Thursday Tidbits

Have you heard about this letter to the editor from a Canadian citizen in British Columbia? It's been making a bit of a stir on the internet this week.



It might be a bit difficult to read in that format, so here is the text:

"Many of us Canadians are confused by the U.S. midterm elections. Consider, right now in America, corporate profits are at record highs, the country's adding 200,000 jobs per month, unemployment is below 6%, U.S. gross national product growth is the best of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The dollar is at its strongest levels in years, the stock market is near record highs, gasoline prices are falling, there's no inflation, interest rates are the lowest in 30 years, U.S. oil imports are declining, U.S. oil production is rapidly increasing, the deficit is rapidly declining, and the wealthy are still making astonishing amounts of money.

"America is leading the world once again and respected internationally — in sharp contrast to the Bush years. Obama brought soldiers home from Iraq and killed Osama bin Laden.

"So, Americans vote for the party that got you into the mess that Obama just dug you out of? This defies reason.

"When you are done with Obama, could you send him our way?

"Richard Brunt


"Victoria, British Columbia"

Sometimes it is our closest neighbors who see us most clearly.  And what an image we present to them!

*~*~*~*

Ebola has essentially disappeared from the national headlines now that the election is over and it has served its purpose of scaring the bejeezus out of cranky old white voters.

(Of course, we shouldn't stereotype "cranky old white voters." After all, I am one myself, but I was never terrified by Ebola or ISIS or desperate brown children or any of the other bogeymen conjured up by fear mongering right wingers during the election season. There are still a few of us...)

Last night, Chris Hayes of MSNBC did a segment on Ebola in which he "congratulated" cable news on its even-handed and low-key coverage. It's pretty good.

*~*~*~*

So now that they no longer have Ebola to freak out about, what's the latest "outrage" they are screaming about? President Obama in China, of course!

"OMG! HE'S WEARING A PURPLE SUIT!" (An outfit provided by his hosts to all their guests to wear.)

"OMG! HE BOWED HIS HEAD TO THE CHINESE LEADER!

"OMG! IS HE CHEWING GUM?"

"OMG! HE JUST SIGNED AN AGREEMENT WITH CHINA FOR A WAR ON COAL!"

There is literally no end to their store of outrage when it comes to President Obama and, frankly, it could all be summed up in just three little words: "OMG! HE'S BLACK!"

Paul Krugman, contrarian

With President Obama's popularity at its lowest ebb according to all the opinion polls, the Inside-the-Beltway commentariat class loves to pile on, basically assigning him, somewhat prematurely, to the ranks of presidents who are considered inept and failures. Thus, many of these worthies were shocked and rather outraged recently when the latest edition of Rolling Stone featured a cover story by Paul Krugman praising the Obama presidency.

I seriously doubt that Krugman has lost any sleep over the shock and outrage expressed over the article. After all, he's used to it. He does not run with the herd and he never hesitates about expressing his opinion, whether or not anyone else agrees with him.

Some of the surprise, certainly, was due to the fact that Krugman has been a frequent critic of Obama. When he first ran for president in 2007-08, Krugman considered Hillary Clinton the more experienced candidate who was better prepared to lead. He was not wrong about that. He thought that Obama was naive and much too trusting of Republicans' willingness to compromise and work with him for the good of the country. It took the president years to begin to recognize the scorched-earth policies they were pursuing and the fact that they were not concerned about the good of the country but only in perpetuating themselves in power. Even now it is questionable whether he has completely accepted that fact of politics as presently practiced in Washington, D.C.

But in spite of all that, Krugman looks at his presidency and sees a clear record of accomplishment.

• Health Care: The Affordable Care Act has been, in Krugman's words, a "perils-of-Pauline" experience. It is a jerry-rigged law that was crafted along conservative Republican guidelines for public health policy. In fact, it was lifted almost completely from a plan devised by a conservative think tank. It could have been much better but in the political climate of the time, it was probably the best that could be achieved, and it is working quite well, contrary to what you will hear from Republicans and their pundit supporters. Millions of people now have insurance who didn't have it before and millions more could if only the Supreme Court hadn't opened a giant loophole in the law and if only Republican governors were not such intransigent jerks. 
• Financial Reform: The Dodd-Frank law is often derided as worthless. Krugman, the economist, doesn't agree. Again, it could have been much stronger, but still, it manages to do some important things. As Krugman writes, "It may not prevent the next financial crisis, but there's a good chance that it will at least make future crises less severe and easier to deal with." And that's nothing to sneeze at. Plus, it authorized the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has already done some important work, in spite of Republican obstructionism.
• The Economy: The economy was set to fall off a cliff in 2008. That it didn't and that it began a slow climb out of the abyss in 2009 is due to Obama and his team's leadership. But he gets practically no credit for that.
• The Environment: Because the Congress is packed with science-denying troglodytes, it is virtually impossible to get any legislation passed that protects the environment or addresses climate change. Thus, Obama has begun to work through the agencies of the Executive branch and through powers available to him as president to do what he can, and he has been pretty effective in doing that. Once again, he gets no credit for it.
• National Security: Bottom line is that he has kept the country safe, even though he has been a disappointment to the liberals who were so excited about his election because they thought that all the people who took us to war on false pretenses would be held accountable and that the reach of the national security state would be curbed. That hasn't happened, but there is still time for some achievements in this area. Guantanamo may yet be closed on his watch.
• Social Issues: Issues of race and religion and income inequality still plague our country and yet enormous progress has been made in the last six years and it has become so commonplace that, to some extent, we take it for granted and do not pause to appreciate the enormity of it. One only has to think back ten years to the way homosexuals were thought of and treated in this country and compare it to the more open and accepting attitude of a majority of the country today to begin to see how far we have come. As for women's issues of equal treatment under the law, equal pay. equal access to health care, no, we're not there yet and we haven't made nearly the progress that we should have, but there is hope. And in many other areas of our society, incremental baby steps forward have been taken and much of that is due to the leadership and example of Barack and Michelle Obama.

