“Sinister Policy Implications”: The GOP’s Glaring State Of The Union Hypocrisies
The 19th-Century British politician Benjamin Disraeli once said, “A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.” This was obviously a prescient review of the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address.
Mind you, it’s hard to know which Republican response to respond to, given that there were (at least) four. But let’s start with the official one, delivered by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wa), the highest-ranking woman in the House Republican caucus. With a lulling tone and a living room-like backdrop, McMorris Rodgers’s response was less like a speech and more like a bedtime story trying to use her sweet biography to mask more sinister policy implications.
McMorris Rodgers spoke of her son, who has Down’s Syndrome. The doctors, McMorris Rodgers said, “told us all the problems. But when we looked at our son, we saw only possibilities.” That was the moral of her story, that we all have boundless and equal opportunity in life and the only thing getting in our way is government—because of Democrats. What a nice story. It just happens to be utterly untrue.
Take just one example—when McMorris Rodgers insisted, “Republicans believe health care choices should be yours, not the government’s.” Planned Parenthood quickly pointed out that just five hours before McMorris Rodgers spoke those words, House Republicans passed a set of sweeping bills that would significantly reduce the number of private health insurance plans that cover abortion. That, in other words, is Republicans using government to interfere in the private marketplace and control the decisions that women about their own bodies.
Disraeli might be disappointed—a well organized hypocrisy would probably wait at least 24 hours before uttering such a flagrant contradiction. But wait, there’s more.
McMorris Rodgers added, “whether you’re a boy with Down syndrome or a woman with breast cancer … you can find coverage and a doctor who will treat you.” What a great idea! Hey, there should be a health care reform law that prohibits private insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions—which, of course, is only possible if we expand the pool of people in private insurance pools. Republicans should, I dunno, get behind a law that supports that, doncha think? Instead of voting again and again and again to repeal it?
McMorris Rodgers started her speech by noting that she worked at a McDonald’s drive-thru to help pay for college and then, after talking about her son, said, “whether we are born with an extra twenty-first chromosome or without a dollar to our name—we are not defined by our limits, but by our potential.” Yes, but the problem is that Republican policies are expressly limiting that potential. When we allow highly profitable corporations like McDonald’s to pay their workers poverty wages at the same time we give those big businesses giant tax breaks and government handouts, we are limiting the potential for hard work to pay off in America. When instead of passing comprehensive immigration reform, we allow unscrupulous employers to exploit undocumented workers—driving down wages and working conditions for immigrants and citizens alike—we undermine equal opportunity. When we fail to acknowledge the simple reality that women and people of color and rural white folks in America face profound wage and wealth disparities not because they don’t try hard but because of policies that have stacked the deck against them, policies Republicans have continued to embrace, we naively pretend that the playing field of opportunity in America is a level one. It is not.
Talking about your son with Down’s Syndrome as a metaphor for the values of a Republican Party that cut federal funding for Down’s Syndrome research over the past several years is hypocrisy. Being a major political party that represents millions of Americans and yet fails to grasp the very real barriers to opportunity those Americans face, barriers made worse by your own policies, is beyond hypocritical. It’s sad.
By: Sally Kohn, The Daily Beast, January 29, 2014
“Is Barack Obama A Tyrant?”: Spoiler Alert, The Answer Is No
A typical State of the Union address is criticized for being a “laundry list,” little more than an endless string of proposals the president would like to see enacted. The criticism usually has two parts: first, most of the items on the laundry list will never come to pass, and second, it makes for a boring speech (the pundits who make the criticism seem to care more about the second part). Last night’s SOTU didn’t have the usual laundry list (which of course meant that it was criticized for being too vague), but the one specific proposal getting much attention today is President Obama’s idea to require that on future federal contracts, all workers be paid at least $10.10 per hour. So naturally, Republicans are crying that this is the latest example of Obama’s tyrannical rule, in which he ruthlessly ignores the law whenever he pleases.
As Ted Cruz wrote in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the president’s persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat.” Is there anything to this criticism? Is Obama more of a tyrant than, say, his immediate predecessor? Let’s take a look.
