James Taranto’s column “Best of the Web” in today’s online WSJ got me thinking … here are a "few" (ok more than a few) thoughts that came to mind after reading it. I copied full column below my comments.
I’m sure this Taranto column will be about as fun for Progressives as an episode of Jon Stewart is for conservatives. I personally loved it. Having said that, I would still nitpick a bit with the assertion he makes in the first section of his column that “progs loved Bill Clinton. The way I see it “progs” loved Clinton because he was a winner, but they also clearly hated and despised him for not pushing the progressive agenda far or hard enough. From what I understand, “progressives” felt utterly betrayed by Clinton, but at least he was a political winner – thus keeping evil Republicans out of White House, which made his centrist politics at least palatable. Progressives were giddy when Obama was elected because they thought they had one of their own – a principled ideologue – as compared to power hungry pragmatist – who they assumed would be ready to fight the good progressive fight!
From what I understand, “progressives” felt utterly betrayed by Clinton, but at least he was a political winner – thus keeping evil Republicans out of White House, which made his center-right economic policies at least palatable. (He was center-left on military and foreign policy which progressives liked better.)
Progressives were giddy when Obama was elected because they thought they FINALLY had one of their own (after many many years in the political dessert since Jimmy Carter left office in 1980): i.e. a principled ideologue – as compared to power hungry pragmatist – who they assumed would be ready to fight the good progressive fight!
In recent months and weeks prominent progressive pundits (like Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd) are turning on Obama like rats leaving the ship -- not just because Obama is looking more and more like a political loser. They are turning on him because he is looking like a political loser (as evidenced by recent political weakness across the board– e.g. failed rhetoric, tactics and strategy reflected in falling approval ratings) who also has failed to push the progressive agenda far or hard enough.
Obama was supposed to be the progressive version of Ronald Reagan. But Obama has made amazing rhetorical, tactical and strategic political blunders including his approach to Simpson Bowles commission and recently with the debt limit debate and series of ridiculous speeches which has compromised his ability to promote progressive priorities.
While it is true that Obama is turning out to be politically much less talented than supporters hoped for, they cannot put all of the blame on Obama.
My progressive friends out there who share the increasingly negative view expressed by Paul Krugman and Dowd (in her NY times column from yesterday) about Obama should first take a deep breath and look in the mirror.
Progressives can blame themselves for believing an impossible political narrative offered by Obama: that is he could deliver Reagan-like results for the US economy with anti-Reagan policies); the very notion of such an idea is upside to begin with.
Clinton used a successful dose of political pragmatism (e.g. by throwing in the towel on progressive priorities (healthcare reform) together with another healthy helping of constructive “conservative” policies (e.g. welfare reform & financial sector deregulation – yes it was Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Larry Summers who pushed the unwinding of Glass Stegal!!!) which provided positive dynamic for market confidence leading to positive economic results and the accumulation of important political capital. He thus was able to keep the Dems in (and at least as importantly to progressives, it kept the GOP out of the White House!!) for 8 long and wonderful years.
Yet, the Clinton era left progressives wanting more and OBama promised it: a true progressive ideologe. I have to admit, Obama has in some examples been less ideologically intransient than I expected -- he pulled what I call “a Clinton” when he extended Bush tax cuts last year. That move made progressives crazy. But unfortunately for Obama, his shift to the pragmatic center has only limited the erosion of his political capital faster than it was otherwise eroding in a weak post-debt bubble / bust economy. Clinton had the benefit of a uniquely strong economy and fiscal position thanks to the tech bubble -- and to a center-right economic policy orientation.
Obama is dealing with the legacy of a historic easy money, debt boom-bust cycle that is -- by my understanding of economics -- unresponsive (by definition) to “progressive” (i.e. government activist) economic policy (fiscal and/or monetary stimulus).
(NOTE: government spending doesn’t drive sustainable economic growth it merely reallocates capital from more efficient to less efficient projects. The Austrian school of economics posits that only private savings can drive sustainable private investment and thus economic growth, which is precisely the opposite of what Keynesians propose. Keynesian pump priming may work in typical temporary business cycle, but it doesn’t work following a debt boom bust cycle.
to be fair, neither the GOP or the Dems has an answer for the debt boom / bust cycle. GOP presidential candidate JOhn McCain didn't have a clue on economic policy .... and rur nominally Republican central bank governor believes printing money can produce a self reinforcing positive cycle of economic growth.
