The Commentariat -- May 27, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer just went up. It's titled "A Column about Nothing," which is to say it is commentary on Tom Friedman's column. The NYTX front page is here.

"The New Political Correctness." Paul Krugman: "... right-wing political correctness -- unlike the liberal version -- has lots of power and money behind it. And the goal is very much the kind of thing Orwell tried to convey with his notion of Newspeak: to make it impossible to talk, and possibly even think, about ideas that challenge the established order. Thus, even talking about 'the wealthy' brings angry denunciations; we're supposed to call them 'job creators'. Even talking about inequality is 'class warfare'."

"If Obama is a socialist, he's a lousy one":

New York Times Editors: "It is absurd ... for Republicans to attack Mr. Obama for carrying out an unprecedented 'regulatory jihad' when, in fact, the administration has a mediocre record when it comes to curbing dangerous practices by industry.

Prof. Tim Jackson in the New York Times: increasing productivity is not necessarily a great idea. For instance, "there are sectors of the economy where chasing productivity growth doesn't make sense at all. Certain kinds of tasks rely inherently on the allocation of people's time and attention." Jackson specifically cites the healthcare industry. If you recall, David Brooks wrote this week that Mitt Romney would bring efficiency improvements to those sluggish doctors and nurses.

Lincoln Caplan, in a New York Times op-ed, outlines the briefs in support of the Montana Supreme Court's decision to uphold its election laws; the Supreme Court is expected to respond next month.

The Butler Did It. Adele Stan in the Washington Monthly: The Vatican confirmed that it had arrested Paolo Gabriele for leaking documents to journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi. "At issue are confidential letters to and from Pope Benedict XVI regarding the Vatican’s financial dealings.... So, in arresting Gabriele, the Vatican is doing what it does best with those who would challenge its sources and methods: putting the screws to them. You'd think that the pope and his men might be so consumed with straightening out the Holy See's financial mess, and penitentially finding the institution's way back to the straight and narrow that they'd have little time to do much else. But, no, instead the pope has seen fit to focus his institution's resources on a mission designed to bring U.S. nuns into line."

Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times: 'With nothing more than ledgers of stolen identity information -- Social Security numbers and their corresponding names and birth dates -- criminals have electronically filed thousands of false tax returns with made-up incomes and withholding information and have received hundreds of millions of dollars in wrongful refunds, law enforcement officials say. The criminals, some of them former drug dealers, outwit the Internal Revenue Service by filing a return before the legitimate taxpayer files. Then the criminals receive the refund, sometimes by check but more often though a convenient but hard-to-trace prepaid debit card."

Maureen Dowd: Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is on the Secret Service's case; unfortunately, Mark Sullivan -- the Secret Service director -- is not.

Nathaniel Frank in Slate: Colin Powell poses as a leader, but he's "always following others."

The Trial of Casanova. CW: I've avoided linking to reports on this story, but what the hell. Here's one iteration from Libby Copeland of Slate: John Edwards, on trial in a case related to his having an extramarital affair & fathering a child with his lover while running for POTUS, has been observed flirting with one of the alternate jurors.

Presidential Race

Photo via New York magazine.

Jonathan Chait: "The real news in Mitt Romney’s interview with Mark Halperin ... is that Romney openly repudiated the central argument his party has been making against President Obama for the last three years: that he spent too much money and therefore deepened the economic crisis. Indeed Romney himself had been making this very case as recently as a week ago. But in his Halperin interview, Romney frankly admits that reducing the budget deficit in the midst of an economic crisis would be a horrible idea.... We're all Keynesians during Republican administrations."

Charles Pierce: "... didn't Romney, in saying that, pretty much blow up the entire rationale for over 30 years of Republican economics right there? Cutting government spending will throw us into a recession or depression? No Christmas cards from the Ryan household this year, Willard. That this remarkable moment sailed over Halperin's head and lodged in the wall behind him goes without saying."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The National Labor Relations Board announced on Sunday that one of its five members, Terence F. Flynn, had resigned after the board's inspector general found that Mr. Flynn, a Republican, leaked documents to G.O.P. allies."

