The Big Leftist Apple

The Morning Joe Rebuttal for March 5th, 2010


Observations:


1) It’s OK to agree with Suze Orman about too much time and effort being spent on health care, because it’s a correct assessment. Now, that may seem like a vote against the reform, but it’s not. It’s a vote for:


Just do the damn thing.


This all could’ve been done last June. Obama has grossly mismanaged every single thing on his plate because he has mismanaged this. That’s Suze’s argument, and it’s the correct one. There is an argument out there that if we had gone with the manner that will finally pass the bill this month, a year ago, that the bill a year ago would have been substantially more robust. That the crucial concept is not just sausage-making , but sausage fermenting. Over time, every sort of special interest that has time to reorganize before a thing can pass can dilute the thing, whereas after the fact they can only come to the table with compromise positions that require them to pay for any service to their special agenda somewhere, in order to be heard.


Simply put prevention is less costly than retraction or after the fact revision.


This idea fits neatly into Tom Friedman’s nice conjecture of ‘nation building’ referring for once to the US as opposed to some other place on the map. If we have been consistent on any one thing here it’s that we have watched as this administration has ceded the momentum to the opposition party on virtually every front, due only to mismanagement, not because they have a point anywhere. They don’t have a point anywhere, enter Tom Hanks, even Blanche Lincoln can wear an opposition purity test on her sleeve next to a “D”, how is that possible?


2) The good news in any of this self inflicted crisis is that the Republicans still are as bad as they were in 2008. They have not improved one bit, still read Rove like mantra, still dream of dominating not for good, just because. But bottom line, there is a second bubble and if you want to pop it, let the obstruction continue or worse, aid the obstruction by giving the right a legislative majority. They will prevent any meaningful financial reform, and you will actually get your chance to experience the apocalypse that was narrowly averted last year.


To be fair, I cannot confidently say that any amount of momentum for Obama would have better strengthened his work on financial reform, because he has so distinctly employed the architects of the disaster as his reformers, leaving me guessing as to his true motives. Feel free to check my story with Elizabeth Warren. I’m left to contemplate that it’s not a choice of one side with pro middle class solutions versus one side blindly with commerce, it’s a choice of ‘enemy of the middle class’ and ‘corrupt beyond any ability to efficiently aid the middle class’. The corruption guys appear to be in shaky charge currently.


Astoundingly, I’m even suspicious that when the legislative elections get truly underway this fall, that the Democrats will even have the wherewithal to call out their opponents. This might even allow the Republicans to get away with a David Copperfield level of illusion where Reps actually say they are more of a friend to the middle class than their opponents.


Is there a more disturbing concept? That the American people might actually recreate their shell game gullibility of 2004 in this legislative election and declare for all the world to see that they are fully capable of voting for the Brooklyn Bridge?


3) I was in Brentwood in the early 90’s driving from a friend’s house when I saw the aftermath of a minor car accident. Brentwood looks like any neighborhood on the nice side of town in any town, but because it’s in LA the $300k houses cost $3 million. Even then it was 5 times what it would be in Peoria. But it was with a great dose of surreality that I looked at the two homeowners who had emerged from their homes to aid the confused driver on her way. Then next door neighbors: Tom Hanks, Jim Belushi. Arms crossed, confused looks on their faces channeling ‘how on earth did you manage to do this at 5 mph?’.


Two guys who came from Normaltown, USA and used modest appeal to make logic defying legends out of themselves, and who even in the face of endless spotlight, brought Peoria with them wherever they were, whatever they were doing.


Most of these guys don’t wind up this way. Most of these guys are crazy. Crazy in the can’t finish a sentence kind of way. Try picturing Akroyd or Walken or Hoffman in the same scene, and I have, it doesn’t exist.


I share the cast’s immortal opinion of Band Of Brothers, I can’t wait for The Pacific, and Tom Hanks has found a new level of communication that is revolutionizing a town normally bent on a race to the bottom. Back in ‘92, I caught a brief glimpse of why.


More of that.


That’s all for today, see you Monday.