It's Just Not So


President Obama's speech accepting his party's re-nomination wasn't the rock-'em, sock-'em address given the previous evening by Bill Clinton, but it was still better than the vast majority of politicians would give.   It wasn't vintage Obama and wasn't his best, though that is not unlike saying:  it wasn't the 1927 Yankees.

Amidst generally progressive speeches given by the former and the current presidents, there was one disturbing myth both peddled.    After conceding "of course we need more new jobs," Clinton claimed

But there are already more than 3 million jobs open and unfilled in America, mostly because the people who apply for them don't yet have the required skills to do them. So even as we get Americans more jobs, we have to prepare more Americans for the new jobs that are actually going to be created. The old economy is not coming back. We've got to build a new one and educate people to do those jobs.

The following evening, Obama, addressing education rather than- in Clinton's case- employment, contended

And now you have a choice. We can gut education, or we can decide that in the United States of America, no child should have her dreams deferred because of a crowded classroom or a crumbling school. No family should have to set aside a college acceptance letter because they don't have the money. (Cheers, applause.) No company should have to look for workers overseas because they couldn't find any with the right skills here at home. (Cheers, applause.) That's not our future. That is not our future. (Cheers, applause.)

There are two competing theories explaining unemployment.   Most economists, including virtually all Keynesians and many monetarists, believe it results primarily from lack of aggregate demand, as consumers reduce their spending and businesses reduce their purchases from each other, leading businesses to cut employment.  However, some economists maintain that structural, rather than demand, are the most important factors.   This view is held most prominently, Dylan Matthews explains, by Nobel laureate Michael Spence, who argues

too many of America’s jobs are in  ”non-tradable” sectors like nursing or construction. That leaves our “tradable” sector, which produces goods and services for export, at a disadvantage at a time when other countries’ tradable sectors are growing. We need to invest heavily in education to make our tradable sector more productive and increase employment there, Spence argues. Sachs agrees that increasing the workforce’s education and skill level is more important than spurring greater demand.

Matthews notes, however, that

This isn’t the main reason unemployment is high now. A new paper (pdf) from New York Fed economists Aysegul Sahin, Joseph Song, Giorgio Topa and Giovanni L. Violante finds that a skills mismatch is responsible for at most a 1.5 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate during the recession. Given that unemployment shot up by about 5 points, that leaves the other 3.5 percentage points explained by a shortfall in demand. What’s more, the effects of skill mismatch only really appear during the recession:

Both lines show the increase in unemployment for each period caused by a skills mismatch. The red dotted line adjusts for differences between economic sectors, while the black line doesn’t. In either case, both measures find that skills mismatches have a very large effect only in the aftermath of the 2001 and 2008 recessions, whereas in 2007 mismatches only increased unemployment by about 0.2 percentage points. This suggests that addressing the underlying lack of demand would prevent mismatches from hurting unemployment. This makes intuitive sense. When there are a lot of jobs due to healthy demand, the likelihood that a given person can find a job that matches their skill set is much higher. When there’s low demand and jobs are scarce anyway, chances of finding a job matching one’s skill set are low.

Matthews cites a paper by Edward Lazear, a Stanford economist and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, and John Speltzer of the Census Bureau in which is presented an index of structural mismatch.    They found it increases dramatically during economic slumps but is currently at its pre-recession level.     According to Matthews, Lazear and Speltzer, as well as Jesse Rothstein of Cal-Berkeley in another study,  "also found that unemployment shows the same trends across education groups, indicating that what’s causing unemployment is low demand, not that people don’t have the skills necessary to be employed."   If structural factors were dominant, unemployment would have fallen far more for individuals with little education than for college graduates, which hasn't occurred.

Rothstein believes, additionally, that if employers were having trouble finding workers with adequate skills- the structural theory- they probably would be increasing wages which, as the graph (from Rothstein) below indicates, they most surely haven't.

Matthews concludes that these studies "reflect a consensus among most economists that what we’re seeing is unemployment due to slow growth and inadequate demand for goods and services, not due to a lack of skills. Investing in education may be a good goal on its own merits, but it won’t solve the unemployment problem. "

(Class warfare alert) At all the best parties, Friends of Bill likely will be congratulating the former President on implying that the unemployment problem lies with workers, not their businesses, or the businesses their friends run.  However, Obama's remark will not satisfy the corporate chieftains who get so offended when the President suggests that the Founding Fathers didn't mean to shut out all but the wealthiest from American society.   As demand increases and the economy continues to improve, neo-liberal shibboleths will provide those who like to call themselves the "job producers" the excuse to limit new hiring and keep wages low for existing employees.

