The Morning Joe Rebuttal for March 18th, 2010
Observations:
1) Because of a delay in the CBO estimate, today’s Morning Joe show was essentially a do over of yesterdays show as it pertains to the health care bill on it’s way to passage and it’s implications. Only Dennis Kucinich was available as a fresh news item. In the process of the rehashing guess what, all of the same conclusions were reached.
Through all the celebrity features, there was a deafening noise emanating from the Democrats. A silence so vacuous that it could peel paint.
It’s that thing that you do when you’re about to close the deal. You shut up. The worst thing you can do when you have the votes and are simply waiting out the CBO and 72 hours, is fuel any of the waning fires of Republican opposition.
The Republicans released their plan for obstruction in the Senate. That also wasn’t news. Joe Scarborough essentially listened to the plan and then quoted me: do the Republicans know Joe Biden holds the gavel?
2) I am learning something in this 7th level vacuum environment. There are indications that the theory of premature elation by Republicans of a turning tide with Scott Brown and a few other mini victories are a valid sign of coming greater success.
The real story is that everyone will now be reading the health bill like they used to read the Sears Christmas catalog in August and September. That voters will perceive the new law as the features and benefits brochure for keeping the Democrats in power.
If the economy continues to slug out modest gains, that will be enough to say the worst is over. The artifice of financial reform, while hollow to any expert, will be enough to sell the same incremental approach that is working on health care, that is, incremental after the comprehensive starter package.
The international situation is both good and bad, but it appears that the stories change from bad to good in the order that Obama prioritizes them. Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are widely recognized as the early priorities and having shown the kind of improvement that can’t be denied. Any troubles with Iran, China, North Korea or Israel can bee seen as the story being continuous and trouble that will be handled with a steady hand when our busy country gets a free minute.
And comparatively, what do the Republicans have? Hell, even Scott Brown is keeping his options open.
3) If Bill Clinton was the genesis of ‘red state vs blue state’ as we know it, it might answer some questions that have plagued the Democrats self-definition. I am deeply troubled by the Bob Reuben led charge to repeal Glass Steagall in 1999 during a Democratic presidency. I feel like today helps me understand the environment where a concession to Wall Street like that might occur.
In the divisive environment that has resulted since the red-blue stalemate developed, there has been zero progress that required sacrifice, only giveaways. Repeal of Glass Steagall might have been a giveaway to attempt to have an accomplishment of record in what was a very weak moment of the Clinton presidency.
It was followed by Bush tax cuts, Bush overspending, Bush Wars while we shopped, the pharma deal, and these two Obama mandates on health and finance. All of which were giveaways of one form or another because neither side would allow a sacrifice without a lynching.
This allows for the entry of the irrational voter that we’ve discussed here and the Morning Joe show has touched on. The voter, if given the opportunity, will vote for lower taxes, more services and outright denial that the national debt will ever have to be repaid. It’s a giveaway culture. But if you touch entitlements or raise taxes or cut services, you are toast.
This is by no means a story with an ending, what passes Congress this week fits neatly into it in it's undeniable pattern of a lack of credible sacrifice for the greater good.
But at least, we are one step closer to recognizing the origins of our current madness.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow
Showing posts with label bill clinton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bill clinton. Show all posts
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Morning Joe Misses Hindenburg, Tackles Small Chinese Balloon Instead
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for January 12th, 2010
Observations:
1) Well thank goodness the offensive repetition count was lower today, but Joe Scarborough is unending in his "coverage" of the apparent double standard in the Reid story, when no one cared about it anymore. This story belonged with Snooki somewhere today and yet, while less of a leader than yesterday, still had 51% of airtime. It’s a sad state of affairs and it seemed that the center of the revival was that a junior MSNBC writer overnight remembered Officer Crowley, thus, apparently the holy grail of the double standard was uncovered.
For me, rather than weigh in where it’s useless to, the only merit to asking for a quick end to this episode is that you will need your credibility later, arguing race is like arguing with a 5 year old, you just don’t do it, and bottom line, you might be being duped, and might harbor regret in the near future that you couldn’t see it in real time.
2) I just won’t rest on the lack of inclusion of the Wall Street bonus scandal in the Morning Joe program. It is an absolute atrocity that one of the chief advertisements for the show, run incessantly on MSNBC, involves Joe Scarborough quoted as saying “the endless pursuit of class warfare just won’t work”. Look, I think the show needs a life coach to tell them that 4 months ago when Joe’s name was on tip sheets everywhere as the next Fred Thompson, he was getting traction on a populist basis. To abandon that basis by focusing the show anywhere but the Wall Street scandal is a dilution of the show’s star’s character.
