Right Wing Media, Strategists Seize Upon Gates Arrest and Controversy

Right Wing Media, Strategists Seize Upon Gates Arrest and Controversy
The controversy over the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and President Obama’s remark that the police “acted stupidly” has taken up a lot of newspaper and broadcast space in the past week, and brought some attention to the problem of racial profiling and indeed the problems of even having a public discussion of race issues in the United States.

But the fact that President Obama had to backtrack from his remarks says more about certain institutional aspects of racism in the United States than it does about individual attitudes among the electorate or among police officers. That is what is generally missing from the discussion that takes place in the major media.

It is well known that no Democratic presidential candidate has won a majority of the white vote since 1964. Indeed, that is the main reason why President Obama’s race was not so much of a handicap in the last election: most people who would not vote for an African-American would not vote for a Democrat in any case. This partisan divide over race issues goes back to Richard Nixon and the Republican party’s “Southern Strategy,” which – using coded racial appeals and other methods -- helped keep the White House in Republican hands for 32 of the ensuing 44 years.

All this is significant because, although individual attitudes obviously matter and are influenced by deep historical factors such as slavery and segregation, the persistence of such prejudices over time can be substantially strengthened by certain political institutions and strategies. As the Gates case illustrates, in today’s context this means the Republican party and the right-wing media – which overlap considerably.

Gates, a well-known author, scholar, and professor at Harvard University, was arrested by Cambridge police officer James Crowley for “disorderly conduct” on July 16. Crowley had responded to a 911 call from a neighbor who reported that two men were possibly breaking in to a house. It turned out that Gates was pushing open a jammed door to his own house, assisted by a driver who had dropped him off. After Obama criticized the police actions, the right went into attack mode.

Glenn Beck, a popular Fox News commentator, said that Obama “had exposed himself . . . as a guy who has a deep seated hatred for white people . . .”

Talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who reaches a reported 20 million people, said, “let's face it, President Obama's black, and I think he's got a chip on his shoulder.”

Talk radio has an enormous audience in the United States, with a reported audience of 50 million people each week; at least three-quarters of the programming is conservative.

U.S. Congressman Thaddeus McCotter, (R-Mich.) is preparing to introduce a bill calling on President Obama to formally apologize to the Cambridge Police.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee distributed an online petition asking whether “it's appropriate for our nation's Commander in Chief to stand before a national audience and criticize the men and women in law enforcement who put their lives on the line every day . . .”

The Republican party is obviously in disarray as it faces the threat of becoming a permanent minority party. Its hold on power prior to 2008 was based on a fake “populist” appeal to white working class voters – the biggest block of swing voters in most presidential elections during the last four decades. But issues such as gay marriage, guns, abortion, and whether “liberal elites” shared “our values,” have lost resonance since the economy collapsed.

Hence the right’s rapid and persistent response to Obama’s remarks, and its efforts to consolidate their base around a race issue. They don’t have much else to run with right now.

Obama came under fire for saying that the Cambridge police “acted stupidly” by arresting Gates. For his part, President Obama has undoubtedly had experiences similar to those of Gates and has talked about his past difficulties, for example, in hailing a cab. As Stanley Fish pointed out, he has now also had the experience of being “President While Black.”

But Obama was being generous to Crowley; a better description would have been “acted maliciously.” Even if we accept Crowley’s own police report as a completely accurate version of events, there was no excuse for putting Professor Gates in handcuffs and dragging him down to the police station. (Gates gave a more credible account of what happened that contradicts Crowley on several key points; Crowley’s account is accepted here only for the sake of argument).

According to the police report, at the time of the arrest Gates had been positively identified as the owner of the home. There is no allegation that he had threatened or was threatening Crowley or anyone else. The “disorderly conduct” charge was, according to the police report, based on Gates allegedly yelling at the police officer from in front of his house.

Police sometimes abuse their authority, and this is a prime example. There is probably not one chance in a thousand that a Cambridge jury would have convicted Gates on these or any other criminal charges. But Crowley knew that the case would never go to trial. He may have arrested Gates out of spite and to demonstrate his authority; or he may have done it to protect himself from any complaint that might have been lodged against his own behavior prior to the arrest. As anyone who is familiar with police practices in the United States knows, it is common for police to arrest the victim when they commit an abuse. For example, when police beat people they sometimes charge them with assault so that they can drop the charges in exchange for the victim agreeing not to file a complaint. This is the most generous interpretation that one can give to Crowley’s decision to arrest Gates. But either way, the arrest itself was unethical, unprofessional, and an outrage.

Prof. Gates' Unconstitutional Arrest

Prof. Gates' Unconstitutional Arrest
The now-infamous Gates story has gone through the familiar media spin-cycle: incident, reaction, response, so on and so forth. Drowned out of this echo chamber has been an all-too-important (and legally controlling) aspect: the imbroglio between Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley has more to do with the limits (or breadth) of the First Amendment than with race and social class.

The issue is not how nasty the discourse between the two might have been, but whether what Professor Gates said--assuming, for argument's sake, the officer's version of events as fact--could by any stretch of both law and imagination constitute a ground for arrest for "disorderly conduct" (the charge leveled) or any other crime. Whether those same words could be censored on a college campus is a somewhat different--though related--question.

First, a quick recap. Gates returned to his Cambridge residence from an overseas trip to find his door stuck shut. With his taxi driver's assistance, he forced the door open. Shortly thereafter, a police officer arrived at the home, adjacent to the Harvard University campus--in my own neighborhood, actually--responding to a reported possible burglary.

Upon arrival, the officer found Gates in his home. He asked Gates to step outside. The professor initially refused, but later opened his door to speak with the officer. Words--the precise nature of which remains in dispute--were exchanged. Gates was arrested for exhibiting "loud and tumultuous behavior." The police report, however, in Sgt. Crowley's own words, indicates that Gates' alleged tirade consisted of nothing more than harshly worded accusations hurled at the officer for being a racist. The charges were later dropped when the district attorney took charge of the case.

It is not yet entirely clear whether there was a racial element to the initial decision by a woman on the street--working for Harvard Magazine, no less!--to call the police, although that is looking unlikely. It remains disputed whether Sgt. Crowley treated Professor Gates any differently than he would treat a white citizen in the same position. (In fact, if one accepts Crowley's claim that he dished out to Gates equal treatment under the law, this case stands as a dire warning to all citizens as to the dangers inherent in exercising one's constitutional right to free speech when in an exchange with a police officer--but more on that below.)

Indeed, Crowley did not arrest Gates for breaking and entering, for by then he was clearly convinced that the professor did live in the building. (For one thing, Harvard University Police officers had by that time arrived at the scene, and they easily could have checked not only that Gates was on the faculty, but that he lived in the Harvard-owned residential building. Gates is one of the most widely known faces in the Harvard community.) Instead, Crowley arrested the diminutive and disabled professor (he uses a cane to walk and bears a passing resemblance to the French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec) for disorderly conduct--the charge of choice when a citizen gives lip to a cop.

