kind of federal funding of abortions, even indirect. (And in 2011, they’re getting some of these at the same time.) More importantly, they know that even if their issue doesn’t get advanced in a given year, they also know that the other members of the coalition will not allow them to lose ground. If there’s no way to further restrain abortion rights (Dems control Congress, the voters repeal an insane law like South Dakota’s attempt to ban abortion), fine, the conservative coalition will at least fight to ensure that ground isn’t lost. They’ll unite to fight efforts to rescind a partial-birth abortion ban, or add new funding to Planned Parenthood. Those efforts to prevent losses are just as important to holding the coalition together as are the efforts to achieve policy gains. Being in the conservative coalition means never having to lose a policy fight – or if you do lose, it won’t be because your allies abandoned you.

This is the source of the mistrust that characterizes the relationship between the progressives and the centrists (or neo-liberals in Cruishank’s piece ) in the Democratic Party coalition. It’s not just that progressive goals are often thwarted — so are conservatives’. Nobody always gets what they want. It’s that progressive values and issues are actively disdained and used as bargaining chips in negotiations. It’s one thing to feel that you aren’t getting what you want, it’s quite another to be constantly worried that you will lose what you already have — and at the hands of your own coalition allies.

This all worked for the centrists when the Republicans played bipartisan politics. But they don’t anymore. They have adopted a hardcore partisan approach that does not allow give and take with the opposition party. The Centrists learned this during the health care battle and their response has been to manipulate and strong arm the progressives in their coalition to get the votes they need. (In the old days, they could just leave them standing on the sidelines and make deals with Republicans.)

Rather than make deals with the members of their own coalition or promising to never put them in a position in which they are losing ground, the Dem Centrists exert dominance by forcing progressives to continually make Solomonic choices between one constituency and another. It’s a very difficult position for people of conscience to be in — there are real consequences to these decisions. On big once-in-a-generation legislation like health care, the pressure was so intense for them to conform that it was excruciating to watch. The progressives didn’t get that which they most wanted, single payer or the public option, which was very hard to take. But that wasn’t enough — the pro-choice members of the coalition actually lost ground. The health care act will make it harder for women to get insurance coverage for their reproductive needs as a result of that negotiation. That is where this coalition fails over and over again. It throws its long won gains on the table to sweeten the pot (and then demands that their membership cheer their own losses.)

Cruikshank is making an appeal to progressives to apply the GOP coalition rules to themselves and stick together, even if the centrists continue to play their games.. And that’s certainly necessary advice. Warring amongst ourselves is about as destructive as it gets. But there needs to be an understanding of how progressives are being manipulated in the Party — and a plan to thwart it — or there is going to be some kind of crack-up eventually. You simply can’t have a working coalition in which a very large faction is constantly used as political cannon fodder. If the anger doesn’t kill you the disillusionment will. The old bipartisan way is dead for now and Democrats had better adjust to dealing fairly and equitably within its own coalition or they’re going to find that they don’t have one.

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More Sunday morning at the movies …

by digby

The NY Times features a piece about Paddy Chayefsky’s notes on the creation of Network which, as you might imagine considering my paean to Howard Beale to the left, I found fascinating.

I watched the film again recently and was struck by just how perfectly he captured the essence of what was just beginning to come into focus and which is now obvious to everyone.

Dan Chayefsky, the author’s son, wrote in an e-mail that “Network” “was always intended as a metaphor for society at large,” and its subtext “was always about human/corporate accountability, rather than newscasters or any specific industry.” Even if a Cronkite-like character had been the seed that “Network” grew from, Dan Chayefsky said, “the ideas my father uncovered at the concept stage rarely maintained their shape or form at the conclusion of each work.” Mr. Colbert said that while “Network” did not directly inspire “The Colbert Report,” the film influenced the outspoken media personalities that he lampoons. (Noting interviews in which the conservative commentator Glenn Beck compared himself to Gandhi, Jesus and Howard Beale, Mr. Colbert said, “I thought, wow, none of those stories end well.”) What “Network” correctly anticipated, he said, “is news as entertainment, a man wandering a set as opposed to sitting behind a desk,” though Mr. Colbert tended to read “Network” as a drama about relationships and the tragedy of Beale. Mr. Sorkin, however, spoke for “Network” fans who respond to it as a devastating media-industry critique — one whose author never saw television devolve into a vast wasteland of reality programming and political partisanship, but who after 35 years is still shouting just as loudly about the dangers of crass, pandering content. “If you put it in your DVD player today you’ll feel like it was written last week,” Mr. Sorkin said. “The commoditization of the news and the devaluing of truth are just a part of our way of life now. You wish Chayefsky could come back to life long enough to write ‘The Internet.’ ”

And this article in NY Magazine about Roger Ailes proves it. Perhaps the most interesting thing about it is that Ailes is portrayed as a moderate who prefers the politics of George Bush Sr — and who just happens to believe that Barack Obama is a dangerous leftist who planned on creating a national police force.