We've had Republicans who excuse corporate heads for taking huge bonuses, planting their money abroad, outsourcing jobs, and blowing a hole in the middle class.   We need friends in high places, and the last two Democratic Presidents are unreliable allies.


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Don't Rock The Vote


On Wednesday night, near the close of his address to the Democratic National Convention, Bill Clinton stated

If you -- if you want -- If you want America -- if you want every American to vote and you think it is wrong to change voting procedures -- just to reduce the turnout of younger, poorer, minority and disabled voters -- you should support Barack Obama.

Twelve years after Al Gore outpolled George W. Bush nationally and in the pivotal state of Florida and eight years after John Kerry may have outpolled incumbent George W. Bush in the pivotal state of Ohio, the Gas and Oil Party is at it again.  Just to be on the safe side, their efforts now are not limited to two states but have spread to others.

"Changing voting procedures" is less a retro policy than continuation of a campaign which began when Al Gore outpolled George W. Bush nationally and in the pivotal state of Florida and was denied the presidency by a group of five judges.  The Nation's Ari Berman noted last year

To hear Republicans tell it, they are waging a virtuous campaign to crack down on rampant voter fraud – a curious position for a party that managed to seize control of the White House in 2000 despite having lost the popular vote. After taking power, the Bush administration declared war on voter fraud, making it a "top priority" for federal prosecutors. In 2006, the Justice Department fired two U.S. attorneys who refused to pursue trumped-up cases of voter fraud in New Mexico and Washington, and Karl Rove called illegal voting "an enormous and growing problem." In parts of America, he told the Republican National Lawyers Association, "we are beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are colonels in mirrored sunglasses." According to the GOP, community organizers like ACORN were actively recruiting armies of fake voters to misrepresent themselves at the polls and cast illegal ballots for the Democrats.

Even at the time, there was no evidence to back up such outlandish claims. A major probe by the Justice Department between 2002 and 2007 failed to prosecute a single person for going to the polls and impersonating an eligible voter, which the anti-fraud laws are supposedly designed to stop. Out of the 300 million votes cast in that period, federal prosecutors convicted only 86 people for voter fraud – and many of the cases involved immigrants and former felons who were simply unaware of their ineligibility. A much-hyped investigation in Wisconsin, meanwhile, led to the prosecution of only .0007 percent of the local electorate for alleged voter fraud. "Our democracy is under siege from an enemy so small it could be hiding anywhere," joked Stephen Colbert. A 2007 report by the Brennan Center for Justice, a leading advocate for voting rights at the New York University School of Law, quantified the problem in stark terms. "It is more likely that an individual will be struck by lightning," the report calculated, "than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls."

Then in March of this year-as the GOP was merely ramping up its voter suppression effort- Berman summarized

Since the 2010 election, Republicans have waged an unprecedented war on voting, with the unspoken but unmistakable goal of preventing millions of mostly Democratic voters, including students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly, from casting ballots in 2012. More than a dozen states, from Texas to Wisconsin and Florida, have passed laws designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process, whether by requiring birth certificates to register to vote, restricting voter registration drives, curtailing early voting, requiring government-issued IDs to cast a ballot, or disenfranchising ex-felons...

The Pennsylvania measures are strikingly similar to model legislation drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, an influential conservative advocacy group funded in part by the right-wing billionaire Koch brothers. In Pennsylvania, as in other states pushing voting restrictions, Republicans have hyped the bogeyman of "voter fraud" to promote the ID laws, even though, as the Associated Press noted, they were able to cite "no instances of voter fraud that the bill would somehow address." The law, the very type of big-government expansion that Republicans so often decry, will cost the state anywhere from $4.3 million to $11 million to implement.

Berman noted this week that only three southern states have not approved restrictive voting measures since 2010.

A mere one sentence in Bill Clinton's long, impressive, and effective speech mentioned voter suppression, surprising given his emphasis on the subject both in a meeting the previous evening organized by the Arkansas Democratic Party and in the annual conference of Campus Progress in July 2011.   Still, it contrasted to the speeches of Vice-President Biden and President Obama Thursday night in which they mentioned the issue a total of zero times.

It was left to Representative John Lewis to talk about the elephant in the room.    His remarks, as prepared for delivery:

I first came to this city in 1961, the year Barack Obama was born. I was one of the 13 original "Freedom Riders." We were on a bus ride from Washington to New Orleans trying to test a recent Supreme Court ruling that banned racial discrimination on buses crossing state lines and in the stations that served them. Here in Charlotte, a young African-American rider got off the bus and tried to get a shoe shine in a so-called white waiting room. He was arrested and taken to jail.