By longstanding but unfortunate (and, in my view, clearly unconstitutional) practice in Cambridge and across the country, the charge of disorderly conduct is frequently lodged when the citizen restricts his response to the officer to mere verbal unpleasantness. (When the citizen gets physically unruly, the charge is upgraded to resisting arrest or assault and battery on an officer.) It would appear, from the available evidence--regardless of whether Gates' version or that of Officer Crowley is accepted--that Gates was arrested for saying, or perhaps yelling, things to Crowley that the sergeant did not want to hear.

As one of Crowley's friends told The New York Times: "When he has the uniform on, Jim [Crowley] has an expectation of deference." Deference and respect, of course, are much to be desired both in and out of government service--police want it, as do citizens in their own homes or on their porches or on the street. However, respect is earned and voluntarily extended; it is not required, regardless of rank.

Some have posited that Crowley's tolerance for citizen vituperation was lower because the speaker was a black man, or a member of the city's economic and social elite. As a four-decade (and counting) criminal defense and civil liberties lawyer, I can say with reasonable assurance that while there might have been some degree of racial or, more likely, class animus that underlay the contretemps between citizen and officer here, fundamentally the situation can, and should, be analyzed as a free speech case.

Why? Because any citizen--white, black, yellow, male, female, gay, straight, upper or middle or lower class--who deigns to give lip to a police officer during a neighborhood confrontation or traffic stop stands a good chance of being busted. And this is something in police culture nationally--and probably all around the world (I've observed Frenchmen giving lip to Paris flics and gendarmes, also with bad results for the civilians)--that begs for change.

Heath-Care Reform and Medicare Myths

Heath-Care Reform and Medicare Myths

I am just going to provide some brief remarks, and then I want to hear from you. It is wonderful to be here today. I want to thank Mike for moderating this discussion. I want to thank Jennie and Barry for their extraordinary leadership here at AARP.

Some of you may know that, 44 years ago today, when I was almost 4 years old, after years of effort, Congress finally passed Medicare, our promise as a nation that none of our senior citizens would ever again go without basic health care.

It was a singular achievement, one that has helped seniors live longer, healthier, and more productive lives. It's enhanced their financial security, and it's given us all the peace of mind to know that there will be health care available for us when we're in our golden years.

Today, we've got so many dedicated doctors and nurses and other providers across America providing excellent care, and we want to make sure our seniors and all our people can access that care. But we all know that right now we've got a problem that threatens Medicare and our entire health care system, and that is the spiraling cost of health care in America today.

As costs balloon, so does Medicare's budget. And unless we act within a decade -- within a decade -- the Medicare trust fund will be in the red.

Now, I want to be clear: I don't want to do anything that will stop you from getting the care you need, and I won't. But you know and I know that right now we spend a lot of money in our health care system that doesn't do a thing to improve people's health, and that has to stop. We've got to get a better bang for our health care dollar.

And that's why I want to start by taking a new approach that emphasizes prevention and wellness so that instead of just spending billions of dollars on costly treatments when people get sick, we're spending some of those dollars on the care they need to stay well, things like mammograms and cancer screenings and immunizations, common-sense measures that will save us billions of dollars in future medical costs.

We're also working to computerize medical records, because right now too many folks wind up taking the same test over and over and over again because their providers can't access previous results or they have to relay their entire medical history, every medication they've taken, every surgery they've gotten, every time they see a new provider. Electronic medical records will help to put an end to all that.

We also want to start rewarding doctors for quality, not just the quantity, of care that they provide. Instead of rewarding them for how many procedures they perform or how many tests they order, we'll bundle payments so providers aren't paid for every treatment they offer with a chronic -- to a patient with a chronic condition like diabetes, but instead are paid for, how are they managing that disease overall?

And we'll create incentives for physicians to team up and treat a patient better together, because we know that produces better outcomes. And we certainly won't cut corners to try to cut costs, because we know that doesn't work. And that's something that we hear from doctors all across the country.

For example, we know that, when we discharge people from the hospital a day early without any kind of coordinated follow-up care, too often they wind up right back in the hospital a few weeks later. If we had just provided the right care in the first place, we'd save a whole lot of money and a lot of human suffering, as well.

And, finally, we'll eliminate billions in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies in the Medicare Advantage program, giveaways that boost insurance company profits but don't make you any healthier. And we'll work to close that donut hole in Medicare Part D that's costing so many folks so much money.

Drug companies as a consequence of our reform efforts have already agreed to provide deeply discounted drugs, which will mean thousands of dollars in savings for the millions of seniors paying full price when they can least afford it.

OBAMA: All of this is what health insurance reform is all about: protecting your choice of doctor, keeping your premiums fair, holding down your health care and your prescription drug costs, improving the care that you receive. And that's what health care reform will mean to folks on Medicare.

And we've made a lot of progress over the last few months. We're now closer to health care reform than we ever have been before, and that's due in no small part to the outstanding team that you have here at AARP, because you've been doing what you do best, which is organize and mobilize and inform and educate people all across the country about the choices that are out there, pushing members of Congress to put aside politics and partisanship, and finding solutions to our health care challenges.

I know it's not easy. I know there are folks who will oppose any kind of reform because they profit from the way the system is right now. They'll run all sorts of ads that will make people scared.

This is nothing that we haven't heard before. Back when President Kennedy and then President Johnson were trying to pass Medicare, opponents claimed it was socialized medicine. They said it was too much government involvement in health care, that it would cost too much, that it would undermine health care as we know it.

But the American people and members of Congress understood better. They ultimately did the right thing. And more than four decades later, Medicare is still giving our senior citizens the care and security they need and deserve.

With the AARP standing on the side of the American people, I'm confident that we can do the right thing once again and pass health insurance reform and ensure that Medicare stays strong for generations to come.

So I'm hoping that I can answer any questions that you have here today. I'm absolutely positive that we can make the health care system work better for you, work better for your children, work better for your parents, work better for your families, work better for your businesses, work better for America. That's our job.

So thank you very much.

Corporate Socialist Heath-Care dropped sick policyholders

Corporate Socialist Heath-Care dropped sick policyholders

Blue Cross of California encouraged employees through performance evaluations to cancel the health insurance policies of individuals with expensive illnesses, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) charged at the start of a congressional hearing today on the controversial practice known as rescission.

The state's largest for-profit health insurer told The Times 18 months ago that it did not tie employee performance evaluations to rescission activity. And executives with Blue Cross parent company WellPoint Inc. reiterated that position today.

But documents obtained by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and released today show that the company's employee performance evaluation program did include a review of rescission activity.

The documents show, for instance, that one Blue Cross employee earned a perfect score of "5" for "exceptional performance" on an evaluation that noted the employee's role in dropping thousands of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 million worth of medical care.

WellPoint's Blue Cross of California subsidiary and two other insurers saved more than $300 million in medical claims by canceling more than 20,000 sick policyholders over a five-year period, the House committee said.

"When times are good, the insurance company is happy to sign you up and take your money in the form of premiums," Stupak said. "But when times are bad, and you are afflicted with cancer or some other life-threatening disease, it is supposed to honor its commitments and stand by you in your time of need.

"Instead, some insurance companies use a technicality to justify breaking its promise, at a time when most patients are too weak to fight back," he said.

