progressive involvement

"It ain't like Katrina. We're getting help."

Said Darius Utley, 21, whose Alabama home was obliterated in the tornados which swept through that state this week.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is earning praise for its response to this disaster, unlike the criticism it received after Hurricane Katrina.

In Republican administrations, FEMA is a place to park your campaign buddies.  Clinton rehabilitated the agency, but George W. Bush let that lapse and, as we all know, put a horse lawyer in charge of the place.  Under Obama, FEMA appears to be back on its feet. 

President visits tomb of Archbishop Romero

President Obama's recent trip to Latin America was cut short by events in the Mediterranean, and his trip has received relatively little attention in the American press.  

While in El Salvador on March 22-23, he visited the tomb of Archbishop Oscar Romero in San Salvador.  The 31st anniversary of Romero's assassination was March 24.  Romero is a national hero of El Salvador, and his life is celebrated throughout the country.

Obama's visit has been heralded as "the most dramatic gesture" of his five day trip.  Others, however, expressed regret that the President said nothing about the cause of Romero's death.  Romero's assassination was said to have been ordered by Roberto D’Aubuisson, who was trained in the United States at the School of the Americas (SOA) and supported by the Reagan administration.  National Catholic Reporter:

 

The 1993 U.N. Truth Commission Report on El Salvador found that the U.S.-armed and trained Salvadoran military had killed tens of thousands of civilians in a systematic attempt to eliminate its political opponents. Forty-seven of the sixty-six officers cited for major atrocities were SOA graduates, including the killers of four U.S. churchwomen, six Jesuit priests and hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, at the village of El Mozote.

Obama’s visit "could have been a historic moment," Bourgeois said, one similar to former President Clinton’s rare apology for the US role in the training and arming of Guatemalan security forces that slaughtered more than 200,000 civilians.

"Obama didn’t even acknowledge, let alone apologize for, the U.S. role in El Salvador," Bourgeois said.

It's not surprising that Fr. Bourgeois would take such a stance.  He has been working to close the School of the Americas for years.  It's also not surprising that the President didn't mention past crimes.  The President regularly shows no such inclination.  

While in Chile, he had told the Chileans that governments must be accountable for their actions while choosing not to acknowledge the involvement of the United States in Chilean politics in the 1970's.  

As the President put it, he could not "speak to all of the policies of the past" but could "speak certainly to the policies of the present and the future." 

Still, that the President of the United States stands beside the grave of Archbishop Oscar Romero, champion of the poor, is a potent image and a powerful gesture.  It repudiates everything Romero's assassins promoted.  Moreover, there are about 200,000 Salvadoran expatriates in the United States who surely appreciate this gesture of respect toward their national icon.  NCR:

Obama’s visit says something about Romero, increasingly a man for all seasons and for all peoples. Jesus said, "If I am lifted up, I will draw all to myself." In Romero we see what that means.

His courageous defense of the poor, in the name of the gospel and unto death, is drawing everyone to him. The beauty of his life, his preaching and his self-gift, seduces. This is the way forward for all of us, especially, of course, for the Church.

Obama’s visit also says something about the president. Surely, it burnishes his image, but give him credit. Even as he exercises U.S. power, with its militarism and imperial sway, he detours to acknowledge a champion of the poor and a martyr for the truth.

 

 

 

 

 

Slouching toward 2012

President Obama is enjoying a modest uptick in his polls.  Contrary to the impression one might have gained from the national media, he was never unpopular to begin with.  Even when he was approaching the low 40's in his approval rating, he was still the second most popular politician in the country.  

Yet, the beltway pundits kept insisting that the country was up in arms against him.  By comparison, as George W. Bush fell into the 20's--the 20's--David Broder said he was poised for a comeback.  

Part of the "Obama bump" is probably related to his response to the Tucson shootings and the "rally around" effect of a national tragedy.  Another piece, I suspect, is that, as people saw the increasing prominence of the opposition, they decided that Obama didn't look so bad.

Meanwhile, on the GOP side, the top three contenders in 2012 are said to be Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and Mitt Romney, with 21%, 19%, and 17%, respectively, in this recent poll.  Gingrich was far back at 9%.  NJ Gov. Chris Christie scored a surprising--to me, at least--8%.

According to the poll, Huckabee and Palin split the conservative vote, while Romney runs well with college-educated, high income Republicans.  Huckabee and Palin split the baptists, in other words, while Romney wins the country club.  

Personally, I don't think Palin is running.  I give her credit for running a deft media strategy, but that strategy seems more oriented toward the maintenance of celebrity than running for president.  Plus, the establishment of the GOP has been biting back at her the past few months and it appears to be having some effect.  Her numbers are all down.  

You wonder how Romney can win the nomination when the GOP seems pretty much united against Obama's health care reform, and that reform is quite often compared with the one Mitt Romney signed into law when he was governor of Massachusetts.

There's always the possibility that a lesser-tier candidate makes a break-through--Thune, Gingrich, Christie, Santorum, Giuliani, who knows who else--except that none of those seem very likely to do it. 

That leaves Mike Huckabee.  He starts strong, and, as Palin's star dims, as it will one way or another, he's likely to be the beneficiary.  Huckabee has quite a bit of upside potential--more than Romney.  Of the top three, in my humble opinion, Huckabee would have a decided edge.

In the general, he'd carry the south, the plains states, and most of the inter-mountain west.  Obama would carry the northeast and the west coast.  That would leave the midwest and upper midwest as the battlegrounds--same as always, in other words.  

