HOWIEINSEATTLE

Charlie Rose Show: Obama, Holder, Cheney and CIA Torture and Spying (video)

2009-07-14T16:49:00.000-07:00

A conversation about the Bush Administration's Intelligence Programs with Scott Shane of "The New York Times" and Jane Mayer of "The New Yorker."

Barack Obama

Letterman - Top Ten Dick Cheney Excuses (video)

2009-07-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

CBS, video (02:18).

Howie P.S.. Mocking is a poor substitute for jail and justice, but it's all I've got at the moment.

"On Health-Care Reform, Obama Looks to the LBJ Model"

2009-07-14T06:59:00.000-07:00

WaPo:

President Obama returned to domestic affairs yesterday after a weeklong overseas tour with a warning for skeptics of his stalled health-care overhaul: "Don't bet against us."

The tough talk in the Rose Garden gave way hours later to behind-the-scenes Lyndon B. Johnson-style lobbying, as Obama pledged in a pair of private meetings with Democratic lawmakers to stake his political capital on this year's top agenda item.

"I just want to put everybody on notice because there was a lot of chatter during the week that I was gone," he said. "Inaction is not an option."
Despite Obama's forceful reengagement, congressional Democrats continued to struggle last night to finalize details of legislation aimed at overhauling the nation's health-care system. House leaders wrangled with rank-and-file members over plans to pay for expanded insurance coverage by increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

At the White House session, Senate leaders came under fire for a slipping timetable that may make it difficult to meet Obama's deadline for floor action by the August recess.

"The urgency barometer is up," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said after the meeting.

Obama conveyed to the Senate leaders that he still expects the committee to begin action next week, two Democratic sources said.

The legislative tussles spoke to the daunting challenge of remaking a health system that consumes $1 out of every $6 spent in the country and illustrated why many reform advocates have been clamoring for Obama, who has studied the Johnson model, to dive deeper into the high-stakes battle.

"Members understand this is really the centerpiece to the president's agenda. They understand he values their input and their concerns," said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), who spent three days last week listening to House colleagues catalog their questions, fears and gripes about the proposed bill. "Now that health care's front and center in both the House and Senate, he should have even more of an impact."

In sessions with Democrats, Obama and his advisers remind lawmakers that the defeat of President Bill Clinton's health-care overhaul spelled electoral disaster for the party in 1994, costing Democrats control of both the House and Senate.

"Behind closed doors, he essentially says: If this sinks, we will have trouble in 2010," said Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at the moderate Third Way think tank. "If this goes down, they will lose a whole lot of momentum on everything else. Clinton's whole agenda went down" after the reform's defeat.

In mapping its strategy, the Obama team chose to take its cues from another Democratic senator-turned-president: following the legislative model employed by Johnson to enact Medicare in 1965.

"There are two qualities these presidents have in common," said White House senior adviser David Axelrod. Like Obama, Johnson "had a big vision and drove the country toward it, and second, he had a great appreciation for the legislative process."

Early on, Obama and health czar Nancy-Ann DeParle discussed the parallels with Johnson and creation of the health program that serves 45 million seniors and people with disabilities today. Just as Johnson gave legendary lawmaker Wilbur Mills (D-Ark.) latitude to craft the Medicare bill, Obama has asked Congress to write the health-care revamp legislation.

And just as Johnson was known for his powers of personal persuasion, Obama, a former senator himself, has assiduously cultivated and cajoled lawmakers.

"He becomes Lyndon Johnson in a more graceful form but just as steely," said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). "Obama isn't a toucher" like Johnson, Rockefeller said, "it's just intellect, this sort of streaming knowledge and a deep voice that never seems to get weary. It's clear he has to have this."

Obama devotes at least one hour a day to health care, often studying briefing memos about individual lawmakers and their pet issues, said one White House aide. The topic is woven into most of his public appearances, as he "makes the case that inaction has disastrous implications for the future," Axelrod said.

In private meetings or phone calls with legislators, Obama "has an easy familiarity," said DeParle, who often joins the sessions. "He has a way of getting right to the heart of the matter. He's pushing and prodding and giving no ground."

When the president leans back in his chair, flashing a broad smile, "he is very persuasive," she said. After he listens to lawmakers' concerns, he often replies: "There's no reason to delay."

As a reminder of the blueprint they have settled on, DeParle keeps a Johnson quotation under glass on her desk, just above the keyboard. It reads: "There is but one way for a president to deal with the Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption."

Obama has lavished attention on moderate GOP senators such as Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) and Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), who provide the seal of bipartisanship he covets. His message to Snowe, like many others, is that "this is his highest domestic priority, and he wants to get it accomplished and done this year," she said. "I indicated to him it was important to be flexible on the time frame and on trying to draft the substance of legislative policy."

Snowe and Rockefeller praised Obama for his deference to the legislative branch, but both signaled he may soon have to wade into the messier details of the bill.

"At some point, the president's going to have to play a pivotal role in shaping what happens," Snowe said. "It is crucial."

On Capitol Hill, conservative House Democrats are pushing back against a graduated surtax on incomes exceeding $350,000 a year, saying the plan would unduly increase the highest marginal tax rate. Many senators expressed a distaste for any tax increase for the wealthy.

Obama appeared undeterred.
"I understand people are a little nervous and a little scared about making change," he said. "The muscles in this town to bring about big changes are a little atrophied, but we're whipping folks back into shape."

Barack Obama

ED Show: "Crime but no punishment for Cheney" (video)

2009-07-13T16:01:00.000-07:00

MSNBC-ED Show, video (12:35).

Howie P.S.: Sen. Bill Nelson, Rep. Rush Holt and former CIA Officer Jack White join ED to discuss what Congress should do in the wake of Cheney's latest misdeed.

"Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and Mayoral Candidate Joe Mallahan" (audio)

2009-07-13T15:48:00.000-07:00

KUOW, with audio (53:30):

The primaries are right around the corner. Today incumbent mayor, Greg Nickels, joins us followed by mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan. Nickels has been accused of being out of touch with voter priorities. For instance, some are questioning the recent $40,000 bonus given to the chief of City Light. He'll discuss this and other issues including the ongoing construction and the light rail, slated to open on July 18. Mallahan has worked in business, not politics, but he believes his "get it done attitude" can improve Seattle. What is his campaign platform? Email your questions to "Weekday" or call during the show at 1.800.289.KUOW.

Tomorrow on Weekday: Greendays Gardening Panel: Gardening and Travel

Guest(s)

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has been the mayor of Seattle for two terms and announced last month his intention to run for a third term. He is currently in Washington, D.C., meeting with President Obama about a new Urban Affairs office that is being created.
Joe Mallahan is vice president of operations at T–Mobile. He's running to be Seattle's Mayor.

Howie P.S.: Here's a good chance to make a side-by-comparison. I've made mine!

"More Democrats call for investigating the CIA" (with video)

2009-07-13T06:31:00.000-07:00

Alex Isenstadt (Politico) with video (00:28):

Calls for an investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency intensified this weekend amid revelations that former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the concealment of a covert agency spy program from Congress.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said that the Senate Intelligence Committee should “absolutely” investigate the program.
"The executive branch of government should not create programs like these programs and keep Congress in the dark," Durbin said on ABC’s “This Week”. "To have a massive program that was concealed from the leaders in Congress is not only inappropriate, it could be illegal."

In an article posted to its website on Saturday, the New York Times reported that CIA Director Leon Panetta notified House and Senate intelligence committee members that Cheney ordered the concealment of a surveillance program from Congress.

The article, which sourced the claim to "two people with direct knowledge of the matter," follows on the heels of reports this week that Panetta had told House intelligence committee members that the CIA had misled Congress for eight years about the program.

Lawmakers have declined to offer any details about the covert program, citing the sensitivity of intelligence information. Intelligence officials have told POLITICO that the program was "on-again, off-again over the years," and that it "never went fully operational."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that Congress should have been told about the classified program.

"I think you weaken your case when you go outside the law," Feinstein said on "Fox News Sunday." "That's something that should never happen again."

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who chairs the House Intelligence Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee, said in an interview with POLITICO that the New York Times report only reinforced the need for the launch of formal investigation into the CIA’s practices.

“What it does is really propel a prompt investigation,” Schakowsky said. “An explicit decision was made at the highest levels not to report this program.”

But Republicans insist there is no need to rush into an investigation into the CIA - and are accusing Democrats of trying to make political hay out of the revelations.

"What if it's a top secret program?” Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl asked on “This Week.” “Let's don't jump to conclusions is what I'm saying."

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), meanwhile, said Democrats were turning the CIA into a “whipping child.”

"That isn't a reason to disassemble the CIA and make them a whipping child in the middle of public opinion, which basically undermines the whole agency," Gregg said on CNN's "State of the Union." "This is a national attempt by some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to basically undermine efforts to collect intelligence."

But Democrats are making the case that the New York Times report offers vindication for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has come under fire from critics after asserting earlier this year that the CIA had misled her on its use of controversial water-boarding practices.

“It certainly confirms her characterization of the level of openness the intelligence community and the CIA have given to Congress,” Schakowsky told POLITICO.

Asked if Panetta's charge – which does not seem to directly relate to the question of what the CIA Pelosi about waterboarding – offered validation to the Speaker's complaint of being misled by the agency, Schakowsky responded: “Absolutely.”
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano declined to comment on the New York Times report, saying, “It’s not agency practice to discuss what may or may not have been said in a classified briefing."

“When a C.I.A. unit brought this matter to Director Panetta’s attention, it was with the recommendation that it be shared appropriately with Congress. That was also his view, and he took swift, decisive action to put it into effect,” Gimigliano said.

Howie P.S.: As Joe Sudbay says on AMERICAblog, "Even Dianne Feinstein thinks the Bush admin. might have broken law." I see the investigations as more about manipulation of the CIA by Bush-Cheney than just about the CIA itself.

Clinton-Obama 2.0 (audio)

2009-07-12T18:20:00.000-07:00

NPR, with audio (04:23):

As President Obama finishes a whirlwind diplomatic tour, Guy Raz takes a look at how Obama's former rival, Hillary Clinton, is faring as secretary of state. Raz talks with Politico.com reporter Ben Smith about Smith's recent article, "Clinton Toils in the Shadows."

Howie P.S.: Much of the interview focuses on the current Clinton-Obama working relationship.

Barack Obama

Juan Williams Calls Out Bill Kristol For Using Health Care "Scare Tactics" (VIDEO)

2009-07-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

Huffington Post, with video (01:21):

On "Fox News Sunday" today Juan Williams criticized fellow panelist Bill Kristol for using what he called "scare tactics" in making the case against the current health care reform plan.

Howie P.S.: Count on FOX to give us the GOP spin. They don't say the current system is working just fine and can't point to one example in the world that supports their point of view.

"Meet Joe Mallahan" --Seattle Mayoral Candidate (video)

2009-07-12T17:34:00.000-07:00

MallahanforMayor, video (01:52).

"AP source: Holder considering torture probe"

2009-07-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

AP (Nedra Pickler):

Contrary to White House wishes, Attorney General Eric Holder may push forward with a criminal investigation into the Bush administration's harsh interrogation practices used on suspected terrorists.

Holder is considering whether to appoint a prosecutor and will make a final decision within the next few weeks, a Justice Department official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on a pending matter.
A move to appoint a criminal prosecutor is certain to stir partisan bickering that could create a distraction to President Barack Obama's efforts to push ambitious health care and energy reform.

Obama has repeatedly expressed reluctance to having a probe into alleged Bush-era abuses and resisted an effort by congressional Democrats to establish a "truth commission," saying the nation should be "looking forward and not backwards."

Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller said Holder planned to "follow the facts and the law."

"We have made no decisions on investigations or prosecutions, including whether to appoint a prosecutor to conduct further inquiry," he told the AP on Saturday. "As the attorney general has made clear, it would be unfair to prosecute any official who acted in good faith based on legal guidance from the Justice Department."

