Continuing Discussion About Barack Obama’s Effectiveness.

In my last post entitled: "Bulletin with Humor" I wrote: “I intend hereafter to discuss where we should cut expenditures, where additional revenue should be sought, and will also distinguish between what I believe is desirable but politically impossible and what might actually be achieved, if not now, at some future time. I will also try to address the economic theories that lie at heart of political philosophy and evaluate their merits and to what extent our political leaders have been adhering to such economic theory as their foundation."

I have now decided to put this off to my next post and to revert to the ongoing debate which we have been having about the merits of the President’s policies and the constant charge that he is ineffective and a poor leader, which comes from both sides if the political spectrum.

In my long debate with Leonard Levenson Esq. of Manhattan, NY, which can be found in my blog posting "The Trojan Horse – Comments II (continued)," I had the very unusual result of having my protagonist actually admit that I am right.

This was so satisfying that I cannot resist quoting it again:

You may have a point when you suggest that my anger at Obama is really disappointment at the lack of progress that I hoped for. Perhaps no Democrat could have made any substantial progress against the know nothing Republicans. I think I would have preferred a battle royale (even a losing one) than accepting a weakened Health care Bill, an inadequate deficit reduction bill and the many other compromises, which Obama probably was forced to make.

I only wish that more people had such an open mind.

At this point I want to conclude this debate by sharing with my readers an exchange, which I had with Robert Malchmna Esq. of Brooklyn, NY. He called to my attention a New York Times Magazine article entitled "What Would Hillary Clinton Have Done?" I assumed that the article was sent to me with approval and wrote back:

Thanks! Yes I do find it interesting. It parallels to a large extent what I have been saying, and say even more emphatically in my next post.

But then Malchman called to my attention a comment that he had posted on the Times web site that clearly indicated that he agreed neither with me nor with the Times article; He wrote:

I think in broad policy areas, the writer is correct that there was little to distinguish Obama and Clinton during the primaries. The reason I voted for Clinton (and I agonized over it) is that I was afraid that Obama's first years in office would be like Bill Clinton's and Jimmy Carter's -- that is, a struggle to understand how to move the levers of power and to get a legislative agenda through Congress. Clinton, both from her time as First Lady and by then eight years as Senator, knew how to work those levers.

I believe my fears have proved correct. Obama certainly has some substantial accomplishments, but where's the strong public option for health care? Where's the closing of the budget gap by taxing families making over $250,000? Indeed, where's the surtax on incomes over $1 million? Obama failed to strike while the iron was hot, with a House majority and 60 votes in the Senate before Ted Kennedy's death. That health care didn't pass until late in his second year is a disgrace. That the Bush tax cuts were left to the lame-duck session and extended for the wealthy is a disgrace. That the debt-ceiling issue wasn't resolved at the same time as the Bush tax cuts is a disgrace. Obama seems woefully naive about Republicans and their single-minded goal to defeat him, regardless of the damage they do to this country. I don't think Clinton is so naive; she appreciates the machinations and goals of the vast, right-wing conspiracy. No one can know for sure, of course, but I think the country would have been better with President Hillary Clinton.

I frankly was taken aback and disappointed and responded with:

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Dear Robert,

I was rather surprised and disappointed by your Comment 21 as posted to the Times site.

I keep preaching facts first, then opinions based on those facts. You assume that "Clinton, both from her time as First Lady and by then eight years as Senator, knew how to work those levers. But there is no evidence to support this. There are no facts to support this. It is pure speculation. Her accomplishments as Senator are hardly existent.

If we go by her and her husband’s accomplishments, they are meager indeed. As fist lady she spectacularly failed to get any traction in her own party for her health care bill and as I said in my post "The Trojan Horse - Comments":

Clinton did a terrific job in raising taxes early in his term, which together with an agreement with Fed Chairman Greenspan, to lower interest rates, brought on the eight most prosperous years in a very long time and wiped out the deficit. But he was lucky to get it passed. It passed by a tie vote in the Senate with the VP breaking the tie, which by the way shows that bringing prosperity is not a sure fire way to win a mid-term election.

Nevertheless, Clinton after losing the midterms, swung Right, employed that hired gun, Dick Morris, became famous for triangulation, and presided over, among many other things, the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act, which probably was largely responsible for the bank crisis, presided over the abolition of Welfare, signed into law the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and couldn't stop the enactment of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). (And this wasn't just in the first term, it extended into the second.)

Yet the base never savaged him. Somebody tell me why these Presidents are treated so differently?

Well, maybe because Obama unrealistically promised both to be a post-partisan and a transformational President, which are contradictory and impossible to achieve. But it should have been obvious that these are aspirational goals, not achievable ones.

You say: "Obama failed to strike while the iron was hot, with a House majority and 60 votes in the Senate before Ted Kennedy's death." without getting the facts as to how long this window was. If you count when Franken was sworn in and when Kennedy died we have a window of less than two month from July 8, 2009, when Franken was sworn in and August 26th when Kennedy died. Not too much of a window to get anything done in a Senate where the rules, at best, require slow movement. But even that is deceptive because the 60 votes were never really there because Kennedy was hospitalized on January 21, 2009, long before he died, and after that made only rare appearances on the Senate floor. Furthermore there were Democratic defections, most notably Lieberman, who threatened to himself lead a filibuster against the public option, and some other Dems as well.