On that same day, we continued on to Rock Hill, South Carolina, about 25 miles. From here, when my seatmate, Albert Bigelow, and I tried to enter a white waiting room, we were met by an angry mob that beat us and left us lying in a pool of blood. Some police officers came up and asked us whether we wanted to press charges. We said, "No, we come in peace, love and nonviolence." We said our struggle was not against individuals, but against unjust laws and customs. Our goal was true freedom for every American.

Since then, America has made a lot of progress. We are a different society than we were in 1961. And in 2008, we showed the world the true promise of America when we elected President Barack Obama. A few years ago, a man from Rock Hill, inspired by President Obama's election, decided to come forward. He came to my office in Washington and said, "I am one of the people who beat you. I want to apologize. Will you forgive me?" I said, "I accept your apology." He started crying. He gave me a hug. I hugged him back, and we both started crying. This man and I don't want to go back; we want to move forward.

Brothers and sisters, do you want to go back? Or do you want to keep America moving forward? My dear friends, your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful, nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union. Not too long ago, people stood in unmovable lines. They had to pass a so-called literacy test, pay a poll tax. On one occasion, a man was asked to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap. On another occasion, one was asked to count the jelly beans in a jar—all to keep them from casting their ballots.

Today it is unbelievable that there are Republican officials still trying to stop some people from voting. They are changing the rules, cutting polling hours and imposing requirements intended to suppress the vote. The Republican leader in the Pennsylvania House even bragged that his state's new voter ID law is "gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state." That's not right. That's not fair. That's not just.

And similar efforts have been made in Texas, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina. I've seen this before. I've lived this before. Too many people struggled, suffered and died to make it possible for every American to exercise their right to vote.

And we have come too far together to ever turn back. So we must not be silent. We must stand up, speak up and speak out. We must march to the polls like never before. We must come together and exercise our sacred right. And together, on November 6, we will re-elect the man who will lead America forward: President Barack Obama.

It was unlikely an oversight that, aside from the passing reference the previous evening by the former President, the matter was ignored by all but a congressman from Georgia.Though a highly respected figure because he was instrumental in the civil rights movement, Lewis is only one of 435  (voting) members of the U.S. House of Representatives and, at best, a tangentially national figure.   His speech was, moreover, not delivered in prime time.   The Democratic convention did approve a platform plank opposing "unnecessary restrictions" on "the right to vote," meant to go unnoticed by all but party activists.

Of course, Barack Obama would not speak of the effort to deny the vote to the elderly, students, poor people, individuals with limited English skills, and especially, blacks.   Obama had to address the issue of race, an impediment to his election, thoroughly in 2008, and it stands as an obstacle to his re-election, denial by most of the mainstream media notwithstanding.

There is little, however, that goes on at a convention which is objectionable to the prospective nominee (and when it does, as in the case of the Jerusalem & God fiasco in the platform, their will be done).    The GOP effort has not taken place nationally but on a state-by-state basis, and thus largely outside the glare of publicity.     Its success is enhanced by the lack of transparency, which would have been shattered had someone in prime time explained that the speech guarantee of the First Amendment of the Constitution is imperiled by an attempt to thwart the will of the majority, an assault on the voting rights of the American people.

President Obama may have calculated that the Republican effort will not cost him re-election.   But it should concern the President that it probably will result in the defeat of Democrats down-ballot who would have won if the GOP targets, mostly Democratic constituencies, were not deterred from voting.    Should, not does.





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The Neo-Liberal Spin



One of the most objective summaries of Bill Clinton's speech to the assembled delegates last night in Charlotte came from the Journalist Division, Richard Wolf and David Jackson of USA Today, who wrote

The former president did what he does best. He made the case for a Democratic-style economic revival based on investments in individuals and innovation. He stood up for the man who defeated his wife four years ago and stated the case against Mitt Romney better than anyone else has been able to do. For 48 minutes, he delivered a stunning tour de force that had delegates on their feet.

But the best from the Rich Lowry/Chris Matthews Division came from GOP consultant and CNN contributor Alex Castellanos, who declared (though he later walked it back a little)

I would recommend to my friend Paul [Begala] here, tonight when everybody leaves, lock the doors. You don't have to come back tomorrow. This convention is done. This will be the moment that probably re-elected Barack Obama. Bill Clinton saved the Democratic Party once, it was going to far left, he came in, the new democrats took it to the center. He did it again tonight.

