The Morning Joe Rebuttal for July 23rd, 2010
Observations:
1) Sheila Bair was the get of the week, more than Shirley Sherrod. Going into that interview you were at once ready to believe that the Financial Reform signed into law amidst multiple distractions on Wednesday was another big named under performer designed for optics rather than substance. But the FDIC chairwoman had little trouble dispelling any concern levied, not on a placation level, but on a deep technical level. It was unsatisfying that Elizabeth Warren could not curry favor, but understandable.
Financial Reform should not be sexy, it should be the antithesis of that. Like all of the other major legislation emanating from the administration, it should be seen as a genesis point from which we might potentially seat Elizabeth Warren at the Consumer Protection chair and augment derivatives reform in coming legislative sessions.
The technical merit of portraying Lehman as inherently save-able given the FinReg tools is a powerful one. Going too far with this legislation only feeds into the larger problem. If you want to end health care monopolies, move to single payer, end derivatives, end out of scale bonuses and the emasculation of stockholders, end too big to fail, end bank gambling, you've got your start towards it, now govern for a few more years and win a couple more elections based on merit, then take it farther.
2) A fabulous point was made by the institutionally ostracized Donny Deutsch today. The legislative bodies are finding less and less cover for their process. The news cycle, as maligned as it might be, is actually doing a service of exposing the weakness of the legislative process, its inherently compromised state, its vulnerability to lobby groups, and the net effect of layering one compromised law after another on a country that needs significant singular solutions.
We currently have an unmanageable catacomb of laws that have been layered like rings on a 234 year old tree without any thought towards interconnectivity, precedent, or preemption. How did we get that way? Because on the way to a president's desk the legislative process attempts to say yes to everybody. How do you, for example, write tax law that way? Farms get subsidies, outsourcing job exporters get tax breaks, companies get allowances to base themselves in Bermuda, and any hope of a flat fair tax is diced into 20 million special interest pieces.
This used to go on without real time coverage. C-Span just doesn’t count because it’s single source nature made it not competitive for a viewer's attention. But with 8 different outlets, and 2800 different twitter feeds, the story of how the legislative process often is more of a setback than a path forward is being televised in by the second facings.
All the trouble with Ms. Sherrod is helpful, because it points out the inevitability of the news cycle, and encourages all stakeholders to use it as efficiently as possible, and that includes voters and voter’s dollars. Now more than ever, will swift boating be the last word? Your grandmother has a Facebook account. It is possibly loosening the grip of fear that previously existed when a single communication could go unchallenged for days or weeks or cement as a permanent impression. Free enterprise is coming after the 'let the communication consumer beware' wariness, and there is a profit motive to being there first with the truth about anything you are viewing, which is a good thing.
3) Luke Russert and ShirleySherrod both got big press from small videos this week. Ms Sherrod because a long video got made short, she and the administration suffered a swift boat attack, and the results of the attack changed 3 significant times in 3 days until the right answer was there for all to see. She and the administration instead of melting facts into a paranoid stew, have instead ascended to a greater place for their ability to go for what is right and dissuade artificiality.
The administration is clearly scathed in the matter and there may still be further fallout, but you have to admit that the happy ending including a President who calls you to apologize is the clear opposite of doublespeak, a clear path to a lucid conversation with the nation.
Mr. Russert got some gargantuan breaks and has had the talent to capitalize. The breaks are specifically that he is a very young man in front of a very important, highest level story with a personal significance miles beyond his years or appearance. Mr. Rangel could not have known that attacking Mr. Russert would be seen by 2 networks as an equivalent of clubbing a baby seal or kicking a puppy. This is a trap of fate, for despite the appearances of a situation, the oldest statesman in the room still felt that he could wave his hand and make junior participants fall in line by the virtue of his demand. Instead he was felled by facts and a young man who has a willing army behind him.
Fair or not, it seems like a great thing is happening with Luke Russert because of what he is doing with his break.
That's all for today, see you Monday.
Showing posts with label Donny Deutsch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donny Deutsch. Show all posts
Friday, July 23, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Senior Skip Day
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for June 25th, 2010
Observations:
1) God bless Dylan Ratigan. Optics, symbolic victories, 2 out of 3 major goals accomplished: hogwash. As predicted here, on the DR show and anywhere else where the whitewash doesn’t work anymore, the financial reform package is an 8 cylinder vehicle missing 7 spark plugs. In the dark of night Blanche Lincoln capitulated as expected on derivatives reform, and this morning CNBC was awash in fake complaining so as not to be seen as though dancing a jig.
This is not different than health care reform. Obama was correctly accused by Ratigan today of being as in bed with the barons of the status quo as the Republican party.
I would take it a step further.
That this is in fact the optics of being a Democratic politician. You are required to make laws with names that falsely claim populist reform but substantively move the needle further towards the status quo. Doublespeak. Will Obama become the greatest artist of doublespeak in history, or at least since Bill Clinton? His oratory soars like no one since Martin Luther King. But the substance is undeniably short of what the oratory claims.
Or am I just impatient with the checks and balances system? Will there be year two strengthening of all three major 2010 reform packages? We are stuck without that answer. We won’t get Ron Paul on the right or Howard Dean on the left. Ever. Howard may have even switched sides under the ‘life is too short to go out losing’ ideology.
I will be paying keen attention to Dylan Ratigan’s “Fix It Week” next week. Let the record show Matt Taibbi is now 100 for 100 in predicting the futility of government to govern in a time of crisis. Elizabeth Warren got a small victory with consumer protection, but at what larger cost?
2) This week has now morphed into BP week, through an absence of meaningful coverage of the spill. What appears to be happening is that the cast is tired of how bad this news is. Is the BP story bad for your career? Do you need some happy news? Is that what you signed up for?
Look BP should have lost it all by now, they were given a reprieve, and why? Today was a triple witching news day, but two witches got off the hook. We decided to back hash the McChrystal and Patraeus situations, in a non event that smacks of running out of ideas, and let BP and financial reform get what amounts to a proportionate free pass. Yea, Ratigan got a rant, but is it a rant when the rest of the cast goes the other way? What happened is Halperin, Heilemann, O’Donnell, Deutsch and Geist all did a career check and rather than venture into dangerous waters, they opted for the good optics over the substantive futility, and looked the other way.
