GOP, STILL GOING TO SAY "NO"

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With President Obama gearing up to present a jobs and growth agenda next week, expect the Republicans to fight him tooth and nail on it. How do I know they'll do this? Because they have a long history of doing this. In fact, a little over 2 1/2 years ago I wrote that the GOP would refuse to work with President Obama because laying President Bush's economic mess at President Obama's doorstep would work politically for the the GOP in 2010 and 2012. As a reminder of when the GOP's obstructionism with President Obama began I'm re-posting my January 29, 2009 post below (with pictures this time).

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Thursday, January 29, 2009

A NATION OF MORONS

A nation of morons . . . This is what Republicans think of America.

The House Republican’s party-line “thumbs down” to President Obama’s economic stimulus program, and their rejection of Obama’s pre-vote olive branch, represents one thing and one thing only: their first step toward regaining power

According to Republicans, if they leave President Obama and the Democrats to deal with President Bush’s economic mess, they believe their rejection of the stimulus package will allow them to cast blame and gain some seats in 2010, with the goal of regaining power in 2012.

Unfortunately, this line of thinking is not so far-fetched.

Republicans understand very well that the economic catastrophe facing this country is real. Record deficits, stagnant wages, record personal debt, and an exploding national debt will not disappear any time soon. Still, they don’t want to help President Obama because they also understand that if Obama’s vision (making government work) and policy initiatives (directed toward social justice) help Americans see light at the end of the tunnel he will be rewarded. So will the Democratic Party.

Simply put, Republicans see FDR’s spirit in Barack Obama’s initiatives, and it scares the hell out of them. Obama has become a political Ghost Whisperer of sorts.

So the Republican strategy today is to put some distance between Bush’s record, and their blind support for Bush’s programs. They believe America will forget that they handed President Bush the matches he used to light our national house on fire. Worse, they think this will happen if they say "No" to everything President Obama proposes and wait for the underlying economic tsunami that is poised to wash up on our political shores (the numbers surrounding bank positions on derivatives are truly scary).

They are banking on additional meltdowns and bailout fatigue. Like political vultures, they are waiting for system rot and the smell of death. Hence the non-cooperation.

Obstructionism and a lack of cooperation worked for Republicans at the national level in 1994 (led by Gingrich), and in 2003 with California Governor Gray Davis (led, in part, by current minority Deputy Whip Kevin McCarthy). The goal is not to govern, but to obtain power. It makes no difference to Republicans that the ideas they offer today – more tax cuts and deregulation – are the exact same ideas that ran this country into the ground under Bush.

You’re probably scratching your head, and asking yourself, “Are they really thinking like this? ... Do they really think America will forget?" The short answer to these questions is YES.

Like I said, Republicans think America is inhabited by a nation of morons.
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OK, back to the present ...

Pretending to stand on principle (where were these guys when Reagan tripled and Bush II doubled our nation's debt?), the GOP's "just say no" program was noticed by the NY Times in October of 2009, but it really began during the health care debate under Newt Gingrich in 1993, as Adam Clymer documents here.

Now, think back over the past 2 1/2 years and ask yourself if the GOP has tried to work with President Obama to correct the mess that President Bush left behind.

* Repeal President Bush's budget busting tax cuts, which cost $300 billion per year? No.

* Repeal of President Bush's Medicare Part D, which costs $40-70 billion per year? No.

* Bringing the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, which costs $250 billion per year? No.

* A jobs or stimulus program to deal with the $250 billion a year hit we're taking because of the 2008 meltdown? No.

* Reining in the bailout gravy train (and pursuing the crooks on Wall Street), which costs at least $250 billion per year? No.

* Asking our nation's wealthy and upper middle class to cut back on some of their tax deductions, which cost us about $1.2 trillion per year? No.

They won't even consider cutting back on oil subsidies though the industry is making record profits. Simply put, the GOP isn't serious about the debt, or helping President Obama fix the economy unless it's done their way.

My new prediction? The GOP's going to do what they can to kill anything of substance that President Obama proposes on jobs. And if they do offer to help they won't touch tax cuts for the rich, or their tax deductions. Instead, their help will come with the poison pill of more cuts on insurance and other programs that help America's middle class and the poor. Then they'll propose more of President Bush-style tax cuts and deregulation programs.

What a mess.
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- Mark

FALSE EQUIVALENCY AND THE GOP's CULTURE OF LIES

"The great enemy of the truth is very often
not the lie, deliberate, contrived, and dishonest,
but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic."

- John F. Kennedy

Have you ever wondered how Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and other conservatives have been able to convince so many Americans to turn against President Obama, or to work against their own interests? It's tied to disinformation and a culture of lies, and can be traced to something we call false equivalency. Here's how it works.

False equivalency occurs when someone falsely compares what one person did (or does) against a "similar" action without taking into account context, wide differences, and facts that make the comparison ridiculous. It's a technique designed to distract and dilute the facts, which is crucial if you want to muddy the political waters, or provide cover for failure.

It can be as simple as someone staying up all night with a sick baby and then saying, "I'm tired, I didn't sleep at all last night because I stayed up caring for the baby," only to be met with, "Yeah, I'm tired too, I stayed up past my bedtime watching Jay Leno." Another example of a false equivalency (FE) might go something like this claim, which I dealt with yesterday on the Jaz Mckay radio show.

I came to this country as a Canadian, but I assimilated and eventually became a U.S. citizen legally. All Mexicans should be able to assimilate, and become a legal citizen like me, as well.

The reality here - which I incorporated into my reply (after I asked a few questions) - is that assimilation is much easier if you have a law degree (the caller did), if you already speak English, if you're fair skinned, and if you arrive in the U.S. from an Anglo-Saxon country, like Canada. These factors are far different than if you are a poor, uneducated, Spanish-speaking Mexican.

The Canadian-Mexican comparison is not the same. It is a false equivalency comparison designed to ignore or hide very real contrasts.

So, why am I bringing this up? Because of an evolving story that's starting to gain traction in conservative circles. The story began with President Bush in 2008 (and perhaps as early as 2000, as we'll see).

