Politicizing, Indeed

Rick Perry is right, in a way.

On August 17, the Texas governor told what the National Journal termed "a business crowd" “I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized."

The problem, obviously, is that it has been politicized by Perry, Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Republican leader Rush Limbaugh, and other conservative luminaries.

In March, 2009 Bachmann implored the like-minded to be "armed and dangerous" to start "a revolution" on upcoming cap-and-trade legislation. She has called climate change "all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax" and more recently, "manufactured science." Rush Limbaugh has said "the whole thing is a hoax."

But Rick Perry, as one of the two likeliest GOP presidential nominees, has come into the greatest criticism of late. While speaking to that group in New Hampshire, he said

I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. I think we’re seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. Yes, our climates change. They’ve been changing ever since the earth was formed.

Don't bother explaining to the Governor the difference between "weather," which changes constantly, and climate, which has been changing of late to an unprecedented degree. Nor that "scientists" are "coming forward and questioning the original idea that man'made global warming is what is causing the climate to change," given that precious few of those scientists are climate scientists. But he ought to be asked about the allegation that "a substantial number of scientists" have "manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects." Fraud is a serious charge and, inconveniently, we now learn

Michael Mann, a Pennsylvania climate-change researcher caught in the flap surrounding e-mails hacked from a British university server, was cleared of wrongdoing by a U.S. agency that promotes science.

Finding no "evidence of research misconduct," the Arlington, Va.-based National Science Foundation closed its inquiry into Mann, according to an Aug. 15 report from its inspector general. In February, Pennsylvania State University, where Mann is a professor of meteorology, exonerated him of suppressing or falsifying data, deleting e-mails, and misusing privileged information.

Skeptics of climate change pointed to the stolen e-mails, which surfaced in blogs in 2009, as proof that researchers conspired to suppress studies questioning the link between warming and human activity. Last week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, repeated the charge that scientists have "manipulated" data on climate change.

"It was a pretty definitive finding" that the charges "swirling around for over a year" were baseless, Mann said in an interview.

The report confirms findings from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's inspector general and a separate panel of seven scientists based at universities in Britain, the United States, and Switzerland.

The inquiries focused on the University of East Anglia's climate-research unit, which stored the poached e-mails on its computer server. The university's work contributed to some of the key findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has issued reports that blame rising temperatures on human activity.

E-mails to and from Mann were in the pilfered cache. One message discussing his work spoke of a "trick" to "hide the decline" and others suggested deleting correspondence.

Mann was lead author of the first reconstruction of North American warming going back 1,000 years, which showed recent temperatures increasing sharply. The 1998 findings have been confirmed by several studies, Mann said.

The manufactured scandal involving East Anglia University long has been a favorite topic of Limbaugh. He has referred to "this universe of lies" whose "agenda will be paramount -- and I guarantee you that as we speak, the hoaxers and everybody involved in it from Algore on up to this Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University are plotting strategy on how to keep forging forward because of two things. There is a hell of a lot of money at the end of this train and these people want to get their hands on it." Seven studies of the charges, and seven exonerating Mann, but that won't stop Rush Limbaugh.

And neither is it likely to stop Rick Perry, who is running for President. It would be surprising if the oil and gas industry were not the largest contributor to a Repub politician in Texas, as the graph (from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, via Center for American Progress) above indicates for Perry. But it would be even more surprising if the industry's largesse would not persuade a politician to deny the proven human impact upon climate change and to politicize scientific finding. Now that the Texas governor and presidential hopeful has alleged that global warming itself is a scam perpetrated by scientists- and the most controversial case has been found to be utterly without merit- he merits scrutiny from a "fair and balanced" media.

Share|

Barack Obama, Above Criticism

Randall Kennedy is, justifiably, disappointed in President Obama. In his recently published "The Persistence of the Color Line-Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency," Kennedy noted" Obama has been more conservative than regard for public opinion requires him to be" and criticizes his "excessive caution" on various issues.

But don't count Kennedy as another African-American who has figured Barack Obama out. A critic of the Tavis Smiley/Cornel West campaign to draw attention to the plight of disadvantaged Americans, Kennedy contends that Smiley has "voiced skepticism whether blacks should back Obama." (Our hero is being attacked; time to circle the wagons, guys.)

Smiley and West have embarked on a tour of 16 poor, most of them minority, communities across the nation, highlighting the failure of the federal government to address their concerns. Presumably, Rep. Maxine Waters, frustrated by the policies of President Obama, would approve. Recently addressing an audience in Detroit, the California Democrat remarked "our people are hurting. The unemployment is unconscionable. We don’t know what the strategy is. We don’t know why on this trip that he’s in the United States now, he’s not in any black community…we don’t know that.”

