Nothing New Under The Sun With Stephen Colbert

Scott Timberg, a "staff writer for Salon, focusing on culture," is utterly baffled that Donald Trump could be interviewed by Stephen Colbert (video below) and not be "demolished."He shouldn't be.

Trump "has a nice sense of humor about himself" and "has become bulletproof," laments Timberg, who realizes the candidate

made this clear last night when he called in to “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” This should have allowed Colbert – one of the nation’s finest political satirists and the sharpest interviewer on late night – to skewer Trump hard. He set the bit up looking like he’d get the best of Trump, with an orange Trump wig on his bat phone.

Colbert is an excellent political satirist, which he demonstrates each night on The Late Show- as he did on "The Colbert Report"- when he does his stand-up (or, rather, his sit-down).  However, as an interviewer, he is poor, and not unintentionally.  On Comedy Central, Colbert did interviews strictly for laughs while presenting a facade of gravitas. Now on CBS, he plays the interviews mostly for laughs. As on "The Colbert Report,", he does "set the bit up" in such a way that he can be expected to skewer the interviewee, but backs off before he has a chance to offend his subject.  the commercial success which comes with ratings is key.

Timberg notes: “'I’ve got a suggestion,'” Colbert offers. 'Why don’t you have a swear jar? Every time you say a bad word, you put a billion dollars in it.” The crowd goes wild. Trump sheepishly agrees. “I’m gonna do that, I like that.' But he’s not defeated. He seems, oddly, like a good sport.'" That shouldn't be surprising, given that every guest on TCR learned what each one on The Late Show is learning: one needs only to be "a good sport" when interviewed by Stephen Colbert to look good.

Timberg acknowledges

When the two discuss politics, Trump mentions that he would, if he were president, push for a new Supreme Court justice to replace Antonin Scalia even if it was an election year — and then contradicts himself by saying that President Obama should wait for the next president to do it. (Colbert doesn’t call him on it the fact that this makes no sense, either.) Alright, sounds good!

Of course he didn't call the guest on a contradiction, though occasionally he will do so. However, Donald Trump may (although won't) become the next President. Additionally, he has a habit of condemning or viciously ridiculing people he doesn't like.  John Ellis Bush still is looking for his manhood and Megyn Kelly still is searching for her self-respect- or would be if she had any to find.

The Salonist adds

The audience had its laugh and Colbert got some good lines across. But the strange thing is that Trump won the exchange. He was mocked, laughed at, and booed by the audience. “You’re not making any friends here, Donald,” Colbert said as the crowd groaned. He may not have convinced the liberals and progressives gathered in the studio. But for a lot of people watching on television, this came across as just riffing. For them, this was just fun. For Trump it certainly seemed to be.

Just as Kanye West and Taylor Swift manipulate their public presences, alliances and feuds, Trump appears to know exactly what he’s doing, too. He’s spinning us all – even Colbert.

There is nothing strange about Trump winning the exchange. Nor is there anything unusual about spinning the extraordinarily smart Colbert. It's the way he wants it, and it occurs continually. It's the way he rolls and it's commercially successful. His synchophantic audience eats it up while clueless it is being played.

Concluding, Timberg remarks

What’s dangerous is that Trump can get in and out of an interview with someone as sharp as Colbert without being demolished. Colbert fans came out of this thinking their guy won, but Trump fans have every reason to think the same thing.

It’s not quite charm, but something more unusual, and more pernicious. If he’s elected, could Trump become the real Teflon president? Let’s hope we don’t find out.

What's really dangerous is that the more consistently right-wing Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio also "could get in and out of an interview with someone as sharp as Colbert without being demolished." Smile a lot; laugh a little; be charming throughout, the sort of thing jsut begging to be pulled off by shallow Marco.  It's not a complicated formula and it works every time with Colbert. And it will keep working as long as media members like Scott Timberg don't recognize their idol's own formula.















Share |

And It's A Big One, Too

You have to hand it to John Ellis Bush. Or at least, as Will Bunch puts it, "Hey, maybe you can’t blame the former Florida governor — whose very manhood has been under attack from Republican frontrunner Donald Trump out on the campaign trail for months — for, um, overcompensating with his shiny, 5.3-inch new toy."

