February 12, 2009 – 3:26 pm
Re: Ed’s two posts about the recent line up of bankers “like a murderers row” before their Congressional interrogators, that’s the whole point of these exercises — Congressional dominance and private sector submission, if not outright humiliation.
In the classic film, The Great Dictator, Chaplin as Hitler ushers Mussolini into a chair with sawed off legs, so the Italian is forced to look up in abject discomfort at the little mustachioed man, who sits perched up high behind his desk.
That’s how it is when you testify before Congress. They look down on you from their judges’ thrones and you’re obliged to crane you neck up every time you address them – in the most respectful terms, of course, not matter what idiocy they’ve just delivered themselves of.
This is only the beginning of the circus, as Congress demands increasing oversight – i.e. control – over the private sector institutions it’s now funding, all in our name, of course. Those executives who surrender meekly to the new Little Dictators on Capital Hill will be rewarded; those who raise objections or who try to assert their manhood will be penalized. It’s that’s simple. (Jonah Goldberg describes the corporatist dynamic beautifully in his brilliant book Liberal Fascism.)
Unless these CEO’s develop a strong rationale for why they, rather than Barney Frank and Maxine Walters, should be trusted to run their companies, they’ll end up as little more than figure heads taking their orders from Washington.
February 12, 2009 – 3:15 pm
Apparently Senate Democrats are hearing Josh’s warning about the “socialist death spiral.” A well-sourced friend mentioned to me that Harry Reid has been trolling for a Republican – any Republican – to join Senators Specter, Collins, and Snowe in voting for the upcoming stimulus conference bill.
Why? Because the original Senate vote scored 61 in favor. Reid would like to not have to call Ted Kennedy in to cast another vote, which would leave him with 60. And members of his caucus are getting cold feet about being labeled the 60th – or deciding – vote on a bill their constituents might not love. So Reid wants another Republican to get the Senate to 61 and provide some cover. Republicans are not inclined to provide it.
Dems may be having flashbacks to Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky who, as a freshman member of the House in 1993, cast the putative deciding vote in favor of President Clinton’s deficit reduction package. She was promptly bounced from her suburban Philadelphia district at the next election.
Could such a fate be awaiting Democrat #60? Who knows, but one big difference between the 1993 vote and the 2009 vote: That was a vote in favor of raising taxes; this one won’t be (at least, not directly).
February 12, 2009 – 2:28 pm
Personally, I think Obama is driving this nation full speed down a socialist death spiral. But you’ve got to admire, in a grim sort of way, the élan with which he’s doing it – an élan that was on megawatt display when he answered Major Garrett’s potentially embarrassing press conference question about Joe Biden.
To refresh memories: Biden had apparently said that “even if we do everything right….there’s still a 30 percent chance we’re going to get it wrong.” Garrett asked if Biden was referring to the trillions of dollars we’re about to blow on the stimulus and bank rescue plans.
It was a tough question. The only tough one the press asked all night. But Obama didn’t miss a beat. He just smiled and tilted his head in a friendly sort of gesture, as if he was sharing a well-known joke with good buddies. “You know, I don’t remember exactly what Joe was referring to…” he said, as if who would bother to remember what Joe Biden said or even try to decipher it in the first place. And then with perfect timing, Obama added, “not surprisingly.”
The press audience started laughing at the smile. By the end of the sentence, Obama had not only inoculated himself against this most recent embarrassing Bidenism, but all future incontinent blatherings of his Vice President. “Oh, that’s just Joe Biden. Who pays any attention to what he says anyway?”
This demonstrates more than just good timing on the part of our President. Whether he prepared it in advance or it occurred to him at the moment, the response was not only perfectly calibrated but clearly calculated in the cold blooded way politicians have to be able to be calculating if they want to be successful.
Joe Biden, Vice President of the United States, might not appreciate being ridiculed by his boss on national television, but he knew and Obama knew he knew that he had only himself to blame, so he could hardly object. Read More »
February 12, 2009 – 11:39 am
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove – no slouch when it comes to Republican strategy – agrees with Josh and disagrees with me about whether stimulus opposition will be good for Republicans.
I agree with Karl that Republicans successfully branded this particular stimulus package a bloated, ill-prioritized porker. But they overshot. They forgot to push for real alternatives (or at least to do so publicly and in a voice people could hear) and, as a result, they’re now the party of No Stimulus.
This is why, I think, Americans dislike the current stimulus bill and dislike Republicans’ handling of the issue even more. They seem to agree with President Obama who, in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, said, “It’s not perfect, but it’ll do.”
Republicans have decided to re-brand themselves as the party of fiscal discipline at precisely the time when Americans want to see more government spending. When the economy is recovering in the fall of 2010, voters won’t remember the details of a bill they didn’t like, they’ll remember the party that took action when it was necessary.
