Heads or Tails

[Daveparts still]

Heads or Tails
By David Glenn Cox


Bloomberg- The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million (bonus) is “an extraordinary amount of money for Main Street, there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.

“I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.”

How can such a smart guy be so dumb? Or is he a bright guy who thinks that we are that dumb? How can such a bright guy who ran a nearly flawless campaign enter the White House and in little more than a year alienate his own base? Time after time there is this fawning, almost cringing, pursuit of bipartisanship by the White House. Republicans in Washington are no different from a bully on the playground. After the bully has eaten your lunch and spent your milk money, he tells you what he wants for lunch tomorrow.

The Democrats proposed a genuinely moderate healthcare reform plan. The Republicans, and their brothers-in-arms the insurance industry, began attacking the plan with their noise machine. So concessions were made for this and changes for that, all in the hopes of appeasing just one Republican vote, and in the end it turned the healthcare plan into a thalidomide baby, unloved even by its sponsors. When the plan emerged from the Senate chamber it had no legs or arms and was a baby that only insurance companies could love.

So, when House Whip Eric Cantor says, “Fifty-three percent of Americans oppose this health care legislation,” well, whose god-damned fault is that? The Democrats have wedded their futures to it and find themselves stuck with the bill like fly paper when almost all agree that it isn’t very good, leaving them the choice of pushing a turkey or scuttling the whole mess. It’s a lose-lose situation that was brought about by attempting to be bipartisan.

All of the Nazi's early territorial gains came after fist-pounding negotiations. Dark threats and dire warnings cowed the Western Allies into a just-give-him-what-he-wants attitude. That temerity only increased the Nazi demands. If they would give in so easily, why not ask for more? Ask for the outrageous and then be willing to accept half. The strategy worked so well that Hitler lost all respect for the Western Allies, so when told that the Allies would go to war over Poland, he brushed it aside as the idle threat of a bunch of school yard twits.

President Obama wants to change the tone in Washington and that is a noble idea except it takes two parties to make that happen. If one party is dealing in bad faith, then you are being treated as a chump. The cold facts are that Barack Obama could propose legislation that Republican votes count for double and all Republican amendments to any bill would be accepted immediately without a vote. Or that the Republicans are to be served first in the Congressional Dining Room and only charged half price and he still couldn’t get them to vote for it.

Obama is a smart guy who served in the Senate; he can’t possibly believe that if he holds his hand out gingerly the Republican dogs will sniff it and begin to wag their tails. During the last Great Depression FDR allocated money for WPA camps on a partisan basis. Why not? Those Republicans lawmakers claimed that the WPA was a bad idea so why should they be at the front of the line?

Lyndon Johnson was famous for playing politics. As the vote was approaching for the Civil Rights Amendment, Johnson sent important officials, i.e., those with the authority to sign checks, on month-long fact-finding missions in Asia and Europe. Suddenly the White House phone began to ring. “ Out of the country? Mr. President, if we don’t get those checks we can’t pay our contractors!”

Johnson in his Texas drawl would answer, “I’ll look into that for you, and since you called let me talk to you about how you can help me with your vote on civil rights.” Johnson was called a lot of names besides a fine Christian fellow, but he was never called a chump. He didn’t make any friends but he got things done. He heeded Harry Truman’s advice, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”

Obama is a smart guy, so why is he acting so dumb? His first attempt at major legislative reform is gnarled and mutilated and Obama again reaches out his hand to the Republicans and says, “Why not, let’s take a bipartisan approach toward financial reform.” That noise that you here in the background is the Republicans laughing themselves silly. Why on Earth should they help Obama? Financial reform is counter to their base. They have no interest in reforms that restrict the robbery and fleecing of the public.

Why not ask street gang members to join in a campaign to get rid of street gangs? They aren’t going to help you, and the more you ask and humble yourself, the more you are going to be…laughed at.

Let's not forget that this crowd of Republicans isn’t the 1927 Yankees but a collection of boobs and yahoos that don’t know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution. This is the same crowd that holds a rally on the steps of the capitol, telling the Ethics Committee it was not about fundraising while at the same time had a web page asking, “Won’t you support our cause?”

The leader of this Pagliacci, three-penny opera obviously doesn’t even know how to set the timer on a tanning bed. His majordomo, Eric Cantor, should be judged the new Richard Nixon because you can always tell he’s lying even when he doesn’t say anything. His very appearance alone is an insult to crooked used-car dealers nationwide.

This is the gang that holds the Democrats stymied? It shouldn’t be so but then the President says things like, “$17 million (bonus) is an extraordinary amount of money for Main Street, there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.” If I had been Rahm Emanuel I’d have smacked him in the back of the head with a shovel. What in the world could he be thinking? Other than trying to be folksy again with the Wall Street crowd. Baseball players play all year for their money and they will only earn it for a short time. This $17 million was a Wall Street lump sum bonus in addition to their regular Wall Street salary and perks.

No one in sports is worth a $17 million lump sum bonus, just as no one on Wall Street is worth $17 million. Obama just successfully cut the legs out from under the administration's bargaining position. He effectively took public support off his side, while in December Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistar Darling, announced a 50% “Super Tax” on bonuses over $50,000.

"There are some banks,” Darling said, “who still believe their priority is to pay substantial bonuses to some already highly paid staff. Their priority should be to rebuild their financial strength and increase their lending. So I am giving them a choice. They can use their profits to build up their capital base. But if they insist on paying substantial rewards, I am determined to claw money back for the taxpayer."

The bankers cried and wailed and threatened to leave town, to make London in to a financial ghetto. You’ll be sorry, they cried! You just wait until we're gone! Darling was immune to their cries and after a week or so they died down and the bankers aren’t going any place except to get their checkbooks.

So why is it that the President who is obviously such a smart man says things like, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either,” even when given Darling’s example?

Heads, Barack Obama is a really smart man who is clueless about bargaining in the real world to the point of being a chump. Or tails, Barack Obama is a really smart man who deals from both sides of the deck and is playing us for chumps.

[Demeter]

1. The GOP Ran Such a Bad Campaign that Anyone Would Have Looked Good

and Hillary had too much baggage to keep up with Obama. Now Obama's baggage will drown the entire party.

[tom_paine]

2. There is always the possibility that Obama knows EXACTLY what he is doing.

I am sorry to say...