“Bob Woodward Is Still Useless”: The Fetishization Of Compromise And The “Magical President” Theory Of Governance
Remember that long New York Times Magazine “tick-tock” (“tick-tock” is an asshole phrase for “long article about how an important thing happened involving lots of interviews with observers and participants”) about the debt ceiling deal falling apart? And then that Washington Post one? And remember how we all basically know exactly what both sides thought of the other, and how all the accounts of the negotiations collapsing amount to partisan Rorschach tests in which each side thinks the other bears responsibility for the breakdown? Well, Bob Woodward is finally bringing us the definitive (unnecessary, redundant, pointless and late) account of this thing that we have read so many accounts of already. Aaaand it turns out that both sides are to blame for everything, always.
The book is out Tuesday. Naturally, the Post was allowed to run a news story detailing some of the book’s juicier bits before the book’s release. Likewise, various other news organizations got their hands on embargoed copies (by going to bookstores and buying them early) and served up their own summaries. And so any interesting nuggets of information in this book will have been endlessly chewed over by the time the thing is officially on sale.
Not that there’s that much nugget material! The New York Times:“The book highlights problems that are well known in Washington, but Mr. Woodward manages to get the president, Mr. Boehner and their inner circles to talk about them.” Quite the journalistic coup!
The Times goes on, in a slightly catty fashion:
Last summer’s bitter budget negotiations have been hashed over in several lengthy news accounts and Mr. Woodward’s is the most exhaustive, although it is not clear how much new information, if any, he has uncovered.
The big “revelation” is that President Obama chews Nicorette and John Boehner drinks merlot. Merlot! That’s a sissy big-city effete liberal drink. Oooh, merlot, I bet that’s real refreshing after you’re done mowing your lawn (and weeping).
More revelations (that have already been reported elsewhere): Pelosi and Reid don’t work well with the president. Eric Cantor constantly undermines Boehner, and they hate each other. Everyone — Democrats and the entire GOP leadership — thinks the Tea Party people are insane. Everyone in Washington is super petty and very easily offended!
The book reflects the surreal Washington consensus surrounding the importance of immediate deficit reduction in as regressive (“tough”) a fashion as possible. All Serious People agree that it is Very Important that we rein in “entitlements” in the midst of a prolonged and disastrous employment crisis and that it is a tragic thing that we missed an opportunity to get some retirement ages raised last year, to Save The Economy. And a major theme, of course, is that Obama didn’t use his magic president powers hard enough.
The problems of a bitterly divided government, one involving dozens of choke-points for any legislative proposal and with one arm being presided over by a guy with absolutely no control over the large apocalyptic death cult wing of his party, are of course all described as failures of President Obama to “lead.” Why couldn’t he “lead” John Boehner to “lead” the fanatics in the House to do something none of them had any interest in doing??? Why couldn’t he “lead” John Boehner to call him back when Boehner was too scared to call him back because he knew he didn’t have the authority or power to promise enough votes to pass anything???
From the Post:
In his final chapter, Woodward faults both Obama and Boehner for their handling of the fiscal crisis, concluding that “neither was able to transcend their fixed partisan convictions and dogmas. Rather than fixing the problem, they postponed it. … When they met resistance from other leaders in their parties, they did not stand their ground.”
He has tougher words for Obama. “It is a fact that President Obama was handed a miserable, faltering economy and faced a recalcitrant Republican opposition,” he writes. “But presidents work their will — or should work their will — on important matters of national business … Obama has not.”
This is rich. The fetishization of compromise for the sake of compromise — merit or lack thereof of “each side’s” position wholly ignored! — plus the Magical President Theory of governance. Presidents should “work their will … on important matters of national business,” according to the guy who co-wrote “All the President’s Men” and “The Final Days.” What a wonderful combination of meaningless and craven that “work their will” construction is. Bob Woodward refuses to acknowledge the limits of a president’s power but also thinks the president has a responsibility to exceed them in the name of accomplishing a policy shift that few Americans (and not even a majority in Congress) actually want.
(The other lesson is that economic hostage-taking will never actually be punished, especially if it’s successful. Screw the economy to win a political battle over tax rates, and Democrats will be attacked for not acquiescing to large enough cuts in programs for the poor! And now here come the hacks like David Feith using the book to pin the defense cuts in the hilarious sequestration deal on the White House.)
The book also apparently features yet another entry in the “Obama fails to talk to CEOs in a way that they find sufficiently deferential” genre. This time it’s the CEO of Verizon, a corporation that is pretty much horrible.