Lots can happen between now and then, of course.  If the economy gets better, the advantage stays with Obama.  If times are unsettled, the outlook dire, then people might entertain the possibility of switching.  Would they switch to Huckabee?   

 

From the wonderful people who gave us the Great Recession

Oh, those government regulations!  They are stifling the dynamism of the country.  If it weren't for government regulations, the Golden Age would already have dawned.  So say the banksters, and now President Obama as well.

The Clinton administration had a similar effort, led by Vice President Al Gore.  The difference is that the Gore Commission based its work in "good government liberalism."  The arguments from the Obama administration, on the other hand, could just as well have been written, as well as printed, by the Wall Street Journal.  Says David Dayen at FDL:

And so, this looks to be more of a PR strategy than anything else, a way to claim to Big Business that their needs are being met on regulations. Of course, the problem is their needs can never be met, since their desired end-state is no regulation for their core business.

In any case, there's not a lot of evidence that onerous government regulations stifle growth or lower employment.  This is one of those truisms by which we order our lives, even though there is less evidence for it than you'd think.  

What we know for sure is that the policies of the people peddling this line, the "anti-regulators," have caused the loss of millions of jobs. 

 

Meet the new boss, worse than the old boss, but smarter politically

The House GOP, to no one's surprise, is doing a lot of the very things they've been griping about for four years.  Dana Milbank in today's Washington Post notes the irony of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and his colleagues campaigning against high deficits, while now planning to vote to increase the deficit by $143 billion as part of a repeal of health-care reform.

Likewise, Canton griped about the Democrats' use of House rules to work around committees and to prevent Republicans from offering amendments. "Now, Cantor confirmed on Tuesday, Republicans will employ the very same abuses as they attempt the repeal."

The GOP complained about the excessive partisanship of the Democrats, but now plans "no fewer than 10 investigations" of the Obama administration.  (That "excessive partisanship" business is rich.  From a Democratic perspective, the administration fell all over itself to be ingratiating.)  

These investigations are likely to have little merit.  So far, what they're talking about doesn't even rise to the level of Whitewater, and that was a trumped up piece of nothing.  What these investigations will do, however, is create a drum-beat of negativity around the administration, which the GOP hopes will redound to their benefit.

It might work.  One of the biggest mistakes made by the Obama administration, in my humble opinion, was foregoing any investigations of the Bush administration.  Not only did they give a free pass on various national scandals involving momentous issues for the country, they gave up the power of holding a political hammer over the opposition's head.  They gave up great political advantage, not to mention letting scandals slide.

Noted without comment

Two out of three Republicans want the President's policies to fail.

Yawn

The four cities to be finalists for the 2012 Democratic convention are Charlotte, Cleveland, Minneapolis, and St. Louis.

This means we're going to try really hard to win North Carolina, Ohio, Minnesota, or Missouri--all carried by President Obama in 2008, but all up for grabs in 2012.

Even though having the convention in a certain state is supposed to give a boost to the party's chances in that state, it only works about half the time.  In the case of Democrats, the nominee has lost the convention host state 23 times and won it 22 times.

Who got what?

The White House is circulating this chart--click to enlarge--the point of which is to say that they didn't really get rolled in the recent "compromise" and that they got quite a bit of what they wanted.

It should be noted, of course, that the $114 billion in tax cuts for plutocrats applies to less than 4 million people, while the $238 billion in other benefits will be shared among the other 300,000,000 of us.

Bargaining with the devil

Significant portions of the Republican Party consider the Democrats to be children of Satan engaged on a campaign to destroy the country.  This is a frequent theme of some of the emails that circulate under the radar, and helps to explain some of the intransigience one sees in the GOP base.  Compromising with the administration and the Democrats on anything is, quite literally for some, bargaining with the devil.

It must give this considerable faction pause that their leadership has just done so.

 

Falling in and out of love

The liberals are in an uproar.  President Obama is not the liberal champion they thought he was.  He is not striding through the land like a political colossus, rallying the country to new heights of progressivism. 

This was never an accurate assessment of Barack Obama.  In 2008, his positions on health care and the social safety net were arguably more conservative than Hillary Clinton's, and his much-vaunted anti-war speech of 2004 was so little-noticed at the time that no Chicago newspaper even made mention of it.  (There's the value of a good publicist for you:  Never has a state senator gotten more political mileage out of a single inconsequential speech.)

When they fall in love, liberals are no different than anyone else.  You overlook the potentially maddening little things you would ordinarily note.  Or, if you do notice them, you attribute them to the delightful quirkiness of your partner's stellar character. 

It should have given liberals pause that their candidate was, in actuality, the "establishment candidate" in 2008.  His largest single source of support was the banking and investment community.  He had the support of the establishment media and establishment money--even establishment bloggers.  He had a 19-8 vote on the Democratic Party's Rules Committee--you don't get any more "establishment" than the Rules Committee.

When liberals fall in love, as they did in 2008, the Age of Aquarius seems right around the corner.  When it proves not to be, what feels like unrequited love can be a painful thing.  Liberals have been seething for awhile, but now the pot is boiling over.  The blogosphere is awash with talk of a primary challenge to President Obama in 2012.  Said Joan Walsh today:

Still, the rush to proclaim Obama the one, true progressive in 2008 was foolish, and I'd suggest that those who wound up disappointed in Obama think more about what they can learn from that race, rather than plotting to bring him down in 2012.

She's getting flamed in the comments, but progressives should take her question seriously.  What could they learn from this experience?  First, don't fall in love with the candidate.  Second, don't believe all of your own propaganda.  Third, pining for a messiah is not a particularly progressive position to begin with.