Morning Must Reads

This isn’t from this morning, but the New Yorker has an excellent short read on political journalists confusing perception with reality: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2010/02/david-broder-had-a-devastatingly.html

What is Hillary talking about? Why has she decided to channel Cheney and release her inner war-monger?
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(Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) said the goal is to have not only a non-nuclear Iran but also an entire Middle East free of nuclear weapons.
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Except that Israel has nuclear weapons already.
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Iranian actions that she said violated its obligation not to pursue nuclear weapons, including construction of the Qom enrichment facility
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Except that they told us about it prior to our accusations of secrecy and invited inspectors (link). *They want a back-up, bombproof facility in case the Israelis blow up their main facility in Nanantz.
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Clinton also called Iran “the largest supporter of terrorism in the world today.”
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Except that they’re not. They provided logistical support and intelligence to the Bush admin during the initial invasion of Afghanistan. They haven’t supplied weapons to Iraqi insurgents (link).
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Clinton had not responded fully to a student who had asked why Israel should not be forced to give up its nuclear weapons, given U.S. opposition to a nuclear Iran.
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Surprise!

“Tea Party angst over big government run amok”
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And yet, if you read the article, it seems that virtually all of the examples of “big government run amok” are bizarre, paranoid fantasies that have no basis in reality.
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They think “the Army is seeking ‘Internment/Resettlement’ specialists” and claim “Obama is trying to convert Interpol, the international police organization, into his personal police force.” They all love Glenn Beck, who insisted that FEMA was setting up concentration camps and that the Obama administration is coming to get their guns.
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Big government hasn’t run amok. Their fevered imaginations have.

Thumbs up!

This is a brilliant, genuinely must-read piece, thanks for linking.

Too much peyote, perhaps?

BTW I responded to your Pocket Hercules ref from the last post – thanks for recognizing!

How about we caught the Taliban’s #2? Will he lead us to #1 (Omar) or OBL?

Yes, voter anger at Washington is unprecedented and the political climate is poisoned. But are Dems doping any favors for themselves by saying this as they run away from the problem? No…

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Democrats are well aware that many Americans don’t think the Recovery Act worked, and they also know their stewardship of the economy will be a central issue in November.

This is getting hilariously into familiar struggle-to-define-words territory. Did the stimulus “work?” Did the surge “work?” Well, that all depends on who gets to define what “work” means –after the fact, of course.
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Hey, did we say that the stimulus would keep unemployment under 8%? Well, we meant to say that the stimulus would keep the economy from becoming the worst its ever been in American history.
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Hey, did we say that the surge would pacify Iraq allowing for political settlement between the ethnicities to be finalized? Well, we meant to say that the surge would keep the country from descending further into Rwandan-style genocide.
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See? It all “worked.”
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Thanks, press corps, for making all empirically observable objectives and measurements void next to the ability to persuade you that rhetoric directing Americans’ attentions to convenient metrics and goals appropriate to party politics “worked.”
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Heck of a job.
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Did the Recover Act work?

Outstanding. Thanks!

You left the “e” off the end of “press corpse,” stuart.
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Most of them seem to have been dead and gone for a while now.

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/from-a-to-z/

Thanks for posting that.

Well, at least you have the honesty to admit you’re a pure, unadulterated blogwhore. No comment, even superfluous – just the link.

Begone.

michaelfury:
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You’re not driving people here to your blog with this obvious whoring, do you understand that?
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You’re cementing this community’s disdain for whatever lies at the end of that un-clicked link. If you don’t care about what the majority of us think about your blog-whoring, because you might get a couple more clicks to your site translating into Google Ads pennies, that only confirms that these comments are pure spam.
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Get the f*ck out of here, spammer.

Thanks, Senator Bayh. You’ve helped me see the light. We need to give up on any effort to improve government and instead think only of Número Uno!