Smiley and West, the latter advocating "massive job creation programs and massive investment in public housing, education, transportation and health," have been widely criticized in the black community. As early as February, 2008, in a post entitled, "Who died and made Tavis king" (a headline Kennedy recently quoted), prominent Obamite Melissa Harris-Lacewell remarked "I can't figure out what motivates Tavis."

Clues to Smiley's motivation may lie in an interview West recently had with bet.com in which he explained

We’re going to an Indian reservation in Wisconsin, we’re going to hit the brown barrios, the Asian poor communities, white poor communities, the Black hoods and we’re ending in Memphis to keep alive the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.’s fundamental commitment to sanitation workers there, and of course his assassination.

While reminding the media of Dr. King's support of working people of all ethnic groups, Smiley/West is not content to go to disadvantaged black communities and are not neglecting poor Hispanic, Asian, or white communities. Economic injustice was not banished on November 2, 2008 and recognition across ethnic groups of the obstacles people of varied backgrounds face is critical to building a progressive movement.

This is acknowledged by too few of the progressive/liberal critics, but perhaps they are more exorcised by West's pointed criticism of the President, who

says he has the exact same responsibility to every member of society. I just say it's not true, he's lying. It's clear that he has more commitment to investment banks than he does to poor people. it's just clear when they got in trouble he gave them $700 billion; he subsidized them. They have not made poor people a priority. That's why we're going on the tour.

Barack Obama always will have in the black community apologists such as Steve Harvey, Tom Joyner, Al Sharpton, Michael Eric Dyson, Mellisa Harris-Lacewell-Perry, and Kennedy. Fortunately, though, we have the likes of West and Smiley around to remind us that the oceans are still rising and the planet has not yet healed.

Share|

Leadership, Of A Sort

President Obama isn’t kidding around; he means business. Though not yet announcing details

The president is thinking about proposing tax cuts for companies that hire workers, new spending for roads and construction, and other measures that would target the long-term unemployed, according to administration officials and other people familiar with the matter. Some ideas, such as providing mortgage relief for struggling homeowners, could come through executive action.

Obama also plans to announce a major push for new deficit reduction, urging the special congressional committee formed in the debt-ceiling deal this month to identify even more savings than the $1.5 trillion it has been tasked with finding.

At a town hall meeting on Wednesday in Illinois, the President stated

When folks tell you that we’ve got a choice between jobs now or dealing with our debt crisis, they’re wrong. They’re wrong. We can’t afford to just do one or the other. We’ve got to do both. And the way to do it is to make some -- reform the tax code, close loopholes, make some modest modifications in programs like Medicare and Social Security so they’re there for the next generation, stabilize those systems. And you could actually save so much money that you could actually pay for some of the things like additional infrastructure right now.

We can close the deficit and put people to work, but what’s required is that folks work together. That’s the big challenge. That’s the big challenge. (Applause.)

After the President's brief rhetorical "pivot" to job creation, which he had termed "the most imediate concern of most Americans," Obama has returned to the deficit fairy. The GOP's favorite euphemisms- "reform" and "stabilize"- for cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid have been resurrected at the White House, with addition of "modest modifications."

As the President leads, so many Senate Democrats follow. Harry Reid's appointees to the deficit reduction commission (Patty Murray, Max Baucus, and John Kerry) then issued a statement which included

We know that our goal is to reduce spending. But we also know that America faces not just a budget deficit but also a jobs deficit. Nobody on this committee would be happy if we reduced the budget deficit but even more Americans end up losing their jobs.

So we are ready to get to work with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to report out a balanced plan, with the shared sacrifices this moment requires. One that moves past the partisan rancor, puts our nation back on strong fiscal footing, and allows us to continue shining bright in the world in this generation and for generations to come.

It would be helpful if at least the Democrats- who claim to favor a "balanced plan"- realized that the goal of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is deficit reduction, not “to reduce spending.” Not only is spending reduction not the goal, it is an odd strategy for a party aiming, at least rhetorically, to create jobs. But then this group also believes “our colleagues on both sides of the aisle” share its passion for “a balanced plan.” That “balanced plan,” to the other side of “the aisle,” means cutting the heart out of the social safety net- and maybe, in return, a revenue-neutral move to lower the corporate tax rate while reducing loopholes (which lobbyists will put back into the tax code in a few years, thank you very much). Digby speculates that Obama’s limited, GOP-friendly jobs plan will be “the liberal bait” and

I guess the "compromise" the SuperCommittee Dems will be agreeing to is to sell-off the safety net (because the pain won't hit for a while) in exchange for some mealy mouthed tax cut stimulus and maybe a little infrastructure to goose the economy. Oh, and hopefully some minor help for the long term unemployed --- until the election anyway.

