The Morning Joe Rebuttal for July 30th, 2010
Observations:
1) There are two distinct realities in irreconcilable conflict in the Arizona standoff. There are a probably 102, but the others are hierarchically beneath the main two. First, you cannot do a bad job of enacting and enforcing laws for two decades then wake up one day and declare the quid pro quo that your created over, and that each person invited into this country by the conditions you created are now criminals. Those people are victims. Those people are coming to the US to work because there is a demand for their labor.
We are 100 percent making the situation worse by having these business as usual laws that don’t make any sense, are not reality based, and there to openly flout. Think about it: the 55 mile an hour speed limit, the marijuana situation, underage drinking, you can’t go 10 feet in this country without a law that is so far beyond enforceable that to enforce it creates even greater problems which conspire to drain the economy, the workforce and the prospect for growth all beyond repair. We have a nation that chooses which laws they can abide by today based on a cost benefit analysis, the migrant worker just happens to have less rights available to them and is thus easier to pick on.
Second, we have a real need to create a national economic understanding where all of this illogic currently resides, because with each day that goes by, the living wage that Americans depend on is eroded one construction job at a time. This isn’t about dishwashers, field workers, or Burger King. Those jobs do not pay a living wage, they are jobs for people that can only hope to supplement a living wage coming from elsewhere, or they are poverty work. But the construction jobs, the meat packing facilities, the textile industry those jobs were able to pay a living wage, a wage that would keep a roof over a families head, provide health coverage, and a minimum of normalcy. Those jobs are being affected by the pool of migrant workers. That is a very bad thing in this economy because so many people have been tossed out of their chosen profession and are in need of a transitional living wage. In normal economic periods, people who opt to not complete college, people who need a professional existence despite not having a normal professional aptitude could look to these businesses to find a living wage. In desperate times, finding an illegal alien in the position that could keep you in your house, and finding that position now pays $11 an hour less because of access to that labor pool is a disaster.
Arizona’s attempt to solve the issue on it’s own seems like cave man drawings to most of us. The 55% of people who support the law don’t really support the law, they just happen to be in places across the country that just spent their first decade with guest labor taking jobs in formerly living wage industries. They know this has to stop, and are really, really angry that they have found yet another part of this country attempting to operate without effective governing.
This is a dangerous situation because now you’re hitting the everyman US citizen where it really hurts. The money saved by having migrant farm workers working in US agriculture was an abstraction to most US citizens, that 50 cents a head saved at the grocery on lettuce is hard to grasp as cause and effect. But in a construction industry already rocked by economic circumstances, competing with people who weren’t there 5 years ago for those jobs is bound to create boiling frustration. For good reason. If the results are states enact things that remind you of the segregated south or the Japanese internment, part of that shame rests in Washington. And if there is an irreconcilable difference in an area in need of good governing, do you think the current congress is capable of overcoming that, or will they yet again irrationally just say yes to both sides and make matters worse?
2) It was to my great dismay to see the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense holding a press junket to attack the WikiLeaks people. That ‘blood on his hands’ line was reprehensible and seemed like shooting down of the first order. The dismay stems from witnessing two people who don’t seem particularly ready to adapt to the new way of the world, where reporters won’t tolerate murdering reporters and will not abide by any military muzzling of video and facts on the ground.
This seems to me to be the two guys in charge of the military of the United States possessing a blind spot for all to see, including the enemy. The result of this negative optic, one would hope, will be a consensus exit from the region of expeditionary forces in the next 12 months. Any separation from that path has to be seen as old world military attempting to self-serve.
The WikiLeaks thing was meaningless except as a volume enhancer for the people wondering whether Obama has the military under control. We wrote off the McChrystal thing pretty fast, without really asking the question of control. Now with the White House racing to support the military in a reaction out of scale to the value of the leaks, I wonder if observers are rethinking the control issue.
Let’s not get lost in the court marshalling the leak culprits, and look for detail showing the evolution of the military. If this means one fewer pregnant woman is killed while flying innocently in South America, one fewer reporter along with every single person standing within 20 feet is mowed down by a helicopter in a scene that looked more like culling the populations than protecting servicemen, if one fewer Afghan citizen is allowed to die under a veil of illegal secrecy, if the military stops assuming classified means buried in terms of its self policing, we will likely have less Pat Tillman situations along side a better humanitarian record.
3) Rangel has left the building. He has shown to be in absolute denial of his circumstances. There is a whole new world out there, and it will not allow obstructionists to hide or cheaters to get away with it. I keep thinking about Rostenkowski and am a little disappointed that no one is doing a compare and contrast between these two situations.
But this isn’t about Rangel. Every time a thing dies another is born. As Charlie Rangel walked his career into a bright light one final time, it wasn’t to soft poetic music it was to the shrill scream of a young New York Congressmen named Anthony Weiner. Weiner has brought some element of lucidity back. And he has brought a passion that threatens to end the stand off as business as usual in the legislative branch. The real debate isn’t Boehner versus Pelosi. The real debate is Weiner versus Ryan.
Take your pick of subjects, immigration, health care, financial regulation, or the economy. You get the feeling that Weiner and Ryan could actually solve these issues in a bipartisan manner if given the opportunity. That opportunity of course will never come, but to at least know the answer is resident in the hall at a minimum provides the voter with a bellwether for progress in his or her own district.
Howard Dean is out of government. Joe Scarborough is out of government. Where are the pragmatists in the room? For the most part there aren’t any, there are several pretend pragmatists who leave their agenda behind like a script when the camera turns off, but for the most part Ryan and Weiner are a small minority surrounded by political machinery attempting to milk the old world legislative chicanery for all it’s worth while it still exists. But take it from someone in the record business, or the construction business, don’t ever think how it is now has any permanence, because sea change can be just one megatrend like 24 hour coverage split 538 ways away.
