“A Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy”: This Is Not Westminster; Congress Writes Laws, Not Presidents
Niall Ferguson responds to critics once again. Read it and make your own mind up. Here’s his summary:
My central critique of the President is not that the economy has under-performed, but that he has not been an effective leader of the executive branch. I go on to detail his well-documented difficulties in managing his team of economic advisers and his disastrous decision to leave it to his own party in Congress to define the terms of his stimulus, financial reform and healthcare reform. I also argue that he has consistently failed to address the crucial issue of long-term fiscal balance, with the result that the nation is now hurtling towards a fiscal cliff of tax hikes and drastic spending cuts.
Niall is surely aware that the Congress writes laws, not presidents. This is not Westminster. And Niall’s preferred top-down approach was indeed pursued by the Clintons in 1994. Healthcare reform failed that time spectacularly prcisely because it didn’t flatter Congress’ prerogatives; under Obama’s “failed” executive leadership, universal healthcare passed for the first time in history. It’s very close to Romneycare. Was that as big a mess as well?
The well-documented difficulties on economic policy come from Ron Suskind’s book, which was subject to strong pushback from the people it quoted. I’m sure there were divisions and fights in the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s. But the results are pretty clear: the economy under Obama has performed much better than the British economy under Osborne, or Europe or Japan. The private sector has recovered at Reagan-like rates. It’s the slashing of public sector jobs that has kept employment so subdued – but far less subdued than anywhere else in the developed world. If this is executive mismanagement, more, please.
Then the notion that Obama “has consistently failed to address the crucial issue of long-term fiscal balance.” What, then, was the Bowles-Simpson Commission about? Ryan didn’t create it – he merely torpedoed it because it dared to raise revenues in order to cut the deficit! Obama actually created it and if the necessary majority in Congress had backed it, he would have gone a long way to sign it. Why not? It would give him credit for the biggest deal since 1993. And that’s precisely why the GOP – spearheaded by Ryan – killed it.
Yes, Obama deserves a shellacking for not owning Bowles-Simpson – in what was, in my view, the biggest error of his presidency. But I have no doubt he wanted and wants a Grand Bargain – and revealed how far he would go by cutting $700 billion from Medicare in the ACA (which Ryan is now exploiting on the campaign trail). But how do you get a grand bargain between the two parties when one party refuses to bargain on its central priority, no tax increases? Given Obama’s record of Medicare cuts (never before imposed by a Democratic president), it’s clear who the culprit is for the fiscal cliff: a Republican party that wanted the US to default rather than agree to even a tiny revenue increase, and that pledged in the primaries to refuse a budget deal that was 10-1 spending cuts to revenue increases.
As for the executive banch, the commander-in-chief role is part of the job. Niall doesn’t mention the extremely successful attack on al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the end of torture, the killing of Osama bin Laden and capture of mounds of intelligence, or the fact that, unlike his predecessor, Obama has not presided over a major terror attack in this country or authorized grotesque torture that effectively destroyed America’s moral standing. As for Iraq, Niall says the exit was premature. It was negotiated by Bush. Maliki didn’t want us there any more. Niall thinks we should occupy a country with all the massive expense that entails – against its will? Seriously? And it’s Obama who is unserious on the debt?
By: Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Beast, August 21, 2012
“Obama’s (Perceived) Transformation”: Please Mr. President, Nothing To The Face
Earlier this month, Ann Coulter took to the airwaves of the Fox News network to denounce the dastardly machinations, large mendacity and mad villainy currently employed by the American president. Barack Obama was “a liar,” Coulter said, a “despicable campaigner” who once claimed the banner of “hope and change” but was now giving the American people “the ugliest campaign we’ve ever had.”
The wordsmith who gave us such nuanced disquisitions as “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America” holding forth on civility must always be greeted with raucous laughter. But Coulter was actually variegating on a theme. On the same network, Senator John McCain accused the president of promising “hope and change” but actually running “the most negative, most unpleasant, most disgraceful campaign that I have ever observed.”
Obama is “the most divisive, nasty, negative campaigner that this country’s ever seen,” the head of the Republican National Committee claimed, and the party’s presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney, assured his followers that Obama was “going to do everything in his power to make this the lowest, meanest negative campaign in history.”