That is a pretty impressive record, one that it is likely that history will view kindly. Or, again, in Krugman's words:

This is what a successful presidency looks like. No president gets to do everything his supporters expected him to. FDR left behind a reformed nation, but one in which the wealthy retained a lot of power and privilege. On the other side, for all his anti-government rhetoric, Reagan left the core institutions of the New Deal and the Great Society in place. I don't care about the fact that Obama hasn't lived up to the golden dreams of 2008, and I care even less about his approval rating. I do care that he has, when all is said and done, achieved a lot. That is, as Joe Biden didn't quite say, a big deal.

A very big deal, indeed.

• 
  

Living up to the hope - and the hype

"I recently had a discussion with someone who felt disappointed in Obama; he had not, this person complained, lived up to the high hopes of his supporters. My response apparently came as a surprise: I’m liking Obama more and more as he slogs through his second term."- Paul Krugman from his blog "The Conscience of a Liberal"

As is quite often the case, I find myself in agreement with Dr. Krugman.

I have mentioned here before that I was not a supporter of Barack Obama when he first ran for president. I supported Hillary Clinton and I was very disappointed that she did not win the Democratic Party's nomination in 2008.

After that, I became a grudging supporter of Obama. I voted for him of course. There was certainly no way I was going to vote for McCain and his ditsy sidekick, Palin, but I was never one of his starry-eyed supporters who thought that his election was going to change the world.

When he was elected, I was just glad to have an intelligent person in the White House, one who was able to speak in complete sentences and who didn't find it necessary to boast and swagger his way through his time in office.

Given the known proclivities of the Republican Party and the fact that they had spent eight long years destroying the economy and destroying the good will of the world toward this country, it didn't take a prophet to see that Obama's time in office was going to be difficult. Once the Republicans swore undying enmity and non-cooperation - the needs of the country be damned - it became even more obvious that Obama and his allies would have to fight tooth and nail for every inch of progress.

Still, in his first four years in office, he, with the help of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, was able to accomplish quite a bit, including what was, in Joe Biden's immortal words, "a big fucking deal" in health care reform. He started to wind down America's interminable wars. He found and eliminated Osama bin Laden. He kept the country safe from further attacks by foreign terrorists. (Unfortunately, domestic terrorists and their guns are a harder problem to solve.)

Since I had no particular expectations of him, I was not often disappointed. I would have liked to have seen more leadership on the environment and especially on the problem of global warming, but given the denialism that is so pervasive in the country, that problem is every bit as difficult as our domestic terrorists and their guns.

It has been a battle every day of his presidency. You can see it in his gray hair and sometimes hear it in his voice. He is a serious man with serious goals that he wants to achieve, and whether I agree with him or not - and sometimes I don't - I am fully convinced that he will always do what he thinks is best for the country, regardless of the political implications.

So, yes, as I see him struggling against overwhelming odds, trying to accomplish something good for the country and for the world, he has earned my respect and I like him better than I did on election day 2008.

With two years to go, I don't see his battle getting any easier, but, in the end, I think it will be won, and, even if he hasn't managed to live up to the hope and the hype of his most fervent early supporters, he will have been a good president and he will have earned a well-deserved rest.

And I believe that history will remember him kindly.

Best in show

What a face! Banana Joe, Westminster Best-in-Show winner. (Photo from New York Times.)

I am a cat person, but one of my guilty pleasures is watching dog shows on television, especially the Westminster Dog Show which happens at this time every year. These animals are the very best of their breeds and they are beautifully trained superb athletes who mostly seem to truly enjoy their time in the ring. They are just a joy to watch and I always look forward to spending time with them. Unfortunately, this year I was otherwise engaged and didn't get to watch any of the show, but I was delighted to look at the New York Times online later and learn that an affenpinscher, sometimes called the "monkey dog," had won the big prize.

Banana Joe, or Joey as he is called, was the first of his breed ever to win the Westminster Best-in-Show, and it is always fun to see a new breed win. There have been enough poodles and beagles carrying home the prize. Time for some new blood. It's especially nice to see such a quirky little dog as the affenpinscher, not exactly a household name among dog breeds, finally win.  