Mr. Rangel and Mr. Weiner appear to be showing that metamorphosis happening.
That’s all for today, see you Monday.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Line Up The Other 999 Guys
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for July 27th, 2010
Observations:
1) It’s an interesting summarization of the Democratic prospects for the mid term elections that Morning Joe can go on about the debate between Charlie Rangel and the House Democratic caucus for an hour. How do you think you will lead the House of Representatives next year if one of your most senior members is holding the election hostage for personal gain? He is putting his exit legacy before the prospects for Democrats holding the house. He has the votes to be elected in his district even if he wasn’t breathing, so close elections of others in his caucus are irrelevant to Mr. Rangel.
That is the story of the transition Democratic party. Back when this stuff was out of public view, save the margin of people who bookwormed the Washington Post, this kind of politics was what you needed to do to keep your party intact, keep your district strong like a small kingdom. Now that the fallout is shared amongst the entire body, it’s the opposite of what is needed to be done, and that transition is lost on Charlie Rangel. It is not lost on the voter, and while Charlie can hold his district hostage, he does it at the expense of guys like Tom Perriello, and apparently a generation ago that was ok, which is all that Charlie knows.
2) The conversation attempted to recapture yesterdays glory on Afghanistan and Pakistan, with little resultant success. It actually seemed like they knew they were just not going to get it back so the effort was moderate to token, a rehash of what everyone not named Zbigeniew said yesterday.
Ari Fleischer channeled Rudy Giuliani like a pro, adding a center right fight song to Buchanan’s outlier right positions, but you need an audience, and a dialogue and there was none. Richard Haass (I need to go back and add that “s” for the last year) got his chance to seem Zbig, and found out what happens when someone else already put their flag up, that it’s a race for second place at this point.
Our protagonist then joined the cast from afar and threw his newly minted post-Brzezinski version of AfPak in, to predictably little effect.
What should have happened? First off, the talking points should have been forced to bounce off of tape of Mr. Brzezinski’s AfPak theory of relativity from yesterday, but that tape was missing. It felt like the strategy was to give Haass the chance to recreate it, but when that didn’t happen, there was no plan b.
Second, Mika needs to know when to do what she’s good at, and today that could have been her contacting the guests on her show with a challenge that they were not saying anything new or advancing the conversation. Mika has the ability to get a conversation to a ‘what now’ sensibility, but for whatever reason she allowed this conversation to regress to the mudbath it became today.
Third, if Barnicle wants to be more than the cranky poet, he shares Mika’s responsibility from #2 above as a failsafe. Today, to put it in baseball terms, it was Barnicle being Barnicle, which means he droned his same and similar take from the last 6 months and could not be an impetus.
The bottom line is the advance of the conversation for today should have been, are we overreacting? Do we have a template that allows the Afghanistan conflict to move to the rear view mirror in the next 12 months, do we have an obligation to spend these next 12 months cleaning up what 8 years of mismanagement caused, or were those 8 years actually appropriate action given what doesn’t work as strategy in Afghanistan that might have worked in Iraq. If so, how is the policy shift even possible if you kept the Defense Secretary from the last administration?
We are on the right path, you don’t have a light switch for Afghanistan, it takes a reasonable amount of time to exit and Obama has told all parties he will be out of Afghanistan with expeditionary forces in 12 months, reserving the right to keep a reactionary force ad infinitum, which might’ve been all that was ever warranted.
5 experts, no dice.
3) Mika did drive one conversation all the way to critical mass today, and it was like watching cockroaches scatter. Ken Feinberg was forced to acknowledge that he optioned to not identify high value targets in the over compensation of Wall Street scandal. He went further saying that it was an option that he didn’t completely research the boundaries of, he just made a practical judgment. Mike Barnicle, smartened from Harold Ford Jr.’s pratfall yesterday, camouflaged his horror knowing his summer party circuit would be severely infringed upon if that high value target list found daylight. But no amount of camouflage could completely conceal Ken and Mike were part of an ‘Old Boys’ network and that possibly Mika asking the obvious was an unexpected genesis.
What we need now is with Feinberg’s template, that Julian Assange makes a ‘maps to the stars homes’ for the eastern seaboard. No I don’t want class warfare, red herrings, I want to continue to ratchet up the pressure for the clawback conversation. What happens on the way to the clawback versus pitchfork debate is a lot of capitulation. Because lets face it, billionaires on Wall Street and their lawyers are impenetrable by contract but the most cowardly class of individuals you will ever meet if they see a squeeze of any sort coming.
Capitulation might mean voluntary programs from any affected company to breathe life into the middle class. If the choice is these types of programs, or income redistribution, and you had the income, what would you choose? Don’t say that is high minded fantasy either, go back and check the price of gas in the US every time a Republican wants to get elected. Something tells me if mortgage forgiveness ever found equitable platitude standing, it might seem like forgiving those already sunk losses might be an easy choice for a frightened capitalist.
Mika, say it with me, clawbacks. That’s where your question leads, and your colleague Dylan Ratigan can tell you all about it. You may need a translator. Or, you could call Matt Taibbi, but he flat out uses the word pitchforks in a sentence daily.
Don’t look at anyone on your panel to join you, they are part of the 999 guys brought in by Jeff Immelt to slow the story down, not the 20-30 guys who won’t stop until daylight shines on all of us equally.
Too bad you don’t have another dad named Nassim Taleb.
Observations:
1) It’s an interesting summarization of the Democratic prospects for the mid term elections that Morning Joe can go on about the debate between Charlie Rangel and the House Democratic caucus for an hour. How do you think you will lead the House of Representatives next year if one of your most senior members is holding the election hostage for personal gain? He is putting his exit legacy before the prospects for Democrats holding the house. He has the votes to be elected in his district even if he wasn’t breathing, so close elections of others in his caucus are irrelevant to Mr. Rangel.
