Stop Scaring People! That’s My Job

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
December 10, 2009 – 10:29 am

The Wall Street Journal reports on a testy exchange between President Obama and Congressional Republicans at the White House yesterday.

“At one point, the president told Republican leaders to ‘stop trying to frighten the American people,’ displaying a chart showing diminishing job losses over the past four quarters, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said after the meeting.”

That made me wonder if President Obama has ever sunk so low as to try frightening the American people.

Oh my gosh, he has!

Consider this from his speech to the Democratic convention in 2008:

“Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can’t afford to drive, credit card bills you can’t afford to pay, and tuition that’s beyond your reach.”

He went on to describe “a woman in Ohio [who], on the brink of retirement, finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work.”

And “a man in Indiana [who] has to pack up the equipment he’s worked on for twenty years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news.”

And “a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes.”

Quite frightening. And that was just in the first five minutes!

We’ve seen this act more recently, too. Read More »

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Congressional BS on BCS

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
December 10, 2009 – 6:59 am

Good news! Yesterday, with apparently little else to do, a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee “approved legislation … aimed at forcing college football to switch to a playoff system to determine its national champion.”

That should make unemployed Americans feel better.

In the face of this absurdity, a few members of the subcommittee – all Democrats, according to the Associated Press – had the wisdom to point out that Congress has more important things to do than legislate on matters of sport.

Yet Bobby Rush, the Illinois Democrat who co-sponsored the bill with Texas Republican Joe Barton, said, “We can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Maybe. But it’s clear Rush and his colleagues can’t walk, chew gum, and balance budgets; or walk, chew gum, and find a long-term fix for Social Security and Medicare.

Before making glib comments, maybe Rush et al should do anything – anything at all – to meet their Constitutional duties and address some of the problems created by years of Congressional mis-prioritization.

Or, if they don’t have anything better to do, maybe they should just go home.

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The Broken Windows Theory

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
December 3, 2009 – 10:41 am

Tiger shhhTiger Woods screwed up and now, like flies on regurgitated honeydew, public relations experts are flocking to the media to explain how they would have helped him handle the situation much more effectively. (I’d link to some, but just Google “Tiger Woods PR fail” and you’ll get the gist.)

Most of the Monday morning quarterbacking centers on the notion that Tiger should have spoken out immediately after his post-Thanksgiving adventure became public. You have to respond quickly to a crisis – within three hours! Within 12 hours! For God’s sake at the very least within 24 hours!

But, realistically, what would that have accomplished? This “crisis” wasn’t a public health emergency or a national security issue. It was a spicy domestic dispute. It’s one thing to protect your personal brand; it’s another to hyperventilate and pretend your brand has any real effect on people’s lives.

If Tiger had said, “I’ve had extra-marital affairs over the last few years. My wife and I argued about them late Thanksgiving evening. She came after my car with a golf club and I hit a tree,” would the media frenzy have abated?

Hell and no.

Revealing “transgressions” last Friday or Saturday would have simply relieved gossip outlets of the burden of proving their allegations and allowed them to focus all their attention on digging up potential flings.

In a way, slow-walking the story allowed Tiger to salvage some sense of decency Read More »

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Obama’s Afghanistan Speech: The Good and the Ugly

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
December 2, 2009 – 2:51 am

Despite pronouncing the word “Taliban” as if he were a calypso singer, President Obama sounded and looked strong and confident in his Afghanistan-themed address last night.

The optics were right, as the president was joined by row upon row of sharply dressed officers-in-waiting. The pace of the speech was good – the president not getting too caught up in any one particular area. And the content should give most Americans the sense that President Obama knows what’s at stake in Afghanistan and is willing to meet the challenge.

The speech contained few details – 30,000 additional forces will be deployed beginning in the next month, with a withdrawal scenario likely to begin in summer 2011. But the speech was thematically full, if at times contradictory.

The president made clear why Afghanistan is a crucial fight, calling it the “epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda.” Terrorism is “no idle danger, no hypothetical threat,” he said, adding that “the danger will only grow if the region slides backward.”

To confront the threat, he articulated three missions in Afghanistan: denying safe haven to al Qaeda terrorists, reversing Taliban momentum, and reinforcing Hamid Karzai’s government. The goal in Afghanistan, which he repeatedly invoked, is to turn over control of the country to the Afghan government and people.