Compare Obama's achievement against any other Democratic President (set forth in my blog posts "The Trojan Horse - Comments" and "The Trojan Horse – Comments II") since Roosevelt with the exception of Johnson, and he comes out well ahead in accomplishments, despite the fact that he has faced far more partisan and reckless opposition.

The Bush tax cuts extension was a calculated decision that getting the treaty with Russia, unemployment insurance, and some other stimulative measures was a careful balancing act. The economy was first and we could not leave a major security risk, and the tax cut extension was for only two years, not as you imply for an indefinite period.

On the debt ceiling issue, 20/20 vision is wonderful. Did anybody, and I mean anybody, worry about a debt ceiling that had routinely been passed every time it came up, at that point. Oh, but Obama is tasked with seeing things that nobody else saw. And who says he could have gotten it. If he had raised it and not gotten it, he would have been savaged for having been the one who gave the Tea party the idea. Besides a two year extension would have been almost unprecedented.

It is very easy to list things undone. But what counts is what was done. Compare all the Democratic Presidents since Roosevelt with the exception of Johnson, including Kennedy, for their accomplishments.

FACTS FIRST, THEN OPINIONS!!!!!

Regards,

Emil

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I was disappointed not to have received a concession from Malchman similar to what I got from Levenson.

But the Pundits keep up their attacks on Obama. I have came across another two lately, both in Newsweek, which under the aegis of Tina Brown tries to recover its audience by becoming ever more sensationalist. They are “The Untransformational President" by Michael Tomasky, where the author says; “He signed a debt deal in which the Republicans took him to the cleaners” but like all the others neglects to tell us what the deal is or why he considers it to be a bad deal. Facts – Where are the facts? I have demonstrated, heretofore that it was in fact an advantageous deal. and "Oval Office Appeaser" by William Broyle, who compares our President to Chamberlain. (Talk about over the top) Apparently these people, like the Tea Party, consider any compromise to be appeasement, no matter how advantageous it is.

Are these friends? Or as Lenny Levenson referred to them “putative friends?”

Now we have had a hurricane that descended on our East coast. Will Obama be tasked for not having stopped it, or at least be charged, no matter what he does, with having a Brownie moment, so that it can be claimed that Obama is the new Bush. Does anybody really believe that?

I am reminded of an incidence when my daughter was about three years old and a thunder and lightening storm descending upon us. She was frightened and she said to me: “ Daddy, Make it Stop!” I explained that I did not have that power, and she exclaimed, “Well, You could at least try!”

We are not children and the President is not our Daddy!!! He is not God, nor a dictator, nor does he have a magic wand!!!

It is time to stop bellyaching and concentrate our fire on those whose vision for our country is anathema to me, and I hope to most of you. It is time to close ranks unless anyone out there truly thinks that the candidates of the Republican party dominated by the Tea Party, will do anything other than make our short range situation worse, and destroy all the things that we have built, in a truly bi-partisan way, from Theodore Roosevelt (R), to Wilson (D), To FDR (D), to Johnson (D) to Nixon (R) and even Clinton who wiped out our deficit and put us on the path to wiping out our National Debt, now Barack Obama (D) and even Eisenhower (R) who so meticulously built our Highway System, now under attack as just another socialist boondoggle that needs to be privatized.

Bulletin with Humor

My last post was "The Trojan Horse – Comments II (continued)," and I intend hereafter to discuss where we should cut expenditures, where additional revenue should be sought, and will also distinguish between what I believe is desirable but politically impossible and what might actually be achieved, if not now, at some future time. I will also try to address the economic theories that lie at heart of political philosophy and evaluate their merits and to what extent our political leaders have been adhering to such economic theory as their foundation.

At this point allow me to depart from my usual serious discussion and interject these humorous but revealing items, which I hope you will circulate to your friends, and ask them to circulate them to their friends.

Stephen Colbert came up with this funny, but revealing video on the Iowa straw poll and Michele Bachmann’s part in it.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

And courtesy of our subscriber and author, Steven Baird M.D., of Solona, California, this ditty to be sung to the tune of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." If any of you can actually perform it, or know someone who can, it would be perfect for You Tube.

Republicans give us some strange explanations
For the recession now gripping all nations.
But do you recall the strangest one of them all?

Poor folks have too much money
And the rich don't have enough.
Though you think that sounds funny,
That's the reason times are tough.
Don't tax the rich; look elsewhere,
And I'm sure that you'll admit
It's giveaways like welfare
That produced the deficit.

If you feed a horse some hay
You'll soon realize
As he canters on his way,
He'll drop something for the flies.

So give the rich tax rebates
For we know that trickle-down
Puts something on poor folks' plates,
Even though it may be brown.

The Trojan Horse – Comments II (continued)

In my last post "The Trojan Horse – Comments II" I responded to only half of Leonard Levenson’s comment. My earlier response can be found by clicking on the title shown in brown above. Leonard Levenson’s full comment can be found here.

I will here continue with my response showing his arguments in quotations and my responses in the body.

Before negotiations got a full head of steam he made a public announcement that the 14th Amendment argument was not a winning argument. You say the public would not have supported such a move. The public is interested in results...not the niceties of the literal adherence to arcane provisions in the constitution. A strong argument by him to Boehner that he was prepared to use the 14th Amendment would have gotten him enormous public support and put the fear of god in the Republicans. Compared to the outrages to the constitution by Bush such as the institution of torture as official Government policy and Bush's bill signing declarations, Obama's threatened use of the 14th amendment have had the seriousness of spitting on the sidewalk in a Draconian Penal Code.