That is the story of the transition Democratic party. Back when this stuff was out of public view, save the margin of people who bookwormed the Washington Post, this kind of politics was what you needed to do to keep your party intact, keep your district strong like a small kingdom. Now that the fallout is shared amongst the entire body, it’s the opposite of what is needed to be done, and that transition is lost on Charlie Rangel. It is not lost on the voter, and while Charlie can hold his district hostage, he does it at the expense of guys like Tom Perriello, and apparently a generation ago that was ok, which is all that Charlie knows.
2) The conversation attempted to recapture yesterdays glory on Afghanistan and Pakistan, with little resultant success. It actually seemed like they knew they were just not going to get it back so the effort was moderate to token, a rehash of what everyone not named Zbigeniew said yesterday.
Ari Fleischer channeled Rudy Giuliani like a pro, adding a center right fight song to Buchanan’s outlier right positions, but you need an audience, and a dialogue and there was none. Richard Haass (I need to go back and add that “s” for the last year) got his chance to seem Zbig, and found out what happens when someone else already put their flag up, that it’s a race for second place at this point.
Our protagonist then joined the cast from afar and threw his newly minted post-Brzezinski version of AfPak in, to predictably little effect.
What should have happened? First off, the talking points should have been forced to bounce off of tape of Mr. Brzezinski’s AfPak theory of relativity from yesterday, but that tape was missing. It felt like the strategy was to give Haass the chance to recreate it, but when that didn’t happen, there was no plan b.
Second, Mika needs to know when to do what she’s good at, and today that could have been her contacting the guests on her show with a challenge that they were not saying anything new or advancing the conversation. Mika has the ability to get a conversation to a ‘what now’ sensibility, but for whatever reason she allowed this conversation to regress to the mudbath it became today.
Third, if Barnicle wants to be more than the cranky poet, he shares Mika’s responsibility from #2 above as a failsafe. Today, to put it in baseball terms, it was Barnicle being Barnicle, which means he droned his same and similar take from the last 6 months and could not be an impetus.
The bottom line is the advance of the conversation for today should have been, are we overreacting? Do we have a template that allows the Afghanistan conflict to move to the rear view mirror in the next 12 months, do we have an obligation to spend these next 12 months cleaning up what 8 years of mismanagement caused, or were those 8 years actually appropriate action given what doesn’t work as strategy in Afghanistan that might have worked in Iraq. If so, how is the policy shift even possible if you kept the Defense Secretary from the last administration?
We are on the right path, you don’t have a light switch for Afghanistan, it takes a reasonable amount of time to exit and Obama has told all parties he will be out of Afghanistan with expeditionary forces in 12 months, reserving the right to keep a reactionary force ad infinitum, which might’ve been all that was ever warranted.
5 experts, no dice.
3) Mika did drive one conversation all the way to critical mass today, and it was like watching cockroaches scatter. Ken Feinberg was forced to acknowledge that he optioned to not identify high value targets in the over compensation of Wall Street scandal. He went further saying that it was an option that he didn’t completely research the boundaries of, he just made a practical judgment. Mike Barnicle, smartened from Harold Ford Jr.’s pratfall yesterday, camouflaged his horror knowing his summer party circuit would be severely infringed upon if that high value target list found daylight. But no amount of camouflage could completely conceal Ken and Mike were part of an ‘Old Boys’ network and that possibly Mika asking the obvious was an unexpected genesis.
What we need now is with Feinberg’s template, that Julian Assange makes a ‘maps to the stars homes’ for the eastern seaboard. No I don’t want class warfare, red herrings, I want to continue to ratchet up the pressure for the clawback conversation. What happens on the way to the clawback versus pitchfork debate is a lot of capitulation. Because lets face it, billionaires on Wall Street and their lawyers are impenetrable by contract but the most cowardly class of individuals you will ever meet if they see a squeeze of any sort coming.
Capitulation might mean voluntary programs from any affected company to breathe life into the middle class. If the choice is these types of programs, or income redistribution, and you had the income, what would you choose? Don’t say that is high minded fantasy either, go back and check the price of gas in the US every time a Republican wants to get elected. Something tells me if mortgage forgiveness ever found equitable platitude standing, it might seem like forgiving those already sunk losses might be an easy choice for a frightened capitalist.
Mika, say it with me, clawbacks. That’s where your question leads, and your colleague Dylan Ratigan can tell you all about it. You may need a translator. Or, you could call Matt Taibbi, but he flat out uses the word pitchforks in a sentence daily.
Don’t look at anyone on your panel to join you, they are part of the 999 guys brought in by Jeff Immelt to slow the story down, not the 20-30 guys who won’t stop until daylight shines on all of us equally.
Too bad you don’t have another dad named Nassim Taleb.
Monday, July 26, 2010
My Dad Knows Everything
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for July 26th, 2010
Observations:
1) Is it just me or was the self editing of the Scarborough take before and after Zbigniew Brzezinski’s segment gargantuan? Joe Scarborough declared war on all of Pakistan at approximately 7:05 AM EST, then Brzezinski called all pundits who describe all of Pakistan as the enemy dangerous for their lack of dimensional understanding. Then Joe Scarborough came back on the show after Mr. Brzezinski had left and claimed they had agreed all along.
Brzezinski showed a 360 degree view of Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Iran, Russia, China, Israel, and Saudi Arabia that contained each of their inter-connections. No one else aside from maybe Richard Haas with an Ipad could possibly have done that. Maybe it was unfair to Scarborough, who deserved to have his opinion evolve given the watershed of thought brought by Brzezinski. I just would have preferred to have it be more honest, with Scarborough using his own comeuppance as a teaching moment for all Americans trying so desperately to understand what we’re facing.
