Palin was the best part of the Tea Party convention, the audience the worst

Sarah Palin gave a rousing speech at the Tea Party convention, raking and mocking President Obama with zingers like "How's that hope-y, change-y stuff workin' out for ya?" The crowd enthused, having paid $350 to hear the speech live, and the left’s commentators tut-tutted over Palin’s writing notes on her hand to help her remember her key points. All in good fun.

But there was a truly ugly side of the convention. Tea Partiers can no longer pass off the birthers as a tiny group of nuts that aren’t representative of true Tea Partiers. Not after the crowd’s wild enthusiasm for Tom Tancredo’s keynote speech. Ex-congressman Tancredo (R-CO) explained that “Barack Hussein Obama” was only elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote." [Wild cheers]

"People who could not even spell the word 'vote' or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House." [More wild cheers]

I’m not sure who he was referring to. Perhaps it was Latinos and African-Americans who couldn’t have voted had there been a literacy test—like in the good old days when blacks were turned away from polls all over the South, no matter how literate they were, because the point of the tests was to turn them away.

I’m pretty sure, however, what the crowd was cheering. It was that Obama voters were others, a different species, not even entitled to be part of the American system. The crowd responded to hate speech with cheers. 

Obama makes nice, MSNBC makes not nice, Boehner follows suit

The President’s session with the House Republicans might have been the first step toward more civil political discourse and toward working together on the problems facing the American people. Might, but not if some have their say.

Many in the media paint all political activity as sport, with winners and losers. For example, Friday night MSNBC’s brain trust—Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow—rushed to crown Obama the winner, the Republicans (of course) the losers. And—just to rub it in—pointed out that the Republicans had been outsmarted into letting America see the President’s triumph.

Then on Saturday, after generally constructive comments by Republicans who attended, the office of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) put out a release headed,  "Rhetoric versus reality: President Obama repeats discredited talking points during dialogue with House GOP."

Once again, people on both sides of the political divide rush to keep anyone from bridging the divide for the benefit of the American people. Shame on MSNBC, and shame on John Boehner.

Clap your hands if you believe.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Maybe the single step was the invitation of Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN), chairman of the Republican Conference , to President Obama to address the Republican retreat in Baltimore today.  The President spoke for twenty minutes, then took questions for an hour.

He ended his introductory remarks this way: ”We've gotten caught up in the political game in a way that's just not healthy.  It's dividing our country in ways that are preventing us from meeting the challenges of the 21st century.  I'm hopeful that the conversation we have today can help reverse that.”

The session was—as diplomats describe difficult negotiations—frank. Even combative. But both sides—the President and the 140 Republican congressmen—appeared to listen. There was real conversation going on. The President wrapped up the session with this:

“And so the question is, at what point can we have a serious conversation about Medicare and its long-term liability, or a serious question about -- a serious conversation about Social Security, or a serious conversation about budget and debt in which we're not simply trying to position ourselves politically.  That's what I'm committed to doing.  We won't agree all the time in getting it done, but I'm committed to doing it.”

The ideal of Niebuhr—the political fight waged with good temper and integrity—seems a little closer today than it was yesterday. Clap your hands if you believe.

A REAL governing party wouldn’t need 60 votes

The Democrats were elected to govern, but they’re not governing.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, civil rights legislation was doomed by Southern Democrats’ filibusters. Strom Thurmond held the Senate floor for over 24 hours straight, filibustering against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which eventually passed. But filibusters and cloture motions—the vote to close debate—were rare: never more than seven motions filed in any two-year session until 1971. But now it’s received wisdom that it takes 60 votes to pass any bill in the Senate.

Pity the poor Democrats. They’ve had 60 Senators in their caucus. If they got all sixty into the Senate chamber—including poor 92-year old Bobby Byrd slouching in his wheelchair—they could get a matter like health care brought to a vote. But with Tuesday’s Massachusetts election they’re down to 59.

And there’s a lot of anger in the country. Tea partiers are angry that Obama is seizing the economy to socialize it. Progressives and independents in Massachusetts—far larger in number—just demonstrated their anger that the Dems, with a huge majority in both houses—256-178 in the House and now 59-41 in the Senate, aren’t getting things done.

The Dems need to make Americans angry at the Republicans, not at them. Back in the bad old days of Senators Bilbo and Thurmond, southerners actually filibustered: they read telephone books, the Bible, the comic pages, etc. Their pro-segregation constituents loved them for it, but most Americans hated what they were doing and turned against them.
By contrast, today's Dems quietly accept that 60 votes are needed in the Senate. The Reps don't have to actually filibuster, reading telephone books on national television.. If they did they’d become laughing stocks:, the public's anger would turn on them for denying democracy, instead of turning against the Dems for incompetence.

Time for the Dems to get serious. Or else, paraphrasing Lincoln’s plea to General McClellan, “If they’re not planning to use the majority, the Republicans would like to take it back.”

