Friday snapshots
On various political fronts, some quick riffs
Friday snapshots
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
In brief, at week's end...
The winner of this week's Homer Simpson Award is our old friend Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush's stellar career. In a guest appearance the other morning on ABC, Rove insisted that President Obama should march in lockstep with his Afghanistan commander, General Stanley McChrystal, and promptly approve McChrystal's plea for 40,000 new troops - because, after all, the commander in the field knows best. But host Diane Sawyer pointed out that top military people have complained that the Afghanistan troop hike is needed now precisely because the Bush administration under-resourced the war. Rove didn't like that at all. His response: "I don’t believe that at the time, the military was saying we need significantly more (troops). If there had been that cry, I suspect the previous administration would have been very responsive to it...The United States had what, at the time, the military felt was an appropriate level of resources."
Wow. Even now, the Bush team can't stop lying.
Two months ago, McChrystal's predecessor, Gen. David McKiernan, complained to The Washington Post that he could not get what he needed from the Bush team, with respect to troop levels, because the White House was so focused on Iraq. McKiernan said, "There was a saying when I got (to Afghanistan): 'If you’re in Iraq and you need something, you ask for it. If you’re in Afghanistan and you need it, you figure out how to do without it.'" He then recounted that, during the late summer of 2008, he had asked Bush for 30,000 more troops - because, after all, the commander in the field knows best...but his request was refused.
Homer's message to Rove: "D'Oh!"
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Maybe we should have a moratorium on all polls that seek to measure public sentiment on health care reform, given the new evidence which suggests that a lot people have no idea what's going on. The nonpartisan Pew Research Center this week released some stats showing an alarmingly high rate of public cluelessness. For instance, only 56 percent of Americans know that the "public option" is part of the health reform debate - and 44 percent don't even know what the term refers to. Meanwhile, only 18 percent know that the Senate Finance Committee chairman is Max Baucus; another seven percent think that the chairman is John McCain - a particularly noteworthy finding, not because McCain has rarely shown the slightest interest in the health care issue, but because McCain is a Republican and therefore ineligible to run any committee in a Democratic chamber. And even though most Americans seem to have strong opinions about the health care issues put to them by pollsters, 66 percent nevertheless say that the reform effort is "hard to understand." So the next time you hear the reformers or the naysayers claim to be speaking for "the American people," take it with a chunk of rock salt.
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My favorite Fox News factoid of the week: During a report about the Dow clearing 10,000, host Neil Cavuto suggested that this event could be correctly viewed as evidence of a "Bush recovery." (Subliminal message: When the market goes down, blame Obama; when it goes up, credit Bush.) As Cavuto spoke, the on-screen messageboard flashed the word to all credulous couch-potatoes: "Is This The 'Bush Recovery?'" I'll pose a different question: Is it any mystery why the Obama team refuses to play ball with Fox?
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Political history junkies got a treat this week. A new book apparently solves the mystery of "Debategate," the 1980 theft of President Jimmy Carter's debate preparation materials, and the secret delivery of those materials to Carter's challenger, Ronald Reagan, on the autumn eve of their only debate. According to Craig Shirley, author of Rendezvous With Destiny: Ronald Reagan and The Campaign That Changed America, the culprit was a disgruntled Carter aide named Paul Corbin. Corbin, a Kennedy family loyalist, was ticked off that Carter had beaten Kennedy for the Democratic nomination, and sought to screw Carter in return. So he slipped the Carter debate plan to the Reagan people. Which was a tad ironic, because Corbin had formerly been a card-carrying communist, yet the anti-communist Reagan hardliners had no problems conspiring with him. But, as the saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows. Carter reportedly still blames his '80 defeat on the theft of his debate prep materials ("I don't think there's any doubt that it made some difference"), but he's deluding himself. He was the sole Democratic incumbent to lose a re-election race during the 20th century not because Reagan had his debate book, but because he was stymied by the Iranian hostage crisis, double-digit inflation, and a disgruntled liberal base. Corbin was a symptom of his failures, not the cause.