He left unclear how stability will be gauged. We’ll know more as future conditions evolve, yet it’s important to have a sense of what will happen in 2011 if, for instance, Afghanistan’s government is still weak and/or corrupt in whole or in part, or if the border areas are still simmering with terrorist activity. Having made a strong case that American security depends on conditions in Afghanistan, the president presumably will have to be supremely confident in the Afghan army’s ability to prevent a Taliban resurgence before US troops can leave.

Unfortunately, the speech also had its “there he goes again” moments. Read More »

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Obama Re-Loaded: The Afghanistan Speech

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
December 1, 2009 – 11:05 am

Obama PodiumTonight, President Obama addresses the nation about his plan for Afghanistan. Presidents are at their most presidential when talking to the country about foreign affairs, particularly war, and President Obama has an opportunity to shine tonight.

While Clark has elsewhere questioned the setting for the president’s remarks, I believe the US Military Academy at West Point will effectively underscore Mr. Obama’s message and allow him to appropriate for himself some of the confidence Americans have in our armed forces. The West Point venue will also re-align the president with the military – a relationship that has appeared to be on rocky ground throughout the deliberation phase.

Aside from the soft messages, what should the president’s remarks accomplish?

First, they need to articulate a plan. While the White House has been touting the thoroughness of the president’s war review, the idea has taken hold that Mr. Obama is really just indecisive. His remarks should include as much clear and direct language as possible to demonstrate that he has indeed made a decision and that he’s comfortable with it.

Policy experts and non-podium pundits will differ over details – troop levels, mission objectives, diplomatic sideshows – but most Americans won’t care. They don’t have time to think about the details. They just want to know that the president has and that he thinks his plan will work.

Second, the president’s remarks need to be clear about where we’re headed. President Obama may lay out some timed benchmarks of progress leading to withdrawal. But even more important is that the remarks indicate some specific goals, however the president defines them. We know why our people are fighting in a theoretical sense, but what will they accomplish in reality? What will a post-NATO Afghanistan look like – not a Pollyanna view, but a realistic idea of a good future? Read More »

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Remembering Our National Perverseness

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
November 26, 2009 – 1:43 am

lincoln sittingIn October 1863, with his country mired in civil war, President Lincoln directed Americans to set aside the last Thursday in November as a day to give thanks for their “bounties.”

Turkey was not mentioned, nor was one pardoned. Wal-Mart Black Friday sales, including Vizio HDTVs for as little as $349, still lay in America’s magnificent future, obscured from even Lincoln’s prescient gaze. The Detroit Lions were terrible.

In addition to inaugurating America’s annual top-button-of-the-pants-loosening, food-coma-inducing, scrumptious-leftover-producing celebration of food and family, Lincoln’s proclamation established him as the only president to publicly chastise Americans for “our national perverseness” and still be re-elected.

Herewith, the historical document in full. Happy Thanksgiving.

***

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the everwatchful providence of almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Read More »

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Unprecedented Self-Promotion

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
November 25, 2009 – 11:09 am

Obama officePolitico’s designated Obama-speech watcher/reader Carol Lee is up today with another analysis of the president’s verbal tics. Turns out President Obama may have an inflated sense of his own place in history.

I know! I was floored, too.

Here’s Lee:

Perhaps it was a sign when President Barack Obama sat down in January to record his first weekly address and announced: “We begin this year and this administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action.”

What has followed is declaration after declaration of “unprecedented” milestones. Some of them are legitimate firsts, like the president’s online town hall at the White House in May.

But others the president wins merely on a technicality, and several clearly already have precedent.

Lee also nicely catalogues some of the president’s “unprecedented” feats: Read More »

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David Obey Gets It Right

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
November 23, 2009 – 10:44 am

obeyKudos to House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (hold on a sec … waiting to see if my head explodes … nope, good) for seeing the war in Afghanistan as something we should all pay for.

According to ABC News, the Wisconsin Democrat, who opposes deepening our involvement in Afghanistan, said that if we’re going to implement a larger operation, we need to come up with a new revenue stream to pay for it. And unlike his Senate colleague Carl Levin, “Obey argued that the tax should be paid by all taxpayers, with rates ranging from 1 percent for lower wage earners to 5 percent for the wealthy.”