But systematically since 6:30 AM on Monday, the Morning Joe show abandoned the BP story. This is nothing short of a dramatic clutch victory for the villain oil company. The breathing room a week of media reprieve gives them may not be much because, as Geist says, this is a “creeping” story that will be back like groundhog day next week, but this is a wasted week with the show kicking the can down the road.
There is so much work to do. There is still an infrastuctural shortcoming in the spill containment plan. The Welch plan is still unattempted. The situation got worse, and the solution got farther.
On the infrastructure side, one thing keeps coming to mind. In our forest fire reaction in the United States, we use a Han Solo looking rag tag fleet of retired warplanes and commercial jets to do our fighting. Other countries make devoted fleets of firefighting airplanes, like Canada. Canada has float planes that land in any water, take on the water, take flight, and drop on a fire source. I saw this first hand when the bright, new yellow Canadian planes on loan landed off of Pacific Palisades a few years back to resupply their water to fight a Burbank fire. It seems so, well, evolved.
We are at a same situation with the BP spill. We are drafting shrimp boats to help contain oil rather than owning any specialized reaction vessels. Britain, Norway, Venezuela, and Canada all have that fleet and have offered it to us. At the height of my cynicism, I’m forced to believe that this slow walking of accepting those fleet’s aid is a political one, so we don’t seem so feckless, so beholden to commercial interest that we allow these oil companies to operate without any safety net in the United States, whether that net is public or private.
Would’ve been great to have the Morning Joe show be on point on that news as it emanated from the gulf this week. Where were you again?
3) This is the first show I’ve seen that didn’t include the new Erin Burnett 3 points feature, and on the day financial reform passed conference? And the first show that replayed old interviews to cover the absence of the stars. That replay thing actually seems like a good idea. Some of that stuff is worth repetition multiple times, and those chosen were in that category.
Producers go 1-1 on the day, well 1-2. The west coast stuff is awful. Those people look like Iranian prisoners, except for Lawrence O’Donnell.
That’s all for today, see you Monday
Observations:
1) God bless Dylan Ratigan. Optics, symbolic victories, 2 out of 3 major goals accomplished: hogwash. As predicted here, on the DR show and anywhere else where the whitewash doesn’t work anymore, the financial reform package is an 8 cylinder vehicle missing 7 spark plugs. In the dark of night Blanche Lincoln capitulated as expected on derivatives reform, and this morning CNBC was awash in fake complaining so as not to be seen as though dancing a jig.
This is not different than health care reform. Obama was correctly accused by Ratigan today of being as in bed with the barons of the status quo as the Republican party.
I would take it a step further.
That this is in fact the optics of being a Democratic politician. You are required to make laws with names that falsely claim populist reform but substantively move the needle further towards the status quo. Doublespeak. Will Obama become the greatest artist of doublespeak in history, or at least since Bill Clinton? His oratory soars like no one since Martin Luther King. But the substance is undeniably short of what the oratory claims.
Or am I just impatient with the checks and balances system? Will there be year two strengthening of all three major 2010 reform packages? We are stuck without that answer. We won’t get Ron Paul on the right or Howard Dean on the left. Ever. Howard may have even switched sides under the ‘life is too short to go out losing’ ideology.
I will be paying keen attention to Dylan Ratigan’s “Fix It Week” next week. Let the record show Matt Taibbi is now 100 for 100 in predicting the futility of government to govern in a time of crisis. Elizabeth Warren got a small victory with consumer protection, but at what larger cost?
2) This week has now morphed into BP week, through an absence of meaningful coverage of the spill. What appears to be happening is that the cast is tired of how bad this news is. Is the BP story bad for your career? Do you need some happy news? Is that what you signed up for?
Look BP should have lost it all by now, they were given a reprieve, and why? Today was a triple witching news day, but two witches got off the hook. We decided to back hash the McChrystal and Patraeus situations, in a non event that smacks of running out of ideas, and let BP and financial reform get what amounts to a proportionate free pass. Yea, Ratigan got a rant, but is it a rant when the rest of the cast goes the other way? What happened is Halperin, Heilemann, O’Donnell, Deutsch and Geist all did a career check and rather than venture into dangerous waters, they opted for the good optics over the substantive futility, and looked the other way.
But systematically since 6:30 AM on Monday, the Morning Joe show abandoned the BP story. This is nothing short of a dramatic clutch victory for the villain oil company. The breathing room a week of media reprieve gives them may not be much because, as Geist says, this is a “creeping” story that will be back like groundhog day next week, but this is a wasted week with the show kicking the can down the road.
There is so much work to do. There is still an infrastuctural shortcoming in the spill containment plan. The Welch plan is still unattempted. The situation got worse, and the solution got farther.
On the infrastructure side, one thing keeps coming to mind. In our forest fire reaction in the United States, we use a Han Solo looking rag tag fleet of retired warplanes and commercial jets to do our fighting. Other countries make devoted fleets of firefighting airplanes, like Canada. Canada has float planes that land in any water, take on the water, take flight, and drop on a fire source. I saw this first hand when the bright, new yellow Canadian planes on loan landed off of Pacific Palisades a few years back to resupply their water to fight a Burbank fire. It seems so, well, evolved.
We are at a same situation with the BP spill. We are drafting shrimp boats to help contain oil rather than owning any specialized reaction vessels. Britain, Norway, Venezuela, and Canada all have that fleet and have offered it to us. At the height of my cynicism, I’m forced to believe that this slow walking of accepting those fleet’s aid is a political one, so we don’t seem so feckless, so beholden to commercial interest that we allow these oil companies to operate without any safety net in the United States, whether that net is public or private.
Would’ve been great to have the Morning Joe show be on point on that news as it emanated from the gulf this week. Where were you again?
3) This is the first show I’ve seen that didn’t include the new Erin Burnett 3 points feature, and on the day financial reform passed conference? And the first show that replayed old interviews to cover the absence of the stars. That replay thing actually seems like a good idea. Some of that stuff is worth repetition multiple times, and those chosen were in that category.
