BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 03:28 PM

Not according to what I've heard, Danny. And it was not in the context that you are alluding to ("an effective public tactic to get before a microphone on the steps of some vaunted Hall and claim that you were not given the time to read the content of a Bill") . Sure the Congressmen have staff who work for them and network and find out stuff for them, but many Congressmen still vote for bills that they have only a very partial knowledge of, and they do so precisely because they have been quite pointedly asked to do so by more powerful people who are higher up the chain of command, and they know they are expected to do so. Great persuasion is brought to bear in the halls of government within any given political party, and it generally has its way with almost the entire rank and file. You get the odd maverick like Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul who frequently bucks the party line, but mostly you just get supine acquiescence.

This is just as true in Canada or the UK or most other countries as it is in the USA.

You know what happens to the few mavericks who dare to think for themselves and dare to vote against party line? They may get re-elected by their own constituents if they are popular enough on the home turf...or they may not...but they are never allowed to rise very high within the command structure of their own party, precisely because they did not cooperate with its command structure. They remain as a voice in the wilderness. They say what no one else will say, it is paid very little attention to by either their party or the mass media, and nothing much changes.

That's the way it is here in Canada. It always has been. That's the way it is in the USA as well.

Party line is a way of enforcing conformity upon representatives and muzzling conscience. That's why I have so little regard for political parties. There isn't one political party of any consequence in the world right now that I have any respect left for...though I certainly do respect many of the individuals (elected and otherwise) who are in those various parties.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: DannyC
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 03:15 PM

As a very young man, I sat in the House gallery for the better part of an hour during the discourse regarding The Civil Rights Act. A Republican was on the floor for the duration speaking of the rash and radical nature the Lyndon B. Johnson's initiative. At that time in History, over-sensitivity to a bi-partisan solution would have resulted in a setback for aspirations towards American unity. Fortunately for us all, the Dems pushed the Bill through.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 03:13 PM

Like I said before, the numbers game was a stupid mistake. Now it appears that Obama and his aides are backpedalling today on the various news shows.   This shows how stupid it was: it will undermine his future credibility, and will give the Republicans ammunition for the next 2,4 years. And backpedalling is equally stupid. The whole thing is a totally unnecessary waste of political capital.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: DannyC
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 03:07 PM

Regarding the "not having time to read the information" comments:

The Congress people have tremendously able, gifted and hard-working staff members who not only perform the due diligence and discovery work, but network with each other so that allied subject-matter experts can weigh in on the technical significance of subsections within each Bill's content. These professionals know what the Bills contain. The resulting voting decisions (and public positions) of Congress members are 'informed' by the staffers.   

It is innaccurate to claim that the due diligence is not performed by each party. However, at times it can be an effective public tactic to get before a microphone on the steps of some vaunted Hall and claim that you (or your party) were not given the time to read the content of a Bill (that, by the way, despite having insufficient knowledge thereof, you oppose). The claim is, however, complete and utter nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: John Hardly
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 02:54 PM

"bi-partisanship" is a lie and a not-at-all worthy goal.

If you are a Progressive, "bi-partisanship" is just a means of possibly progressing at a slower rate than you would prefer -- but necessary if that is the only way you can progress at all.

If you do not believe that the government is the solution to this banking problem, then "bi-partisanship" is merely a needless compromise for which you win exactly nothing, and lose the economic principle in which you believe (and for which it is likely you were elected).

"bi-partisanship" is a renaming of the game. In reality, what is referred to as "bi-partisan" actually means "one party government" and it only works in one direction -- toward bigger, more intrusive government.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 02:37 PM

The vast majority of bills are not read in their entirety by "everyone in Congress". They are not read in their entirety by most of the members of Congress. I know this for sure because I have heard it spoken of openly by a few people in Congress from time to time. This applies to Democrats and Republicans alike, needless to say.

Look, it's a buddy system. It's a power structure with major players and minor players on 2 teams. It's two teams out to beat each other in the political game. A few of the major players on the ruling team get together with some smart professionals and they put together a huge, bloated piece of legislation which they want passed on behalf, usually, of some very powerful special interests. They then inform "the team" that it's time to rally round and support the party and "do the right thing for the good of the country" (meaning our team). Of the various members on "the team", a handful of them may take the time to thoroughly read and understand the entire bill. Most of them just gloss over it quickly or they let someone else tell them what's in it. Most of them vote the party line without having ever really read the bill very carefully at all...they probably don't have the time to in many cases or the patience to, they figure that their bosses must be right anyway, and they figure they'd better be good little boys and do what's expected of them. If they do, then they might get a promotion at some point, right? They might rise higher in the party structure.