If Castellanos proves prescient and Clinton's speech did deliver a fatal blow to the bid of Romney-Ryan, the former president presented a tremendous gift to Barack Obama and the nation.

Castellano's impression probably will prove an exaggeration.   But he did accurately observe that, as much as the former President generally skewered the conservative policies of the opposition, he had brought his New Democrats act to the stage, furthering a dangerous narrative.

The defining characteristic of the speech was in Clinton's propensity for ad-libs, a catalogue of which has been helpfully supplied by Juli Weiner of Vanity Fair.   In the remarks as prepared for delivery (transcript, here) and released by the convention’s press office, Mr. Clinton stated (with close of previous paragraph included for veracity)

Renewable energy production has also doubled.

We do need more new jobs, lots of them, but there are already more than three million jobs open and unfilled in America today, mostly because the applicants don’t have the required skills. We have to prepare more Americans for the new jobs that are being created in a world fueled by new technology. That’s why investments in our people are more important than ever.   The President has supported community colleges and employers in working together to train people for open jobs in their communities.

Improvising, Clinton contended (remarks as delivered, here)

Of course, we need a lot more new jobs. But there are already more than 3 million jobs open and unfilled in America, mostly because the people who apply for them don't yet have the required skills to do them. So even as we get Americans more jobs, we have to prepare more Americans for the new jobs that are actually going to be created. The old economy is not coming back. We've got to build a new one and educate people to do those jobs.

The president -- the president and his education secretary have supported community colleges and employers in working together to train people for jobs that are actually open in their communities...

"Of course" (as The Big Dog himself put it), there is not an insufficiency of skilled American workers- there is an insufficiency of jobs in America.   Highlighting Clinton's false narrative (which he has been spinning for quite some time now) was his observation "the old economy is not coming back."

It wasn't so long ago that Democrats were appalled- justifiably- of the role Mitt Romney's Bain Capital played in the closure in Kansas City of Steel Dynamics and the loss of 700 jobs and with it, health insurance and pensions.  One ad produced by Obama SuperPac Priorities featured a steelworker maintaining "Romney and Bain, they were businessmen, they had no idea how to make steel. They knew how to make money. They used us just like we were the scrap steel that we melted, you know, we were just a means to an end."   And Obama campaign spokesperson Stephanie Cutter argued "In deal after deal, Romney's first priority was to make a personal profit, regardless of the cost to others."

Perhaps no industry better exemplified "the old economy," nor the decline in employment in American manufacturing, than steel.  It's not for lack of productivity of the American or the incompetence of the companies.   As Richard McCormack observed in December, 2009 in the American Prospect

American companies are among the most efficient in the world. The nation's steel industry, for instance, produces 1 ton of steel using two man-hours. A comparable ton of steel in China is produced with 12 man-hours, and Chinese companies produce three times the amount of carbon emissions per ton of steel. The same kinds of comparisons are true for other industries.

But the steel industry, as with much of manufacturing, may not be "coming back," thanks in part to a long line of American presidents enamored of the euphemistically-termed "free trade."   Deserving blame are Gerald Ford,  Jimmy Carter, Ronald(6) Wilson(6) Reagan(6), and their successors.   Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele explain the North American Free Trade Agreement

was negotiated under President George H.W. Bush, who pledged that the agreement would permit the United States to sell to Mexico "even more of the goods we're best at producing:  computer, manufacturing equipement, high-tech and high-value products."  But NAFTA was sold to Congress and the nation by Bill Clinton.  "I believe that NAFTA will create a million jobs in the first five yeaars of its impact," Clinton  proclaimed on Septmber 14, 1883.  "NAFTA will generate these jobs by creating an export boom to Mexico." Clinton could not count any better than his predecessors...

By 2011 an estimated 1.5 million American jobs had been eliminated by imports from Mexico, according to Economic Policy Institute calculations.  EPI estimated that exports to Mexico supported 791,900 jobs in 2010, meaning a net loss of about 700,000 jobs.  In 2004 EPI had estimated that lost wages from NAFTA job losses were costing American workers $7.6 billion a year.  That's the equivalent of all the annual income of 150,000 American families.