New York Times: "The United Nations Security Council on Sunday unanimously condemned the Syrian government for its role in the massacre of at least 108 villagers, with new details emerging from international observers that appeared to prompt rare Russian cooperation in criticizing its ally in Damascus."

Comments

[Jack Mahoney]

Another entry on the Krugman blog is a link to his recent lunch with Martin Wolf, as described by Wolf in the Financial Times. Krugman is too modest: In 2002 and 2003, there were few candles illuminating the darkness that was Bush America. Paul Krugman and Frank Rich persevered, although Rich has since moved to a less strenuous gig. However, as a society we forget who was right and remember who was loud, and so whatever Krugman et al. did to keep our collective heads above water may soon be forgotten.

I strongly recommend PK's new book, "End This Depression Now!" According to PK, the current Depression, both here and in Europe, is due to the austerity hawks' fear of inflation. In normal times, that fear would be reasonable, but these are not normal times: Our economy has sunk into a liquidity trap, in which former big spenders have gotten religion and morphed into big savers, with the result that the private sector isn't doing nearly enough to revive the economy. Producers won't produce more and expand operations until the demand is revived. In such an environment, only the government, by spending on roads, bridges, teachers, and, yes, war, can provide the level of demand necessary to jump-start the economy. No matter how low the "supply side's" taxes, there is no impetus for the "job creators" to create jobs if at the other end of the pipeline there is no greater demand for their products. The supply siders are, as usual, pushing a string.

If I could suggest one slogan for the Dems in 2012, it would be, "It's the demand, stupid!"

The austerity hawks serve one crowd, those who have lent at fixed rates and so want real interest rates to remain as low as possible. The last I checked, the rentiers are a true minority in this country, although they have the resources to endlessly repeat (and have bought-and-paid-for social scientists in "think tanks" like Heritage and Cato repeat) what would be considered by a well-informed society as weak messages and empty threats. They have the bullhorns, but Krugman, speaking softly but clearly, is being heard and, it seems for the first time, heeded. As Bill Maher said, Obama is a lousy socialist. However, perhaps in the second Obama administration there will be more room for Krugman, DeLong, and Stiglitz and less for Geithner and the Wall Street Mafia.

[PD Pepe]

In the Krugman piece he offers a link to Eric Rauchway's article about attacks on the history curriculum by CAS––I recommend it highly.

Bill Maher at his snarky best with lots of emphasis on rumps with orifices.

Yesterday I watched the entire debate between Walker and Barrett. I was struck by Walker's mouth movements––very much like Cheney's. He's a small man with boyish charm that can easily fool the cheese wonks, but at the back of his head there is a rather large bald spot––an empty space that's hard to see unless he's bending down.I'm a sucker for metaphors. Walker apparently doesn't understand the Lilly Ledbetter Act (he repealed it once in office,said it wasn't necessary since Wisconsin has that "other law about discrimination of workers." It was a debate like many debates––little time for rebuttals although I thought Barrett give it a good shot. What happens in Wisconsin in the recall some weeks from now is crucial. It will test whether big money from big people will win the day; will it be democracy in action or plutocracy. I'm holding my breath.

[Marvin Schwalb]

@Jack Mahoney you are being way too logical. The fact that the austerity game was played full time in Europe and not only failed but made things worse has had no impact on European politicians in charge and certainly no one in the US has bothered to notice. That would require these totally wonderful, perfect people to admit that they were wrong. Not a chance. Has Obama pointed out that the euro zone experiment failed?
Krugman had it right from the beginning because is he is not a politician.

[Ken Winkes]

Watched as much as I could stand of the first Barrett/Walker "debate,"whose format unfortunately allowed no direct cross examination of the, with a nod to PD Pepe above, bald-faced lies that oozed from Walker's lips. What struck me about the man was the bland ease with which he uttered them. He's a smooth twerp, I must say, lacking any sign of struggle with the rough edges of reality, very like the Romneybot who supports him. I just can't like or trust politicians who convey no sense that they have grappled with ambiguity and contradiction and whose answers to complicated problems are thus simple-minded feel-good fantasies, self-serving Procrustean ideologies trimmed to fit or outright lies.

