Opening Salvo

The good news is that I appear- thus far- to have been wrong in assuming that Barack Obama will concede ground even before starting to negotiate.  The bad news is that we're in only the bottom of the first inning.  The worse news is that I continue to use tired, worn sports parallels.

The baseball analogy is apt, though one should beware of someone referring to his own remark as "apt."   Team Obama has put out its opening bid, as summarized by Wonkblog's Suzy Khimm:

STAGE ONE:

Taxes

Immediate increase in both top marginal rates, as well as capital gains and dividends: +$960 Billion
Additional taxes: +$600 Billion
2009-level estate tax
AMT and business tax extenders: -$236 Billion
Payroll tax extension or alternative policy: -$110B
Bonus depreciation extension

Spending/Extras

$50 billion stimulus package in FY13
Mass refi mortgage proposal
Deferral of sequester
Savings from non-entitlement mandatory programs
Extension of unemployment insurance: $30 billion
Medicare SGR Patch: $25 Billion
Increase in the debt limit to avoid requiring Congress to vote to increase

STAGE TWO:

Tax reform consistent with $1.6 trillion tax increase
Entitlement policies from President’s FY13 budget that could total $400 billion in savings

Despite a cut in the Medicare program and nothing about defense, that's a better proposal than we had a right to expect from Obama and may reflect a notion on the part of the President that he ought to stop negotiating with himself.
  
On Thursday, Charles Krauthammer charged on GOP TV

What Geithner offered, what you showed on the screen, Robert E. Lee was offered easier terms at Appomattox, and he lost the Civil War.   There are not only no cuts in this, there's an increase in spending with a new stimulus. I mean, this is almost unheard of. What do they expect? They obviously expect the Republicans will cave on everything. I think the Republicans ought to simply walk away.

Squealing loudest, Rush Limbaugh claims  "Now, as I say, if we ever needed any proof what I've been saying for the last couple days is true, we got it yesterday with this ridiculous opening bid.  Santa Claus wants to take his sleigh over the fiscal cliff. There's no question about it now.  None.  Whatsoever."    

According to Fred Barnes, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (to whom Limbaugh says he spoke) "says he 'burst into laughter' Thursday when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner outlined the administration proposal for averting the fiscal cliff.  He wasn’t trying to embarrass Geithner, McConnell says, only responding candidly to his one-sided plan, explicit on tax increases, vague on spending cuts."

And House Speaker John Weepy Boehner- who is almost as influential as Limbaugh- remarked “Let’s not kid ourselves.   Right now, we’re almost nowhere.”

Unless they're auditioning for an Academy Award, Repubs really do appear annoyed by the President's initial proposal, which is a splendid sign.   Still, it's a little disconcerting to read from the well-connected Ezra Klein

If Republicans want to cut Medicare, let them propose the cuts. If they want to raise revenue through tax reform, let them identify the deductions. If they want deeper cuts in discretionary spending, let them settle on a number. And, above all, if they don’t like the White House’s preferred policies, let them propose their own. That way, if the White House eventually does give in and agree to some of their demands, Republicans will feel like they got one over on the president.

This suggests that Obama primarily wants the GOP to request the debilitating cuts in the social safety net he then would largely accept.   At that point, it would be left to the left to oppose a destructive measure- if it is up to the task.

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No Dice



Rush Limbaugh keeps outdoing himself.   With no adherence to principle, but only to right-wing politics, Limbaugh pretends there is no conflict between his commitment to unbridled, rapacious capitalism, theocratic ideals, and his own free-wheeling lifestyle.    

So Thursday Limbaugh eulogized motivational speaker Zip Ziglar, who has died at age 86, by contending

Folks, it used to happen in this country. What used to happen is that people would get jobs, hopefully jobs they liked, and they would work really hard, try to climb the ladder of success, as it was called, but they would work really hard. Some people didn't have what we call self-starter characteristics. Some people had to be inspired by others, and so Zig Ziglar made a career out of doing personal appearances, and they were always with a bunch of speakers, things that go on all day. And literally hundreds of thousands of people a year would show up to learn to be inspired to work hard to become successful. Now, that type of motivation is practically gone in this country now, and to the extent that it still exists, it is frowned on.