I wasn't watching when he won because I was watching the other big show on television last night, the political one. I watched President Obama's State of the Union address and Marco Rubio's Republican response, as well as excerpts from Rand Paul's online tea party response. Comparing the three speeches made painfully clear that Marco Rubio is not ready for prime time and Rand Paul remains a loose cannon nut case, very much in the tea party mold. I'm sure they loved his speech.

The president's speech, on the other hand, was a continuation of the themes in his inaugural address. He laid out a bold progressive agenda for the months and years ahead, an agenda which, if enacted, would make this country more forward-looking and its citizens safer and more prosperous, with a greatly strengthened infrastructure and safety net and a reinvigorated economy. With the obstinate determination of the Republicans to obstruct and delay, it is not clear how much, if any, of his agenda can become law, but all we can ask is that he will continue to take the message to the American people and ask for their support, that he will, in fact, actually fight for these measures which he says he wants. I think he would find that the vast majority of Americans agree with him. 

So, who won the political Best-in-Show last night? No competition, really.

Hardly an unknown like the affenpinscher, but a well-known competitor who rose to the occasion once again.

The poetry of the inauguration

This was the big day in Washington, the day that the Republican Party had devoted itself heart and soul for the last four years to prevent. It was the day of Barack Hussein Obama's second inauguration as president. 

These events are always inspiring and are full of pomp and circumstance, but occasionally they do reach the level of poetry. Perhaps I am prejudiced but I thought today's event did and not just when the poet Richard Blanco came to read the poem he had written for the day. Throughout the ceremony, at least the parts that I saw, it seemed to me that this inauguration had a poetic grandeur, and the president's speech matched that sense of poetry.

I was happy to hear him refer to some concrete policy issues in the speech and not just in the typical airy fairy pie-in-the-sky kind of way of these kinds of speeches. He spoke about the need to further enhance equality for all citizens, about the need to make sure that children are safe and that they have what they need to prepare fore the future. But he also addressed the fact that citizens in some states in this country had to stand in line for six to eight hours to vote in November's election. That is unconscionable and he said we must fix it. He is also the first president, in my memory at least, to actually mention addressing climate change in his inaugural address. And all of this he tied together with the progressive march of American history toward perfecting itself and living up to the ideals expressed in its Constitution. I thought it was a terrific speech.

And speaking of poetry, I really liked Richard Blanco's poem. I don't know that it rises to the level of great and memorable poetry, but I thought it was perfect for the moment.

One Today
by Richard Blanco

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper -- bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives -- to teach geometry, or ring up groceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches 
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills
in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands
digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind -- our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,
buses launching down avenues, the symphony
of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,
the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across cafe tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me -- in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound 
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn’t give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always -- home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country -- all of us --
facing the stars
hope -- a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it -- together.

One sun, one moon, one planet, one country and one people who will rise or fall together. It is a noble sentiment, well-expressed by Blanco and by the president in his speech, and, call me a dreamer, but I hope it carries not only this "one today" but the next four years. 

Thank God it's over!

We've had a few days now to absorb and reflect on the news of Tuesday's election, and thank God it's over! The sense of satisfaction that many of us feel about the results has only deepened. One of the most mendacious campaigns for president in the history of the country was rejected by voters. Candidates for the senate who appealed to misogyny, racism, and magical economic thinking were mostly defeated. In the races for the House of Representatives, some of the worst of the worst (I'm talking 'bout you Joe Walsh and Alan West!) were defeated and others (Michele Bachmann, Steve King, etc.) had close calls and suffered scares which may bode well for the future. Even in Texas, the Republicans lost their super-majority in the state legislature and will no longer be able to ride roughshod over the objections of their opponents. It is very likely that except for the gerrymandering and the voter suppression efforts by Tea Party Republican state governments, the rejection of the non-reality-based philosophy of that party by the voters would have been even more drastic.

Meanwhile, we watch, bemused, as the right wingnut pundits "analyze" their losses. They were so sure that they were in for a big victory celebration on Tuesday. They were all prepared to lord it over their weak liberal opponents and crow about their "mandate." They were going to repeal the Affordable Care Act on their first day in office, followed quickly by an overturning of Roe v. Wade, a denial of health insurance coverage for female contraceptives (But, of course, full coverage for male enhancement drugs like Viagra or Cialis!), building a 20-foot tall wall all around the country and rounding up and deporting all who can't prove their citizenship or their legal entry into the country, and, naturally, getting rid of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and removing all regulation on Wall Street. Yes, beginning November 7, they believed in spite of all evidence to the contrary that they would be entering the Randian world of their fondest dreams. They had convinced themselves that all those nasty little geeks who relied on real-world data were just skewing their predictions to make the Democrats look good. I have to admit that watching their self-inflicted combustion on Tuesday night and since has been quite entertaining. Gloat-inducing even.