Fox News Poll Propels Myth About Obama "Czars"

Fox News Poll Propels Myth About Obama "Czars"

Last week, ThinkProgress noted that Fox News reporter Wendell Goler thoroughly debunked conservative fearmongering about President Obama’s supposed 30 czars, which they often claim “don’t need to be confirmed by the Senate.” “There is no constitutional issue” and many of these “czars” are “confirmed by the Senate,” reported Goler. Despite this, a new Fox News poll asserts that “Obama has appointed over 30 czars” and “Czars are advisors to the president who work outside of the cabinet and do not have to be confirmed by the Senate”:


As ThinkProgress noted, Fox regularly cites a list by Taxpayers for Common Sense to support their claim of 30 czars. But that list includes Senate-confirmed positions such as the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Additionally, it also includes Elizabeth Warren, who is employed by Congress as the head of chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP program.

Recent History: Torture, Assassination and surveillance

Don't Turn the Page on History
By Tom Engelhardt

If there seems to be something odd about this latest flap, if there's much that we don't know yet, we do, at least, know one thing: This particular small splash from the previous administration's deep dive into crime and folly will have its brief time in the media sun and then be swallowed up by oblivion, just as each of the previous flaps has been.

After all, can you honestly tell me that you think often about the CIA torture flap, the CIA destruction-of-interrogation-video-tapes flap, the what-did-Congress/Nancy Pelosi-really-know-about-torture-methods flap, the Bush-administration-officials-(like-Condi-Rice)-signed-off-on-torture-methods-in-2002-even-before-the-Justice- Department-justified-them flap, the National-Security-Agency-(it-was-far-more- widespread-than-anyone-imagined)-electronic-surveillance flap, the should-the-NSA's-telecom-spies-be-investigated-and- prosecuted-for-engaging-in-illegal-warrantless-wiretapping flap, the should-CIA-torturers-be-investigated-and-prosecuted- for-using-enhanced-interrogation-techniques flap, the Abu-Ghraib-photos-(round-two)-suppression flap, or various versions of the can-they-close-Guantanamo, will-they-keep-detainees-in-prison-forever flaps, among others that have already disappeared into my own personal oblivion file? Every flap it's day, evidently. Each flap another problem (again we're told) for a president with an ambitious program who is eager to "look forward, not backward."

Of course, he's not alone. Given the last eight years of disaster piled on catastrophe, who in our American world would want to look backward? The urge to turn the page in this country is palpable, but--just for a moment--let's not.

Admittedly, we're a people who don't really believe in history--so messy, so discomforting, so old. Even the recent past is regularly wiped away as the media plunge us repeatedly into various overblown crises of the moment, a 24/7 cornucopia of news, non-news, rumor, punditry, gossip, and plain old blabbing, of which each of these flaps has been but a tiny example. In turn, any sense of the larger picture surrounding each one of them is, soon enough, lessened by a media focus on a fairly limited set of questions: Was Congress adequately informed? Should the president have suppressed those photos?

The flaps, in other words, never add up to a single Imax Flap-o-rama of a spectacle. We seldom see the full scope of the legacy that we--not just the Obama administration--have inherited. Though we all know that terrible things happened in recent years, the fact is that, these days, they are seldom to be found in a single place, no less the same paragraph. Connecting the dots, or even simply putting everything in the same vicinity, just hasn't been part of the definitional role of the media in our era. So let me give it a little shot.

As a start, remind me: What didn't we do? Let's review for a moment.

In the name of everything reasonable, and in the face of acts of evil by terrible people, we tortured wantonly and profligately, and some of these torture techniques--known to the previous administration and most of the media as "enhanced interrogation techniques"--were actually demonstrated to an array of top officials, including the national security adviser, the attorney general, and the secretary of state, within the White House. We imprisoned secretly at "black sites" offshore and beyond the reach of the American legal system, holding prisoners without hope of trial or, often, release; we disappeared people; we murdered prisoners; we committed strange acts of extreme abuse and humiliation; we kidnapped terror suspects off the global streets and turned some of them over to some of the worst people who ran the worst dungeons and torture chambers on the planet. Unknown, but not insignificant numbers of those kidnapped, abused, tortured, imprisoned, and/or murdered were actually innocent of any crimes against us. We invaded without pretext, based on a series of lies and the manipulation of Congress and the public. We occupied two countries with no clear intent to depart and built major networks of military bases in both.

President Obama and His Signing Statements Promise

President Obama and His Signing Statements Promise

A recent diary by David Swanson asserts, in part, that President Obama as a candidate said of signing statements that "It is a clear abuse of power to use such statements as a license to evade laws that the president does not like or as an end-run around provisions designed to foster accountability. I will not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law."

Mr. Swanson then says "Obama now does this routinely."

But it is historically, legally, and politically wrong to equate President Obama's use of signing statements with President Bush's, or to suggest that President Obama is doing what he pledged not to do. Any historical or legal scholar can easily point out how wrong Mr. Swanson is.

..a history of Obama's generally correct use of signing statements at link.

[T]he use, nature and frequency of [President Bush's] signing statements demonstrates a "radically expansive view" of executive power which "amounts to a claim that he is impervious to the laws that Congress enacts" and represents a serious assault on the Constitutional system of checks and balances. ( Bush abuseed signing statements, using them in place of vetos - which is unconstitutional)

In Bill O'Reilly's Sights
Last week I was greeted with an uncomfortable curiosity: a brace of hate mail in my inbox, received within a 20-minute span. The first came at 7:26: "You are an uneducated writer! You need to get your fact straight! You are a liberal bastard! You need to get informed!" All arguable propositions, perhaps, but that still left the question: why was this person realizing that precisely now, and why, two minutes later, did "Dr. Anthony" feel moved to inform me, "I've noticed a trend that left-wing extremists tend to be exceedingly ugly & perverse. Living with that ugliness & deviance seems to lead to an aberration of thought as well. I am attempting to formulate the correlation..."

And then, while he did, as if on a schedule, another deluge hit some three hours later, the messages several notches more frightening:

"Your a piece of s---. we will hunt you left wing libs down one by one. you lieing piece of trash."

"So perlstein,whats your problem with Fox and conservatives. you jews should be dancing on the ceilings.you have control of the government,obama,congress, senate...."

"You sir are far more dangerous than Sarah Palin ever will be."


Another Conservative Hypocrite Hoist On His Own Petard-- Paul Stanley (R-TN)

I have a feeling all DWT readers will know the punch line of this tale before they read another 15 words. Tennessee state Senator Paul Stanley was the driving force behind his state's anti-gay adoption legislation. No, he wasn't caught in a toilet trying to seduce an undercover cop. The ultra-conservative freak was having an affair with a young woman who was working as a legislative intern. What the hell is wrong with these Republican hypocrites? They're such a cliche at this point that it's becoming painful to write about them! The woman, McKensie Morrison, is 23 years old.

Executives Receive One-Third Of All Pay In The U.S., But Congress Is Still Afraid Of A Surtax

Executives Receive One-Third Of All Pay In The U.S., But Congress Is Still Afraid Of A Surtax

The New York Times reported today that Democratic leaders, “bowing to unease among lawmakers and governors in their own party,” are reconsidering the House Ways and Means committee’s proposal to implement a surtax on the richest one percent of Americans as a way of financing a portion of health care reform.

There has indeed been a lot of pushback against the surtax proposal, which prompted Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to suggest that only households making more than $1 million should be subject to it, instead of the graduated scale starting at $350,000 that Ways and Means proposed.