That kind of route to success now has a bull's-eye on it, if you succeed. "It was on the job that Ziglar developed a curiosity about human nature -- What made a man tick? Why did some succeed where others failed? -- that ultimately led to a thriving career in motivational speaking." He tried to light a fire under those who weren't successful, to get them to believe in themselves. Now, as I say, that's from a bygone era. This kind of thing is frowned on now. Because not everybody can work hard, and you know, a lot of people who work very hard don't ever have anything to show for it, and that isn't fair. So hard work is kind of frowned on now. Like Obama, he really hasn't worked hard. He's a kept man. Well, I mean...

Hard work is, as Rush noted, "kind of frowned on now."   That might sound a little odd from a guy who works three hours a week saying whatever pops into his mind, but it gets worse.  The fellow who Thursday extolled the virtue of achieving success through industriousness was singing a different tune when on February 2, 2010 President Obama properly and courageously stated "You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college."  The next day, Limbaugh commented

 By the way, I'm just saying, just a little side note here, but gambling is forbidden in the Koran. Just a little aside. Just saying. President Barack Obama known for having a way with words but some lawmakers from Nevada wish he would pipe down about trips to the city after sparking a firestorm of criticism from Nevada's elected officials for suggesting that people saving money for college shouldn't blow it in Vegas. Obama told US Senate majority leader Dingy Harry in a letter he wasn't saying anything negative about Las Vegas. I was making the simple point that families use vacation dollars, not college tuition money to have fun. And no place better to have fun than Vegas, one of our country's great destinations. Obama says he always enjoys his visits to Vegas. He's going out there this month or later this month. White House spokesman referred to Obama's letter to Reid, said the administration had no further comment. And again the Koran prohibits -- gambling is forbidden in the Koran, I'm just saying.

Limbaugh, a critic of all things Muslim, is a huge supporter of gambling, remarked "just a little side note here, but gambling is forbidden in the Koran" and "again the Koran prohibits- gambling is forbidden in the Koran, I'm just saying."  A few years later, he is distraught that "not everybody can work hard, and you know a lot of people who work very hard don't ever have anything to show for it, and that isn't fair.  so hard work is kind of frowned on now."

And a lot of people don't have anything to show for it because they blew it gambling, in Las Vegas or elsewhere.   It's the ultimate get-rich-quick scheme, making a few individuals wealthy off the bad luck of others.  It demeans the value of the hard work Rush commends upon praising the legacy of a right-wing motivational speaker.   And it is a practice Rush Limbaugh is terribly fond of.



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Democrats Behaving Republican



Yesterday, the President made clear his New Year's wish:

Now, the good news is there’s a better option.  Right now, as we speak, Congress can pass a law that would prevent a tax hike on the first $250,000 of everybody’s income.  Everybody's.  And that means that 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses wouldn’t see their income taxes go up by a single dime.  Ninety-eight percent of Americans, 97 percent of small businesses would not see their income taxes go up by a single dime...

So we really need to get this right.  I can only do it with the help of the American people.  So, tweet -- what was that again -- "My2K" -- tweet using the hashtag "My2K," or email, post it on a member of Congress's Facebook wall.  Do what it takes to communicate a sense of urgency.  We don't have a lot of time here.  We've got a few weeks to get this thing done.  We could get it done tomorrow.  Now, optimistically, I don't think we're going to get it done tomorrow -- (laughter) -- but I tell you, if everybody here goes out of their way to make their voices heard, and spread the word to your friends and your family, your coworkers, your neighbors, then I am confident we will get it done.  And we will put America on the right track not just for next year but for many years to come.  All right?  

Yes, we all laughed.

The Daily Kos' Jed Lewison is all atwitter, writes

The Twitter thing (#My2k) is cute and catchy, but the key point here is that Obama isn't treating this as a deal to be made between John Boehner and himself—he's treating this an issue that all Americans have a stake in. That's why he held today's event and that's why he's going to Philadelphia on Friday to press his case.

