Doing It The Neo-Liberal Way

Steve M. reviews those perceived failures which at one time or another has been cited as Obama's "Katrina"  (New Orleans Superdome, from time.com) or that it should be, or that it could be.  They are, in the order he presented them:

Benghazi; IRS; sexual assault in the military; Hurricane Sandy; Hurricane Isaac; Washington, D.C. power outage; MF Global Financial collapse; S&P downgrade; flooding in Nebraska City, Nebraska; Alabama tornado; "CableGate" (from WikiLeaks); BP oil spill; unemployment; Haiti; the Undiebomber; Fort Hood; the stimulus; Georgia flooding; swine flu epidemic; failure to create jobs; General Motors; ice storm in Kentucky.

Digby, who like S.M. is thus unimpressed that the Obamacare rollout is the newest Katrina, comments

The reason Bush was tarred with his Katrina response is because he acted like he didn't give a damn. And it came out of a long series of problems in Iraq and after revelations that his administration had blown off warnings about 9/11. People can say a lot of things about the Obamacare rollout but I don't think anyone can say that the president doesn't give a damn and isn't trying to fix the problems.

But of course the media (under the influence of Republican ref-working) will try to tag him with his own Katrina. As you can see, they've been trying since he came into office. Just as they spent decades trying to find a Democratic Watergate --- and finally just created one out of whole cloth with Whitewater --- they will try to even out Bush's debacle. The media always wants to be above partisanship and tries desperately to find ways to prove they aren't. They called Bush out on Katrina and so feel compelled to find a corollary with Obama.They'll keep doing it until something sticks --- or he is out of office. But don't kid yourself. Some Democrat, whether Obama or a successor, will have to pay a price for Bush's incompetence. It's in the Village bylaws.

But what S.M. finds most egregious is labeling as "Obama's Katrina" an alleged failure of Senator Obama (before B.O. was even elected president).  Mickey Kaus had written

A friend emails: "Obama's KATRINA. A little dramatic?"  Maybe.  Obama's record on "affordable housing," as described in the Globe story, isn't a case of gross ineptitude in a catastrophic regional emergency. It's not even a symbol of endemic governmental dysfunction. (Although: Is there a bigger Petri dish for corrupt incompetence than the "public-private partnership"? Think cable TV franchises.) But the Globe account does seem to capture what's most likely to be wrong with an Obama administration.  After all, Obama's career has been unusually limited for a presidential contender. Housing and "community development" has been a big part of it. 

Housing and community development would not be, could not be, a failure of the Administration on a par with flooding in Nebraska (or Georgia or Kentucky or anywhere).  Nor would public-private partnership ever be cited as a "Petri dish for corrupt incompetence."

But it should be, with a test case of public-private partnership playing out before our eyes. On Thursday, the President conceded "There is no doubt that our failure to roll out the ACA smoothly has put a burden on Democrats, whether they're running or not, because they stood up and supported this effort through thick and thin and, you know, I feel deeply responsible for making it harder for them rather than easier for them."  (Not so responsible, however, that he bothered to support Barbara Buono, Chris Christie's opponent.) The President unequivocally declared  "we fumbled the rollout of this health care law."

The Administration did do a lousy job presenting it its health care website, though initial difficulties with tech rollouts are not unprecedented.  But while it is responsible for coordination of the players involved in healthcare.gov, it was unnecessary for Obama to hold the federal government fully accountable.  Back in mid-October, Wonkblog's Lydia DePillis wrote

Over the past few weeks, if you've been paying attention at all to the unfolding disaster of people trying and failing to sign up for Obamacare online, one name keeps coming up: CGI Federal, the IT contractor that has orchestrated most of the Healthcare.gov Web site. By most accounts, it's been a complete train wreck, for reasons both technical and bureaucratic. 

Good of her to notice- few journalists have-not been coming up.  And neither has the media bothered to explain the role of the private sector in partnering with the public sector in what is has been perceived as a wholly governmental screw-up. Ask 100 Americans who created and maintains the website and a vast majority will finger Obama, the federal government, the government, the Democrats, or the like.  Few realize that government contractors- the private sector- have created and maintained the website.
but the name CGI has

Barack Obama plans to keep it that way. Keeping the American people in the dark has been a hallmark of his Administration and there is little reason to reverse course now, especially when it would entail casting doubt on corporate America.  Further,

CGI Federal Inc, the company that created large parts of the error-plagued ObamaCare exchange website, which it says it is scrambling to fix, has recently been awarded several other government contracts.

Since the ObamaCare exchange website launched on Oct. 1, government officials have signed at least five different agreements with CGI totaling $7 million, according to USASpending.gov, a government website that lists government contracts. The contracts were for computer and software development at the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Commerce, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

One contract, for instance, was signed Oct. 19 by Department of Commerce officials that gives CGI Federal $266,164 to provide "IT and Telecom Systems Development" for the Patent Office.

The public-private partnership, as applied to housing, health care, or anything else, has not become Obama's "Katrina" and the deaths of 1,000+ Americans cannot be attributed to it.    But as Kaus notes 

The Obama administration has pioneered a new path to corporatism : Screw up a government initiative so much you have to call in the big boys from the industry to fix it. … You think the White House owes the large insurers now that they’ve dispatched their experts to save healthcare.gov? It’s easy to think of dozens of situations in the next three years–assuming Obamacare survives–where Obama’s regulators will have to choose between more competition and cozier big-firm oligopolies. The first benefits consumers. The second benefits insurance company profits.