.....Increasing taxes on this small percentage of people — who have done very well for a very long time — would raise revenue to put toward health reform, which is the single biggest problem for America’s bottom line. As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said, “it certainly is okay for me to tell my friends on Wall Street, who just got a bonus of $600,000, they’re going to pay more in taxes so we can lower health care costs

Conservative Media Creates Own Health-Care Narrative

Conservative Media Creates Own Health-Care Narrative
Despite passage of health care reform bills in House and Senate committees and the endorsement by major medical organizations of congressional Democrats' reform efforts, numerous television pundits have suggested that President Obama's health care plan is in serious jeopardy.

As The Washington Post observed in a July 20 article: "Cable news programs repeatedly declare the president's health care program is teetering or embattled despite a week in which [President] Obama's proposals were endorsed by the doctor and nurses associations and committees in both legislative chambers passed major bills." Indeed, despite passage of health care reform bills by the House Ways and Means Committee, House Education and Labor Committee, and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and endorsements of congressional Democrats' reform efforts by the American Medical Association and American Nurses Association, numerous television pundits have suggested in recent days that Obama's health care plan is in serious jeopardy.

Eric Cantor a Regular GOP Lie Machine

Eric Cantor a Regular GOP Lie Machine

Virginia congressman Eric Cantor may be a GOP rising star, but he sure is a hypocrite. How else to describe someone who's a leading critic of President Obama's Recovery Act and joins his congressional colleagues to urge Virginia's Department of Transportation to apply for stimulus money for high-speed rail? If that isn't two-faced, what is ?

He's also a demagogue: " Millions of jobs will be crushed by the Administration's policies." Say what? The stimulus may have been too small and overemphasized tax cuts, but it's helped states, including his own, with longer unemployment benefits, expanded food stamps and subsidies for people who've lost jobs to extend their health insurance. It's also kept teachers in the classroom, cops on the street and got workers rehired. Hours after Cantor delivered the GOP's weekly radio address blasting the stimulus, Vice-President Biden announced that $ 1.5 million of the bill's money would go to the Richmond Police Department to retain officers. And $20 million is going to Chesterfield County, a suburb of Richmond, to help 275 teachers from being fired. Virginia's working men and women should remember that Cantor fought hard to cut a provision in the stimulus bill that was designed to help low income workers.

The RNC Can't Count The Party of Corruption and Generational Theft

The RNC Can't Count The Party of Corruption and Generational Theft
RNC Chairman Michael Steele is clearly confusing the difference between our national debt, which stands at roughly $11.4 trillion, and this year’s budget deficit, which just exceeded $1 trillion.

To help jog Steele’s memory, here’s a bit of a deficit recap: Bush inherited a budget surplus of $128 billion in 2001. Budget experts projected a $710 billion surplus for 2009 when he came into office. But the deficit soon exploded, thanks largely to the Bush tax cuts — which accounted for 42 percent of the deficit. When Bush left office, he handed President Obama a projected $1.2 trillion budget deficit for this year, the largest ever.

As for the debt, when President Bush took office, it was $5.73 trillion. When he left, it was $10.7 trillion.

Just last month, the New York Times published the results of an examination from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The report, which examined federal spending stretching back almost a decade, found that Obama “is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits”:

About 33 percent of the swing stems from new legislation signed by Mr. Bush. That legislation, like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt.

Mr. Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies — together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama — account for 20 percent of the swing.

About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.

Try as Steele might, this is blame shifting that just won’t work — especially after the Bush administration made it clear that “deficits don’t matter.”

Fox Continues Promoting Birther Lawsuit While Ignoring Red Flags Indicating It’s A Hoax

Fox Continues Promoting Birther Lawsuit While Ignoring Red Flags Indicating It’s A Hoax
Reported by Ellen at Newshounds

On Tuesday (7/14/09), I posted about several instances in which Fox News had added legitimacy to the irrational and baseless conspiracy-theorist “birthers” who continue to insist, despite evidence to the contrary, that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and thus an illegitimate president. One such effort came from Sean Hannity, reporting on a soldier challenging his deployment to Afghanistan on the grounds that Obama is not eligible to be president. Hannity had failed to note in his report the availability of Obama’s birth certificate and how the birther claims have been completely investigated and debunked. Hannity gave an update to the Afghanistan story last night (7/15/09) and took it a step further by suggesting, along with the plaintiff, that the subsequent revocation of the soldiers deployment orders indicated that his allegations were proved true. But Hannity omitted key details that point to a scam by the soldier. With video.

At about 40 seconds into the video below, Hannity says, “We told you yesterday about an Army Reserve soldier who challenged his deployment orders on the grounds that President Obama HAS NOT PROVEN (Hannity’s emphasis) that he is a U.S. citizen. Now that soldier, Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, who was supposed to deploy to Afghanistan in coming days, has now had his order revoked. According to his lawyer, ‘They just said, ‘Order revoked.’ No explanation, no reasons – just revoked.’ Now Major Cook and his lawyer expressed joy at this outcome and they took it as an admission on the part of the military that the president is not, in fact, a legitimate citizen by birth.”

A Fox News producer similarly suggested that the Obama administration was trying to sweep the matter under the rug by posting the banner: After claiming Obama not U.S. Born soldier has his order revoked.

Once again Hannity failed to point out that Obama’s birth certificate has been produced, that FactCheck.org, (hardly a liberal or Democratic organization) has concluded that Obama was “Born in the U.S.A.”

Had Hannity bothered to do the simplest of Google searches, he would have also uncovered this key piece of information from that day’s Georgia Ledger-Enquirer newspaper:

Earlier today, (Lt. Col. Maria Quon, U.S. Army Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Army Human Resources Command-St. Louis) said Cook submitted a formal written request to Human Resources Command-St. Louis on May 8, 2009 volunteering to serve one year in Afghanistan with Special Operations Command, U.S. Army Central Command, beginning July 15, 2009. The soldier's orders were issued on June 9, Quon said.

"A reserve soldier who volunteers for an active duty tour may ask for a revocation of orders up until the day he is scheduled to report for active duty," Quon said.

She added that there is an administrative process to request revocation of orders. As of this afternoon, Cook had not asked for his orders to be revoked, Quon said. She could not say why the soldier's orders were pulled today by 3 p.m. CDT.

So, Maj. Cook filed a request to serve the Commander-in-Chief in Afghanistan on May 8, well after Obama had assumed the presidency, but now, about two months later, is claiming that Obama is not qualified to be president. And instead of going through the administrative process to revoke his orders, which would seem to be a pro forma matter, he sued in federal court.

I wasn’t the only one to smell something rotten in Wingnuttia.

Media ignore Sessions' double-standard on judges' reliance on personal experience

Media ignore Sessions' double-standard on judges' reliance on personal experience
In reports on the confirmation hearings of Sonia Sotomayor, numerous media outlets quoted Sen. Jeff Sessions' assertion that he would not vote for a justice who would rely on personal experience to decide cases. But Sessions voted to confirm Samuel Alito, who highlighted the importance of his personal experience during his hearing.


