P.M. Carpenter

A misapprehended debate

Last night, on 'PBS Newshour,' columnist Mark Shields laid out in a Deficit 101 lecture all its brief and bloody history: Bill Clinton balanced the budget and then came the Bush Republicans and two unfunded tax cuts and two unfunded wars and a new and massive and unfunded entitlement. The result, they doubled the national debt in eight years.

Now, today, Shields added, when it comes to cutting the deficit, there are "political realities" for the Obama administration. He said this almost meekly, I thought, as though one should be wary of mentioning the dirty realities of politics in relation to the blinding virtue of, as advertised, the politically untainted Obama administration.

I exaggerate, nonetheless I detected an unmistakable element, however minor, of unease. To now raise the bugbear of "political realities" as Obama's excuse to skirt tough budget choices ... Well, Obama's camp takes a double hit: later on, of course, when all too obvious political realities have indeed straitjacketed the president; but, quite unnecessarily, from now till then, for having ever conceded unpresidential fear.

Shields' wariness was promptly ratified. His regular co-guest, David Brooks -- an immensely admirable conservative of the old school, who, accordingly, customarily avoids unthoughtful political attacks -- smelled blood and frenetically circled and then struck: This president, said Brooks, who once saw the fierce urgency of now, presently sees on budget issues only the fierce urgency of ... whenever.

Now that hurt, there's no denying it. And I daresay it's a damaging observation that's reaching consensus status. On the right side of the fence, Obama is seen as dallying for political, not policy, reasons on entitlements; on the left side he's seen as dallying for political, not policy, reasons on defense. Obama is thus being squeezed into the narrowest of tolerances.

And it's all -- only -- because of politics, not policy, right? Dirty, cowardly politics -- an abdication of True Leadership in exchange for breathing room, a slithering lying in wait for Republicans to foolishly go first.

Incontrovertibly, there's something to be said for that. But here, I think, is what's being overlooked by both the disillusioned left and honest right: In leveling these charges we're discussing only the short game, the mastery of which Obama has rarely excelled. Indeed it's a game he's rarely interested in: While others become palsied in anguished frustration over Obama's unwillingness to act quickly and boldly -- think health care, think DADT, think virtually his entire two years of programmatic success -- Obama is pondering -- always -- the long game and its policy ramifications.

And in the budget "crisis," both come into play, more than ever.

Obama's temporizing isn't just politics, either cowardly or damn clever. It seems, rather, rooted in the long-game, strategic-policy knowledge that any "boldness" now could very well result in a Republican White House in 2013, possibly in league with a like Congress; the apocalyptic consequences of which -- to our seniors, to the poor, to the sick and to the educationally wanting -- are altogether chilling to the responsible imagination.

Those are the "political realities" Obama is coping with, and they go far beyond the commentariat's habitual chatter about day-to-day jockeying for political position. They are, instead, deeply rooted in long policy considerations.

The "Constitutionalists" are now delegitimizing the "redress of grievances"

Amy Kremer, Tea Party Express' Director of Grassroots and Coalitions, sends this what's-good-for-the-goose-ain't-at-all-good-for-the-gander fundraising email:

I am so mad right now....

This is all a political ploy - as was proven yesterday when it was revealed that the Obama campaign team organized the protests, provided the buses, and ran 15 phone bank centers to pressure union members to attend these mob scenes.

And today we found out why as liberal columnists revealed that the plan here is to destroy the tea party movement - to manufacture a fake response to the tea party movement that is louder and more effective, so that liberals can win policy wars in state legislatures and Congress, and manipulate the political environment so they can win in the upcoming 2012 elections.

Rather leaves you breathless, does it not?

When FreedomWorks and Koch Brothers funneled Alps of cash to tea party organizations -- to "win policy wars in state legislatures and Congress, and manipulate the political environment so they [could] win in the [2010] elections" -- we were calmly informed that financial muscle marrying grassroots virtue was merely the American Way.