As he was preparing to leave the White House President Bush, with the economy collapsing, President Bush falsely claimed that things weren't so bad because he entered the White House with a recession, and was leaving with a recession. Specifically, he said during his final press conference as president:

"In terms of the economy, look, I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession."

Nothing to see here. I'm leaving things exactly as I got them. Right ...

Look, at the end of the day the economic situation that President Bush inherited was in no way comparable to the economic disaster that he left President Obama. To make the claim that President Clinton left a recession is delusional. But wait, it gets better. It's also a lie.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research a recession is officially declared when you have two consecutive quarters (six months) of GDP decline. This never happened under President Clinton. Growth slowed during one quarter, but not two. But the deception doesn't end there.

President Bush conveniently ignored that President Clinton left him hundreds of billions in budget surpluses. The CBO projected that these surpluses would grow and generate about $5.8 trillion by 2011. President Bush blew through all of this, then left President Obama with annual trillion dollar deficits.

But this didn't prevent President Bush and his team from lying about the "Clinton's recession" (that never was) so that they could falsely draw parallels to the "Bush recession." And it worked. By 2004 the false equivalency "Bush Recession = Clinton recession" claim had at least 62% of Americans believing the falsehood that an economic recession "began during Bill Clinton's administration, before George W. Bush took office."

Along the way Team Bush and the GOP were aided by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and other conservative mouthpieces. This is important to understand today because two of the biggest mouthpieces of the right - Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity - are now planting the utterly false idea that when President Bush left office the unemployment rate was around 5.6% . Huh?

Check out this chart on unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics ...

No matter how you slice it, when President Bush left office at the beginning of 2009 the unemployment rate was right around 7.5%, and climbing. Proving that stupidity and mendacity are contagious among like minds, on Monday Sean Hannity claimed that President Obama "inherited unemployment at 5.6 percent."

Both Limbaugh and Hannity lied by deducting two percentage points from Bush's unemployment figures simply because they want to attack President Obama, and then get America to abandon him. If the economy and the nation go down in flames in the process, too bad. 

What's happening here is that the far right is in the process of trying to rewrite history, not so much because what they say is true, but because they understand that false equivalencies that involve lies actually work. Suggesting that what President Bush left President Obama is equivalent to what Bush inherited from President Clinton is patently false, and part of an evolving narrative of lies.

If the GOP can wrap these lies up into another false equivalency story about unemployment and the economy, even better. The question is whether the American public will fall for it, again.

- Mark

YUP, THE DEBT BELONGS TO BUSH & THE GOP ...

I've posted some of these charts before. This is from The Atlantic, "The Chart That Should Accompany All Discussions of the Debt Ceiling."

- Mark

THE GOP AND THE DEBT CEILING ... ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL ILLITERATES

If the GOP won't listen to reason on their current threat to ruin America's financial credibility by not raising the debt ceiling, perhaps a word from Warren Buffet will help. Specifically, Buffet discussed our recent political history, and explained, "We raised the debt ceiling seven times during the Bush Administration."

But now, according to Buffet, the Republican-controlled Congress is threatening to "blow your brains out, America" by not raising the debt ceiling. Buffet added that this would ruin America's "debt worthiness over time," and reminded everyone about this bit of financial history too:

We had debt at 120 percent of the GDP, far higher than this [today, about 95%], after World War II and no one went around threatening that we're going to ruin the credit of the United States ... in order to get a better balance of debt to GDP.

Buffet is pointing out one simple fact here. When it comes to our current debt levels (and the GOP's threat not to raise the debt ceiling), we're not near the levels we were at during World War II.

In my view, Buffet is also trying to remind America that, in their quest to discredit President Obama, the GOP has become a party of economic and historical illiterates.

Perhaps Buffet said it best when he commented that if the GOP-led Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling - especially with two wars and the Depression Economic conditions that President Bush dumped on America's lap - it would constitute "the most asinine act" in our nation's history.

Because this debt ceiling game is little more than political theater by the GOP to "get" Obama, I couldn't agree more.

- Mark

SET FIRE TO A HOUSE ... GET CALLED A HERO? THE ABSURD LOGIC BEHIND THANKING BUSH

If I set fire to a house and then call the fire department - who then put out the fire - am I a hero? No? What if I ran into the house to save a few family members before the fire department arrived. Am I a hero now? This is precisely what Fox News and their conservative drones on the right want us to believe about George W. Bush because of "The Surge" strategy in Iraq.

Let's make this clear. We never should have been in Iraq. It was a war of choice. The Surge was made possible only because George W. Bush and his administration decided, as it were, to set Iraq on fire.

But as long as we're talking about The Surge, let me make this clear too: The Surge was not the primary factor behind the decline of violence in Iraq. Here's why.

As I posted in March 2008 the decline in violence in Iraq was a product of four developments, none of which had anything to to do with The Surge.

1. Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's August 2007 cease-fire.

2. The Anbar Awakening, which began in Sept. 2006 (in essence the Sunni's began saying no to Al Qaeda).

3. The physical separation (which included barrier walls) of Shi'a and Sunnis right before The Surge.

4. The Low-Hanging Fruit of Death were gone. Shi'a & Sunnis, tired of surprise murders, had moved out of previously "integrated" neighborhoods by August 2007.

To be sure, The Surge helped solidify and reemphasize the gains that came from these developments. But this makes The Surge a "supporting" rather than determining factor for Iraq's decline in violence.

More importantly, “the surge worked” crowd (conveniently) ignores that The Surge was designed to provide stability for national reconciliation so that specific political benchmarks could be met. The key here is that while a degree of security and stability has been achieved, violence still plagues Iraq, sectarian divisions continue, while the larger goals of national reconciliation and certain political benchmarks have only been partially met.

Still, to think that The Surge makes George W. Bush a hero, who should be thanked for his military genius, is akin to saying arsonists should be thanked for calling 911 on themselves. Would you give them a parade?
 