Newsweek magazine, which first reported the development, said Holder was aware of the political implications of having a probe and preferred not to create unnecessary trouble for the White House. Still, the attorney general was troubled by what he learned in reports about the treatment of prisoners at the CIA's "black sites."

The probe would focus in part on whether CIA personnel tortured terrorism suspects after Sept. 11, 2001. Holder has said those who acted within the government's legal guidance will not be prosecuted, but has left open the possibility of pursuing those who went beyond the guidance and broke the law.

Holder has discussed with his staff the possibility of a prosecutor, saying he needed someone with "gravitas and grit," the magazine reported. In the end, the attorney general asked for a list of 10 candidates, five from within the Justice Department and five from outside.
"I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president's agenda," Holder told Newsweek. "But that can't be a part of my decision."

Howie P.S.: Empty Wheel points the finger at Rhambo as the point person behind White House reluctance to support this investigation. Add Dick Durbin to the list of people who want a probe into CIA programs that were withheld from Congress.

Barack Obama

Taibbi: "On The ‘Everyone Was Doing It’ Excuse" (with video)

2009-07-12T07:43:00.000-07:00

Matt Taibbi:

“The [Rolling Stone] article makes a very compelling case against Goldman Sachs, but I think the problems it identifies are pervasive in financial firms and corporate America in general,” says Nell Minow, who is the co-founder of the Corporate Library, a research firm that tracks corporate-governance issues. “We need to launch substantive financial reform rather than weighing the faults of one firm versus another.” Minow’s point is this: spend too much time on Goldman and you miss the fact of how broadly the financial system and the regulations that are supposed to keep profiteers in check failed us. And she’s right.

via Goldman Sachs vs. Rolling Stone: A Wall Street Smackdown - TIME.

It’s been interesting, to say the least, watching the public reaction to my Rolling Stone piece last week. I of course expected that some kind of highly unpleasant response would come my way from Goldman and its allies in the press, but I admit to being surprised a little by the form this response took.

Obviously I don’t want to dwell on this business, because it’s beyond boring when someone in my position complains about his critics, but I feel like I have to say something about at least a few of the talking points of the inevitable Goldman counteroffensive, which in various forms (letters sent to me personally, public comments) have reached my desk in the last few days.

The most ludicrous of these, and the one that surprised me the most, is the accusation that my article was anti-Semitic propaganda. The first letter I got on this score I actually mistook for a joke sent to me by one of my friends. Then I got another one which I quickly realized was not a joke at all. “Isn’t it convenient,” it read, “that an Arab-American writer for Rolling Stone looks at Wall Street and picks the most prototypically Jewish firm around to demonize.”

The last time I heard something similar was a few years ago, when Debbie Schlussel, a severely dimwitted Detroit-based right-wing pundit, railed against my supposed Arabness after I wrote an article about the Lebanese population in Dearborn, Michigan. I wrote to her to let her know that I’m actually Irish and Filipino, and not at all an Arab, but never got a response. This time the charge is a little different, as several writers complained that my article was “a rehash of every classic anti-Jewish conspiracy theory” and “a pale copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

The evidence for these charges seems to be as follows. One, I used the word “tribe” somewhere near the end of the piece. Two, the term “blood-funnel” was used (one person also hinted that the use of a squid image was somehow anti-Semitic, but I was not entirely clear what was being referred to there). Three, I “singled out” Goldman and failed to level similar charges at “less Jewish firms” (yes, one letter-writer actually used that phrase) like Morgan-Stanley.

A few points in response to this preposterous argument. Firstly I’m going to make a blanket denial and just say that the question of religion was so far outside my thinking while writing this piece that I never even considered it. If this issue had even entered my head so much as once, I probably would have been more careful, and it is remotely possible that I might not then have used a distantly suggestive word like “tribe,” if only to avoid having to answer charges like this. But I didn’t consider it, for the simple reason that it’s completely ridiculous and not at all relevant.

For one thing, while Goldman’s founders a gazillion years ago were apparently Jewish, I seriously doubt that religion plays any role at all in the makeup of the modern Goldman. I don’t have any way of knowing this, but I would be shocked if it weren’t true that a majority of Goldman’s current employees were not Jewish. And whatever the reality is, I don’t care; it’s not a concern of mine and we didn’t make it a concern in the article.

If anything it seems to me that what defines these Wall Street characters is not religion but the absence of it: even a hardened atheist like myself comes away from the experience of reading about the last two decades of Wall Street history shocked by that community’s complete and utter Godlessness and moral insanity. What I’m saying in other words is that if any of these clowns actually had a real religious sensibility, we wouldn’t be in this mess — and that’s coming from someone who believes all religions to be inherently ridiculous. For Goldman now to hide behind the cloak of Jewish victimhood is both more obnoxious and less convincing than Marion Barry wearing a dashiki after the indictment.

Then there is this other argument, the one being bandied about by Time magazine, among others. According to Steven Gandel of Time, the problem with my piece is that it is — get this — too specific. According to the above passage, focusing on Goldman in particular when attempting to explain (in general) the crimes of Wall Street to ordinary readers is somehow a distraction from the “real problem.” To repeat:

…spend too much time on Goldman and you miss the fact of how broadly the financial system and the regulations that are supposed to keep profiteers in check failed us.

I had to read that passage several times to even begin to grasp its ostensible meaning. Apparently this is the best argument that Time could come up with to discredit this article, that the rhetorical technique of using a specific example of a specific bank like Goldman to tell a broader story about Wall Street in general distracts readers from the “more important” issue of how government regulators… failed to stop banks like Goldman! I mean, really, how’s that for circular thinking? This is silly stuff even by Time magazine’s standards.

I’ve been shocked by how many grown adult people seem to have swallowed this argument, that the argument against Goldman’s behavior during the bubbles of recent decades is invalid because “everyone was doing it” — and other banks, like for instance Morgan Stanley, were “just as bad” as Goldman was.