For those of us who remember the attacks on Obama in 2008, this is a notable shift. Four years ago the book on Obama was not that he would fight dirty but that he would not fight at all. Before Obama became the Great Deceiver of Men, he was a pinot-noir-sipping weakling who was a horrible bowler, marveled at arugula and otherwise failed at manhood. The gospel among Republicans, and even many Democrats, held that Obama was yet another espouser of effete liberalism, a tradition allegedly pioneered by Adlai Stevenson, elevated by Jimmy Carter, apotheosized by Michael Dukakis, and admirably upheld by a windsurfing John Kerry.
“There is in Obama something of the Democratic candidate for president in the 1950s, Adlai Stevenson,” wrote Dick Morris in 2008. Lest you miss what that “something” was, Morris’s column was titled “Obama’s Weakness Is Weakness.” National Review asserted that “Real Men Vote for McCain” and claimed that Obama “projects weakness” of the sort that was “an enticement to bad guys around the world.” In 2008 McCain asserted: “Senator Obama says that I’m running for Bush’s third term. It seems to me he’s running for Jimmy Carter’s second.” Early in Obama’s presidency, Coulter described Obama’s approach to Iran as “weak-kneed” and denounced him as a “scaredy-cat.” Surely such a man would see your all-American daughter sold to Ayman al-Zawahri and the Constitution replaced by Shariah law.
But a funny thing happened on the way to 2012. As it turns out, the ingesting of arugula in no way interferes with one’s ability to have Osama bin Laden shot. Mitt Romney may attack Obama for “apologizing for America” overseas. But the audience for that charge is thin. In polls, Obama consistently beats Romney on national security. A recent Ipsos/Reuters poll found Obama leading Romney on the issue 47 to 38 percent and the campaign against terrorism 50 to 35 percent.
Among the ranks of bullies, the only fair fight is the one that ends with them laughing and kicking sand. And so, no longer able to portray Obama as weak, the authors of Willie Horton, swift-boating and modern day poll-taxing have been reduced to other tactics — among them wildly yelping, “Please, Mr. President, nothing to the face.”
Arugula partisan that I am, I must admit to some glee here. Watching Obama campaign is like watching an irradiated Peter Parker spar with Flash Thompson. It is deceptively easy, for instance, to see Harry Reid’s smearing of Romney not as the unsubstantiated, unevidenced ambush that it is, but as revenge.
That way lies the abyss. I am not simply thinking of Senator Reid’s shadow war, but of the president’s. Obama’s tough guy bona fides were largely built on the expansive bombing campaign he launched against Al Qaeda, a campaign that regards due process and the avoidance of civilian casualties as indulgences.
Let us grant that the execution of Anwar al-Awlaki, said to be the mastermind behind the foiled underwear bomb plot, should not much trouble us. But surely the killing of his 16-year-old American-born son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, and the secrecy around both acts, should.
I like to think that the junior Awlaki’s (reportedly accidental) death weighs heavy on the president’s conscience. In fact that weight does nothing to change the net result — from this point forward the presidency means the right to unilaterally declare American citizens to be American enemies, and then kill them.
During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama earned the G.O.P.’s mockery. Now he has earned their fear. It is an ambiguous feat, accomplished by going to the dark side, by walking the G.O.P.’s talk, by becoming the man Dick Cheney fashioned himself to be.
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Op Ed Guest Columnist, The New York Times, August 18, 2012
“Mitt Romney Is Still Mitt Romney”: Mitt Romney’s Problem Isn’t Obama—It’s Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney has a problem. And it isn’t his campaign strategy or strategists. It isn’t President Obama’s campaign strategy or strategists. Mitt Romney’s problem is Mitt Romney.
The current rash of polls clearly show that with more exposure, more time on the campaign trail, more time traveling abroad to “highlight” his foreign policy credentials, and the more he hides his tax returns, the worse Romney does with voters.
While President Barack Obama’s blackboard is pretty much completely written on, Romney’s blackboard is getting filled with information about the former Massachusetts governor that is hurting him, especially among independents. Sure, some of it is due to Obama ads and the national dialogue, but most of it is due to Romney himself.
