TomCADem
TomCADem's JournalEzra Klein - "The Senate Democrats’ vague, conservative (as in preserves existiing benefits) budget"
I think Ezra Klein is getting too cute in calling Patty Murray's budget "conservative" because it does not propose to dramatically upend existing benefit programs. I think the point of Murray's budget is that there is no need to toss out Medicare, for example, since it could be tweaked to make it more revenue neutral without going to a voucher program. In this sense, I think Klein is buying into the media narrative that Republicans are "brave" for attacking benefits to the poor and middle class while offering tax cuts to the rich while Democrats are weak because they are trying to preserve such programs. Its the whole "gift" meme.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/13/the-senate-democrats-vague-conservative-budget/
There is little in the federal government Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) does not confidently propose to remake. Medicare becomes a voucher system in which we trust government regulators to keep private insurers in line. Medicaid and food stamps are handed over to the states. The tax code is flattened to two brackets. Ideologically speaking, these are very conservative decisions. But in the dictionary sense, they are anything but conservative decisions: Ryan’s budget is almost entirely about upending existing institutions, and his assumed savings reflect an extraordinary confidence that untested reforms will prove wildly successful.
Sen. Patty Murray’s budget, by contrast, is both a more liberal and a more traditionally conservative document. Where Ryan sees the deficit as an opportunity for historic change, Murray treats it as an economic problem that requires a modest set of spending cuts and tax increases to solve. Where Ryan’s proposed deficit-reduction path is fast and severe, Murray moves slowly and cautiously. Where Ryan wants to remake the state and balance the budget, Murray just wants to stabilize and reduce the debt.
But even given that difference in objective, Murray’s budget is deeply, even excessively, respectful of existing institutions. If the problem of Ryan’s budget is that it wants to do far too much, the problem with Murray’s budget is that it is almost entirely devoted to saying what it won’t do, and it gets very vague when the topic turns to what it will.
Maddowblog - "Obama's not the one with a popularity problem" - Counters Mainstream Media Narrative
The corporate media has been reporting some declining approval ratings for President Obama and have been pushing the idea that as a result the public is not happy with Democratic priorities, thus President Obama should move toward Republicans. However, as noted in this story, Republican support has continued to be abysmal. Yet, why isn't the mainstream media pushing the idea that Republicans should be moving toward Democrats? In other words, why are Republicans once again being given a free pass?
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/13/17300386-obamas-not-the-one-with-a-popularity-problem?lite
And in a literal sense, that's true. On Election Day 2012, when Obama won by 5 million votes and earned 332 electoral votes, the president had a 50/46 approval/disapproval rating, and in today's poll, he once again has a 50/46 approval/disapproval rating. He got a bump earlier in the year, which has since gone away.
But I thought it'd be worthwhile to put together a chart showing the approval ratings for Washington's major players.
&width=600
* * *
But for goodness sakes, 72% of the country -- 72% -- disapprove of congressional Republicans. Among self-identified moderates, it's 81% -- and the poll was taken before the House Republican budget, which hopes to scrap Medicare and give millionaires another tax break, was released. What's more, GOP lawmakers receive the bulk of the blame for the sequestration fiasco.
If the political world is going to focus on "vanishing" levels of public support, to focus on the president, who remains relatively popular, is to miss what matters most.
Maddow Blog - "When promises meet mandates" - McConnell Swears Fealty to Grover Norquist
This just goes to show why it is shocking that David Gregory gently prods John Boehner about his talking point that a cut in tax rates leads to economic growth. Normally, the media just sits there and nods their head solemnly as a Republican repeatedly swears fealty to Grover Norquist's no new tax pledge even though it makes no sense:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/04/17179792-when-promises-meet-mandates?lite
"The question is are we going to keep the commitment we made to the American people a year and a half ago, a bipartisan agreement signed by the president, that we would reduce spending without raising taxes by this amount of money in this fiscal year?
"And here we are, a year and a half later, with the president trying to walk away from the commitment we made to the American people.... We've got to begin to cut spending. And we promised the American people we'd do it a year and a half ago and we're going to do it. ...
"I'm absolutely confident we're going to reduce spending the amount of money that we promised the American people we would in a law the president signed a year and a half ago."
Over the course of a not-terribly-long interview, McConnell said eight times that the sequester has to be replaced with a 100%-to-0% deal in Republicans' favor because -- you guessed it -- it was a "commitment" Republicans made "to the American people."
Greg Sargent - "The Morning Plum: The false equivalence pundits are part of the problem"
Here is a good article from Greg Sargent outlining how the media has helped obscured and perpetuate the impasse over the sequester. Indeed, Sargent notes that the press has moved to simply accepting Republican dysfunction as a given, therefore putting the burden of reaching a solution entirely on Democrats to presumably embrace Republican ideals without any concessions from Republicans. Even liberals on DU have sometimes embraced, "We expect this from Republicans..." narrative in attacking Democrats for failing to reach a solution.