It would have been downright stupid for the President to announce in advance that he would rely on the 14th amendment, if the debt ceiling were not raised. That would have let Republicans completely off the hook. Negotiations would have come to a halt. Michelle Bachman would have announced her vindication, proving that she was right all along that failure to raise the debt ceiling would not resulted in default, and the President would have been on the defensive charged with abusing his office by ignoring the will of Congress in order to “continue his spending spree”. Thus a situation where the public was increasingly hostile to Republicans in general and the Tea Party in particular, would have been completely turned around.

Yes, the 14th amendment could have been used with the public's support, if the negotiations had broken down, default had occurred, the stock market had crashed, the economy was in shambles, and the President was acting in an emergency under the 14th amendment. But this was to be avoided at almost all costs, because by that time the economy would have been so damaged as to almost irreparable, something to be avoided at almost all costs.

Obama is a good man but naive in his belief that he could work with the Republicans. If he could make that realization today there might be hope for his Administration. But I fear that he has yet to learn how to play hardball, a skill that the Republicans excel at. Right now we need a nasty, hard-biting, backroom, dirty, skilled politician... not a Constitutional Law Professor. We need a Johnson, a Roosevelt, or a left wing Bush. Instead we have a Woodrow Wilson who couldn't sell ice in the Sahara.

Rah, Rah, --- but the fact is that Obama is a brilliant negotiator, who understands that there is a time for partisan rhetoric and a time to be low key. Yes, I too was disappointed with his inaugural address as Drew Weston complained in the New York Times. But Weston was nit picking almost three years after the fact when it had become fashionable to criticize the President. The President must be judged by results in a political climate unequaled in memory, and as I have pointed out the results would have been impressive even in a less hostile climate. That is what counts.

It should also be noted that in our system of government obstruction is much easier than positive accomplishments.

Lastly, perhaps you can explain why we still do not have relations with Cuba...a largely executive function;

I think Levinson knows why! For the same reason that the hero of the base, (I will be damned if I know why.) John F. Kennedy set this policy in motion. And every President since (I count eight) has continued this policy. Why does Levenson task this President for not doing what nine other Presidents have not done? That shows an unreasoned search for things to criticize.

why we still have troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea, Japan, and Europe plus Military advisory personnel in virtually every right wing country on Earth. When do we learn that supporting Corrupt Governments fighting populist insurgent uprisings can never be successful? How many Vietnams do we have to go through in one lifetime? Do we really need an active military strength of 1.6 million and 200,000 in Europe, 70,000 in S. Korea and Japan, 475 in Honduras and 988 on Diego Garcia? Who are we afraid of? Distribution of our troops is a presidential function as is the size of our army.

That is a lot of lumping. South Korea, Japan, and Europe are Corrupt Governments fighting populist insurgent uprisings? “The size of our army” is a Presidential function? Not since the last time I read the US Constitution! Section. 8. “ The Congress shall have the Power… Clause 12: To raise and support Armies…”

Even in Afghanistan the Taliban can hardly be called a “populist insurgent uprisings.” And as for the rest, our troops have been spread to many countries since the WW II. Just like that – this President is supposed to magically make everything all right with the world. That is a fairy tale world. That is a world of magic wands that should be waved. It just is not the real world. And why didn’t Levenson raise this Banner when all the other Presidents were in office, counting how many since the end of Vietnam? Lets get real!

Would I rather have a Republican in the White House than Obama? Perhaps, if Abe Lincoln were reincarnated! But that doesn't mean we should stop pushing Obama to see reality.

I think it’s the other way around. Obama is very much in touch with reality. It is his critics, as I have demonstrated at length, who are out of touch with reality.

Nor should he believe that the Left has no place to go. We will always vote for him but we may not work for him with the old passion and enthusiasm so important in a campaign nor contribute our money.

It is all the same. Anything less than the most vigorous support of our President would risk turning the country over, not just to Republicans as we used to know them, but to the most extreme, radical and irresponsible bunch that have ever, (or at least since the Great Depression) threatened the welfare of our people. That threat alone should bring more vigor than ever before, This bunch makes G.W. Bush look like a responsible statesman. I contend that we have a President we should be enthusiastic about and one who has under the most difficult circumstances, compiled a record that other Democratic Presidents would have envied, but the threat of Tea party dominance should be enough to sound the bugle.

Since publishing my first installment of The Trojan Horse – Comments II I heard from Levenson again. He wrote:

Thank you for sharing your views with me with regard to Obama. You cannot be serious when you say that my views "represent a closing of one's eyes to facts which contradict preconceived ideas....” I had no greater political desire than to have Obama succeed. I contributed more money and work to his campaign than any other presidential campaign I worked on....including the Nixon McCarthy debacle. My views evolved after 2 1/2 years and evolved very reluctantly.

I will not respond to all of your comments other than to say that my vote (1 time) for Reagan is not a very powerful argument against the validity of my criticism of Obama. Additionally, I do not deny that Obama has been responsible for many worthwhile accomplishments such as the Health Care bill. But even the Health Care Bill must be looked at realistically. For example, most of its important provisions do not take effect until 2014 which make it vulnerable to repeal before its virtues can be shown to the public.