 "The point President Obama was making here," the usually sensible Lewison contends, "is that he doesn't see the tax cut debate as a negotiation with the Republican Party."

Ah, but he does.  He has thrown down the gauntlet... but solely on the issue of tax breaks for the wealthy, on their income above $200,000 (as an individual) or $250,000 (as a couple).   In the same statement, the putative Democratic president asserted "Our ultimate goal is an agreement that gets our long-term deficit under control in a way that is fair and balanced.  That kind of agreement would be good for our businesses; it would be good for our economy; it would be good for our children’s future"

The President is proposing a deal, however undefined at this point, that is "fair and balanced."  He gets what he wants- reversion to the Clinton-era tax rates for the wealthy- and Republicans get they want.

That may be how it works out in the end.   But Obama is advocating this as his starting point, his position to begin negotiations.   And he makes sure to label it as "fair and balanced," the slogan Republican such as he prefer for their media outlets.

To be fair, Obama isn't the only "Democrat" giving it up in advance.   Monday, Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina stated "We want to take a look at what we can do to Medicare and Medicaid, means testing, although we do means test Medicare now. I think we ought to expand means testing and I really think we can take a look at the way we compute the consumer price index."

Zaid Jilani noted the Wall Street Journal reported November 15

On Capitol Hill, it isn’t clear how strenuously Democrats will resist cutting entitlements. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.) said he and others were open to changes as long as they were done in a measured way and were part of deal that included tax increases. Mr. Van Hollen also said changing Social Security and increasing the Medicare eligibility age above 65 should be part of negotiations.

“I’m willing to consider all of these ideas as part of an overall plan,” Mr. Van Hollen said Tuesday at the Journal’s CEO Council.

White House officials in 2011 were in advanced talks with Mr. Boehner that would have agreed to some of these changes, notably raising Medicare’s eligibility age. That is one cause of liberals’ anxiety about how the coming talks may unfold.

The same day, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, was interviewed by The Washington Post.    Asked about raising the retirement age for Medicare, he at least reversed "fair and balanced" to "balanced and fair":

I wouldn’t want that to be the starting point, but as part of an overall package, that’s balanced and fair. Given that we now have exchanges to purchase insurance because of the president’s health-care reform law, it makes it much more acceptable, much more reasonable, over a long period of time to gradually increase the age given that people are living so much longer.

Americans are not living longer and excising 65 and 66 year old persons from Medicare would send some of them into health insurance exchanges, which would make those contraptions less viable.   Clyburn suggests support for Medicare reduction "as part of an overall plan" and Conrad cautions he "wouldn't want" reduction "to be the starting point"- but they have gone a long way to making it the party's opening bid.    And they have done this in return for raising the low rates (on high incomes) which are set to expire automatically

Yes, we all have our price.  Unfortunately for the country, for Barack Obama and his acolytes, that price is very low.  Digby has a right to complain that raising the Medicare retirement age

is basically an offering to get the Republicans to agree to ask those making more than 259k (or a million)a year to "pay a little bit more." Or perhaps it's better understood as a human sacrifice.

It's hard to believe that it was only three years ago that we were close to an agreement to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 55 (which would have been a godsend.) Now Democrats are talking about raising it to 67. After a big re-election victory. Wow. 



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The Republican Presidency Proceeds


Zeke Miller at Buzzfeed summarizes

Obama senior adviser David Plouffe predicted that the fiscal cliff negotiations are "going to get hairy" in the coming weeks, saying President Barack Obama is committed to achieving the elusive "big deal" on taxes and spending he and Speaker of the House John Boehner have tried to strike for more than 18 months.

In post-election remarks at the University of Delaware, Plouffe warned of "paralysis" if both parties remain beholden to their base, saying Obama is looking for a deal that sets the country on the right fiscal path for a 10- to 20-year period.