The bill passes, and it is voted for by quite a few people who are far from having read it in its entirety. It is also voted against by quite a few people who are far from having read it in its entirety.

That's standard in Washington. It's standard in pretty well any huge bureaucratic organization. A few people fully grasp what's going on...most just go through the motions.

It's that way with BOTH parties. It always has been.

They only complain about it when the OTHER party does it.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 02:36 PM

Reid's Las Vegas train didn't get express reference in the 1000 page final version either, but he can use an $8 billion allocation to high speed rail and hope to persuade the DOT to help fund it:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-stimulus-rail14-2009feb14,0,2367517.story

"However, the bill does provide $8 billion for unspecified high-speed and intercity passenger rail projects, more than three times as much as allocated in earlier versions of the legislation."

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 02:22 PM

"How could they know everything they were voting for? Why should someone be obliged to approve something when they do not know everything they are approving?" Sawz

Kind of like the paper preceding the war preparations. But, silly me. That was the Republicans.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: DougR
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 02:19 PM

I agree, SAwzaw, this is pure and simple Obama's and the Democrats in Congress' Bill. If it works, they get the credit. If it fails it will be the Republicans fault of course.

As to actually reading the whole Bill, I doubt anyone in Congress did. Harry Reade, Nancy Pelosi, and "turncoats" Snow, Collins and Spector will get what they want out of it anyway.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 02:17 PM

The other side in any partisan system of politics is always perceived to be "drunk with power" by those they won out over in the last election. Haven't you noticed? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: Sawzaw
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 01:59 PM

How much time did the Republicans have to actually read the 1000+ page bill?

How could they know everything they were voting for? Why should someone be obliged to approve something when they do not know everything they are approving?

To offset the Democrat pork, they more pork in there for the Republicans and they still did not vote for it. Pork + Pork = Pork+

I say the Democrats except for some brave ones, voted for pork or "earmarks" and the Republicans voted against it.

Pass this right now or we will be in worse trouble. It's the same gun to the head strategy that Libs accuse Bush of using to push the war in Iraq through.

I have the feeling that it will backfire on the Democrats whom are drunk with power at the monent.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 01:40 PM

and their grandchildren. I know. Biden is right and there's AT LEAST a 30% chance they got it wrong.

They say the biggest cost is in lost tax revenue, but what the hell is someone going to do with an extra $250 over twelve months, or similar? If I were King, I would proclaim that the stimulus must be designed with a principal focus on tax credits to (a) the neediest - relating to unemployment and health care, and (b) those most likely to spend it - credits for car purchases and home purchases, etc., rather than having so much emphasis on bloating government agencies.

But I'm not king. Neither is O.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: pdq
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 01:30 PM

"I'm also interested in seeing the 400 pages of extra crap the Democrats threw in after they gave up on the Republicans." ~ heric

US citizens and their childern will be paying the $1.5 trillion dollars that have been added in the last few months. This is in addition to the regular Federal Budget and special appropriations such as those for our current military ventures.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: DannyC
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 01:23 PM

Kathleen Parker's silly article from Feb. 11th (cited above) seems dated a short four days after it's published date.

Washington Post? Her comments might have been better suited for the back pages of "Psychology Today".

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 01:05 PM

I think Obama made some stupid mistakes in his first couple of weeks -- putting numbers to the employment outcomes of the spending bill was the biggest, followed by the justice department acquiescence in one of the worst rights abuses of the Bush administration -- but I am coming around to the opinion that he is playing a long game. When you look at the vast number of messes he has to deal with, thanks to what he inherited, he is going to have to transform the whole American project -- get it back to what it really does better than anyplace else in the world: harnessing the creative powers of its people to immense tasks. The immensest is dealing with energy and climate change -- this is going to require unbelievable transformations in contemporary social forms -- followed by dramatic government interventions into health care and education and a whole lot of stuff screwed around with by half-assed alternatives. And then there are two useless wars.

How do you deal with these? You have to first marginalize the idiots who got you to this point, and it appears he is working on that. Or they are doing it to themselves.....

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 01:04 PM

I'm also interested in seeing the 400 pages of extra crap the Democrats threw in after they gave up on the Republicans.

Obama can't be a one man show. We will always be stuck with Congress, as he is.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 12:54 PM

As I have said before, he's in for 4 years of hell. That's what anyone is in for who gets elected president.