Producers go 1-1 on the day, well 1-2. The west coast stuff is awful. Those people look like Iranian prisoners, except for Lawrence O’Donnell.
That’s all for today, see you Monday
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Does Joe Think This Is A Win?
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for March 23rd, 2010
Observations:
1) Can loud guy Joe Scarborough win a single debate today? These guys just lined up and crowned him. Michael Steele, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, and a cast of others also tried to take to the airwaves to keep the kill & repeal camp energized on a devastating day. But it was Scarborough that had the toughest job. He had a weird technical advantage that the shouty man thing works kind’ve well on the Atlanta remote monitor. But three hours is a long time and overall, Donnie, Chris Hayes, Eugene, Lawrence, Chuck, and even Mika were just teeing up batting practice.
Scarborough felt like if he could just talk about what was sinister about the process he could plant the seed of buyers remorse. That remorse lost out to euphoria time and time again.
Donnie: looking back is not an effective message
Scarborough: you don’t know what you’re talking about
Umm?
Scarborough: So Eugene, do you feel good about this bad bill?
Eugene: Well, yes
Lawrence: You’ve never voted on a pure bill, and you would never initiate a health care coverage as a legislator
Scarborough: {nothing}
Ill give it to the guy. He is a happy loser. He really thinks this thing is all part of God’s plan and that time will serve his position well. That kind’ve personal content on a day like this is tough to achieve.
As he was getting battered, whether it was at 6 or at 9 AM, he had a smile on his face not unlike a zealot who feels his time will come. Maybe, but let the record show, this is real systemic change, not via this originating substantive bill, but by virtue of a genesis step. You don’t have this in your game, you can’t recognize its novel achievement, and you don’t seem to comprehend the battle ahead for your party.
Your party is most defined spiritually as wishing to return to a simpler time. Some call that a version of being reactionary. When an independent voter compares and contrast two messages in a bicameral system and one says we have to go back to not caring about 47 million people and the unfunded mandate not managing that situation creates, while the other says this process is difficult, the first step makes us even question ourselves, but status quo is by far a worse option, that comparison does not favor you.
2) I’ll never be done analyzing the mechanics of what’s coming in November. I’m listening to Joe Scarborough parade a platform of 'make the Democrats bathe in their unfortunate decisions', and I can’t tell you how much I hope that happens.
I’m starting to listen to others that said head fake is Obama’s perpetual strategy. We don’t know what his strategy to hold the House and the Senate is this fall. But think about the stakes. The stakes are ‘yes we can’ all over again.
Naysayers have piled on. I have been at times the most disillusioned person in the world. But that’s simply more evidence on the value of winning. Winning is contagious. The advantages of winning include going back to your base and saying look, who has a better chance of adding to our victory? Us, or those ‘no’ clowns? The same message plays with independents. Dear Mr. Independent voter, welcome to the first real progress of your lifetime, if you would like to continue press A, and welcome back. There’s a cave over there where all the guys who still believe we can go back to the Reagan days, that there is some other thing we can give away without consequence all live, and you can press B and join them if that’s your mission.
There is no denying the mathematical hardship the health care law will place on our horrible budget. But that kind’ve pressure is simply the right pressure. Lets get services back in front, and lets start killing off things like Medicare Advantage, ethanol subsidies, whatever non consequential military program Senator Shelby thinks he deserves, and every other budget busting piece of nonsense. I want that this is expensive, because its expensive in an arena the federal government should be growing, and will force shrinkage in parts of the government that I really would like to see smaller or go away entirely.
3) I think my favorite thing on the Morning Joe show is just how idiotic Rudy Giuliani looks trying to portray the health care bill as ‘terrible’. The thing I like about his appearance is the time warp factor. Will someone wake this guy up and tell him he is the poster child for fighting the last war? People openly mock his inability to convey reality on the ground in terms other than 9/11. For him to be the talking point generator for old guard is a disaster.
Six months ago I asked Joe Scarborough to say what he is for. He has marginally accommodated that request by talking about the things he would like to see be part of health care reform. As we have said repeatedly, he just has trouble convincing anyone he would actually make those changes. Why? Because of people like Rudy Giuliani. When it is the Republicans turn to run things, the dialog just shifts away from the entire subject, and you can tell this on a day like today, when a guy like Rudy is forced to talk. You can tell full well if Rudy Giuliani had become President and by some miracle a moderate member of the Republican party started to initiate a health care bill, Rudy would call that ‘terrible’ too.
Joe Scarborough seems to have forgotten the things we were talking about when we were looking at George and Dick’s regime. We were talking about how to provide nothing on a service basis, how to arrest more illegal immigrants, send troops to our borders, bomb Iran, empower Halliburton. The progressive agenda in the Republican party is not how to help more people, it’s how to kill more enemies.
Compare and contrast on your way to November, friend.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations:
1) Can loud guy Joe Scarborough win a single debate today? These guys just lined up and crowned him. Michael Steele, Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, and a cast of others also tried to take to the airwaves to keep the kill & repeal camp energized on a devastating day. But it was Scarborough that had the toughest job. He had a weird technical advantage that the shouty man thing works kind’ve well on the Atlanta remote monitor. But three hours is a long time and overall, Donnie, Chris Hayes, Eugene, Lawrence, Chuck, and even Mika were just teeing up batting practice.
Scarborough felt like if he could just talk about what was sinister about the process he could plant the seed of buyers remorse. That remorse lost out to euphoria time and time again.
Donnie: looking back is not an effective message
Scarborough: you don’t know what you’re talking about
Umm?
Scarborough: So Eugene, do you feel good about this bad bill?
Eugene: Well, yes
Lawrence: You’ve never voted on a pure bill, and you would never initiate a health care coverage as a legislator
Scarborough: {nothing}
Ill give it to the guy. He is a happy loser. He really thinks this thing is all part of God’s plan and that time will serve his position well. That kind’ve personal content on a day like this is tough to achieve.
As he was getting battered, whether it was at 6 or at 9 AM, he had a smile on his face not unlike a zealot who feels his time will come. Maybe, but let the record show, this is real systemic change, not via this originating substantive bill, but by virtue of a genesis step. You don’t have this in your game, you can’t recognize its novel achievement, and you don’t seem to comprehend the battle ahead for your party.