Share|

Ugly, Too

The Washington Post's Greg Sargent believes critics have been too hard on Senator Tom Coburn for his remarks explaining Barack Obama's rise to the top. He maintains

I think what Coburn means here is that African Americans are more likely to need such programs than whites are, and by his own lights, Coburn actually thinks he’s being charitable to Obama here. He’s essentially saying that Obama’s life experience quite naturally dictated that he would view the safety net as a good thing, because it helped poor African Americans.

Sargent contacted the fellow who wrote the story in the Tulsa World and printed the transcript so that Coburn's message, so benevolent, could be seen in context: The Senator stated

No, I don’t... He’s a very bright man. But think about his life. And think about what he was exposed to and what he saw in America. He’s only relating what his experience in life was...“His intent isn’t to destroy. It’s to create dependency because it worked so well for him. I don’t say that critically. Look at people for what they are. Don’t assume ulterior motives. I don’t think he doesn’t love our country. I think he does.

“As an African American male, coming through the progress of everything he experienced, he got tremendous benefit through a lot of these programs. So he believes in them. I just don’t believe they work overall and in the long run they don’t help our country. But he doesn’t know that because his life experience is something different. So it’s very important not to get mad at the man. And I understand, his philosophy — there’s nothing wrong with his philosophy other than it’s goofy and wrong [laughter] — but that doesn’t make him a bad person.”

Oh, but this makes it so much better! Viewing Sargent's analysis, Salon's Joan Walsh realizes"the remarks are a little bit more awful because it's clear the Oklahoma doctor can't see Obama for what he is." In fact, Coburn does not specify what "dependency" it was which "worked so well" for a young Obama. Nor does he identify "a lot of these programs" (food stamp program, home mortgage deduction, student loan system?) actually were. He is, hence, asserting a black man who became President of the United States must have benefited from the programs he stereotypes. It wouldn't have been quite so bad if the Senator had made a principled, conservative argument against such programs, nor if he had argued that Barack Obama advanced only because he took advantage of government programs.

But he did neither. Coburn sees these programs, assumes they are directed to the underclass, and hence assumes, "because (of) his life experience," the President couldn't have gotten where he has without them. Moreover, if the Senator "actually think(s) he's being charitable to Obama," he would have found it unnecessary to add (of Obama being aided by 'dependency') "I don't say that critically."

Sargent's analysis, though, is not merely wrong. It is ugly. At the recent Repub presidential debate in Ames, Iowa, ten of ten GOP candidates declared their opposition to a tax increase even if they could get in spending reduction ten times the amount of revenue increase. Yet, polls have shown a majority of Republican voters in favor of somewhat increasing taxes to aid deficit reduction, as well as most opposing cuts in Social Security benefits. The problem, it would appear, is not on the street but in the suites.

Still, Sargent contends

What’s funny to me about this whole episode is that it reveals how challenging it is for the saner variety of Republicans to reason with some of their constituents about the President. Coburn is struggling to talk a constituent out of his anxiety that Obama actively wants to destroy the country. He needs to find a way of defending Obama’s motives that a constituent inclined to believe the worst about Obama might be able to listen to and even tolerate. So Coburn hit on this way of defending Obama while still keeping his argument confined within a world view that this constituent might find acceptable. It’s not easy being a Republican official these days.

Coburn cleverly "hit on this way" by stereotyping black males and by making assumptions about Obama's rise. The problem, in Sargent's view, is not a wealthy, educated pol pandering- no, he's only valiantly "struggling to talk a constituent out of his anxiety." Unfortunately, while the citizen is "inclined to believe the worst about Obama," a United States Senator is trying to reinforce these instincts- about both the President and a whole group of Americans. "It's not easy being a Republican official these days," Sargent argues, though on Social Security, tax cuts, and probably other issues, those same individuals the journalist finds intolerant are way ahead of, and more reasonable than, their elected representatives. Perhaps Sargent feared also that an angry mob of the great unwashed awaited any GOP candidate who would emerge from the presidential debate after being unwilling to commit himself/herself to a "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge.

While Walsh believes Sargent may have been prompted by being "an always generous person," another explanation can emerge from her recognition that

Coburn is right about one thing. Our president does have a dependency problem. He's overly dependent on the nonexistent goodwill of Republicans who are out to destroy not only his presidency, but the entire system of social opportunity built by the Democratic Party, belatedly and briefly supported by Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, over the last 80 years. Obama's dependency on the notion that he's the lone man who can reason with implacable enemies and lure them to compromise is deeply debilitating, for him and for his party.