After he appeared on Tuesday at high-security firearm company FN Manufacturing, Bush tweeted a picture of an FNX-45 pistol emblazoned with "Gov. Jeb Bush," though later (according to CNN) he "said he didn't know about the tweet but said it was a tribute to his appearance at the company.

Until the media fell in love with the Senator who is his fellow Floridian, Bush had been hailed as a moderate, and until the town hall in South Carolina Tuesday had been the only GOP presidential candidate without a firearm. Hence, his tweet illustrated as well as almost anything could have the validity of Barack Obama's remarks Tuesday- ostensibly about Donald Trump- when the President noted

This is not just Mr. Trump. Everyone's focusing on Trump because he says it in a more interesting way. He may up the ante in anti-Muslim sentiment, but if you look at what the other Republican candidates have said, that's pretty troubling, too. They're all denying climate change and that's troubling to the scientific community.

It seems, further, that the curiously named "FN America" is not even American-owned. Bunch points out that The Washington Post found (as reported in an article behind a paywall) that FN America is owned by a Belgian company "that was requisitioned during World War II to make firearms for Nazis as well as the Allies."

Still, it was quite a coup by the ex-governor, one which says much about both the GOP base to which the candidate was pandering and the abysmal quality of the Republican "bench," celebrated by the media until we actually got to see it in action.   It's not only Trump, and it's not only anti-Muslim sentiment and climate change. In a field which includes Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco "the World Trade Center came down because (of) Bill Clinton" Rubio, it really is everyone.









Share |

Voter Identification And Lengthy Lines

On Sunday's commentary (video below), John Oliver summarized the problems with requiring voter identification: the difficulty in many states of obtaining I.D.; the disproportionate impact on black and hispanic voters; inapplicability of the remedy to anything but voter impersonation, which a study found occurred at most 31 times of more than a billion votes cast from 2000 through 2014; the evidence that it may be used as a partisan effort to elect more Republicans.

There may be only one pitfall in requiring voter identification which went unmentioned, and that possibly only because of time limitations.  The day before the last off-year congressional election, Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones posted an article detailing what she considers the most "subtle" means of disenfranchising black and hispanic voters: "polling places without enough voting machines or poll workers." She found

Nationally, African Americans waited about twice as long to vote in the 2012 election as white people (23 minutes on average versus 12 minutes); Hispanics waited 19 minutes. White people who live in neighborhoods whose residents are less than 5 percent minority had the shortest of all wait times, just 7 minutes. These averages obscure some of the unusually long lines in some areas. In South Carolina's Richland County, which is 48 percent black and is home to 14 percent of the state's African American registered voters, some people waited more than five hours to cast their ballots.

A recent study from the Brennan Center for Justice suggests that a big factor behind these delays was inadequately prepared polling places in heavily minority precincts. Looking at Florida, Maryland, and South Carolina, three states that had some of the longest voting lines in 2012 , the center found a strong correlation between areas with large minority populations and a lack of voting machines and poll workers. In South Carolina, the 10 precincts with the longest waits had more than twice the percentage of black voters (64 percent) as the state as a whole (27 percent).

When individuals have to wait to vote, they are tempted to turn around and go home, especially because in the vast majority of elections the likelihood of one vote (or even a few votes) deciding an election is virtually nill.  One study, Mencimer found, " suggested that roughly 130,000 would-be voters were turned away thanks to long lines" in Franklin County (home to Columbus), Ohio, in 2004. (Mencimer adds "Those missing votes would not have been enough to swing the state for John Kerry." Wrong. This way, too.)

Long waiting lines, most prevalent in urban and minority areas, discourage turnout, primarily of Democratic voters. Given the most common reasons for those lines, racial discrimination is not the primary motivation, though there is an obvious discriminatory impact.  Mencimer notes

Charles Stewart III, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied voting wait times, has posited that the problem is likely related to the poor provision of public service in minority areas in general. In other words, if you don't have good trash pick up, your polling station isn't likely to function very well, either.

Blacks and hispanics are those most likely to live in areas plagued by inadequate municipal services. They also are disproportionately unlikely to possess voter I.D., hence especially likely to be harmed by the requirement that identification be presented at the polls.  Additionally, the mere presentation of identification, along with verification (albeit a relatively brief process in most cases), lengthens the time required for voting. Lines inevitably are longer and some discouraged voters will return home without casting a ballot.