Your party is most defined spiritually as wishing to return to a simpler time. Some call that a version of being reactionary. When an independent voter compares and contrast two messages in a bicameral system and one says we have to go back to not caring about 47 million people and the unfunded mandate not managing that situation creates, while the other says this process is difficult, the first step makes us even question ourselves, but status quo is by far a worse option, that comparison does not favor you.
2) I’ll never be done analyzing the mechanics of what’s coming in November. I’m listening to Joe Scarborough parade a platform of 'make the Democrats bathe in their unfortunate decisions', and I can’t tell you how much I hope that happens.
I’m starting to listen to others that said head fake is Obama’s perpetual strategy. We don’t know what his strategy to hold the House and the Senate is this fall. But think about the stakes. The stakes are ‘yes we can’ all over again.
Naysayers have piled on. I have been at times the most disillusioned person in the world. But that’s simply more evidence on the value of winning. Winning is contagious. The advantages of winning include going back to your base and saying look, who has a better chance of adding to our victory? Us, or those ‘no’ clowns? The same message plays with independents. Dear Mr. Independent voter, welcome to the first real progress of your lifetime, if you would like to continue press A, and welcome back. There’s a cave over there where all the guys who still believe we can go back to the Reagan days, that there is some other thing we can give away without consequence all live, and you can press B and join them if that’s your mission.
There is no denying the mathematical hardship the health care law will place on our horrible budget. But that kind’ve pressure is simply the right pressure. Lets get services back in front, and lets start killing off things like Medicare Advantage, ethanol subsidies, whatever non consequential military program Senator Shelby thinks he deserves, and every other budget busting piece of nonsense. I want that this is expensive, because its expensive in an arena the federal government should be growing, and will force shrinkage in parts of the government that I really would like to see smaller or go away entirely.
3) I think my favorite thing on the Morning Joe show is just how idiotic Rudy Giuliani looks trying to portray the health care bill as ‘terrible’. The thing I like about his appearance is the time warp factor. Will someone wake this guy up and tell him he is the poster child for fighting the last war? People openly mock his inability to convey reality on the ground in terms other than 9/11. For him to be the talking point generator for old guard is a disaster.
Six months ago I asked Joe Scarborough to say what he is for. He has marginally accommodated that request by talking about the things he would like to see be part of health care reform. As we have said repeatedly, he just has trouble convincing anyone he would actually make those changes. Why? Because of people like Rudy Giuliani. When it is the Republicans turn to run things, the dialog just shifts away from the entire subject, and you can tell this on a day like today, when a guy like Rudy is forced to talk. You can tell full well if Rudy Giuliani had become President and by some miracle a moderate member of the Republican party started to initiate a health care bill, Rudy would call that ‘terrible’ too.
Joe Scarborough seems to have forgotten the things we were talking about when we were looking at George and Dick’s regime. We were talking about how to provide nothing on a service basis, how to arrest more illegal immigrants, send troops to our borders, bomb Iran, empower Halliburton. The progressive agenda in the Republican party is not how to help more people, it’s how to kill more enemies.
Compare and contrast on your way to November, friend.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Monday, March 15, 2010
What’s Fun About Failure?
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for March 15, 2010
Observations:
1) Tina Brown thinks that the elected officials about to fail regulating banks and medical care fail because the are incompetent. Not in an insulting way where they are stupid, just that the level of complexity and comprehension required to see that simplicity is the real answer is not readily available as a commodity to the pool of electable politicians.
In this scenario, the people we should be putting in charge are in fact unelectable. Imagine for a second Elizabeth Warren dressed up as Kay Bailey Hutchinson, or Dylan Ratigan trying to make nice with Wall Street donors. Imagine for a second Howard Dean, well, wait, that one doesn’t work.
As we path down the road towards fecklessness, this concept becomes even more important, as the newscaster-ization part of political candidates removes the people most likely to govern. In fact, in many local governments, this was realized and thus came the concept of the city manager, a guy who had less demands of kissing babies and more demands of the sewers working.
Dylan Ratigan thinks there will be a voter revolt. I’m not so sure. What would result? Some more Kucinich’s and Sanders’? The hybrid of the shared concept that the job is beyond the employed in our legislature, as shared between Dylan and Tina, is more the newest evolution of the Morning Joe consensus rather than either of their distinct theories.
There is also the distraction principle that Joe Scarborough brought up a few weeks back. You will never know if there is a Paul Volker level competency in your candidate if you spend 50% or more of the vetting process talking about purity tests and seceding from the union.
2) Nancy Pelosi ceded the public option in between today’s and last Friday’s show, and her opponent John Boehner did nothing to warrant the action. In fact, Boehner is really peaking in his appearance as the bent on obstruction do nothing that represents the people we all voted against in 2008. Like Romney, all we really have to do is give that guy a microphone to find out just how few ideas he has.
A Republican party that can’t be trusted to shrink government in a country that is already undertaxed to historic levels is in fact a non-entity. So who killed the public option? Was it really conservative people? Not really, in fact the Stupak’s and ultra conservative southern Democratic house representatives are more finding their lockstep as a result of election climates in their districts. They are Democrats, but no one ever counted on them for any whip count for this bill.
Someone at some point will have to be accountable for this. All indications continue to point that if the move doesn’t match the whip count, the fix is in. The fix likely comes from the administration. And the strategy is to create the false public perception that the ‘votes’ weren’t there, when we know otherwise.
So a year later, we are back to the ‘we tried hard’ charade.
Are you listening Mr. Obama? Trust is an issue amongst your most ardent 2008 and 2010 supporters. We voted for you to avoid the ‘insider’ feel of a Hillary Clinton regime, but you are actually governing as an ‘insider’ to a greater degree than we would have expected from her, in absolute defiance of your 18 months of self description otherwise prior to your election.
3) The eight o’clock panel was the best and brightest that we have, and that conversation could not have occurred with Joe Scarborough in the room. The fact that they don’t agree on the mechanics, the reality on the ground, not just divided by 2 but divided by 3, is astounding. Scarborough would have been a 4th division, mainly on platform grounds, and we would have had to sit through ‘we can’t afford it’ and ‘% of people don’t want this bill’, both of which when gone from the conversation point to their own obsolescence in the real debate.