Two things about that. One, it isn’t true, not really. By any reasonable measure Goldman is and has been the baddest guy on the block for a long time. When it comes to government influence, no other Wall Street company even comes close. And while maybe one might have made an argument that other players were more damaging to society before the crisis of last year, there’s simply no question now, after the bailouts and especially after the AIG fiasco, that Goldman now reigns supreme in the area of insider advantage. To pick any other bank to tell the story of the rapidly growing influence of Wall Street on politics and the blurring of public and private roles would be a glaring journalistic oversight, and surely even Goldman’s biggest supporters would admit this.

Two, even if it is true that “everyone else was doing it”: so what? Who cares? To me this response is highly telling. We published a piece accusing Goldman Sachs of systematically ripping off pensioners and other retail investors by sticking them with rafts of toxic mortgages it knew were losers, of looting taxpayer reserves to cover its bad bets made with AIG, of manipulating gas prices to massive detrimental effect, of helping to explode an internet bubble that caused over $5 trillion in wealth to disappear, and numerous other crimes — and the response isn’t “You’re wrong,” or “We didn’t do that shit, not us,” but “Well, Morgan did the same stuff,” and “Why aren’t you writing about Morgan?”

Why didn’t we write about Morgan? Because we didn’t. Because it’s your turn, you assholes. Maybe later someone will tell the story of the other banks, but for now, while most ordinary people are only just learning about the workings of the financial innovation era that blew up in their faces last year, the top dog in that universe is going to be first in line to get the special treatment. That might be inconvenient for Goldman, but it doesn’t make the things I or anyone else say about them untrue.

Normally I don’t care so much when people criticize my work. It goes with the territory. But in this case, the response of a bank like Goldman and Goldman’s supporters is characteristic of the subject matter in a way that is important to point out, even after the fact of publication. These are powerful people who know how to play the public relations game, have all the appropriate contacts, and have a playbook that they follow to discredit their critics. Whether it’s me now or the next guy who takes them on, they’re going to come back with some kind of charge, be it “Everyone was doing it,” or “We’re just smarter than the other guys, you can’t blame us for that,” or “The real culprits are the ineffective regulators,” something.

They’re going to say that and more, but whether it’s this time or the next time, the important thing is to pay attention to what they don’t say.

And what they didn’t say about this piece is that it was wrong. They didn’t deny any of it. They said others were just as bad, they said I was a bad guy, they said it was a conspiracy theory. But they didn’t say it was mistaken, and that’s the only thing that matters.

Howie P.S.: This is what happens when you tell the truth in an article in The Rolling Stone. More from Matt in an interview here from "Sam Seder's Interview of Über Journalist Matt Taibbi" (video).Part 1 of the interview is at the top of this post.

Young Turks: "Ari Melber on Obama's Radical Gitmo Policy" (audio)

2009-07-12T06:13:00.000-07:00

"Ari Melber on Obama's Radical Gitmo Policy," (audio, 10:00):

Writer for The Nation and Politico comes on TYT to discuss how radical and dangerous Obama's new indefinite detention policy is. Is his policy worse than Bush's and worse than what currently exists at Gitmo?

Howie P.S.: This is a smart discussion of the legal and political issues involved in what to do with Gitmo prisoners. Ari and Cenk are discussing the issues raised in Melber's story in Politico, "Prevention is not always the best medicine.".

Barack Obama

I'll be offline through the weekend

2009-07-07T05:20:00.000-07:00

Taking care of some "personal business."

"Barack Obama keeps his cool in hothead Washington"

2009-07-06T06:51:00.000-07:00

Andrew Sullivan:

The instinctive conservatism and constitutionalism of Barack Obama were core reasons for his election. He was a liberal in policy but a conservative in temperament: cautious, consensus-seeking, empirical. After the wild swings of the Bush administration, this seemed like balm with an Eisenhower vibe. Obama even started golfing during foreign policy crises.
Decisions were made after deliberation and study, not impetuously. Strategy was stuck to, even at the cost of a few tactical setbacks. There was no big emotional breast-beating on the international stage; all options were kept open — even as we watched the brutal repression in Iran.

The new president also understood the real role of his office — not the decider, but the presider; one branch of three co-equal branches of government, subject to the rule of law and the constitution.

So the president resisted the temptation to jump in and nationalise the banks; he picked Wall Street-friendly Tim Geithner for the Treasury; he postponed any big early withdrawal from Iraq; he added troops in Afghanistan; he gave up his tax hikes because the recession was so steep. While he banned torture, he moved towards careful compromise on rendition and preventive detention and state secrets.

As he had once written when describing his strategy as a black man in a white world: no sudden moves. And we have seen none. Obama likes the system; he just wants to make it work for more people.

Obama is also, at his core, a community organiser. Community organisers do not jump into a situation and start bossing people around. They begin by listening, debating, cajoling, inspiring and delegating. Less deciders than ralliers, community organisers explain the options, inspire self-confidence and try to empower others, not themselves. If you think of Obama even on a global stage, this is his mojo. And those community organisers do not tell you to expect instant results. It takes time when you try to build real change from below. But the change is stronger, deeper and more real when it comes.

The question buzzing around Washington’s chattering classes is the following: is the actual historical moment that Obama inherited — unforeseen in its scope and danger this time last year — the right moment for these instincts? Are his caution and delegation a liability in a period of a dysfunctional Congress, a near-psychotic Republican party and a potentially lethal global depression?

After a period in which the American executive claimed vast powers and institutionalised torture and abuse of suspected terrorists, is it enough simply to forget and forgive the past and try to glue onto the existing system more checks and balances and decency? Is the conservatism we sought, in other words, adequate to the radicalism that may now be required?

And is the president being too deferential to Congress in seizing the reins?

This critique is echoed on both left and right. The right, in its dominant neoconservative vein, is frustrated with his disdain for classic American moralising and sabre-rattling at a moment such as Iran’s stymied green revolution. The left wishes he had been more radical in taking on Wall Street, insisting on a single-payer healthcare reform and a full-bore carbon tax. Harper’s Magazine has even labelled him Barack Hoover Obama: personally brilliant, humane and pragmatic but simply not daring enough for the moment he is facing.