The impact on minority voters severely hampers Democratic fortunes. It should be a bigger issue in the presidential race, and would be if only there were a Democrat countering her opponent's campaign with a race-based appeal.

Share |

When Donald Trump Is The Realist, There Is A Real Problem

Admittedly, it was a little silly when Donald Trump, attacking John Ellis Bush during the debate in Greenville, South Carolina on Saturday, charged "Two days ago, he said he would take his pants off and moon everybody. And that's fine- nobody reports that. He gets up and says that. And then he tells me that, oh, my language was a little bit rough."

Trump was severely distorting (not "severely conservative") a statement made by Bush complaining about the alleged lack of coverage of his campaign.  Still, an exchange Trump had with a media-designated moderate, Young Marco, demonstrated yet again that a Trump Administration probably would be less devastating than any led by one of his rivals.

It started when Senator Rubio used terrorism as an excuse to invoke God. "I just want to say," Rubio remarked "at least on behalf of me and my family, I thank God all the time it was George W. Bush in the White House on 9/11 and not Al Gore."  He added of President 43 "I think you can look back in hindsight and say a couple of things, but he kept us safe" (photograph via CNN of President Bush keeping "us safe," below).

Less of a politician than most of the media have come to believe, Trump (after Rubio made a couple of more comments) failed to begin his response with "it's personal with me," a sure-fire hit from any Republican, Democrat, or celebrity. However, he did counter with

How did he keep us safe when the World Trade Center -- the World -- excuse me. I lost hundreds of friends. The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush. He kept us safe? That is not safe. That is not safe, Marco. That is not safe.

Pointing out that presiding over the largest terrorist attack in world history does not constitute keeping the nation safe did not sit well with the Republican National Committee's largely hand-picked audience of Bush and Rubio supporters.  However, the party officials and donors who packed the Peace Center did show their appreciation with Marco Rubio when he responded  "The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn't kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him."

Marco Rubio will never be a history professor.  Though President Clinton's effort to kill Osama bin Laden and destroy Al Qaeda's camps were insufficient, they were far more strenuous than those of the guy Rubio is happy kept the White House from Al Gore. On Meet The Press in 2004 Richard Clarke, who had served both Clinton 42 and Bush 43 as counter-terrorism chief, put it into perspective when he explained

We began looking with the CIA and Delta Force at options to snatch bin Laden in 1996, 1997, 1998, and they were unable do so.  And this is one of the things I talk about in the book, the need to strengthen our intelligence and military capability so that we can do things like that.

What else did Clinton do, however?  We had Iraqi-sponsored terrorism against the United States; he used military force, and they stopped.  We had Iranian-sponsored terrorism against the United States; he used covert action against them, and they stopped.  We had al-Qaeda attempts to blow up things in the United States during the millennium period, attempts to blow up embassies around the world, attempts to take over Bosnia during the jihad in Bosnia. And all of those attempts were thwarted.

Now, that doesn't mean that he did everything he should have done, but the president of the United States was active on these issues in the Clinton administration.  The president of the United States was not active on these issues prior to 9/11 in the Bush administration.

In Marco Rubio's imagination, Bill Clinton was responsible for Osama bin Laden being able to blow up the World Trade Center. And then, praise be to God (or as Islamists would put it, "praise be to Allah"), George W. Bush was around to invade Iraq to get back at terrorists, who were sheltered in Afghanistan and most of whom were ethnic Saudis.   Or as Clarke advised officials shortly after the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, "invading Iraq after 9/11 is like invading Mexico after Pearl Harbor."

"It's not Trump, boys," Charlie Pierce observes of "a debate in which Donald J. Trump was on the side of empirical reality, so much the worse for empirical reality." Still, given the announcement only a few hours before the debate of the sudden death of a Supreme Court Justice: Marco Rubio could have remarked "I thank God all the time it was George W. Bush who was selected for the White House instead of Al Gore."









Share |

On Immigration, Rubio Goes Down

Give it to Ted Cruz. However the Saturday night debate in Greenville, South Carolina affected his fortunes or those of Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, John Ellis Bush, John Kasich, or Ben Carson, he made known what he wished about illegal immigration.