In reports on the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor, numerous media outlets, including the Politico, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, and PBS, quoted or reported on Sen. Jeff Sessions' (R-AL) assertion that "I will not vote for -- and no senator should vote for -- an individual nominated by any president who believes it is acceptable for a judge to allow their personal background, gender prejudices, or sympathies to sway their decision in favor of, or against, parties before the court." These outlets did not note that Sessions voted to confirm Justice Samuel Alito, who stated during his confirmation hearing in 2006, "When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account."

Republicans Are The Real Radicals In Our Courts

The Real Court Radicals

f you wonder what judicial activism looks like, consider one of the court's final moves in its spring term.

The justices had before them a simple case, involving a group called Citizens United, that could have been disposed of on narrow grounds. The organization had asked to be exempt from the restrictions embodied in the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law for a movie critical of Hillary Clinton that it produced during last year's presidential campaign. Citizens United says it should not have to disclose who paid for the film.

Rather than decide the case before it, the court engaged in a remarkable exercise of judicial overreach. It postponed its decision, called for new briefs and scheduled a hearing this September on the broader question of whether corporations should be allowed to spend money to elect or defeat particular candidates.

What the court was saying was that it wanted to revisit a 19-year-old precedent that barred such corporate interference in the electoral process. That 1990 ruling upheld what has been the law of the land since 1947, when the Taft-Hartley Act banned independent expenditures by both corporations and labor unions.

To get a sense of just how extreme (and, yes, activist) such an approach would be, consider that laws restricting corporate activity in elections go all the way back to the Tillman Act of 1907, which prohibited corporations from giving directly to political campaigns.

It is truly frightening that a conservative Supreme Court is seriously considering overturning a century-old tradition at the very moment the financial crisis has brought home the terrible effects of excessive corporate influence on politics.

In the deregulatory wave of the 1980s and '90s, Congress was clearly too solicitous to the demands of finance. Why take a step now that would give corporations even more opportunity to buy influence? With the political winds shifting, do conservatives on the court see an opportunity to fight the trends against their side by altering the rules of the electoral game?

Such an "appalling" ruling, Schumer said in an interview, "would have more political significance than any case since Bush v. Gore." He added: "It would dramatically change America at a time when people are feeling that the special interests have too much influence and the middle class doesn't have enough. It would exacerbate both of these conditions."

So when conservatives try to paint Sotomayor as some sort of radical, consider that the real radicals are those who now hold a majority on the Supreme Court. In this battle, it is she, not her critics, who represents moderation and judicial restraint.

Cheney Told CIA To Hide Program From Congress

Cheney Told CIA To Hide Program From Congress
Former Vice President Dick Cheney directed the CIA eight years ago not to inform Congress about a nascent counterterrorism program that CIA Director Leon Panetta terminated in June, officials with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

Subsequent CIA directors did not inform Congress because the intelligence-gathering effort had not developed to the point that they believed merited a congressional briefing, said a former intelligence official and another government official familiar with Panetta's June 24 briefing to the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

Panetta did not agree.

Upon learning of the program June 23 from within the CIA, Panetta terminated it and the next day called an emergency meeting with the House and Senate Intelligence committees to inform them of the program and that it was canceled.

Cheney played a central role in overseeing the Bush administration's surveillance program that was the subject of an inspectors general report this past week. That report noted that Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington, personally decided who in Bush's inner circle could even know about the secret program.

But revelations about Cheney's role in making decisions for the CIA on whether to notify Congress came as a surprise to some on the committees, said another government official. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the program publicly.

Ensign's parents paid mistress $96K

Ensign's parents paid mistress $96K

Sen. John Ensign's parents shelled out big bucks to pay off their son's mistress, the latest twist in an unfolding scandal that has upended the political career of the one-time rising GOP star.

The scandal has also touched Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), another prominent conservative, who revealed that he had confronted Ensign about the affair and urged him to end it, but says he will refuse to divulge any conversations with Ensign — even under inquiry from ethics investigators.

Panetta Admits CIA Misled Congress

Panetta Admits CIA Misled Congress on “Significant Actions”
CIA Director Leon Panetta told the House Intelligence Committee that the agency had misled and “concealed significant actions from all members of Congress” dating back to 2001 and continuing until late June, according to a letter from seven Democrats on the panel.

The letter was dated June 26, two days after Panetta appeared before a closed door session with the committee and it asked that the CIA chief “correct” his statement from May 15 that “it is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress.”

“Recently you testified that you have determined that top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all members of Congress, and misled members for a number of years from 2001 to this week,” states the letter to Panetta from Anna G. Eshoo of California, Alcee L. Hastings of Florida, Rush D. Holt of New Jersey, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Adam Smith of Washington, Mike Thompson of California and John F. Tierney of Massachusetts.

CIA spokesman George Little said Panetta stood by his May remarks and believes Congress must be kept fully informed and Little added, “it was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees.”

The disclosure came just as Democrats and Republicans were set to take up an intelligence authorization bill on the House floor on Thursday.

House Democrats have put a provision in the bill which would eliminate the executive branch’s right to decide when to brief the full Intelligence panels, rather than just the top committee and congressional leaders, known as the “Gang of Eight,” on the most sensitive intelligence activities. Congress would set the ground rules for the “Gang of Eight” briefings instead. The White House has threatened to veto the bill if it includes the provision.

The issue is politically sensitive because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., found herself at the center of a firestorm in May when she accused the CIA of misleading Congress over the use of harsh interrogation methods during the Bush administration.

Cap and trade good for jobs and our children's future

Cap and trade good for jobs and our children's future
We must act soon to stop these ecological and economic threats and get America running on clean energy. Fortunately, we’re closer than ever to gaining the support in Congress to pass a bill that will cap greenhouse gas emissions and provide the U.S. with clean energy incentives. In May, the key committee in the House voted in favor of legislation, named the American Clean Energy and Security Act. This legislation would gradually slow the emission of greenhouse gases over the coming years. A vote on the bill in the full House is expected today.

The House bill would use a market-based approach called cap and trade. Cap and trade puts a firm limit, or cap, on emissions. Over time, the cap will steadily decline, so that by 2050 greenhouse gas emission will have been reduced by 83 percent. Companies that are under their emission targets can sell their allowances on a new carbon market. Companies that cannot meet their targets can buy extra allowances from the same carbon market. Cap and trade uses the efficiency of the marketplace to drive innovation, creating new carbon-reducing technologies at the lowest possible cost.

When used to fight acid rain in the 1990 Clean Air Act, the cap-and-trade approach reduced emissions faster, and more cheaply, than anyone predicted. Under cap and trade, government doesn’t pick winners and losers — private markets do that job. This is how it should be. The failed government investments in oil shale in the 1970s offer a perfect illustration of this point.

Both the Dow Chemical Co. and Environmental Defense Fund are members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of leading companies and five environmental groups, who support cap-and-trade legislation. Among them are some of the biggest names in corporate America, including GE, Johnson & Johnson and DuPont. The House bill incorporates many of USCAP’s recommendations. It represents our best chance to stop global warming and encourage clean energy technologies.

The new technologies that the cap-and-trade approach will create will also create new jobs for America. A single wind turbine, for example, contains 250 tons of steel and 8,000 parts, from ball bearings and electronic controls to gearboxes. Jobs manufacturing those parts can be created right here in America, especially in our manufacturing heartland, the Midwest. Ohio has lost more than 213,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000. For Michigan, the figure is almost 497,000 jobs lost. One way to jump-start our economy is with a cap-and-trade bill.