Deutsch believes that Ratigan is unrealistic in any expectation of a voter revolt while he agrees that the fixes in the bill are bleedingly inefficient. Deutsch wants the bill to pass to be a basis of incremental reform, a strategy I support given the options, and explains it just that way. Ratigan is correct that the bleeding inefficiencies are present and instead of accepting, he wants to see the bill go down so that the government is forced into real reform. And O’Donnell is convinced that neither road is certain currently and that we are getting ahead of ourselves in having a postgame conversation about feckless when the outcome is still in great turmoil.
All three agree that the current outcome is diluted most towards outright failure by the interference of campaign finance on behalf of commercial interests.
Which bill are we talking about?
Every bill since 1982.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations:
1) Tina Brown thinks that the elected officials about to fail regulating banks and medical care fail because the are incompetent. Not in an insulting way where they are stupid, just that the level of complexity and comprehension required to see that simplicity is the real answer is not readily available as a commodity to the pool of electable politicians.
In this scenario, the people we should be putting in charge are in fact unelectable. Imagine for a second Elizabeth Warren dressed up as Kay Bailey Hutchinson, or Dylan Ratigan trying to make nice with Wall Street donors. Imagine for a second Howard Dean, well, wait, that one doesn’t work.
As we path down the road towards fecklessness, this concept becomes even more important, as the newscaster-ization part of political candidates removes the people most likely to govern. In fact, in many local governments, this was realized and thus came the concept of the city manager, a guy who had less demands of kissing babies and more demands of the sewers working.
Dylan Ratigan thinks there will be a voter revolt. I’m not so sure. What would result? Some more Kucinich’s and Sanders’? The hybrid of the shared concept that the job is beyond the employed in our legislature, as shared between Dylan and Tina, is more the newest evolution of the Morning Joe consensus rather than either of their distinct theories.
There is also the distraction principle that Joe Scarborough brought up a few weeks back. You will never know if there is a Paul Volker level competency in your candidate if you spend 50% or more of the vetting process talking about purity tests and seceding from the union.
2) Nancy Pelosi ceded the public option in between today’s and last Friday’s show, and her opponent John Boehner did nothing to warrant the action. In fact, Boehner is really peaking in his appearance as the bent on obstruction do nothing that represents the people we all voted against in 2008. Like Romney, all we really have to do is give that guy a microphone to find out just how few ideas he has.
A Republican party that can’t be trusted to shrink government in a country that is already undertaxed to historic levels is in fact a non-entity. So who killed the public option? Was it really conservative people? Not really, in fact the Stupak’s and ultra conservative southern Democratic house representatives are more finding their lockstep as a result of election climates in their districts. They are Democrats, but no one ever counted on them for any whip count for this bill.
Someone at some point will have to be accountable for this. All indications continue to point that if the move doesn’t match the whip count, the fix is in. The fix likely comes from the administration. And the strategy is to create the false public perception that the ‘votes’ weren’t there, when we know otherwise.
So a year later, we are back to the ‘we tried hard’ charade.
Are you listening Mr. Obama? Trust is an issue amongst your most ardent 2008 and 2010 supporters. We voted for you to avoid the ‘insider’ feel of a Hillary Clinton regime, but you are actually governing as an ‘insider’ to a greater degree than we would have expected from her, in absolute defiance of your 18 months of self description otherwise prior to your election.
3) The eight o’clock panel was the best and brightest that we have, and that conversation could not have occurred with Joe Scarborough in the room. The fact that they don’t agree on the mechanics, the reality on the ground, not just divided by 2 but divided by 3, is astounding. Scarborough would have been a 4th division, mainly on platform grounds, and we would have had to sit through ‘we can’t afford it’ and ‘% of people don’t want this bill’, both of which when gone from the conversation point to their own obsolescence in the real debate.
Deutsch believes that Ratigan is unrealistic in any expectation of a voter revolt while he agrees that the fixes in the bill are bleedingly inefficient. Deutsch wants the bill to pass to be a basis of incremental reform, a strategy I support given the options, and explains it just that way. Ratigan is correct that the bleeding inefficiencies are present and instead of accepting, he wants to see the bill go down so that the government is forced into real reform. And O’Donnell is convinced that neither road is certain currently and that we are getting ahead of ourselves in having a postgame conversation about feckless when the outcome is still in great turmoil.
All three agree that the current outcome is diluted most towards outright failure by the interference of campaign finance on behalf of commercial interests.
Which bill are we talking about?
Every bill since 1982.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Balls, Swagger, Toyota, and Obama
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for March 10th, 2010
Observations:
1) The Israel story was mishandled today by incomplete research. As important a story as it was, and the amount of time devoted to it, it’s an unfortunate circumstance that the crucial element of the story was missing from your description and thus all analysis void of that element seems misled.
Netanyahu was not even informed of the settlement decision or announcement to add 1600 East Jerusalem homes. He has a problem in Israel and it’s a all parties in power at once style of government. His Minister of the Interior is an ultra right wing pro settlement activist, and he ambushed the Biden visit not just to embarrass the VP but also the Israeli Prime Minister.
Most characterization I saw on your show depicted the entire Israeli government of ambushing Biden, and that is simply not accurate. Likely, this is a learning moment for the program, that even if you’re going in a different direction on a day's focus or programming, your staff should really be able to get one of your longtime trustworthy sources to analyze a fast moving situation so that you can maintain a leading analysis.
I attained my version of events the previous day from BBC World News, so there is no timeline challenge available explaining why these crucial details weren’t openly available.
2) Oh, Bill Bennett. I have so many friends that are just like you. You are trapped. Your great analytical mind is trapped by a sheer absence of humanity. Drug Czar, Education Secretary, and now Liz Cheney defender. At least that third part only victimizes a few lawyers who can defend themselves, rather than those first two where you victimize whole segments of the population.
Who on earth thinks that Bennett is at heart a ‘father knows best’ type of guy? If you ever wanted to picture what it would look like to have Rush Limbaugh actually in government, at least there is a living example. To have trusted this guy with the drug war or education is a Katrina level mismanagement.