Bill Clinton's slam of "the old economy" (which should be reminiscent of then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's slap at "old Europe") is of a piece with his failure, in a discourse surpassing 50 minutes in length, to mention Bain Capital.  A speech focused on the economy, of Barack Obama's success in steering the nation away from the depression looming upon his ascension to the presidency and Mitt Romney's lack of a viable plan to improve the economy, included no reference to Bain nor to Romney's tax returns, inextricably interwoven with his experience at the private equity firm.   This was no mere oversight, for in another comment altered from the prepared remarks, the ex-President stated

Look, I love our country so much.  And I know we're coming back.   For more than 200 years, through every crisis, we've always come back.  People have predicted our demise ever since George Washington was criticized for being a mediocre surveyor with a bad set of wooden fake teeth.  And so far every single person that's bet against America has lost money because we've always come back.  We came through every fire a little stronger and a little better.

"And so far every single person that's bet against America," Clinton had added, "has lost money."

One person, however, who did not lose money when he "bet against America" was Mitt Romney- or at least we can assume, absent the tax returns Clinton ignored.    As Maryland Governor (and convention speaker) Martin O'Malley noted on ABC's This Week in early July, Romney

bet against America when he put his money in Swiss bank accounts and tax havens and shelters and also set up a secret company, the shell company in Bermuda.  What went the way of Europe were the Swiss bank account and the American dollars that Mitt Romney stuffed in that offshore Swiss bank account, jobs that he facilitated companies in moving offshore, out of places like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

We- the country- got none of that from Bill Clinton.   So we applaud, cheer, and laugh with Bill Clinton and hope that while his address obviously did not deliver the mortal wound Alex Castellanos initially claimed it would to the presidential candidacy offered by the Gas and Oil Party, it put it into critical condition.  Let us not forget, however, that Bill Clinton's secondary cause is Barack Obama.   Bill Clinton's primary cause is Bill Clinton.

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Of M. Obama and Fox News


Let's help out Fox News hosts Chris Wallace and Britt Hume.   First, we'll give them the benefit of the doubt by attributing to ignorance, rather than dishonesty, their comments following the speech (transcript here) last night of Michelle Obama.   Then, we'll disabuse them of their misguided notion, then suggest where they legitimately could have criticized the First Lady.

Wallace, (poorly) playing the part of the objective reporter on the convention floor, remarked

I thought it was an OK speech but as you heard her delivery, it was just masterful. And she was reading from a Teleprompter. But you couldn’t tell. It seemed to come totally from her heart and very much seemed to affect the crowd... I’ve got to say, listening closely to the speech, one of the things that struck me was it was all about government. When she talked at the beginning about the people who exemplified the best of the American spirit, she talked about teachers and first responders and the military. All very admirable professions. But all government.When she talked about ways to build the middle class, it was all about the auto bailout and student loans and health care reform. Once again, all government programs. And that was a subtle subtext to the entire speech.

As one of Fox News' commentators, Hume a moment later contended “There was no mention… about the private sector."

Admittedly, Michelle Obama did speak of public employees:  of teachers; of "heroes" flying across the country to put out a fire … driving for hours to bail out a flooded town;" and of soldiers, "our men and women in uniform and our proud military families … in wounded warriors who tell me they’re not just going to walk again, they’re going to run, and they’re going to run marathons … in the young man blinded by a bomb in Afghanistan."  

That would be one more time than Mitt Romney mentioned Afghanistan... or American soldiers... or rescue workers.   And Obama acknowledged that she and her husband couldn't do it alone, that "nearly all of our tuition came from student loans and grants."    No man or woman an island, but "so many people had a hand in our success."   They needed help, and Americans- collectively- responded, a tendency distasteful to Fox News.

But while it is true that the First Lady cited "government" as often- zero times- as she did the "private sector," she did in fact refer to the private sector, specifically "where a steel plant had shut down."  Of course, GOP TV would not acknowledge that steel workers are private employees, given that it might bring up inconvenient thoughts of GSX Steel, closed after Romney's Bain Capital  "forced the company to take on hundreds of millions in debt to pay themselves and finance acquisitions, ultimately leading it towards bankruptcy."

Nearly to the extent of Ann Romney's speech to the GOP convention, Mrs. Obama's speech was content-free, as virtually required by law when a male candidate's spouse addresses delegates.   She did deviate, however, from her emphasis on family biography when, without sadness, regret, or irony as a Democrat, she stated "I’ve seen it in teachers in a near-bankrupt school district who vowed to keep teaching without pay."   Digby observes

The best of the human spirit is not being forced to work yourself into an early grave, whether it's here or in Greece. There was too much extolling of the American worker's willingness to work more hours for less pay in various speeches last night. As long as 1%ers like Mitt and Ann Romney are spending millions for dressage horses that's just not acceptable.

