And the winners are...
Some awards for another weird week in politics
And the winners are...
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
It was another offbeat week in politics, so let's do a few shout-outs.
Toy of the Week: The RomneyDoll. Wind him up and watch him writhe. He's still trying to defend his Massachusetts universal health care law (which mandates that people must buy insurance), while somehow insisting that it's very different from Barack Obama's universal health care law (which mandates that people must buy insurance).
On Monday, Mitt twisted to and fro during an interview with Newsweek. The interviewer pointed out, "Back in February 2007, you said you hoped the Massachusetts plan would 'become a model for the nation.' Would you agree that it has?"
Romney replied, "I don't...You're going to have to get that quote. That's not exactly accurate, I don't believe."
Newsweek followed up, "I can tell you exactly what it says. 'I'm proud of what we've done. If Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then that will be a model for the nation.'"
Romney replied, "It is a model for the states to be able to learn from. During the campaign, I was asked if I was proposing that what I did in Massachusetts I would do for the nation. And the answer was absolutely not. Our plan is a state plan. It is a model for other states — if you will, the nation — it is a model for them to look at what we've accomplished and to better it or to create their own plans."
Oh. So let's see if I've got this right. Since all 50 states constitute "the nation," apparently it would be OK with Romney if all 50 states enacted 50 different laws requiring all their citizens to purchase health insurance - whereas it's not OK with Romney if a federal mandate does the same thing, albeit in a more streamlined fashion.
But has he always been opposed to a federal mandate? During a 2008 debate, ABC News' Charles Gibson told him, "You seem to have backed away from mandates on a national basis." Romney replied, "No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work." He sounded like he was fine with the idea of a federal "national basis" mandate. But now he tells Newsweek, "I do not favor the federal mandates."
Glad that's all straightened out. The problem, however, is that conservative GOP primary voters dislike the mandate concept, whether it be state or federal. Soon enough, the RomneyDoll will writhe again.
-------
Smear of the Week: Snarlin' Arlen Specter's TV hit job. Specter, the incumbent Pennsylvania senator, has a double-digit poll lead over Joe Sestak in the runup to the May 18 Democratic primary, but nevertheless the old bird has felt compelled to sink his claws into his rival's neck with a Swift Boatian flourish.
I hold no particular brief for either candidate, but there's something a tad disturbing about a TV ad that slimes Sestak's 30-year military career in a mere six seconds. The narrator intones, "Joe Sestak - relieved of duty in the Navy, for creating a poor command climate." Which makes it sound like Sestak was some kind of Captain Queeg, forcibly shoved into the brig during a sea battle with America's enemies.
Somehow, Specter left out the part about how Sestak was a three-star Navy admiral and winner of the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Defense Superior Service Medal, two Legion of Merit awards, two Meritorious Service Medals, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, three Navy Commendation Medals, and the Navy Achievement Medal; and about how he was basically removed from a key Pentagon post because he was a hardass who (in the words of his mentor, Admiral Vernon Clark) "challenged people who did not want to be challenged. The guy is courageous, a patriot's patriot."
Politics ain't beanbag, as the saying goes. And 30-second attack ads have long been infamous for their, um, factual selectivity. And survivors like Specter will always do what it takes to win - in this case, preemptively whacking his rival's character. If the large pool of undecided voters wind up with the phrase "relieved of duty" implanted in their subconscious, Specter will have achieved his objective. But that doesn't mean we have to admire his outsized cajones.
-------
John McCain Pander of the Week: Granted, it's hard to track the former "maverick" in all his craven recalibrations, but his new take on illegal immigrants wins the award this time around.
Aiming to placate the right-wingers in Arizona, and thus hoping to survive the upcoming Republican primary, McCain is currently hot for the pending state legislation that would give local cops the power to question anyone who might appear to be illegal (the wrong shoes, shifty eyes, whatever). On Fox News the other night, when Bill O'Reilly asked McCain whether this policy would prompt a lot of racial profiling, the senator said, "I would be very sorry if some of that happens. And I regret it," but he's more concerned about "the drivers of cars with illegals in it that are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway."
Be very afraid, people! Check your AAA advisories! "Cars with illegals in it" are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway! (Evidence, please?) The new McCain says that illegals are potential perpetrators of vehicular homicide. The old McCain, the one that existed only a few years ago, said that illegals were courageous people who should be treated with affection. From a Senate floor statement, in March 2006: "These people will risk their lives to cross our borders - no matter how formidable the barriers - and most will be successful. Our reforms need to reflect that reality." From a debate in November 2007: "They need some protection under the law; they need some of our love and compassion."
Presumably, McCain will cease his slide on the rightward slippery slope long enough to oppose the Arizona "birther" bill requiring all presidential candidates to produce birth certificates. But we're still a long way from the August primary, time enough for McCain to mortgage off the rest of his soul.