Let me conclude by suggesting that all those that criticize Obama are not his enemies but are merely trying to push from the Left so that he realizes that there is a constituency there that requires his attention.

To which my response was:

First, I probably owe you an apology for referring to your vote for Reagan. That was a cheap shot.

When you say that I can't be serious when I say that your views, (and more importantly the views of the pundits and the many who share your views) "represent a closing of one's eyes to facts which contradict preconceived ideas...." I refer to preconceived ideas of what Obama could be expected to accomplish and how. What I refer to as expecting that he had a magic wand. This is not at all at variance with your having been very enthusiastic about Obama and having worked your tail off for him. It fits right in with it.

What I am saying is that having worked so hard you had totally unrealistic expectations of what he could do, and when those expectations were dashed you became angry. Again I am speaking less about you individually, but rather the many for whom you speak.

On the Health Care law there is no chance of it being repealed even if Obama were to lose since any attempt at repeal would be subject to a filibuster. I can't answer why many of its effects were delayed until 2014 without spending more time than I am prepared to do, but I am sure that its authors felt that it was vital that other aspects had to be in place before others could go into effect. There has to be a modicum of trust that the people who made these decisions knew what they were doing. The greatest danger to the bill is the US Supreme Court, but that is something that no one can avoid.

The base, and you are part of that base, basically wanted Obama to take on the Right and not compromise. Maybe that would have been satisfying, but nothing would have been accomplished, and I mean nothing. Not the stimulus, not health care and very few of the many accomplishments I list.

You say: "I do not deny that Obama has been responsible for many worthwhile accomplishments" but that is exactly what you did in your last presentation to which I was responding.

Tell me, if you can, why are his Left wing critics so anxious to besmirch him that they are even resorting to outright lies about the compromise on the budget, which I think was a very favorable one if one looks at the details.

And I received a very satisfactory reply:

No apology is necessary for your reminding me of my Reagan vote. In fact, I found it funny. Of all the ad hominem attacks you could have used against me, the worst was "he voted for Reagan.” Words like "corrupt,” "stupid,” "racist" or "bigot" would not have hurt as much as saying that I voted for a Republican.

You may have a point when you suggest that my anger at Obama is really disappointment at the lack of progress that I hoped for. Perhaps no Democrat could have made any substantial progress against the know nothing Republicans. I think I would have preferred a battle royale (even a losing one) than accepting a weakened Health care Bill, an inadequate deficit reduction bill and the many other compromises, which Obama probably was forced to make.

Before I close I need to take cognizance of one other attack. It came from Herb Reiner of Clifton, NJ, but more important it was repeated in the New Yorker in an article by John Cassidy where he wrote: “In retrospect, the White House erred last December in not demanding a raise in the debt ceiling as the price of extending the Bush tax cuts.“ Well, in retrospect, like hindsight is always 20/20. So why pile on another criticism. But let us examine it. What good would it have done? These things always go to the deadline. Asking sooner would either have produced an extension too short or no extension until default was imminent. But what makes it even more ridiculous is that the Administration in fact did ask for an increase, not in December, but in January (Close enough). See here for Tim Geithner's letter to Harry Reid.

Why don’t these pundits at least check their facts before spilling ink on paper and ranting about things they don’t begin to understand? It does not serve the cause they pretend to serve and it does not even serve them when people finally begin to understand how much nonsense they have subjected them to.

The Trojan Horse – Comments II

I have received another comment to my post: "The Trojan Horse - Comments." It came from Leonard Levenson Esq. of Manhattan, whose relatively long dissertation can be found in full here

I am reproducing his arguments in quotations with my responses below.

Levenson’s response is exactly what I have been railing against. It represents a closing of one’s eyes to facts that contradict one’s preconceived notions, which are planted by our “wonderful media and their pundits,” who have even less interest in facts or even logic.

I set forth in my earlier posts, a huge number of major accomplishments by the President and his Administration, some of which Levenson may been have been aware of, and many of which he may have forgotten or never knew. But instead of saying thank you for reminding me, I get “they are minor.”

I was an early and enthusiastic supporter of Obama but like eroding drops of water on granite, his record is eroding my enthusiasm for him. I do not doubt the sincerity of his social views but he has been ineffective in implementing the important changes that concern me.

I have been trying to understand the irrational hatred of our President by those who should be hailing his great accomplishments. I can only come up with one theory that makes any sense. I conclude that in the great enthusiasm that the candidacy of Barack Obama engendered, caused a delinking from reality. As I wrote in my sardonic post of November 2009 entitled Obama Walks on Water," the public has discovered that Obama does not “Walk on Water” and has “no magic wand.” Apparently neither the punditry, nor the “liberal public” has even now been able to come to terms with the fact that the President has no magic wand. They are angry because they feel that he has refused to wave it.

You mention many of his accomplishments but they were largely minor.

Minor? Only someone determined to belittle the President could call the enumerated accomplishments minor.

Universal Health Insurance, which Presidents of both parties have been trying to enact since Truman, and which Clinton spectacularly failed to accomplish is minor? If the Supreme Court Strikes it down, will it show that Obama isn’t strong enough?

Getting rid of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," was a minor accomplishment? It sure was important when it was not yet accomplished!