But forget the hypocrisy. As a political staple of both sides, it balances out, so it's unimportant. What concerns is that Tea Party leaders and, my guess, all the little tea partiers tagging behind genuinely believe that they and they alone possess the legitimate right to protest and "win policy wars" and "manipulate the political environment." Because they are America. The publicly unionized are not. Or at least they're not 100 percent Americans, as the tea partiers are -- and that epithet resurrects a lot of really nasty American history.

By itself, in this Wisconsin instance, this concerns. But more concerning is the emerging pattern within the tea party movement specifically and the right in general: their reflexive assault on the legitimacy of any political opposition. Pluralism, compromise, debate -- indeed, the entire notion of honorable Americans conscientiously disagreeing with other honorable Americans -- all are delegitimized and promptly dispatched as unAmerican. 

They had best get a grip. Americans tolerated that sort of intellectual despotism for too long in the middle of last century, but this isn't 1950s America any longer -- a decade whose pseudoconservative overreachings nearly killed off American conservatism for good.

Braying into the mirror

Speaking of those protesting his naked attempt to bust the power of Wisconsin's unions, Gov. Scott Walker told Fox News:

If anything, I think it's made the Republicans in the Assembly and the Senate stronger. They're not going to be bullied. They're not going to be intimidated.

It is a curious symptom of contemporary conservatives: They always reveal their qualities and tactics in counteroffensive charges; in this case, they're intimidating bullies. 

Listen, for example -- if you've the stomach for it -- to Rush Limbaugh sometime, the Grand Wizard and undisputed right-wing tutor of table-turning. Whatever he knows to be a legitimate charge leveled at the GOP or its vast bevy of enablers, he simply turns the charge around and points it straight at liberals and Democrats -- who become, via Limbaugh's redistillation process, the nitwitted, brutal, propagandistic, fiscally irresponsible and internationally naive ones.

It's the best and most reliable method by which one can know exactly how the pseudoconservative mind sees itself. In Walker's case: as an intimidating bully.

Beltway journalism's stench

In a nearly 500-word "analysis," the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza refers precisely once to the issue of "collective bargaining rights" in Gov. Walker's union-busting bill. It seems the governor would like to "eliminate" them.

But from other than that, according to Cillizza's analytical reporting, one would think the governor's bill is mostly about the money.

The "public employees and their supporters have gathered ... to protest Republican Gov. Scott Walker's budget cuts," explains Cillizza; legislation before the statehouse would "make them pay half the costs of their pensions and at least 12.6 percent of their health care coverage."

So they're angry, you see. And again, they're angry, in case you missed it, because "The changes amount to about a seven percent salary cut."

This clash of wills -- over fiscal prudence prudence prudence -- was inevitable, continues Cillizza. "Republicans ... have been holding up public employees as prime examples of government waste," he observes, and for that argument there's some pretty good circumstantial evidence, in that "Democrats had been reluctant to defend their long-time allies in the public sector in a recognition that with tough economic times come tough funding decisions."

So there you have it: one side in opposition to "government waste," the other against "tough funding decisions."

Would you like to know on which side of this fiscal prudence prudence prudence-welfare state kerfuffle stands populist Heaven? Notes Cillizza: "in an October Washington Post poll ... 52 percent said government employees are overpaid." Of course it could be that 51 percent are reading lazy journalists like Cillizza, but for Heaven's sake let's not venture to comprehend primal causation.

OK, proceeds Cillizza, perhaps you'd like more information, perhaps a real expert's insight, to understand and appreciate what's going on. So here's the Young Guns' emptiest chamber -- "the G.O.P.’s supposed deep thinker du jour," as Paul Krugman characterizes him this morning -- to lay it out for you: "Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) compared the situation to Egypt. '[Walker is] basically saying I want you public workers to pay half of what our private sector counter parts are, and he's getting riots,' Ryan told MSNBC's 'Morning Joe.' "

I'm a trifle fuzzy as to why Mr. Ryan is eager to cast Hosni Walker in this morality play, but I guess with "deep thinking" come peculiar ambiguities.