In an article in New York Magazine today, Frank Rich writes about the propensity for self-delusion that is rampant in today's GOP. The title of his piece is "Fantasyland." Never was an article more accurately titled. He writes:

As GOP politicians and pundits pile on Romney in defeat, they often argue that he was done in by not being severely conservative enough; if only he’d let Ryan be Ryan, voters would have been won over by right-wing orthodoxy offering a clear-cut alternative to Obama’s alleged socialism. In truth, Romney was a perfect embodiment of the current GOP. As much as the Republican Party is a radical party, and a nearly all-white party, it has also become the Fantasyland Party. It’s an isolated and gated community impervious to any intrusions of reality from the “real America” it solipsistically claims to represent. This year’s instantly famous declaration by the Romney pollster Neil Newhouse that “we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers” crystallized the mantra of the entire GOP. The Republican faithful at strata both low and high, from Rush’s dittoheads to the think-tank-affiliated intellectuals, have long since stopped acknowledging any empirical evidence that disputes their insular worldview, no matter how grounded that evidence might be in (God forbid) science or any other verifiable reality, like, say, Census reports or elementary mathematics. No wonder Romney shunned the word Harvard, which awarded him two degrees, even more assiduously than he did Mormon.  

This is a party that is not going to let its policies be dictated by facts. They deny science. They deny any verifiable reality which contradicts what their gut - i.e., their prejudices - tells them is true. They live inside an intellectual bubble where they only listen to and read others who think like them. This is a formula for creating a psychosis which cannot recognize and accept the real world when it intrudes. In the days following the election, the residents of the bubble have continued to deny reality and blame all sorts of things for the failure of their party. It was Hurricane Sandy's fault. The Democrats suppressed the vote. (!!!) Mitt Romney wasn't conservative enough. It was those damn liberal pollsters and other media types. It was Chris Christie's fault. It was all those women and brown voters who weren't smart enough to figure out what was going on and were deluded by Obama.

What they absolutely refuse to even consider is that it was their policies that did it. It was their demonizing of those brown people and of women who want to control their own lives and bodies. It was their insistence that people who have worked their entire life and contributed to the funds which are the source of the country's social safety net are moochers when they retire or become disabled and begin to receive the benefits of that net. Likewise, that veterans who have given up a portion of their life and sometimes their limbs or their ability to live a normal life are moochers for expecting the assistance of the country they defended! And, perhaps most obnoxiously, their insistence that super-rich people must not under any circumstances be required to give up any of their riches - which they were able to garner because of the laws and protections of this country - to support and defend the society which has enriched them. These policies were rejected, rather resoundingly, by American voters on Tuesday in favor of a philosophy of inclusiveness and communitarianism.

Again, here's Frank Rich:

At the policy level, this is the GOP that denies climate change, that rejects Keynesian economics, and that identifies voter fraud where there is none. At the loony-tunes level, this is the GOP that has given us the birthers, websites purporting that Obama was lying about Osama bin Laden’s death, and not one but two (failed) senatorial candidates who redefined rape in defiance of medical science and simple common sense. It’s the GOP that demands the rewriting of history (and history textbooks), still denying that Barry Goldwater’s opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy” transformed the party of Lincoln into a haven for racists. Such is the conservative version of history that when the website Right Wing News surveyed 43 popular conservative bloggers to determine the “worst figures in American history” two years ago, Jimmy Carter, Obama, and FDR led the tally, all well ahead of Benedict Arnold, Timothy McVeigh, and John Wilkes Booth.

It would be satisfying if we could just ignore all these crazy relatives in the attic room of our country. Unfortunately, they still have the capacity to create a lot of havoc and a lot of misery for the rest of us, and so we have to find a way to deal with them - to persuade those who may be persuadable and to blunt the ability of the fanatics to throw monkey wrenches into the works. It is not an enviable task. President Obama certainly has some heavy lifting to do in the next four years. May he find the strength he needs.

And may those who so successfully planned and ran his campaign start organizing now to give him a majority in the House and a greater majority in the Senate in 2014. If that happens, the last two years of this president's last term could be truly transformational.

11/22/63

It's the name of a big, new novel by Stephen King and, for my generation of Americans, it is a sad date forever etched in our memories. 11/22/63 - the date that our president was murdered.

Each year since, as the fatal date draws near, there is always a flurry of news stories about it and a flurry of commentary, both positive and negative, about the president who died that day in Dallas. This year is no exception. In addition to King's book, we have the release by Caroline Kennedy of her mother Jacqueline's taped 1964 reminiscences with Arthur Schlesinger and Chris Matthews' biography of the man, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero.  Also, the weekend just past brought us a long article in New York Magazine by Frank Rich entitled "What Killed JFK?"

Rich's answer to the question he poses is that it was the pervasive hatred of the times which created the atmosphere where a deranged loser could believe that it would be acceptable for him to assassinate a president. Indeed, he may have dreamed that he would be hailed as a hero in some quarters. In fact, as one who lived through that dark period in one area of the country where that hatred was as rampant as anywhere, I can tell you that that is exactly what happened. There were people in this country, many of them still alive today, who thought that Lee Harvey Oswald did a great service for the nation. Such attitudes were expressed in some churches, including the one my family attended, at the time.