As the lead up to last GOP default threat showed, Republicans are NOT immune from pressure. However, they must feel political pressure, which must come in large part from a media that does not protect them by portraying a false equivalency between Democrats and Republicans or (worse) just giving them a free pass.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/02/26/the-morning-plum-the-false-equivalence-pundits-are-part-of-the-problem/
The battle over the sequester has sparked a corollary argument over the proper role of pundits in assigning blame in political standoffs of this type. A number of us have argued that the facts plainly reveal that Republicans are far more to blame than Obama and Democrats for the current crisis. The GOP’s explicit position is that no compromise solution of any kind is acceptable — this must be resolved only with 100% of the concessions being made by Democrats — which means any compromise Dems put forth is by definition a nonstarter at the outset.
Analysts reluctant to embrace this conclusion — an affliction I’ve called the “centrist dodge” — have adopted several techniques. One is to pretend Dems haven’t offered any compromise solution, when in fact they have. A second is to argue that, okay, Dems have offered a compromise while Republicans haven’t, but Dems haven’t gone far enough towards the middle ground, so both sides are still to blame for the impasse. (The problem with this dodge is that it fails to acknowledge that Republicans themselves have openly stated that there is no distance to which Dems could go to win GOP cooperation, short of giving them everything they want.)
We’re now seeing a third technique appear: Acknowledge that Republicans are the uncompromising party, but assert that it’s ultimately on the President to figure out a way to either force Republicans to drop their intransigence or to otherwise “lead” them out if it.
* * *
The argument now is basically that the president is the father who must make his problem children behave. Only this is worse than just a dodge. Lots and lots of people are going to get hurt by the sequester. Anyone who helps deflect blame from Republicans — in the full knowledge that they are the primary obstacle to the compromise we need to prevent serious damage from being done to the country — is unwittingly helping to enable their intransigence.
The Atlantic - "False Equivalence in One Tweet" - Nice!
This excerpt says it all about how the false equivalence of the media obscures the current debate:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/02/false-equivalence-in-one-tweet/273451/
To anticipate 99 percent of incoming hostile mail and online trollery: the point of this distillation is not what it says about the two political parties. You can reverse them if you want -- although in the struggle over "the sequester," I think it's right as is. The real point is what this says about the predicament and habits of the press.
Bob Woodward To Hannity: I Never Called WH Email A 'Threat,'
Source: Huffington Post
Bob Woodward set about trying to defend himself on Thursday night from the widespread derision that has greeted his account of his hostile exchange with White House economic adviser Gene Sperling.
Woodward spoke to his own newspaper, the Washington Post, and appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News show to discuss the now infamous emails between himself and Sperling. On Wednesday, Woodward set the media world chattering when he told Wolf Blitzer that Sperling's email —which said, in part, that, "as a friend," he thought Woodward would "regret" a hotly contested claim he was making about the Obama administration's handling of the budget sequester — had made him "very uncomfortable." He did not dispute Blitzer's comment that he had been "threatened" by Sperling. Nor did he quarrel with the Politico editors who interviewed him and wrote, "Woodward [made] clear he saw it as a veiled threat."
When the emails were released in full by Politico on Thursday, though, their cordial tone angered many journalists, who thought Woodward had mischaracterized the nature of the exchange.
* * *
Critics also noted the chumminess between Woodward and Hannity. After the Fox News host cricitzed the press for not looking into President Obama's associations with Bill Ayers, Woodward said, "I agree with that." He also lavished praise on Hannity, saying, "You let me say what I want. You dig into things. You — there is no bleep-out button.”
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/28/bob-woodward-hannity-white-house-threat_n_2785739.html
If there is any upside to Bob Woodard's backpedaling on Sean Hannity of all shows is that it exposes how many "mainstream" journalists are nothing more than shills for the right wing.
As noted in this review of Bob Woodard's 2012 Book, the Price of Politics, Woodard's work on President Obama offered no new information and, if anything, told more about Woodard's right wing bias, then the President:
http://www.newrepublic.com/book/review/bob-woodward-price-of-politics
Flashback - Review of Bob Woodard's Book on Obama (2012) - Notes Lack of New Info and Bias
The New Republic will never be confused with Mother Jones, yet here is a review from Bob Woodard's last book, The Price of Politics, in October 2012, which notes (1) that Bob Woodard's book offers no new information and (2) that is reveals more about Bob Woodard's bias than President Obama:
http://www.newrepublic.com/book/review/bob-woodward-price-of-politics#
This was all the more jarring because Woodward is famous for his distinct lack of slant. His books are scrupulously reported but annoyingly literal. At their worst, they read more like stenography than fully hatched stories. The only hint of a worldview he injects is the worldview of the establishment. He reflexively flatters the powerful.
So in one sense the book is a departure: it is relentlessly biased against the president. Woodward argues that the White House and Congress failed to reach a major deficit-reduction deal last summer because Obama didn’t provide the necessary leadership, even though this thesis is untethered from Woodward’s own reporting, to say nothing of reality.