Finally, dares Cillizza, "What do you think? Who will emerge politically victorious from the Wisconsin standoff?"

His personal gamble, coming at great risk, is that "Time will tell." Yet his prophetic readers, as of this morning, concluded Republicans - 29%; Democrats - 52%; Neither - 18%. No word as to whether his readers believe that Republicans will lose because they're always so bloody irresolute or because Democrats are in league with the coming worldwide communist-Islamofascist caliphate -- Is it any surprise that Madison, Wisconsin, after Cairo, was the next Stalingrad?

I digress, but justifiably. Because on the underlying and essential point of all this, the discerning reader scarcely needs an emphatic recap: Beltway journalism -- as a member of which Mr. Cillizza swings large -- far too often stinks.

The phony assault

A conservative -- Slate's David Weigel -- on "The Battle of Wisconsin":

This goes much, much further than reckoning with the size of public employee pensions. This is clearly designed ... to make it impossible for labor to retain its strength.

Again, that's the conservative take, which shows just how far from genuine conservatism Republicans have landed.

The pathetic Pawlenty

In a released statement, Tim Pawlenty continues his descent into unthinking hostility to the Socratic dialogue:

The Obama administration has shown an astonishing unwillingness to stand by Israel at the United Nations, an organization with a long history of blaming Israel for just about every problem in the Middle East. It’s time for our UN ambassador to finally show some leadership, draw a line in the sand, and defend our historic ally. Global stability depends more than ever on a respected America that is loyal to our allies and realistic about the malice of our adversaries.

As Politico's Ben Smith observes, "The Administration has told allies that ... they will likely veto a resolution (a stronger step than a statement) condemning Israel [on its settlement policy] if it comes to a vote as expected Friday."

Pawlenty knows that -- a "that" which I happen to find regrettable, by the way -- yet still he castigates the administration's policy as "an astonishing unwillingness to stand by Israel at the United Nations."

Pathetic. Simply pathetic.

So much for practicality

It is instructive that a fawning George Will perceives only one practical benefit in Gov. Mitch Daniels' lecture to CPAC attendees:

The case for less strident conservative rhetoric is practical: "As we ask Americans to join us on such a boldly different course [said Daniels], it would help if they liked us, just a bit."

Both gentlemen are correct. Ultraconservatives' volume and vitriol will, in the long run, bear an inverse relationship to their electoral appeal.

Conservative thinkers (for whom thinking tends to cancel out the "ultra" prefix) are aware of the contemptibly loud monkeys on their back -- the Limbaughs, the Becks, the virtually endless list of broadcasting sociopaths -- and the real harm they're doing The Cause, yet the thinkers have still to organize into a pressure group to marginalize these idiots and perhaps even get them off the air and back under their rocks, where they belong.  

But, so much for practicality, which I'm sure the unflappable Mr. Will confuses with his and Daniels' ideology. Read on, and you'll leave the world of what would actually work and enter one of pure, theoretical ideation. Writes an agreeable Will of Daniels' CPAC speech:

Americans must say "an affectionate thank-you" to the last century's major social welfare programs - then sunset them, after those Americans "currently or soon to be enrolled" in them have passed from the scene. Social Security and Medicare should be updated to conform to Americans' "increasing longevity and good health." Medicare 2.0 should respect Americans' dignity and competence by empowering them to make "their own decisions" by delivering its dollars directly to individuals and expecting them to "pay for more of their routine care like the discerning, autonomous customers we know them to be."

First, in the grips of what they advertise as a monstrous fiscal crisis, Will and Daniels confront a Social Security "problem" that's nonexistent for several decades. Then it is of course on to Medicare, that other gargantuan success of a collective social conscience through wealth redistribution -- there, I said it, Gov. Christie; and I'm still standing! -- which suffers utterly negligible administrative costs compared to private insurance.

Somehow, in the future, wheezing senior citizens of varying native intelligences and vastly disparate incomes will be able to better make "their own decision" with increasingly inadequate government vouchers in hand than relying, simply, on the single-payer system of Medicare that covers most everything now.