Phony hysteria over Senator Reid saying "Negro"

Many Republicans are calling for Democrats to ditch Harry Reid as Senate majority leader. RNC chairman Michael Steele and Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) equate Reid’s recent use of the word “Negro” with former Republican Majority Leader Trent Lott’s saying that America would have been better off had arch-segregationist Strom Thurmond been elected President on his racist ticket in 1948.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Even chutzpah doesn’t begin to cover equating the behavior of Senator Reid, with his solid record of advancing the cause of civil rights, and who encouraged Obama to run for President, with that of ex-Senator Lott, who longed for the good old days of segregation.

I was brought up to say “Negro.” Or colored person. Somewhere in the last 40 years those terms went out of polite usage, to be replaced, usually, by African-American (although the NAACP is still working for the advancement of colored people).

Harry Reid didn’t get the memo. In 2008 he decided early to support Barack Obama’s Presidential run. He was quoted in “Game Change,” the new tell-all book about the campaign, as advocating Obama’s running, and explaining that America was ready to elect “a light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.”

Reid is guilty—for the gazillionth time—of speaking awkwardly, and he apologized to Obama and everyone else he could think of. But to equate his awkward language expressing inter-racial fairness with Lott’s nostalgia for a racist America is deeply unethical.

“Change we can believe in” would be on C-SPAN

Keep my commitments. That’s high on my list of unenforceables. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard. Candidate Obama made this commitment about health care reform:

"I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies -- they'll get a seat at the table, they just won't be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process."

It would have been hard for the President to put the closed-door negotiations in the House and Senate on C-SPAN; after all, that’s the prerogative of those two houses. But the negotiations about a final bill?? They’re being held at the White House. It’s Obama’s house. It would be very easy for him to invite C-SPAN in.

So why hasn’t he done it? Looks like an ethics violation to me. And over the issue that’s gripped the political scene for the past eleven months. This isn’t change we can believe in.

A Reinhold Niebuhr award for Bob Barr (ex-R-GA)

The President’s praiseworthy statement on strengthening intelligence was met by ridicule from the usual suspects: Cheney, Limbaugh, Beck, Bachmann. No news there. But some better news: most Republicans kept quiet, perhaps honoring President Bush’s statement in the early days of the new administration, “He deserves my silence.” And some, including Tom Ridge and John Negroponte, praised Obama.

But the best news comes from conservative ex-congressman Bob Barr (R-GA), who called the Republican sniping at  President Obama for his handling of the aftermath of the Christmas underpants bombing “asinine” and “irresponsible.” His indictment of the right is on the Atlanta Journal Constitution website at http://bit.ly/BarrCriticism

The highest level of political ethics is to call out members of one’s own party. Bob Barr gets this month’s (mythical) Reinhold Niebuhr award for bringing good temper and integrity into the political fight.*

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* Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, ‘The temper of and integrity with which the political fight is waged is more important for the health of our society than the outcome of any issue or campaign.’ 

Self-terror: update from the President

I wrote this morning about self-terrorism:  the exaggeration and amplification of the threat from real terrorists that spreads more terror. Today the President, in his remarks on strengthening intelligence and aviation security, addressed the issue of self-terror with these words:

“Here at home, we will strengthen our defenses, but we will not succumb to a siege mentality that sacrifices the open society and liberties and values that we cherish as Americans, because great and proud nations don’t hunker down and hide behind walls of suspicion and mistrust. That is exactly what our adversaries want, and so long as I am President, we will never hand them that victory. We will define the character of our country, not some band of small men intent on killing innocent men, women, wnd children.”

Dick Cheney: liar, liar, pants on fire

Dick Cheney has repeatedly accused President Obama of making America less safe by “trying to pretend we are not at war," Cheney recently went on: "He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.”

Our favorite fact-checking blog, PolitiFact√com, has just published a review of Obama's statements of the past year that makes it clear he has repeatedly said—starting with his inaugural address right through to his West Point speech last month—that the United States is at war against terrorist organizations.

PolitiFact usually rules statements half true, mostly false, or false. Only the most outrageous falsehoods do they rate “Pants on fire.” And now Cheney’s statements have earned this most ignominious label. Well deserved, Cheney!

Distortions about Senator Whitehouse in the WSJ and Washington Times

                              --and slurs across the political spectrum.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. gave a tough thoughtful speech on the Senate floor Sunday, blasting Republican obstructionism over, not only the health care bill but even against the defense appropriation bill. He asked,

“Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? All to break the momentum of our new young president. They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist.

“That is one powerful reason, it is not the only one. The insurance industry one of the most powerful bodies in politics, is another reason.”