From the Post:
In the same vein, Woodward portrays Obama’s attempts to woo business leaders as ham-handed and governed by stereotype. At a White House dinner with a select group of business executives in early 2010, Obama gets off on the wrong foot by saying, “I know you guys are Republicans.” Ivan Seidenberg, the chief executive of Verizon, who “considers himself a progressive independent,” retorted, “How do you know that?”
“Who considers himself a progressive independent.” Oh, sorry, I guess it was very rude to assume the rich, union-busting telecom CEO is a Republican and not a made-up vague other thing. IT GETS WORSE:
Nonetheless, Seidenberg was later pleased to receive an invitation to the president’s 2010 Super Bowl party. But he changed his mind after Obama did little more than say hello, spending about 15 seconds with him. “Seidenberg felt he had been used as window dressing,” Woodward writes. “He complained to Valerie Jarrett, a close Obama aide … Her response: Hey, you’re in the room with him. You should be happy.”
Thank god Bob Woodward is around to make sure the American people know the truth about whether or not the CEO of Verizon had fun at the White House Super Bowl party.
Anyway thank god this horrible deal collapsed. Good work squabbling and fighting, vile partisans!
Hey, remember when Bob Woodward said a Biden/Hillary VP switch was “on the table” and then it turned out that his source was apparently Mark Penn, who has nothing to do with this administration because he is a reviled grifter? Because no one will bring that up when Woodward makes the rounds to promote this new book.
By: Alex Pareene, Salon, September 10, 2012
“Completely Irresponsible”: Mitt Romney’s Disgraceful Politicizing Of The Libya Tragedy
Mitt Romney has not exactly distinguished himself in the foreign policy arena: his disastrous trip abroad and misplaced comments, his failure to even mention the troops and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in his convention speech, and now his crass attempt to politicize the deaths and demonstrations overseas.
Instead of ready, aim, fire, with Romney it is fire, ready, aim. When he should wait and get the facts, he fires off a political attack that is designed to boost his candidacy. Sadly for him and for America’s foreign policy his statements had devastating consequences.
He called the Obama administration “disgraceful” and accused them of “sympathiz[ing] with those who waged the attacks.” He put out an early release of that statement in an attempt to get news coverage, after initially embargoing it until midnight.
He threw an incendiary bomb in the middle of a horrible and life -hreatening international situation. This is not the mark of a leader but rather the mark of a desperate candidate who puts his political survival above those who serve this country. In short, it is his actions and words that are “disgraceful.”
At a time when the rhetoric should be ramped down, Romney ramps it up. At a time when the activities of a mob should be condemned by those of all political stripes and the activity of a deranged individual ridiculing Mohammed should be universally rejected, Romney plays politics.
Chuck Todd called it on Morning Joe today “a bad mistake they made last night….an irresponsible thing to do.”
I couldn’t agree more.
By: Peter Fenn, U. S. News and World Report, September 12, 2012
“Words Have Meaning”: Mitt Romney Is Not Fit To Be Commander In Chief
Many of us were shocked, including a lot of Republicans, when Mitt Romney did not reference the troops nor Afghanistan in his speech at the Republican National Convention. Now aids in his camp will say Mitt wanted to focus on the economy; but that doesn’t seem to sit well with most, even in GOP land. After all, the military is normally part of the Republican package.
There are those close to the Romney campaign that said he was advised to visit Afghanistan and talk to commanders while he made his world tour visiting England, Poland, and Israel at the time of the Olympics. After all, Mitt Romney’s not interviewing to be the CEO of a financial company like Bain Capitol, nor is he looking to be elected the governor of a state like Massachusetts; he is vying for the title commander in chief, so how can he ignore the military, Afghanistan, and other issues of national security?
And one would think Mitt would redeem himself in the days since the convention has passed. But he has not. He still has avoided any opportunity to repair the damage from that omission. On Saturday, Romney sat down with Bret Baier of Fox News and said, in response to a question about this omission:
I only regret you’re repeating it day in, day out. [Laughter] … When you give a speech, you don’t go through a laundry list. You talk about the things that you think are important and I describe, in my speech, my commitment to a strong military.
And on Sunday, on NBC’s Meet the Press he stated:
I find it interesting that people are curious about mentioning words in a speech as opposed to policy … I have some differences on policy with the president. I happen to think those are more important than what word I mention in each speech.