And those private insurers will voluntarily control premiums. And they'll maintain good and proper coverage. And with the eradication of intrusive and really nasty government regulations, they, in cooperation with the medical industry, will also control costs.

Come on. Such musings don't even reach the barely respectable level of ideology. The Will-Daniels cure is merely pure fantasy.

God knows I'm no religionist, but perhaps it's time for conservatives who forever crow about the splendor of Christian values in national governance to re-ponder the merits of the collectivist Social Gospel; to intellectually glimpse, perhaps, that Christ probably would not preach on any Mount in opposition to, say, a paltry one-percent increase in payroll taxes, so that vulnerable seniors could avoid the uncaring and even lethal vicissitudes of private health insurance.

Just a thought.

Big ideas, later

First Read:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie scolded elected officials [Wednesday] in a speech at a conservative think tank in Washington, urging them to lead.

"Leadership today in America has to be about doing the big things and being courageous," he said.

He proposed raising the retirement age to help shore up Social Security and stressed the need to reform Medicare and Medicaid, but he didn’t offer any specifics on how to do so.

Well, at least Christie knows how to reform the one major program that's running a surplus.

Nuanced leadership

All week, President Obama has been burdened by cris de coeur of "No leadership!" -- in most cases disingenuous, politically motivated cries, but in a thoughtful few cases, quite genuine. Notwithstanding that federal budgets submitted by the executive are generally neglected formalities, since it is Congress, not the president, that constitutionally controls the purse, some voices are sincere in their expressed disappointment: that Obama failed to dramatically assault entitlement and defense spending; that he went timid and not bold; that, to use this week's ubiquitous cliche, he "punted."

To me, this is a well-intentioned misreading of presidential -- that is, of Obamian presidential -- leadership, for in the ubersensitive arenas of entitlements and defense, Obama's best offense is a cautious, multilateral, and even defensive one.

Had he unilaterally presented sane budget prescriptions, as the disappointed voices hoped he would, the partisan and factional molestations of his fiscal plan would have instantly commenced and just as instantly have finished any hope of a bipartisan compromise. Each partisan camp, and each ideological tribe within each camp, would have pronounced the president "out of touch" or bleeding from his socialist heart or cynically undercutting the poor and helpless or ... well, you get the point.

Alternatively, Obama could lead by introducing the inescapable prospect of hard choices on their way -- to be decided pluralistically -- and thereby encourage a coming, inclusive debate rather than shutting a merely abbreviated debate down. This, Obama did, and in so doing, he was providing leadership -- an unquestionably nuanced leadership, but leadership nevertheless.

"Haunting" is perhaps too strong a word, but it comes close in describing the effect that Peter Baker's October profile in the NY Times had on me:

[Obama] has learned that, for all his anti-Washington rhetoric, he has to play by Washington rules if he wants to win in Washington....

In their darkest moments, White House aides wonder aloud whether it is even possible for a modern president to succeed, no matter how many bills he signs. Everything seems to conspire against the idea: an implacable opposition with little if any real interest in collaboration, a news media saturated with triviality and conflict, a culture that demands solutions yesterday, a societal cynicism that holds leadership in low regard....

[But Obama] says he knows where he is going and is gathering momentum despite the hurdles ahead. As he told a group of visitors ... "I start slow, but I finish strong."

By those who prefer thunder and lightning in their presidential stage plays, Obama's style of nuanced leadership is described as plodding, or flawed. But it works, it undeniably works, it has worked repeatedly and it has worked where others have failed, so odds are, on the budget, it will work yet again.

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Picky, picky -- What's a million lost jobs in a recession?

The Speaker must be on President Obama's reelection payroll, since the lizard-tongued John Boehner (is he catching flies with that thing?) persists in saying the most incomprehensible, Republican-defeating things.

"So be it"? Dana Milbank reflects, wrongly I think: "however pure Boehner's motives may be, the dirty truth is that a stall in the recovery would bring political benefits to the Republicans in the 2012 elections. It is in their political interests for unemployment to remain higher for the next two years. 'So be it' is callous but rational."