Progressives like Krugman are screaming for more fiscal stimulus and pounding Obama for not successfully selling the country on larger temporariy deficits and higher taxes. Obama isn't followiong this default liberal / progressive policy orientation mainly i believe because he fears the Tea Party and public animosity toward active fiscal pump priming. So he is out of ideas.
By the way, Krugman is dead wrong about fiscal stimulus being "the" answer. Japan ran massive fiscal deficits for over a decade following their historic stock market crash in 1989 yet experienced a lost decade and counting. The US debt to GDP is already over 90% but Japan’s debt to GDP is nearing 200%!!! and like i said, Japan is going on two “lost” decades, i.e. 20 yrs of avg 1% growth.)
Progressives may be able to get away with cutting the economic pie up more equitably or pursuing sustainable economy / social justice program in an already strong economy, but in a post debt bubble economy, more government (in all the various guises, including QE1, 2, 3?? as well as Obamacare, Frank-Dodd regulations, NOT pushing free trade, activist FDA, activist labor board, activist EPA, etc. etc. ) means less economic dynamism and more, prolonged economic pain.
Obama may have gotten away with his Obamacare fiasco in a strong economy, but piling a new massive entitlement on top of a still massive debt overhang (govt bailouts of financial sector merely shifted private debt to public balance sheet) is a net head-wind on the economy. Progressives argued (and still believe) that health care reform in general and Obamacare in particular) is required to help put the US back on sustainable fiscal path and to help dig the US out of Great recession of 2008. (This is what officials I met with in US Treasury told me this past January and last July when I met them in DC. They claimed containing health care costs was key to putting US back on sustainable fiscal path.) That may be true, BUT, progressives are dreaming when they think a government solution in general -- let alone the specific Obamacare solution for the health care “crisis” is the way to fiscal sustainability for the US.
Obamacare did NOT improve the US fiscal position!!! I would argue it added a major new social entitlement to the government balance sheet. The CBO ran the numbers and it shows Obamacare modestly reduces deficit over 10 years, but the CBO also points out that OBamacare also exposes government to massive new potential financial liabilities going forward that are not captured in their forecast models. Obamacare was able to show net decrease in deficits by redeploying proposed savings from Medicare into Obamacare. If the savings on Medicare were used for Medicare this might have made sense!!! But instead Obamacare decided to deploy Medicare savings in order to “pay for” a massive new social health care entitlement system! So Obamacare left structural financing problems in Medicare untreated while it added a huge new unfunded health care insurance scheme to public sector contingent liabilities.
[Socialized medicine will never be the answer to fiscal discipline in a democracy because socializing medicine means removing price signals from the market. without price signals, the “market” (i.e. individuals) will always demand more, more, more. the idea that health care is different from other consumer products is a joke. we all need to eat, but we all don’t have to eat at the 4 seasons. We make choices based on our priorities and resources. When we say people shouldn’t have to choose, we are saying there are free lunches in life. socialized medicine means either the government pisses people off and risks losing the next election by rationing care (unlikely in democracy) or health care costs continue to spiral upward (despite good intentions) until the sh-t hits the fan like it is in Greece. Is our current system broken? yes, but the market isn’t at fault. We failed the market, by adding massive public subsidy systems to health insurance which has caused price inflation crisis by insulating consumers of health care from market prices" of health because we have this crazy subsidized (and thus distorted) insurance scheme in America. Btw, the market doesn’t “do” anything evil or good. and the market is inherently unfair, but it is also the best we can do.]
Progressives will argue that Obama failed in the end because he was not true to progressive principles. If Obama was more true to progressive principles, however, he would have cratered the economy and been a 1 term president. Progressive principles are self defeating in the real world!!!!
these principles sound enlightened but they don't work in practical real world democracy. look at Greece and France and the UK. that is where we are headed! progressives always blame poor implementation or they blame opposition by the GOP for their failures to implement the progressive vision in the US. Obama was their latest, greatest big hope. Obama was always a false hope. he was always promising more than he could deliver. the government can't just come in an design good outcomes into complex markets. there are ALWAYS negative unintended consequences to activist govenrment policy that occur no matter how good the intensions.