The Obama brigade would counter with some strong arguments. It would point out that he won a huge stimulus package from Congress very swiftly precisely because he did defer to the Hill. It would point to the first real carbon reduction legislation to be passed in the House. It would note the swift rebalancing of America’s alliances and the catalytic effect of the Cairo speech in Iran. It would note that Obama was not so indecisive in a legitimate case of purely executive decision making — as three Somali pirates shot on his orders found out.

It would also rightly argue that alternative methods of dealing with Congress — remember the Clinton White House’s presidential-driven healthcare debacle? — don’t work so well. Better an imperfect Barack victory than another Hillary nosedive. As for foreign policy toughness and clarity, Obama’s insistence that Israel cease and desist its settlement programme on the West Bank is not exactly passive-aggressive. Besides, he always said this would take time.

But what if the economic stimulus was too geared for long-term rather than short-term impact, as Friday’s jobs report — showing a bigger jump in unemployment than expected — suggested. By deciding to adopt George W Bush’s Iraq withdrawal strategy, has Obama wed himself to the fortunes of an occupation he was elected to end? And the attempt to co-opt the moderate wing of the Republican party — which Obama has done among many voters, officials, pundits and governors — nonetheless falters in a Congress where there are no moderate Republicans left.

My own brilliant contribution to this debate is that it’s too soon to tell, but I learnt long ago not to underestimate Obama’s strategic skills and persistence. The drawn-out stimulus spending might actually help to prop up the economy in the coming months — and it’s utopian to believe that any Congress would have borrowed even more money this winter after Bush’s $700 billion banking bailout and the vast projected deficits of the future.

The sheer complexity and volatility of the war on jihadism make instant solutions impossible. In so far as Obama can make a purely executive call — as in the commander he picked for Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal — he has opted for the most imaginative and daring option. He remains highly popular as a person and has imbibed the presidency so well that it’s now hard to conceive of it without him.
Healthcare reform is an immensely delicate task that may well pass this summer or early autumn. Even if the healthcare plan is insufficient and the climate change bill too anaemic, they will both put down infrastructure that can be built on in the years ahead. That’s better than anyone in a very, very long time.

The more you observe, the clearer it is that Obama is working on an eight-year time cycle. He wants deep structural change, not swift superficial grandstanding and conflict. He is taking his time and keeping his cool. The question is whether a volatile electorate in a terrible economic time will be patient enough to wait.

Barack Obama

Alaska Lt. Gov.: "Legal Bills Swayed Palin"

2009-07-06T06:11:00.000-07:00

NY Times:

Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell of Alaska said Sunday that Gov. Sarah Palin’s decision to resign was largely prompted by the personal legal costs of the ethics investigations against her.
Ms. Palin announced on Friday that she would quit her job near the end of the month and turn the reins of state government over to Mr. Parnell, who like the governor is a Republican.

At the news conference, Ms. Palin cited numerous reasons for quitting, including more than $500,000 in legal fees that she and her husband, Todd, have incurred because of 15 ethics complaints filed against her during her two and a half years as governor. She said all of the complaints had been dismissed, but she still had to pay lawyers to defend her.

Mr. Parnell said Ms. Palin called him into her office on Wednesday night to tell him she was resigning.

“I think what I heard from the governor,” Mr. Parnell said on “Fox News Sunday,” “really had to do with the weight on her, the concern she had for the cost of all the ethics investigations and the like — the way that that weighed on her with respect to her inability to just move forward Alaska’s agenda on behalf of Alaskans in the current context of the environment. So that’s what I saw.”

Mr. Parnell, who is scheduled to take over for Ms. Palin on July 26, said it was costing the State of Alaska about $2 million just to pay for the staff to deal with the records requests from the ethics complaints.

“That was just over the top, and I think she used the word insane in her remarks,” Mr. Parnell said.

Ms. Palin, who was Senator John McCain’s running mate on last year’s Republican presidential ticket, is leaving office 18 months before the end of her first term as governor. In her comments on Friday, she acknowledged the toll that the ethics investigations had taken on her and her family.

But in the often-rambling announcement, Ms. Palin also sounded at one point as though she was quitting politics entirely and at another as though she had an eye on higher office, which immediately led to renewed speculation about the possibility of her running for president in 2012. She promised supporters that in the coming days, she would provide details — on her social networking Facebook and Twitter sites — on her reasons for leaving the governorship so abruptly.
In a posting on her Facebook page on Saturday, Ms. Palin appeared to indicate that she would seek a larger, national role — citing what she said was a “higher calling” to push for conservative causes nationally.

Howie P.S.: E.J. Dionne says Palin started out with a basketball analogy and then used a football term to finish it off.

"STENCH FROM GUANTANAMO STILL WON'T WASH OFF"

2009-07-06T05:42:00.000-07:00

Cynthia Tucker:

Apparently, Congress has detected some footnotes to Emma Lazarus' famous poem engraved inside the Statue of Liberty:

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."

But don't bother sending anyone released from detention at Guantanamo Bay.

"Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
You're sadly mistaken if you believe the U.S. has any responsibility for innocent men we unfairly rounded up and imprisoned, without trial, for years. We're not taking them!

President Obama has learned that he's going to have a very difficult time carrying out his campaign promise to close the detention facility, even though its ugly reputation has made U.S. efforts to fight terrorism more difficult. It needs to be shut down -- pronto.

But Democrats in Congress have been cowed by Republicans, who have used the planned closing of the prison to paint the other party as -- wait for it -- soft on terrorists. So Democrats such as Harry Reid, Senate majority leader, were among those who rushed to denounce any plan to give former detainees sanctuary in the continental U.S. Never mind that most of the detainees never participated in any terrorist activities, as former President Bush eventually acknowledged.

So if most of the men at Guantanamo aren't terrorists, why not just send them to their home countries? Good question.