This is all about who Mitt Romney really is; this is about his background, his judgment.
Both the new CNN and Fox polls show the public is beginning to get Romney’s number. Over the summer, his favorable rating dropped six points to 48 percent; his negative has risen five points. It is worse with independents, with favorable ratings dropping eight points. These numbers are according to Fox, which has Obama leading Romney by 49-40 percent.
CNN has Obama leading by 52-45 percent, with similar drops in Romney’s favorable and increases in his unfavorable ratings. With the crucial swing voters who identify themselves as independents, Romney has seen his unfavorable go from 40 percent to 52 percent.
The key question asked by CNN was whether or not Romney favors the rich over the middle class. Basically, two thirds of all Americans see Romney as a creature of the super wealthy who fights for the super wealthy. Now, 64 percent of all Americans believe Romney favors the rich over the middle class and 68 percent of independents have that belief. Even 67 percent of independents say he should release more tax returns.
Bottom line: Voters are not comfortable with who Mitt Romney is. They weren’t comfortable during the primaries and they aren’t comfortable now. The more they learn about Mitt Romney, the less they like him.
Do they believe he changes his positions on key issues on a dime to get elected? Sure. Do they believe he has a tin ear and can’t seem to get it right, as with his foreign travels or liking to “fire people?” Sure. Do they feel nervous about his time at Bain Capital, his foreign bank accounts, and shell corporations? Absolutely.
Fundamentally, this is personal. They know that Romney has worked the system to his advantage, paid little or no taxes, hidden his operations behind a phalanx of accountants and lawyers. He might even get away with being a “master of the universe” if he supported policies that helped the middle class. He might be able to convince voters that he cared about them if he denounced loopholes like Swiss bank accounts, Bermuda dummy corporations, even something as fundamental to his wealth as the carried interest deduction. “Yes, I took advantage of things that were legal, but I am going to close these loopholes when I am president.”
But Mitt Romney stays with his fundamental belief system—stays with policies that give even more tax breaks to the super wealthy and leave the middle class paying the bill. This may be his Bain background, it may be what he really believes, but it is not what the American people believe or need right now when they are hurting. This is back to the future economics and it shows a lack of sensitivity to middle class families.
After all the ads, after all the polls, after all the back and forth, Mitt Romney is still Mitt Romney. And that dog won’t hunt.
By: Peter Fenn, U. S. News and World Report, August 10, 2012
“Lipstick On A Wonk”: Paul Ryan Is As Risky A Pick For Mitt Romney As Sarah Palin Was For John McCain
It’s official: Mitt Romney has picked Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan to join him as his running mate. I’ve already written why I think Ryan is a terrible choice. In short, his plan to cut taxes on the rich and gut the welfare state is one of the most unpopular proposals in American politics. Conservatives love Ryan, but seniors, young people, women, nonwhites, veterans, the disabled, and the poor might feel differently about a man who wants to make the federal government an ATM for the wealthy.
In terms of the election, it’s hard to see how Romney gains from this choice. Because of its large population of working-class whites, Wisconsin has the potential to become a swing state, but for now, Obama has a solid lead. Yes, vice presidential nominees provide a home-state boost, but it’s small—on average, two points. Barring a major change in the race, the most Ryan will do is help Romney lose Wisconsin by a somewhat smaller margin than he would have otherwise.
With that said, a vice presidential choice is most important for what it says about the nominee, and Ryan reflects poorly on Mitt Romney. On the first and most crucial qualification—“Can this person govern the country if the president dies or leaves office”—the answer is “no one knows.” Ryan has no executive experience of any kind: no experience leading a large organization, or something just as complex like a presidential campaign. Executive experience isn’t everything, but it does stick out, especially given Romney’s short tenure in public office.
Ryan has little experience with foreign policy—even less than Romney, in fact—and has spent the majority of his adult life in the House of Representatives. I don’t think this is a bad thing, but by the standards of the Republican Party, which routinely knocks Obama for his lack of private-sector experience, it’s a major failing. Conservative Ryanmania (like Beatlemania, except with white, aging billionaires) notwithstanding, there’s no evidence that Ryan could step in and govern if President Romney were incapacitated.