When the "market fails" it is for one of two reasons. either it failed because that is the best the makret can do. such "failures" are features of markets NOT failures. Government can't fix such features without triggering cycle of negative unintended consequences that creates worse situation than what problem was identified to start with. income inequality, creative destruction (failure of firms and banks), pollution, business cycles are all natural features of the free market. we call them "failures" but this is lazy language. it is like calling an earthquake a failure of nature. Earth quakes are a feature of the complex system we call the earth system. without earth quakes we wouldn't have plate tectonics and without plate techtonics we wouldn't have intelligent life on earth. there are always trade offs. life is often tragic and unfair, but that is life. we don't know when the next earth quake will hit. if we had a majic wand and could rid the world of earthquakes to save people from destruction, do you know what would happen? life on earth would die. This is analogous to progressive economic world view.
progressives think enlightened policy can rid the free market of its natural features, which they erroeously call externalities or failures. the problem is, if they get rid of pollution, income inequality, business cycles, they kill the economy. North Korea has little pollution, income inequality and they have no business cycles, but they also don't have an economy. is there an enlightened middle way?
no. there is not. it is a slippery slope to improving on what we believe are market failures. if we try to reduce income inequality or pollution or business cycles with macro policy, what we do is set in train a cycle of self defeating dynamics that create unintended consequences, begging more government intervention and so on, until the problem we solved gets worse while we create other related problems. There is a natural rate of income inequality and pollution and business cycle that is inherent to the free market just like earth quakes are natural to the earth system. the eoconomy is not some artificial creation of man. every attempt to design an englightened society has failed. the free market based on property rights, division of labor, entrepreneurial risk taking and free exchange underpins a totally natural system we call the human eocnomy. the eocnomy is made up of artificial components (cars, computers, etc) but the system is naturally and spontaneously organized. it is not designed by the human mind.
I argued in January 2008 that Obama would be a failed president one way or the other. if he aggressively pursued progressive agenda, he would cause economic implosion and thus be a failed one term president. If he charted to the center in order to avoid being one term president, I figured he would fail in the eyes of progressive supporters who expected a transformational presidency. I thought Obama would push a more ideologically rigid policy agenda and thus be a one term president. He has been more pragmatic than I thought he would be, and that is the only reason he still has a chance in 2012. If he had been ideologically intransient the economy would be in even worse shape than it is. One major problem for Obama is that he still doesn’t get “it” – i.e. how the economy works. Thus, his pragmatism appears to be transparently self-serving especially to progressive supporters (who also don't understand how the economy works, which is according to iron clad laws of nature that disallow free lunches provided by government).
A key problem for progressives in general and for Obama in particular is that their/his agenda (and understanding of the economy/economic policy) is based on a fairy tale vision of social justice which promises free lunches to society as long as we trade in a bit of our personal liberty and economic freedom. We are supposed to believe that as long as we all come together and let the government solve our problems that we are being good citizens. Ben Franklin said those who are willing to give up liberty for safety deserve neither. I agree. Those who claim that the government can solve complex social problems (e.g. using the government to cut the economic pie up more equitably) are dreaming. the world is not fair. the market is not fair, but it is the best we can do. the government can’t make life or markets more fair. activist government policy requires trade-offs in the real world. if you want to make the economy more fair, you will make it less dynamic and able to produce wealth and productivity gains over time. (again this is based on the iron clad natural law of unintended consequences. complex systems of exchange can't be pre-designed, they have to "emerge" spontaneously. if you try to pre-design complex system you will face the law of unintended consequences. when we allow free exchange the law is positive. we get productivity gains -- as well as some natural negative features like income inequality.
but if we try to design outcomes into the system to eliminate the "bad features" such as income inequality, we face negative side of law of unintended consequences. the active attempt to design positive features into a complex system like eocnomy reduces abiltiy of system to deliver positive unintended consequences, such as sustainable growth and productivity gains. try to rid the world of income inequality and you kill the economy's natural abiltiy to deliver positive unintended consequences such as productivity gains. if you try to actively increase productivity gains directly to increase growth, you will fail. this is all part of the wishful thinking of progressives. they think man can improve on nature. this is basic hubris.