Greg Sargent never has lost his faith in the Man of Hope and Change and, Walsh notes, Coburn

is supposed to be one of the president's few "friends" on the other side of the aisle. Obama has repeatedly touted his "unlikely friendship" with Coburn, calling him his friend and his "brother in Christ" at this year's "National Prayer Breakfast." He's a member of the deficit-hawk "Gang of Six" much praised by the president. Coburn has called Obama a "wonderful man."

Perhaps Greg Sargent would be uncomfortable criticizing someone whom he believes is reasonable and open-minded and whom Obama is counting on to bring other Republicans around. Or he could be taking a more hard-headed, realistic approach, possibly needing to open a line of communication with an influential Senator who has a relationship with the President. Quite likely, the Washington Post journalist has far less need of establishing contacts with ordinary Oklahomans, in need of care and feeding by those "saner variety of Republicans."

Share|

Silence

Don't waste your breath. Don't call him an "a_ _ _ _ _ _" or "nuts," as Digby does, nor racist.

Tulsaworld.com reports that Senator Tom Coburn was home campaigning in the state in which John McCain got the greatest percentage of his vote in 2008. When

Responding to a man in Langley who asked if Obama "wants to destroy," Coburn said the president is "very bright" and loves his country but has a political philosophy that is "goofy and wrong."

Obama's "intent is not to destroy, but his intent is to create dependency because it worked so well for him," he said.

"As an African-American make," Coburn said, Obama received "tremendous advantage from a lot of these programs."

It seems, though, that Coburn and Obama have a history. Three days after Obama was inaugurated president, The Wall Street Journal explained

Yet the new president has identified the Oklahoma Republican as a conservative he can work with, which says much about the president’s style and strategy. The relationship also illustrates some of the limits of Mr. Obama’s oft-professed desire to find common ground with political opponents....

The two found common cause by uniting to push through a bill designed to stem the spread of earmarks, those legislative provisions that funnel money to lawmakers’ specific pet projects. Their bill aimed to reduce the use of earmarks by casting a harsher spotlight on them, creating a public, searchable online database listing the recipients of all federal spending....

A tie was formed, and Mr. Obama kept it alive by reaching out to Mr. Coburn during the transition. “We have a little talk about spiritual things, and then we’ll talk about other things, things he wants to talk about,” including the use of those financial-market rescue funds, Mr. Coburn says.

A good judge of character, that President of ours. More significantly, The WSJ wrote "Mr. Coburn thinks the new president will be able, in particular, to work with him and other conservatives on measures to make government more transparent and to eliminate programs." No word on whether that included those pesky programs, like Social Security and Medicare, that the President finds wasteful.

It has been two-and-a-half days and nothing- nothing- from the Obama camp on whether he has succeeded only because of programs that "create dependency. Presumably, the White House wants to let stand remarks by a United States Senator, who is accorded attention and respect because of his office and accomplishments, that suggests black men have it so darned easy in the U.S.

So don't get down on Tom Coburn; apparently Barack Obama still believes he is just swell. Instead, ask Coburn: what is that political philosophy is you're referring to, anyway?

Next up: Greg Sargent has a different perspective. An ugly perspective.

Share|

Michelle Obama, R-IL

President Obama continually gets fleeced by the GOP, sometimes seeming to enjoy it a little too much. He may be simply a terrible negotiator- giving up half the loaf practically before he gets started- or might actually prefer governing from the center right.

This past week, the former view got a boost from the President's bus tour of the Midwest. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd reports that in Cannon Falls, Minnesota Obama stated

In my house, if I said, "You know, Michelle, honey, we got to cut back, so we're going to have you stop shopping completely, You can't but shoes, you can't buy dresses, but I'm keeping my golf clubs." You know, that wouldn't go over so well.

In Decorah, Iowa, he elaborated

Everybody cannot get 100 percent of what they want. Now, for those of you who are married, there is an analogy here. I basically let Michelle have 90 percent of what she wants. But, at a certain point, I have to draw the line and say "Give me my little 10 percent."

Poor, little Barack, having to settle for 10 percent when he is by far the most powerful political figure in the most powerful nation on earth. A real victim who has to put his foot down to get ten percent.

No one cares whether Barack gets his way or Michelle gets everything, a domestic issue that is theirs and theirs alone. And it's even acceptable if in President Obama's world, every husband plays golf and every wife is a clothes horse. If you were the first black President, beset by opponents who only grudgingly concede that you were born in this country and are a Christian, and attack you for a tenuous connection to the big, bad urban machine in Chicago, you, too, would remind everyone that you prefer golf to basketball.