One must sort out which Republicans chronically high unemployment would benefit. They include the GOP's Senate candidates and any presidential nominee, but not its House members, who are in the majority and thus accountable for results.

The Speaker's encouragement of "a net [cut] of $59 billion in the last half of fiscal 2011" -- which "would lead to the loss of 650,000 government jobs, and the indirect loss of 325,000 more jobs" -- is indeed callous, but also politically suicidal.

At any rate, Milbank reforms by then rightly showcasing Boehner's delightful hypocrisy:

Among the savings proposed by the Obama administration ... is to end the wasteful effort to develop a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Pentagon is satisfied with the engine it has....

But it just so happens that a GE plant that develops the second engine employs 7,000 people in Evendale, Ohio, near Boehner's district. Rather than take a so-be-it attitude toward jobs his constituents may hold, he's backing an earmark-like provision in the spending legislation to keep funding the unneeded GE engine.

O, Johnny, we certainly know ye. 

***

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Like air from a balloon

This is perhaps neither here nor there, but Congress.org notes:

In 2010, tea partyers used [CPAC] as a platform to launch their fiscally minded Contract From America. Colonial outfits and "Don't Tread on Me" flags announced their presence.

This time around, tea partyers were less visible at the 11,000-person event. The conservative lollapalooza, which draws young conservative leaders from across the nation, was a mishmash of groups instead, some with conflicting ideals.

The principal conflict, as best I could tell, as uttered by one young activist: "Going to protests and trying to get on the news, that's not really for me."

Whether that attitude merely denotes a sudden, pseudoconservative unfashionability in dressing up like an inmate of Bedlam and more so acting like one, only mimes will tell.

Or maybe CPAC poobahs simply instructed a decided toning down of the tricorn-hat thing, for fear of their movement looking as imbecilic as it sounds. Or, the nasty hissing one hears from the tea party is only its leaking air.

What is clear is that those still in the movement, whatever their numbers, are as magnificently delusional as ever. For diagnostic confirmation, check out this mass email -- subject line: "The Secret Obama Doesn't Want You to Know About" -- from Tea Party Express's 'Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama':

You've probably seen the news reports about how Barack Obama is trying to 'moderate' his image - even comparing himself to Ronald Reagan. The reason he has been forced to do this is that after the recent election results, Obama and his advisers realized the power of the tea party movement, and that they (the Obama administration) were in serious danger of losing their re-election campaign. That's why Obama's advisers have already been leaving the White House to start up his re-election campaign.

"The rooster's crowing and the sun's rising" was actually the ideal subject line for such gibberish, but I suppose they wouldn't have appreciated the exactitude.

And then there's this, from impeachment-impressario turned coffee-salesman Joe Scarbourough, writing in Politico:

[CPAC] raised more questions for the party than it answered.... [T]he conservative movement still has no idea who will lead it through the next election....

[T]he biggest reason prospective candidates are so reluctant to declare their candidacy in 2011 is simple: Most of them privately believe Obama will end up winning in 2012.

Check that: All of them privately believe that. Otherwise those who don't would presently be more visible in organizing the vastly incoherent rubble that is the modern conservative movement.

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Obama's presser

The essence of President Obama's press conference this morning was the same, imperturbable essence as always: the long game.

He emphasized again and again, in differing words, that his goal as president "is to actually solve the problem," to "be practical," to defer the "good headline," and to pursue a "serious conversation" with opponents within "a spirit of cooperation."

He won't seethe and entrench with the left or faint from the right's malevolent vapors; he'll negotiate, he'll wait, he'll compromise.

In short, he'll be presidential, which is what drives the excitable extremes so crazy. For independent voters, advantage Obama.

His presser went on for nearly an hour, but that's the nut of it.

***

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A fascinating pathology

From The Hill:

John Feehery, a Republican strategist and former aide to then-Speaker Dennis Hastert

said Obama was being cynical [in his budget] by trying to get Republicans to raise taxes when Democrats refused to do it during the last Congress.