That’s right, what we’re facing. If we are spending all this money, blood and treasure over there, why should it be so hard to arrange and prioritize all the facts? Why can only one guy out of a thousand potential guests be able to adequately explain what’s going on? And why does it seem that the only reason Morning Joe is relevant or dominant on this issue is that the co anchor is related to that one guy who takes the time to explain what our reality in that region is?
Is it possible that there are interested parties out there that want this information to remain scarce? Is it possible, if you follow the money, that we are only actually accessing this logical path by accident, but money would have otherwise lined up the other 999 pundits to dilute the issue prior to any possible crystallizing moment?
There must be a reason for the lack of clarity here somewhere. But the persons out there nudging the conversation towards it’s logical center are heroes. Julian Assange of WikiLeaks is among those people who peel away the scab now and again. When I see Democratic administrations use the “put American lives in danger” red herring in the face of this kind of activity, it moves beyond the hypocritical pale you would normally have labeled a Republican response, it moves into a post partisan ‘who is left to trust’ zone.
Zbigniew Brzezinski talked about this a little bit today, but from a distance. He talked about the dangerous progression of policy in Afghanistan that started in the early Obama speeches, into a nuanced tightrope of a US national policy last December, and now into a space where the policy is dictated by ‘events on the ground’. The summation of this path, said Brzezinski, is that Obama has ceded control to the military. The conflict of interest in having the military running this war is what Assange is talking about. Obama’s speeches in Turkey and Egypt were about a new American accountability, one that has re-vanished in 20 months.
Assange, for his pursuits, is targeted in the US with arrest in connection with the last WikiLeaks project that showed a US helicopter mowing down tens of Iraqi’s for no apparent reason, and has been forced by the certainty of his eventual arrest by our government, to release all the information he has prior. He wants to be sure that the people who might hope to contain damaging information have to continuously remain accountable. His arrest would be catastrophic for American foreign policy.
2) Before the fireworks concerning the WikiLeaks situation got underway, there was another quasi-scuffle early when Harold Ford tested out a pro-Bank of America sound byte. It didn’t go well. Ford wanted to make the point that the big banks paid back the TARP money and should be credited for making the US taxpayer and the US Treasury whole.
When you have Pat Buchanan lunging out of his chair at you and you are pro-commerce, it is not a good day in lobby land. Ford made what amounts to the classic ‘this little sliver of the story is the whole story – the end’ attempt. It’s a great tragedy that any credibility that he may have possessed left today, and that he chose to try and airbrush out the zero interest fed window loan direct to T-bills for profit scandal that will be in history books everywhere in 25 years. Harold also got called out on the AIG 100 cents on the dollar windfall scandal, one that will be in the same history books, and in his hasty back pedal admitted those derivative repayments probably shouldn’t have been at full value.
So, Harold, it’s just you and Brian Moynihan at lunch later today, and you’re reviewing how it went, you made Bank of America look like it wanted to move on, the TARP signified the end of the bad part of the financial crisis, that the tax free windfalls from the AIG bailout and the Fed window were deserved riches, and the future is bright.
Bank of America bought Countrywide during the meltdown. Countrywide owns more toxic mortgages than anyone. Wait, it owns the contract to service those mortgages having long ago transferred the nefarious valuation of those assets to either Fannie, Freddie or the Treasury, even Pat Buchanan knows that. So does that make the Halliburton-like relationship BofA now possesses to extract fees in maintenance on all these horrible loans scandal number 3? Did Bank of America see the future and buy all the toxic loans knowing the US government was going to trade insolvent assets for for T-bills so that two broke entities could shell-game up their part of the 23 trillion dollar scam?
And did you Harold, highlight this stuff as if you were a new pro consumer, anti BofA WikiLeaks, by simply sticking your toe in the water to see if you could float? “Hey Brian, watch this!”
3) After all that why I would embark on what is next is beyond me. The mid term elections and all elections subsequent are going to get so much media attention that a voter should be understandably overwhelmed by the coverage. While you watch people like Chuck Todd try and explain where “it” will be found in November, are you really able to tether to that singular fact which may or may not drive whatever faraway congressional election, and be convinced that result may have some bearing on your life?
What Americans don’t have is a personal relevancy scorecard. What companies do you do business with? What is your stake in the war in Afghanistan? Is it employment based or do you have a participant in your family? What is your prognosis for employment for the next 18 months, 5 years, to retirement? What is the effect of the last question upon your ability to provide health care for yourself or your family? What is the condition of your school system? What major corporations have recently infuriated you with predatory fine print, or made you wealthier via investment?
All too often, we are fighting someone else’s battle. It’s a common theme here that many of the votes cast in American elections are proxy votes. I tend to illustrate the fear proxy vote that elects my opponents, but in fairness union votes are generally the same. But this isn’t a sinister plot, it’s more a battle to empower the population that would normally enumerate voter attrition. People don’t vote because they don’t have access to what the choices mean to them. Proxy votes get them to the ballot with a thought in their head, it’s just not their own thinking.
These days even the big newspapers make a scorecard that shows their voting choices and their reasons, but essentially turn their readers into proxy votes. The right thing to do to promote voting in the new independent world would be if those same newspapers printed the architecture of the personal relevancy scorecard alongside their choices so that a person could look at the equation result of their vote.
I think Joe Scarborough would agree with me on this. We differ on abortion, not the act, but the legality of the act. But I have heard Mr. Scarborough complain consistently about litmus voting, and that is precisely what I am talking about here. I would hate to have a person find out later that they voted away their United Airlines pension based on a litmus issue like abortion. Understanding the various effects of their vote might be a solid way to get a centrist voting base to begin to generate votes that truly govern their country.
The first step is to admit proxy votes are votes for the dark side, and attrition would have been better. That might be “it” Chuck, Barack, and Rahm!