February 11, 2009 – 4:57 pm
If you want to know everything – and I mean everything – that happened at today’s bank CEO hearing in the House, check out the Wall Street Journal’s Deal Journal, which live-blogged the entire event.
You’ll notice that at 1:32 pm (seriously, they blogged everything), the CEOs were asked to raise their hands if their company still owns or leases a corporate jet. At least twice today I saw this “raise your hand” tactic and it just irritated me.
Is there anything more infantilizing than asking a group of grown men (and women, if that had been the case) to raise their hands in response to a question? (See Fred Thompson agrees with me here.) What does this gain a Member of Congress, other than to make the CEOs look silly?
Read More »
February 11, 2009 – 3:36 pm
Update (3:35 pm) – I just received the press release with all of the details for tomorrow’s hearing. See them pasted below the jump.
Call it the Geithner Effect: our new Treasury Secretary goes up to Congress (the very day the “stimulus” “ye dare not call it pork” plan passes) to unveil his new financial rescue plan and the market tanks, with the Dow ending 382 points down for the day.
Tomorrow at noon, Pajamas TV will be holding a live hearing to discuss just how damage we are doing our economy. People talk about “mortgaging our future,” but what does that really mean?
Are we facing a Second Great Depression, that completely restructures the balance of power in the world. If we go the way of Europe, who will power the world economy and provide the entrepreneurial inventiveness that powers economic growth? China? India, if we’re lucky?
I noticed that in his press conference, Obama complained that the original TARP had been mishandled in the Bush administration (…”because of a lack of clarity and consistency in how it was applied, a lack of oversight in – in how the money went out, we didn’t get as big a band for the buck as we should have.”). So that’s why he’s putting the same guy in charge of spending the rest?
Read More »
February 11, 2009 – 11:22 am
Major bank executives are appearing before Barney Frank’s House Financial Services Committee this morning. Major messages: We are lending more; we won’t be foolish with TARP money. Bonus points if you can say you didn’t get a bonus last year. Morgan Stanley’s John Mack gets double extra credit for not taking a bonus in 2007 either.
It’ll be interesting to see if anyone challenges the committee members today. CEOs typically have a healthy sense of their own worth – and so do Members of Congress. I’d like to see a few sparks fly.
It never looks good for industry execs to be lined up in a murderers’ row before Congress. Remember the car CEOs a few months ago? Regardless of whether or not you’re guilty of anything, the public perception of having to testify before Congress is negative – you look like you’re being called on the carpet.
Embattled execs should be doing more to help the public understand what’s happening to their banks and to the financial system. They ought to be getting out of New York more frequently, getting into communities and pressing the case for why their institutions are critical to life beyond Wall Street. They ought to acknowledge their recent failings, take a few lashes, and commit to rectifying their flawed practices. (See former TimeWarner exec Jerry Levin address this point on CNBC last month.)
Otherwise all the public will see when they think of a bank CEO is someone getting chased by TV cameras or grilled by Congress.
February 10, 2009 – 9:11 pm
I have to disagree with Ed’s interpretation of President Obama’s remarks on tax cuts. When you consider the president’s comment in context, it seems clear that when he says “tax cuts alone can’t solve our problems,” he isn’t suggesting that the prior administration didn’t spend enough, but rather that the monies were not spent on the right things. Here’s the relevant section in full:
“But as we’ve learned very clearly and conclusively over the last eight years, tax cuts alone can’t solve all of our economic problems, especially tax cuts that are targeted to the wealthiest few Americans. We have tried that strategy time and time again, and it’s only helped lead us to the crisis we face right now. And that’s why we have come together around a plan that combines hundreds of billions in tax cuts for the middle class with direct investment in areas like health care, energy, education, and infrastructure, investments that will save jobs, create new jobs and new businesses, and help our economy grow again, now and in the future.”
February 10, 2009 – 12:47 pm
Last night during his opening remarks, President Obama said: “[A]s we’ve learned very clearly and conclusively over the last eight years, tax cuts alone can’t solve all of our economic problems, especially tax cuts that are targeted to the wealthiest few Americans. We have tried that strategy time and time again, and it’s only helped lead us to the crisis we face right now.”
Tax cuts alone? This would suggest that the previous Administration (and their allies in Congress) didn’t spend enough to keep the economy stoked.
But later, in response to a question from CBS’s Chip Reid, the president said: “[W]hat I’ve been concerned about is some of the language that’s been used suggesting that this is full of pork and this is wasteful government spending, so on and so forth. First of all, when I hear that from folks who presided over a doubling of the national debt, then, you know, I just want them to not engage in some revisionist history. I inherited the deficit that we have right now and the economic crisis that we have right now.”
Doubling of the national debt? This would suggest that the previous Administration (and their allies in Congress) spent too much and added a terrible burden to our nation’s economy.