Finally, the "We should thank George W. Bush" crowd miss a fundamental point about our nation's war of choice. We spent over $700 billion (interest not tacked on), saw our national prestige decline, had 31,926 U.S. soldiers returned who were injured or maimed (20% of which are serious brain or spinal injuries), and lost over 4,400 U.S. soldiers to the war in Iraq ...
 

 
Should we thank George W. Bush for this too?

- Mark

BEWARE OF TERRORIST MOSQUE BABIES ... AND OTHER GOP DISTRACTIONS

Do you want to know what the political strategy for the Republican Party is this November? Check this out ...

That's about it. The GOP knows they can't run on their "let's-cut-taxes-and-deficits-will-disappear" record in November. The truth behind that lie has been exposed. Their record on two failed wars is nothing to write home about either.

And forget about bringing George W. Bush back to campaign for candidates. Even die-hard republicans know that he's an embarrassment. History will show his presidency to be a train wreck of epoch proportions ...

The goal of the republican party this November is to distract and trot out false threats that have little to do with what actually confronts our country. The goal is to encourage Americans to forget about the Bush years, and to remind Americans that they need to fear what the GOP fears ... which is pretty much their own shadow.

In this case their shadows are being followed by a spooky set of foreigners, led by Terrorist Babies, Undocument Workers, and non-existent mosques being constructed in lower Manhattan. Think about it. How many times over the past month have you been told to be afraid of this guy ...

And, of course, we know many terrorists (and their babies) crossed the border from Mexico 35 years ago in order to fly airplanes into buildings. You know, the guys that looked like this  ...

You would think that after years of being lied to by George W. Bush (are we still looking for those WMDs?), and being told to be afraid "or else", that Americans would be used to hearing about false enemies built on a pack of lies. Apparently not.

Instead, we're treated to the idiocy of Newt "I'm-Working-On-Wife#4" Gingrich, and assertions that building an Islamic community center (it's not a mosque) two blocks away from ground zero is akin to the nazis building a center close to a cherished Jewish site.

Apart from the fact that not all muslims are terrorists, we need to consider what it means that republicans and conservatives want to turn the proposed community center in Manhattan into a wedge issue. To be sure, people on the left like Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) have jumped on the "let's be afraid" bandwagon. But we need to remember that Harry Reid is in the middle of tough election, where the nut jobs (i.e. the Tea Baggers) are out in force. 

The reality is that the GOP wants you to forget how their failed policies gave us the Bush Debacalypse, which we see in two failed wars, a collapsed economy, and political incompetence of the highest order. This is why the GOP wants you to stare into the political equivalent of this ...

Go ahead and stare.

And then go ahead and focus on a non-existent Manhattan mosque that will surely house undocmented terrorist babies from Mexico. But stare into the optical illusions first. At least it will challenge your senses into considering the deceptive force of optics.

But beware. Following the GOP's lead on things like terrorist babies in non-existent mosques will only lead you down a crippling mind path sure to make you crazy stupid. Oh, look, a shiny spoon.

- Mark

GREENSPAN vs. GREENSPAN CAGE MATCH ... WE LOSE

"... A New Paradigm
of Active Credit Management."

- ALAN GREENSPAN (October 5, 2004)

Translation: "I don't see no credit 
market Chernobyl-like meltdowns in America."

One of the things you get when you follow free market ideologues long enough is that their words come back to haunt them. In this case former Federal Reserve Chair (1987-2006), Alan Greenspan, claimed in 2004 that credit markets were just fine. Big private market players, rather than "over regulated" banks, were spreading money and credit around efficiently.

Private market players (our shadow banking system), Greenspan argued, know what they're doing. Even if they were funding the purchase of toxic assets, and providing easy money that helped create our housing bubble, they were the ones who were on the hook if they lost money -- so the argument went. The market not only knew best according to Greenspan but, in this case, had created a "new paradigm of active credit management."

No Chernobyl-like credit market meltdowns were on his horizon.

Then the September 2008 credit market meltdown happened. Ooops.

Mr. Greenspan spoke up again on Sunday (Aug. 1). He claimed that we should repeal President Bush's tax cuts for the rich because we can't afford them. Specifically, he said (in typical Greenspanspeak):

"We believe it is appropriate to let those tax cuts that go to the most fortunate expire,"

I have only one question. Where the hell was this Alan Greenspan when President Bush said we needed tax cuts for the rich in 2001?

If  you recall, when George W. Bush ran for president in 2000 he gained considerable support telling America that the surpluses generated during the Clinton administration was "your money." It didn't matter that we had a $5.6 trillion national debt to pay down. In his mind budget surpluses should be given back to the American taxpayer in the form of tax cuts. So, instead of paying down our national debt (where were the Tea Bag crazies then?), President Bush proposed tax cuts, most of which would go to the nation's wealthiest Americans.

As he pointed out in his book The Age of Turbulence, Greenspan supported tax cuts at the time because "chronic surpluses could be almost as destabilizing as chronic deficits." We have two problems here. First, while we had a budget surplus in 2001, we hadn't started to run "chronic" surpluses. Second, Greenspan ignored how previous Republican tax cut policies had effectively quadrupled our national debt between 1981 and 1993.

What's key here is that Alan Greenspan knew all of this. Yet he still supported tax cuts that would primarily benefit the wealthy (yes, he understood the Bush proposal) to deal with "chronic surpluses."

To be sure, Greenspan was careful to say at the time that he supported tax cuts in general, and not necessarily President Bush's tax cut proposal. But he was being politically naive, at best. More probably, as an Ayn Rand sycophant, Greenspan was using his position to help get more money into the hands of private market players. More bluntly, he was playing a parlor game and was deliberately disingenuous.

Whatever inspired him, with decades of experience in Washington, Greenspan had to know that his congressional testimony supporting tax cuts would give President Bush the political gravitas - or greenlight - he needed to ram his tax cut program through congress. Ten years later, and with an additional $5 trillion added to our national debt, Mr. Greenspan is now saying "Hey, I think we need to pay for these tax cuts."

Still, perhaps we shouldn't be so hard on Greenspan and his sudden fiscal two-step. As chair of President Reagan's National Commission on Social Security Reform (the "Greenspan Commission") Alan Greenspan supported raising social security (FICA) taxes on the middle class in 1983 to help pay for projected social security shortfalls.