The stimulus package, which together with the rescue of Chrysler and GM, which probably saved a million jobs, and the bank rescue package, without question, saved this country from a ’29 depression. That is minor? Yes, it should have been bigger, and it should have had fewer tax cuts and more spending in it. But does anybody really think that such a package could have attracted the votes of the two Senators from Maine, without whose votes nothing would have passed.

Schip legislation giving health coverage to millions of children is minor? Tell that to the parents of those children!

What kind of economy would we have if our unemployed did not have unemployment insurance extended again and again? How much worse would it be both for them and the economy?

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act wasn’t important? Tell that to the millions of women who now have the ability to fight back against pay discrimination.

Or the new fuel standards, which is the first time in decades that they have been raised and which will be a major factor in reducing our dependence on foreign oil, in reducing the cost of gas for hard working Americans, and last but least, play an important part in slowing global warming.

Eliminated expensive co pays for birth control, which will for the first time make pre-natal services available for poor women. Minor? Tell that to Planned Parenthood, who hailed it as a major achievement. Tell it to the millions of women who will for the first time have access to such services.

I could go on and on. But, only someone anxious to belittle our President, and join the Tea party in doing so, could call these achievements minor.

But I really can’t blame Levenson, or others who have begun to speak like him, for the so-called liberal punditry, rules the day, though I hope they will rue it one day. But the punditry is so anxious to besmirch Obama that they even have begun to lie like Republicans, and to stay on message in the best style of Karl Rove.

You mention a 9.3% unemployment rate but neglect to mention those who have stopped looking for work and those who are limited to marginal part time work. When these are counted the unemployment rate increases to 17%.

Yes, that is true, but it is still valid for comparison purposes, for the ’29 depression with an unemployment rate of 37% or 38% also didn’t take into account these other casualties, nor did Reagan’s (who Levenson voted for) unemployment rate of 10.3% take these others into account. But whatever the figures are, unless you buy the Romney argument that Obama inherited a bad economy and made it longer and worse, these figures should be used against the Republicans, not against our President. Or does Levenson disagree? (See: Discussion of stimulus package above.)

You mention the Kagan and Sotomayor nominations, but hundreds of District Court and Appellate courts seats remain unfilled. Admittedly, the Republicans are obstructing votes on many Obama nominations but a Clinton, with a majority in the Senate would have pushed them through.

The fact is, he didn’t push them through. From American Progress: “At the beginning of 1998… Senate conservatives were systematically blocking President Bill Clinton's judicial nominees, William Rehnquist, warn(ed) ‘vacancies cannot remain at such high levels indefinitely without eroding the quality of justice.’"

You forget to mention his EPA failure to enforce regulation to prevent oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico.

It wasn’t his failure, and it wasn’t his U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (Not EPA). It was Bush’s. It takes time to change direction of an agency, particularly where the Senate refuses to approve your appointments, leaving the old people in place. In addition it is far from clear that the permit should not have been granted, given the facts that were known (or unknown) at the time the permit was issued.

You also neglect to mention his Justice Departments Civil rights failures.

It is impossible to answer all of these slanders without turning this into a book. Therefore allow me to only address just one, which I will highlight in italics.

For example, it is his Justice department under Eric Holder that has supported positions not much different from those of the Bush administration on Civil rights. He has consistently taken positions before the Supreme Court to limit the rights of individuals who were wrongfully imprisoned under Bush era terrorist statutes. He has pushed for limiting or eliminating their right to sue the US Government for the torture of imprisoned "terrorists' even after a clear showing that they were not terrorists. He has severely limited the Guantanamo prisoners effective right to counsel, the right to apply for Writs of Habeas Corpus in Federal courts, has refused (by folding to right wing pressure) to allow these prisoners to be housed in the US where they have easier access to lawyers and he has supported the continued use of Military Commissions rather than civilian courts.

In December 2010, over his objections, the Congress passed a bill forbidding the military to spend its money to transfer detainees from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States, even for trials. It wasn’t Obama; it was a cowardly Congress. But if one wants to slander someone, one always finds a way.

With regard to the economy, he gave up, almost without a fight, any thought of raising taxes in his negotiations with Boehner.

Nothing could be more at variance with the facts. What was his leverage for getting Republicans, not Boehner, to agree to tax increases? Threatening them with defaulting? What? I said not Boehner because Boehner did in fact agree to 1 trillion in tax increases, to balance 3 trillion in cuts, and then couldn’t sell it to his caucus. But what threat was Obama supposed to use? Go to hell, don’t raise the debt ceiling? Well, that might have produced default, but not increased taxes. Did Levenson really think about it, with such glib talk?

The reality (but who cares about that) (And I am also getting tired of defending baseless complaints) is that we will give you more cuts, if you give us additional revenue. But why should Obama have been against cuts. There are many that he, Levenson, and I should have favored. So the next approach is what kind of cuts can we agree on, and one understands that without revenue enhancement it will not be 4 billion, which it really should be. I said that the deficit crisis was a hoax to try to use it to gut entitlements; but the deficit it is nevertheless real and a danger in the long run. So we negotiate for cuts that don’t go into effect during the next two years, we make half of them in the military, and we take entitlements, which really do need addressing, off the table.