Yea, he puts books out. But I don’t think even amongst the ultras out there anyone is going to trade in their Buckley tomes for this individual’s cynical mantra of detached hypocrisy.
3) This is not an easy connection, so there is no reasonable way to expect it from anyone, but the parallel between Toyota and Obama struck me today. Toyota has one of the best brands ever. They still do. Mika still wants to keep her cars. Erin Burnett thinks this is some conspiracy by domestic automakers to level the playing field and finds no numerical merit to the Toyota story.
But Donny Deutsch hits the nail on the head in that they have shown as little spine as possible in the face of crisis, and thus the public will always hold the brand in context of an inability to really lead. This is unexpected from this company. That it happened, that it wasn’t quietly fixed forever in 2007, that there was a real ‘Autogate’ not seen since the Ford Explorer or the Ford Pinto. This could have been solved and weakness at the helm with some questionable loyalty to it’s customers has made for an unnecessary meltdown.
Sound familiar?
We have long said that Obama has caused a vacuum of leadership throughout his first year that has made solvable situations blow up beyond anyone’s comprehension. Additionally, he had made deals out of the public eye but known the country over that bring into question his loyalty for the people who voted him into office. The results in the health care and financial reform debates are questionable in their people versus corporations effectiveness.
It’s a problem that no one saw coming a year ago, and the voter will always have this lack of manning up in crisis as a contextual part of all future votes. Take your pick from Toyota or Obama.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations:
1) The Israel story was mishandled today by incomplete research. As important a story as it was, and the amount of time devoted to it, it’s an unfortunate circumstance that the crucial element of the story was missing from your description and thus all analysis void of that element seems misled.
Netanyahu was not even informed of the settlement decision or announcement to add 1600 East Jerusalem homes. He has a problem in Israel and it’s a all parties in power at once style of government. His Minister of the Interior is an ultra right wing pro settlement activist, and he ambushed the Biden visit not just to embarrass the VP but also the Israeli Prime Minister.
Most characterization I saw on your show depicted the entire Israeli government of ambushing Biden, and that is simply not accurate. Likely, this is a learning moment for the program, that even if you’re going in a different direction on a day's focus or programming, your staff should really be able to get one of your longtime trustworthy sources to analyze a fast moving situation so that you can maintain a leading analysis.
I attained my version of events the previous day from BBC World News, so there is no timeline challenge available explaining why these crucial details weren’t openly available.
2) Oh, Bill Bennett. I have so many friends that are just like you. You are trapped. Your great analytical mind is trapped by a sheer absence of humanity. Drug Czar, Education Secretary, and now Liz Cheney defender. At least that third part only victimizes a few lawyers who can defend themselves, rather than those first two where you victimize whole segments of the population.
Who on earth thinks that Bennett is at heart a ‘father knows best’ type of guy? If you ever wanted to picture what it would look like to have Rush Limbaugh actually in government, at least there is a living example. To have trusted this guy with the drug war or education is a Katrina level mismanagement.
Yea, he puts books out. But I don’t think even amongst the ultras out there anyone is going to trade in their Buckley tomes for this individual’s cynical mantra of detached hypocrisy.
3) This is not an easy connection, so there is no reasonable way to expect it from anyone, but the parallel between Toyota and Obama struck me today. Toyota has one of the best brands ever. They still do. Mika still wants to keep her cars. Erin Burnett thinks this is some conspiracy by domestic automakers to level the playing field and finds no numerical merit to the Toyota story.
But Donny Deutsch hits the nail on the head in that they have shown as little spine as possible in the face of crisis, and thus the public will always hold the brand in context of an inability to really lead. This is unexpected from this company. That it happened, that it wasn’t quietly fixed forever in 2007, that there was a real ‘Autogate’ not seen since the Ford Explorer or the Ford Pinto. This could have been solved and weakness at the helm with some questionable loyalty to it’s customers has made for an unnecessary meltdown.
Sound familiar?
We have long said that Obama has caused a vacuum of leadership throughout his first year that has made solvable situations blow up beyond anyone’s comprehension. Additionally, he had made deals out of the public eye but known the country over that bring into question his loyalty for the people who voted him into office. The results in the health care and financial reform debates are questionable in their people versus corporations effectiveness.
It’s a problem that no one saw coming a year ago, and the voter will always have this lack of manning up in crisis as a contextual part of all future votes. Take your pick from Toyota or Obama.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Old Mika Is What America Wants
The Morning Joe Rebuttal For December 9th, 2009
Observations:
1) There are two Mika Brzezinskis. The fitful uncooperative lets keep this conversation above the Mendoza line Mika, and the complacent paychecks are nice and so what if Joe and Willie want to spend half the day in the gutter version of Mika. The latter is a new version who has allowed the show to have a tough time of late. The former got a re-awakening today and whether it was a lack of Joe Scarborough or a story that just keeps getting farther and farther away from it’s previously sold image, old Mika grabbed a pitchfork and asked in her outside voice for some decorum. It did not go away, and we are grateful. We need you Old Mika, for the current events will magnetize themselves far from progress if left to their own devices.
2) You have to interrupt Michael Steele, or you have become a vehicle for his tool-ness. If Savannah Guthrie wants to ask a question, she cannot let Mr. Steele answer some other question of his choosing out of convenience. Some of the best loggerheads between strangers have occurred on Hardball when Mike Barnicle was guest hosting, because Mike just stares into the camera when it’s actually by default his job to create order. He did the same thing here.
3) Thank god for Donnie Deutsch. The point is that every important and painful legislative progress in our nation’s history had systematic obstructionist working the other side. Yes the subject was slavery in one of the examples. But it’s no less valid than any other example, because there are only 4 or 5 of these in our nation’s history. It was a poor choice for Senator Reid only because it allows a convenient cloud of distraction to avail itself to his opponents, but not for real impropriety or real mistaken logic. The logic is in fact correct. It does not pass the “call the opponents Nazis” test the Joe Scarborough correctly indoctrinated but is incorrectly assessing here. Donnie Deutsch was dead on target by getting the tough question out there, optics be damned. Michael Steele was exposed as the tool he is: hide behind the race card via false indignation.