Obama wants too much to be liked? Well, gosh! We probably all want too much to be liked...aside from those few among us who have decided that they get more satisfaction from being known as "the biggest bastard" on the block. Some people are like that. They actually get a real charge out of how much they piss off so many other people around them. I think Winston Churchill was one of those types. ;-) Obama definitely isn't.

Obama will bore anyone who basically doesn't believe in him in the first place. He will interest and appeal to those who do believe in him in the first place. That's how boredom works. You simply need a basic lack of interest or a basic disinclination toward something, and you get bored.

People always have patience if they're genuinely interested. They don't if they're not.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 12:52 PM

I've been thinking about this a lot the past few days, and yes Obama just articulated my conclusion. His promise to implement the fiscal stimulus quickly had to trump his promise to achieve bipartisan support for things. The stimulus is so unfocused the objections are easy to understand, but (a) its effects will be seen more slowly, which may be better at generating long term confidence (absent rampant inflation down the road), and (b) despite the astronomical numbers here, I think the main show (and the one with greater need for speed on results) is still in the Treasury and at the Federal Reserve.

(He stood fast against the Republicans but I am looking forward to the day he stands fast against the Democrats.)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: Sawzaw
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 12:51 PM

Oval Newlywed Game MAUREEN DOWD New York Times

The etiquette breach was not widely noticed, swallowed by the cacophony over the economy.

But Joe Biden no doubt felt the sting when Barack Obama dissed him again in public.

The new president is so elegant, and so full of comity, even to his foes, that when he is simply a tad ungracious, it jumps out.

At his news conference last Monday, Mr. Obama was asked by Fox's Major Garrett about the vice president's startling assertion that even if he and the president do "everything right," "there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong."

Admittedly, it must be an adjustment for the president, a detached observer who "travels light," as friends put it, to be yoked to such a garrulous social animal.

It can't be easy for someone with a highly defined superego to be bound to the wacky Biden id, for one so disciplined to be tied to one so undisciplined, for a man so coolly unsentimental to be paired with someone so exuberantly sentimental.

And yet, the minute the president began to laugh and answer Garrett, I feared Joe would be the butt.

"I don't remember exactly what Joe was referring to," said Mr. Obama, who couldn't resist adding, "not surprisingly."

It was the "not surprisingly" that was surprisingly snarky.

The president had already used his "disappointed parent" routine with Mr. Biden in public, looking reproachful and tapping Joe on the back when he made a benign joke, as he swore in White House staffers, about his memory not being as good as Chief Justice John Roberts's. Chastened, he called Justice Roberts afterward to apologize.

After the election, when Mr. Obama made a mild joke about Nancy Reagan and séances, Mr. Biden, who was on stage as well, did not wince at his partner in public or tap him like a strict nun.

When Mr. Biden indulges in his rhetorical overkill of repeating the same phrase three times — the proud men and women of Scranton, he said at a recent appearance with the president, "wanted the government to understand their problem, to understand their problem, be cognizant of the problem" — Mr. Obama has an air of suppressed annoyance, like an editor dying to take a red pencil to a long-winded writer. (It's an air you never see when the president appears next to more like-minded, self-contained souls like Tim Geithner.)

Mr. Biden's stream of consciousness can be impolitic. Politico's Glenn Thrush refers to "the human political polygraph that is Joseph Robinette Biden." It can also be bracingly honest.

Joe is nothing if not loyal. And the president should return that quality, and not leave his lieutenant vulnerable to "Odd Couple" parodies.

On a recent "Saturday Night Live" skit, Jason Sudeikis's Biden leaned over Fred Armisen's Obama, to tell Americans: "Look, I know $819 billion sounds like a lot of money. But it's just a tip of the iceberg."

Armisen's clenched Obama murmurs: "Couldn't pick Hillary. I just couldn't."

Gawker, a media gossip blog, translated Monday's Garrett-Obama exchange this way:

"Uh, Mr. President, Joe Biden said something yesterday about how you two will eventually destroy the world, forever. Care to comment?"

"Oh, that's just the vice president. We all know he's mentally unbalanced, right, guys? Ha ha ha ha. But seriously: He's nuts, please keep him away from sharp objects."

Obama advisers say that the two men get on well and that the president wants his second's candid advice. Mr. Biden considers Mr. Obama inclusive.

But some aides joke about the care and feeding of Mr. Biden's ego, and kid about the way the vice president clings to the president's schedule. Mr. Biden puts out guidance about his schedule — a refreshing change from the black hole of Cheney.

(He has also added a sitting area in his office, something the unilateral Cheney never needed, and has turned up the temperature in the vice president's house from the chilly Cheney-mandated 62.)