Opponents claim that this bill will result in higher energy costs. They are confusing price with cost. Although this legislation will lead to modestly higher energy prices, this, in turn, will lead to greater energy efficiency and new, cleaner energy technologies. This will, in all likelihood, result in lower overall energy costs. A true win, win, win — lower energy costs, greater energy security and fewer carbon emissions!

The Myth of How the Media Destroyed Palin

The Myth of How the Media Destroyed Palin
It's been amusing to observer, in the past few days, Sarah Palin hit the media (from blogs to the New York Times) for causing all of her troubles, even threatening to sue some of them for "defaming" her. It's been equally fun to read some of those who backed her and John McCain last fall now admitting, after her resignation speech, that she is a true lightweight. This was apparent to most Americans within days of her emergence on the national ticket late last summer.

Ross Douthat, one of her old boosters, in the Times this morning writes that her wacky I'm-outta-here speech disqualifies her from running for president for years to come -- but still manages to blast the media for coming to this conclusion months before he did. Can't wait for David Brooks to weigh in. Remember that he said on a panel last autumn that she was thoroughly unfit for higher office, but refused to state that flatly in his column.

In fact, in the months after the November election, we heard from pundits and disgruntled GOPers that the media helped elect Obama by attacking, or mocking, Sarah Palin. These critics still allege that she had given John McCain a big boost in the polls when first named and that she would have help drive him to victory--if not for the allegeldy unfair treatment by Katie and Tina Fey and those mean bloggers and all the rest.

But this is not true. The myth should be put to bed once and for all.

In fact, Palin never really helped him except with his "base," which he would have won over anyway. She never had broad based appeal and, as I have written here previously (and in my book, "Why Obama Won"), McCain had been fooled by false media coverage of the purported huge number of Hillary Clinton fans -- women and the working class -- who were eager to bolt Obama for the GOP. This never came to pass.

In reality, the undermining of Palin happened well before the networks and SNL got to her. The polls proved it. Her home state paper, the Anchorage Daily News was quick to expose elements of her past that raised questions and just days after she was named the Fairbanks, Alaska daily called her choice by McCain a silly one. And the evidence mounted from there, within days.

More than anything McCain was hurt by shattering his strongest calling card -- "experience" -- by picking a neophyte to serve one heartbeat away.

This is not Monday morning (literally) quarterbacking. Here is an excerpt from a column I wrote here last September 1, 2008, on the surprising poll results just as Palin was gaining the GOP nod -- and well before the negative stories in the national press appeared.
*


A new CNN/Opinion Research poll released today shows that he contest between Barack Obama and John McCain -- after the twin "bounces" of the past few days -- remains essentially tied, with Obama leading at 49% to 48%. But what's most intriguing are the results regarding McCain's choice for veep, who was expected to draw more women to the GOP ticket.

In fact, men seem to be more impressed with this move than women. Just now, this seems to be confirmed by a CBS poll, showing Obama with a 48% to 40% lead overall -- but with a wide lead among women, at 50% to 36%, which has only widened. Only 13% of women said they might be more likely to vote for McCain because of Palin, with 11% saying they are now less likely.

CBS also reports: "Before the Democratic convention, McCain enjoyed a 12-point advantage with independent voters, but now Obama leads among this group 43 percent to 37 percent....The poll shows an increase in the number of Obama voters who are enthusiastic about him."

As for the CNN poll: "Women now appear slightly more likely to vote for Obama than they did a week ago, 53 percent now, compared to 50 percent," reports Keating Holland, CNN's director of polling. "But McCain picked up a couple of points among men. More important, McCain solidified his party's base with the Palin selection, dropping Obama's share of the Republican vote six points to just 5 percent now. The Palin selection did not help among women -- that may come later -- but it did appeal to Republican loyalists."

Men have a slightly more favorable opinion of Palin than women -- 41 percent vs. 36 percent. "If McCain was hoping to boost his share of the women's vote, it didn't work," Holland said. And USA Today/Gallup has just released its post-Palin poll showing that Obama has widened his lead from four points to 50% - 43%.

Here is an excerpt from the CNN report: "Is Palin qualified to be president? Fifty percent say she is unqualified to assume the presidency if that becomes necessary; 45 percent say she's prepared for the White House. In recent history, the only running mate to earn less confidence from the public was Vice President Dan Quayle in 1992.

"Three quarters of all voters think McCain chose a female running mate specifically because he thought adding a woman to the Republican ticket would help him win in November.

Franken Wins and Rush Limbaugh is still a big fat idiot

Franken Wins and Rush Limbaugh is still a big fat idiot By Joe Conason

....The tenor of the Fox attacks grew more feverish with the ranting of Brian Kilmeade, who judged Franken "barely sane if you read his books, and quite angry in every facet of his life." Kilmeade went on to describe the new senator as "hateful," "evil," bitter," and "maniacal," and again as "angry." Sean Hannity echoed Fox's other amateur shrinks, saying, "This guy, Franken, he's not all there."

So did R. Emmett Tyrell, the Human Events columnist and former editor of the American Spectator, who appeared to confuse Franken's portrayal of a fictional character with the former comedian's own personality, and went on to predict that he will need "anger management counseling" during his Senate term. "He was weird on 'Saturday Night Live' in the 1970s, on which he popularized a goofball character named Stuart Smalley, a self-help guru who repeated over and again, 'I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!' … My guess is that the Stuart Smalley character is the essential Al Franken, a weirdo."

Speaking for Pajamas Media, Rick Moran called Franken "a bat guano crazy liberal" and gloated over the "rabid, unbridled, hateful partisanship" that will bring both the senator and his party to grief. "It is a pathological, almost clinical condition that will explode from time to time in bitter denunciation of the opposition, supplying bloggers and commentators with a cornucopia of material," wrote Moran with grim satisfaction, adding that "Franken's psychosis" includes a pathological hatred of Christians and particularly Catholics (which may come as a shock to his Catholic wife, Franni).

Then there was Limbaugh, the capo di tutti right-wing capi, who warned with pithy brevity that the 60th Democratic vote in the Senate is "a genuine lunatic."

Calmer but no less nasty was the assessment of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which insisted that the Democrat had somehow hijacked the Senate seat from the rightful Republican victor. "Mr. Franken now goes to the Senate having effectively stolen an election," said the editorial, without deigning to mention that Republicans in Minnesota, including the governor, had effectively vetted the recount and canvassing from Election Day forward, up to the final Supreme Court decision.

In fact, the most credible assessment of the "stolen election" comes not from Democrats or liberals but from the Republican conservatives in Minnesota. Foremost among them may be Sara Janacek, who told Washington Post readers that those accusations are false. "The state media -- and a majority of the public -- do think Franken's election was legitimate," she said. "We had an open and very public recount process."

As always, the sneering critics of the comedian turned candidate underestimated him, and they still do. Anyone who knows Franken, as I do, sees little of him in the caricatures that have dominated his coverage in the conservative media and too often have shaped his image in the mainstream media. He certainly isn't crazy. He isn't mean. He isn't frivolous. And he certainly didn't cheat his way into the Senate.

