Hapless Guessing

The Morning Joe Rebuttal for Friday April 18th, 2014


Observations:

A seasoned MJ cast at the 7am Eastern block attempted to dissect the Bundy Militia story, and forgot or misrepresented about half of it, but still felt strongly enough to draw conclusions on all fronts.  

Harry Reid labeled the groups that showed up heavily armed to the media saturated melee as ‘domestic terrorists’, and Nicole Wallace was put in the difficult position of toeing the GOP line of apologizing for them and attacking Reid’s assertion.  If you were to take Wallace’s factual analysis to its core precepts, you have to accept that the federal government showed up suddenly with a one million dollar land use bill, and then began armed enforcement action, and that there is a segment of society that has a serious disdain for federalism, to the point of denying its viability as the ultimate governing authority of the United States as imposed by it’s citizens and constitution.  OK, she didn’t put those high minded buzz cornerstones in her descriptives, but that's just it, you have to fall short and live in vagaries, otherwise illogic beams down on you.  You can say they have a ‘deep distrust’ of ‘all things federal’, and that it’s OK to bear arms in this situation because ‘the government was armed’, but it simply belies the principles of organized society.

Of course John Heilemann attacked the armed civilian response analysis, which is entirely accurate, but no one could move the conversation one dimensional analysis further, as it pertained to Wallace’s tenuous platform defense.  

Barnicle smartly read a definition of terrorism, but two well respected journalists took unbelievably placebic opposition.  

David Gregory, still smarting from an awkward back story about Pulitzer Prizes being awarded to people he thought should be charged for espionage, said calling the militia response ‘terrorism’ probably needed to be thought out more.  ‘Thought out more’ is actually what happened.  Missing fact number one that the panel simply could not rise to in analysis: the President directly ordered the de-escalation.  This is in step with his foreign policy pattern in similar decisions not to strike Syria or send arms to Ukraine (more on this later).  The President and his team including the FBI and ATF, groups immeasurably harmed by the Branch Davidian disaster, have showed an evolution in response: stand down and take good notes.  It is a dare, the President to the militias, as indicated by Harry Reid, ‘we are going to enforce the law, and now we are better prepared to quietly interdict all incoming armed militia response before it can dangerously assemble’.  The rule of law will preside, and the likelihood for a first response cataclysm has been for the time being averted.

Eugene Robinson, similarly missing the integral analysis of this event, called it a civil matter that the courts could decide as is prevalent in our higher order society.  Hey Gene, the 5 o’clock train left at 5, and it’s 7.  The civil matter was decided long ago, and this is more like Ruby Ridge than we’re allowing.  The civil matter, and this speaks to Nicole’s fundamental misrepresentation, has been decided appropriately (admittedly, that’s a guess given the asymmetry of the current judiciary) over a long amount of time.  The rancher Bundy refused to acknowledge the existence of a federal government, that million dollar accumulation of land use charges accrued over 20 years and was always billed. Bundy attempted to make the payments to the county he resides in, in keeping with his anti-federalist views, but the county couldn't accept the money on the federal government's behalf, in hindsight, I believe our President would ask for a more clever adaptation at this spot in the future, although that’s plausibly unrealistic, and/or, coddling a misanthrope. To attempt to label the current events as a civil matter is to grant some level of immunity to 20 years of willful violation of court orders and that’s not a civil matter.  What good is civil law if it’s not enforceable?

Nicole Wallace, when she tries to paint a picture of a sudden one million dollar bill, is being mischievous.  If I we’re a representative of the GOP, that is the last thing I would ever want to do as it stands on the very last tethers of credibility, driven into the margins by marginal belief sets treated as absolutes and defended with mischievous semantics across all topics.

This discussion imploded at this point and never recovered.  Wallace: ‘It’s not like he was getting monthly bills”, Truth: yes he was.  Wallace:  ‘I don’t see any guns’, Video: guns.  Barnicle: ‘there is a very disturbing segment of the population’, Truth: that was also on the 5 o’clock train you and Gene missed, those people have been around forever, but they seem to really bubble up when there’s a Democratic President.

The ultimate 5 facts short conclusion was attempted by Gregory as he trotted out the right versus left analysis to try and sum up the differences exasperated in this situation.  These warring parties are both margins on the right.  The militias are obvious, but what we aren’t talking about is that the agencies participating in the enforcement.  That conglomerate, both local federal agents and local law enforcement, is by no means some Obama ‘hope and change’ army.  Those people are the law enforcement right.  The US Attorney for the State of Nevada is a Republican.  If Nicole is the person representing the right in this discussion, the bickering parties are in essence two of her small toes ready to fight each other with guns.  The Democrats are at best in a position to referee the event, and Harry Reid is right in calling out the militia as ‘domestic terrorists’ and portraying the situation as a ridiculous escalation of gun toting immatures aggravated by not getting their way.  These are the people who blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.  The administration knows this and is positioning itself to regulate this and any ensuing action to the fullest of it’s abilities.