It’s perfectly clear that Whitehouse was blasting the unanimous Republican senators. There is no way, however, to construe his remarks like this headline on the Washington Times website does:

Sen. Whitehouse: Foes of health care bill are birthers, right-wing militias, aryan groups

The headline was picked up verbatim by the Wall Street Journal’s website too, and the sense of it was repeated even on the middle-of-the-road Morning Joe show on MSNBC.

Whitehouse clearly did NOT say—or mean—what the headline said. He said that the Republicans had ardent supporters who…etc. But so few Republicans  distance themselves from the fanatics, and so many embrace their bile, that it’s almost tempting to accuse Whitehouse of understatement.

But the WSJ and the Washington Times got his remarks very wrong. Too bad for all of us if their slander goes uncorrected.

The video of the entire 12-1/2 min Whitehouse speech is at http://drblues.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/senator-whitehouse-calls-out-the-paranoid-republicans/. Worth watching and make up your own mind.

Dick Cheney, hate monger

U.S. Constitution, Article 3, Section 3. “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”


Dick Cheney, on last night’s Hannity show on Fox: “I think it [trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York] will give aid and comfort to the enemy.”

Who is Cheney accusing of treason? President Obama? Attorney General Holder? Mayor Bloomberg? What earthly reason could he have for using such language?

Obama calls Bernanke assistant a “K Street whore”

Well, maybe not exactly, but when you praise someone who did just that you’re endorsing the sentiment.

Congressman Alan Grayson (D-Fl) recently criticized Linda Robertson, a Congressional affairs assistant to Ben Bernanke, saying "Here I am the only member of Congress who actually worked as an economist, and this lobbyist, this K Street whore, is trying to teach me about economics."

A month ago Grayson said on the House floor that the Republican health care plan was “Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.” He was praised for this by Keith Olbermann and Arianna Huffington.

It now appears that Grayson’s behavior is up to the standards of President Obama, who last night acknowledged Grayson at a Florida fundraiser as one of Florida’s “outstanding members of Congress."

Grayson’s behavior has been condemned by several Democratic congressmen, but it appears to be ok with the President. Where’s candidate Obama who promised to change the tone of Washington? We miss him.

The Ethics Challenge of Health Care

The ethics challenge: daring Democrats and Republicans to find a balanced solution to health care reform

• The need for reform
• The kind of reform we need
• The process of reform

The need for reform of one-sixth of our economy

• What kind of people are we? Most of us are doing fine, for now, but
• --40 million of our neighbors have no health insurance
• --millions more fear losing their jobs and therefore their insurance
• Health care will break the federal budget within a decade or so, or—more likely—will lead to severe cutbacks in care and big increases in cost
• Are we satisfied with a system that takes care of us while leaving our neighbor to suffer?

What kind of reform do we need?

An ethical reform means—

• Giving everyone the chance for affordable coverage
• Paying for benefits as we use them; not passing down the bills to our children and grandchildren.

What process do we use to get there?

Start with some truth-telling—

• There are no death panels, Senator Grassley, your grandma is safe.
• There will be rationing, President Obama. It’s true that there already is rationing—just ask anyone whose treatment has been denied by their insurance company—but there will be more, as forty million people are added to a system while costs are being cut from Medicare.
• The insurance companies are already telling the truth about costs going through the roof without a powerful mandate requiring healthy people to buy insurance. (Absent such a mandate young healthy people will stay out of the system until they’re sick and need coverage—which all the reform bills prohibit the insurance companies from denying.)

There are good ideas on both sides of the aisle

• Not matched by much good will on either side of the debate.
• Too many lines drawn—
• --no public option (nearly all Republicans)
• --no bill without a public option (Speaker Pelosi and many Democrats).
• Members of Congress are choosing up sides rather than working together to meet the ethics challenge. Both sides see danger where there is only difference. Neither seems willing to solve the problems without casting blame.

How to get the nation to real reform?

• Televise sessions on C-Span, like the President promised during the campaign
• Democrats commit to an inclusive process that listens to the concerns of the Republicans and the insurance industry
• Republicans commit to participate in good-faith negotiations
• Both sides leave ideology behind
• e.g., the private sector is greedy, immoral, and irresponsible
• e.g., the government can’t run a two-car funeral

The nation needs the best of both parties.

A Reinhold Niebuhr award for Obama

Last week the Reinhold Niebuhr award for bringing good temper and integrity into the political fight* went to John McCain. This week it goes to Barack Obama.

When Obama acknowledged Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal at his New Orleans town hall Thursday, boos rang out.

Obama held up his hand for silence. "No, no, Bob is doing a good job," the president told the crowd. “Hey hey, hold on a sec Hold on.

“Bobby, first of all if it makes you feel any better, I get that all the time," he went on to laughter from the crowd. “More seriously, and the second point is, even though we have our differences politically, one thing I will say is that this person is working hard on behalf of the state, and you gotta give people credit for working hard." The audience, chastened, turned from boos to cheers.