What the President got was a fantastic deal, which is why all the Tea Party and all the Presidential candidates have declared against it. Nobody on the Left has given any valid reason to oppose it.

The attempt by the Left, to demagogue this issue by lying, and in the style of Karl Rove “Staying on Message” is disgusting and should be rejected by all who are true liberals. See my post entitled: "The Trojan Horse" where I expose the lies, and write:

…Campaign for America’s Future…

A new undemocratic "Super Committee" is charged with finding $1.5 trillion in savings – from cuts in Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements and/or in increased revenues. If a majority agrees, the proposals will be “fast tracked” to passage in Congress—without our elected representatives able to amend their plans.

But these are boldfaced lies. As CNN Money reports in a piece titled “Debt Ceiling: What the deal will do":

The cuts will be “evenly divided between defense and non-defense spending.

Exempt from this round of cuts, however, will be programs that aid low-income Americans… These include Social Security, Medicaid, veterans' benefits and pensions, food stamps and Supplemental Security Income.

While Medicare would not be exempt, the framework would restrict cuts to no more than 2% of the program's cost. And the cuts that occur would not affect Medicare benefits nor would they increase seniors' costs, …

Half the cuts have to come from defense. What is wrong with that?

Or Progressive Change Campaign Committee:

Congress voted for a deal that will cut trillions from important programs like Head Start, asks nothing of the rich, and makes likely future cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

But what about facts? Writes the Wall Street Journal:

The deal included enough money for Head Start, the preschool program for low-income children, to keep enrollment from dropping, and for Pell Grants to maintain the current $5,500 annual maximum award to low-income college students. Republicans had wanted to cut Head Start and proposed freezing the Pell program, which would have cut the maximum grant size.

Why do I have to repeat myself? Is it because that which doesn’t fit the narrative is to be ignored and the lies just repeated?

What is the Left up to? What is their agenda? And I call them the Left advisedly, because they do not deserve the appellation of “liberal” which term I claim for the President and myself.

But since this post is getting entirely too long, I ask both my readers and Leonard Levenson for their patience. I will revert to this in my next posting, where I will address the remaining arguments, and discuss other lies and slanders that have crept into the scribblings of the punditocracy.

The Trojan Horse - Comments

I posted my commentary "The Trojan Horse" on August 6, 2011. Those who may want to re-read it can find it by clicking on the title above.

I received a concise comment from Pam Tisza who wrote:

Probably should not reply this morning because I am so disturbed by the loss of 38 of our young people in that foolish war in Afghanistan. Anyway, the polls show that 36 per cent (I think that is correct) of people do not approve of Obama's handling of the debt crisis. I think that is pretty much his liberal base--and Krugman speaks for that base. I am old enough to remember the last bad depression from Mt. Hoover, and I see it all happening over again.

Which prompted a rather long response from me that I want to share with my readers:

The poll figures are 48% disapproval of Obama's handling of the debt crisis and 71% disapproval of the GOPs approach. 48% is hardly the base. It undoubtedly includes those who think that he compromised too little, and those who think he compromised too much, with the vast majority not really having any opinion, except a general feeling that all must be to blame.

What I am trying to accomplish, and I am not sure I am succeeding, even with the relatively small audience that I have, is for people to get the facts before forming opinions. Nobody seems to care about the facts. It is as though all approach the issues of the day with, "I have made up my mind, don't bother me with the facts.”

This is something I have railed about for a long time against the Right, but now I find the Left is no longer interested in the facts either. Obama has been criticized for caving in to avoid a shutdown of the government. I have searched the media - I cannot find any description of what was conceded to avoid the shutdown. Some Right Wing sources have been grumbling that the GOP got nothing, that they caved completely and settled for bookkeeping gimmicks, but nowhere can I find what if anything Obama conceded. But the left criticizes that he gave up too much and nobody even attempts to get the facts, or if they have them they aren't sharing them with the public.

Now in connection with the debt ceiling compromise, I searched the New York Times and the Washington Post pages and found almost nothing on what the details of the compromise were. I finally found a good summary in CNN Money and the Wall Street Journal, but the facts are entirely at variance from what is represented in Krugman's and other "liberal" columns and in the e-mails I got from liberal organizations the facts are completely misrepresented. This is what I was trying to get across in my last blog. I am not sure anyone is hearing me.

All I am urging is Facts First, then opinions based on those facts. Krugman and the others are blatantly misrepresenting the facts. I am not sure whether they speak for the base, or are leading the base, or rather misleading the base.

You say you are old enough to remember the great depression and I see that at 88 you are indeed old enough. I came to the US in 1939, well past the worst of it, but I have read enough about it and seen enough documentaries, that I think I am as familiar with it as anyone. But there is no comparison between that and what we are experiencing now. Now we have an unemployment rate or 9.1%. In 1933 we had an unemployment rate of 37%. It is often said that we didn't get out of the depression until the war got us out of it, but by 1940 the unemployment rate was 13.9%, far worse than we have now, but a hell of an improvement over 37% which is what the Roosevelt Administration inherited. See my commentary on my blog entitled: "Roosevelt and the Great Depression."

What I am trying to get across is that the attacks are not only unfair, but they are based on either a misconception or a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts. What will it accomplish? It can only accomplish one thing, and that is to elect the real villains of the piece. Do we really want a President Bachman, or not much better a President Romney, who will run on a platform that he was a businessman who knows how to create jobs, but the dirty little secret will be that all he ever did was eliminate jobs.