We are simultaneously monitoring the Ukraine, and in a stunning parallel, its a story with separatists with guns at odds with their government.  Lots of differences to be sure, but the US has to handle its domestic efforts in manner that allows it credibility at the table of that international affair with a ton of similar elements.

Having complex arguments on the fly is the recipe for Morning Joe.  Unfortunately the tendency towards unprepared analysis is prevalent.  Hard to say if anyone could do it better than these highly qualified people, but I suspect that both John Heilemann and Eugene Robinson wish for a more effective presentation of the whole situation in retrospect.  I clearly have the advantage of DVR multiple viewing playback and prepared response, so it’s not a fair counterpoint, except that the truth has to be advanced. John and Gene would want that.

It’s Time To Play Some Dodgeball

The Morning Joe Rebuttal for January 20th, 2010


Observations:


1) Here's how bipartisan progress should work: the majority and minority leaders and the committee chairmen of the various health care related committees get together in a binding selection framework.


Harry Reid gets to go first and says “no pre existing conditions” , Mitch McConnell gets to go second and says “tort reform” , Nancy Pelosi goes third and says “end to antitrust exemption”, John Boehner goes last and says “rescind state line limitations”


The two sides go back and huddle up for a day. And come back and see if there is a phase two selection. The selection is sudden death and there are five available attempts to get the first set of 4 selections complete or the process is scuttled for the congressional session. So if anyone says something and the following chooser says I can’t agree to that, the selection process is scuttled, and goes back to what we have now.


If any party says public option, the process is likely killed, if either party says unfunded mandate, the process is likely killed, but if the bipartisan horse trading results in progress for the free market system, we all win. Obviously, John Boehner could say with his last vote, “John Boehner for termless king” but that likely wouldn’t get 60 votes. Nor would abortion restriction, nor would medicare for all.


But what would happen is if the 4 things we need the most in the existing system were progressed in a bipartisan manner, it would avoid omnibus pig troughs and limit amendments and earmarks. That’s the rules in horse trading, an amendment is a fifth selection, and that wasn’t the bipartisan deal.


2) There is no doubt that the Brown victory is a victory for the American people. The American people gave Obama a fair chance to make his case, and his case was as popular as Ishtar. Health care has proven to be a feckless giveaway on par with the stimulus, which consensus says was misguided beyond all doubt.


Goldman Sachs, big pharma, the insurance industry, and the ethanol lobby all have a closer relationship with this administration than any citizen who voted for this President, thus making the lion’s share of his election mandate appear to be an absolute fraud to an angry electorate.


Blaming centrism for dilution and corporate giveaway is making matters worse. You are beholden to Lieberman and Nelson because you did not talk to the whole Republican party, just a couple of tokens. This was your own doing.


This math could’ve been overcome several ways, but they all had a common necessity: leadership. When we’re selecting managers for industry, we look to see if they manage by crisis or are out in front of potential trouble spots allowing at least some of them to be reduced to managed events rather than blowups. It’s been blowup after blowup after blowup on this executive’s watch, and he has just been made accountable.


3) As an optimist, I’m ready for year two to be Obama the tornado. What Bill Clinton found out early on, is that you sign the checks yourself. Clinton micromanaged and immersed like no President before him. He was obviously fluent in everything from Bosnia, to the oppositions contract with America.


You have every opportunity to be the ball in year two, and it starts with the horse trade above as an admission that you have not achieved your bipartisan goals and will need to reinvigorate that process to finish this health care agenda once and for all. A horse trade version of health care can be through the legislature in weeks. Make those leaders make that deal in your office, make them show up every Monday at 8 am until its done. That’s what being an executive is all about, they all work for you, including the opposition.


But it can’t stop there, you are going to need to clean house in Treasury. Austan Goolsbee and Elizabeth Warren have to move reform forward unencumbered by the industry interests. Your staff are directly executing the industry’s agenda, visible to voters who are choosing to vote against you until this changes.


Lastly, this Mohammed trial is a domestic loser beyond all scope. Now that it’s not Dick Cheney shooting holes in your patriotism, its Democratic voters saying they had no idea you we’re this far off of the grid when it comes to using our courts to protect the rights of admitted terrorists, your choice is clear. Let’s rush on domestic needs and slow down on Guantanamo and banning Tribunals until we can catch our breath on this. It appears you have grossly overcomplicated the already complicated.


We are at a historic crossroads. One more wrong move and this country will look a lot like what’s going on in Russia right now with our own Putin named Romney. I don’t think we have much longer to fight that off. And if that happens to us, how many other great societies go with us?


That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.