A "news" network committed to the election of conservative Republicans, however, cannot find anything wrong with the idea of public sector employees working pro bono (or private sector employees for a $7.25 minimum wage).   Not when President Obama is accused by his opponents of running down the private sector while all net job loss during his Administration has taken place in the public sector and corporate profits have risen 58% since mid-2009.   And not when the GOP presidential candidate, during his entire acceptance speech, cold find no room to praise teachers, police, firefighters, armed service personnel, health care workers, or any public employees, save the late Neil Armstrong.   To Fox News, then, as to many of the powers in the Party for which the network advocates, the only good public employee is a _____ public employee.  You fill in the blank.

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Not Only Economics


Where is the hawkish U.S. Representative Pete King (R-NY) when we need him?  

In May, 2010 the hawkish Mr. King, then the ranking member (now chairperson) of the Committee on Homeland Security, wrote

While I am heartened that this first Obama Administration National Security Strategy addresses the growing problem of al-Qaeda recruiting American citizens and those in the country legally, perhaps most notable about the Strategy is what it fails to say. 

I have serious concerns about this Strategy. The Obama Administration refuses to even identify head-on the threat our nation faces. Even though we have been at war against radical Islamic jihadists since they killed almost 3,000 Americans on 9/11, the Obama Administration fails to even mention such terms. By his own account, assistant to the President John Brennan stated in a speech yesterday, “nor do we describe our enemy as ‘jihadists’ or ‘Islamists,’” even after these terrorists we are fighting continue to commit their slaughter in the name of “jihad.” The Administration is ignoring the quintessential rule of war: ‘Know Your Enemy.’ Failing to acknowledge the enemy we face will not make the enemy disappear.

Who now is "failing to acknowledge the enemy"- or American heroes?    Surprisingly, neo-con William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, a few days ago observed

The United States has some 68,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan. Over two thousand Americans have died in the more than ten years of that war, a war Mitt Romney has supported. Yet in his speech accepting his party's nomination to be commander in chief, Mitt Romney said not a word about the war in Afghanistan. Nor did he utter a word of appreciation to the troops fighting there, or to those who have fought there. Nor for that matter were there thanks for those who fought in Iraq, another conflict that went unmentioned.

Leave aside the question of the political wisdom of Romney's silence, and the opportunities it opens up for President Obama next week. What about the civic propriety of a presidential nominee failing even to mention, in his acceptance speech, a war we're fighting and our young men and women who are fighting it? Has it ever happened that we've been at war and a presidential nominee has ignored, in this kind of major and formal speech, the war and our warriors? 

The candidate's omission,though far less likely oversight than tactical positioning, may be more significant than meets the eye.   Once Mitt Romney, yearning for journalists and pundits everywhere to compare him to Ronald Reagan, parenthetically asked during his nomination acceptance speech whether Americans are "better off" than they were four years ago, the media jumped on board.    Rush Limbaugh, George Stepanopoulos, pollsters, and others were quick to ask the question, or answer it in the negative.

The question is assumed to pertain to the economic state of the nation which, as Paul Krugman explains, is better now than it was in November 2008, though worse than it would have been had Obama governed like the progressive he campaigned as.   Housing permits and retail sales generally are rising; the civilian employment-population ratio is gradually rising and is slightly higher than at the depth of the recession; the stock market is up, inflation low, and interest rates even lower; private sector employment has increased for the past 29 months; the average total tax burden is lower than it has been in decades while corporate profits are higher than in decades.   (We should acknowledge that government jobs are down and good and bad jobs alike still are leaving the country for abroad, but we wouldn't want to make Republicans giddy.)

However, the query is never posed so specifically as to specify the "economy" or the economic status of the average American family.   It is always framed in very general terms, as to being "better off" period.   And for that, Joe Biden says it best: "bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive."

Not only is bin Laden dead, but Al Qaeda seems to be on the run, though determining definitively is nearly impossible.   While drone attacks have been instrumental in destroying much of the terrorist group's leadership, "signature strikes" probably have improved Al Qaeda's recruiting more than they have impeded the group's capacity for violence.  But the likelihood that Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan will question the Administration's aggressive use of drones- or rendition, military commissions, or indefinite detention- is slight or nonexistent, and slight is on a train heading out-of-town.

So expect President Obama, when asked whether we are "better off" than four years ago- and when pre-empting the question in his acceptance speech- not to say definitively that Americans are basking in the lap of economic security.   That would be not only an exaggeration, but invite criticism for insensitivity to suffering.   He will note some improvement since the last Administration, during which the economy collapsed.  But he will argue also that America is more secure than she was a few years ago and tick off his administration's success fighting Al Qaeda, ratcheting down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, implementing health care reform, and in other areas.   And he will demonstrate a better understanding of the enemy abroad than most leading Republicans, including Mr. Romney, Mr. Ryan, and Mr. King.