the more equitable you try to make the economy, the smaller the pie will be for everyone. this is the trade off. progressives would have us believe that the government can make the economy healthier and more dynamic and more sustainable and more productive by using various policies to inject more equity and fairness and technology and infrastructure and education into the system. All of these things are results of a dynamic natural system. once the system is up and running it naturally produces a self reinforcing cycle of education, fair opportunities (not results) and ethical behavior and culture and good infrastructure. the government cannot design proximate causes of growth and expect to create a sustainable "economy" because allocation of resources will be ad hoc, politicized and unmoored from discipline of micro market signals.
progressives are dreaming when they believe the government can improve on the market. lately some environmental progressives have been arguing that the only way we can create a sustainable economy is to stop our fixation on economic growth. they suggest we stop economic growth so we can avoid polluting the earth and killing ourselves.
This is exactly the argument Thomas Malthus made in the early 1800's. Malthus argued productivity wasn't growing fast enough to keep up with population growth and therefore we were headed for mass starvation if we didn't actively reduce population growth. he has been proven wrong, yet new waves of Malthusians continue to re-cycle the same tired ideas over and over again. What causes "shortages" is easy money supplied by the central bank. when the central bank adds easy money to economy, the economy grows too fast and it appears we are running out of stuff. this is what happened in 1970s and again what is happening now and what happened in lead up to Lehman crisis. before Lehman crisis the facilitation of historic USD monetary inflation fueled food and natural resource price spikes that got the mainstream press screaming about shortages of land and oil. when Lehman collapsed, easy money reversed (temporarily) suddenly the resource crisis evaporated. Since the Fed has reflated the world economy with easy money again we are seeing similar dynamics to pre-Lehman resource inflation and worries about running out of natural resources.
the reality is that if the government stays out of the way and lets the price and market system work properly, then households can plan and economize such that the larger macro-economy NEVER "runs out of anything". If we always price resources, then human ingenuity will always come up with an alternative for the scarce resource. the first law of thermodynamics, the most fundamental law in the universe says that energy (and matter!!!) can neither be created nor destroyed. we thus have unlimited "energy" and natural resources (matter) on our home planet earth. As long as we don't inject easy money into our natural system, the system as a whole will never run out of energy or natural resources required to fuel productivity gains and growth. We may run out of oil, but the price signal and market signal will spur creative solutions over time to replace oil with some other more efficient energy source.
we can't know what this will be before price signals tell us their story. there is no way for government to create incentives or itself design a solution to energy shortage before the shortage plays out because the solution requires market signals, without which there can be no solution.
just because the government can put a man on the moon does not mean governmetn can design positive outcomes into society. putting a man on the moon is a discreet project. it is not a problem related to the design and management of a natural complex system of exchange which is far from equilibrium. such "problems" are beyond the scope of government. in fact, we can be certain that anythi9ng the govt does will bump up against the law of unintended consequences and be self defeating, thus begging more interventions and so on, leading ineluctibly to the road to serfdom....
throughout history, existing energy sources have been deployed in novel ways to create new energy sources. for example, the steam engine was invented to drive water pumps that allowed coal miners in UK to dig deeper mines to access more coal. Without the steam engine technology, the world would have run out of coal. without rising prices of coal back in the day, entrepreneurs wouldn't have had the signal to invent a new technology to access coal below the water level. this is the way the world works. micro shortages faced by households and firms provide the spark of creative entrepreneurial activity and risk taking that leads to macro solutions for what may appear in the near term to be constraints on growth. we need micro shortages and price signals in order to allocate entrepreneurial energy to problem solving.
the government can't just see a macro shortage or problem and solve it with a magic wand minus price signals!!! by definition once the govenrmetn intervenes either with subsidies (which conservatives love) or direct action, this distorts the market price signal and thus by definition self defeats any decision the government makes because it will be based on distorted price signal -- that it caused itself. there is no way around this paradox. the best the government can do is to protect individual property rights and ensure maximum freedom of exchange in the market. and let the chips fall where they may.
constant entrepreneurial problem solving does its job and accomodates growth without leading to shortages AS LONG AS THE GOVERNMENT facilitates free exchange.
ironically, it is the case that as soon as the government attempts to actively ration macro resources via government fiat, it creates a self fulfilling cycle of guaranteed shortages. or the governmetn can print money to avoid short term shortages, but again, that will create macro shortages as well in medium term as growth outstrips availability of resources as economy is pumped up above its natural rate of growth via easy money provided by the central bank. so called enlightened policy makers argue they are just trying to solve social problems especially aimed at helping the little guy. but in fact, government well intended fiat ends up hurting worse those it is aimed at helping.for example, inflation hurts the poor most and typically helps the rich who can hedge inflation risks via asset purchases. the poor and elderly on fixed incomes and little asset holdings get screwed via inflation.