Morning Low

The Morning Joe Rebuttal for January 11th, 2010


Observations:


1) This is the very worst showing for Joe Scarborough since the show began. I agree often with the intellectual basis and strategy musings of Mr. Scarborough on Morning Joe and that continued even today. I was completely disappointed by his inability to control his petty glee. The quote “Negro Dialect” was uttered by JS 36 times. Again, I made that number up but stand by the larger point that his repetition was damaging to his long term credibility. Further, if you’re going to make a point of how destructive it is to give a peek at back room insight with a single contextually unclear quote…


… then you may not want to have a mock back room agreement with yourself, Andy Card, and Pat Buchanan where you wave an African-American genius like Jonathan Capehart off in a “let the men talk” manner, and then have a judge, jury, and executioner passage of judgment regardless of any of the other viewpoints that resultantly favors your minority standing as to what needs to prevail.


This is tantamount to protesting the murder of a single victim by murdering 36 more victims to show how bad murder is, then going to Simi Valley to find a jury of your peers.


2) But look, in that 36 repeat coda, the repeats fell off just enough in the second ninety minutes as the credible guests began lining up to try and repair context on your show. The shift moved to the book that appears to be a nuclear news generator. As a fan of what goes on behind the scenes, I’m riveted by all the stuff flying off of this phenomenon. John Heilemann and Mark Halperin make it clear that there is still a legion of background to learn as to how President Barack Obama happened. Is this a positively ending version of the Oliver Stone JFK style of event reading by either bugging or pretending to know what happened in the back room along the way?


I think the insinuation that Bill Clinton has a mistress while his wife is running for President, that he still thinks Barack Obama is an intern (the coffee quote has zero race in it, despite the shows mistaken consensus) is a news item that will have more legs going forward than anything else I've heard. The back room of the Democratic party definitely believed it, and thus shoved Hillary aside and made Barack president for the sake of the party’s survival. Wow.


3) We are going to have to examine the vacuum effect when a story like this grabs 99% of your three hours on the air. Howard Dean’s frustration was correct of intent but was useless in the face of the gravity of the Reid story. We saw Erin Burnett bumped, we saw health care shut out, we saw drone attacks uncovered, we saw the biggest story of the day, the bonus handout commencement, unmentioned. This country needs to hand out pitchforks and head to New York, yet the show followed the Harry Reid story exclusively like a trout after a spinner.


The bonus situation is so frustrating, because we are already saying a clawback 4-5 years in retroactive duration needs to occur, but we are allowing the another round of illegitimate redistribution of the nation’s wealth. The Wall Street firms are not just unapologetic, they are running around saying “get used to it”.


4) There is another darker examination of the Reid story that turns the Morning Joe show into a dupe. What if this is a Democratic back room strategy to make Harry Reid’s swan song be the health care vote, followed by a retirement, followed by Chuck Schumer as leader, followed by a healthier candidate showing themselves in Nevada that, like JS alluded to, had a Chris Dodd 'bad news on the singular issue made good news on five others' result. If Harry Reid’s goose is cooked prior to the story, what does the story accomplish that already wasn’t baked in? Mister X says follow the money.


This possibility means we are going to need Lawrence O’Donnell going forward, and without taking sides, if it's even questionable where Joe Scarborough’s work wound up today on the credibility map, shooting critics would be a major setback.


It’s just Monday people, take a breath and focus.


That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.

Suddenly, Joe Scarborough Is A Solution Machine

The Morning Joe Rebuttal for December 21st, 2009


Observations:


1) So there’s a list: reinstate antitrust, tort reform, and interstate availability that apparently cures cancer. Where was this list on any day previous to today? When have any of these items been presented as a bill to any congressional body by a Republican? Seemingly without memory, Joe Scarborough has provided a list of what’s missing from reform as he attacks the bill that is going to pass the Senate as of this morning. It is uniquely dishonest for a person who would never submit a solution to provide one from the sidelines only when beaten.


I’d like to have seen Mr. Scarborough do what he does best: call out the Republicans on the futility of obstructionism when the other side has 60 votes. It’s a landmark bill, but apparently Republicans are happy to sit on the sidelines when every single person willing to trade a difficult vote was going to the bank, and every progressive that could be taken for granted was having his pocket picked. That’s like passing on stock in Microsoft in 1982.


Now I shouldn’t say the Republicans got nothing, because they bathed in the cash shower from the health care industry lobby to maintain their disciplined obstruction, but if you’ve lost to the other side, and your money is just going to fund a much tougher campaign next time through, have you maximized?


2) Elections do have consequences, and the Democrats are going to lose seats in 2010. But, 2012 is another story, and the Republicans are going to need so many things to go wrong to get through two election cycles with growth while not doing a single good thing, all the while not making it obvious where their endless supply of campaign funding is coming from. It’s very interesting to point to the 2012 election with a mandate of further gains on health care reform, and banking reform, and cloture reform with a different business cycle and the results of continued Democratic majorities taking a stab at job growth, fiscal discipline and deficit reduction.