"The only way that gets done is for Republicans again to step back and get mercilessly criticized by Grover Norquist and the Right, and it means that Democrats are going to have to do some tough things on spending and entitlements that means that they'll criticized on by their left," Plouffe said at his alma mater in conversation with former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt.

The senior White House adviser repeated Obama's opposition to extending the Bush tax cuts on those earning more than $250,000 a year, but expressed openness to a tax reform deal that could potentially lower what the wealthy pay.

“What we also want to do is engage in a process of tax reform that would ultimately produce lower rates, even potentially for the wealthiest," he said, referring to benefits from corporate tax reform.

Plouffe added that while the White House wants to engage in comprehensive tax reform, they know they must also "carefully" address the "chief drivers of our deficit": Medicare and Medicaid.

It's ironic- or perhaps fitting- that Plouffe lectures (video, below) the left as the administration figures it is appeasing its liberal supporters by fixating on ending the Bush-era tax cuts on income above $200,000 ($250,000 for a household) per year.  Approvingly, Rachel Maddow yesterday noted

But he and his White House and even his presidential election campaign which theoretically has disbanded but still seems to be around, they have been more than clear that what the president is going to do first is work on getting the Bush tax cuts extended for all income levels below a quarter million dollars. Income above a quarter million dollars will go back to the Clinton era tax rates. That is the president`s first priority.And that is forced on him in part by the scheduled expiration of those tax cuts at the end of the year. But it also seems to be embraced as what he wants to work on. 

President Obama is not arguing for that tax cut expiration date to be extended, to be put off for awhile so he can work on something else in the meantime. He very much seems to want this fight. 

And he`s not only talking about it at every public opportunity, reminding everybody that it is what he campaigned on when he won reelection."The New York Times" is also now reporting that he`s employing the contact list and supporter information mega database that he built during his reelection campaign toward trying to win that particular policy fight.

The Administration evidently is all-in on eliminating the lower rate for the (above $200,000/$250,000) wealthy- but not for anything else.   Even as most on the left- including Maddow and most of the crew at the allegedly liberal MSNBC- accept Obama's priorities, Plouffe complains "There are some- maybe not so much in our party but some commentators on the left- that we should not deal with this at all."  This follows the misrepresentation- nay, lie that  "The notion that somehow these deficits and our debt are not a threat to our national security and our economic future is something that I could not disagree with more."

Plouffe did not specify who these folks "on the left" are because there are few liberals who don't acknowledge- generally, even emphasize- that the debt is a long-term problem.  They don't say, or write, or tweet, or anything that deficits or the debt should not be dealt with at all- only not now.  As Paul Krugman has explained

Household borrowing has plunged; businesses are sitting on cash because there’s no reason to expand capacity when the sales aren’t there; and the result is that investors are all dressed up with nowhere to go, or rather no place to put their money. So they’re buying government debt, even at very low returns, for lack of alternatives. Moreover, by making money available so cheaply, they are in effect begging governments to issue more debt.

And governments should be granting their wish, not obsessing over short-term deficits.

Obligatory caveat: yes, we have a long-run budget problem, and we should be taking steps to address that problem, mainly by reining in health care costs. But it’s simply crazy to be laying off schoolteachers and canceling infrastructure projects at a time when investors are offering zero- or negative-interest financing.

It is precisely in the long term that health care spending (not Medicare itself) is a serious threat to financial stability.   Short-term deficits and debt which so exorcise Plouffe and are (in his view) minimized by the left are huge now because of the tax cuts, an unfunded prescription drug mandate, two wars, and a recession.   It is long-term debt- which the left has emphasized since Plouffe was in diapers- which is exacerbated by health care spending.  And Medicare lowers, rather than raises, health care costs. Krugman again:

Studies by the Urban Institute and more recently by CBPP find that Medicaid is significantly cheaper than private insurance. This is partly because of lower administrative costs; also, Medicaid, more than Medicare, bargains hard, using things like a limited formulary that lets it drive a harder bargain over drug prices.

And there is, of course, the international evidence:   every other advanced country has a less privatized health insurance system than we do, and we have much higher costs than anyone else.