The government is calling in the big boys from the industry to fix what the industry fouled up.  The Affordable Care Act will survive, embedded forever as an initiative of a Democratic administration.  But the circumstances under which it will are uncertain, and the collaboration between the public and the private sectors has played a major, largely unexamined, role.


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And This Is Not A Gaffe?

Who is smarter?  Is it New York Senator Chuck Schumer, a supporter of comprehensive immigration reform and opponent of increased border security or Arizona Senator John McCain, a supporter of both comprehensive immigration reform and increased border security?

I'm not talking about their intelligence quotients, which give nary a clue about their political expertise, nor who is right on the issues.  Nor am I talking about the self-inflicted wound administered by McCain when he chose Sarah Palin as his running-mate.

Preparatory to passage of the "Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013," the Senate approved the Corker-Hoeven Amendment to increase surveillance of the U.S.-Mexico border.   Introduced in order to allay fears of some conservatives over the immigration bill, the Amendment was a test case for overall support for the BSECOIMA of 2013.  Senators who intended to vote for the legislation voted for the Amendment, those who intended to vote against the legislation voted against the Amendment, and a few members actually voted according to what they really thought about Corker-Hoeven.

Schumer, not a border security enthusiast, labeled the security proposals "the border surge," as had Tennessee conservative Corker.    A "surge" is intended to bring up memories of the surge in Iraq, perceived, however inaccurately, as a success.  Appearing on CNN, however, John McCain drew on a different historical landmark, stating

I think that, first of all, the legislation concerning beefed up border security removes any validity to the argument that border security is not sufficient. I mean, this is not only sufficient, it is well over sufficient. We'll be the most militarized border since the fall of the Berlin Wall so that's why I think this amendment was very important.

No, no, he really did.   A United States senator in supporting security- including additional miles of a wall- compared it to the Berlin Wall.   Referring, favorably, to something as a "militarized border" is politically problematic.   More blatant, however, is comparing extension of the wall between the U.S.A. and Mexico to the Berlin Wall.  The former is intended to keep people out.  The latter, as recollection has it, was devoted (largely satisfactorily) to keeping people in.  The Berlin Wall was emblematic of the Iron Curtain and symbolic of a tyrannical regime.

Unlike Schumer, McCain evidently doesn't realize, as comprehensive immigration reform opponent Mickey Kaus explains (cross-out his)

Budget considerations alone will mean the advertised ”surge” won’t be sustained–as Obama’s earlier 1,500 man National Guard surge wasn’t sustained.  Future lawmakers will be looking around for “offsetting” spending cuts and that bloated 40,000 man border patrol will stick out like a nail that wants to be hammered. Plus, once Democrats have eaten their meal illegal immigrants have their legalization in hand, Democrats will lose 80% of their motivation to make good on the law’s elaborate promises. They’re already unhappy with the back end of the deal–Sen. Leahy calls it “a Christmas wish list for Halliburton.”  Meanwhile, militarizing the border is drawing immediate protests. Business interests–especially farmers–can be expected to oppose the requirement that they use a computerized system to check new hires. There will be little to stop these forces–the ones that have blocked enforcement until now–except some Republican pols saying “But … but you pwomised!”

Kaus' suspicion that a "surge' wouldn't be sustained by a future president or congress was given additional credence when the current President delayed for a year the Affordable Care Act's employer mandate.   No future congress is bound by the acts of the current Congress, which would make future implementation of any immigration reform little more than a crapshoot.

Mandatory disclaimer:  John McCain is a great American hero who has served his nation with distinction both in and out of the military.     But it does make one wonder if the gods look kindly upon Barack Obama. In 2012, with the financial crisis just about in the rear view mirror, the best the opposition party could do was oppose him with the living, breathing embodiment of the 1%, four years after it put up a guy who appears to believe the Berlin Wall was a model for civilized society.



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On Divisiveness

Mickey Kaus in his blog on slate.com has an interesting take on what was otherwise a commendable denunciation by Barack Obama of Jeremiah Wright in the senator's 3/18/08 speech in Philadelphia, Pa.of 3/18/08. Obama stated, definitively and forthrightly:

As such, Rev. Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive.

Kaus intriguingly wrote:

Doesn't Obama mean Rev. Wright's comments were 'not only divisive but wrong,' rather than the other way around? Isn't it worse to be wrong than "divisive"? Is unity the overriding virtue for Obama?

Given one of the overarching themes- post-partisanship- of the Obama campaign, perhaps this was a rhetorical question. Still, it is insightful and brings to mind (at least, my mind) the vote on the Iraq war resolution of 2002.

Obama boasts, understandably, that while Hillary Clinton voted in favor of the resolution authorizing President Bush to take military action he might deem warranted against Iraq, Obama spoke out against the vote. His was the right stance, as he, his surrogates, and campaign officials repeatedly have reminded us.

But was it unifying? Or was it divisive? Voting in favor of the resolution supported by the White House- the wrong move on policy and now, it appears, politically- was in fact unifying. It was a vote to support our President if he decided to take action, even rash action. Voting against the resolution, some Democrats feared, would be exploited by Republicans in the succeeding couple of election cycles as being traitorous- or at least divisive.

Given that- and Obama's emphasis both in his impressive and inspiring speech this month and in his campaign- one can reasonably ask how the Illinois Senator would have voted on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resoulution of 2002 had he then been a member of the United States Senate. It is only a hypothetical question, but one I think without an obvious answer.