All these Pundits seem to think that the President has the powers of a dictator. That he can sign an executive order that would have eliminated "Don't Ask Don't Tell.” That he could have simply invoked the 14th amendment and kept borrowing. They are not living in the real world. Aside from the fact that the Public (and the Left is not the public) would not have supported such high handed behavior, the chances are that the markets would have questioned this, and quite likely refused to lend, except at much higher interest rates, almost as great a disaster as going into default. The President lives in the real world, one in which no other President in American history has had to deal with. An opposition party that will resort to every tactic never before used. To filibuster everything that they don't like in the Senate, resulting in an unheard of situation where 59 to 41 in favor, defeats any bill, to using the debt ceiling as a weapon, which also has never been done before. Both Roosevelt and Johnson had huge majorities in both houses. Obama has had to work with slim margins. The legislative branch does count.

And almost from day one, the people who should have had his back, like Krugman, instead buried their dagger in it.

Now with all these obstacles has Obama accomplished anything? He has kept an incipient major depression form occurring and so instead of an unemployment rate of 37%, as we did in 1937, we have an unhappy 9.3%. Not good, but thank God.

Despite all the criticism of Obama from both the Right and the Left he has had more major achievements than any President before him since Lyndon Johnson.

We have universal Health Insurance. To be sure it is not single payer and does not have a public option. But it is more than any other President has been able to achieve, and to boot it is will lower the deficit according to the CBO, which Republicans cite if they like its findings, but ignore when it doesn't.

The left was very impatient with Obama because he was too slow to get rid of " Don't Ask, Don't tell," but he has now succeed where all his predecessors failed, and where the policy was adopted under the aegis of the last Democratic President, Bill Clinton. Under his Administration we have now in place some stern (yes, they could be sterner) bank regulations. If he had accomplished nothing else, this would be a brilliant record of achievement but he has accomplished much more.

$19 billion has been allocated to help implement an electronic medical record system.

On infrastructure the Department of Transportation has approved 2,500 highway projects.

A $2,500 tax credit to help offset the cost of tuition (among other expenses) for those seeking a college education has been enacted. Nearly five million families are expected to save $9 billion.

He saved the auto industry and untold millions of jobs in the process.

He allocated $2 billion in stimulus cash for advanced batteries systems. One high-ranking Hill aide called battery technology "the next big frontier" in the automotive world.

Set up an office of Urban Policy in the White House

Through the Recovery Act, DOJ secured $2 billion for Byrne Grants, which funds anti-gang and anti-gun task forces. The money, cut during the Bush years, should have massive ramifications on inner-city crime and violence.

Signed Schip legislation giving health coverage to millions of children by a bipartisan vote.

Pushed for and got unemployment insurance extended more than once on bipartisan votes.

The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 put under federal protection more than two million acres of wilderness, thousands of miles of river and a host of national trails and parks.

He signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, designed to make it easier for workers to sue over gender-based pay discrimination.

He cut taxes for 95 percent of American workers in his stimulus package.

Tightened limits on interrogation tactics by Central Intelligence Agency officers.

Removed financing restrictions on groups that provide or discuss abortion overseas.

Granted California a waiver to regulate automobile tailpipe emissions linked to global warming.

The day after pill to stop unwanted pregnancies was approved by a new science based FDA.

Dealt effectively with a standoff with Somali Pirates.

Changed Cuba policy allowing Cuban Americans unlimited travel and money transfers to relatives there.

Signed an executive order reversing the ban on federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research.

Restarted nuclear arms reduction talks with Russia.

Released the Bush Torture Memos, almost without redactions.

Announced a new policy on medical marijuana raids by the federal government.

EPA's adopted the position that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions pose a danger to the public's health and welfare.

Got rid of ineffective missile shield in Poland and Czech Republic.

Negotiated a treaty with the Russians to reduce the nuclear arsenal of both countries and managed to get it approved by the Senate.

Put Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court

Despite the rise of the Right and the Tea Party we are making more progress on DOMA than anyone could have hoped.

Oversaw the elimination of Osama Bin Laden, an objective that had totally escaped the Bush Administration.

Set a new standard, which will eventually require a 54.5-mpg fleet average (roughly 163 grams of CO2 per mile), will effectively double the average fuel economy of US vehicles by 2025.

Set new standards for commercial trucks to reduce by up to 20 percent fuel consumption and pollution emissions, beginning with 2014 models. Heavy-duty pickups and vans, will need to curb fuel use and emissions to achieve up to a 15 percent reduction by 2018. So-called "vocational vehicles," such as garbage trucks or fire engines, will have to cut emissions and fuel use by about 10 percent by 2018.

By executive order eliminated expensive copays for birth control.

And I am sure I missed many achievements.

Clinton did a terrific job in raising taxes early in his term, which together with an agreement with Fed Chairman Greenspan, to lower interest rates, brought on the eight most prosperous years in a very long time and wiped out the deficit. But he was lucky to get it passed. It passed by a tie vote in the Senate with the VP breaking the tie, which by the way shows that bringing prosperity is not a sure fire way to win a mid-term election.