In fact, Franken is considerably brighter and far more stable than his enemies, a group whose public behavior and personal conduct are replete with embarrassment, not to mention disgrace. Unlike many of them, he has a solid marriage and raised two outstanding children who adore him -- a personal accomplishment that belies the ugly nonsense about his "anger" and "bitterness." It is the Fox loudmouths who are bitter, no doubt remembering the day their company's stupid lawsuit against Franken was laughed out of court (and made a lot of money for him).

Spending $102 Billion a Year on 800 Worldwide Military Bases Is Bankrupting the Country

Spending $102 Billion a Year on 800 Worldwide Military Bases Is Bankrupting the Country
The following is an introduction from Tom Engelhardt: Along with postcards of cowboys riding jackalopes and giant berries on flatcars, there's a brand new entry in the American gigantism sweepstakes: an embassy complex to be built in Islamabad, Pakistan, for -- if you assume the normal cost overruns on such projects -- what's likely to be close to a billion dollars. If that doesn't make the U.S. number one in the imperial hubris footrace for all eternity, what will? The question is: with its projected "large military and intelligence contingent," and its "surge" of diplomats, will that embassy also issue the largest visas on the planet?

Here's the strange thing: The embassy story was broken at the end of May by the superb journalists at McClatchy News (in this case, Warren P. Stroebel and Saeed Shah). As part of what Shah, in the Christian Science Monitor, estimates as a staggering "$2-billion-plus price tag on a revamped diplomatic presence for the United States in Afghanistan and Pakistan," they reported that an appropriation of $736 million for embassy construction had quietly made its way through both houses of Congress without a peep from anyone. This news, however, seemed to plunge off a steep cliff into a deep well of silence. Indicative as the Obama administration's decision to build such an imperial monstrosity may be of a longer-term commitment to a wider war in the Af-Pak (as in Afghanistan-Pakistan) theater of operations, it evidently proved of no interest to anyone here.

The story was not widely picked up or played up significantly. Despite the fact that major news operations have been bolstering their staffs in Pakistan, there has been no further reporting on the appropriation, the plans for the embassy, or what it all might mean. As far as I can tell, nowhere in the United States did a mainstream editorial page decry, challenge, or even discuss the development. Charlie Rose didn't gather experts to consider it, nor did the Newshour with Jim Lehrer seem to think it worth exploring. Letters of outrage at the thought of those desperately needed funds heading Islamabad-wards didn't pour into local newspapers (perhaps because few knew it was happening and those who did saw it as just another humdrum story about making the U.S. safer in a dangerous world). I've seen no obvious congressional attempts to oppose the passage of the money. The general attitude is evidently: Been there, done that (in Iraq, as a matter of fact, in the Bush years).

Maybe in a world where near-trillion-dollar bailouts are the norm, a mere three-quarters of a billion for a fortress of an embassy seems like so much chump change, the sort of news that only Democracy Now! would even consider significant. Fortunately, Chalmers Johnson, author of The Blowback Trilogy, and an expert on U.S. military bases abroad, did notice, understood its significance, and has now put it in his gun sights. (Catch my TomDispatch audio interview with Johnson about our Empire of Bases by clicking here). -- Tom Engelhardt

The U.S. Empire of Bases -- at $102 billion a year already the world's costliest military enterprise -- just got a good deal more expensive. As a start, on May 27th, we learned that the State Department will build a new "embassy" in Islamabad, Pakistan, which at $736 million will be the second priciest ever constructed, only $4 million less, if cost overruns don't occur, than the Vatican-City-sized one the Bush administration put up in Baghdad. The State Department was also reportedly planning to buy the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel (complete with pool) in Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, to use as a consulate and living quarters for its staff there.

Unfortunately for such plans, on June 9th Pakistani militants rammed a truck filled with explosives into the hotel, killing 18 occupants, wounding at least 55, and collapsing one entire wing of the structure. There has been no news since about whether the State Department is still going ahead with the purchase.

Whatever the costs turn out to be, they will not be included in our already bloated military budget, even though none of these structures is designed to be a true embassy -- a place, that is, where local people come for visas and American officials represent the commercial and diplomatic interests of their country. Instead these so-called embassies will actually be walled compounds, akin to medieval fortresses, where American spies, soldiers, intelligence officials, and diplomats try to keep an eye on hostile populations in a region at war. One can predict with certainty that they will house a large contingent of Marines and include roof-top helicopter pads for quick get-aways.

While it may be comforting for State Department employees working in dangerous places to know that they have some physical protection, it must also be obvious to them, as well as the people in the countries where they serve, that they will now be visibly part of an in-your-face American imperial presence. We shouldn't be surprised when militants attacking the U.S. find one of our base-like embassies, however heavily guarded, an easier target than a large military base.

And what is being done about those military bases anyway -- now close to 800 of them dotted across the globe in other people's countries? Even as Congress and the Obama administration wrangle over the cost of bank bailouts, a new health plan, pollution controls, and other much needed domestic expenditures, no one suggests that closing some of these unpopular, expensive imperial enclaves might be a good way to save some money.

Instead, they are evidently about to become even more expensive. On June 23rd, we learned that Kyrgyzstan, the former Central Asian Soviet Republic which, back in February 2009, announced that it was going to kick the U.S. military out of Manas Air Base (used since 2001 as a staging area for the Afghan War), has been persuaded to let us stay. But here's the catch: In return for doing us that favor, the annual rent Washington pays for use of the base will more than triple from $17.4 million to $60 million, with millions more to go into promised improvements in airport facilities and other financial sweeteners. All this because the Obama administration, having committed itself to a widening war in the region, is convinced it needs this base to store and trans-ship supplies to Afghanistan.

Republcans Responsible for Most National Debt and Recession

America’s Sea of Red Ink Was Years in the Making
There are two basic truths about the enormous deficits that the federal government will run in the coming years.

The first is that President Obama’s agenda, ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying. The second is that Mr. Obama does not have a realistic plan for eliminating the deficit, despite what his advisers have suggested.

The New York Times analyzed Congressional Budget Office reports going back almost a decade, with the aim of understanding how the federal government came to be far deeper in debt than it has been since the years just after World War II. This debt will constrain the country’s choices for years and could end up doing serious economic damage if foreign lenders become unwilling to finance it.

Mr. Obama — responding to recent signs of skittishness among those lenders — met with 40 members of Congress at the White House on Tuesday and called for the re-enactment of pay-as-you-go rules, requiring Congress to pay for any new programs it passes.

The story of today’s deficits starts in January 2001, as President Bill Clinton was leaving office. The Congressional Budget Office estimated then that the government would run an average annual surplus of more than $800 billion a year from 2009 to 2012. Today, the government is expected to run a $1.2 trillion annual deficit in those years.

You can think of that roughly $2 trillion swing as coming from four broad categories: the business cycle, President George W. Bush’s policies, policies from the Bush years that are scheduled to expire but that Mr. Obama has chosen to extend, and new policies proposed by Mr. Obama.

The first category — the business cycle — accounts for 37 percent of the $2 trillion swing. It’s a reflection of the fact that both the 2001 recession and the current one reduced tax revenue, required more spending on safety-net programs and changed economists’ assumptions about how much in taxes the government would collect in future years.