In the real world, the trade off for government efforts to increase equity in soicety (e.g. higher marginal tax rates) leads to lower growth. lets at least start with a language of trade offs. progressives would have us believe that if we only handed over management to government the market could work better and we would all be better off. if only this was true, we could just keep handing off tasks to benevolent government and improve our lives little by little. the problem with this is that there is no optimal middle way where even a little government intervention can make us all better off. there is no middle way. the law of unintended consequences begins as soon as the moment government intervenes. there is no win/win solution for society if we design the government intervention to be "market" friendly. there is no market friendly intervention. there is only freedom and intervention.
Infrastructure, education and technology are results of a vibrant economy. once the economy is producing these factors of production, the results are self reinforcing. Education and infrastructure produced by the market for specific market demand will drive growth and more of the same: more education, more infrastructure etc.
But if you try to start with government monopoly production of education and infrastructure (as we largely have in the US), you will get maladaptive education and infrastructure. The education will serve political ends, not practical ends for society. Just because education is correlated with growth and social dynamism does NOT mean the government can reproduce these inputs out of whole cloth and expect them to provide sustainable base for future economic growth.
IT doesn’t work that way. government monopolies in education, health care, money, law, infrastructure, energy will not and cannot build a new foundation for society (as Obama would have us believe. see his new foundation speech from April 2009 here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/14/obama-economy-speech-majo_n_186559.html ) . Obama finally ditched his New Foundation rhetoric for “Let’s win the future.”
are you kidding me? the government can be a cheerleader and enforcer of individual freedom. that's it. the government can't lead a program to "win the future" or build a new foundation for the economy. those are fantasies -- pie in the sky! we want to believe so we do. and progressives claim to be true to science and facts and reason and rationality. in fact, believe in government solutions is completely mad, insane and irrational because govt intervention contradicts how the natural world actually works. reason is based on how the world works, not how we want the world to work.
Any way you slice the rhetoric, the bottom line is the same: Obama’s progressive world view assumes the government can inject free lunches in society. having the government build new foundations and win the future is literally a contradiction in terms; it is fantasy !!!
Forgetaboutit!
Obama believes in public sector provided free lunches deep in his heart. And he believes the only thing holding him back from delivering his vision is an evil GOP selfishly looking out for its own pecuniary interests. But this is fantasy. In the real world, rhetoric can’t change the natural law, which says government can’t provide free lunches to society.
What we need are leaders in government to talk about policy trade-offs and personal responsibility. to be fair, even Reagan talked nonsense when he argued ( in effect that) we could have our cake and eat it too – low taxes, big military and high growth. Reagan’s version of the free lunch worked better than the progressive / Carter / Obama version because he also added market friendly reforms to the mix. but Reagan’s own free lunch framework underpins crazy notion in GOP echoed by VP Cheney that “deficits don’t matter.”
Deficits do matter. a lot. Sound money matters. Reagan missed these two critical points and thus his legacy in modern GOP is that the GOP lacks a way to explain so called “market failures” we saw in 2008. Without an understanding of linkage between deficits and easy money, there is no way to explain the boom / bust period of the 2000’s. the modern GOP is fixated on tax cuts and de-regulation. high deficits and easy money combined with de-regulation or under-regulation is a disaster as we saw in 2000’s!!!
But the answer isn’t more government intervention as progressives propose. The answer is fiscal responsibility, limited government and sound money. Only then will markets be able to function – imperfectly as they are. free markets aren’t a solution to “everything.” Free markets are merely the best we can do in a fundamentally unpredictable and unfair world. to try to remove unpredictability from the world and/or inject fairness into it through government policy is to remove the positive results of the market, i.e. sustainable productivity gains and increased social wealth consistently over time. there is always a tradeoff to government intervention. always. lets talk tradeoffs. lets not talk about the other side being evil and blocking our brilliant social engineering ideas. government interventions can't be win/win. we must give something up if we want to "improve" on the market. we must be willing to sacrifice unintended consequences that come from intervention. at least admit this. politicians talk about free lunches from the market and free lunches from government. there are no free lunches. there are trade offs. the market isn't perfect. the GOP is wrong for selling the idea that markets can solve everything. as long as we cut taxes and de regulate all is well. that is wrong -- when the market inevitably fails, the Dems are there to pick up the pieces. we have no alternative.