Nevertheless, Clinton after losing the midterms, swung Right, employed that hired gun, Dick Morris, became famous for triangulation, and presided over, among many other things, the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act, which probably was largely responsible for the bank crisis, presided over the abolition of Welfare, signed into law the "Don't ask, Don't Tell" and couldn't stop the enactment of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Yet the base never savaged him. Somebody tell me why these Presidents are treated so differently?

Well, maybe because Obama unrealistically promised both to be a post-partisan and a transformational President, which are contradictory and impossible to achieve. But it should have been obvious that these are aspirational goals, not achievable ones.

The Trojan Horse

In my last blog post entitled: "The Deficit – One Big Hoax (Part V)" I concluded with: “Next time: What can and should we do about the deficit and the imminent insolvency of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid? Where can we and should we cut?” and I will address that issue in due course, but I have become increasingly concerned with those people, and those organizations, which are ostensibly part of the liberal alliance, but have increasingly become a Trojan horse, undermining that alliance, and lending subtle support to the enemies of fact based reason.

I have now concluded that one of the worst of the quislings turns out to be Paul Krugman, who for reasons that I can not fathom, (maybe he sought an appointment from the Administration and didn’t get it) has tried to destroy the Obama Presidency almost from its inception. What makes him so dangerous is that he projects an image of liberalism, while undermining the cause he pretends to support. I have only recently focused on this, but an examination of his columns bears this out.

For example, one year after the President was inaugurated, on January 17, 2010 Krugman blasted the President. What does he attack him for? He criticizes Obama for not attacking Bush enough. Obviously, someone who wants to support the President, and who feels that the blame lies with Bush, would simply point that out and criticize Bush. But that is not Krugman’s way. His attack is not on Bush. It is on Obama for not doing enough of what the punditry needs to do for him. Krugman writes:

Mr. Obama didn’t do what Ronald Reagan, who also faced a poor economy early in his administration, did — namely, shelter himself from criticism with a narrative that placed the blame on previous administrations.

For Krugman’s article see here.

Not only is this a strange way to help a Democratic liberal Administration, but it doesn’t even have truth on its side. Renew America, a Right wing blog points out:

Washington Post reporter Scott Wilson wrote a piece that noted that, "Obama has reminded the public at every turn that he is facing problems "inherited" from the Bush administration... In June, even the New York Times was reporting that the main tactic that the Obama administration was using to avoid blame was in "blaming the guy who came before." and the article gives other examples.

Krugman in this column, as in so many others, also criticizes the President for his policies, but I point to this aspect, because it is so egregious and so unfair. Since then Krugman has rarely had a good thing to say about the President, some of it a matter of opinion, and some of it just plain false.

In fairness to Krugman, he sometimes talks sense. In a column published on July 28th he writes:

But making nebulous calls for centrism, like writing news reports that always place equal blame on both parties, is a big cop-out — a cop-out that only encourages more bad behavior. The problem with American politics right now is Republican extremism, and if you’re not willing to say that, you’re helping make that problem worse.

Amen! But does he take his own advice. NO! Three days later, on July 31 his column is headed “The President Surrenders." Krugman blasts Obama for working out a deal that avoids the first American default in American history. He seems to already have forgotten his earlier column that we should blame the hostage takers. Now he goes after the one who in the interests of the American economy, indeed the world economy, has paid a ransom. But worse of all he ignores that the President negotiated about as good a deal as was possible under the circumstances, and worst of all to support his attack he lies.

I know my readers are busy. Some have to spend their time earning a living. Others prefer TV, golf, or tennis, or reading fiction. But if you want to be informed, this time, above all other times, you must read the references by double clicking on the links. Above I give you a link to the “President Surrenders” in its original form. If you will go here you will find that article set forth again, with my comments on it in red. Please take the time to read it. Without doing so you can’t get the flavor of the deception.

The media has done a very poor job of reporting what was in the compromise, and Krugman and the left have done an incredible job of demagogic it. For a pretty good summary of what was in it see: CNN Money's “Debt Ceiling: What the deal will do.”

CNN Money reports:

Exempt from this round of cuts, however, will be programs that aid low-income Americans… These include Social Security, Medicaid, veterans' benefits and pensions, food stamps and Supplemental Security Income.

While Medicare would not be exempt, the framework would restrict cuts to no more than 2% of the program's cost. And the cuts that occur would not affect Medicare benefits nor would they increase seniors' costs, …

I wish that Krugman were alone in this demagoguery from the left, but here are some of the e-mails I have received, e.g. from Campaign for America’s Future I received this:

A new undemocratic "Super Committee" is charged with finding $1.5 trillion in savings – from cuts in Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements and/or in increased revenues. If a majority agrees, the proposals will be “fast tracked” to passage in Congress—without our elected representatives able to amend their plans.

They forgot to mention that half the cuts must come from the Defense Department and as to the rest, see CNN above.

Or from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee:

Congress voted for a deal that will cut trillions from important programs like Head Start, asks nothing of the rich, and makes likely future cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

But what about facts?

The Wall Street Journal wrote in April 2011:

The deal included enough money for Head Start, the preschool program for low-income children, to keep enrollment from dropping, and for Pell Grants to maintain the current $5,500 annual maximum award to low-income college students. Republicans had wanted to cut Head Start and proposed freezing the Pell program, which would have cut the maximum grant size.

What is going on? Are these organizations just misinformed or do they think they can energize their base with lies and get more contributions. Not from me!!!!