Summarizing his inner macho, Plouffe contended a favorable solution "means that Democrats are going to have to do some tough things on spending and entitlements that means that they'll criticized on by their left."   Message:  "we're going to 'get tough' on the left," which hardly would be news from a president never fond of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.   But it is significant; this is not any Democratic senator, even Dick Durbin, nor a policy wonk.  Plouffe is a political consultant and stategist by trade who was the chief delegate counter for Senator Obama in 2008.  So when he threatens to lower corporate tax rates and to cut Medicare and Medicare in order to allow tax rates on incomes above $200,000/$250,000 to rise as they already are scheduled to do under current law, he's serving a president who's serving the interests of the elite.
 








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Still Intimidated, Presumably



In a case which appears to be flying under the radar, CNN Supreme Court Producer Bill Mears reports

The Supreme Court has ordered a federal appeals court to take another look at whether a key requirement in the health care reform law violates religious freedoms.

A pending lawsuit from the private Liberty University had claimed, among other things, that the law would lead to taxpayer dollars funding abortions and contraception, a claim the Obama administration rejects. The justices issued their order Monday.

The high court in June had upheld the overall law championed by President Obama, but left room for continued legal challenges to certain aspects of the law's application.

The Lynchburg, Virginia-based school bills itself as the largest Christian evangelical college in the world.

A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in 2011 unanimously concluded the university's lawsuit should be blocked on jurisdictional grounds. There is no indication when the appeals court will revisit the issue in the wake of the high court's order.

After the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act's funding mechanism -- the so-called individual mandate requiring nearly all Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a financial penalty -- it tossed out all other pending appeals.

Liberty University then refiled its lawsuit, saying its objections to the law should be reconsidered in light of the court's 5-4 ruling affirming the overall law.

The school believes Americans should not be required to purchase health insurance -- and employers forced to provide it -- if there are legitimate moral and religious objections to some provisions.

The Administration doesn't have clean hands here.  Eleven months ago, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius rejected the advice of the Food and Drug Administration and ruled that Plan B One-Step, the contraception available over-the-counter to females 17 years of age and over, would not be made available for younger girls without a prescription.   As Digby observes

Even the president decided that it would be better for young girls to get pregnant than have easy access to birth control. The conservatives nearly had a mass nervous breakdown at the mere idea that anyone would "condone" birth control among those who are the most likely to have unprotected sex. 

Somehow, the right has managed to equate in the minds of a large swath of Americans the idea that birth control and abortion are synonymous, or nearly so.   That flies in the face logic- and of the recent report revealing

Providing birth control to women at no cost substantially reduced unplanned pregnancies and cut abortion rates by a range of 62-78 percent compared to the national rate, a new study shows.  The research, by investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, appears online Oct. 4 in Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Among a range of birth control methods offered in the study, most women chose long-acting methods like intrauterine devices (IUDs) or implants, which have lower failure rates than commonly used birth control pills. In the United States, IUDs and implants have high up-front costs that sometimes aren’t covered by health insurance, making these methods unaffordable for many women.

“This study shows that by removing barriers to highly-effective contraceptive methods such as IUDs and implants, we can reduce unintended pregnancies and the need for abortions,” says lead author Jeff Peipert, MD, PhD, the Robert J. Terry Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

According to The New York Times, When Sebelius made her apparently politically expedient decision contradicting scientific advice, it "avoided what could have been a bruising political battle over parental control and contraception  during a presidential election season."

Surely, now that the President, safely re-elected to his last term as president (or any elective office), the progressive most of his supporters believe he is will come out of the closet.  

Not yet, anyway.  Mears writes (emphasis mine)

It is one of several dozen pending lawsuits around the country filed to challenge the law's application since the June decision. The Richmond-based appeals court taking on the Liberty University case could ask both the federal government and the school to submit updated legal arguments. The Obama administration did not object to the university asking for another chance to press its claims.

Of course it didn't.  In this administration, whether it's the Justice Department, HHS, or the President himself, no conservative antagonist is too hostile that it can't be appeased.