Got that? To deal with looming deficits in 1983 a tax hike on middle-class America was fine. This helps explain why the payroll (FICA) tax was raised in the 1980s (yes, President Reagan raised taxes). But to deal with real deficits in 2001 ($5.6 trillion) Mr. Greenspan was fine with tax cuts, most of which would go to America's wealthiest class.

Are you kidding me? How do you go from, "Let's raise taxes on the middle class to pay for projected shortfalls" in 1983 to "In spite of an actual $5.6 trillion debt, let's take projected surpluses and use them for tax cuts, which will go primarily to the rich" in 2001?

Now, in 2010, we have Mr. Greenspan saying that we should allow tax cut legislation that benefitted primarily the richest Americans to "expire" because we can't afford them. I guess you're never wrong if you're an intellectual schizoid ...

So, which Mr. Greenspan should we go with? Mr. We-Should-Pay-Our-Bills-So-Let's-Tax-The-Middle-Class? (1983), or Mr. To-Hell-With-the-Deficits-Taxes-for-the-Rich-Are-OK-by-Me? (2001), or Mr. Ooops-Now-We-Should-Pay-Our-Bills? (2010). Will the real Mr. Greenspan please stand up. Cue the music...




For my money, we also run into problems when we sit down and do the math.

What we find is that the billion dollar surpluses, generated in part by the social security tax hike, were effectively handed over to America's wealthiest during the Bush years -- making it one of the greatest transfers of wealth in human history. No wonder the far right is afraid of discussing class warfare. They're winning, and they don't want America to find out how it happened.

Today America finds itself staring at bloated budget deficits (a product of Bush's failed policies), more than $12 trillion in debt (due to a failed trickle-down theory), and another social security hole that Republicans claim can only be fixed with more tax cuts and deregulation.

(To be sure, the vast majority of our projected social security short fall is attributed to slowing wage growth and increased inequality in America. These are two economic shifts that Greenspan's commission didn't anticipate. Then again, they probably didn't anticipate the Republican Party tearing up the post-war social contract, which helped slow wage growth and increased income gaps in America.)

In all cases, Mr. Greenspan now concedes there was a flaw in his model, and that he was shocked by the results of the casino mentality that he helped create.



Incredible. Still, the damage has been done. And Alan Greenspan was there egging it on, every step of the way.

While Greenspan 2010 seems to be channeling Greenspan 1983, the reality is Greenspan 2001-2006  -- and the policies he rubber stamped during his time at the Fed -- is emerging as the winner in this Greenspan vs. Greenspan Cage Match.

Unfortunately, that's bad news for the rest of us.

- Mark

UPDATE (12/17/12): I just found this Tom Tomorrow cartoon. It pretty much explains the post ...

REHABILITATING PRESIDENT BUSH (Our Screwup-in-Chief)

In an effort to win more congressional seats in November it looks like the Republican Party is going to argue that the country needs to re-embrace Bush Era policies in the coming months. That's not a typo. Here's what NRCC chairman Pete Sessions said on Meet the Press this past Sunday.

"We need to go back to the exact same agenda that is empowering the free enterprise system rather than diminishing it."

Got that? The Republicans think that re-embracing the market fairytopia mindset that brought us President Bush's failed policies, and our current economic debacle, is a winning strategy in November.

Responding to the effort to rehabilitate President Bush's image, Bruce Bartlett reminds us what happened when, in Bartlett's words, our "Screwup-in-Chief" was in office (be sure to read the comment section). It's useful to keep in mind that Bruce Bartlett is not only a columnist for Forbes.com, but was Deputy Assistant Secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Treasury Department during the George H.W. Bush Administration. He also served as a senior policy analyst in the White House for Ronald Reagan.

The incredible thing for me is that America even needs to be reminded about the Bush Debacalypse. What a complete and utter disaster for our nation, and for our friends around the world.

Fortunately for us there are people who have spent a good deal of time documenting - and linking us with the evidence that chronicles - President Bush's failed presidency. You can read about our Screwup-in-Chief's 400 biggest failed decisions and policies here.

- Mark

GO SAINTS ...

While I hope that tomorrow's Super Bowl game is a good one I do have a favorite: New Orleans. Here's why.

As many of you know, the New Orleans Saints have had a terrible football history. The city needs it for other reasons too. First, we have Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and it's aftermath.

Then we had Hurricane Bush, who was playing a guitar at a fundraiser during the hurricane disaster ...

In real time, this is what it looked like to the rest of us ....

On his trip, he decided to stop by and have some birthday cake with his friend John McCain while New Orleans drowned ...

Go Saints! The city needs it.

- Mark

BUSH DEBACALYPSE SPREADING IT'S WINGS?

If anyone is wondering whether the Bush Debacalypse is over we need to look no further than these three stories ...

Robert Benmosche, the CEO of government bail out champion AIG, is threatening to quit because he's not getting his way on everything he wants from the federal government. Will the government cave in to his demands? I don't know, but I suspect so.

Given the Obama administration's reluctance to take on Wall Steet's malfeasance and incompetence I have to believe that Benmosche's arrogance will somehow be rewarded. Here's an overview from nakedcapitalism.com of a man who (1) took a two week vacation before he started work, (2) then told everyone that he - and not Uncle Sam - was in charge, (3) handed out bonuses to incompetents in a collapsed industry, and (4) then publicly went after NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for drawing attention to the bonuses. It's not pretty.

If you're not sure whether to support the notoriously weak health care reform passed out of the House of Representatives on Saturday this link from Firedoglake won't help. But it provides more information than most media outlets have on what's really wrong with the House bill. At this point, while I don't like much of what's in the House bill, the trajectory we're on is worse. Damn.

Finally, we have the Obama administration's uncertainty over what to do with President Bush's Bungled Wars Project (Here's a hint: We're broke, they're not afraid, and they see us as occupiers. Leave).