We need what i call “englightened conservative” leadership that points us back to basic understanding why limited government aimed at protecting maximum individual freedom and protection of private property rights (including sound money) is the “best” we can do. that such a “free market” system isn’t perfect doesn’t mean we can use our human minds to design a better system. it also doesn't mean we can fix society in patterns developed by the past. conservatives have to be open to creative change of the system. progressive have to understand humans can't design progress into the systme. we have to let it happen via entrepreneurial risk process. entrepreneurs are true engine of society.
a system designed to be “more equitable” and “more stable / sustainable” will be less equitable and less stable. i come to this paradoxicaly conclusion via general system theory and the law of unintended consequences – both of which govern the behavior of complex systems like the human economy and society.
We need a newly framed articulation why even despite market imperfections, we are better off NOT agreeing to the progressive Faustian bargain, i.e. trading our personal liberty for economic safety provided by a “benevolent” government. power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so the very powers you give to government to solve problems will sow the seeds for problems including government rent seeking and endemic corruption. In the private sector one evil man can cause harm, but only when the government holds monopoly power over whole sectors of economy is there possibility of systemic failure risk!!! if we look to the govenrment to solve micro problems, we open up the risk of government sowing macro systemic risk. this is what we are seeing play out in markets since Lehman collapsed in 2008. Markets have natural circuit breakers, including rule of law. When government has monopoly over the ruling making and regulation and design of large sectors of economy, that is when you open way for systemic failure in society.
Progressives want us to believe if we weren’t all so individually selfish, we could collectively solve social problems. This is an illogical understanding of how the world actually works. any attempt by government to guarantee “social justice” are bound to trigger a series of unintended consequences that beg further market failures, begging new government interventions and so on, until society lands on “the road to serfdom.” Markets are unfair and messy. Let us focus on developing individual tools (via family and other private institutions) to adjust to life challenges rather than trying to design or engineer challenges out of life through some fairly-tale benevolent government utopian model of macro management.
- AUGUST 9, 2011
Stand by Your Man
Progressives are betraying Obama, not the other way around.
By JAMES TARANTO
Amid President Obama's recent political difficulties, one recurring theme from unhappy lefties is that the president is either too willing to compromise his progressive principles or else never adhered to such principles in the first place. Former MSNBC host Cenk Uygur, writing at the Puffington Host, grouses that "Obama is the world's worst negotiator and has absolutely no interest in fighting for progressive principles." Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda's erstwhile lesser half, claims that in attempting to transcend the racial divide, Obama made himself a "centrist" and thereby "forfeited the ability to identify in a full-throated way with . . . progressive liberalism." And of course former Enron adviser Paul Krugman has described the president as a "moderate conservative."
This strain of criticism is distinct from the collapse of the Cult of Obama phenomenon, which we've been discussing in recent days. It comes from ideologues, many of whom never harbored any fantasies about Obama as some sort of transformative leader. Krugman, for example, has been consistently hard-headed in his view of Obama.
Left-wing progressives have abundant reason to be unhappy with the Obama presidency. If it continues on its current trajectory, it could be the greatest setback to progressive ideology since the Vietnam War. Uygur is also correct in reckoning the president an atrocious negotiator as we argued last week.
But the notion that Obama is not a progressive or has not been "fighting for progressive principles"--a very different activity from negotiating, we should note--is bunk. If you doubt it, reread this Peggy Noonan column from February 2010:
The president had a stunning and revealing exchange with Sen. Blanche Lincoln, the Arkansas Democrat likely to lose her 2010 re-election campaign. He was meeting with Senate Democrats to urge them to continue with his legislative agenda. Mrs. Lincoln took the opportunity to beseech him to change it. She urged him to distance his administration from "people who want extremes," and to find "common ground" with Republicans in producing legislation that would give those in business the "certainty" they need to create jobs.