-------
Pauper of the Week: John Ensign, the Nevada "family values" senator best known for having boffed his top aide's wife, then buying off the aggrieved family with the help of $100,000 obtained from his casino mogul daddy. Ensign is having a lot of problems raising campaign money of his own, however. During the first quarter of 2010, according to the Federal Election Commission, Senator Ensign raised a grand total of...
Fifty dollars. Seriously.
The entire Nevada Republican establishment stayed away, apparently mindful that the Justice Department is investigating whether Ensign broke any laws or rules when he tried to kick start the cuckolded husband's lobbying career. It would appear that the donors back home are trying to send Ensign a message. Only one person - a vegas retiree named Robert Doland - opted to pony up for Ensign. He wrote two checks, 25 bucks apiece. He reportedly said this week that he had no problems with Ensign, because "all men are dogs."
What an insult to dogs. If you hung a tin cup around a dog's neck, and leashed him to a light pole at a street corner, he'd probably top John Ensign's $50 haul inside of an hour.
-------
Whine of the Week: Skip Coryell's lament about curbs on his freedom.
You may not know about Skip. He was a protester who stood up for the Second Amendment earlier this week in Washington. He wound up on Hardball, and when host Chris Matthews asked him to detail his complaints about the socialist governmental tyrants, he replied:
"They've gotten in the way right now as I speak. I'm standing in Washington D.C., next to the National Monument, Washington Monument, and I am unarmed. Normally, I'd carry a pistol for self-defense. Right now, I am defenseless...I am being infringed upon, right now, as we speak, sir...I want a pistol...I don't feel the need for a bazooka right now, but I would like to have a 40-caliber Smith and Wesson. Maybe a 9 millimeter."
Skip, you're a wimp. If you don't feel the need to tote a bazooka, clearly you hate freedom.
-------
Policy Wonk of the Week: Sue Lowden, a Senate candidate in Nevada. She has an interesting health reform idea, one that we had yet to hear from any of her fellow Republicans. She's encouraging voters to "barter" - just like in "the olden days" when patients "would bring a chicken to the doctor." And a Lowden spokesman later assured everybody that the candidate was not joking: "We must explore all options available to drive costs down. Bartering with your doctor is not a new concept." (True enough. The medical practice of leeching is not a new concept, either.)
A chicken for every doc....I had never thought of that one. That could be a new GOP slogan, replacing Herbert Hoover's "a chicken in every pot." I do fear, however, that chicken pricing might be difficult. I'm open to suggestions, but I'm thinking that a few giblets (neck, liver, gizzard) are sufficient payment for an annual check-up. But you know how these doctors are, they might insist on an organic, free-range bird from Whole Foods. I'd try to bargain them down to a dark-meat drumstick, but maybe the best compromise would be a breast from Perdue.
Although if I'm stuck in that waiting room for an hour, they're only getting the Swanson TV dinner.
Romney is a windbag, Specter and McCain are spineless, Coryell has a right to carry whatever he wants (they should outlaw .22's because they ARE wimpy). Now, I wonder what Sue Lowden would barter for Whirled Series tix?— Mark Glaeser- FormerGOPer- Moderate Marge. The voters get tired of being played for fools on all this stuff. You think it's and R versus D thing. Sure looks to me that this is all just clever stage craft to convince fools like yourself that this is about financial reform. If they were truly interested in reform they would ban the practice of selling loans. Thus reconnecting the lender to the borrower. Instead they are creating a whole new bureararacy with hundreds if not thousands of additional government workers.
- swedesboromike : while I completely agree that a new agency is the last thing we need, I think you're getting almost manic about the banning the practice of selling loans. Besides the obvious constitutional issue (which you will usually selectively ignore), I feel compelled to point out that selling loans is not a new phenomena. I got my first mortgage in 1992. I got a letter saying that my loan had been sold BEFORE I got the committment letter informing me that I was approved for the mortgage. Just apply strict disclosure laws with stringent risk rating criteria and draconian penalties for violation. That way, the buyer is aware what he's buying. I'm not sure why you have no faith in the market in this area.... Now if you want to ban the bundling of loans into complex financial arrangements, that's a different story.— still_independent
- Still Independent- Here is an excerpt from that Vernon Hill of Commerce Bank fame did with Philly Magazine. He explains it all very well. " There is one basic rule in the banking and lending business: The further the borrower and lender are away from each other, the worse the credit. If I lend to you directly, I know you, and I can make a decision about your credit. But the Wall Street guys were the lenders. The borrower was seven steps removed, and then they chopped the loans up a million ways, so your loan might be in seven pools around Wall Street. " and a comment on the impact of the Community Investment Act............... " Do you know how this sub-prime mortgage thing started? In the early ’90s, the government started to enforce the Community Reinvestment Act. And they ordered the banks to lend to people who couldn’t pay. They didn’t examine the credit. In fact, the worse the credit for the borrower, the better the government liked it. Banks have to report their home lending data, and the government was looking at how many loans you made — not how many good loans. So you were ordered to make loans to people with a demonstrated inability to pay. "..............http://www.phillymag.com/articles/the_economy_this_too_shall_pass/page3
- Still Independent- Think about this. What is the mortgage brokers incentive in all of this? In my view it is to close the loan and quickly sell the loan and get paid for all the orgination fees. The mortgage broker has no skin in the game. His only incentive is to get the deal done. Doesn't matter if it's a good deal or bad deal. The mortgage broker gets paid either way. And that is the fundamental problem in all of this.