With Congress operating as if it's business as usual on something as important as health care, corporate America's CEOs still pushing their weight around as if their industry deserves a prize for ruining the economy, and President Obama's uncertainty over a failed wars project that threatens to last longer than any war in American history (whatever happened to the "last throes" Cheney talked about?), my hunch is that things are going to get worse before they get better.

Is the Bush Debacalypse spreading into the Obama administration? It would appear so. Stay tuned.

- Mark

PRESIDENT OBAMA: THE GRANDMASTER?

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Almost two years ago, when I started this blog, I posted two items tied to international relations that questioned President Bush's competence as a world leader. In a few words I argued that stable global relations require someone who understands movements over time and place, and can play like a chess player. This is especially the case when you're the President of the United States. George Bush, unfortunately, played like a checkers player, and left a legacy abroad that proved it. His actions made the U.S. - and the world - less safe.

Because of the issues surrounding Iran's nuclear program, and President Obama's remarks yesterday, I've re-posted my 2007 comments below.
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On Thursday the United States, the British and France put forward evidence to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran has secretly been building a non-civilian nuclear facility in northern Iran. Standing with President Obama when he presented the news to the world were the leaders of Britain and France. France's President Sarkozy - who is not known for such threatening statements - even went so far as to tell Iran that they need to change their program within two months, or face sanctions. As well, Britain called Iran's program part of a “serial deception of many years” that led to a rare Russian rebuke of Iran, and a milder warning from China.


These developments can not be understated.

After President Bush single-handedly undermined America's credibility abroad with aggressive unilateralism, lies, torture, and his blundering wars project, it was tough for him to get other nations to support the U.S. on important issues, like Iran's evolving nuclear program.

Now, let's keep in mind that few doubted Iran's capabilities and intentions to secure a nuclear weapons program. We even suspected - if not knew - what they were doing. The problem was that no one wanted to follow the U.S. lead on the issue. At least as long as George W. Bush was in the picture.

It appears that this is beginning to change under President Obama.

There are several reasons for this. As MSNBC's Rachel Maddow so cogently points out here, President Obama's decision to change the direction of our missile defense program in Poland - which was directed against Russia - helped convince Russia's President Medvedev to go along with the U.S. position on Iran. This was absolutely necessary, in my view, because of the missteps of the Bush administration when it came to Russia. I wrote about them here over a year ago. They're not pretty.

More importantly, President Obama's actions and decisions abroad helped convince the United Nations Security Council (the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia) to follow the U.S. lead in condemning Iran's program. We want to keep in mind here that Russia and France balked at supporting U.S. initiatives after eight years of being strung along, lied to, and lectured by President Bush.

Having the UN Security Council with us on this is big news. I like Rachel Maddow's observation: "If diplomacy got reported like war does, I think what we'd be reporting right now is 'Shock and Awe'." If you read my December 2007 posts below, or take a look at George W. Bush's "Russia" policies, you'll get a better understanding of why Rachel Maddow said this (and why Andrea Mitchell concurred).

- Mark

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Dissecting Bush"s Strategic Failures, Part I

By way of Kevin Drum we have Niall Ferguson explaining why the United States is not the Roman Empire, or even the British Empire ...

Less than a century ago, before World War I, the population of Britain was 46 million, barely 2.5% of humanity. And yet the British were able to govern a vast empire that encompassed an additional 375 million people, more than a fifth of the world's population. Why can't 300 million Americans control fewer than 30 million Iraqis? Three years ago, as the United States swept into Iraq, I wrote a book titled "Colossus," which offered a somber prediction, summed up in its subtitle, "The Rise and Fall of the American Empire." My argument was that the United States was unlikely to be as successful or as enduring an imperial power as its British predecessor for three reasons: its financial deficit, its attention deficit and, perhaps most urprisingly, its manpower deficit. Rather cruelly, I compared the American empire to a "strategic couch-potato ... consuming on credit, reluctant to go to the front line [and] inclined to lose interest in protracted undertakings."

Not content, Kevin Drum introduced another variable: The “Rise of the Colonials” …

[Niall Ferguson’s argument] leaves out by far the most important reason for American failure: today's colonials fight back. Britain occupied India with a tiny force because the Indians mostly let them, and on the rare occasions when they rebelled the British (like all the other European colonial powers) felt free to crush them in the most brutal manner imaginable.None of that is true today. The people of Iraq are flatly unwilling to be ruled by outsiders, they have the weaponry to fight back effectively, and the West is no longer willing to spill rivers of blood simply to show them who's boss. If those things had been true a century ago, Britain never would have had an empire in the first place, let alone been able to keep it.

I have another variable to add. Let’s call it the "Grandmaster" variable.

I've used chess as a metaphor for international relations since reading Zbigniew Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. While it’s almost 10 years old, the book is still a good read and offers an understanding of strategic thinking that George Bush's foreign policy team obviously lacks. What we learn is that you can’t have rank amateurs, who think and act like they're playing checkers (with a club) when global challenges demand we think like chess players. With the power, influence, and global position of the United States the American Grand Chessboard really demands a Grandmaster. Or at least a tournament level player.

We have George W. Bush.

- Mark

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Dissecting Bush"s Strategic Failures, Part II

The chess player metaphor is even more appropriate when we include the discussion Joseph Nye, Jr. offered on U.S. power and the challenges that confront our world.

In The Paradox of American Power Nye argues that global power is distributed in a pattern that resembles a three-dimensional chess game. On the top board level we have military power, where the United States remains supreme. On the mid-level board we have economic power, where the United States is one of several states that can significantly influence global economic developments. On the bottom level we have “transnational” issues where no one country can dominate, or hope to solve problems on its own. Here we see issues like drugs, global warming, aids, criminal activities, environmental pollution, terrorism, etc.

According to Nye the world needs to work together because “the paradox of American power at the end of this millennium is that it is too great to be challenged by any other state, yet not great enough to solve problems such as global terrorism and nuclear proliferation.”

With record budget deficits and OPEC threatening to the dump the dollar as its reserve currency (the 2nd tier), and Bush’s failed policies around the world (the bottom tier), it's hard to disagree with Nye that you can't focus simply on the military, or first tier, level and expect to win. And now, with the U.S. military under strain, we can't be sure about the power and influence the threat of U.S. force used to bring.