We’ve seen this again and again with Republican critiques of Obama, that a substantive criticism over a policy often gives way to a process criticism. For instance, Republicans often complain that the Affordable Care Act was “rammed through” Congress before anyone had a chance to know what was happening, by which they mean it was debated for over a year, sent through endless hearings, and eventually passed by both houses of congress and signed by the President, and how could that be legitimate? In this case, they know that debating the merits of a minimum wage increase is a political loser, since an increase is supported by between two-thirds and three-quarters of the public in every poll. So it’s much safer to criticize this executive order as inherently unlawful.
In this particular case, however, there’s no question that what President Obama has proposed is neither illegal nor particularly tyrannical. Does the president have the authority to set rules that federal contractors must abide by through an executive order? Yes he does. Does that extend to the wages of the employees who work on federal contracts? Yes it does. If Congress wanted to pass a law rewriting these rules, it could, but unless it does, the president can do it himself. And of course, the next president could reverse Obama’s rules if he or she chose.
So there’s nothing illegal or oppressive about this executive order; the problem conservatives have with it is substantive. It’s possible, however, that they have a broader case to make that Obama is a tyrant. This is a familiar debate, because all presidents chafe at the limits on their power, and many have tried to test those limits. For instance, George W. Bush pushed at the limits of presidential power mostly in the area of national security. I myself can recall using the “tyranny” word with regard to the case of Jose Padilla, whom you may recall as the “dirty bomber,” though the government eventually gave up their assertion that he planned to set off a dirty bomb. What was so dangerous about the Padilla case was that the official position of the Bush administration was that the president had the authority to order a U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soil, then imprison him for life without charging him with any crime or giving him a trial. It also held that the courts had no right to examine their decision to do so. I do not exaggerate; that was their position. (In the end, when the Supreme Court was about to rule on the case and it was clear the administration would lose, they changed course and put Padilla through the civilian criminal justice system, after holding him for years without charge and subjecting him to a program of solitary confinement and sensory deprivation that quite literally drove him insane.)
There were other memorable ways the Bush administration asserted, sometimes quite openly, that it was above the law. Sometimes it would simply attach a new name to what it was doing; torture is illegal, so when we torture prisoners, we’re not actually torturing them, we’re using “enhanced interrogation.” My personal favorite may be when Dick Cheney proclaimed that as a member of the executive branch, he could use executive privilege as a justification for ignoring congressional subpoenas for documents, but that he was also exempt from laws covering the executive branch, because the vice president is also President of the Senate and therefore part of the legislative branch, though he isn’t subject to their rules either. Cheney declared himself a kind of quantum government official, existing simultaneously in both places yet in neither place, so that he was subject to no laws that restrained either branch.
As for President Obama, there are certainly some areas in which he has tested the limits of presidential power. Just like every president before him, he has made recess appointments when Congress is in something that may or may not qualify as a “true” recess (the Supreme Court is taking up this question). He ordered that deportations of “dreamers”—young people brought to America illegally who are completing school or military service—should be a low enforcement priority, which was a legal way of temporarily creating a situation similar to a law (the DREAM Act) that hasn’t yet been passed. And he has delayed some of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act like the employer mandate, which conservatives cried was outside his authority to do, complete with the requisite invocations of King George III. But as Simon Lazarus noted, delays of regulatory enforcement are common, and the courts rarely find the delay illegal unless it goes on indefinitely and can’t be justified.
In all these cases, it’s true that Obama sought ways to bend the law to his policy preferences. But in every case, he found a way, completely within the law. (As it happens, Obama has issued relatively few executive orders—168 so far, compared to George W. Bush’s 291, Bill Clinton’s 364, Ronald Reagan’s 381, and Franklin Roosevelt’s 3,522. The volume doesn’t tell you how many of the orders were constitutionally questionable, of course, but if he were really a tyrant one might think he’d work harder at it.) That’s what’s happening with the minimum wage; he can’t raise it for all workers without Congress passing an increase into law, but he can raise it for those who work on federal contracts, so that’s what he’s going to do.
You may recall that some conservatives have been calling Barack Obama a tyrant almost from the moment he took office. That’s because they viewed his very occupation of the White House as fundamentally illegitimate, so anything he does must by definition be outside the law. For months they railed angrily against White House “czars” who were supposedly wielding unaccountable power and were the prime evidence of Obama’s tyrannical rule, even though none of them could explain what a “czar” was and how it differed from a person who works on the White House staff. But that lessened their fury not a whit. And none of them were concerned in the least about the ways George W. Bush circumvented the law. That’s because they agreed with the substance of Bush’s policies.