I’m going to swear off any interest in politics and public affairs. As a fringe benefit I’ll finally have time to make that pilgrimage to the Quitters’ Hall of Fame to see the newly-added Palin and Bayh wings.

Stuart:
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In legalese, you have become indebted to me to the extent of a single serving of an internationally-known carbonated, cola-flavored beverage.

the White House is launching a coast-to-coast defense of the stimulus on its first anniversary
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They should just outsource this to all those House Republicans who have been taking credit for the stimulus measures in their district, even though they voted against them.
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http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/09/stimulus-foes-see-value-in-seeking-cash/
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703562404575067372476731404.html

…a politician who knows who she is and how to sell herself.
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A statement that probably could be made about any streetwalker/hooker in the world.
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But I don’t think “the Dean” meant it in that way…

As sloppy as the Press is, I have to wonder about the Dem Party which seem unable to take advantage of it.

nflfoghorn,
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Refresh my memory…
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How many Taliban/al-Qeida no. 2s (and no. 3s) have we now caught/killed? About the same as the number of VP’s at your typical bank/loan company?
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Does the Taliban call someone a no. 2 instead of more pay, benefits and larger stock options?

Quitting is the new winning.

Glad you linked to that NYT Tea Party article. I find the rhetoric disturbing. It’s easy to say it’s a small bunch of people who have been hypnotized by people like Armey and Beck, but the irrationality of something like this leads the people who are on the edge to commit bad acts. Oklahoma City, for example.

Maybe the Baby Boomers are just tired.

Not sure if it works like, say, Wells Fargo, but everybody’s calling him #2 ’cause he knows Mullah Omar and had relations some time ago with OBL. I don’t think he’ll be giving anybody a loan anytime soon though. It’s been BO’s MO lately to take no prisoners–hopefully that’s changed.

“Does the Taliban call someone a no. 2 instead of more pay, benefits and larger stock options?”
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Reminds me of The Office (assistant “to the” regional manager”)

‘mornin’, apollyon07. You got my point.
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Maybe it’s US that’s doing the promoting. For example, how many “Senior Executive Coordinator to the Associate VP of Community Affairs” have all of us heard of?
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Sounds impressive – is that the person in charge of the coffee and donuts for the board meetings?

“Did the Recover Act work?”
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I don’t know and neither do you. Do you have a f*cking clue what the world would look like without it? Why don’t you give the Dem bashing a little rest, it’s just sounding silly and a overwrought at this point.

Do you have a f*cking clue what the world would look like without it?
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Yes, I know what the Administration’s line is, thanks.
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It’s not “bashing” to hold your own politicians to the same standards as you would the other party.

Do you think we will hear concern that the Dems are pushing the out of their party? Or will the only story be he didn’t support Demos on key issues? Maybe we will now see some acknowledgment that Obama and the Demos agenda is extreme and not “centrist” that folks are still trying to sel..

“It’s not “bashing” to hold your own politicians to the same standards as you would the other party.”
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So, not only can’t you answer for your Obama-bashing on the stimulus, you still don’t understand the dynamic at work here. The Republicans have no governing “standards” to which they can be held, comparable to Democrats – unless you count winning power at any and all costs to be a “standard”. They. Don’t. Do. Government. They campaign against it. Buy a clue already.

Maybe you should head on over to Greenwald’s next, so you can cry at him to stop “bashing” the poor, poor Administration, shepherwong, since you’re making the apology rounds today.

Greenwald’s (and most liberal criticism) of Obama and congressional Dems is just fine with me. Their criticism of the stimulus as insufficient also seems valid. You, OTOH, are drifting rapidly into Hamsher territory. You sound more like a jilted lover.