Simply put, the idea that the United States can act like past empires – whether it was the British Empire or the Roman Empire – reflects a serious problem of analysis on the part of Team Bush. And it began almost immediately after 9/11, when an unnamed Bush official told reporter Ron Suskind:

We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality--judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

This arrogant, insipid, child-like attitude toward the ideas of others tells us that George Bush and his neo-conservative team never believed in understanding issues. Rather, their goal has always been to wield power to shape the world in a way that reflected their stunted vision of reality.

As we have seen in Iraq, that vision was never well thought out. As we are left to “study what [they] do” you can be sure that “history’s actors” will be judged by the “realities” they created. Our problem is that we have to live through their strategic incompetence and the havoc their realities bring us today.

Again, I don't need a Grandmaster to play America's Grand Chessboard. I'd settle for a beginning level tournament player. With Bush, we're not even close.

Iran anyone?

- Mark

EXPLAINING OBAMA'S NEW IRAQ TIME TABLE

President Obama has extended his own time table for taking combat troops out of Iraq. He also plans on leaving between 30,000 and 50,000 of our military personel for training and other purposes. Some have expressed disappointment that we're not pulling out entirely. The disappointment is misplaced. Here's why.

President Obama is not President Bush. Unlike President Bush, who reacted like Homer Simpson pursuing a couple of hornets through the woods, President Obama isn't going to simply take a whack at the hornet's nest that is the Middle East. He's thought this trough. He's no Homer Simpson.


This is what President Obama sees, and understands ...

* The al Qaeda nutjobs in Iraq - who were NOT there before the war - are predominantly Sunnis.

* Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, has helped out Shiite extremists in Iraq (which John McCain didn't know).

* Many of the Sunnis are coming from states that are supposed to be our allies, like Saudi Arabia (which is predominantly Sunni).

* Sunnis think Shiites are apostates.

What all of this means is that if we leave Iraq, and take out all of our military personnel, the Iranians would step in to help the Shiites. The Saudis have told us that they would then have to help the Sunnis in Iraq (in part because the Saudis know that by keeping the Sunni nut jobs in Iraq they aren't going after their corrupt and kleptocratic regime). We might then see a full scale regional conflagration, which the Saudis have suggested would happen.

And I haven't even mentioned the Kurds in northern Iraq who have been perhaps our best allies in Iraq, but have few friends in Turkey (and Iraq).

Now do you understand now why I made the George-Bush-Homer-Simpson-hornet's-nest reference? What a mess.

Look, at the end of the day there are no good options in Iraq. We can't afford to stay there with present troop levels for 100 years, like John McCain suggested on the campaign. President Obama's best option lies simply with keeping a lid on things until we're on the path towards energy independence ...

- Mark

A NATION OF MORONS

A nation of morons . . . This is what Republicans think of America.

The House Republican’s party-line “thumbs down” to President Obama’s economic stimulus program, and their rejection of President Obama’s pre-vote olive branch, represents one thing and one thing only: their first step toward regaining power

According to Republicans, if they leave President Obama and the Democrats to deal with President Bush’s economic mess they believe their rejection of the stimulus package will allow them to cast blame and gain some seats in 2010, with the goal of regaining power in 2012.

Unfortunately, this line of thinking is not so far-fetched.

Republicans understand very well that the economic catastrophe facing this country is real. Record deficits, stagnant wages, record personal debt, and an exploding national debt will not disappear any time soon. Still, they don’t want to help President Obama because they also understand that if President Obama’s vision (making government work) and policy initiatives (directed toward social justice) help Americans see light at the end of the tunnel he will be rewarded. So will the Democratic Party.

Simply put, republicans see FDR’s spirit in Barack Obama’s initiatives, and it scares the hell out of them. President Obama has become a political Ghost Whisperer of sorts.

So the Republican strategy today is to put some distance between President Bush’s record, and their blind support for his programs. The believe America will forget that they handed President Bush the matches he used to light our national house on fire. Worse, they think this will happen if they say "No" to everything President Obama proposes and wait for the underlying economic tsunami that is poised to wash up on our political shores (the numbers surrounding bank positions on derivatives are truly scary). They are banking on additional meltdowns and bailout fatigue. Like political vultures they are waiting for system rot and the smell of death. Hence the non-cooperation.

Obstructionism and a lack of cooperation worked for Republicans at the national level in 1994 (led by Newt Gingrich), and in 2003 with California Governor Gray Davis (led, in part, by current minority Deputy Whip Kevin McCarthy). The goal is not to govern, but to obtain power. It makes no difference to Republicans that the ideas they offer today – more tax cuts and deregulation – are the exact same ideas that ran this country into the ground under President Bush.

You’re probably scratching your head, and asking yourself, “Are they really thinking like this? ... Do they really think America will forget?" The short answer to these questions is YES.

Like I said, Republicans think America is inhabited by a nation of morons.

- Mark

FORGET THE DEFICITS . . . SPEND

Let's assume that you're in battle and you get wounded. Do you do the hard scrub and clean out the mess before it gets infected, or do you take some penicillin and hope it clears up on its own?

After pulling us through a recent Martin Wolf (the UK's Financial Times) article, this is the question posed by Yves Smith over at Naked Capitalism. Looking at the economic challenges we face, Wolf makes it clear that we're screwed. From private expenditures to balance of trade deficits, to falling industrial output and corporate debt loads, things are looking really bad . . . long into the future. Things are so bad that Wolf thinks (and I agree) that Barack Obama needs a stimulus package at least 2.5 times bigger that what he is asking for.

The rationale is quite simple.

With corporations and almost everyone else in America overextended we can do one of two things. We can force a "slow bleed" of $350 billion stimulus packages every 6 months on America (which will piss everyone off). Or do we do the bold thing and spend the $3-4 trillion we need to buy out homeowners and consumers who are sitting on a pile of bad debt that has the financial industry fretting over their future bottom lines? (which will only piss off the few remaining "free marketeers" and their fellow Flat Earth Society members).