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations:
1) Is it just me or was the self editing of the Scarborough take before and after Zbigniew Brzezinski’s segment gargantuan? Joe Scarborough declared war on all of Pakistan at approximately 7:05 AM EST, then Brzezinski called all pundits who describe all of Pakistan as the enemy dangerous for their lack of dimensional understanding. Then Joe Scarborough came back on the show after Mr. Brzezinski had left and claimed they had agreed all along.
Brzezinski showed a 360 degree view of Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Iran, Russia, China, Israel, and Saudi Arabia that contained each of their inter-connections. No one else aside from maybe Richard Haas with an Ipad could possibly have done that. Maybe it was unfair to Scarborough, who deserved to have his opinion evolve given the watershed of thought brought by Brzezinski. I just would have preferred to have it be more honest, with Scarborough using his own comeuppance as a teaching moment for all Americans trying so desperately to understand what we’re facing.
That’s right, what we’re facing. If we are spending all this money, blood and treasure over there, why should it be so hard to arrange and prioritize all the facts? Why can only one guy out of a thousand potential guests be able to adequately explain what’s going on? And why does it seem that the only reason Morning Joe is relevant or dominant on this issue is that the co anchor is related to that one guy who takes the time to explain what our reality in that region is?
Is it possible that there are interested parties out there that want this information to remain scarce? Is it possible, if you follow the money, that we are only actually accessing this logical path by accident, but money would have otherwise lined up the other 999 pundits to dilute the issue prior to any possible crystallizing moment?
There must be a reason for the lack of clarity here somewhere. But the persons out there nudging the conversation towards it’s logical center are heroes. Julian Assange of WikiLeaks is among those people who peel away the scab now and again. When I see Democratic administrations use the “put American lives in danger” red herring in the face of this kind of activity, it moves beyond the hypocritical pale you would normally have labeled a Republican response, it moves into a post partisan ‘who is left to trust’ zone.
Zbigniew Brzezinski talked about this a little bit today, but from a distance. He talked about the dangerous progression of policy in Afghanistan that started in the early Obama speeches, into a nuanced tightrope of a US national policy last December, and now into a space where the policy is dictated by ‘events on the ground’. The summation of this path, said Brzezinski, is that Obama has ceded control to the military. The conflict of interest in having the military running this war is what Assange is talking about. Obama’s speeches in Turkey and Egypt were about a new American accountability, one that has re-vanished in 20 months.
Assange, for his pursuits, is targeted in the US with arrest in connection with the last WikiLeaks project that showed a US helicopter mowing down tens of Iraqi’s for no apparent reason, and has been forced by the certainty of his eventual arrest by our government, to release all the information he has prior. He wants to be sure that the people who might hope to contain damaging information have to continuously remain accountable. His arrest would be catastrophic for American foreign policy.
2) Before the fireworks concerning the WikiLeaks situation got underway, there was another quasi-scuffle early when Harold Ford tested out a pro-Bank of America sound byte. It didn’t go well. Ford wanted to make the point that the big banks paid back the TARP money and should be credited for making the US taxpayer and the US Treasury whole.
When you have Pat Buchanan lunging out of his chair at you and you are pro-commerce, it is not a good day in lobby land. Ford made what amounts to the classic ‘this little sliver of the story is the whole story – the end’ attempt. It’s a great tragedy that any credibility that he may have possessed left today, and that he chose to try and airbrush out the zero interest fed window loan direct to T-bills for profit scandal that will be in history books everywhere in 25 years. Harold also got called out on the AIG 100 cents on the dollar windfall scandal, one that will be in the same history books, and in his hasty back pedal admitted those derivative repayments probably shouldn’t have been at full value.
So, Harold, it’s just you and Brian Moynihan at lunch later today, and you’re reviewing how it went, you made Bank of America look like it wanted to move on, the TARP signified the end of the bad part of the financial crisis, that the tax free windfalls from the AIG bailout and the Fed window were deserved riches, and the future is bright.
Bank of America bought Countrywide during the meltdown. Countrywide owns more toxic mortgages than anyone. Wait, it owns the contract to service those mortgages having long ago transferred the nefarious valuation of those assets to either Fannie, Freddie or the Treasury, even Pat Buchanan knows that. So does that make the Halliburton-like relationship BofA now possesses to extract fees in maintenance on all these horrible loans scandal number 3? Did Bank of America see the future and buy all the toxic loans knowing the US government was going to trade insolvent assets for for T-bills so that two broke entities could shell-game up their part of the 23 trillion dollar scam?
And did you Harold, highlight this stuff as if you were a new pro consumer, anti BofA WikiLeaks, by simply sticking your toe in the water to see if you could float? “Hey Brian, watch this!”
3) After all that why I would embark on what is next is beyond me. The mid term elections and all elections subsequent are going to get so much media attention that a voter should be understandably overwhelmed by the coverage. While you watch people like Chuck Todd try and explain where “it” will be found in November, are you really able to tether to that singular fact which may or may not drive whatever faraway congressional election, and be convinced that result may have some bearing on your life?
What Americans don’t have is a personal relevancy scorecard. What companies do you do business with? What is your stake in the war in Afghanistan? Is it employment based or do you have a participant in your family? What is your prognosis for employment for the next 18 months, 5 years, to retirement? What is the effect of the last question upon your ability to provide health care for yourself or your family? What is the condition of your school system? What major corporations have recently infuriated you with predatory fine print, or made you wealthier via investment?
All too often, we are fighting someone else’s battle. It’s a common theme here that many of the votes cast in American elections are proxy votes. I tend to illustrate the fear proxy vote that elects my opponents, but in fairness union votes are generally the same. But this isn’t a sinister plot, it’s more a battle to empower the population that would normally enumerate voter attrition. People don’t vote because they don’t have access to what the choices mean to them. Proxy votes get them to the ballot with a thought in their head, it’s just not their own thinking.