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And finally, following up on Rush Limbaugh, his NFL dreams are apparently toast. League officials and potential Rams investors decided late this week that he would merely foul the air. Sure enough, shortly before he was cut loose, he went on the air and spewed verbiage eerily similar in tone to what I satirized here a few days ago: "This is not about the NFL, it's not about the St. Louis Rams, it's not about me, this is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative. Therefore, this is about the future of the United States of America and what kind of country we're going to have."
An "ongoing effort by the left"? On the contrary, he got the boot because he was deemed to be bad for business by the business-minded operatives of the National Football League (which, after all, has never been a haven for "the left"). One of Rush's erstwhile investment partners said this week that Rush had to go, because it was "clear that his involvement in our group has become a complication and a distraction." It's simple, really: Rush, and his rhetorical track record, was high risk - whereas good businessmen seek to minimize risk. That's free enterprise and the American way. Rush, of all people, should have goosebumps about that.
Not to repopen the controversy about the quote that Nigelthemastiff posted about Saxby Chambliss but I decided to try and research it. The quote Nigelthemastiff posted was "For example, Saxby Chambliss told a group of Republicans here that they should work very hard so that Obama wouldn't be elected -- because he'd be able to appoint Supreme Court justices, and "you know what happened in 1964 when the court was more liberal."........... I copied it and pasted it in google and could not find anything to substantiate the remarks. I did see that Nigelthemastiff later admitted that she heard this from a friend. I think the question is was where these remarks made a public event? If they were then I would think the media would have covered it.— mgm65- Tom, I meant to answer your post from a day or two ago about the Leonard Pitts column. I'm sure you're correct about the people he named. I knew most of the Fox names, but none of the MSNBC ones. My cable company doesn't provide that station, so I have never watched it. I do think that Pitts' point, however, was with both the tone and the untrue nature of the comments. If you look at what George Wills, Charles Krauthammer and David Brooks write, you'll acknowledge, I think, that they most definitely express a conservative point of view. But they deal in facts, they cite their sources, and their debates are reasoned. These people to whom Pitts was referring are incendiary and hate-filled. I frankly think that tears our country apart. It certainly doesn't help anything but the pundits' pocketbooks. And I'm very sorry that it exists, and even more that there's such an avid market for their hate. There should be two very clear voices to express opposite sides of any given issue, but when you throw into the mix this kind of vitriol, it's just destructive. Would you agree?— NigeltheMastiff
- MGM65, I'd really like to end this bit of Chambliss, but I will explain more explicitly what I heard and from whom. The comments were made at a small, private gathering of the Republican Party members in Rome, GA. Those meetings are sometimes announced by the local newspaper, but aren't always covered, especially if it's a private function. Besides, this local newspaper wouldn't typically expose something so controversial as that. It's a very small paper that depends on local businesses (most of which are owned by extremely conservative people) for advertising revenue. Surely you can understand that business decision. Why start something in Rome, GA that will ultimately hurt your bottom line? Most people here are very conservative. The two people who reported this to me aren't good friends. In fact, I hardly know one of them. Each reported this at a public event of some kind -- maybe Rotary or a Chamber Business After Hours event. I wasn't poking around for any kind of political discussion. Each just happened to mention it as something they were surprised and shocked to hear. The only reason I used that anecdote was because we were talking about racism in our country, and Southern Dixiecrats and Republicans in particular. I can also give other examples where I was present. One person at a weekly cocktail gathering on Sunday evenings asked in my presence who was going to call Obama a "N...?" The day of the election, I walked my dogs past a house that had an Obama sign in the yard. Someone had spray painted that word on the sign and on the grass. We have advanced, but racism is a thread that runs through the fabric of our American culture. That's my only point.— NigeltheMastiff
- Nigelthemastiff: I think the trouble with a quote like that is that it cannot possibly be substantiated. Probably better off not using it. As for the yard sign many of these cases in the past revealed that the acts were committed by liberals for the very intent of trying to pin racist accusations on their opponents. Certainly not saying that bigotry does not exist but to think its permeates very much of our society in this day in age would be an gross exaggeration. I do notice that when the liberal view is refuted that liberals in the absense of being able to win a debate will depart from logic and facts and hurl these epitaphs at conservatives.— mgm65
- MGM65, actually, there was a witness to the spray painting, and it was a high-school boy who lived down the street from the person with the Obama sign. He was subsequently arrested and charged with some minor offense. (And that was in the newspaper.) The person who asked who was going to call Obama by that obnoxious epithet is one of the town leaders -- quite wealthy, old Roman, etc. He knew better. I think he was trying to get a rise out of me. But I found it rather disturbing that he would use that kind of thing to get a reaction. And honestly, I don't think this is a conservative vs. liberal issue. Racism is something we learn at a very young age. It gets recycled generation after generation in one degree or another. The South has a very ugly past in terms of racism, so you can look at it from the perspective that this region has made a lot of progress. But then it also probably had farther to go than other parts of the country. While I'm proud that we have evolved, I don't find it healthy to ignore our history and its impact on our national character. We can always do better, and should strive to do so.— NigeltheMastiff
Comment removed.- Comment removed.