On the economic front: I believe Obama has criticized the European push for austerity and has contrasted his proposed (but thanks to the R's, seldom enacted) legislative measures to it, but I would guess his public reaction to the policies of our allies are constrained by considerations of diplomacy. That aside, it's remarkable (that is, worth saying but not surprising) how one hundred plus years later we're reprising the Gilded Age and the birth of Populism. Krugman's frequent references to the rentier class echo Bryan's Cross of Gold speech while our conservative SCOTUS slaps down virtually every attempt to control, regulate or put a human face on egregious corporate conduct.

Interesting times. Have a great weekend, all.

[Akhilleus]

The truly outrageous thing about Romney's Keynesian slip is that no one in the MSM noticed. Shit, Halperin didn't notice, or if he did, he kept it very quiet. But Romney inadvertently offered the country the best reason to never vote Republican.

Republican ideology hews to the Grover Norquist goal of a government small enough to drown in a bathtub. This means two things. First, a government too small to save itself, and one that can easily be subdued and, when necessary, easily killed. AND one that will never be effective enough to rescue the country from the excesses and greed of Norquist's right-wing cronies.

Let's look at how that would play out in light of the recent economic maelstrom created by other Republican policies enacted and pursued with vigor and relentlessness by the previous Republican administration and their allies in Congress.

The Norquist version of government is like a fire department which has been stripped of its ability to perform fire safety checks on public buildings, schools, businesses, private homes, and apartment buildings; effectively denying the department the ability to force a reversal of unsound decisions insisted upon by "building creators" who seek to save money by using shoddy or unsafe materials or lowering costs by ignoring best practices. (Protection of human life being SUCH a bad idea if there's a buck to be made by letting people die.)

THEN, according to the Norquist/Ryan/Republican plan, the department is so reduced in size that it would be hard pressed to put out a Memorial Day barbecue grease fire in someone's backyard. Hard pressed, indeed. Their access to firetrucks, ladders, personnel, and, most importantly, water, having been severely curtailed.

So what, then, happens when Mr. Ryan's cow kicks over the lighted lamp in the Norquist barn down there on Wall Street? First, the lack of safety regulations and non-existent fire codes means every building within hundreds of miles, depending on the wind, is subject to imminent and inescapable immolation. Couple that with the fact that the fire department has, by law, been restricted to a moped, a couple of squirt guns and enough water to barely fill a drinking glass, and you have the makings of a disaster from which there is no escape and no possibility of recovery.

But THIS is the Republican way. Short term gain for the wealthy, freed from taxes, regulations, and oversight from a government too small to see over the desk. Long term disaster for exactly the same reasons. But who cares? By then, those rich right-wingers will all have shoveled their billions into Cayman Island accounts like Willard the Rat.

One of the best reasons for never voting for another Republican.

Ever.

[Akhilleus]

Oh, and one more thing. Enjoy your weekend and don't listen to the usual right-wing/Fox propaganda whining that no one but them understands the reason for Memorial Day. Pay no attention to the "Liberals think Memorial Day is Barbecue Day" bullshit. Don't forget that Roger Ailes never served in the military. Bill O'Reilly, screamer de-luxe about patriotism, never served, and the year he graduated high school, 1967, 10,000 Americans died in Vietnam. But not Bill. He, like Cheney and Bush had "other priorities." So ignore this bluster which has become nearly as ubiquitous and stupid as that other faux object of outrage, the annual War on Christmas.

Here's hoping that all the service men and women still out there fighting the wars begun by Republicans who were, at heart, cowards, return safe and sound.