- FormerGOPer: you wrote, " As a side note did you see the article about WellPoint trying any and every pretext to get rid of women diagnosed with breat cancer ??? How can the GOP be ok with this"............ If Wellpoint had competition they wouldn't have any clients. But Democrats won't allow for competition in the healthcare insurance market. How can the donkeys be ok with this?— formerObamasupporter
- swedesboromike : Vernon Hill isn't usually a source I like for reliable information, but I'm not sure how to reconcile his comments with the fact that most of the data I've seen has shown that about 80% of the subrime failures were in institutions NOT covered by the CRA.... To your larger point, you still didn't address the fact that the selling of loans has been a normal practice for many decades. How about a compromise? How about a ban on the selling of subprime loans? Of course, that would probably end subprime loans, but whatever happans happens....— still_independent
Every word you hear from Vernon Hill about sub prime loans is a lie. There are no banks that ever did any sub prime lending. They are not allowed to. Mortgage brokers controlled the mortgage market for most of the 1990 and through the financial melt down. Philadelphia had its share of sub prime mortgage banking, which is totally separate from what Commerce Bank did, which was next to no lending. Most of the money they made came from buying US T bills, not loans. And the loans they did were conventional, that is the term for fully documented loans, with verification of assets, income, employment, full appraisals, a traditional underwriting process. The right wing republican lie is to blame everything on the government, even the most capitalist of businesses, banking. ContiMortgage, Freedom Mortgage, Resource One, Upland Mortgage, Advanta Mortgage, and the local branches of other out of state subprime lenders operated throughout the region. Ameriquest was a big subprime player. These were mortgage bankers who specialized in bundling billions of dollars of mortgages together by the securitization process of Wall Street investment banker like Bear Stearn and Morgan Stanley. There were over 1000 individual mortgage BROKER licenses from the state of PA operating in the 5 county area. You can look up the name of everyone with these licenses on pa.gov. The brokers sold more mortgage than the federally chartered banks like Commerce, Wachovia, PNC, Sovereign etc. These banks are the ones constrained by the CRA because they take deposits from the community, they are expected to invest in the community whose capital they amass. Mortgage brokers and bankers got their money from Wall Sreet and had different compliance issues and could only make these ridiculous no income no asset no job loans to people who would buy them: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman and Bear Stearns. see: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2007/db20070612_748264.htm- Oh Dickie! Tiresome is when we know who you're going to bash and what your are going to write about them before you even do it. At least PRETEND to be original, huh? Did you get your internship with the DNC yet?— Catch22
- This is interesting...from CNNMoney..."NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The recovery is picking up steam as employers boost payrolls, but economists think the government's stimulus package and jobs bill had little to do with the rebound, according to a survey released Monday. In latest quarterly survey by the National Association for Business Economics, the index that measures employment showed job growth for the first time in two years -- but a majority of respondents felt the fiscal stimulus had no impact." This will never see the light of day on the NYT, WaPo or on MSNBC.— tom - wilmington, de
- NSA Director Jim Jones told a Jewish joke and the video is out there on the web....should he/will he be fired?— tom - wilmington, de
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
ARCHIVES
All commentaries posted before April 18, 2008, can be accessed at www.dickpolman.blogspot.com.
- American Spectator
- David Limbaugh
- Free Republic
- Glenn Reynolds
- Hugh Hewitt
- Human Events
- John Hawkins
- Matt Lewis
- Michelle Malkin
- National Review
- Opinion Journal
- Power Line
- Red State
- The Brody File
- The Daily Caller
- Town Hall
- Weekly Standard
- Center for American Progress
- Crooks and Liars
- Daily Kos
- David Corn
- Huffington Post
- Media Matters
- Mojoblog (Mother Jones)
- Open Left
- Political Animal
- Salon's War Room
- Talking Points Memo
- Tapped
- The Democratic Strategist
- The Grey Matter
- Unclaimed Territory
- Andrew Sullivan
- Attytood
- Chi Tribune's The Swamp
- CJR's Campaign Desk
- CNN's Political Ticker
- CQ Politics
- FactCheck.org
- Gail Collins
- Howard Kurtz
- Mickey Kaus
- NBC's First Read
- Obit
- Political Wire
- Politico
- Politics Daily
- Pollster.com
- Real Clear Politics
- The Atlantic Wire
- The Fix
- The Moderate Voice
- The Plank
- USA Today On Politics
- Wonkette