Read the whole article about how frustrated he is with the fact that the monster he’s created is destroying the Republican party and leaving him without a candidate for 2012. (His two favorite potential candidates — Chris Christie and The Man Called Petraeus have failed to make themselves available.) It’s quite a story.

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Sunday Morning at the Movies: SIFFting through Cinema Pt. 1

Sunday Morning At The Movies

SIFFting through cinema, Pt. 1

By Dennis Hartley

The Seattle International Film Festival is in full swing, so over the next several weeks I will be bringing you highlights. Navigating a film festival is no easy task, even for a dedicated buff. SIFF is presenting 441 films over 25 days. That’s great for independently wealthy types, but for those of us who work for a living (*cough*), it’s tough to find the time and energy that it would take to catch 17.6 films a day (yes-I did the math). I do take consolation from my observation that the ratio of less-than-stellar (too many) to quality offerings (too few) at a film festival differs little from any Friday night crapshoot at the multiplex. The trick lies in developing a sixth sense for films most likely to be up your alley (in my case, embracing my OCD and channeling it like a cinematic divining rod.) Hopefully, some of these will be coming soon to a theater near you. So-let’s go SIFFting!

Even though I could glean from frame one that The First Grader (this year’s SIFF opening night selection) was one of those “triumph of the human spirit over insurmountable socio-economic and/or political odds in a post-colonial African nation” dramas expressly engineered to tug mercilessly at the strings of my big ol’ pinko-commie, anti-imperialist, bleeding softie lib’rul heart, I nonetheless loved every minute of it. Produced by the BBC and beautifully directed by Justin Chadwick, the film dramatizes the true story of an illiterate 84 year-old Kikuyu tribesman (Oliver Litando) who, fired up by a 2002 Kenyan law that guaranteed free education for all citizens, shows up out of the blue at his local one-room schoolhouse one day, eager to hit the books. Bemusement from the school officials (who initially turn him away) turns to respect for the aging gentleman’s quietly persistent determination to realize his life-long dream, especially from the school’s compassionate principal (Naomie Harris). As you may have already guessed, there is much more to the protagonist’s story; through flashbacks we learn that he was a freedom fighter against the ruling British during the nearly decade-long Mau-Mau uprising that took place in Kenya in the 1950s. Through these carefully interspersed flashbacks, the full sacrifice he made and personal tragedy he suffered comes slowly and deliberately into focus; resulting in a denouement that packs a powerful, bittersweet emotional gut punch a la Sophie’s Choice).

With his new film, 3 (aka “Drei”) German director Tom Tykwer finally answers that age-old question: What would happen if a bio-ethicist (Sophie Rois) and an art engineer (Sebastian Schipper), who have been involved in a loving, 20-year long relationship should suddenly find themselves falling head-over-heels in love with (unbeknownst to each other) the same genetics research scientist (Devid Streisow)? It gets interesting. Whether or not it gets interesting enough to hold your attention for 2 hours…well, that depends. Although he can’t resist tossing in a few of his patented art-house flourishes (thankfully, he only flirts with that annoying split-screen gimmick this time), this is a relatively low-key effort from a director who has built his rep on delivering stylized kinetics (Run Lola Run, The International). If you can visualize Woody Allen directing The Unbearable Lightness of Being-then you’ll find Tykwer’s surprisingly conventional romantic romp about an unconventional love triangle amongst the Berlin intelligentsia to be playful, erotic and smart. And if there is a message, it’s surely imbedded within the film’s most quotable line: “Say goodbye to your deterministic understanding of biology.”

“J. H. Mascis on a Popsicle stick,” I thought to myself about 20 minutes into Hit So Hard, a new alt-rock doc about Hole drummer Patty Schemel “this isn’t going to be another one of those glorified episodes of VH-1’s Behind the Music…is it?” But once I realized that VH-1 doesn’t hold a patent on rags-to-riches-to-rags stories about rock musicians who sabotage their own careers through self-destructive substance abuse, I relaxed and went with it. Writer-director P. David Ebersole has rendered a candid and revealing portrait not only of his subject (a feisty, outspoken yet endearingly self-effacing woman who is sort of a punk-rock version of Tatum O’Neal) but of the fertile Seattle grunge scene that exploded in the early 90s. As she was a close family friend of that scene’s power couple-we also get an intimate glimpse at the home life of the two-headed beast that was Kurt and Courtney (and more than enough of the post-Kurt Courtney-who comes off as dangerously insane, per usual). There are unexpectedly moving moments as well; particularly when Patty’s mom recalls the moment her daughter came out to her at age 17. And in case the suspense is killing you? Yes-Patty is very much alive, and sober!