The administration's bank fee as it was divulged is lip service. The show also divulged that by the enactment of the campaign for the bank fee, the administration is in fact conceding that they are powerless to enact any reversal of a 24 trillion dollar heist that is more on their watch than the previous administration’s. That Tim Geithner is obstructing the release of information regarding the terms of the Fed bailout and the internal emails of AIG, a company the US is currently a custodian of, ad continuum without media scrutiny, is a hit on the long standing media bias claim of this show and others.
Yes, media is selective, yes it is sometimes seduced by perceptions of right and wrong rationalizing levels of coverage and intent. There is no doubt at this point that the New York Times caused Fox News. But your job, if you can really tell when they’re lying, is to confront those lies and those crimes, and not hack at the useless sand of race instead.
3) Bill and Hillary Clinton did an awful lot for the United States of America, and continue their work today. They had a powerful, insider savvy, protecting layer of professional managers marshaled to counterbalance the machine of their opposition. An opposition machine whose size, effectiveness and magnitude is unimaginable to 99.9% of the population. At the end of the day these were just two individuals who drew up an architecture. They knew what they were facing, got out a calculator, and said simply: “to beat them if they’re this big, we will need this support (Bill Gates), this lever (New York Times), this budget (Hollywood, George Soros), this visualization (Steven Spielberg), and this message (Fleetwood Mac) and a Canada-sized truckload of luck.
That the architecture worked will be covered in political science manuals forever. That it showed the difference between campaigning and governing will as well. That it was the phenomenon that made a next generation phenomenon possible, the Clintons created the atmosphere that Obama advanced, will over time to be accepted as political evolutionary fact.
To see them betrayed in these last few days, isn’t heart breaking or even disappointing. It’s a nod to their prowess. They are in fact just two individuals who thumbnailed a plan and executed it to heights before unseen.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations:
1) Well thank goodness the offensive repetition count was lower today, but Joe Scarborough is unending in his "coverage" of the apparent double standard in the Reid story, when no one cared about it anymore. This story belonged with Snooki somewhere today and yet, while less of a leader than yesterday, still had 51% of airtime. It’s a sad state of affairs and it seemed that the center of the revival was that a junior MSNBC writer overnight remembered Officer Crowley, thus, apparently the holy grail of the double standard was uncovered.
For me, rather than weigh in where it’s useless to, the only merit to asking for a quick end to this episode is that you will need your credibility later, arguing race is like arguing with a 5 year old, you just don’t do it, and bottom line, you might be being duped, and might harbor regret in the near future that you couldn’t see it in real time.
2) I just won’t rest on the lack of inclusion of the Wall Street bonus scandal in the Morning Joe program. It is an absolute atrocity that one of the chief advertisements for the show, run incessantly on MSNBC, involves Joe Scarborough quoted as saying “the endless pursuit of class warfare just won’t work”. Look, I think the show needs a life coach to tell them that 4 months ago when Joe’s name was on tip sheets everywhere as the next Fred Thompson, he was getting traction on a populist basis. To abandon that basis by focusing the show anywhere but the Wall Street scandal is a dilution of the show’s star’s character.
The administration's bank fee as it was divulged is lip service. The show also divulged that by the enactment of the campaign for the bank fee, the administration is in fact conceding that they are powerless to enact any reversal of a 24 trillion dollar heist that is more on their watch than the previous administration’s. That Tim Geithner is obstructing the release of information regarding the terms of the Fed bailout and the internal emails of AIG, a company the US is currently a custodian of, ad continuum without media scrutiny, is a hit on the long standing media bias claim of this show and others.
Yes, media is selective, yes it is sometimes seduced by perceptions of right and wrong rationalizing levels of coverage and intent. There is no doubt at this point that the New York Times caused Fox News. But your job, if you can really tell when they’re lying, is to confront those lies and those crimes, and not hack at the useless sand of race instead.
3) Bill and Hillary Clinton did an awful lot for the United States of America, and continue their work today. They had a powerful, insider savvy, protecting layer of professional managers marshaled to counterbalance the machine of their opposition. An opposition machine whose size, effectiveness and magnitude is unimaginable to 99.9% of the population. At the end of the day these were just two individuals who drew up an architecture. They knew what they were facing, got out a calculator, and said simply: “to beat them if they’re this big, we will need this support (Bill Gates), this lever (New York Times), this budget (Hollywood, George Soros), this visualization (Steven Spielberg), and this message (Fleetwood Mac) and a Canada-sized truckload of luck.
That the architecture worked will be covered in political science manuals forever. That it showed the difference between campaigning and governing will as well. That it was the phenomenon that made a next generation phenomenon possible, the Clintons created the atmosphere that Obama advanced, will over time to be accepted as political evolutionary fact.
To see them betrayed in these last few days, isn’t heart breaking or even disappointing. It’s a nod to their prowess. They are in fact just two individuals who thumbnailed a plan and executed it to heights before unseen.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
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