The most troubling thing about Rich's article, though, is the parallel that he draws between 1963 and 20ll and the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama.

In both instances, both men came into office as trailblazers, Kennedy as the first Roman Catholic president and Obama as the first African-American. Both were seen initially as champions of the liberal cause and both soon proved to be much more moderate or even conservative than their most ardent supporters. Both had had very short and undistinguished careers in the Senate and, as president, both proved very tentative in their handling of the legislative branch of Congress. By the third year of their presidencies, both were seen as something of a disappointment and there was much speculation as to whether they could win a second term, even though in Kennedy's case his approval ratings were much higher than Obama's are now.

But perhaps the most striking thing that the two presidents share is the unreasoning, blind hatred which they both engendered in many of their fellow Americans. John F. Kennedy, just as Barack Obama today, was seen as an illegitimate president by a certain segment of the citizenry and the vituperation coming from them was not so different from the vileness you can hear on Fox News or from Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, or that you can read in the comments on the pages of too many online newspapers, including the local Houston Chronicle, concerning Barack Obama. The vitriol of a U.S. Congressman who will stand and interrupt a president's speech in a joint session of Congress with a shouted, "You lie!" or the insanity of another poor deranged loser like the one who fired shots at the White House last week are merely the most obvious examples of the malice that stalks our country today. In a country where so many people are armed to the teeth, this is not a good sign.

I remember that day 48 years ago only too well. I will never forget the shock and sadness and deep disappointment that I felt that day and in the days that followed. I've often wondered what would have happened if Oswald's aim had not been true and Kennedy had lived. How would things have been different? Different better or different worse? Obviously, I'm not the only one who has wondered.  That's why Stephen King wrote his book.  

It's not about the birth certificate

So Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate has been released to the public and is now available for anyone to examine. That means there will be no more questioning of his legitimacy as president, the silly season can end, and we can get on with discussing our serious problems, right? Wrong.

The people who questioned the legitimacy of Obama's presidency and his citizenship will still find reasons to question it. Why? Come close and let me whisper in your ear. BECAUSE IT HAS NEVER BEEN ABOUT THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN, STILL IS, AND EVER WILL BE ABOUT HIS RACE.

The people who have questioned his citizenship are racists pure and simple. They cannot stand the thought of a person with dark skin being president. Do you really think if the situation had been a white president with fair skin and blonde hair whose mother was from North Dakota and whose father was an immigrant from England and who was born in, oh, say Alaska in 1962, they would ever for a moment have questioned where he was born? No! It is simply because Barack Obama does not look like them. He is an "Other". And releasing the long-form birth certificate is not going to change that.

I'm not sure if releasing the certificate of live birth was a good idea. But it's done. I do think that now the press should demand that all the other people who are running for the presidency should release their long-form certificates and also their tax returns. I have a feeling there might be something very interesting there.

The President's Speech

Full disclosure: I didn't hear President Obama's speech about the deficit and budget policy yesterday. I just heard about it and read about it later. But it seems to have been a pretty good speech, none of the stuttering or embarrassingly weak statements we have come to expect from him.

He did defend Democratic principles in a fairly robust way and that was a pleasant surprise. It certainly was not what I had expected, nor I think what many had expected from this president who never saw a compromise he didn't like, especially if it is one that causes him to backtrack on everything he's ever SAID that he believes in.

Of course, we knew he could give a good speech. The test will be whether he can live up to it. Can he stand firm in defense of those principles he expounded on so eloquently? You'll forgive me if I don't wager any money on it.

Our experience has been that as soon as the Republicans start attacking, he will start backpedaling, trying to appease them, and the final product of any "negotiations" will wind up squarely in territory defended by Republicans. I hope that this time will be different, but that is all I've got left - hope. The history of the last two years gives me no basis or assurance for it.

The absentee president

In his regular op-ed column in The Times today, Paul Krugman had a harsh assessment of the performance of President Obama. I'm sorry to say that I think the president richly deserves every stinging word.

In 2008, American voters were crying out for new leadership. They wanted a moral leader who would get the country out of the morass it had been in for the previous eight years. They wanted a strong president who would stand up for the right against the forces of evil that have too often had their way with our government in recent years. They wanted a stark change in direction for a country that was headed to hell in a handbasket on the fast track. They thought they were electing an audacious leader who would not hesitate to make moral judgments and would once again put the country back on the right side of history.

Instead, they got a wet noodle of a president who cannot seem to stand firm on anything, not even on the most sacred values of the Democratic Party - values that have been defended over the years with the blood, sweat, and tears of martyrs. Honestly, FDR, Harry Truman, and LBJ must be spinning in their graves! This man will compromise away the bases of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The man who trumpeted the passage of health care reform only last year will wind up with millions fewer covered by health insurance unless somebody stops him.

As Krugman wrote:

What have they done with President Obama? What happened to the inspirational figure his supporters thought they elected? Who is this bland, timid guy who doesn't seem to stand for anything in particular?