While answering, Mr. Obama raised his voice slightly and quickened his cadence. "If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression . . . the result is going to be the same. I don't know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us in this fix in the first place." He continued: "If our response ends up being, you know . . . we don't want to stir things up here," then "I don't know why people would say, 'Boy, we really want to make sure those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us.' "
In the recent budget negotiations, too, Obama was combative and unyielding. "Eric, don't call my bluff," he imperiously told the House majority leader. He said he would take his case "to the American people," and he did. He was still taking his case to the American people yesterday afternoon, repeating his demand for higher taxes against the backdrop of the plummeting stock market.
To be sure, in the interim he folded. But he did so only because the alternative--failing to reach a deal acceptable to the Republican House--would have risked catastrophe.
In short, Obama is a fighter for the progressive cause. Progressives are upset with him because he is a loser.
The face of a winner
Bill Clinton, by contrast, was a winner. By all accounts he emerged victorious from the 1995-96 budget battles with Republicans, and he was easily re-elected. There are, of course, many differences between Clinton and Obama, and between those times and these. But one salient difference is that Clinton was ideologically flexible whereas Obama is rigid.
Unlike Obama, Clinton abandoned "health care reform" when it was clear it was politically untenable. Clinton drove a hard bargain with Republicans in the budget fights, but he never demanded that they raise taxes. And his signature legislation turned out to be welfare reform, a centrist initiative that drew bipartisan support but bitter opposition from the progressive left.
Yet the left not only stood by him but rallied behind him when he was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice in a sex scandal. If Barack Obama were caught in flagrante delicto with a White House intern, does anyone doubt the left would demand his resignation--and would be relieved at having a good reason to do so?
Progs loved Bill Clinton because he was a winner. They loathe Barack Obama because he is a loser. But Obama is a loser in large part because he is unwilling to do what Clinton did to make himself a winner: cast aside progressive ideology when it is expedient to do so.
Obama isn't betraying the left, the left is betraying Obama--and they are doing so precisely because he has done what they say they want him to do.
Opportunity Knocks?
"President Barack Obama says there's some good news from the bitterly partisan debt debate," the Associated Press reports. This should be good--and it is! He says "it made people so frustrated with Washington that Democrats will be able to draw a clear divide with Republicans heading into the 2012 election":
"President Barack Obama says there's some good news from the bitterly partisan debt debate," the Associated Press reports. This should be good--and it is! He says "it made people so frustrated with Washington that Democrats will be able to draw a clear divide with Republicans heading into the 2012 election":
The president said Monday that the public thought divided government might make some sense--but not dysfunctional government. . . .
"The good news is that I think there has been enough frustration at Washington, sort of reached a fevered pitch last week, that we're now looking at 16 months in which there's going to be a clear contrast and a clear choice," he said.
Obama was speaking at a fund-raiser "with tickets priced at $15,000 per family to benefit the Obama Victory Fund," the AP notes. We suppose people who would make such a donation at this point would believe just about anything, but really, is this the best he can do?
Are Americans frustrated with Washington? No doubt. Is government dysfunctional? For sure. Is this an argument for re-electing an incumbent president? Not in any universe we've ever visited. Maybe Obama could resign and run as an outsider.
Reuters reports on the same fund-raiser under the headline "Obama Says He Inherited Economic Problems." Wow, there's a game-changer!
The New Civility
"Unless things change and Obama can run on accomplishments, he will have to kill Romney," an unnamed "prominent Democratic strategist aligned with the White House" tells Politico.com. Of course he is referring to character assassination rather than the literal kind:
"Unless things change and Obama can run on accomplishments, he will have to kill Romney," an unnamed "prominent Democratic strategist aligned with the White House" tells Politico.com. Of course he is referring to character assassination rather than the literal kind:
The onslaught would have two aspects. The first is personal: Obama's reelection campaign will portray the public Romney as inauthentic, unprincipled and, in a word used repeatedly by Obama's advisers in about a dozen interviews, "weird."
"First, they've got to like you, and there's not a lot to like about Mitt Romney," said Chicago Democratic consultant Pete Giangreco, who worked on Obama's 2008 campaign. "There's no way to hide this guy and hide his innate phoniness."