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Cut And Lose


Sometimes the truth and wise political strategy intersect.   Amid numerous flights from reality exhibited in his acceptance speech, Paul Ryan claimed

He created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.

Republicans stepped up with good-faith reforms and solutions equal to the problems. How did the president respond? By doing nothing— nothing except to dodge and demagogue the issue.

Here is how the stridently partisan, evil President chose "to dodge and demagogue the issue" in a recent interview with Time's Michael Scherer:

I will continue to reach out to them and work with them wherever I can. And I think it’s important to note that even in the two years that Republicans have controlled the House, we’ve gotten a lot of stuff done. We have passed a payroll tax cut that affected almost every American. We’ve helped veterans get hired as they come home. We’ve gotten two major trade deals that open up markets and are contributing to us doubling exports.

So even in a pretty sour political circumstance, we’ve been able to get some things accomplished. And I believe that in a second term, where Mitch McConnell’s imperative of making me a one-term President is no longer relevant, they recognize that what the American people are looking for is for us to get things done.

And I will continue to insist to my Democratic colleagues that not all good ideas just come from Democrats and that if we’re going to reduce our deficit in a serious way, we are going to have to cut some spending even on some programs that I like. If we’re going to be serious about energy independence, then we can’t just have a knee-jerk opposition to the incredible resources that we have in our country. We’ve got to have an all-of-the-above strategy that develops oil and gas and clean coal along with wind and solar.


I will continue to reach out to them and work with them wherever I can.... even in a pretty sour political circumstance, we've been able to get some things accomplished... And I will continue to insist to my Democratic colleagues that they must do what Republicans want them to do.   Holy Batman!  The man is a terror, vicious and vengeful.  He must be stopped.

Lyin' Ryan, of course, never noted what those "good-faith reforms and solutions equal to the problems" were which were proposed by the Gas and Oil Party, presumably because there has been none.     But that might not stop Obama, with Democrats dutifully following his lead, from stopping themselves.   The President went on to tell Scherer

My message to Democrats is the same message I’ve got to Republicans and independents, and that is, I want a balanced approach to deficit reduction that combines additional revenue, particularly from folks like me who can afford it, with prudent cuts on both the discretionary side and the mandatory side but that still allows us to make investments in the things we need to grow.

And that means I’m prepared to look at reforms in Medicaid. I’m prepared to look at smart reforms on Medicare. But there are things I won’t do, and this is part of the debate we’re having in this election. I do not think it is a good idea to set up Medicare as a voucher system in which seniors are spending up to $6,000 more out of pocket. That was the original proposal Congressman Ryan put forward. And there is still a strong impulse I think among some Republicans for that kind of approach.

I’m not going to slash Medicaid to the point where disabled kids or seniors who are in nursing homes are basically uncared for. We’re not going to violate the basic bargain that Social Security represents.

Now, the good news is, if you’re willing to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires, then you can make modest reforms on entitlements, reduce some additional discretionary spending, achieve deficit reduction and still preserve Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid in ways that people can count on. The only reason that you would have to go further than that is if there’s no revenue whatsoever. And that’s a major argument that we’re having with the Republicans.

Digby responds

Well hell. I'm sure glad he isn't willing to cut Medicaid to where the disabled aren't "basically" cared for. And, you know, it's good that he's not going to violate the "basic bargain" that social security "represents." Big relief.

Vote Obama/Biden 2012 -- We won't cut your benefits quite as much as the other guys. 

It would be both good policy and good politics for top Democrats to modify their approach to one by which the Party traditionally appealed to voters.   Surely, many Democrats at their national convention this week will point out that Representative Ryan, a member of the Simpson-Bowles commission to which he was alluding on Wednesday night, voted against the commission's draft plan.

But it goes beyond that.    Ryan stated "he created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. "  But "they"- the bipartisan debt commission- did not "(come) back with an urgent report."    They (really, "it," but why argue with the Genius that is Paul Ryan?) did not come back with any report at all.   Dean Baker highlighted the pervasive misunderstanding when he wrote in February

The New York Times badly misled readers by repeatedly referring to a report of the deficit reduction commission led by former Senator Alan Simpson and Morgan Stanley Director  Erskine Bowles. There was no report from this commission.