Well Romney, it’s going to be repeated, especially by the Democrats, and it will be day in and day out for the remaining nine weeks until this presidential election. National security and Romney’s lack of knowledge on this issue is not a laughing matter. When you addressed the Republican convention, you did go through a laundry list, as did Obama, who managed to tick each box needed to address each issue and each group’s concerns within the party. Doesn’t Romney feel that the military, our troops being in our longest war to date in Afghanistan, and national security are issues that are “important?”
And when did he describe in his speech his “commitment to a strong military?” Guess I missed that one—as did the rest of America. And as far as Romney finding it interesting that people are concerned about the words a politician uses, he better hang on if he wants to sit in the oval office and call it his for four years. It’s not the “word” people are concerned with, it’s the entire military and war we are involved with and matters of national security that Romney omitted in his speech and continues to avoid discussing.
And with the upcoming debates upon us, Romney better do his homework—especially with regards to national security issues—because the president will be ready and the president will beat Mitt’s butt on that issue if Romney isn’t prepared. (Of course I as a Democrat have my fingers crossed on that one.)
Nearly 40,000 people tweeted when the president tore apart Mitt Romney for saying Russia rather than al Qaeda was our enemy; for not being willing to work with China; and for offending our closest ally, the United Kingdom, during the Olympics.
And now with the attacks in Libya and Egypt, and the death of an American ambassador, rather than work toward a solution to this problem, former Governor Romney chooses to politicize the death of an American ambassador. Romney attacked the Obama administration’s response to the incidents in Libya and Egypt. In a statement he released at 10:24 p.m. Tuesday night, he said, “It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”
And that, we know, is a lie. At 10:10 p.m. the Obama administration disavowed the statement by the U.S. embassy in Cairo. At 10:44 p.m. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. And Wednesday Obama campaign Press Secretary Ben LaBolt responded, “We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack.”
If Mitt Romney continues to ignore discussing our military, the war in Afghanistan, and national security issues, and attacks the current administration, using an ambassador’s death for his own political gain and to further divide our nation, is he truly fit to be commander in chief? Come November, the voters will answer that question.
By: Leslie Marshall, U. S. News and World Report, September 13, 2012
The Danger of “Scoring Points”: By Trying To Make Obama Look Bad, Romney Makes Himself Look Like An Asshole
Mitt Romney is running for president. And I guess it can be hard, when you’re running for president and your focus every day is convincing the American voter that you’re a great guy and your opponent is awful, not to approach every new development in the world by seeing it as yet another opportunity to tell everyone that your opponent is awful. But when the only question you ask yourself is, “How can I use this to make my opponent look bad?” you run the risk of making yourself look like a jerk. Sometimes during a campaign, a candidate will be asked, “Is there anything your opponent has done that you agree with?” or “Is there anything good you can say about him?” Usually they say, “He has a lovely family,” as though the thought that he might have done a single thing right is just impossible to contemplate. To say otherwise would be passing up an opportunity to “score points.”
And this, I think, is the root of why Romney did what he did yesterday and came out looking like such an asshole. American civil servants had died in the line of duty, and the only thing he could think to do was use it as the occasion for a weak, unpersuasive attack on Barack Obama, delivered at an appallingly inappropriate moment. All he wanted was to “score points.”
Romney seems to be laboring under the mistaken belief that his challenge on foreign policy is to make voters think poorly of Barack Obama. In fact, his challenge on foreign policy is to make voters consider him a credible president. That’s really all. As long as they think Romney would be reasonable on foreign policy, which is a secondary consideration for almost all of them anyway, it would be enough. Romney is just never going to be able to argue persuasively that Obama has been a foreign policy disaster, and he doesn’t have to. Four years ago the average voter thought the sitting president was such a disaster, committing blunder after blunder and undermining American interests around the world. But today only the most partisan Republican believes that, and Romney no longer needs to appeal to partisan Republicans.
At times of crisis and tragedy, Americans want our leaders to channel the emotions we’re feeling and be the people we want ourselves to be. That’s why, for instance, the best moment of George W. Bush’s presidency was when he stood on top of the rubble at the World Trade Center and said, “I hear you, the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” For all the spectacular screw-ups that came afterward, at that moment Bush perfectly expressed Americans’ anger and their desire to be strong and resilient (and take revenge). That’s why his approval ratings shot up to over 90 percent.
Mitt Romney failed to realize that when Americans are killed overseas, it’s not like every other thing that happens during a campaign. According to The New York Times, Romney’s reaction to the violence was actually the product of a lengthy discussion with his aides, during which I guess they agreed that what really mattered in this situation was not so much that American officials had been killed, but that a statement released by the Cairo embassy could, with the proper disingenuous description of the chronology involved, be described as some kind of weakness and “apologizing” and also attributed directly to Barack Obama. It sounds utterly insane, but that’s the conclusion they came to.