The answer lies in the complex and less-than-pristine domestic politics in much of the world, where governments don't even pretend to honor human rights or provide fair hearings for criminal suspects. If the Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs were sent home, for example, they'd undoubtedly be imprisoned for daring to protest their treatment at the hands of the Communist government.

They have told U.S. interviewers repeatedly that they went to a Uighur camp in Afghanistan because they were fleeing persecution in China. They never participated in attacks on Americans; the four released to Bermuda last month said they harbor no illwill toward the U.S., even after seven years of detention without trial.

But reckless rhetoric from Dick Cheney and other right-wing fearmongers has not only intimidated Congressional Democrats, but it has also persuaded most Americans that the detainees represent a threat. According to a Gallup Poll released last month, 65 percent of Americans oppose closing Guantanamo; 74 percent oppose moving any dangerous detainees to a prison in their state.

In late June, Obama signed a supplemental appropriations bill that Congress amended to prohibit the release of Guantanamo detainees into the United States and to restrict the president's ability to release them to other countries without Congressional approval. If the U.S. is refusing to provide sanctuary to any of the detainees, why should other countries accept them?

It's no wonder Obama is having trouble persuading European allies to give him a hand with closing the Cuban prison. The U.S. made this mess and is refusing to take responsibility for cleaning it up.

This is more than a little embarrassing. The most powerful country in the world is afraid to take four Muslim men, but a small island nation like Bermuda isn't? The United States imprisons a larger share of its population than any other country in the world, but we can't imprison the remaining dangerous detainees in maximum-security facilities on continental soil?

The America I celebrate is better than this -- more just, more courageous, more responsible. Having unjustly imprisoned a number of men who did not attack us on 9/11, it behooves us to move swiftly to release them and help them reclaim their lives. If Obama has to spend some political capital to help us remember who we are as a nation, he should do so.
Close Gitmo. Close it now.

"Schumer promises public option in healthcare bill" (Updated, with text and video)

2009-07-05T16:46:00.000-07:00

The Hill, with text and video (00:26) from his appearance on "Face the Nation," courtesy of Jed Lewsion:

The healthcare reform bill that emerges from Congress this year will include a government-run public health insurance option, regardless of the bipartisan negotiations seeking a compromise in the Senate, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday.
"Make no mistake about it, the president is for this strongly. There will be a public option in the final bill," Schumer said on CBS News's "Face the Nation."
Schumer made his prediction just days before the Senate returned to the work of getting a bill passed by the first week of August amid significant disagreement between Democrats and Republicans -- and among Democrats themselves -- over controversial issues such as the public option.

Moreover, key members of Finance Committee, on which Schumer has a seat, have been engaged for months in a delicate process of bipartisan negotiations on the contents of the healthcare reform bill, which is expected to require new spending around $1 trillion to extend insurance coverage to nearly all Americans, though Obama and congressional Democrats vow they will offset all new spending with cuts and tax increases.

The major sticking point between Democrats and Republicans on the Finance Committee -- and throughout Congress -- has been the public option. Democrats maintain that a not-for-profit, nationwide alternative to private insurance must be made available to "keep the insurance companies honest," Schumer said. "We don't trust the private insurance companies left to their own devices and neither do the American people."

Republicans counter that any government-run plan could not be a fair competitor and predict that the public option would eventually squeeze private companies out of the market. "The federal government is in the process of nationalizing banks, nationalizing General Motors. I'm going to make sure we don't nationalize health insurance and [the] public option is the first step to doing that," Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said on "Face the Nation."

Despite the bipartisan negotiations going on behind the scenes on the Finance Committee, Schumer pointedly noted that the House and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee have written a public option into their bills. Combined with Obama's continued support for the proposal, Schumer suggested, that bodes well for the prospects of the public option making into the final legislation the president wants on his desk this Autumn.

"The House has proposed its plan, has a strong public option. The HELP Committee, the other committee in the Senate doing this, has proposed a strong public option," Schumer said.

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and six other committee members, including Grassley, have been meeting behind closed doors to draft a bipartisan bill. At the urging of Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), the senators are leaning toward setting aside a true public option in favor of establishing not-for-profit, member-owned health insurance cooperatives to compete with traditional insurance companies. Though the notion appeals to Republicans and some centrist Democrats, supporters of the public option do not view it as an acceptable compromise.

Schumer emerged earlier this year as a vocal proponent of the public option and offered a model for the plan that he positioned as a compromise itself. Under Schumer's proposal, which closely resembles what the House and the HELP Committee are considering, the public option would receive no federal funding, be financed entirely by premiums and have to abide by the same insurance regulations as private firms.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) reiterated on Fox News Sunday that the lower chamber's bill will include a strong public option. "We think there's going to be a public option. Yes, we think we need that. We need to make sure that there is an option available for public that can't get through at the private insurance. We think that's essential if you're going to have access," Hoyer said.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) indicated that a public option would be a deal-breaker for Republicans. "I think having the government have a plan to compete with the private sector is unfair, because the government has no cost of capital," Boehner said.

Hoyer also defended proposals to require most employers to provide health insurance to their workers or pay the a fee to the government. "We believe that if the employers don't participate, then they need to -- by having their employees covered by their own insurance, then they need to participate in helping to pay for the system," Hoyer said. Grassley said an employer mandate would be lethal to small companies. "Such an employer mandate would put a lot of small businesses out of business," he said.

The House bill and the HELP Committee bill also include a provision requiring individuals to obtain coverage; the Finance Committee is expected to adopt the same policy in its legislation. Boehner rejected this proposal, as well. "There's an individual mandate that you must buy health insurance, and if you don't, we're going to fine you," he said.

Hoyer indicated that the House will not consider taxing workplace health benefits to help cover the cost of the reform bill. Obama opposes such a tax but the Finance Committee is seriously considering it. Not so in the House, Hoyer said. "That's a proposal on the table in the Senate, not in the House," he said.