What this latest issue does is reveal how the Republican party uses it's leader’s race at its core, for convenience. It sucks, but that is why Michael Steele is the current chosen leader of the RNC, because he optically disarms a core notion amongst the opposition to it, that it is in structural practicing opposition to the black population of the United States along with latinos, gays, and most other non-white segments. The level of shame in this story is unending, but brave people will fight through falsely based nonsense and get the job done anyway.
4) I’m ready to admit one level of defeat as the public option got axed from the Senate health care bill. It looks like there is some consolation in the structure of the compromise bill, but it’s neither a co-op or a robust public option, so it may be a mirage of the idea the president campaigned on. It’s too early to be sure either way, but here’s hoping that the leading newspapers and news outlets help carve out a real understandable measure of progress as the bill marches forward, outlining how much special interest has hijacked the legislative process and continue the debate of the governability of the United States when our Senators and Congressmen are so awash in money that they cannot get it right.
I’m still holding out hope that 11th hour tactics come through and real teeth get added in conference, reconciliation gets it through the Senate, and America gets it’s first change it can believe in in a generation.
5) There were green shoots of progress in a practical conversation on jobs on the ground in the United States today during the show. But alas the vigil continues because by his absenteeism, Joe Scarborough is still at 30,000 feet on the issue. We will retire the vigil when he rolls his sleeves up and embraces what started in earnest on the show today. Otherwise, it only happened because he wasn’t there.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations:
1) There are two Mika Brzezinskis. The fitful uncooperative lets keep this conversation above the Mendoza line Mika, and the complacent paychecks are nice and so what if Joe and Willie want to spend half the day in the gutter version of Mika. The latter is a new version who has allowed the show to have a tough time of late. The former got a re-awakening today and whether it was a lack of Joe Scarborough or a story that just keeps getting farther and farther away from it’s previously sold image, old Mika grabbed a pitchfork and asked in her outside voice for some decorum. It did not go away, and we are grateful. We need you Old Mika, for the current events will magnetize themselves far from progress if left to their own devices.
2) You have to interrupt Michael Steele, or you have become a vehicle for his tool-ness. If Savannah Guthrie wants to ask a question, she cannot let Mr. Steele answer some other question of his choosing out of convenience. Some of the best loggerheads between strangers have occurred on Hardball when Mike Barnicle was guest hosting, because Mike just stares into the camera when it’s actually by default his job to create order. He did the same thing here.
3) Thank god for Donnie Deutsch. The point is that every important and painful legislative progress in our nation’s history had systematic obstructionist working the other side. Yes the subject was slavery in one of the examples. But it’s no less valid than any other example, because there are only 4 or 5 of these in our nation’s history. It was a poor choice for Senator Reid only because it allows a convenient cloud of distraction to avail itself to his opponents, but not for real impropriety or real mistaken logic. The logic is in fact correct. It does not pass the “call the opponents Nazis” test the Joe Scarborough correctly indoctrinated but is incorrectly assessing here. Donnie Deutsch was dead on target by getting the tough question out there, optics be damned. Michael Steele was exposed as the tool he is: hide behind the race card via false indignation.
What this latest issue does is reveal how the Republican party uses it's leader’s race at its core, for convenience. It sucks, but that is why Michael Steele is the current chosen leader of the RNC, because he optically disarms a core notion amongst the opposition to it, that it is in structural practicing opposition to the black population of the United States along with latinos, gays, and most other non-white segments. The level of shame in this story is unending, but brave people will fight through falsely based nonsense and get the job done anyway.
4) I’m ready to admit one level of defeat as the public option got axed from the Senate health care bill. It looks like there is some consolation in the structure of the compromise bill, but it’s neither a co-op or a robust public option, so it may be a mirage of the idea the president campaigned on. It’s too early to be sure either way, but here’s hoping that the leading newspapers and news outlets help carve out a real understandable measure of progress as the bill marches forward, outlining how much special interest has hijacked the legislative process and continue the debate of the governability of the United States when our Senators and Congressmen are so awash in money that they cannot get it right.
I’m still holding out hope that 11th hour tactics come through and real teeth get added in conference, reconciliation gets it through the Senate, and America gets it’s first change it can believe in in a generation.
5) There were green shoots of progress in a practical conversation on jobs on the ground in the United States today during the show. But alas the vigil continues because by his absenteeism, Joe Scarborough is still at 30,000 feet on the issue. We will retire the vigil when he rolls his sleeves up and embraces what started in earnest on the show today. Otherwise, it only happened because he wasn’t there.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Morning TMZ
The Morning Joe Rebuttal For November 30th, 2009
Observations:
1) Joe Scarborough takes a courageous stand about not wanting the content of his show to be weighted towards Tiger Woods coverage, yet he is outvoted by producers citing the number of world leaders and CEO’s who watch his show and the fact that they expect him to cover it as a matter of necessity? If I took any part of that self serving failure wrong, please correct me, but that is a level of lousy typically reserved for other people, and your viewers are left 3 hours later screaming: SCOREBOARD.
I’m going to lump the White House crashers in with this. Afghanistan, the Jobs Summit, Palin polling at the top of Republican presidential lists, and the purity test have just lost out to the first time in the history of the show that Willie Geist could’ve anchored. Apologies to WG, but we never mention him for a reason. We’re in it for substance, and rather than waste anyone’s time, we can leave the “features” part of the show to others. Old Mika would’ve never let this happen, but passiveness here is the equivalent of job security run amok.
2) Trading tax gets brought up as an opening line in a roundtable featuring the shows cast, Jim Cramer, and Donny Deutsch and yet again the main point of it all might as well be wearing camouflage clothing. A trading tax is a misguided idea trying to find revenue in a lynch mob sort’ve way. It unfortunately is fatally flawed in that it’s too easy to kill for its misguided-ness, and it turns a blind eye to known economic principle. To hear Joe Scarborough go at it in another attempt to shore up his all tax is bad platform was unoffendingly predictable, but to hear Jim Cramer say it’s worse than actually doing something, and Donny Deutsch explain away the idotic optics is unforgivable.