Higher taxes at a time of economic distress shouldn’t be imposed lightly. But if such a decision is made, a tax modeled on Obey’s proposal is the way to go. Assuming we all benefit from America’s warfighting capability, we should all pay for it.

Though I wouldn’t mind seeing some budget cuts to make room for additional Afghan spending, Obey’s not a big fan of slashing budgets and instead sees the Afghan operation as potentially sucking the core out of his party’s domestic agenda. As he elegantly stated it, “There ain’t going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan.”

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Joe Biden Sets the Bar Low

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
November 22, 2009 – 12:26 pm

Politico’s Mike Allen offers a blurb from Vice President Biden’s speech at the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner – the annual Democratic campaign gala – in Des Moines, Iowa. One part caught my eye.

“We will not measure our success on the growth of the GDP, though its growth is necessary. We will judge our success on whether the middle class is larger on the day we leave office than the day we took office.”

Doesn’t that seem a bit unambitious? To make the middle class larger? This isn’t China, after all. Or India. Or some other country rising from dire poverty and trying to get people over the threshold of a decent living standard.

The United States practically invented the middle class and most people, regardless of how much money they make, already consider themselves a part of it. Americans are aspirational people. The real goal is going beyond the middle class. Or at least being more secure within it. Tapping into this desire to be better off is what makes politicians of both parties successful.

But just a larger middle class? The vice president is either targeting a very narrow portion of the population that considers itself desperately poor (not a winning strategy) or perhaps shedding light on the Administration’s aims. With all the new taxes ahead, they may be able to pull millions of Americans down to the middle class. Would they consider that “success”?

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Carl Levin Leads the Tax Brigade

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
November 21, 2009 – 12:57 pm

LevinSenate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin has shown an uncanny ability to be wrong about almost every issue involving Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade. This weekend, he’s come up with another doozy.

According to Bloomberg, the Michigan Democrat is proposing a tax on higher earners – say it with me now, individuals earning more than $200,000 a year and couples making more than $250,000 – to pay for increased military action in Afghanistan.

How many projects do Democrats think higher-earning Americans can pay for? For that matter, how many higher-earning Americans do Democrats think there are?

The top tax rate is already going to increase in 2011. The Democrats’ health care debacle will pile on an income surtax or Medicare tax (why not both!), should it pass. And higher taxes for higher earners are proposed to “fix” everything from Social Security to school loans to energy consumption. If Democrats stay in office a few more years, they may be able to crank that top rate to about 114%. Read More »

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Did Goldman’s Apology Backfire?

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
November 18, 2009 – 11:09 pm

In a speech Tuesday night, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein reportedly apologized for his company’s role in the financial markets crisis, saying, “We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret.”

Apologies are always tricky business for people or organizations under siege in the media. Sometimes they can be helpful. When an individual or company is clearly at fault for something, a quick apology, full explanation of what went wrong and why, and commitment to correcting the error can stanch public disapproval.

In other cases, apologies can sound forced and insincere, like the schoolyard bully forced to apologize to his latest victim. These apologies generally reinforce negative ideas about the person or institution issuing the apology. “They just don’t get it,” even if they want us to believe they do.

A third category is the unnecessary apology, or the guilty conscience apology. This is likely where Blankfein’s apology falls. Given the CEO’s full-throated defense of Goldman’s business practices in recent months, the apology Tuesday night is most likely a reaction to the ongoing negative storyline about Goldman.

But the storyline isn’t really about Goldman doing anything wrong; Read More »

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Updates on Climate, Burma

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
November 15, 2009 – 12:10 pm

Obama AsiaWe don’t generally do up-to-the-minute news here, but I thought it worth following up on two points I raised yesterday regarding President Obama’s trip to Asia.

First, it appears that even with George Bush out of the way, international leaders are still having trouble reaching agreement on a climate change accord with teeth.

Consensus is forming now on a two-step process that would set the stage for a “political agreement” in Copenhagen next month followed by a legally binding framework for carbon reductions.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Political opposition in the U.S. Congress over Mr. Obama’s climate-change proposals and continuing resistance among developing countries to binding emission reduction targets slowed consensus ahead of the Copenhagen summit.” Good news, unless you’re Al Gore.