That really says it all in a nutshell. He doesn't STAND for anything. His positions are constantly moving. And they are always moving toward the Republican position. No matter what outrageous demand the Republicans make - even destroying Medicare as we know it and replacing it with a voucher system - President Obama will pretend it is a serious and reasonable proposal, one deserving consideration. I believe he sees himself and wants to be known as the "Great Conciliator," the last reasonable man in Washington who is willing to consider anything.

Sir, some things are so morally out of bounds that they do not deserve consideration. Reducing the deficit and balancing the budget by cutting programs that people depend upon while giving ever bigger tax cuts to the richest of us - individuals and corporations - is one such thing. Keeping Guantanamo open because it would be difficult to close it is another such thing. Failing to fight for an energy policy that will address global warming and its threat to human civilization is yet another. The list is long. The disappointments are many.

In one regard, this president may be the luckiest man ever to hold that office. (There have been no women, of course.) His potential rivals from the Republican Party for the presidential election next year are all so lame and completely incompetent that he will probably win re-election while hardly breaking a sweat. That doesn't mean he will have deserved it.

The right-wing flaps

The latest thing that the right-wing has its knickers in a twist about is President Obama's trip to South America. How could he take a "Rio vacation", they scream, when the world is in turmoil? Never mind that the diplomatic trip - which is actually part of the job description of being president - has been planned for months. No, these bozos want him to drop everything and hole up in the White House to handle the Japanese earthquake, the tsunami, the nuclear power plant leaks, and now, the military action against Libya. Apparently they assume that he is out of contact with his administration and with the world when he's in Brazil. But then they never did really understand the way technology works.

Earlier this week, these same people got all hot and bothered because President Obama took time to fill out his brackets for the NCAA basketball tournament. And, of course, the idea of him actually taking time to play golf just about sends them over the edge. Funny, I don't remember them getting this concerned when George W. Bush spent most of his presidency clearing brush and mountain biking in Texas. Context is everything, I guess. Actually, party affiliation is everything as far as these guys are concerned.

Personally, I'm not really interested in college basketball, but I'm glad that President Obama gets some enjoyment and relaxation from it. Same thing with golf. It's not my thing, but it's okay with me if he plays a few rounds occasionally.

This president works at being president about as hard as anyone ever has, I think, and he came to the presidency at a time when the country was in one of the deepest holes it has ever been in. The problems and worries that are on his shoulders are just about unimaginable to the average citizen and most certainly to the pundits on Fox News. He needs and deserves some occasional "down time".

But the trip to South America is not "down time". It is a working trip designed to build our relationships with some of the powerhouses of that region. That is a region that this country ignores to its peril and it is important for us to strengthen our ties there. If the right-wingers were not so blinded by their prejudice, even they would be able to see that.

Better to be his enemy than his friend

I remember during the presidential primaries of 2008 hearing some commentator on radio or television - I don't remember which or who - repeating something that had been told to him by a person who knew Barack Obama in Illinois. The person had said that it was "better to be Barack's enemy than his friend." The commentator explained that what was meant was that Obama would do anything to placate his enemies while ignoring his friends. "That's a very odd thing to say," I thought, but after watching him as president for two years, it is all too clear that that Illinoian knew him very well.

So Obama has his tax compromise and his enemies who will do anything to destroy him, the Republicans, are ecstatic. His friends are seething. Though he says otherwise, I'm not so sure that this "compromise" was not what he wanted all along. He has shown little inclination to get the rich to pay their fair share during his tenure as president. From Wall Street to Health Care Reform to the tax compromise, he has been very timid in his handling of them.

And where does this leave us?

It leaves us, in short, with the only thing standing between us and a budget-busting, deficit-increasing tax cut for the rich being the demoralized, overlooked, unconsulted friends of Obama, the Democrats in the Senate and especially in the House. As I predicted here a few days ago, that really means Nancy Pelosi. If she can hold the line and keep her caucus together, this bill will not pass. But she is up against the combined forces of the Republicans, her president, and some Blue Dog Democrats and none of them wish her well.

Still, I would not bet against her. She has more balls than anybody else in Washington. With the possible exception of Hillary Clinton.

The big tax kerfuffle

Congress comes back into session next week and among the first things to be considered will be whether to extend the so-called Bush tax cuts. The question before the House - and the Senate - will be whether to extend all the tax cuts past December 31, 2010, including the extra added reductions for the very rich who have taxable income of $250,000 or above, or whether to eliminate those extra reductions in taxes for the rich and just keep the middle-class tax cuts. As usual, the Republicans have drawn their line in the sand in defense of the very rich and are insisting that they will refuse to compromise on the issue. The Democrats want to continue the middle-class tax cuts and let those for the very rich expire, but the White House has been distressingly wishy-washy on the issue.

I fail to see what is so difficult about this for the president and his staff. Mr. Obama has said that he wants to keep the middle-class cuts and that the additional cuts for the rich are just too expensive, and he is absolutely right. Furthermore, a significant majority of Americans agree with him on this. And, very importantly, probably 95% of Democrats agree. Most importantly of all, 100% of liberals agree! These are the liberals who did not turn out in swarms to vote in this year's election. They were demoralized and discouraged by President Obama's constant calls for bipartisanship, by which he seems to mean kowtowing to Republican demands.