[Ken Winkes]

@Akhilleus: The vicious fillip to the Norquist plan is to starve government in the name of freedom and economy, but really weakening it to ineffectiveness, then blaming government for not doing its job, which in turn opens the door to the kind of private colonization of the commons in health care, education, and other essential services we can see occurring on every side. The Right finds "five-year" plans abhorrent, but has no problem with their own thirty-forty year plan whose tenets are regularly devised, promulgated and publicized by the likes of Cato, the Chamber of Commerce and the American Enterprise Institute. These are bad people doing bad things, who operated mostly under the radar until Bush II. Now that some public light is shining on their deviousness, more folk are beginning to recognize--today's dollop of optimism, which waxes and wanes--that a government of, by and for ALEC is not at all good for the rest of us.

[Akhilleus]

Ken,

Full agreement on the mendacity of the Cato-tonics and AFI-onians. My question is this: can they really all be so vicious and heartless as to believe that it's much better to have next to no government, and to lift up the wealthy and the connected at the expense of everyone else?

I understand that their ideology idolizes those who "go it alone" without help from anyone but we all know that that is a canard, as conspicuous as a Grover Norquist at an NAACP rally.

No one "goes it alone." But do they truly believe that we would be better off as a nation with essentially no government and unbridled, unregulated capitalism unleashed on the public?

Clearly they can't believe that this is a good idea, unless they're just lying through their teeth.

But if they do, then their ideology serves only those that have and throws everyone else under the bus. But they cannot have thought this out any further than the ends of their noses because there are enormous reams of data, some quite recent, that demonstrate the foolishness of this route and practically no examples in which unregulated capitalism has benefited a single person beyond a closed circle of cronies.

Which then means that your identification of these people as bad actors doing bad things is not only appropriate but all too exact.

So they're either liars or evil scumbags.

Or both.

[Kate Madison]

@Ken Winkes
..."I just can't like or trust politicians who convey no sense that they have grappled with ambiguity and contradiction and whose answers to complicated problems are thus simple-minded feel-good fantasies, self-serving Procrustean ideologies trimmed to fit or outright lies."

I suggest you read the following article from Psycholgy Today (originally printed in 2006, but resurrected for discussing today's Repubs and their Procrustean idologies!):
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200512/field-guide-narcissism

Especially this paragraph:
..."The beauty of being a narcissist is that even when disaster stares you in the face, you feel neither doubt nor remorse. In a study, researchers asked a pair of participants to undertake a task that was rigged to fail. Most people tend to protect their partner, sharing either the credit or the blame. "But the narcissists would say, 'It's totally the other person's fault."

Sigh.

[Marvin Schwalb]

As someone who has dealt with several serious narcissists, I mean the real thing, not just your classic pompous asshole, I still find such behavior unbelievable. But it is clearly more common than you think. Narcissists not only have no empathy, never accept responsibility for their failings, have no problem claiming credit for others accomplishments, but worst of all believe that they are so special that the rules that apply to ordinary folk don't apply to them. And to deal with that issue, they never bother to actually check the rules. For those who have never dealt with such a person in your life, I know it is hard to believe but they are for real and frequently become politicians.
P.S. My favorite encounter occurred when a NPDer called me to a two person meeting. Him and me and he informed me of my failures. Forget that he had it all wrong, I ran a test. I responded by being seriously sarcastic. He did not have a clue. After all he was the only entity in the room.

[Ken Winkes]

Sprightly give and take today. Must be too many of us with too few gardens to plant or lawns to mow. Re all this psychology that's floating around: I have known Conservatives of two main types. One has an overweening sense of self-importance, which might qualify him as the narcissist who's taking most of today's hits. The other, equally if not more dangerous, is the insecure dweeb who finds comfort associating himself with or imagining himself as some kind of heroic type, in or out of uniform, whether it be Ayn Randian, military or prophetic, whatever role makes him smarter or stronger than he really is. Currently, the Right proffers a healthy crop of all three. I'll let you all assign your favorites to the category that best fits each, but in addition to its army of brave, mostly anonymous, bloggers, Bush II, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, and even pathetic little James O'Keefe slip so neatly into one or more of the designated slots that dropping them into place is no challenge at all.