I see.
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So whatever criticisms you’re “just fine with” are valid, but whatever you’re uncomfortable with “sounds like a jilted lover,” i.e. you’re willing to attack the motive and personality of the critic.
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Glad we cleared up that stellar set of standards.
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I could care less if I “sound like Hamsher” to you or anyone else, as I’m sure Greenwald (or those primarily concerned with the integrity of their criticisms) feels similarly.
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You seem to be freaking out now that you’ve been sufficiently terrified that the Republicans might gain power, and so you’re resorting to the same, tired “he must secretly hate Obama/be in love with himself/be a purity troll/be a closet PUMA” set of personal attacks to which terrified (or dishonest) Democrats resort when they’re upset at the thought of the crazee right.
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That, or you’re just having a “f*ck the Obama-bashers” day, I have no idea. Whatever your beef, that’s what it looks like to somebody who isn’t as apparently viscerally freaked out by movement conservatives a you are, and is primarily concerned with getting the Democratic party to govern effectively.

“Whatever your beef, that’s what it looks like to somebody who isn’t as apparently viscerally freaked out by movement conservatives a you are, and is primarily concerned with getting the Democratic party to govern effectively.”
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My “beef”, at the moment, is over a substanceless cheap shot at what is essentially progressive – if too limited – economic policy, that gives ammunition to liars and political propagandists while making everyone a little dumber about government stimulus programs. And if you think you can get “the Democratic party to govern effectively”, while feeding right-wing demagoguery and dogma on economic policy, you’re still not getting it.

what is essentially progressive – if too limited – economic policy
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It’s not progressive policy if it’s “limited” (and larded with pointless, tiny-per-capita, symbolic middle-class tax cuts), that’s the point.
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The greater lie is that this is progressive policy than that a centrist stimulus didn’t “work.”
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gives ammunition to liars and political propagandists while making everyone a little dumber about government stimulus programs
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I think it’s insane to try to label sh*tty policy that liberals bemoaned as inadequate at the time of passage “progressive”, don’t you?
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It’s not that criticism makes us dumber about stimulative spending, it’s that sh*tty, inadequate policy gives everyone –even those who could be persuaded by results– the wrong impression of good economic policy.
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It seems to me that this: “gives ammunition to liars and political propagandists” is what you’re really on about.
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you’re essentially saying that we need to watch what we say, otherwise Keynesian economics might be given a bad name.
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Isn’t that closing the barn door a little f*cking late? These geniuses in the leadership and Administration have already given all of our policies a bad name, shepherdwong!
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They’ve managed to ruin “universal healthcare”!
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We don’t need to police our criticisms in order to protect them from conservative rhetoric. We should be producing our own populist wrath! We’re all pretty darn angry about this sorry state of affairs, aren’t we?
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…Shouldn’t we be?

“The greater lie is that this is progressive policy than that a centrist stimulus didn’t “work.”
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Name a liberal economist who says that government-funded stimulus in almost any form isn’t “progressive policy” and then name one who says that The Recovery Act didn’t “work”. You’re hatred of Obama and the “Centrist” Dems has ceased being rational. Actually you outted yourself with the “did we say that the stimulus would keep unemployment under 8%?”, crap. Right out of Sean Hannity’s playbook; you are now indistinguishable from the rightist propagandists.
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And yes, I’m telling you that rhetoric matters. It leads directly to what policies are politically possible.

you are now indistinguishable from the rightist propagandists
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Don’t you sound a little hysterical yourself, shepherdwong?

Perhaps. But my worry is the right-wing induced, deep and abiding ignorance and false beliefs of vast swaths of the electorate that leads to Blue Dogs and every other stripe of “conservative” being elected and yours seems to be that the Democrats haven’t enacted the full panoply of progressive policy ideals in a year’s time. You tell me who’s hysteria is more justified.