So no, Barack Obama is not a tyrant. If conservatives want to argue that it would be a bad thing if people working on federal contracts made an extra buck or two, they should try to make that case. But I doubt they will.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, January 29, 2014
“Obama’s Best State Of The Union Speech”: Pretty Sure The Last Three Years Of His Presidency Won’t Be Boring
With a strong, optimistic beginning and an unforgettable ending, that may have been President Obama’s best State of the Union speech. Apparently none of the commentators who have been saying his presidency is on its last legs bothered to let him know.
He opened with a portrait of the country – not an America gripped by crisis or mired in despondency, but a sunny place where unemployment is falling, school test scores are rising, housing prices are recovering, deficits are shrinking and manufacturing jobs are coming home. “I believe this can be a breakthrough year for America,” Obama said. The big problem, he said, was the performance of the people sitting before him in the House chamber: “We are not doing right by the American people.” He went on to excoriate Congress for its insistence on trench warfare, challenged his opponents to “focus on creating new jobs, not creating new crises” and pledged that if Republicans won’t work with him, he will take executive action where possible.
But the president’s tone throughout the speech was buoyant, not sour. His defense of the Affordable Care Act was an observation that House Republicans’ first 40 useless votes to repeal the law really should suffice. Even when he bludgeoned the GOP over long-term unemployment benefits or the minimum wage, he did it with a smile. His argument for equal pay and family leave? “It’s time to do away with workplace policies that belong in a ‘Mad Men’ episode.” His call for raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10? “Join the rest of the country. Say yes. Give America a raise.”
There was much that Obama did not say. I heard only one vague, substance-free sentence about domestic surveillance. There was no real discussion of foreign policy until the speech neared the one-hour mark, and the really tough problems where U.S. ideals and interests are out of alignment – Egypt, for example – were not grappled with. The specific executive actions he has vowed to take are significant but not earth-shaking – with one exception: Obama promised to use his authority to regulate carbon emissions. If he is as serious about tackling climate change as he said tonight, this may turn out to be one of the most important speeches of his presidency.
The end of the speech, a tribute to wounded Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsburg, was an indelible moment. To end with such a powerful story of bravery and resilience gave emotional depth to the overall theme of the speech: America is back. I don’t know how much of his agenda Obama will achieve. But I’m pretty sure the last three years of his presidency won’t be boring.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, January 29, 2014
“GOP’s Hot New Craze”: Why Everyone Wants To Give A State Of The Union Response This Year
Are you ready for the television event of the year? That’s right: It’s almost time for the annual State of the Union address and its rapidly multiplying responses. Tomorrow, following the president’s address, Americans will also (if they choose to) hear from three separate elected Republicans. Because if there’s anything Americans love more than lengthy speeches from politicians, it’s three successive lengthy speeches from politicians. Maybe this year my pitch for C-SPAN Redzone will finally catch on?
Last year, the official Republican response to the president’s State of the Union address was delivered by a famously parched Sen. Marco Rubio. Then there was another response, from Sen. Rand Paul, representing the Tea Party. This year, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers will deliver the official Republican response, followed by a Tea Party response from Sen. Mike Lee. And then Rand Paul will also deliver a response, representing … himself.
When Michele Bachmann delivered her “Tea Party” response to the State of the Union in 2011, it seemed unlikely to become a tradition. But the next year, presidential candidate and pizza magnate Herman Cain delivered his own Tea Party response. Then came Paul, who apparently enjoyed it so much that he decided to deliver his own totally unaffiliated response speech Tuesday, to be posted on YouTube and sent out directly to his followers and fans via his email list.
Traditionally, the official opposition party response to the State of the Union was an opportunity to take advantage of free airtime to deliver the party’s official platform and message to a captive national audience (back when the speech was the only thing on TV). The response was sometimes used to showcase a party’s rising stars, but it was also common to have it delivered by recognized and respected senior members of Congress.
But the official response is a thankless, largely pointless assignment. The responder doesn’t have the benefit of the president’s large audience and impressive backdrop, they have little advance knowledge of what they are responding to, and, let’s be real, no one’s paying attention. Official responses have done next to nothing for opposition parties. (Not that the track record of State of the Union addresses is so hot either. Let’s just go back to making it a brief letter delivered whenever a president feels like it, and save all the political bloggers the trouble of liveblogging it.)