So were the last eight years filled with too much spending or not enough?
This is a message gap the president’s opponents may want to highlight.
February 10, 2009 – 10:52 am
As others have pointed out, one trillion dollars–which is what this stimulus “ye dare not call it pork” bill is going to cost–divided by 4 million jobs is……$250,000 per job! Where does one apply for one of these jobs? More to the point, wouldn’t it have been possible for at least one of our numerically-challenged White House press corps have asked about it?
Teleprompter issues aside, I thought Obama put in a pretty impressive performance last night. But then, it’s a lot easier to look good when all you get is softball questions.
February 9, 2009 – 8:19 pm
I tuned into President Obama’s East Room statement/press conference this evening mainly to see if he’d use the teleprompter. He did use it during the first segment of his remarks and I think it hurt him.
The prompter, as I noted earlier, is designed to help the speaker look at his audience more naturally. In a large setting, the audience is all around him. But tonight, as the president pressed the case for passing an economic stimulus bill, his audience wasn’t (shouldn’t have been) the reporters and staffers assembled in the East Room; his audience was the American people watching on TV at home. Instead of looking directly into the camera and talking to Americans, the president looked at the teleprompter panels and almost never looked into the camera. It diminished the forcefulness of his message.
It’s not a big deal, but if the president’s going to rely on the teleprompter every time he makes remarks, his staff ought to work out a solution — like a camera-mounted teleprompter — that will allow him to address the right audience.
February 9, 2009 – 12:40 pm
On Friday I noticed that President Obama used a teleprompter when delivering his remarks on the economy in the East Room. I thought it was unusual because the East Room is a pretty intimate venue. I usually associate the teleprompter with bigger crowds and bigger spaces.
I can’t think of a time when President Bush used the teleprompter in the East Room, except for maybe a primetime address to the nation. Of course he didn’t particularly care for the teleprompter and didn’t look all that natural using it.
Working the prompter is an art all its own. With one clear panel on each side of the podium displaying text, the teleprompter is designed to help the speaker look at the audience, rather than continuously looking down at his speech on paper. But some speakers suffer from “prompter lock,” in which their eyes stay locked on one panel of the teleprompter even as their head shifts to the other. This looks awkward.
President Obama has no such trouble. Read More »
February 9, 2009 – 10:25 am
Question: how does the spirit of bipartisanship jibe with Obama’s message (which I paraphrase only slightly), “You lost, we won, so stuff it!” Of course, the administration can count on the mainstream media to carry its water for them. The Washington Post seized on the total of three Republicans to go along with the stimulus to cover their front page with headlines about the new “bi-partisan” agreement. But does anyone really believe it?
Plus, the President’s sarcastic dismissal of principled opposition to the bill as “phony arguments and petty politics” can’t be good for the image he’s been trying to project of someone who will change the culture of Washington. Nor is it good public relations. The majority of American’s think this is a lousy bill. Are they “phony” and “petty” too?
February 7, 2009 – 3:14 pm
According to Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, the Obama administration is searching for a phrase to replace the “War on Terror.”
Good luck.
This, of course, is the classic bureaucratic backwards approach to communications, in which people desperately search for just the right word or phrase to communicate a policy they can’t explain or an objective they haven’t yet defined. It’s also the beginning writer’s typical mistake – hoping that a thesaurus will replace the work of actually thinking through the substance of what one wants to say.
The desire to replace “War on Terror” is understandable, for reasons that are well understood. How do wage war on a tactic? Worse, Americans – quite rightly – like their wars to be time-limited, with well-defined, achievable objectives. The Global War on Terror (which produced the unfortunate acronym GWOT) was like a Global War on Evil – war as part of the human condition, and endless struggle that will only come to a conclusion when history really does come to an end.
Read More »
February 6, 2009 – 4:27 pm
Keeping an audience’s attention is the top goal of every speaker. Be relevant, be engaging, be funny, be scary, be theatrical – the list of recommendations goes on and on. What doesn’t usually appear on the list: Unleash bugs on the audience.
Bill Gates used this last technique to great effect in his talk at this week’s TED Conference in California. While discussing the idea that malaria research is underfunded because the disease generally only affects people in poor countries, Gates opened up a canister of mosquitoes, telling the audience that it shouldn’t just be poor people who get to experience this.
Naturally the mosquitoes weren’t carrying malaria. And Gates’s mood was humorous, not hectoring. His very real and annoying visual got across his point better than words alone would have done. Though it’s worth cautioning speakers: There are a lot of things Bill Gates can do that normal humans can’t.
Take a look at the whole speech if you have time (it’s a little under 20 minutes). Gates also explores what makes a great teacher, and in a surprisingly candid moment he equates bad teachers to factory workers turning out “crap.”