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* Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, ‘The temper of and integrity with which the political fight is waged is more important for the health of our society than the outcome of any issue or campaign.’”

Is it funny? Or racism?

Ann Coulter uses language to shock, as when she said that Jews need "to be perfected" and suggested the nation would be better off if it were all-Christian.

Her blog is headed by a frequent update of "LIBERAL LIES ABOUT NATIONAL HEALTH CARE.” In the latest posting she attributes the Democrats’ loss of Congress in 1994 to Clinton’s sudden transformation from “an old-school, moderate Democrat” to “Che Guevara.”

Then she punctuates her argument with this question: “What is it with all our black presidents and these bait-and-switch tactics?”

It’s meant to be funny because Clinton sometimes was called the first black President. But it’s not funny any more than perfecting Jews was funny. Obama is our President, not our black President.

A blow for civility by Lindsay Graham

Hooray for Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) for denouncing Glenn Beck as a cynic and birthers as "crazy." Extra credit for politicians calling out people on their own side. He also said that Republicans need to support President Barack Obama on foreign policy issues.

Here's part of his interview with The Atlantic:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/01/sen-graham-calls-beck-a-c_n_306434.html

We’re all in this together…or are we?

President Obama is conducting a review of our Afghanistan strategy with the key national leaders—Secretary of Defense Gates, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Clinton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen, Centcom commander General Petraeus, and Afghanistan force commander, General McChrystal. Good idea, to make sure we’ve got the strategy right before we commit up to 40,000 more American troops?

Not according to House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), who accused the President of “delaying, that puts in jeopardy, I believe, our men and women."

Cantor, or his staff, had the smidge of decency to recant—somewhat. His spokesman afterward, acknowledged that the president is "entitled" to review the decision for a few weeks but should not prolong it for months.

A new death squad: the whole Republican party

Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) has managed—against all odds—to lower the quality and integrity of the health care debate even further by announcing in a speech on the House floor that the Republican health care plan was “Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.”

When Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted “You lie” at President Obama, the Republican leaders called on him to apologize to the President, which he promptly did. As yet we haven’t heard any Democratic leaders call on Grayson to do likewise. Keith Olbermann said, “I’m applauding him,” and Arianna Huffington chimed in, “He has the truth on his side.”

Three cheers for the first Dem to chastise Grayson. Maybe when you get back from Copenhagen, President Obama?

Ethical worsts of the week

Jimmy Carter told NBC News, "I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American." When people are saying hateful things (Obama’s Hitler-like, communist, destroying our America) condemn them. But calling them racist is unjustified, forfeits the moral high ground, leads otherwise reasonable people to come to their defense, and stirs up racial animosity.

Lane Kiffin, football coach of the University of Tennessee, wins this week’s bad sportsmanship prize. After the Florida Gators beat his UT Volunteers, the Florida coach said that several of his players had been suffering with the flu. Kiffen told the press, "I guess we'll wait and after we're not excited about a performance, we'll tell you everybody was sick."

Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona says that “Republicans believe all Americans should have access to quality health care and that we must find ways to reduce health care costs.” His first example: root out Medicare and Medicaid fraud. The Senate plan calls for doing just that, to the tune of $500 billion. But when Democrats go after Medicare fraud, Kyl demagogues seniors, saying “This would ultimately lead to shortages, rationing and the elimination of private-plan choices—something our seniors rightly fear.”

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) wants to weasel out of the White House deal with PhRMA, the pharmaceutical lobbyist. The Administration cut the deal, which gave some concessions to the industry in exchange for their agreement to cut drug prices and support health care reform. Now Nelson and other Dems on the Finance committee are saying, we’ll take what you offered but we’ll take back what you were offered in exchange. Backing away from the deal is very popular: Nelson was quickly joined by Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Schumer (D-NY), and Stabenow (D-MI).

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) joined up with two other Republicans and three Democratic senators to work out a health care bill. When the political temperature rose he decided to appease his base by “discovering” that the bill he had been collaborating on provided for death panels. Moreover it contained a mandate for individuals to buy insurance, which he could not support, even though he had long campaigned for just such a mandate.

Who loves racism? The LA Times!

I was saddened this morning to see this headline on the front page of my morning paper, the LA Times:

Obama is fast losing white voters' support

My sadness turned to disgust when I read Nate Silver's blog on fivethirtyeight.com (great site) explaining and demonstrating with the Times' own story that Obama's support among whites had fallen at just the same rate as his support among other voters.

The Times is stirring up the fumes of racism--why? To sell papers? This is yet another example of the media crying wolf when the wolves are far away. Like CNN interviewing an Oklahoma state senator who thinks Obama is trying to communize our schoolchildren. Why is it of national interest what one Oklahoma state senator thinks? Because it stirs the pot of controversy and partisanship. CNN and the LA Times aspire to better. They need to try harder.