Feehery observed, "You can be a cynic and maybe survive, but that’s not real leadership."

Here we see unmistakable signs of the GOP's grossest projection -- a GOP strategist leveling the charge of political "cynicism," while misrepresenting the underlying events. 

I've often wondered how they do it. Not the hypocrisy, which is as much the mother's milk of all politics as money, but the utter disregard for even the semblance of truth.

I once had a friend who worked in Democratic national politics -- if I had to label him ideologically, I suppose "conservative Democrat" would be close to fair -- and who in the midst of such work was offered an extravagantly high-paying p.r. job by the tobacco industry. He didn't smoke, yet he couldn't bring himself to represent a trade that killed those who did.

He told me he was torn, terribly torn, since the money would have been, let's just say, very nice for his family. But in the end, his ethics and sense of personal honor just wouldn't allow him to do it -- they wouldn't allow him to misrepresent or fabricate the truth.

I guess Republican strategists don't have that problem.

***

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For Palin, 'New Hampshire is a disaster'

Lawrence O'Donnell invariably references Sarah Palin as the former vice presidential candidate who'll never be president.

Not that anyone ever doubted that characterization -- except for a few, very lonely guys at the Weekly Standard and National Review -- but now there's (more) incontestable evidence of its towering truth:

[A] WMUR Granite State Poll released late Monday afternoon puts Palin close to the basement, trailing not just frontrunner Mitt Romney, but even the little-known former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. More daunting: She’s viewed unfavorably by a full 50 percent of likely Republican primary voters, compared to the 33 percent who view her favorably.

As Politico put it, "If Iowa is a challenge for Palin, New Hampshire is a disaster." And we can erase the "If," since one recent Iowa poll put her 15 points behind Mike Huckabee and saw her trailing even the mandate-hating, individual-mandating, multiple Mitt Romney by 5.

And get this: Palin also runs behind Romney in South Carolina. In South Carolina.

Are all these polls but signals of a creeping sobriety in the GOP? Are Republican primary voters jettisoning Ms. Palin only because she happens to be a right-wing banshee of disturbing decibels?

Hardly. It seems they're rejecting her only because she stopped being an official right-wing blatherskite. Said Iowans for Tax Reform's Ed Failor: "What I hear people say is that her quitting her governorship in the middle matters to them. Doing a TV show with her family is fine and very cool she has every right to do it. But we’re taking her less seriously."

Still, there remains a fundamental contradiction between primary-voter polls and primary-voter pronouncements.

From the right's grassroots activists we've heard this year numerous commitments to any real, right-wing deal as their presidential candidate in 2012, because, they insist, 2010 demonstrated a profound shift to the right. There's now no reason, they say, for them to compromise on "electability."

Yet Mitt Romney -- perhaps the most conservatively hated conservative in the race -- does consistently well in GOP polling. He even placed at CPAC.

Hence the early evidence suggests another compromise-candidate, another John McCain, another deeply flawed top-ticketer (by ultraconservative standards) splitting one very pissed-off base, which will postpone, once again, its Promise Land until the next presidential election.

Sorry.

***

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Take two aspirins and strong drink

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor: "President Obama’s budget doubles down on the bad habits of the past four years by calling for more taxes, spending and borrowing of money that we simply do not have."

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan: "Failing to heed the warnings of economists and the demands of the American people, the President’s budget accelerates our country down the path to bankruptcy."

Sen. Lamar Alexander: Obama's "budget calls for too much government borrowing."

Sen. John Thune: the budget "spends too much, taxes too much, and borrows too much."

Sen. Marco Rubio spoke of "the seriousness and urgency of our debt crisis," and Michele Bachmann "tweeted" that Obama's "spending is beyond out-of-control."

It only hurts when I stop laughing at the Republican Party, the most fiscally reckless bunch of sociopathic gangsters that this bankrupt country -- because of them -- has ever endured.