Obama aides say the president went out of his way to stroke the vice president — who felt he helped interpret the exotic Obama for the hoi polloi during the campaign — by putting him in charge of a middle-class working families task force.

Still, the president should brush up on his Jane Austen. When Emma Woodhouse belittles Miss Bates, an older and poorer friend, at a picnic, Mr. Knightly pulls her aside to remonstrate. "How could you be so insolent in your wit?" he chides, reminding her that it is unfeeling to humble someone less fortunate in front of others who will be guided by the way she behaves.

That's how it works ... not surprisingly.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 12:50 PM

"I began missing Bush's customary dispatch" -- hardly surprising for someone so thoughtless. Er -- "not fully in control of his message or his material" -- exactly the opposite: he's so totally in control of his material that he can actually articulate it for a whole nine minutes. (Which isn't to suggest that he can't be boring). Nevertheless, by that time, George Bush had not only decided that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but had dispatched the war machine.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: Sawzaw
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 12:40 PM

So Far, Amateur Hour Kathleen Parker Washington Post February 11, 2009; Page A19

The first however-many days of Barack Obama's presidency have been a study in amateurism. Many suspected that Obama wasn't quite ready, but kept their fingers crossed. Optimistic disappointment is the new holding pattern.

What's missing from Obama's performance isn't the intelligence that voters acknowledged in electing him. It's the experience they tried to pretend didn't really matter. Experienced politicians, after all, got us into this mess.

Absent is maturity -- that grown-up quality of leadership that is palpable when the real deal enters a room. There's a reason why elders are respected. They have something the rest of us don't have -- yet -- because we haven't lived long enough. We haven't made the really tough decisions, the ones that are often unpopular.

There's also a reason why it's lonely at the top. The view is better, but the summit isn't so much a mountaintop as a deserted city.

Obama wants too much to be liked. This isn't a character flaw. In fact his winning personality and likability have served him well through the years. Growing up in multiple cultures -- black and white, American and Indonesian -- he had to learn how to get along. By all accounts, he became easy company.
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But there's a price one pays in becoming president. Giving up being liked is the ultimate public sacrifice. This was the hardest lesson for Bill Clinton, who loved people and found the isolation of the presidency particularly brutal. Similarly, Obama wants to stay in touch with everyday Americans, as symbolized by his reluctance to surrender his BlackBerry.

There was a time last week when Obama looked younger than usual. Not youthful so much as not fully formed. He seemed out of place in his presidential role. In a word, he seemed haunted. Had he been visited by the ghosts of Christmas future?

Or had he looked across the table into the eyes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and realized that he was not among friends? Obama's lack of authority over the stimulus package has underscored the value of political experience and toughness -- and given weakened Republicans the leverage they needed to launch an aggressive attack.

In the midst of it all, Obama and his wife went to an elementary school to read to second-graders, a now time-honored presidential release valve. Clinton read to children during his impeachment hearings. Bush, eternally and infamously, will be remembered for reading "The Pet Goat" to an elementary school class as airplanes were slamming into the World Trade Center towers.

Obama said they were "just tired of being in the White House." Oh, just wait.

Other manifestations of Obama's political greenness include his apology for picking lax taxpayers for prominent positions, his campaign-like tour to Elkhart, Ind., on Monday and his ponderous first news conference later that evening.

Why did Obama feel it necessary to apologize for others' mistakes? If improper vetting was the problem, then say so and correct it. The tax code is absurdly complex, and most people with complicated lives hand over their numbers to accountants and hope for the best.

Admittedly, the problem became comical as one after another Obama appointee turned up with tax debts. Q: How do you get Democrats to pay taxes? A: Appoint them to Cabinet positions.

But Obama's eager confession -- "I screwed up" -- hit a hollow note. Doubtless, he was trying to demonstrate "change" by distinguishing himself from Bush, who could never quite put a finger on his mistakes. Rather than seeming Trumanesque in stopping the buck at his desk, Obama seemed more like an abused spouse who starts her day saying, "I'm sorry. It's all my fault."

In Elkhart, the president seemed locked in campaign mode, still wooing the crowd and seeking approval. At his news conference, the overriding impression was of a man not fully in control of his message or his material. Nine minutes into the first answer to the first question, I began missing Bush's customary dispatch. Bush's contempt for the media meant he never stayed long enough to bore us. The faith of the American people may not have been misplaced in Obama. But the young senator from Illinois became a president overnight, before he had time to gain the confidence and wisdom one earns through trials and errors.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 12:05 PM

When you look at the entrenched divisiveness of the party system as it presently exists...when you look at the fact that they live to do damage to one another and thereby sieze power...it's almost inconceivable that any American president can be successful in accomplishing a genuine spirit of bipartisanship.