Second, President Obama did meet with the full ASEAN 10 and used the occasion to press directly for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, though he could not get language on political prisoners into the official communiqué issued following the meeting.

Was the justified hectoring helpful? Maybe. But on balance, will the Burmese junta be pleased that they can finally tout a meeting with a US president – an implicit acknowledgment of their legitimacy as the country’s leaders? Probably.

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Future UN Secretary General Jabs Bush … Again

By Ed Walsh (WHWG)
November 14, 2009 – 12:30 pm

GWB APEC 2Ten months into his own term as US president, Barack Obama continues to conjure the ghost of George W. Bush to help define himself in international circles.

Of course, it’s not really the ghost of George W. Bush. It’s the ghost of the caricature of George W. Bush.

Kicking off his Asian trip with remarks at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall today, President Obama spoke about our shared interests with Japan and other Asian nations.

And he spent time dwelling on himself (“I could not come here without sending my greetings and gratitude to the citizens of Obama, Japan” … “My sister Maya was born in Jakarta, and later married a Chinese-Canadian” … “As America’s first Pacific president”).

In the middle, the president reaffirmed America’s commitment to working with our global partners in multilateral forums. And in his best “don’t worry, I’m finally here” tone, he added, “I know that the United States has been disengaged from many of these organizations in recent years. So let me be clear: Those days have passed.”

It’s sad that the president continues to peddle this line of bull about his immediate predecessor. Read More »

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A Bolshevik and a Dinosaur

By Paul Orzulak (WWW)
November 11, 2009 – 12:28 pm

reagan and gorbachev hatsIt was impossible not to wonder what was going through the mind of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev as he joined the throngs in Berlin this week to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Two Americans that have long been close to Gorbachev are Stephen Cohen, professor of Russian studies at New York University, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, the Editor and Publisher of The Nation. From 1985 to 1992, Cohen and vanden Heuvel had a unique insight into Perestroika:  they both lived on and off in Moscow, and eventually got married.   Together, they have a revealing interview with Gorbachev in this week’s issue of the Nation.

Interestingly, despite vanden Heuvel’s reputation as a progressive that drives conservatives wild (Rush Limbaugh, ever tactful, still refers to her as “Hurricane Katrina”), she probably played as subversive a role in the former Soviet Union as anybody on the right.

Working as a journalist in Moscow under path-breaking editor Yegor Yakovlev, vanden Heuvel grew so angry over stories about how Russian women were mistreated by their spouses and ignored by society, she started an underground journal for Russian women, called Vyi I Myi.  It provided a venue for thoughtful and spirited conversation on the role of women in Russian society.  Over time, she and her co-founder, Colette Shulman, received notes from hundreds of Russian women who were inspired by the journal to start the first domestic violence centers, the first gender studies programs, and the first small business centers, among many others.

Cohen and vanden Heuvel went on to write a book together on Perestroika, called “Voices of Glastnost.”

In their new interview with the former Soviet leader, Gorbachev talks about the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, his relationship with Ronald Reagan, and the perils of foreign interventions into Afghanistan. Read More »

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Tear Down This Wall

By Vinca LaFleur (WWW)
November 11, 2009 – 11:39 am

The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall has prompted a number of articles and reflections about President Reagan’s historic 1987 speech.  Needless to say, Clark is the true expert on the issue — but I wanted to link Tony Dolan’s recent piece from the Wall Street Journal, reminiscing about the speechwriters’ full court press to keep the crucial line in the draft.

As Dolan writes,

Shortly after the speech draft began making its review through the bureaucracy, the speechwriters, as Reagan true-believers, had deployed to do the interpersonal glad-handing that sometimes eases objections to speech passages. The Berlin event for us was the quintessential chance—in front of Communism’s most evocative monument—to enunciate the anti-Soviet counterstrategy that Reagan had been putting in place since his first weeks in office.

I don’t agree with Dolan’s overarching conclusion that “rhetorical confrontation causes geopolitical conciliation.”   Sometimes turning up the rhetorical thermostat is helpful; sometimes it’s not.  But President Reagan was right, and smart, to keep that line in his speech.  And his speechwriters were fortunate to have played a part in his words, and in shaping history.

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