About 33 percent of the swing stems from new legislation signed by Mr. Bush. That legislation, like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt.

Mr. Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies — together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama — account for 20 percent of the swing.

About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.

If the analysis is extended further into the future, well beyond 2012, the Obama agenda accounts for only a slightly higher share of the projected deficits.

Despite her disastrous performance in the 2008 election

It Came from Wasilla
Soon Palin will take a crack at her own story: she has signed a book contract for an undisclosed but presumably substantial sum, and has chosen Lynn Vincent, a senior writer at the Christian-conservative World magazine, as co-author of the memoir, which is to be published next year not only by HarperCollins but also in a special edition by Zondervan, the Bible-publishing house, that may include supplemental material on faith. During the presidential campaign, Palin’s deep ignorance about most aspects of foreign and domestic policy provided her with a powerful political reason not to submit to interviews. The forthcoming book adds a powerful commercial reason.

Palin is a cipher by choice. When she chooses to reveal herself, what she reveals is not always the same thing as the truth. Her singular refusal to have in-depth conversations with the national media—even Richard Nixon and Dick Cheney, among the most saturnine political figures in modern American history, each submitted to countless detailed interviews over the years—has compounded the challenge of understanding who she really is. There has been Hollywood talk that Palin could star in a reality-TV show about running Alaska, but nothing has come of it yet. Recently, Palin did star in a week-long seriocomic feud with David Letterman over some of his borderline jokes. Meanwhile, she has begun sharing insights several times a day on Twitter, with chipper reports on her own doings and those of her husband, Todd, and the rest of what she calls the “first family.” “Look forward to today’s staff discussion re: my 3rd justice appt to highest court in 3 yrs. Supreme Court truly effects AK’s future,” reads one. And another: “Picking up my handsome little man to rtrn to Juneau, Trig got 1st haircut so my little hippie baby’s ready for AK sunshine on his shoulders.”
Sarah Palin winking

Palin turns her debate with Joe Biden into a winkathon. By J. Scott Applewhite/A.P. Images.

Little Shop of Horrors

The caricature of Sarah Palin that emerged in the presidential campaign, for good and ill, is now ineradicable. The swift journey from her knockout convention speech to Tina Fey’s dead-eyed incarnation of her as Dan Quayle with an updo played out in real time, no less for the bewildered McCain campaign than for the public at large. It is an ironclad axiom of politics that if a campaign looks troubled from the outside the inside reality is far worse, and the McCain-Palin fiasco was no exception. As in any sudden marriage of convenience in which neither partner really knows the other, there were bound to be bumps. Palin had been on the national Republican radar for barely a year, after a cruise ship of conservative columnists, including The Weekly Standard’s William Kristol, had stopped in Juneau in 2007 and had succumbed to her charms when she invited them to the governor’s house for a luncheon of halibut cheeks. McCain had spent only a couple of hours in Palin’s presence before choosing her, and she had pointedly failed to endorse him after he clinched the nomination in March. The difficulties began immediately, with the McCain team’s delivery of the bad news that the pregnancy of Palin’s daughter Bristol, which was already common knowledge in Alaska and had been revealed to the McCain team at the last minute, could not be kept secret until after the Republican convention.

By the time Election Day rolled around, the staff had been serially pummeled by unflattering press reports about the gaps in Palin’s knowledge, her stubborn resistance to direction, and the post-selection spending spree in which she ran up bills of $150,000 on clothes for herself and her family at high-end stores. The top McCain aides who had tried hard to work with Palin—Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist; Nicolle Wallace, the communications ace; and Tucker Eskew, her traveling counselor—were barely on speaking terms with her, and news organizations were reporting that anonymous McCain aides saw Palin as a “diva” and a “whack job.” Many of the details that led to such assessments have remained obscure. But in a recent series of conversations, a range of people from the McCain-Palin campaign, including members of the high command, agreed to elaborate on how a match they thought so right ended up going so wrong.

The consensus is that Palin’s rollout, and even her first television interview, with ABC’s Charles Gibson, conducted after an awkward two-week press blackout to allow for intensive cramming at her home in Wasilla, went more or less fine, though it had its embarrassing moments (“You can’t blink,” Palin said, when Gibson asked if she’d hesitated to accept McCain’s offer) and was much parodied. At least one savvy politician—Barack Obama—believed Palin would never have time to get up to speed. He told his aides that it had taken him four months to learn how to be a national candidate, and added, “I don’t care how talented she is, this is really a leap.” The paramount strategic goal in picking Palin was that the choice of a running mate had to ensure a successful convention and a competitive race right after; in that limited sense, the choice worked. But no serious vetting had been done before the selection (by either the McCain or the Obama team), and there was trouble in nailing down basic facts about Palin’s life. After she was picked, the campaign belatedly sent a dozen lawyers and researchers, led by a veteran Bush aide, Taylor Griffin, to Alaska, in a desperate race against the national reporters descending on the state. At one point, trying out a debating point that she believed showed she could empathize with uninsured Americans, Palin told McCain aides that she and Todd in the early years of their marriage had been unable to afford health insurance of any kind, and had gone without it until he got his union card and went to work for British Petroleum on the North Slope of Alaska. Checking with Todd Palin himself revealed that, no, they had had catastrophic coverage all along. She insisted that catastrophic insurance didn’t really count and need not be revealed. This sort of slipperiness—about both what the truth was and whether the truth even mattered—persisted on questions great and small. By late September, when the time came to coach Palin for her second major interview, this time with Katie Couric, there were severe tensions between Palin and the campaign.

By all accounts, Palin was either unwilling, or simply unable, to prepare. In the run-up to the Couric interview, Palin had become preoccupied with a far more parochial concern: answering a humdrum written questionnaire from her hometown newspaper, the Frontiersman. McCain aides saw it as easy stuff, the usual boilerplate, the work of 20 minutes or so, but Palin worried intently. At the same time, she grew concerned that her approval ratings back home in Alaska were sagging as she embraced the role of McCain’s bad cop. To keep her happy, the chief McCain strategist, Steve Schmidt, agreed to conduct a onetime poll of 300 Alaska voters. It would prove to Palin, Schmidt thought, that everything was all right.

Then came the near-total meltdown of the financial system and McCain’s much-derided decision to briefly “suspend” his campaign. Under the circumstances, and with severely limited resources, Schmidt and the McCain-campaign chairman, Rick Davis, scrapped the Alaska poll and urgently set out to survey voters’ views of the economy (and of McCain’s response to it) in competitive states. Palin was furious. She was convinced that Schmidt had lied to her, a belief she conveyed to anyone who would listen.

The next big milestone for Palin was the debate with Joe Biden, on October 2. An early rehearsal effort in Philadelphia found 20 people sitting in a stifling room with hundreds of sample questions on note cards. Palin just stared down, disengaged, non-participatory. A disaster loomed, so Schmidt made the difficult decision to leave campaign headquarters, in Virginia, and fly to McCain’s vacation retreat in Sedona, Arizona, where it was thought that Palin might be able to relax and recharge, and accept the assistance of a voice coach and a television coach. For three full days—at the height of the campaign—Schmidt dropped virtually all other business to help Palin prepare.