Think that’s a pipe dream? If Joe Scarborough didn’t have a personally promotional campaign daily about the effect his tenure in congress had on a balanced budget and deficit reduction, Bill Clinton would get 100% of the credit for the surplus years that ended the 90’s and greeted George Bush. Even with JS pointing to himself, Bill Clinton still gets 90% of the credit. So if you want to try and make a point that Democrats have no business talking about the surplus years, they can claim scoreboard and your attempts to take credit will only come off like sour grapes.


3) While I never expect an about face from Joe on his unending vitriolic stream of abuse directed at Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, it’s becoming obvious that he loses credibility with each demonstrable victory by them. This has become like saying you don’t like Kobe Bryant’s approach to basketball, when the world knows these people are accomplishing feats that you apparently can’t comprehend, let alone achieve.


Ever since Pelosi delivered the House bill, your dismissive tone when uttering her name with a grimacing difficulty has had an opposite effect. What is it when altruism leads you off a cliff? Are you going to do the same thing now with Reid, attempt to keep the attack up on a daily basis and hope the world hasn’t noticed your discredit is actually not holding up to history? Like a Fox viewer who doesn’t like the state of things so they listen to Glenn Beck say stuff that isn’t true but designed to tell the audience what they want to hear, will you continue to trumpet the denial of facts on the ground?


Ratings will probably go up, but the truth is still required at some point, so don’t wait too long.


That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.

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.

Scarborough Tries The Old Ball O’String Trick

The Morning Joe Rebuttal For November 25th, 2009


Observations:


1) Now look, any day that John Boehner looks bad is a good day for the truth. This person is the minority leader of the House of Representatives. They are currently in charge of obstruction of progress for the American people and have spent the last 2 years and 11 months trying to harm America, sell doublespeak as fact, and reinforce the movement of the distribution of wealth in our country forever northward.



But that’s not what Joe Scarborough intended when golf-gate was the main story today. It is that technique of using what amounts to a benign occurrence with very bad optics to appear to be closer to the middle, only to use that regained false credibility to attack a far more substantive matter: health care, jobs, Afghanistan, take your pick.


It’s what your older brother did to you in the back of the car on family trips to steal your ice cream sandwich, look {Morning Joe Viewer} there’s the worlds biggest ball of string, then BAM!, when your head’s turned your ice cream was gone!


Don’t let them get away with it. The best defense is to blithely play along, let the damage to Boehner be maximized, and then refute the first attempt by JS to use that momentum for any “see, I’m on your side” munitions. That’s called the engineered backfire technique and I know you’re up to it.


2) Speaking of doublespeak, I have an antidote for you, and his name is Dr. Howard Dean. If you had to trust any one person with your future, you have chosen Barack Obama, but if you ever wavered, ever wondered why so many Goldman guys are in power, why guys who are going to vote no anyway got to shelve anti-trust provisions for health care, why the American people are still in last place in the domestic food chain, who should you pick next? John Boehner and let commerce govern you for another eternity, or Howard Dean, the one guy on the planet left who didn’t have to be a billionaire already to tell you the truth and really govern.


Dr. Dean is like that guy on Fast Times At Ridgemont High who is “just flown in for games”. The reason he doesn’t have a gig right now, after managing the resurrection of the Democratic party culminating in the first sweeping majority in 35 years, is that he is the party’s designated hitter and free to attack whatever trouble spot exists while the party’s in power.


Dr. Dean has a position on health care and it’s the one that will serve as kryptonite to the right if needed. He will be the person who will be the face of reconciliation if that’s what it takes to put a bill through the Senate either pre- or post-conference containing real teeth. He is Harry Reid’s best friend in the world right now, and if you had a hellfire missile like him with a clumsy crusading army of obstructionist approaching, you would like your chances.


3) Independent voters the world over have a single motivating force: they know that both parties are forced to mislead them due to the structural engineering of their platform. If you don’t have 8 of 10 items right on your Republican checklist, guess what, you’re now an independent. If you didn’t want to reverse the annexation of the Panama Canal, ditto. This prevalence of managed messages and agenda talking points bundle stuff you need from either side and forces you to embrace or exile. Exile is where the overwhelming majority of Americans are today, and it’s a new kind of paradise in formation.


The Democrats know this and they are comforted going forward by showing the infighting that’s going on as healthy, hoping that independent voters will come back once they look at the Republican party and see the checklist. The checklist is absolute suicide, and lets hope it’s here to stay. John Boehner reading that checklist and looking like the principal in Breakfast Club, trying to represent the future? I must be dreaming.


John Hughes was a generational treasure.

Have a great Thanksgiving, see you Monday.