These days even the big newspapers make a scorecard that shows their voting choices and their reasons, but essentially turn their readers into proxy votes. The right thing to do to promote voting in the new independent world would be if those same newspapers printed the architecture of the personal relevancy scorecard alongside their choices so that a person could look at the equation result of their vote.
I think Joe Scarborough would agree with me on this. We differ on abortion, not the act, but the legality of the act. But I have heard Mr. Scarborough complain consistently about litmus voting, and that is precisely what I am talking about here. I would hate to have a person find out later that they voted away their United Airlines pension based on a litmus issue like abortion. Understanding the various effects of their vote might be a solid way to get a centrist voting base to begin to generate votes that truly govern their country.
The first step is to admit proxy votes are votes for the dark side, and attrition would have been better. That might be “it” Chuck, Barack, and Rahm!
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Friday, July 23, 2010
2 Very Short Videos, 2 Very Different Outcomes
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Two For One
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for July 21st, 2010
Observations:
1) I wish I could say that it was ESP that made me refuse to write about yesterdays show. I wish that I could honestly claim that I saw through the Breibart-infused ‘Drudge journalism’ that got so much media attention yesterday, and that I was waiting for the other shoe to drop today. But I was right there with the rest of the population more marginally confused by what I was seeing (being fed) than out in front. I didn’t understand Ms. Sherrod’s muffled take, I didn’t understand the firestorm from the media, I didn’t understand the government reaction, but I didn’t have a suspicion either.
The shoe dropped and now the Morning Joe show has had what can only be described as an uber-hypocritical moment. They have been doing this for some time, because they are analysts first and journalists second. But to have the revelations that we had today, and to stop short of apologizing, for even its Licht-researched version of events yesterday was irresponsible to journalistic endeavor, is troubling. Let’s also be honest that the show dodged a bullet with it’s loudest analyst off the set when he would have been the most susceptible of making that embarrassing video that would have been played to the shows detriment forever.
Whatever the roots, whatever the self-cleansing motives today, the net result was accurately portrayed: that the White House has yet another devil in the details embarrassment to try and explain away. This notion that there is an administrative feather trigger left over by the Gates debacle from a year ago is interesting but unconvincing. What is convincing is the take that the White House refers to the 24 hour news cycle as a detriment to judgment, but then participates and governs on that basis showing an immature haste. Yea, Scarborough got to launch some really painful zingers ala ‘if this is how they handle this, we need someone else in charge to handle Iran’. The White House has to circle this comment and remember this day, making it’s judgments on this basis, and understanding the scale commentary of Mr. Scarborough’s quip. In this case the 24 hour news cycle is useful, showing the risk associated from lacking an even keel in it’s own wake.
2) I hope the show got advertising money for letting Mike Papantonio on, because that was the most disgusting case of ambulance chasing I’ve ever seen nationally televised. Thank heaven that Mike Barnicle nailed that guy, the first time in history the ‘what have we learned today’ segment was useful. But to get away with unbacked comments like ‘Ken Feinberg is no Mother Theresa’ while telling desperate people to get involved in a class action lawsuit is shameless, and the show that lets it happen is equally so.
Lawyers serve some purpose in this country, but it will never be defined by their unjust compensation nor their unjust control over our lives. Anyone can sue anyone, but the legal ramifications of a lawsuit is entirely means based. You only sue rich people, you can only afford so much defense, you often find allowing the wrong version of events to proceed is better because of the out of scale cost of litigation. True centrists will acknowledge this is one item that Republicans have right, if they could ever remember to bring it up in it’s purest sense. They never will because like everything else, it’s only time for legal reform when it prevents competitive markets and free enterprise, but legal reform where it prevents fine print predation on the part of companies and usury is perfectly ok.
But in the case of the BP oil spill the math is simple, and opposite of Mr. Papantonio’s take. It may hurt to wait until August 1st, that may be month 4, but Mr. Feinberg is the very best possible outcome for an individual, and the first option available to you that doesn’t feed more than two mouths in the process. C’mon Scarborough, that sucked.
3) Campaign contributions like the 501 c (4) ‘tax exemption while hidden’ formats are used by both sides of the political spectrum. But it is dirty wherever it’s used. You have a right to free speech, but not while hidden. That’s a hate crime. What I would like to see in response to the Rove mandated national swift boat campaign is a national light of day campaign. I want anyone participating in these attacks to be found out and susceptible to dollar votes. Dollar votes are really costly to companies. They face boycotts, they face competitive headwinds, they in the end aren’t worth it if bought on a false basis of confidentiality but traced like so many other cover-ups in this country.
I want the company or individual about to embark on a self convinced lark of assassinating someone’s character from a false province of privacy to have the same chance at ultimate confidentiality that a person getting a medical marijuana card or a Patriot Act library card options themselves: not likely. It should only be a matter of time before every donor of every dollar of the 50 million planned for by Rove is highlighted and forced to absorb the true political cost of their free speech.
Ultimately it was worth it for T. Boone Pickens to swift boat John Kerry. I’m personally more of a fan of Pickens than Kerry, but that particular transaction was so out of scale unjust, it can’t go on as a way of life in a Democracy. The middle class has to equip itself with methods to make this practice unprofitable and politically unfavorable.
You are being duped America, our ruling class is using you to vote away your own rights so they might exploit the nation’s riches more efficiently. You fight their oil wars, you pay for their risk insurance on Wall Street, corporate taxes are less than 7% of national revenue, they expect to profit from every transaction in your life: health, defense, public safety, education, even Social Security. Don’t believe me? United Health, the owner of Blue Cross/Blue Shield/Anthem, the monopoly health insurer in California that did not get its 39% rate increase last quarter, just announced it’s earnings for that quarter, and they were up 31%.