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Means To An End



House Speaker John Boehner has called Grover Norquist "some random person" and has stated "Because the American people expect us to find common ground, we are willing to accept some additional revenues, via tax reform."   Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss claims the founder and director of Americans for Tax Reform "has no credibility" and Bush 41 has charged "Circumstances change, and you can't be wedded to some formula by Grover Norquist.   It's- who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?"

Some Republicans undoubtedly would say, rhetorically and in private:  "Who the hell is George H.W. Bush, anyway?"  (He is the last Republican president and, worse yet, the last president since Jimmy Carter to be rejected for a second term.)   Norquist, creator and keeper of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, still is far more influential that HW Bush.

Still, as The Philadelphia Inquirer's Thomas Fitzgerald writes, some GOP congressmen "are openly defying Norquist."

That's just it- they're openly defying Norquist, all the better to curry favor with media types who yearn for a sign, any sign that Republicans may be doing something that may approximate what can be plausibly called "compromise."  But compromise it's not.

Boehner, who sent a thrill up the legs of many Obamites and media types when he spoke vaguely on November 7 about "additional revenues," now says "we need to repeal Obamacare and enact common-sense, step-by-step reforms that start with lowering the cost of health care."  (You win the election; we set the agenda.  Sounds fair, doesn't it?)
 
While the House Speaker is willing to consider "additional revenues" in order to undermine the Affordable Care Act, Senator Chambliss has his eyes set on Wall Street's favorite targets, Social Security and Medicare. Zaid Jilani notes

For more than a year, Chambliss has been involved with a group of senators who support the Bowles-Simpson plan to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits while lowering the corporate tax rate. This Bowles-Simpson plan closes a few token tax loopholes, and also reduces the popular mortgage interest deduction. Norquist is opposed to closing even the tiny loopholes that the Bowles-Simpson plan closes, so he staunchly opposes the plan altogether — which also means opposing Chambliss.

Chambliss is willing to deal with closing small loopholes in the tax code in order to get to the wider goals of the Bowles-Simpson plan: cutting Social Security benefits by raising the retirement age, cutting Medicare benefits by capping overall spending, and dramatically lowering corporate tax rates.

On Sunday's This Week with George Stephanopolous, Georgia Senator Lindsey Graham conceded "Republicans should put revenue on the table. We're this far in debt. We don't generate enough revenue. Capping deductions will help generate revenue. "   Moments later Graham, one of the congressmen often hailed as independent of Norquist, spun (h/t/ to Susie Madrak) this tale:

I don't think you can look at entitlement reform without adjusting the age for retirement, like Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan did. It goes to 66, 67 here pretty soon for Social Security. Let it float up another year or so over the next 30 years, adjust Medicare from 65 to 67 over the next 30 years, means test benefits for people in our income level. I don't expect the Democrats to go for premium support or a voucher plan, but I do expect them to adjust these entitlement programs before they bankrupt the country and run out of money themselves. So age adjustment and means testing for both Social Security, Medicare I think is eminently reasonable. And all those who've looked at this problem have done that over time.

Discussing the fiscal cliff, fiscal curb, or whatever idiotic, inaccurate cliches are in vogue this week, Graham pimps for raising the age for Social Security recipients.   If we pretend, as does the thoroughly dishonest South Carolinian, that Social Security has something to do with the deficit (other than cutting it as politicians use the trust fund to pay for tax cuts), Graham ought to be informed that life expectancy has dipped, however slightly, in recent years. Lyn Parramore responds to the fear mongers by explaining

You will be hearing lots of convincing-sounding rhetoric on this topic in upcoming weeks –often from Democrats – including the notion that we should be means-testing Social Security for longevity among high-income earners. That plan plays into the mythology that the program is somehow broken and needs to be “fixed.” It also plays into the game of fiscal conservatives who know full well that means testing will diminish support, which is why they have been ardently pushing it for 50 years. It’s yet another red herring.