Paul Ryan exudes confidence, has a tremendous amount of political skill—as Dave Weigel said on Twitter, it’s no small feat to convince Washington journalists that you are a serious budget wonk, despite the complete lack of evidence—and Ryan benefits from the presumption that powerful white men know what they’re doing. But in terms of his ability to lead, he’s no less risky than Sarah Palin. In evaluating Romney’s readiness, we should keep this choice in mind.
The Ryan choice also says a lot about Romney’s standing with conservatives. If he had their full support, he would be free to choose a more moderate running mate, like New Jersey’s Chris Christie. Hell, if he had their partial support, he could choose another conservative in sheep’s clothing, like Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. But he lacks the trust and good will of the conservative establishment. For a presidential challenger, this is dangerous: Romney can’t win the White House if he doesn’t have a unified base.
If there’s anything that would earn him the unconditional support of conservatives, it’s choosing their prophet as his running mate. It satisfies their calls to make this election about “big ideas,” and not just a referendum on President Obama. If you believe that Americans are clamoring for Medicare cuts, this is a swell plan. But since they aren’t, it’s hard to say that this is a good political choice for Romney. Indeed, there’s an even greater downside for his career—if he loses, conservatives will blame him for weighing down Ryan. He will become a pariah, banished from the halls of Republican power.
One last thing. Many people, liberals included, are convinced that Romney is playing a part. “He’s not really a conservative,” they say, “In office, he’ll move to the center.” The Ryan pick should disabuse everyone of that idea. The Right has a firm grip on the Romney campaign, which will grow tighter if he’s elected president. To borrow from David Frum, this is “about forcing a platform on Romney, and then dictating the agenda for that presidency’s first year.”
The stakes have just been raised. If Obama loses, we can look forward to President Mitt Romney, Vice President Paul Ryan, and the most right-wing presidential administration in modern American history.
By: Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect, August 11, 2012
“An Ill-Conceived Strategy”: Romney Needed A Foreign Policy Vision Before Going Abroad
Travel abroad for a presidential candidate during the height of campaign season is designed to demonstrate foreign policy wherewithal and a chance to sharpen the candidate’s “presidential” voice.
This strategy strikes me as a mistake in general for prospective presidential candidates. Yet, this strategy is especially problematic absent a distinct foreign policy vision. Traveling abroad gets the candidate outside of the intense focus of the domestic media, allows the campaign to control the story for a few days, and allows for fundraising opportunities. But, these visits are no substitute for definitive foreign policy convictions and a concrete plan of action on the world stage. Instead of making isolated comments in particular countries without a unifying theme, presidential campaigns should describe to international leaders and the American (and world) public how they would handle a crisis, develop trade ties, punish violations of international norms or laws, the threshold for foreign conflicts, and under what conditions they would engage in diplomacy (or not). Foreign policy is, after all, one of the few direct avenues of presidential power where they are less likely to witness resistance from Congress or the public. It is also the issue where most of the president’s time is spent, whether they want it that way or not.
Even without the misinterpretations, missteps, gaffes committed by former Gov. Mitt Romney and the Romney campaign staff, the trip abroad was ill-conceived. The Romney campaign needs to focus their attention and hone a consistent foreign policy message before road testing it.
In contrast, in 2008 as a candidate, then Sen. Barack Obama visited Germany with an agenda: demonstrate that the United States would be, during an Obama administration, an active and cooperative partner in world affairs. Although isolated, the candidate had a goal that went beyond simply reaffirming relations. In a speech in Tiergarten Park, he promoted a new orientation of American international life, putatively as distinct from the Bush administration.
The old saw in politics is that there are no votes in foreign policy. But, given conflicts on two foreign soils, hundreds of thousands of troops stationed overseas, questions about moral uses of military technology, international threats from hostile neighbors, battles over copyright piracy, and the constant threat of terrorism, presidential candidates should make foreign policy an important component of their electoral strategy. Here, words need to speak louder than images.
By: Brandon Rottinghaus, Washington Whispers Debate Club, U. S. News and World Report, August 1, 2012
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