In an interview with The New York Times aboard Air Force Two in the skies over Iraq Saturday, Vice President Biden said Obama and his top aides would escalate their involvement in the healthcare negotiations after the House and Senate pass their respective bills. "The place where we will appropriately get engaged is when this gets to conference," Biden said, according to a White House press pool report.

Though Obama has been using the bully pulpit more and more to promote healthcare reform via press events at the White House and town hall-style meetings, some Democrats and liberals outside Congress have called on Obama to become more directly involved in pressing congressional Democrats on major issues in the reform debate, such as the public option. Biden rejected the notion that Obama is not engaged in the process. "Oh, he’s engaged," Biden said. "I promise you, he’s engaged."

Biden said that Obama has laid out his principles for what should be in the healthcare reform legislation and how it should be financed but is going to let the current stage of the legislative process play out. "We have made absolutely clear in detail what we think is the best healthcare plan and how to finance it, who to cover and the need for a public plan. We have not a this point twisted arms in the House or the Senate on our plan," Biden said.

"Then it goes to conference and some of all of the elements of what we are proposing are in each of the bills, and that’s when we will fight very hard to try to produce a bill out of that conference that is consistent with what we believe is the way to fund it, the way to make sure there’s competition with the insurance industry, through a public plan, to cover the vast majority of the American people," Biden said.
The administration expects Congress to keep to its timetable and have legislation passed by both chambers before the August recess, Biden said. "I’m betting we will get a bill."

Howie P.S.: There is a Yiddish expression that my grandmother used to tell me:

From your lips to God's ears.

Barack Obama

"Obama to liberal advocacy groups: quit targeting moderate Democrats," WaPo says.

2009-07-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

WaPo:

President Obama, strategizing yesterday with congressional leaders about health-care reform, complained that liberal advocacy groups ought to drop their attacks on Democratic lawmakers and devote their energy to promoting passage of comprehensive legislation.
In a pre-holiday call with half a dozen top House and Senate Democrats, Obama expressed his concern over advertisements and online campaigns targeting moderate Democrats, whom they criticize for not being fully devoted to "true" health-care reform.

"We shouldn't be focusing resources on each other," Obama opined in the call, according to three sources who participated in or listened to the conversation. "We ought to be focused on winning this debate."

Specifically, Obama said he is hoping left-leaning organizations that worked on his behalf in the presidential campaign will now rally support for "advancing legislation" that fulfills his goal of expanding coverage, controlling rising costs and modernizing the health system.

In the call, leaders of both chambers expressed optimism that they will hold floor votes on legislation to overhaul the $2.2 trillion health system before Congress breaks in early August.

For his part, the president vowed to use his strong approval rating with voters to continue making the case for sweeping reform, according to one congressional staffer with knowledge of the conversation. Obama also hinted that efforts are under way to discourage allies from future attacks on Democrats, according to the source, who did not have permission to speak on the record about the discussion.

The White House had no comment on the president's call.

In recent weeks, liberal bloggers and grass-roots groups such as MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, Service Employees International Union and Progressive Change Campaign Committee have targeted Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Arlen Specter (Pa.), Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.).

A fundraising video produced by Democracy for America suggests Landrieu is a "sellout" because she has received $1.6 million in campaign contributions from the health-care industry and has yet to endorse the concept of a government-run health insurance plan to compete against the private companies. The public-option concept, which Obama supports, has become a litmus test for many pro-reform activists who accuse the insurance industry of failing to deliver affordable, accessible care.

"Tell Senator Landrieu to support the people of Louisiana, not insurance companies," the spot concludes.

Founded by former Vermont governor Howard Dean, Democracy for America argues that inclusion of a Medicare-style public option in health-care legislation is "non-negotiable."

MoveOn, a Web-based political action committee that works to elect "progressive" leaders, intended to run commercials over the Fourth of July holiday criticizing Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) for her silence on the public option. But after she endorsed legislation crafted by Democratic colleagues on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions that includes that provision, the group dropped its plans.

"This measure is the heart of health-care reform and is supported by MoveOn's 5 million members, as well as the majority of the American people," said MoveOn's executive director, Justin Ruben. "With the support of legislators like Senator Hagan, we can come closer to our goal of making quality health insurance accessible and affordable for everyone."

Health Care for American Now, a labor-based coalition of 1,000 groups, has organized a petition pressuring Feinstein to support legislation that includes a public option.

"We need a senator who is championing, not nay saying, the need for reform," the petition says. "We're hoping Sen. Feinstein becomes a 'champion' for the people of California and stands up for President Obama's health reform."

Richard Kirsch, who runs the coalition, said most of the group's ads are educational or focused generally on the need for broad-based change.

"We've been promoting reform and yes, asking members of the public to contact their senators," he said yesterday. "It's all in support of reform."

Feinstein said in an interview last week that she does support health reform but has concerns about the cost of legislation and the impact on her home state. She discounted the attacks as unhelpful and counterproductive.
Obama was joined on the call with lawmakers by White House health czar Nancy-Ann DeParle, though he led most of the conversation. DeParle and White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina have been in intense negotiations with hospital representatives in the hope of extracting guaranteed spending reductions from the industry.

Barack Obama

"MSNBC: "Criminal Investigation" Reason For Palin's Resignation?" (video) (Updated)

2009-07-04T10:41:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Ben Smith reports "Feds: Palin in the clear."

NewsPoliticsNews with video from MSNBC, (04:30):

MSNBC's Guest Progressive Radio Host Shannyn Moore Floats "Criminal Investigation" As Reason For Sarah Palin's Resignation As Alaska Governor - 07/03/09.

Howie P.S.: Maybe we won't have Sarah Palin "to kick around anymore," after all. More details about possible criminal federal indictments from Glic's diary on Kos.

Mike McCready - Star-Spangled Banner, 05.19.09, Safeco Field, Seattle, WA (video)

2009-07-04T08:02:00.000-07:00

William27VA, video (03:12):
Pearl Jam's lead guitarist performs the National Anthem before the Angels v. Mariners baseball game on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 to promote the Northwest Chapter of the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America.

Howie P.S.: Happy Fourth of July Seattle!