If that’s equity, I’m equitably more motivated to reverse this trend.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations:
1) I wish I could say that it was ESP that made me refuse to write about yesterdays show. I wish that I could honestly claim that I saw through the Breibart-infused ‘Drudge journalism’ that got so much media attention yesterday, and that I was waiting for the other shoe to drop today. But I was right there with the rest of the population more marginally confused by what I was seeing (being fed) than out in front. I didn’t understand Ms. Sherrod’s muffled take, I didn’t understand the firestorm from the media, I didn’t understand the government reaction, but I didn’t have a suspicion either.
The shoe dropped and now the Morning Joe show has had what can only be described as an uber-hypocritical moment. They have been doing this for some time, because they are analysts first and journalists second. But to have the revelations that we had today, and to stop short of apologizing, for even its Licht-researched version of events yesterday was irresponsible to journalistic endeavor, is troubling. Let’s also be honest that the show dodged a bullet with it’s loudest analyst off the set when he would have been the most susceptible of making that embarrassing video that would have been played to the shows detriment forever.
Whatever the roots, whatever the self-cleansing motives today, the net result was accurately portrayed: that the White House has yet another devil in the details embarrassment to try and explain away. This notion that there is an administrative feather trigger left over by the Gates debacle from a year ago is interesting but unconvincing. What is convincing is the take that the White House refers to the 24 hour news cycle as a detriment to judgment, but then participates and governs on that basis showing an immature haste. Yea, Scarborough got to launch some really painful zingers ala ‘if this is how they handle this, we need someone else in charge to handle Iran’. The White House has to circle this comment and remember this day, making it’s judgments on this basis, and understanding the scale commentary of Mr. Scarborough’s quip. In this case the 24 hour news cycle is useful, showing the risk associated from lacking an even keel in it’s own wake.
2) I hope the show got advertising money for letting Mike Papantonio on, because that was the most disgusting case of ambulance chasing I’ve ever seen nationally televised. Thank heaven that Mike Barnicle nailed that guy, the first time in history the ‘what have we learned today’ segment was useful. But to get away with unbacked comments like ‘Ken Feinberg is no Mother Theresa’ while telling desperate people to get involved in a class action lawsuit is shameless, and the show that lets it happen is equally so.
Lawyers serve some purpose in this country, but it will never be defined by their unjust compensation nor their unjust control over our lives. Anyone can sue anyone, but the legal ramifications of a lawsuit is entirely means based. You only sue rich people, you can only afford so much defense, you often find allowing the wrong version of events to proceed is better because of the out of scale cost of litigation. True centrists will acknowledge this is one item that Republicans have right, if they could ever remember to bring it up in it’s purest sense. They never will because like everything else, it’s only time for legal reform when it prevents competitive markets and free enterprise, but legal reform where it prevents fine print predation on the part of companies and usury is perfectly ok.
But in the case of the BP oil spill the math is simple, and opposite of Mr. Papantonio’s take. It may hurt to wait until August 1st, that may be month 4, but Mr. Feinberg is the very best possible outcome for an individual, and the first option available to you that doesn’t feed more than two mouths in the process. C’mon Scarborough, that sucked.
3) Campaign contributions like the 501 c (4) ‘tax exemption while hidden’ formats are used by both sides of the political spectrum. But it is dirty wherever it’s used. You have a right to free speech, but not while hidden. That’s a hate crime. What I would like to see in response to the Rove mandated national swift boat campaign is a national light of day campaign. I want anyone participating in these attacks to be found out and susceptible to dollar votes. Dollar votes are really costly to companies. They face boycotts, they face competitive headwinds, they in the end aren’t worth it if bought on a false basis of confidentiality but traced like so many other cover-ups in this country.
I want the company or individual about to embark on a self convinced lark of assassinating someone’s character from a false province of privacy to have the same chance at ultimate confidentiality that a person getting a medical marijuana card or a Patriot Act library card options themselves: not likely. It should only be a matter of time before every donor of every dollar of the 50 million planned for by Rove is highlighted and forced to absorb the true political cost of their free speech.
Ultimately it was worth it for T. Boone Pickens to swift boat John Kerry. I’m personally more of a fan of Pickens than Kerry, but that particular transaction was so out of scale unjust, it can’t go on as a way of life in a Democracy. The middle class has to equip itself with methods to make this practice unprofitable and politically unfavorable.
You are being duped America, our ruling class is using you to vote away your own rights so they might exploit the nation’s riches more efficiently. You fight their oil wars, you pay for their risk insurance on Wall Street, corporate taxes are less than 7% of national revenue, they expect to profit from every transaction in your life: health, defense, public safety, education, even Social Security. Don’t believe me? United Health, the owner of Blue Cross/Blue Shield/Anthem, the monopoly health insurer in California that did not get its 39% rate increase last quarter, just announced it’s earnings for that quarter, and they were up 31%.
If that’s equity, I’m equitably more motivated to reverse this trend.
That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Levitated By The Reporting Of The Day
The Morning Joe Rebuttal for July 19th, 2010
Observations:
1) You could say it was the rest of a weekend, or that parts of the show that were struggling showed signs of correcting their challenged areas, but the solid performance and sweeping coverage of issues today was a direct result of simply being there to point at some damn fine journalism occurring elsewhere.
Again, it’s the format, where Dana Priest can get a double segment at the top of the hour to go over her groundbreaking article in the Washington Post. Nowhere else can that kind of magnified coverage and roundtable be had on the day of issue.