We did not elect Barack Obama to be a Republican-lite president. We elected him because we knew the country was headed to hell in a handbasket and we wanted a change in direction. We wanted forceful, effective, and empathetic leadership from a leader who would try to improve the lives of the masses of Americans instead of just the bottom lines of his rich pals. So far what we have gotten from this president is an abdication of leadership.

In all the legislative fights over the last two years, he has left the heavy lifting to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, while he stayed out of the arena, above the fray. Nancy Pelosi has delivered everything that has been asked of her and she has been demonized by the right-wingers for her effectiveness. Harry Reid has had a tougher row to hoe because of the arcane rules of the Senate, but when the chips were down, he, too, has been able to deliver.

But how much more effective both of these legislative leaders might have been had they had the support of a third partner in their slugging matches with the opposition. If Barack Obama had deigned to roll up his sleeves and get down into the trenches with his foot soldiers and if he had perhaps thrown a few punches at the opposition instead of always holding up his hands and offering compromise before the fight began, the legislative record of the past two years could have been even more sterling than it has been.

Now Obama has been given another chance, perhaps a final chance in the eyes of the progressive/liberal base of his party. He can again choose "bipartisanship" and lose his base entirely or he can stand fast and fight for principle, knowing that Pelosi and Reid will be at his side and all that party base, as well as a wide majority of Americans, will be behind him cheering him on, because this is what we want. We do not believe that the rich should be given special breaks. We believe they should pay their fair share just like the rest of us. This is a fight that we cannot and must not lose.

Ending special tax breaks for the rich is not only a political winner, it is a moral winner, as well. If Barack Obama does not see that and finally turn and fight those who seem determined to turn this country into the banana republic that I recently wrote about here, then he probably will be a one-term president, and he probably will deserve to be. And we, for our sins, will be dealing with President Sarah Palin.

Kudos...

...to the president for fulfilling his oath and standing up for the Constitution and for religious liberty by defending the right of Muslims to build their community center and mosque on private property in New York. He could have remained silent. There is certainly no political advantage to his speaking out on this issue because he will be relentlessly excoriated by the demagoguers for his stand. Of course, he is already relentlessly excoriated by them and accused of being everything from an alien to a secret Muslim so really that will be nothing new. Nevertheless, in spite of the potential political cost, he chose to take a stand on the side of the Constitution and morality and common human decency and it is very refreshing to see my president on that side. So, I say "Kudos, Mr. President, and thank you for doing what is right."

What would Truman do?

Stanley McChrystal has proved himself again and again to be a loose cannon. He has been in trouble before and been called on the carpet before for things that he has said and actions he has taken that have called into question the plans and orders of his superiors. This is not what we expect of a member of the military services, and especially not one who has reached the rank of general.

McChrystal is a checkered character in many ways. There was torture and mistreatment of prisoners under his watch while in Iraq. He's never been called to account for that. He was also at the center of the cover-up regarding the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman, the former NFL star, in Afghanistan. The Tillman death was presented to the world as a heroic death in battle, whereas, in fact, it was a result of a series of errors. A lie was created because the administration in Washington needed a hero to sell the war. McChrystal was complicit in constructing that lie.

And yet with all that baggage, he was still chosen to lead the war in Afghanistan, and so far, that has not proved to be a great success. In fairness to him, it is an almost impossible task, but his performance has not given us cause for confidence.

McChrystal was insubordinate in his ill-chosen comments to Rolling Stone magazine. He was rude, mocking, questioning his boss who just happens to be the Commander-in-Chief of all the military. He has undermined the authority of the President. Not only is this a firing offense, in earlier times, he could have faced a firing squad for such actions.

Now the apologists will say that McChrystal IS the war in Afghanistan. It's his strategy and it would be extremely disruptive and disheartening to the troops in the field to remove their commander at this point. Well, their commander is the President and he's not being removed.

We need to get out of Afghanistan as soon as is feasible and the President has a strategy to do that. McChrystal disagrees with that strategy and that seems to be at the heart of his dissatisfaction with Obama. He apparently wants an open-ended war.

So the question now is, "What would Harry Truman do?" For that matter, what would Abraham Lincoln, that noted firer of incompetent generals, do? For me, the answer is clear. Either of those gentlemen would fire this general's butt! I hope Obama will channel them and not be wishy-washy when facing this man who challenges his authority and his judgement. Fire him.

Obama in the lions' den

Did you see the appearance of President Obama at the Republican House members' retreat yesterday? I didn't watch it live, but I did see the replay of it last night on MSNBC. It was very interesting political theater.

Several commentators made the analogy to the Prime Minister's question time in England when the PM stands before the elected representatives and takes their questions. The main difference between that and what we had yesterday is that any representative, including members of his own party, can query the Prime Minister, thus some of the questions are bound to be friendly. In yesterday's exercise, all of the questions were adversarial, if not downright hostile. Most of the questioners prefaced their question with long statements chastising the President.