shepherdwong:
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At the end of this argument, you and I will still be on the same side. We will still be members of the reality-based community. Our understanding of Keynesian-inspired economic theory will probably be similar. We still will have opposed the invasion of Iraq and its subsequent occupation, and we will have called for a return to the sobriety of the New Deal financial regulatory framework.
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Neither of us will most likely begin to lobby for the exclusion of the teaching of evolution from the classrooms of Kansas.
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But, if you want to claim that you’re all about “calling bullsh*t,” then you’ve probably got to curtail whatever tendency you’ve just displayed to name liberals who disagree with you on politics or policy as closeted rightists in league with Hannity, OK?
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The Administration made unfortunate, hubristic predictions about unemployment while at the same time enacting extraordinarily inadequate spending and tax cuts that were predicted to lengthen the downturn, rather than shorten it, and prolong unemployment, rather than effectively curtail it.
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Here’s financial analyst Marshall Auerback on the effectiveness of Stimulus I: ( link to Yves Smith’s Naked Capitalism )

Obama’s attempts at using the public sector to facilitate private sector debt deleveraging to date have been pitiful. There has been very little focused on creating jobs and a lot spent on the top-end-of-town. If I was to give his stimulus package a score out of 10 for effectiveness it would be around 3/10. Doesn’t that tell you something about the quality of his advisors and the sort of connections they have and the theories they are using to design policy initiatives?
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Why design inefficient fiscal interventions that have benefitted Wall Street enormously despite the fact they create very little real output or employment and then turn around with this lame story that the Chinese are to blame because our citizens voluntarily buy the junk they make?
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Consider Obama’s claim that “if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the US economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession”.
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Where did he get that idea from? Did the moronic Larry Summers read it out to you from Greg Mankiw or something? People have already lost confidence in the US economy – that is why they are not spending. That is why your deficit has risen sharply mostly via the automatic stabilisers as your revenue side collapsed.

If the health care legislation that gets signed into law by the President extends Medicare to persons aged 55 to 56 who were born in the month of February or whose names start with the letters “S” and end with either “W” or “Z,” you could also make the argument that you’re making, i.e. that there’s virtually noone who says that the extension of Medicare in almost any form isn’t “progressive policy,” but it would be similarly ridiculous.
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The definition of “progressive policy” isn’t policy that sounds like it might be progressive if it were enacted in proper scale to be effective, it’s effective progressive policy!
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When you write:

yours seems to be that the Democrats haven’t enacted the full panoply of progressive policy ideals in a year’s time

, you’re badly misstating my concern, as if I were your political enemy to be rhetorically defeated. I’m not, and that’s not what I am saying at all.
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My worry is that the (sometimes) right-wing induced, deep and abiding ignorance and false beliefs of vast swaths of the electorate that (partially) leads to Blue Dogs and every other stripe of “conservative” being elected will be made much, much worse by the sh*tty results of inadequate centrist policy that’s been mislabeled “progressive” by freaked out people who feel forced to defend this Administration from the coming rightist hordes.
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Dude, we have enough problems with FDR’s brief relapse into deficit-peacockery being exploited by the right to “prove that the New Deal actually prolonged the depression,” don’t we?
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Surely I, a self-described new liberal, can call the unemployment predictions and subsequent goal post-moving of a New Democrat Administration what they are without having hyperbolic accusations of rightism or witchcraft of whatever howitzered at me, OK, shepherdwong?

“…you’ve probably got to curtail whatever tendency you’ve just displayed to name liberals who disagree with you on politics or policy as closeted rightists in league with Hannity, OK?”
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Sorry, Stuart but I think we’re also pretty sympatico when it comes to calling out bullsh*t, the way we see it. For the purposes of the pullquote:

“…Democrats are well aware that many Americans don’t think the Recovery Act worked…

the Recovery Act actually did “work” relative to what “Americans think”. You offered zero evidence that it didn’t work (you still haven’t, just that it didn’t work as well as some mythical stimulus that didn’t and possibly couldn’t pass) and then you pulled out a straight Hannity talkng point that Obama had promised unemployment wouldn’t go past 8%, which, in addition to being irrelevant to whether the stimulus actually kept unemployment from going higher than it did, is just a political cheap shot.
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Anyway, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on at least one thing: I believe that the “conservative” movement and “conservative” dogma create false beliefs and bad electoral outcomes and you believe that it’s “the sh*tty results of inadequate centrist policy that’s been mislabeled ‘progressive’” that cause all of our problems. That’s not being a “rightist” it’s just not seeing the forest for a few “Third-way” trees.