But really..... a President of the United States has to be satisfied with 10%? Why would he even admit he is so pitiful?

The analogy to the nation's business is not weak, but non-existent. Presumably, Michelle loves Barack and wants the best- if not for him personally, at least for the family. While the GOP's primary objective is to bring down President Obama, it's secondary objective is not the betterment of the country. Or its tertiary objective. Nor its quaternary, quinary, senary, septenary, octonary, nonary, or denary objective. Conceding to Michelle might advance the cause of the Obama family; conceding to the GOP would.... well, we see what it has done.

The Obama statements, moreover, reflect a disquieting tendency on the part of the President, what Paul Krugman terms "the false government-family equivalence." "Government has to start living within its means," Obama remarked on July 2, "just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can’t afford...." That's because families, apparently, never ever go into debt and just hate to borrow when those interest rates are low.

Next up for the Administration? The President promises a jobs program in September when, no doubt, he again can settle for 10%, then declare victory. He really knows where to draw the line.

Share|

Of The President's Boosters

On August 9, the American Dream movement, inspired by union activism in Wisconsin and elsewhere, put out a ten-point manifesto for economic justice. Its founder, Van Jones tells author and Daily Beast columnist Michelle Goldberg he is building a progressive version of the tea party with MoveOn.org, whose Executive Director explains “If the American Dream Movement is the Tea Party, then Rebuild the Dream is Americans for Prosperity or the Tea Party Express."

The former White House special adviser for green jobs, canned when he became politically toxic to Barack Obama, contrasted the role of the president to that of activists such as himself, who have "the job of creating an independent movement that brings out the best in the American people." He argues "People forgot that our slogan was not ‘Yes he can.’ It was ‘Yes we can.’ The minute we have a vehicle to be ‘we’ again, a lot of this stuff goes away."

Jones might want to reassess. Promptly after passage of the bill lifting the debt ceiling Obama for America (OFA) New Mexico State Director Ray Sandoval sent to supporters an email (text, here) reading in part

Paul Krugman is a political rookie. At least he is when compared to President Obama. That's why he unleashed a screed as soon as word came about the debt ceiling compromise between President Obama and Congressional leaders - to, you know, avert an economic 9/11. Joining the ideologue spheres' pure, fanatic, indomitable hysteria, Krugman declares the deal a disaster - both political and economic - of course providing no evidence for the latter, which I find curious for this Nobel winning economist. He rides the coattails of the simplistic argument that spending cuts - any spending cuts - are bad for a fragile economy, ignoring wholeheartedly his own previous cheerleading for cutting, say, defense spending. But that was back in the day - all the way back in April of this year.

But as I said, Paul Krugman is a political rookie compared to Barack Obama. He is either unwilling or unable to actually look at the deal that was announced and realize what just happened: Barack Obama ate John Boehner's lunch, and then he turned Boehner out to go preach to his conservative colleagues that this eating of the lunch by Obama is actually politically good for them....

Now let's get to the fun part: the triggers. The more than half-a-trillion in defense and security spending cut "trigger" for the Republicans will hardly earn a mention on the Firebagger Lefty blogosphere. Hell, it's a trigger supposedly for the Republicans, and of course, there's always It'sNotEnough-ism to cover it.

No, the loudest screeching noise you hear coming from Krugman and the ideologue Left is, of course, Medicare. Oh, no, the President is agreeing to a Medicare trigger!!! Oh noes!!! Everybody freak out right now!

It's understandable if the Obama Administration is peeved at the Nobel Prize-winning economist, a frequent critic of the President. Ironically, if Obama had followed Krugman's long-ago advice and substantially increased the size of the economic stimulus, the President probably would be in fat city politically now, with a recovering economy (rather than 9.1% unemployment) to boast of.

Whether this is part of a concerted strategy by the White House- which has attacked the "professional left" on other occasions- or mere personal pique by one entranced Obamite has not been determined. Obama apologist Jones told Goldberg "some people forgot that our slogan was not 'Yes he can.' It was 'Yes we can.'" Now, at least one well-known and highly accomplished blogger has called for Sandoval to be fired and a public apology given to Krugman, It presents a golden opportunity for Barack Obama to demonstrate a distaste for attacks upon liberal activists, still generally supportive of his re-election bid and the embodiment of "yes, we can."

This should provide insight into the character of Jones, who became an early victim of the President's fetish to avoid controversy, cater to the noisy right, and capture support of independents in campaign 2012. If Barack Obama continues to target Van Jones' fellow activists and Jones maintains his unquestioning support of the President, the effectiveness of the progressive movement may be undermined by a leader with fealty to an individual over principle.

Share|