Fineman: "Sarah Palin is running for president." Andrea Mitchell: "Sarah Palin Out Of Politics For Good,"

2009-07-04T07:05:00.000-07:00

Howard Fineman:

I have covered politics for a long time. I can tell when someone is running for president. Sarah Palin is running for president.
On a sunny (slow news) day in Wasilla, Alaska, the governor and former GOP vice presidential candidate appeared before the cameras and announced that she was stepping down as the state's chief executive 18 months before her term expires.

Just like that — like the distant sound of a chain saw in a stand of northern pines — the 2012 Republican race lurched into gear.

Palin is not the front-runner — there IS no front-runner — but she potentially is a major player in the Republican contest, her disastrous turn as John McCain’s running mate notwithstanding.

Why now? Why this minute? Well, perhaps there is scandal lurking in the Great North that we in the Lower 48 don’t know about. Maybe there is video of the Palin family setting a polar bear adrift on ice floes. But there is no reason to suspect so and, in the meantime, it’s worth noting that both the timing and the manner of Palin’s announcement were pretty shrewd.

She picked a long holiday weekend at the onset of summer (when, by the way, "Meet the Press" is pre-empted by Wimbledon tennis) to issue her stunner. She took no questions after her announcement and then disappeared into her house. As a result, she controlled the message, which was:

I’m the scrappy “point guard” (her basketball position on a state-champion team long ago) and I’m gonna take it to the hoop of freedom for ya!

Now she will be free to travel the country, rake in a lot of dough as a speaker, work the GOP and conservative dinner circuit, hawk her book once it comes out — and see how the game develops.

Now: a trawler-full of caveats.

Scrappy though she is, Palin is no rocket scientist. Her knowledge of the issues and of the wider world remains shallow and incomplete. In some respects, her family life is a monument to confusion, if not hypocrisy, about Traditional Family Values. The cutesy-pie thing is fading fast, and isn’t the route (as Tina Fey proved) to Margaret Thatcher-hood. Her performance on the national campaign trail (after the first scripted moments in St. Paul) was, for the most part, not only laughable, but also cringe-worthy. She was in over her head.

But you never say “never” in politics, and there are reasons why it’s worth paying attention to what she is up to these days.

She is popular with core Republicans and conservatives for her emotional approach to abortion, for her Alaskan devotion to guns and hunting, and for her libertarianish theory of government whose last true devotee was Barry Goldwater.

Palin comes from the core of the core GOP demographic: rural, Protestant, married and churchgoing. She is in THAT mainstream.

Some of her potential rivals are just as busy making fools of themselves as she ever was during the 2008 campaign. At least she hasn’t been caught doing the tango in Buenos Aires (Mark Sanford), or having sex with a staffer (John Ensign) or calling Supreme Court noiminee Sonia Sotomayor a “racist” (Newt Gingrich) or disappearing to an ambassadorship in China (Jon Huntsman).

No expectations
Early polls show that none of the other men left standing — Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, to name two — is exactly a colossus. To be blunt, the GOP is in such a shambles that in that land of the blind, even this one-eyed woman could become queen.

And as simplistic as she is, her reductionist view of the role of the federal government could be appealing to a GOP grassroots that is already apoplectic about the aggrandizements of the Obama administration in health care, environmental control, education and other aspects of our lives.

Expectations are on her side. Essentially, there are none; at least among the media elites she already has, in Nixonian fashion, made her foil. She may not have a Phi Beta Kappa key, but she knows how to play a victim of the people who do — and that is popular among the conservatives she now courts.

Finally, there is that scrappy thing. She genuinely was a good — and tough — point guard. And in an Alaska bar fight, I would bet on her any day against the boys who leaked bad stuff about her anonymously to Todd Purdum of Vanity Fair.

They didn’t have the class or the guts to attack her on the record as they frantically tried to blame her for their own horrendous judgment in picking her as McCain’s running mate.
She wasn’t ready then. She may never be. But at least she’s still in the game. Those guys are finished, we all can hope.

Howie P.S.: Palin makes Jeb Bush look good. For a contrary opinion: Andrea Mitchell: "Sarah Palin Out Of Politics For Good," video, (01:03).

Andrew Sullivan on Palin: "September 20, 2008" (video)

2009-07-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

miltonheck, video (03:04).

Andrew Sullivan (of the Daily Dish) discusses Sarah Palin on Real Time with Bill Maher.

Krugman: Health Care w/Public option: $1 trillion. Bush tax cut: $1.8 trillion--"Yes We Can"

2009-07-03T11:29:00.000-07:00

Paul Krugman (NY Times):

Get more or less universal coverage, that is. The CBO scoring on an incomplete bill sent everyone into a tizzy — and also led to an avalanche of bad reporting, with claims that it said terrible things about the public option. (There was no public option in the bill.)

Now the real thing has been scored — and it’s OK. Something like 97 percent coverage for people already here, at a total cost somewhere in the $1 trillion range. Bear in mind that the Bush tax cuts cost around $1.8 trillion over a decade. We can do this — and have no excuse for not doing it.

New Deal Stimulus: "Bridge to Somewhere" (audio)

2009-07-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

Golden Gate Bridge,' 1934, oil on canvas by Ray Strong. Photo courtesy of Cliff.
AmericanRadioWorks, audio (58:00):

FDR tried to manufacture jobs by building bridges, sewers, schools and even ski jumps. Historians disagree about how much FDR's New Deal programs eased the Depression in the short term. But in the long term, the structures they built have had a profound effect on the country's economy. This documentary takes us from the mountains of Vermont to the dams of the Pacific Northwest, and looks at the long reach of the New Deal.

Jon Stewart to Mark Sanford: "STFU!" (video)

2009-07-03T07:09:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Shut Up, Mark Sanford

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Jason Jones in Iran

Comedy Central via TPM, video (05:15):

Jon Stewart to Mark Sanford: "God killed Michael Jackson to save your ass -- and you gave another interview?!?"

Howie P.S.: I am violating my usual policy of ignoring Republican hypocrites.