A senior Obama adviser was even more cutting, suggesting that the Republican's personal awkwardness will turn off voters.
"There's a weirdness factor with Romney, and it remains to be seen how he wears with the public," the adviser said, noting that the contrasts they'd drive between the president and the former Massachusetts governor would be "based on character to a great extent."
Assuming Romney is the nominee, this seems as plausible an attack as any. Certainly he is vulnerable to the charge of being "inauthentic and unprincipled."
On the other hand, does Barack Obama, the president from the faculty lounge by way of Hawaii, Indonesia and Jeremiah Wright's church, really want to run a campaign on the question of who is more "weird"? Campaign operatives tell Politico they are looking for inspiration to President Bush's campaign against John Kerry, the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat who by the way served in Vietnam. But Obama running as a regular guy is about as credible as Kerry running as a war hero.
The Politico story also mentions in passing that "Obama remains personally popular." No doubt there are numbers to back up this assertion, but every time we see it, we can't help thinking that Obama is about as "personally popular" as Willy Loman was "well liked."
If He's Lost Jesse Jackson, He's Lost Middle America
Der Spiegel has an interview with dinosaur: Tyrannosaurus race, better known as Jesse Jackson. If you know the background, this exchange is risible:
Der Spiegel has an interview with dinosaur: Tyrannosaurus race, better known as Jesse Jackson. If you know the background, this exchange is risible:
Spiegel: When was the last time you spoke to President Barack Obama?
Jackson: It has been a while.
Spiegel: But you were one of his early mentors in Chicago and the picture of your public tears in Chicago's Grant Park after his election victory in 2008 went around the globe. How would you describe your current feelings about his presidency?
Jackson: At that moment in Grant Park, we were finally winning, but I was reflecting on the long journey, the many years of struggle for civil rights. Obama ran the last lap of a 60-year campaign. I thought of all the bruises we endured during this campaign and I thought of Dr. Martin Luther King and wished he had been there just for 20 seconds to see how 60 years of struggle suddenly paid off. Sure, some layer of the excitement of that night is gone.
We'll bet some layer of the excitement is gone! This is the same Jesse Jackson, after all, who said of the future president in July 2008: "I want to cut his nuts out."
Also amusing is that Jackson does not dispute the interviewer's description of him as having been a mentor to Obama. If he was, the Associated Press got it terribly wrong in this March 2008 dispatch:
Early in Barack Obama's political career in Illinois, Jesse Jackson helped slap him down. Even now, Jackson's son is a more vocal Obama advocate than his internationally known father. . . .
The two are not close. Twenty years older, Jackson, the trailblazer, was never Obama's mentor.
What a comedown for Jackson to be reduced to pretending he was an influence on Obama.
Respect My Authoritah!
Mediaite.com quotes Al Gore's latest carefully reasoned defense of global warmism:
Mediaite.com quotes Al Gore's latest carefully reasoned defense of global warmism:
And some of the exact same people--I can go down a list of their names--are involved in this. And so what do they do? They pay pseudscientists to pretend to be scientists to put out the message: "This climate thing, it's nonsense. Man-made CO2 doesn't trap heat. It may be volcanoes." Bullsh--! "It may be sun spots." Bullsh--! "It's not getting warmer." Bullsh--!
Hey Mr. Gore, just because you're hot under the collar doesn't mean the globe is warming.
Those Thoughtful, Open-Minded Liberals
"Although I try to understand my parents' political beliefs, I don't. When I see what Newsmax 'article' or Wall Street Journal editorial my father 'likes' on Facebook, or glance at a photo, taken a few years back, of my folks dressed as McCain and Palin for Halloween, I feel physically sick. Sometimes it's hard to even have simple conversations with them. Even the most innocent pleasantry, like 'Nice weather,' could spiral out of control if I don't watch what I say."--Sue Sanders, Salon.com, Aug. 7
"Although I try to understand my parents' political beliefs, I don't. When I see what Newsmax 'article' or Wall Street Journal editorial my father 'likes' on Facebook, or glance at a photo, taken a few years back, of my folks dressed as McCain and Palin for Halloween, I feel physically sick. Sometimes it's hard to even have simple conversations with them. Even the most innocent pleasantry, like 'Nice weather,' could spiral out of control if I don't watch what I say."--Sue Sanders, Salon.com, Aug. 7
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