What they obviously didn’t do was take a moment to put themselves in the shoes of a typical American. Was the typical American going to learn of these events and say, “What really has me steamed isn’t the murders in Benghazi, it’s that statement the Cairo embassy put out.” Of course not. Instead, the typical American voter ended up watching Romney and saying, “For cripe’s sake, Americans died, all because of some insane amateurish movie, and this is what you have to say? To come out and whine about how the Obama administration handled a frigging tweet sent out by an embassy staffer? Are you kidding me? What a jackass.”
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, September 13, 2012
“The New Politics Of Nostalgia”: Political Schizophrenia Is A Poor Guide To The Future
A specter is haunting the affluent societies of the West. Across the rich countries, and across the political spectrum, there is an unstated but palpable longing for a return to the 1950s.
This ’50s nostalgia takes different forms on the left and on the right. For progressives, the backward-looking wish is for the shared and growing prosperity when unions thrived and could enforce a relatively egalitarian social contract. Democrats in the United States and Social and Christian Democrats in Europe created systems of social insurance — they were more robust in Western Europe — that were largely endorsed by political conservatives.
On the right, ’50s nostalgia takes the form of a quest for order, social homogeneity, religious faith — or, at the least, public respect for traditional values — and strong families, sometimes defined as a return to old gender roles and a less adventurous approach to sexuality.
Neither side fully acknowledges its own nostalgia, partly because everyone wants their 1950s a la carte. The left, for example, will not brook any retreat from gender, racial or ethnic equality, any abridgement of sexual freedom or civil rights, any re-imposition of cultural conformity. The right wants no revival of inhibitions on the rambunctiousness of liberated economies and hails the decline of unions and their capacity to get in the way of labor-market dynamism.
And nostalgia for the 1950s can also split the left and the right, or create a kind of political schizophrenia. Globalization, for example, is often applauded by the left for obliterating nationalism and giving rise to an expansive and less parochial consciousness. Yet the left can also disdain the power that globalization confers on multinational corporations and the way it undercuts the bargaining clout of workers who must now compete with each other across national boundaries.
The right, particularly the more economically libertarian in its ranks, likes the way globalization diminishes the ability of national governments to enforce rules, taxes and bureaucratic inhibitions on the market. Yet many traditional conservatives dislike the free flows of immigration that globalization has let loose. They long for a firmer sense of national identity, and the kind of solidarity more homogenous societies can foster.
Worries about immigration run deep in parts of the Republican Party and pushed Mitt Romney to positions that have left him with an anemic share of the Latino vote. In the Netherlands, where politics has tended toward the pragmatic, the moderate and the practical, worries about Islamic immigration roiled the system and gave rise to the Party for Freedom, the PVV, headed by the 49-year-old Geert Wilders. Pragmatism made a comeback Wednesday as the PVV was projected to lose about half of its seats in Dutch elections.
In one sense, all of the nostalgia can be boiled down to a simple proposition: In the 1950s, most Americans and most Western Europeans had confidence that their children would do better than they had done, that they would grow up to prosper in a stable society with a growing economy. The collapse of this certainty is the prime cause of discontent, left, right and center.
In the end, of course, nostalgia is a dangerous form of politics and a kind of lie. The fact that left and right alike are ambivalent about the 1950s, albeit in different ways, suggests that bringing them back whole is not in the cards.
And it’s not possible, which is why nostalgia is always a poor guide to the future. The effects of globalization can be mitigated, but the economic developments of the last three decades cannot be repealed by fiat. The vast changes in communications technology that simultaneously bind people together and make it easier for them to retreat into their own social and political circles will not be rolled back. I see no mass movement that will get people in large numbers to toss their iPhones into the rubbish.
But understanding politics now requires an appreciation for the nostalgic roots of our current struggles. It’s not hard to understand the yearning of many of Romney’s supporters for past cultural certainties. Obama’s coalition is, in cultural terms, the coalition of the future — younger, and both ethnically and racially diverse. Yet Obama’s core pledge is to a new social compact that provides many of the guarantees of the old one.
Thus the choice in 2012 may be, more than we realize, about which parts of the 1950s we yearn for most, and whether there is any way to bring back the best aspects of an old era while leaving the rest of it behind.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, September 13, 2012
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 