Good speech by Bush last night

I didn't watch it, but the text looks like some straight medicine. Good stuff. I tip my had to the pig.

A good little McCain smear

NY Times writer Paul Krugman used a recent McCain piece about health care reform to paint him as a scary guy to fix the financial crisis. Here's the quote Krugman lifted:
"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

The smear is that effective and clever. What McCain was talking about was allowing interstate (or cross border) health insurance as was done with interstate banking. No one in their right mind think interstate banking has anything to do with the current financial meltdown. Krugman simply cut the context out to jab McCain.

I like this technique. The Republicans have been doing this to Democrats forever, and it works.

Big Gubment redux

Now that the financial meltdown requires massive federal intervention, it will be fun to see how the ideologues on the right play this. How to wriggle out of their standard railing against the government they want to run in times like these. Hopefully, they will just roll over and let the Democrats take over. There really is no argument for the right at this time. None at all.

Big vs Small Government

This is one of the great rhetorical devices in American political history. Always effective, always dishonest. This is the argument that was used by Jefferson against Hamilton in his fight against a National Bank and a strong currency. It was used by slaveholders in the middle of the 19th century to justify states rights and the ownership of human beings. It was used most effectively in my lifetime by Reagan to say that taxes should be smaller and regulation on commerce should be eliminated whenever possible.

Now we see the results of totally free capitalism in the form of a meltdown of our financial system. Freedom given to instituions to write whatever mortgages they want and bundle them into any sort of securities they can market is now resulting in disaster. But the Republicans are caught in a quandry and are using further dishonesty to ensure their victory in the coming election. Because they are still in power, any subsidies (or 'bailouts') must have their stamp of approval. Such ideas go against the central right argument that bailouts = big gubment = evil. That one is easy as they are simply standing their philosophical ground and blaming others for the necessary bailouts.

McCain says lax regulation did not led to bad loans, it was the bad people who made the bad loans. All the Feds need do is crack some heads and get tough on those bad guys. This works because it plays into the tough guy personna that the right loves and the American voters love from them.

Like all Republican arguments, it is a lie. An effective lie. This so very frustrating to see my country walk right into making the same mistake we make over and over again. The mistake of giving the Republican Party continued power.

ABORTION and Sarah Palin

I'm following as much of the 'stark choice' bullshit as I can stomach this election season. I understand from Sarah Palin (as advised by the Republican establishment) that she is a pro-life, pro-family, small town, Washington outsider...or some such nonsense. Since I would do anything in my power to oppose her espoused philosophy in how my country should be run, I suppose that makes me an anti-life, anti-family, big city Washington insider...or some such nonsense.

I am glad she had the CHOICE to bear her children.
I am glad she had the CHOICE to become a Granny at her young age.
I am glad she had the CHOICE to marry the person she wanted to marry.
That's the kind of country I want to live in. But I fear that the American voters do not want a country like that. They prefer a country with a solid rhetorical script. The script offered by the Washington insiders who run the Republican Party.

Right vs Left, Ends vs Means

This is one of the best essays I have every read about the difference between Republicans and Democrats in the current USofA. Cheers, Dr Reich. You rule.
From http://robertreich.blogspot.com/
********
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
McCain, Obama, and the Inherent Advantage of Caring More About Ends Than Means

We’ve been here before: The Republican attack machine at full throttle, spewing lies in best-selling books, on Fox News, on talk radio. The mainstream media reporting on the controversy, thereby giving it more air time and squeezing out the Democrats’ affirmative message. Followed by accusations by Democrats that Republicans are playing unfairly. Responded to by smiling shrugs and winks from Republicans, who say Democrats can’t take the heat or can’t enjoy a joke or are out of touch with average Americans who are concerned about whatever it is the Republicans are lying about. This ignites a furious debate among Democrats about how negative they should go against the Republican. “If we use their tactics, we’ll lose the moral high ground,” say the Democratic doves. “If we don’t, we’ll lose the war,” say the Democratic hawks. The debate is never fully resolved. The Democrats sort of fight back but don’t have the heart to do to Republicans what Republicans do to them. And so it goes.

The underlying problem is that Democrats care about means as well as ends, while Republicans care almost exclusively about ends and will use any means to get there. The paradox lies deeper. For most Democrats, the means are part of the ends. We want an electoral process that eschews the lying and cheating we’ve witnessed since Richard Nixon’s dirty tricks. If we use their tactics, we undermine our own goal, violating one of the very things that distinguishes us from them. Yet if we don’t stoop to their level, how can we prevail in a system that allows – even rewards – such lying and cheating?

It’s the same with governing. Right-wing Republicans detest government, so when they screw it up – failing to protect the citizens of New Orleans or returning veterans in Walter Reed hospital, or wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on non-competitive bids for the military, turning budget surpluses into massive deficits – they’re proving their own subterranean point that the public can’t trust government to do anything right. Democrats, once in power, inherit this legacy of distrust and deficit, and spend much of their time in office working their way out of it. And also inordinate time and energy promoting good governmental processes (recall Al Gore’s “making government work” crusade, which holds the record for the most arduous effort generating the least media attention).

Democrats also care about the rule of law – adherence to legal norms, rules, and precedents – as an end in itself. Republican administrations view the law as a potential obstacle to achieving particular ends. Anyone trying to chronicle the Bushie’s disregard for the rule of law is quickly overwhelmed with examples, such as violating civil service laws to fill up the executive branch with political hacks; riding roughshod over constitutional laws in firing federal prosecutors; wiretapping Americans in clear violation of law; holding prisoners of war without charge, in violation of international law; using torture. Democrats, once in power, regard laws as serious constraints on that power. (When I was secretary of labor, the department’s lawyers would instruct me about what I could not do because I was unauthorized to do it, rather than how I might reinterpret or bend the laws in order that I could. The lawyers who work in the Bush administration do the opposite.)

Those who are willing to do anything to achieve their ends will always have a tactical advantage over those who regard the means as ends in themselves. The question posed in this election, and, one hopes, by an Obama administration, is whether the moral authority generated by the latter position is itself enough to overcome these odds.

posted by Robert Reich