"I studied nearly every word the Texas senator uttered during the immigration shutdown," Slate's William Saletan wrote last month." He may be the most spectacular liar ever to run for president," the point Ben Carson, Doanld Trump, and Marco Rubio are trying to make, though it's a trait which should aid him in the GOP primaries.

As Saletan demonstrated, we still don't know what Ted Cruz believes about legalization, Still, if "to the victor go the spoils," in a GOP primary, to the candidate who most often utters "amnesty" goes the victory (video below). Linking  your opponent to Democrats doesn't hurt, either.  "When Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer and establishment Republicans," Cruz maintained, "were leading the fight to pass a massive amnesty plan, "I stood with Jeff Sessions and Steve King and the American people and led the fight to defeat that amnesty plan."

He hit the Republican sweet spot when he asserted

The Rubio-Schumer amnesty plan passed the Senate and it was on the verge of passing the House.

House leadership intended to take it up and pass it with the Democrats overruling most of the Republicans. And the question for anyone on illegal immigration is where were you in that fight? Where did you stand?

It's obvious, though, where Kasich and Bush both stand, and it's for legalization and not citizenship. Kasich explained

I'm for a guest worker program. People can come in, work, and go back home. We haven't closed the border because special interests, I believe, blocked it. Then, we have 11 and a half million people here. If they have not committed a crime since they've been here, make them pay a fine, and some back taxes, and give them a path to legalization, never to citizenship.

Bush added that he favors "controlling the border, dealing with the visa over-stayers, making sure that we have a path to legal status, not to citizenship, for those that come out from the shadows and pay a fine, learn English, don't commit crimes, work and pay taxes."

For Kasich and Bush, if immigrants are model, law-abiding citizens, speaking English, working, and paying their taxes, they get the right not to be deported. Not to be citizens, of course, and expecially not to vote.  They can't be Americans but they have earned the right to be paid sub-standard wages to serve the rich and powerful.  Great guys, those "moderates"!

By contrast, Rubio Marco Rubio advocated being "reasonable, but responsible" about an individual "who can pass a background check, who pays a fine and starts paying taxes and all they want is a work permit. But you can't do any of that until you prove to people that illegal immigration is under control once and for all."

Too many Republicans hear that as "amnesty," though even if it means citizenship (which most Democrats want), it is not amnesty which, as Rubio noted, means "the forgiveness of wrongdoing without consequence."

Facts being optional in a GOP contest, the candidate who most often mentions amnesty (as Cruz did twice) gains the political high ground..  If Ted Cruz doesn't promptly run a commercial using Marco Rubio's words in Saturday's debate to imply the latter favors "amnesty" for "illegals," it will constitute campaign malpractice.

Share |

Disregarding Fair Trade

Co-moderators Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff of PBS did not mention trade during the Democratic debate Thursday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Neither did Mrs. Clinton. Fortunately, American workers were not forgotten by Clinton's opponent, who remarked

And here's what the economic issue is.

The wages that high school graduates receive today are significantly less, whether you are white or black, than they used to be. Why is that? Because of a series of disastrous trade policies which have allowed corporate America through NAFTA and Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, Secretary Clinton and I disagree on those issues.

But (sic) view is those trade policies have enabled corporate America to shut down in this country, throw millions of people out on the street. Now no one thinks that working in the factory is the greatest job in the world. But you know what, you can make a middle class wage, you have decent health care, decent benefits.

Later, Sanders would slam Henry Kissinger, in part because he "pushed various type (sic) of trade agreements, resulting in American workers losing their jobs as corporations moved to China."

In this instance, like husband, like wife, for HRC is married to the guy who as President signed the North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act while claiming "NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying American jobs. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't support this agreement."

That statement would make Bill Clinton either ignorant, naive, or a liar. In December, 2013 the Economic Policy Institute explained the NAFTA "caused the loss of some 700,000 jobs as production moved to Mexico." Further, once it became law, some corporate managers threatened to move their companies to Mexico while others used that threat to fight union organizing efforts.  And besides harming Mexican agriculture and business, NAFTA "was a major cause in the dramatic increase in undocumented workers flowing into the U.S. labor market," leading to lower wages.