- janan- I am for a fiscal responsibility, low taxes, small government, and strong national defense. Nothing more and nothing less. Bush failed on 2 out of 4( 3 out of 4 if you include the rising threshold for social security taxes under Bush) . Obama is failing on 4 out of 4 and has has sent thresholds for debt to record levels. I'll tell you right now he's a one termer unless unemployment goes down.
- What was wrong with Reagan? First and foremost, he reversed the trend toward fiscal responsibility that had continued from the end of WWII through the Carter administration--declining debt relative to GDP--and started it on its current upward trend that continues disastrously to the present day. He was the principal person responsible for convincing the American public that they could have everything they wanted from government--benefits as well as an aggressive foreign policy--and they could also miraculously have lower taxes because "deficits don't matter." He also presided over the slow decline of our educational system--starting with his actions as governor of California. I could go on. Look it up yourself, or read some real facts instead of the Reagan hagiographies that are now standard reading, even among the liberal media.— liberal
- Liberal, are you indirectly suggesting that Obama's record deficit spending is the result of trends that Reagan put in place?— Paul in Surprise, AZ
- Obama's deficit is the result of the recession--the government always has a large deficit in recession years. We'll see whether Obama is fiscally responsible if and when he reduces the debt in prosperous years. This was what was wrong with Reagan's policy, and w's as well--there was no reduction of the debt in prosperous years--they just kept up with deficits. Obama's deficit would not be alarming if it wasn't being piled up on top of such a huge increase in the national debt that has accumulated over the last 29 years. That's what makes the future sustainability of the government's fiscal policy so questionable.— liberal
- liberal- congress controls the purse strings. For the better part of the last century congress was run by Democrats. Government receivables increased when we lowered taxes. The problem has always been that we cannot control spending. The least efficient thing government can do is raise taxes and hire thousands of government workers to manage it. Its a loser all the way around. It stifles the economy and does not increase receivables. That is why our economy is not recovering. There is not a pro business enviroment. Business know they will have to contend with higher taxes and the threat that the employees will be forced to unionize. Under these circumstances unemployment is going to continue to rise. It could change after the mid terms if enough republicans are elected to block Obama's far left policies.
- In terms of gross collections, including adjustments and credits, in fiscal 2008, the IRS collected $2.75 trillion, compared to $2.69 trillion in fiscal 2007. Now ask yourself how can this be with the low tax policy of George Bush. Revenues increased in 2008. If Congress could stop spending money we could pay off our debt. I think Congress should go on a permanent vacation.
- When does all the crying about Bush and these bad, bad Republicans end? And if the Democratic party is such a great political party, why has Philly been such a mess for decades?— WhatWouldTDDo
- swede--I know that you and other republicans fervently believe what you posted at 10:49. The trouble is that all of that has been tried and has not worked out. The economy, US social statistics, and our world standing all improved much more during the period of "liberal" (I'd call it pragmatic) government from 1945--1970 than during the ideological period from 1980 to date. The mess of the 1970s gave birth to the wrong remedies.— liberal
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.
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