The report discussed in this article was exclusively the report of the co-chairs. It did not receive the necessary support of 14 members of the commission that would have made it an official commission report, a point noted only in passing toward the end of the piece.

The Administration, however, has chosen not to challenge the inaccurate perception that the commission agreed upon a plan and submitted a report.   Instead, the President emphasizes "we're going to reduce our deficit in a serious way."  

Walter Mondale can tell us how well that works.   Upon accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984, the Minnesota Senator argued (video below) "we are living on borrowed money and borrowed time.... Mr. Reagan will raise taxes and so will I.  He won't tell you.  I just did."  Courageous and wise words, met with considerable applause and the loss of 49 states in the election.

David Dayen recognizes

The fact that you can draw a line in inverse proportion between what party embraces austerity and what party has the dominant position in the politics of the age should tell you what you need to know about its importance. By and large, we saw a liberal era in the 1950s and 1960s (regardless of what party actually ruled) followed by a conservative era in the 1980s that stretches to this day. And the factor of austerity politics plays a big role in that.

Noting that John Maynard Keynes 75 years ago found "the boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity," Paul Krugman explained "even if you have a long-run deficit problem- and who doesn't ?- slashing spending while the economy is deeply depressed is a self-defeating strategy because it just deepens the depression."  And becoming the tax collectors for the austerity state is not only a bad policy, but bad politics, one which Democrats would be wise to eschew in Charlotte.







                                               HAPPY LABOR DAY







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Just A Little Threat Between Friends


Many people concluded Representative Todd Akin (R-MO.) was rather stupid when, asked about whether there should be an exception to a ban on abortion if the woman is raped, he stated

First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," Akin continued. He did not provide an explanation for what constituted "legitimate rape."  But let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something. You know I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.

Research makes clear that Mr. Akin was wrong.    A study conducted by Jon and Tiffany Gottschall, from St Lawrence University in Canton, New York, reported in New Science magazine in 2001 of women who had been raped found that just under 8%  who had not been using contraception became pregnant as a result of the attack.    The researchers compared that figure to a separate study which found that the percentage of women who got pregnant from a consensual, one time act of intercourse was 3.1%.   According to this article, the Gottschalls (although others argue otherwise) "believe one possible explanation is that women feel more attractive and sexy when ovulating and unconsciously give off signals that rapists might pick up.  Another possible explanation is that rapists target attractive and healthy-looking women."

Akins' belief may not have stemmed from stupidity but from some combination of ignorance and/or ideological bias against women's reproductive freedom.   But neither ignorance and ideological bias can account for his response to a comment made by a prominent Republican and reported by Alexander Burns:

Karl Rove phoned Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin to apologize for having joked about killing the Republican congressman, an Akin spokesman confirmed to POLITICO.

Akin adviser Rick Tyler said Rove spoke with Akin Friday about his remarks, and that the Akin camp believes it would be appropriate for Rove to make a public apology as well.

"I'm assuming that Karl will make a public apology," Tyler said. "The right thing to do would be for Karl to make a public apology. We appreciate the personal apology."

Bloomberg Businessweek reported earlier that Rove told a gathering of donors in Tampa that Akin had to be forced out of the Senate race, and joked that if Akin were "found mysteriously murdered, don't look for my whereabouts."

Tyler said Rove called the embattled Senate candidate and "spent about three minutes" explaining that he didn't know there had been a reporter in the room and that he would not have made such a comment if he'd been aware of her presence.

"After about three minutes, Todd asked: are you calling to apologize?" recounted Tyler, who said that Rove responded in the affirmative.

"Todd was gracious and he accepted his apology," Tyler said, adding that the episode had not changed Akin's determination to continue his campaign: "Akin's in it to stay."

Rove and other national Republicans have pressured Akin to end his Senate campaign and the Rove-linked group American Crossroads has canceled its advertising in Missouri.

He didn't know there had been a reporter in the room and that he would not have made such a comment if he'd been aware of her presence.   .  As far as we know , Rove apparently didn't say he was wrong for making the comment or even that he didn't believe it.   He was sorry it got out.  Note to Todd:  when someone says he made a comment of which he expected only a select few to be aware, it is not an apology- it is a warning.     If someone threatens your life (jokingly, of course) in private and then regrets the remark was made public, you might want to consider a bodyguard.

Karl Rove will not have Todd Akin murdered, obviously- not after the remark was made public. Nor will he arrange an assassination after telling a bunch of people he was considering it.   But if Politico's report was accurate and thorough, pressure has been applied, and not of the subtle variety.











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