But what if the responder wasn’t hemmed in by the requirement that they represent their entire party, and appeal to as broad an audience as possible? What if the response could be used purely for naked self-promotion, and narrowcast solely to the true believers? Then the response morphs from a mostly thankless burden to a canny campaigning and fundraising opportunity.
Rand Paul’s response won’t be on the networks, because Rand Paul’s audience isn’t everyone, and his intention isn’t necessarily to persuade the median voter. He will sit for cable news interviews after the speech, and hit up the Sunday show circuit a few days later, because he’s still campaigning for 2016 and needs as much free media as possible, but a YouTube response sent directly to people who already support Paul is mainly about energizing and expanding his list.
And that’s sort of the problem the Republican Party faces right now: For Paul, there’s not really any reason not to distract from the “official” party response with a nakedly self-serving bit of early campaigning. There’s nothing stopping whomever wants to declare themselves “the Tea Party” from delivering a response too, because part of identifying with the Tea Party is rejecting the “Washington” leadership of the GOP. (The percentage of Americans identifying as “independents” is at a 25-year high, and many of those “independents” are partisan Republicans rejecting the label for various reasons.) It’s good for building up your list, and a good list is what makes a successful modern politician.
Giving an unsanctioned State of the Union response isn’t quite the same level of leadership-defiance as, say, launching an unsanctioned, time-wasting stunt “filibuster” (speaking of which, why, exactly, isn’t Ted Cruz also responding to the State of the Union?), but the responses are multiplying for the same reason phony talking filibusters suddenly caught on among Senate Republicans last year: because the GOP is effectively leaderless and acting like a rebel insurgent is the only way to win over grass-roots conservative voters.
In other words, expect even more responses in 2015.
By: Alex Pareene, Salon, January 27, 2014
“Demented Hummingbirds”: Marco Rubio And The GOP’s Thirst For Leadership
Secret Valentine’s Day memo to Sen. Marco Rubio from the Strategy Office of the Republican National Committee:
Dear Marco,
One simple word sums up your unorthodox rebuttal to the President’s State of the Union Address: Genius.
Pausing in the midst of a speech that nobody would otherwise remember, lunging off-camera for a bottle of water and then slurping it like a demented hummingbird? …
Time magazine was right. You are the savior of the Republican Party.
Was the whole country laughing at you? Possibly. OK, yeah.
But was it the most unpresidential thing you could have done? No! You could have walked out with your fly unzipped (whoa, don’t get any ideas!).
Truth be told, all of us here at the RNC started freaking out when we saw you stop and take that sip.
What’s that goofball doing? we wondered. Does he think it’s a rehearsal? Doesn’t he know he’s on live TV in front of, like, 50 million voters?
But once we stopped throwing our coffee cups and kicking our garbage cans, we calmed down and thought about what you’d done.
And we finally got it, Marco — the sheer brilliance.
The water grab wasn’t really a spontaneous and awkward moment, was it? You’d planned the whole darn thing, right down to your deer-in-the-headlights stare at the camera.
Of course you did, because that’s what saviors do. They see the big picture.
The script we gave you to read the other night was incredibly lame. In fact, it was basically Mitt Romney’s stump speech for the last three years. Didn’t work for him and, let’s face it, it wasn’t going to work for you, either.
Truth is, we don’t have any new ideas in the Republican Party. Our plan was to retread all our stale old ideas through a sharp, young Hispanic dude — you! — and hope people would think they’re hearing something fresh.
Obviously, you read through the script ahead of time and realized it was a turkey. So you improvised a visual distraction, something so ditzy that all of America would instantly stop paying attention to what you were saying.
In retrospect, it was the best thing that could have happened to our party. Thanks to you, Marco, nobody’s talking about that moldy little speech. They’re talking about you jonesing for that water bottle.
The video clip has gone totally viral. On YouTube you’re getting more hits than that adorable piano-playing hamster!
Here at RNC headquarters we’re receiving thousands of emails and tweets, including some from GOP donors who haven’t yet grasped the subtle cleverness of your “message.” Which is:
Yes, Sen. Rubio is really thirsty. The whole country is really thirsty!
Thirsty for a new direction, a new vision for the future.
We’re still ironing out some wrinkles, but you get the idea. You’ve struck gold, Marco, and we’re on it.
By: Carl Hiaasan, The National Memo, February 19, 2013
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