Mrs. Clinton wants to ignore the impact of "free trade" upon American workers, to the point of avoiding the issue altogether. Unfortunately, 1400 workers at a Carrier plant in Indianapolis have been swept up in the destructive impact of the trade policies the USA adopted decades ago, as indicated by this video::








Hillary Clinton evidently supports Barack Obama unquestioningly not only for strategic, but also for ideological, reasons. In late 2007 Senator Obama commented (at 1:10 of video below)







There is no dubt that NAFTA needs to be amended and I've actuallly said that I would contact the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of Canada to make sure that the labor and the environmental agreements are actually enforceable.... And it is absolutely ture that NAFTA was a mistake.

As President Obama continues to back the extraordinarily dangerous Trans-Pacific Partnership, it is clear that believing Senator Obama was the mistake. Given the unpopularity of  "free trade," Mrs. Clinton's willlingness to acknowledge such errors as supporting the Iraq War and the 1994 crime act signed by her hustand, and the threat posed to her by the populist Sanders, it is telling that she refuses to recognize the harm that trade policies pursued by Republican and Democratic presidents alike have done to American workers.









Share |

Mrs. Clinton Prefers Wisconsin Cheddar With Her Whine

Given Thursday night's Democratic presidential debate was held in Wisconsin, it is ironic that it was U.S. Senator Carl Schurz from Wisconsin who in 1872 declared "My country, right or wrong.” In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."

Today's Politico headline reads "Democrats Debate: Who Loves Hillary More?'  Both candidates were sending their love when as the event was nearing a close, this exchange took place:

CLINTON: But I want to -- I want to follow up on something having to do with leadership, because, you know, today Senator Sanders said that President Obama failed the presidential leadership test. And this is not the first time that he has criticized President Obama. In the past he has called him weak. He has called him a disappointment.

He wrote a forward for a book that basically argued voters should have buyers' remorse when it comes to President Obama's leadership and legacy.

And I just couldn't agree -- disagree more with those kinds of comments. You know, from my perspective, maybe because I understand what President Obama inherited, not only the worst financial crisis but the antipathy of the Republicans in Congress, I don't think he gets the credit he deserves for being a president...

(APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: ... who got us out of that...

(APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: ... put us on firm ground, and has sent us into the future. And it is a -- the kind of criticism that we've heard from Senator Sanders about our president I expect from Republicans. I do not expect from someone running for the Democratic nomination to succeed President Obama.

SANDERS: That is...

(APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: Madam Secretary, that is a low blow. I have worked with President Obama for the last seven years. When President Obama came into office we were losing 800,000 jobs a month, 800,000 jobs a month. We had a $1.4 trillion deficit. And the world's financial system is on the verge of collapse.

As a result of his efforts and the efforts of Joe Biden against unprecedented, I was there in the Senate, unprecedented Republican obstructionism, we have made enormous progress.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Sanders then made what in the Democratic race is a truly bold statement- though one the wise Senator Schurz would have understood- when he remarked

But you know what? Last I heard we lived in a democratic society. Last I heard, a United States senator had the right to disagree with the president, including a president who has done such an extraordinary job.

So I have voiced criticisms. You're right. Maybe you haven't. I have.

Heresy! Bernie Sanders, right in front of a live audience ( I hate those dead audiences) and viewers from coast-to-coast, shocked Democrats when he maintained a United States senator has the right to disagree with the President   And President Obama has been a disappointment to liberals/progressives, except to those who haven't been paying attention.

It is the kind of criticism that we've heard from Senator Sanders about our president I expect from Republicans,  Mrs. Clinton claimed. Yes, because it's exactly like

This president is undermining the constitutional basis of this government. This president is undermining our military. He is undermining our standing in the world....The damage he has done to America is extraordinary. Let me tell you, if we don't get this election right, there may be no turning back for America.

That did not come from Donald Trump but from one of the "moderates," one of the establishment candidates. While Bernie Sanders remains focused as a laser on issues, the former Secretary of State complains about "personal assessments and charge."  The Vermont Senator has offended Clintonites with his condemnation of the President but has said "I think he (Obama) has done an excellent job" and on Thursday night referring to "such an extraordinary job."If Hillary Clinton believes that sounds like the criticism that would be leveled at her in the fall by a Republican opponent, she is not ready for prime time.














Share |