There's more to this story, but I say we forget deficits for now (we've done it before) and spend. Let's do the hard scrub and clean out the mess before Bush's Economic Debaclypse spreads and turns our economy gangrene.

I'll discuss how we should spend on this Saturday's program.

- Mark

BEST ARTICLE OF THE YEAR

OK, I know it's just January 10, but this Frank Rich article ("Eight Years of Madoff") is a masterpiece. After going through a short list of the criminal activities and political blunders of the Bush administration, Rich makes a cogent but cautionary point about pursuing the criminality and incompetence of the Bush years:

If we get bogged down in adjudicating every Bush White House wrong, how will we have the energy, time or focus to deal with the all-hands-on-deck crises that this administration’s malfeasance and ineptitude have bequeathed us?

Rich then points out that because nothing less than our nation's honor is at stake that "every legal effort must be made to stop what seems like a wholesale effort by the outgoing White House to withhold, hide and possibly destroy huge chunks of its electronic and paper trail." With more than $10 Trillion in new debt and obligations piled up by Bush, Rich makes what probably is the best case for pursuing investigations, or creating high-level commissions . . .

The more we learn about where all the bodies and billions were buried on our path to ruin, the easier it may be for our new president to make the case for a bold, whatever-it-takes New Deal.

Put another way, it's not just our national honor and the rule of law that are at stake. Bush's incompetence needs to be revealed or else we could lose sight of the financial and political debacles confronting us.

- Mark

THE PAULSON-BUSH PLAN

For those of you who haven't seen Secretary Paulson's blank check bailout proposal, here it is. I've italicized key points of interest.


LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL FOR TREASURY AUTHORITY

TO PURCHASE MORTGAGE-RELATED ASSETS

Section 1. Short Title.

This Act may be cited as ____________________.

Sec. 2. Purchases of Mortgage-Related Assets.

(a) Authority to Purchase.--The Secretary is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States.

(b) Necessary Actions.--The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation:

(1) appointing such employees as may be required to carry out the authorities in this Act and defining their duties;

(2) entering into contracts, including contracts for services authorized by section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts;

(3) designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Government, and they shall perform all such reasonable duties related to this Act as financial agents of the Government as may be required of them;

(4) establishing vehicles that are authorized, subject to supervision by the Secretary, to purchase mortgage-related assets and issue obligations; and

(5) issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authorities of this Act.

Sec. 3. Considerations.

In exercising the authorities granted in this Act, the Secretary shall take into consideration means for--

(1) providing stability or preventing disruption to the financial markets or banking system; and

(2) protecting the taxpayer.

Sec. 4. Reports to Congress.

Within three months of the first exercise of the authority granted in section 2(a), and semiannually thereafter, the Secretary shall report to the Committees on the Budget, Financial Services, and Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the Committees on the Budget, Finance, and Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate with respect to the authorities exercised under this Act and the considerations required by section 3.

Sec. 5. Rights; Management; Sale of Mortgage-Related Assets.

(a) Exercise of Rights.--The Secretary may, at any time, exercise any rights received in connection with mortgage-related assets purchased under this Act.

(b) Management of Mortgage-Related Assets.--The Secretary shall have authority to manage mortgage-related assets purchased under this Act, including revenues and portfolio risks therefrom.

(c) Sale of Mortgage-Related Assets.--The Secretary may, at any time, upon terms and conditions and at prices determined by the Secretary, sell, or enter into securities loans, repurchase transactions or other financial transactions in regard to, any mortgage-related asset purchased under this Act.

(d) Application of Sunset to Mortgage-Related Assets.--The authority of the Secretary to hold any mortgage-related asset purchased under this Act before the termination date in section 9, or to purchase or fund the purchase of a mortgage-related asset under a commitment entered into before the termination date in section 9, is not subject to the provisions of section 9.

Sec. 6. Maximum Amount of Authorized Purchases.

The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time.

Sec. 7. Funding.

For the purpose of the authorities granted in this Act, and for the costs of administering those authorities, the Secretary may use the proceeds of the sale of any securities issued under chapter 31 of title 31, United States Code, and the purposes for which securities may be issued under chapter 31 of title 31, United States Code, are extended to include actions authorized by this Act, including the payment of administrative expenses. Any funds expended for actions authorized by this Act, including the payment of administrative expenses, shall be deemed appropriated at the time of such expenditure.

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Sec. 9. Termination of Authority.

The authorities under this Act, with the exception of authorities granted in sections 2(b)(5), 5 and 7, shall terminate two years from the date of enactment of this Act.

Sec. 10. Increase in Statutory Limit on the Public Debt.

Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting in lieu thereof $11,315,000,000,000.

Sec. 11. Credit Reform.

The costs of purchases of mortgage-related assets made under section 2(a) of this Act shall be determined as provided under the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990, as applicable.

Sec. 12. Definitions.

For purposes of this section, the following definitions shall apply:

(1) Mortgage-Related Assets.--The term “mortgage-related assets” means residential or commercial mortgages and any securities, obligations, or other instruments that are based on or related to such mortgages, that in each case was originated or issued on or before September 17, 2008.

(2) Secretary.--The term “Secretary” means the Secretary of the Treasury.

(3) United States.--The term “United States” means the States, territories, and possessions of the United States and the District of Columbia.

BUSH'S 14 MINUTE CAMEO

Here's a few comments on George Bush's 14 minute cameo appearance ...

Bush tried to explain everything that's gone wrong in the markets in real simple terms. This is hard enough to do when you understand what's going on. Bush clearly has no idea what's happening. His blank "reading-the-teleprompter" eyes made this clear. Still there are several things to cull from Bush's appearance.

THE ISSUE(S): With President Bush's "our entire economy is in danger" observation he efectively said "We're in trouble and we have no money in credit markets because people got greedy and stupid." He used his standard M.O. to get America and Congress to support his Paulson-escorted bailout plan; i.e. "Be Afraid Because Worse May Be Around the Corner."