In return for beginning to demolish Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, Republicans hint at a willingness to accept an increase in revenue.   But to many on the right, lowering taxes on the wealthy- the "job creators"- itself magically increases tax revenue (supply-side economics, Laffer Curve, voodoo economics, etc.).   If they can be persuaded to accept caps on deductions, the loopholes simply will return within a few years.  The lobbyists will not get religion, fold up their tents and go home simply because of a minor, temporary setback.   Grover Norquist maintains his grip on the Gas and Oil Party.

In the meantime, the attack on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid- demonized as "entitlements"- would continue apace among neo-liberal centrists and conservative plutocrats.  The Great Recession may have been engineered (intentionally or otherwise) by the financial community, but old people, poor people, and sick people must suffer for their sins.


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Failing, Heroically


David Petraeus' executive officer, retired Colonel Peter Mansoor, was referring to Paula Broadwell when he said "In Iraq, General Petraeus was adamant that he didn't want reporters embedded within his headquarters in any way.   What troubles me is why he decided to change his own guidance and allow her unfettered and lengthy access."

The answer to that is embedded in the word "embedded."I think we all know why, the answer fittingly embedded in the word "embedded."

Or maybe not, because General Petraeus was not motivated exclusively by his hormones.   Greg Jaffe of The Washington Post has written

Since his first combat tour in Iraq in 2003, Petraeus had cultivated a cadre of a few dozen loyal staff officers, many of whom had doctoral degrees from top universities and taught at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Usually, he personally selected these men and women to serve on his staff.

In Afghanistan, the retinue grew as people drawn to his fame and eager to launch their own careers took up positions for him in Kabul. “He didn’t seek out these people, but he also didn’t turn them away,” said an officer who spent 40 months working for Petraeus in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Prominent members of conservative, Washington-based defense think tanks were given permanent office space at his headquarters and access to military aircraft to tour the battlefield. They provided advice to field commanders that sometimes conflicted with orders the commanders were getting from their immediate bosses.

Some of Petraeus’s staff officers said he and the American mission in Afghanistan benefited from the broader array of viewpoints, but others complained that the outsiders were a distraction, the price of his growing fame.

Apparently, the General needed a posse, for we learn from the Daily Beast

The sisters are also believed to have attended the farewell party for Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the former British ambassador to the U.S., in Washington last year. Peter King, a Republican congressman for New York who was at the event, told CNN yesterday that he had met Kelley at “one or two events at the British embassy.” An embassy spokesman declined to check, saying that it would take too much time.

Kelley, a mother of three and an unpaid “social liaison” for the U.S. military in Tampa, is said to have spared no expense at such parties to honor top brass stationed at nearby U.S. Central Command. She was pictured at one event at her $1.2 million mansion in 2010 with General Petraeus, who arrived in a 28-man police motorcycle escort.

There is no word yet whether congressional Republicans will target extravagance by military officers as part of their assault on the evil deficit.    Nor do we know if the Washington establishment will connect the dots on the portrait of the now-disgraced General who in his dissertation at Princeton University in 1987 wrote "What policymakers believe to have taken place in any particular case is what matters- more than what actually occurred."    Michael Hastings explains

There’s his war record in Iraq, starting when he headed up the Iraqi security force training program in 2004. He’s more or less skated on that, including all the weapons he lost, the insane corruption, and the fact that he essentially armed and trained what later became known as “Iraqi death squads.” On his final Iraq tour, during the so-called "surge," he pulled off what is perhaps the most impressive con job in recent American history. He convinced the entire Washington establishment that we won the war.

The establishment included the Brookings Institution's Micheal E. O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack, who wrote of the war in Iraq "Today, morale is high.  The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results; and they feel they now have the numbers needed to make a real difference."

That was over five years ago, but the General is still bamboozling opinion makers.  Following the resignation of the guy who presided over defeat in Iraq, defeat in Afghanistan, and an intelligence scandal pertaining to Benghazi, USA Today editorialized "David Petraeus made a doozy of a mistake, one that cost him his job and tarnished his sterling reputation. But if the frenzy passes without further surprises, he can drive on to new pathways and continue to be of service to his country."



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