shepherdwong:

I believe that the “conservative” movement and “conservative” dogma create false beliefs and bad electoral outcomes and you believe that it’s “the sh*tty results of inadequate centrist policy that’s been mislabeled ‘progressive’” that cause all of our problems.

We can agree to disagree with you restating my arguments as they are, and not as you’d like to refute, right?
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As much as you’d like to argue against it, nobody ever said that centrists were the cause of all of our problems.
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Here it is very, very simply:
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Sh*tty, centrist policy that’s mislabeled “progressive” or “liberal” helps the conservative movement gain traction, and aids them in propagating false beliefs and bad electoral outcomes, and vastly undermines the credibility of liberals and liberal Democrats.
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And you can call me Hannity until the end of time if that’s “the way you see it,” but then you’re as bad as the rightist idiots who call Obama (and you) a Marxist, aren’t you?

Sh*tty, centrist policy that’s mislabeled “progressive” or “liberal” helps the conservative movement gain traction, and aids them in propagating false beliefs and bad electoral outcomes, and vastly undermines the credibility of liberals and liberal Democrats.

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Yes. And so do factually-false, usually right-wing assertions that the government stimulus “didn’t work”. That is all.

OK, shepherdwong, you really want to play this game?
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Here’s the link to PDF PDF report called “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan” from Christina Romer, chairwoman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, the vice president’s top economic adviser.

Table 1
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Aggregate Effect of the Recovery Package on GDP and Jobs in 2010Q4
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Real GDP (billions of chained 2000 $)
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Without Stimulus $11,770
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With Stimulus $12,203
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Payroll Employment:
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Without Stimulus 133,876,000
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With Stimulus 137,550,000
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Effect of Package:
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Increase GDP by 3.7%
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Increase jobs by 3,675,000
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As Figure 1 shows, even with the large prototypical package, the unemployment rate in 2010Q4 is predicted to be approximately 7.0%, which is well below the approximately 8.8% that would result in the absence of a plan.
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…in addition to creating high-quality jobs, the program is likely to improve existing jobs. One important way that it will do this is by moving workers from part-time to full-time work. Over the past year, as the overall unemployment rate has risen by 2.3 percentage points, the number of workers working part-time for economic reasons has risen by 3.4 million. This is a main reason why the underemployment rate rose to 13.5% in December compared to 8.7% a year earlier.
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We estimate that our program will cause the unemployment rate to be about 1.8 points lower in 2010Q4 than it otherwise would have been. If the same relationship between movements in overall
unemployment and movements in workers working part-time for economic reasons holds for the effects of the recovery package, the program will allow about 1.8/2.3 times 3.4 million, or 2.7 million, workers to move from part time to full time. It will reduce the underemployment rate by
more than three percentage points compared to its level in the absence of the recovery package.

Listen, it’s not my fault that Larry Summers & the rest of these geniuses at the White House handed the rightist wurlitzer talking points that weren’t grounded in Intelligent Design or climate denial for once.
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I don’t need Hannity’s talking points to read the Administration’s own predictions, look at a 10.6% Jan 2010 unemployment rate for the United States (link to US unemployment public data), look at what liberal economists and respected financial analysts said would happen with an inadequate stimulus, and conclude that the President’s Council of Economic Advisers had their heads up their asses.
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Hey, if we’re at 7% unemployment by this November, I’ll be the first one to apologize and tell the world I (and said economists and analysts) was wrong.
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Is there something I’m missing?
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Define “worked” (without resorting to “if we had done nothing” non sequiturs), so we can get this over with.