The other part of this that seemed like an evolving program was that the cast got out of the way of the story as opposed to trying to own it. This reveals a deftness that might not have existed with Joe Scarborough on the set. We have commented previously both ways on this issue, that Scarborough has too heavy a hand, especially on intelligence issues, to stand aside to journalistic endeavor, and also that sometimes his manner of revealing is necessary and without it the story goes by unchecked. This was the former, although we will never know if I’m right. We only know that a Mika-chaired roundtable came to the story with a sophistication that recognized where the journalists were, and where the analysts were.
2) Part two of the progress had to do with the Charlie Melancon interview. There was a real depth to the analysis on why Louisiana is misunderstood on it’s honest disapproval of any drilling moratorium.
There was a great point missed in the interview, that the local reliance on the oil business should put the burden on the disaster not on the oil companies, who need to do what they do, but on the US Government and any department of which is responsible for preventing the necessary work from being done unsafely. The equation that the Federal Government is key to the sustainability of this industry should be a model for a lot of the trouble facing America right now. It’s not that business is bad, nor that it should get a free reign, but that regulation with an eye towards true sustainability and credibility is so necessary that it is likely the most important growth center for government currently.
Listen to the Charles Blow accreditation of the Louisiana position. They need this work, and while it’s easy to criminalize BP, that is short term thinking and we will need to find a way to remove reckless action in an absence of rules and enforcement before we can generally expect different outcomes.
3) Is Biden cheerleading? Probably. But I believe that a Democratic shocker is a very possible outcome in the mid term elections. The message that Democrats have is so completely the high ground, that it actually plays to Obama’s style of 4th quarter heroics. Now the downside of this theory is that this is yet another first time through for a new President who has shown a clear ability to fall flat. History may not be fairly analyzed here where we talk about the mid term elections of the great modern Presidents being backlash driven.
No matter which version is dominantly correct, it has to be said that ‘first time through’ for a President who was never a Vice President is ultimately a factor in why so many of these first mid term elections go so poorly. Yea there is backlash, but why is there backlash? Because while Obama is getting the big things done, he is befuddled by the little things, seemingly on a daily basis. That is the sign of those oft-mentioned ‘speed of the game’ issues. He isn’t the only one to fall victim. And the American voter is proving to be ultimately one dimensional in their quick read of events. These are bad omens.
But the likelihood of the Democratic shocker is bolstered by a couple of very important events: the holding of the high ground and the ability to paint the accurate negative message around the do-nothing Republicans, and the continued underestimation of Nancy Pelosi. What do you need to win? Money, manifesto, rectitude. John Boehner or Nancy Pelosi? One of them has it all, the other maybe one, maybe one and a half on a good day with ample sunshine.
That is a referendum of such disproportion that it could ultimately sway some stuff unexpectedly.
That is all for today, see you tomorrow.
Observations:
1) You could say it was the rest of a weekend, or that parts of the show that were struggling showed signs of correcting their challenged areas, but the solid performance and sweeping coverage of issues today was a direct result of simply being there to point at some damn fine journalism occurring elsewhere.
Again, it’s the format, where Dana Priest can get a double segment at the top of the hour to go over her groundbreaking article in the Washington Post. Nowhere else can that kind of magnified coverage and roundtable be had on the day of issue.
The other part of this that seemed like an evolving program was that the cast got out of the way of the story as opposed to trying to own it. This reveals a deftness that might not have existed with Joe Scarborough on the set. We have commented previously both ways on this issue, that Scarborough has too heavy a hand, especially on intelligence issues, to stand aside to journalistic endeavor, and also that sometimes his manner of revealing is necessary and without it the story goes by unchecked. This was the former, although we will never know if I’m right. We only know that a Mika-chaired roundtable came to the story with a sophistication that recognized where the journalists were, and where the analysts were.
2) Part two of the progress had to do with the Charlie Melancon interview. There was a real depth to the analysis on why Louisiana is misunderstood on it’s honest disapproval of any drilling moratorium.
There was a great point missed in the interview, that the local reliance on the oil business should put the burden on the disaster not on the oil companies, who need to do what they do, but on the US Government and any department of which is responsible for preventing the necessary work from being done unsafely. The equation that the Federal Government is key to the sustainability of this industry should be a model for a lot of the trouble facing America right now. It’s not that business is bad, nor that it should get a free reign, but that regulation with an eye towards true sustainability and credibility is so necessary that it is likely the most important growth center for government currently.
Listen to the Charles Blow accreditation of the Louisiana position. They need this work, and while it’s easy to criminalize BP, that is short term thinking and we will need to find a way to remove reckless action in an absence of rules and enforcement before we can generally expect different outcomes.
3) Is Biden cheerleading? Probably. But I believe that a Democratic shocker is a very possible outcome in the mid term elections. The message that Democrats have is so completely the high ground, that it actually plays to Obama’s style of 4th quarter heroics. Now the downside of this theory is that this is yet another first time through for a new President who has shown a clear ability to fall flat. History may not be fairly analyzed here where we talk about the mid term elections of the great modern Presidents being backlash driven.
No matter which version is dominantly correct, it has to be said that ‘first time through’ for a President who was never a Vice President is ultimately a factor in why so many of these first mid term elections go so poorly. Yea there is backlash, but why is there backlash? Because while Obama is getting the big things done, he is befuddled by the little things, seemingly on a daily basis. That is the sign of those oft-mentioned ‘speed of the game’ issues. He isn’t the only one to fall victim. And the American voter is proving to be ultimately one dimensional in their quick read of events. These are bad omens.
But the likelihood of the Democratic shocker is bolstered by a couple of very important events: the holding of the high ground and the ability to paint the accurate negative message around the do-nothing Republicans, and the continued underestimation of Nancy Pelosi. What do you need to win? Money, manifesto, rectitude. John Boehner or Nancy Pelosi? One of them has it all, the other maybe one, maybe one and a half on a good day with ample sunshine.
That is a referendum of such disproportion that it could ultimately sway some stuff unexpectedly.
That is all for today, see you tomorrow.
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