But, in another sense, the book is perfectly in sync with Woodward’s oeuvre. There is a body of respectable Washington opinion that considers Obama unworthy of the presidency: he hadn’t put in his time before running, didn’t grasp the majesty of the office, evinced no respect for the way things were done. He not only won without courting the city’s elders, he had the bad manners to keep his distance even after winning. This is the view Woodward distills.
Ezra Klein - "On the sequester, the American people ‘moved the goalposts’"
Ezra Klein has a nice explanation that destroys Bob Woodard's argument that President Obama is "moving the goal posts" by not agreeing to spendings cut only to avoid the sequester.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/23/on-the-sequester-the-american-people-moved-the-goalposts/
“Moving the goal posts” isn’t a concept that actually makes any sense in the context of replacing the sequester. The whole point of the policy was to buy time until someone, somehow, moved the goalposts such that the sequester could be replaced.
Think back to July 2011. The problem was simple. Republicans wouldn’t agree to raise the debt ceiling without trillions of dollars in deficit reduction. Democrats wouldn’t agree to trillions of dollars in deficit reduction if it didn’t include significant tax increases. Republicans wouldn’t agree to significant tax increases. The political system was at an impasse, and in a few short days, that impasse would create a global financial crisis.
The sequester was a punt. The point was to give both sides a face-saving way to raise the debt ceiling even though the tax issue was stopping them from agreeing to a deficit deal. The hope was that sometime between the day the sequester was signed into law (Aug. 2, 2011) and the day it was set to go into effect (Jan. 1, 2013), something would…change.
Maddow Blog - "Woodward's unfortunate errors"
Nice article in Maddow Blog that destroys the new corporate media narrative that tries to blame sequestration on President Obama and Democrats and that tries to suggest that both sides are refusing to compromise:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/02/25/17086993-woodwards-unfortunate-errors
Over the weekend, there was quite a kerfuffle when Woodward, to the delight of far-right bloggers, jumped into the debate over this week's sequestration cuts, challenging some of the White House's key assertions. For one thing, Woodward insists the sequester was President Obama's idea. For another, Woodward wants the public to believe Obama is "moving the goal posts" by expecting Democrats and Republicans to reach a compromise including both spending cuts and revenue from closed tax loopholes. As far as the Washington Post reporter in concerned, sequestration cuts were supposed to be replaced entirely with different spending cuts, just as GOP policymakers demand.
Let's take these one at a time. The first point, which Republicans and reporters find needlessly fascinating, is quickly becoming farcical. Tim Noah argued that the White House came up with the sequestration policy "in roughly the same sense that it was Charles Lindbergh's bad idea eight decades ago to fork over the equivalent in today's dollars of $840,000 to a German-born carpenter named Bruno Hauptmann.... The sequester was a ransom payment." Noam Scheiber added that saying the sequester was Obama's idea is "like saying it was your idea to give wallet to mugger when he said, 'Your money or your life.'"
Republicans were threatening to crash the economy on purpose and Obama was scrambling to satisfy their demands before GOP lawmakers pulled the trigger and shot the hostage (which is to say, shot us). The sequester then became part of the plan that Republicans proceeded to vote for and brag about, before they came up with the "this is all Obama's fault" talking point in the hopes of winning a bizarre public-relations fight.
After Republicans created a crisis, both sides created the sequester, and both sides now consider it dangerous. The point that matters, even if Very Serious People in Washington are reluctant to acknowledge it, is that only one side is prepared to compromise to resolve the problem.
New Yorker - "Is Senator Ted Cruz Our New McCarthy?"
Interestingly, Ted Cruz even resembles Joe McCarthy. I guess it is no surprise that Ted Cruz feels no shame about attacking the patriotism or loyalty of decorated war heroes. Why feel afraid when you have billions in Koch money behind you?
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/02/ted-cruz-sees-red-not-crimson-at-harvard.html?mbid=gnep&google_editors_picks=true
ket.”
Boxer’s analogy may have been more apt than she realized. Two and a half years ago, Cruz gave a stem-winder of a speech at a Fourth of July weekend political rally in Austin, Texas, in which he accused the Harvard Law School of harboring a dozen Communists on its faculty when he studied there. Cruz attended Harvard Law School from 1992 until 1995. His spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request to discuss the speech.
Cruz made the accusation while speaking to a rapt ballroom audience during a luncheon at a conference called “Defending the American Dream,” sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a non-profit political organization founded and funded in part by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch. Cruz greeted the audience jovially, but soon launched an impassioned attack on President Obama, whom he described as “the most radical” President “ever to occupy the Oval Office.” (I was covering the conference and kept the notes.)
He then went on to assert that Obama, who attended Harvard Law School four years ahead of him, “would have made a perfect president of Harvard Law School.” The reason, said Cruz, was that, “There were fewer declared Republicans in the faculty when we were there than Communists! There was one Republican. But there were twelve who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government.”
Profile Information
Member since: Fri May 8, 2009, 12:59 AMNumber of posts: 17,387