Happily for his supporters, the President did not give an inch and gave as good - actually better - than he got. He answered their questions, told them to their faces when they were actually mistating facts either accidentally or on purpose, and showed a great command of all the topics that they chose to bring up. He maintained his cool and civil attitude throughout and repeatedly gave his bipartisanship pitch and asked his adversaries to negotiate and work with him for the good of the country rather than just saying "no" reflexively. It was a feisty and truly impressive performance that must has heartened Democrats who have hoping for the president to show a bit more fight.

Can we expect to see more of this push back from President Obama? One can only hope so. I think it is just what the Democratic Party needs, someone to get out front and lead - someone to stiffen their spines. It can only have been exhilarating to them to see their president walk into the lions' den and walk out wearing a lion-skin coat.

My inexpert analysis of the State of the Union address

I watched the President give his State of the Union address last night. It's a good thing I did because I wouldn't have recognized the speech as "analyzed" by many "experts" in the media.

It was a good and honest speech, I thought. It was unlike many of the hyperbolic speeches we've come to expect on such occasions. I was convinced that he believed and meant every word that he spoke. If I didn't necessarily agree with him on every single point, still I honor his seriousness of purpose and his continuing attempts to talk to people, including the self-important puffed-up politicians that were in the room with him last night (yes, including the Supreme Court justices), as if they were adults, and intelligent adults at that.

I was struck again that he refuses to give up on bipartisanship and on trying to change the toxic atmosphere in Washington. He talked about the deficit of trust and the need to reduce that deficit. He continued to reach out to Republicans by inviting them to bring their ideas to the table and by announcing he would meet with them regularly as a group.

He didn't back away from any of the initiatives he has proposed, even as he did tweak the emphasis a bit to put the spotlight more on the need to produce jobs and get the economy going in the right direction.

Perhaps the high point of the speech for me was his reminder to Democrats that they hold one of the largest majorities in legislative history and that people expect that they will use that majority to govern. He urged them not to "run for the hills" but to push on with their agenda.

It would help considerably if the Democrats had a strong leader out in front urging them forward. There is only one person on the scene at the moment who can be that leader. That person talked a good plan last night. Now let's see if he can execute it.

Making the grade

So, Barack Obama has been President of the United States for a year and a day now, and everybody and his/her kitty has weighed in on what kind of job he is doing and what grade he should get. Everybody except me and my cat Nicholas, that is. But now we are going to remedy that.

Nicholas is very emphatic about the grade that he gives Mr. Obama. It's an F. As best I can determine his grading system is based solely on what he refers to as "the dog issue." I guess he means Bo. (I'm sorry to admit that Nicholas does have some prejudices.)

As for the grade I would give the President, it is based on my own political prejudices. I am a liberal. In the political world as it exists in this country today, that means that I generally vote for Democrats because they come closest to the values I believe in. There are no liberal Republicans. Heck, there aren't even any centrist Republicans. There is only the far right and the lunatic fringe right.

As a liberal, I voted for Barack Obama for president in the general election. In the primary, I had supported Hillary Clinton because I thought she was the better candidate and because I dearly wanted to see a woman become president in my lifetime. I still think she was the better candidate, but once she dropped out and supported her primary opponent, I supported him, too.

A year ago, Barack Obama took over the biggest mess any president has ever had to deal with on his first day in office. An economy in ruins. Two wars - one totally unnecessary and the other that should have been wrapped up years ago. A country that was despised and reviled around the world. Through his actions, he kept the economy from going off the cliff. (I would have preferred he be bolder, but at least he did the minimum required.) He set some timetables for ending the wars. ( I would have preferred shorter time frames, but these are knotty problems, made so by the previous administration and it is hard to argue against the decisions he has made.) He has issued orders to stop torturing people and has affirmed his belief in the rule of law and his willingness to listen to and cooperate with other countries on a wide variety of issues. This has probably been his greatest success in the past year - turning around the image of this country in the rest of the world.

Where he has failed, and failed miserably in my opinion, is on the legislative front. Instead of providing strong leadership, he has constantly deferred to Congress and left it to them to hash out conflicts. He has been conciliatory in the extreme with Republicans who have rebuffed and denigrated him at every opportunity. He is obviously a decent man who always wants to treat others well, but in order to treat the country well, the country that gave him its reins a year ago, he may need to be less conciliatory. The Republicans, as presently constituted, will never compromise with him and will never be helpful in constructing policies to benefit the country, because they want him to fail. They want the government to fail, because they do not believe in government. In order to succeed with them, President Obama is going to have to be willing to bash some heads together and to provide strong leadership for his fellow fractious Democrats.

The change that I voted for in 2008 was leadership that was bold enough to lead us out of the mess we were in, leadership that would return us to the liberal values that have kept this country as a beacon to the rest of the world in past decades. That bold leadership has not been forthcoming yet. I still have hope that it will emerge but I have to admit that I am getting close to the opinion expressed by Paul Krugman in his blog yesterday, namely that he's "pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama."

My grade, then, for the President for his first year is a "gentleman's C." And I won't hold that "dog issue" against him.