Those two parties loath and despise one another, and they act accordingly.

There is only one kind of situation that produces unity between them: An outside threat or an outside attack of a very extreme nature. It has to be one that comes from outside the USA.

Examples of that:

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour

The 911 attacks

The tribes will only unite in the face of a foreign enemy.

This world of human beings would unite immediately in the face of an alien invasion from outer space....but barring that? They will continue to compete with and war upon their fellow humans.

****

Obama's comments were very well put indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 11:20 AM

Jimmy Carter had some choice words about the Republicans and their "unity" in voting the other day. Well worth listening to at Countdown on MSNBC.

Subject: BS: Obama: I'm Not A Sap
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Feb 09 - 11:10 AM

Obama interviewed on Air Force One, Friday afternoon. Very smart, not saplike at all.....

"In terms of what I've learned on the politics of it," he said, "I think what I've learned is that I've got a great team because we moved a very big piece of legislation through Congress in record time."

His bragging rights were easily justified. You'd have to go back to Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s or Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s to find a more sweeping, more expensive and more quickly enacted package of what Republicans call "new spending" and Democrats call "new investments."

"And that was not easy to do."

No, it wasn't. Not even when the vote fell almost totally along party lines, despite sacrifices by the Democratic majority of about $100 billion of pet Democratic projects and programs.

"And I think the end product is not a hundred percent of what we would want, but it is a very good start on moving things forward."

As for bipartisanship? "I made every effort to reach out to Republicans early to get their input and to get their buy-in," Obama said. "I think that there were some senators and House members who have a sincere philosophical difference with the idea of any government role in boosting demand in the economy. They don't believe in (John Maynard) Keynes and they're still fighting FDR.... I think we can disagree without being disagreeable on that front."

In other words, the president appears to have found that, given a choice, members of America's conservative major party tend to vote like conservatives.

"I also think that there was a decision made that was political and tactical on their part where they said, 'You know what, if we can enforce conformity among our ranks then it will invigorate our base and will potentially give us some political advantage, either short term or long term,' " Obama said. "And whether that's a smart strategy, I think you should ask them."

And it is not hard to imagine what they would say.

"The last point I would make, though, is that given the urgency of the situation right now, my consistent goal throughout this process is: Are we getting the most immediate, most effective relief possible to American families who are losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing their health care?," he said. "I welcome Republican participation in that process, but ultimately I'm answerable to the American people. And my determination was to get it done, and I think that we're going to get it done."

Obama is the third president in a row to come to Washington promising to bring more bipartisanship, then fail to close the deal. Did he make a mistake? Should he have defined bipartisanship as warmed relations between the parties instead of actually winning Republican votes? Obama did not say.

But he did say that he thought the GOP party-line vote was a fait accompli long before it was taken. "Look," he said, "once a decision was made by the Republican leadership to have a party-line vote -- a decision that I think occurred before I met with them -- then I'm not sure that there was a whole host of things that we were going to do that was going to make a difference.

"But again, my bottom line was not how pretty the process was; my bottom line was am I getting help to people who need it."

"Going forward, each and every time we've got an initiative I'm going to go to both Democrats and Republicans and I'm going to say, here's my best argument for why we need to do this."

Asked whether his experience had changed his expectations of winnable Republican support or how he might win it, he responded sagely. "You know, I am an eternal optimist," he said. "That doesn't mean I'm a sap."

As our laughter subsided, he described his goal? "Assume the best, but prepare for a whole range of different possibilities."

That's not an original thought, but it's durable.

Asked if he foresees a time when more drastic action might be required to save the financial markets, like the Japan or Swedish models, Obama explored the positives and negatives of each. Japan failed to intervene forcefully enough in the 1990s- "they sort of paper things over and never really bit the bullet"--and fell into an economic "lost decade."

Like many economists on the left, Obama found a "good argument" in Sweden's model, which temporarily nationalized its failed banks, then sold them off one-by-one. But here, too, he found a big problem: "They only had a handful of banks; we've got thousands of banks. The scale, the magnitude, of what we're dealing with is much bigger."

"But here's the bottom line," he said. "We will do what works."

Later he elaborated, "I think what you can say is, I will not allow our financial system to collapse. And we are going to do whatever is required to get credit flowing again so that companies and consumers can do their business and we can get this economy back on track."