I have other thoughts about why the Right behaves the way it does, but will leave them for another time. What I would like to know is why so many tolerate, even lap us, the Right's meanness. Doesn't say much about the rest of us, does it?

[Rose in Michigan]

@Kate Madison - Thanks for the link. Interesting article for an overview, but the reality is far more layered -- and miserable. Like Marvin Schwalb, I have intimate neck-in-the-noose experience with a first-class narcissist: The Great Evil Ur-Bitch From Hell, a.k.a. my mother. Upon hearing of her death, I cried tears of sheer joy and relief. I'll spare you the details.

Now my home state is living through a similar hell with our sociopathic governor, Rick Snyder, and his fascist minions in too many of our former cities. In an attempt to exercise what little is left of democracy in our fair state, We The People -- in HUGE numbers -- signed petitions to put the financial manager law on the November ballot for a repeal. I know you all are aware of how well that went. And why.

We are now in the end game nationally. The Radical Religious Right has achieved their 40-year plan, and all we can do is watch helplessly while they take this country not "back" but to a place it has never been, to the world of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale."

I wish I could vote for Jill Stein, but Michigan is a swing state, so my vote might even count, which means I'll be voting for Obama. As Kate says (at least I think it's Kate, and she says it more politely): "It's The Supreme Court, Stupid." For now, we need to concentrate on delaying actions, while we try to herd all the progressive cats into a new people's party -- Eco-Socialists, anyone? Yeah, that'll be the day.

Meanwhile, I'm going to do what the IAVA has requested and observe a moment of silence tomorrow at 12:01 pm. But my moment of silence will be in honor of not just the American dead but all those in the NATO forces who have lost their lives, and military personnel who have survived but are broken in body or spirit, or who succumbed to PTSD and killed themselves, and the bereaved families of all those servicemen/women, and also the millions of innocent men, women and children -- some of them infants -- who have paid the ultimate price in these senseless wars, all for nothing. Each and every one deserves our remembrance, respect and remorse.
http://iava.org/splash/index.php

[Kate Madison]

@Rose in Michigan-

One more word about impossible narcissists and the damage they do to us all! That would describe Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin, who, as you all know, is up for recall on June 5. He has screwed the teachers and public employees--in fact, the entire middle class--in Wisconsin--my home state. (U. of W. is my alma mater, as it is Marie's.) This is so cynical and psychopathic it really does make me beyond furious to dwell on it. And it is bottom line a cast of big time narcissists buying this election--and bought it will be--starting with the Koch Brothers (ick), who have an office across the street from the Capitol on the square in Madison. Tom Barrett, the Democrat, who is mayor of Milwaukee, is hardly a progressive. But he is being outspent 25-1, perhaps more by now, since the $$$ are pouring in from the billionaires for Scotty SlyWalker.

The DNC will give no money, just verbal support. Debbie Wasserman Schultz says it is a "local" issue and they very much want Barrett to win, but after making a brief appearance in Madison last week, she said there would be no more Democratic biggies (i.e., Obama or Biden) coming to speak out for Barrett. And no $$$. This just fries me, because as Rose in Michigan knows, this is NOT just a local phenomenon! Wisconsin today, Michigan tomorrow, then Ohio, Pennsylvania and Iowa and more. This is like a spreading plague, and we all suffer as the Citizens' United donors continue to purchase elections--the biggest being the 2012 Presidential fiasco.

I do believe Romney has an excellent chance of becoming POTUS, since the $$$ will keep flowing until our dumbed down voters believe Obama truly is not American and eats dog meat daily. And our corrupt media will never discuss on the Tee Vee or in the papers, how important this election is for the future of the Supremes. You know--all in the interests of "fair and balanced." Forget "false equivalencies!"

I am so mad I think I will send 5 more dollars to Tom Barrett, stab my voodoo doll to "kill" Scotty SlyWalker, and narc out with "Fifty Shades of Grey."

Sigh