Please have an economist at the table when you talk about these matters so that the bottom line doesn’t get boiled down to what tax will be cute enough to pass. I at first thought I heard this referred to as a “traitor tax” and boy, that is actually the idea to solve it all at once, and you guys accidentally dithered upon it. Lets leave capitol gains taxes exactly where they are, or better yet lower them, depending on the value of the investment towards the lowering of domestic unemployment, the amount of domestic corporate tax value of the company in question, or any version of value to true domestic national product. That’s right, anti-NAFTA, protectionist taxation at the capital gains level. If you are going to move money around to profit speculatively in a way that either benefits a competing nations economy or creates inefficiency in the market for commodities, lets tax it at the top US Income tax scale, because it’s the government that will have to correct the negative effect of your investment, and
they need the money. Goldman Sachs would owe more than their bonuses in that scenario.
3) Donny Deutsch played the race card. It’s not clear to me if Lou Dobbs deserved it or not, but Lou doesn’t like migrant workers I’m told. I do know this, this column is late today as I was driving the 8 freeway from Phoenix to San Diego all day. At points you could see the new border fence just feet from the freeway. It runs continuously across the entire state of California. We have had it pretty good up here. I’ve had a supposed “Lib” or two say that no matter what ideological position I may have adopted, the southern border needs control or it would be the end to the way of life that Southern Californians and Arizonans have enjoyed for many years. Get to the right ideologically, in the purity test crowd, and it’s a far more disturbing version of what needs to be done for the sake of national safety, as exemplified by the forced construction of this fence.
I don’t buy it. It feels so much like South Africa driving that road, that it has an air of natural unsustainability. The fence may be a most modern technology, but it still boils down to me stopping the car inside the US so that a US Agent can inspect the car and “assume we are all US Citizens”, and if Lou Dobbs is racist, so is that misguided interdiction. I love the people of Mexico and have less animosity for many of those citizens than for many north of the border. Tear down that wall. Make a negative a positive. Take money from coyotes and put it towards a prepayment for a work visa that pays a migrant workers taxes and social payments like our new national health care and make it open to anybody who is not a terrorist. Don’t let anyone tell you that pushing migrant workers into the shadows further is good for America, it’s a kick the can down the road endless shell game that trades humiliation for personal political gain.
Donnie was abandoned by the show on the subject as everyone ducked and quickly moved on, so I had the debate for you.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations:
1) Joe Scarborough takes a courageous stand about not wanting the content of his show to be weighted towards Tiger Woods coverage, yet he is outvoted by producers citing the number of world leaders and CEO’s who watch his show and the fact that they expect him to cover it as a matter of necessity? If I took any part of that self serving failure wrong, please correct me, but that is a level of lousy typically reserved for other people, and your viewers are left 3 hours later screaming: SCOREBOARD.
I’m going to lump the White House crashers in with this. Afghanistan, the Jobs Summit, Palin polling at the top of Republican presidential lists, and the purity test have just lost out to the first time in the history of the show that Willie Geist could’ve anchored. Apologies to WG, but we never mention him for a reason. We’re in it for substance, and rather than waste anyone’s time, we can leave the “features” part of the show to others. Old Mika would’ve never let this happen, but passiveness here is the equivalent of job security run amok.
2) Trading tax gets brought up as an opening line in a roundtable featuring the shows cast, Jim Cramer, and Donny Deutsch and yet again the main point of it all might as well be wearing camouflage clothing. A trading tax is a misguided idea trying to find revenue in a lynch mob sort’ve way. It unfortunately is fatally flawed in that it’s too easy to kill for its misguided-ness, and it turns a blind eye to known economic principle. To hear Joe Scarborough go at it in another attempt to shore up his all tax is bad platform was unoffendingly predictable, but to hear Jim Cramer say it’s worse than actually doing something, and Donny Deutsch explain away the idotic optics is unforgivable.
Please have an economist at the table when you talk about these matters so that the bottom line doesn’t get boiled down to what tax will be cute enough to pass. I at first thought I heard this referred to as a “traitor tax” and boy, that is actually the idea to solve it all at once, and you guys accidentally dithered upon it. Lets leave capitol gains taxes exactly where they are, or better yet lower them, depending on the value of the investment towards the lowering of domestic unemployment, the amount of domestic corporate tax value of the company in question, or any version of value to true domestic national product. That’s right, anti-NAFTA, protectionist taxation at the capital gains level. If you are going to move money around to profit speculatively in a way that either benefits a competing nations economy or creates inefficiency in the market for commodities, lets tax it at the top US Income tax scale, because it’s the government that will have to correct the negative effect of your investment, and
they need the money. Goldman Sachs would owe more than their bonuses in that scenario.
3) Donny Deutsch played the race card. It’s not clear to me if Lou Dobbs deserved it or not, but Lou doesn’t like migrant workers I’m told. I do know this, this column is late today as I was driving the 8 freeway from Phoenix to San Diego all day. At points you could see the new border fence just feet from the freeway. It runs continuously across the entire state of California. We have had it pretty good up here. I’ve had a supposed “Lib” or two say that no matter what ideological position I may have adopted, the southern border needs control or it would be the end to the way of life that Southern Californians and Arizonans have enjoyed for many years. Get to the right ideologically, in the purity test crowd, and it’s a far more disturbing version of what needs to be done for the sake of national safety, as exemplified by the forced construction of this fence.
I don’t buy it. It feels so much like South Africa driving that road, that it has an air of natural unsustainability. The fence may be a most modern technology, but it still boils down to me stopping the car inside the US so that a US Agent can inspect the car and “assume we are all US Citizens”, and if Lou Dobbs is racist, so is that misguided interdiction. I love the people of Mexico and have less animosity for many of those citizens than for many north of the border. Tear down that wall. Make a negative a positive. Take money from coyotes and put it towards a prepayment for a work visa that pays a migrant workers taxes and social payments like our new national health care and make it open to anybody who is not a terrorist. Don’t let anyone tell you that pushing migrant workers into the shadows further is good for America, it’s a kick the can down the road endless shell game that trades humiliation for personal political gain.
Donnie was abandoned by the show on the subject as everyone ducked and quickly moved on, so I had the debate for you.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