HOW DID WE REACH THIS POINT?: President Bush tried to explain what's happened with reference to easy money (created by funds from abroad and low interest rates) and the emergence of toxic mortgage backed securities (MBS, a form of CDOs, which I posted on below). He then tried to pin blame on house flippers. Conveniently, Bush said nothing about a culture of debt, tax breaks, and deregulation.

What really happened? Effectively, the same people he dumped tax breaks on ran the economy into the ground.

HOW WILL THE PLAN WORK?: President Bush effectively said "By bailing out stupid and greedy people with my plan we remove the risk from the market, for now."

In an 8 year span of self-serving and pathetic moments, this was one of his worst.

WHAT ABOUT OUR ECONOMIC FUTURE?: President Bush pretty much told us, "Don't worry, the government has your back." Everything else he said means nothing.

At the end of the day, Bush missed an opportunity to look presidential. He could have said, "We were wrong ... I was wrong, forgive me." Instead, he said "Give me the money so I am remembered only as a blundering General George Custer, and not as a floundering Herbert Hoover too."

- Mark

BUSH'S INCOMPETENCE SHINES IN GEORGIA

As if screwing up in Iraq were not enough, the Bush administration continues to demonstrate they don’t know what the hell they’re doing in the world. But let me get this out of the way first ...

Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice was/is considered an expert on Russia and the Soviet Union. What’s going on in Georgia (a former state in the USSR) should not be hard to figure out ... and could have been prevented. But just in case you’re not in tune, here’s a brief overview of Georgia’s history from the BBC.



What’s happening in Georgia is, in part, a product of larger on-going issues between George Bush’s failed positions in the region, and the administration's continued inability to see or anticipate events.

Specifically, the Bush administration has been meddling in Russian affairs, and getting in Russia’s face for the better part of six years. So when the Bush administration decided to warn Russia on Georgia, you can imagine Moscow's response. To be sure, Russia has genuine interests in Georgia, but President Bush’s actions have not helped improve conditions, or our hand, in the region.

STUPIDITY IN THE BALTICS
President Bush visited Moscow in 2005 to observe the 60th anniversary of the Allies' victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. In the process he irritated old WWII wounds in the region by bringing up a past that is better left alone. Here’s a brief review of a past he should have left alone.


The Russians believe they should be thanked for “liberating” the Baltics from the Nazis during WWII. They also feel they are being polite to the Baltic states (Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia) for not mentioning large scale collaboration on their part with the Nazis. The Balts, however, do not feel the Russians liberated them because the Russians turned around and occupied their land and, in the process, wiping them from global maps for 50 years.

On the other side of this mess, the Baltic want to forget how eager many of them were to help Germans kill Jews, with the Riga Ghetto being one of the largest in Europe. To counter this, many Balts remind the Russians that many of their countrymen fought in the Red Army, and are not shy about reminding Russia about the Russian soldiers who defected to the Nazis (these soldiers were executed on the spot when captured by Russian troops).

At this point it should be pretty clear why it might be a good thing to “let sleeping dogs lie,” right?

Enter our President, the Idiot Prince, to make sure that all of this gets revived. Rather than simply saying he’s in Moscow to celebrate the end of WWII he wrote a letter to the three Baltic heads of state stating the end of World War II "also marked the Soviet occupation and annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and the imposition of Communism." Nice.

The letter arrived in the Baltic states right before Bush arrived in Moscow for the WWII ceremonies in Spring 2005. As you can imagine Putin was ecstatic.

But just to show that President Bush really has no idea what he’s doing, he didn’t back off. Instead Bush told a Lithuanian reporter that he confronted Mr. Putin on how he needs to work on democracy in Russia and to remind him that "the remembrances of the time of Communism [for the Baltic states] are unpleasant remembrances.”

Reminding a people of two occumpations. Digging to uncover old Nazi wounds. Insulting prospective hosts on the eve of arriving in their nation. A trifecta in dimplomatic incompetence.

To Mr. Putin’s credit, in a May 4 interview with the CBS program "60 Minutes" (which aired May 8, 2005) Mr. Putin said that America should not be lecturing him about rollbacks on democracy when "four years ago your presidential election was decided by the court." Ouch.

Score one for Putin.

STUPIDITY IN THE CAUCUSES?
OK, back to the present dispute ...

Just last month Condaleeza Rice was in Georgia telling Georgia’s president Mikhail Saakashvili one thing, but sending Russia another set of signals.

Specifically, while asking President Saakashvili (who has a law degree from Columbia University) not to antagonize the Russians by using Georgia's military force to settle the separatist movements in issue (specifically in Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Ajaria), it appears that the Bush administration had been going out of its way to, well, antagonize the Russians. They did this by: (1) sending military advisers to bolster the Georgian military, including an exercise last month with more than 1,000 American troops (aren’t they needed in Iraq?); (2) working hard to bring Georgia into NATO, while providing few assurances to Russia; (3) providing material support for the 2003 Rose Revolution, which replaced President Eduard Shevardnadze, a former communist party man, who had ruled Georgia for more than 30 years, and (4) loudly proclaiming support for Georgia’s territorial integrity at the same time Russia was making clear their concerns over Georgia’s separatist enclaves.

With these developments in the background you can imagine how the Russians felt after Condaleeza Rice provocatively told the press (and Putin) on the eve of her July 2008 visit to Georgia, “I’m going to visit a friend and I don’t expect much comment about the United States going to visit a friend.”

Score one for arrogant, child-like, hubris.

As you can imagine, after all this, Moscow was in no mood to be lectured by the Bush administration after they began bombing Georgia on “behalf” of Russians and Ossetians. It also helps to explain why the U.S. is virtually absent from the on-going cease fire dialog. Russia is in no mood to listen to President Bush.

Making matters worse, we now have John McCain trying to score cheap political points off of this disaster by attempting to make it appear that he knows what's going on ... while clumsily reading from a prepared script (no doubt prepared by the same foreign poliy aide who was a lobbyist for Georgia, and whose firm is still being paid by Georgia).



There’s more. But it doesn’t get any better. In real simple terms, President Bush will go down as an historic incompetent on many levels. The man is a fool.

- Mark