Tag: politics

To get it straight, go to some other paper, says Sweet of Sun-Times

Lynn Sweet bemoaned dirty campaigning yesterday, offering odd advice to her readers: Go somewhere else to get things straight!

I am imploring you in the months ahead to do some homework. Do some reading up on what’s at issue in the now red-hot future-of-Medicare debate — and not on websites that masquerade as nonpartisan.

For starters, the folks at two independent fact-check operations — the Tampa Bay Times’ Politifact.org and FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center — sort out the political debate in thoughtful and simple language, and they have the guts to make the call.

Why wouldn’t she recommend her own newspaper, the Sun-Times?

Why the college-educated believe Obama

This letter-writer (Wall St. Journal, 8/16/12) puts it well:

Regarding your editorial “The Postmodern President” (Aug. 10): Perhaps Bill Clinton was the first postmodern president depending, of course, on what the definition of “was” was (or is). The reason that the Obama campaign’s loosely woven fabrications resonate with the public is [that] we have a rising population of postmodern, university-educated minds.

Interestingly, tea partiers are vexing to postmodernists because they cling to their guns or religion, i.e., absolute truths and unalterable, God-given rights enumerated in our nation’s founding documents. These are roadblocks to free interpretation and relative “truth.”

Doug Mainwaring, Gaithersburg, Md.

We are not supposed to be sure about things, you see.

Burke’s statism revisited: Industry spoke, he and Emanuel listened

Whoa.  Slow down there.  This morning’s story, “Burke: City should consider seizing ‘underwater’ homes,” on which an earlier blog posting was based, has been superseded.  Its very idea has been erased from the hearts and minds of Ald. Burke and Mayor Emanuel, and surely from those of the aldermanic finance committee which met to do the considering.

There was complete turnaround on the issue, backtracking, by Burke from serious consideration of the move, an exercise of dominant domain.  The hearing was “quite informative and [it had been] worthwhile to spend the time learning about what is happening around the country,” he said after it and after retreat by Mayor Emanuel from the fence he was sitting on in the morning story, when he was “still evaluating” the idea, as his press aide told Sun-Times reporter Fran Spielman. 

But by early afternoon, the mayor was convinced it was a bad idea:

“The idea of using eminent domain is not one I support,” the mayor said at an unrelated news conference called to showcase CTA improvements and ridership gains

What happened to make him so sure?  Maybe or probably the instant opposition, unsurpising after all, from the mortgage industry:

Timothy W. Cameron–managing director of SIFMA Asset Managers Group comprised of securities firms, banks and 30 of the nation’s largest asset managers–argued that the use of eminent domain would “do more than good” [sic] to Chicago.

“The worst harm will be felt by Chicago residents themselves, as they will find it harder or impossible to obtain credit,” Cameron said in a statement distributed to reporters prior to Tuesday’s hearing.

So Spielman’s piece was well timed to quash Ed Burke’s can-you-top-this piece of statism at the local level, alerting industry opposition from deep in the morning’s paper. 

The extended new lead online story, “Actor John Cusack addresses foreclosure epidemic at City Hall” — Cusack was there because a friend was pushing the local (eminent domain) solution — seems careful not to be in-Burke’s-face about it, which is not Spielman’s style and would do nothing for her continuing important reportage.

And that, my friends, is my new lead on my morning posting, which you can read here.

Ed Burke’s new statist adventure

Candidate for nation’s most statist pol, allowing for circumstances such as inherited societal proclivity towards (ugh!) democracy?  Presenting Ald. Ed Burke (D-Chi), whose latest — in a long and distinguishing career, if not distinguished except ironically speaking — statist brainstorm is to seize underwater houses and condos.  (this morning’s hard-copy Sun-Times, p. 50, Fran Spielman reporting: link is to on-line new lead of a.m. hard copy story). 

Off-with-their-heads Ed, Red Queenie to his colleaagues (no? should be).  Public housing here, 667,000 units masquerading as mortgages!  A statist’s moist if not all-out wet dream.  Seize the mortgages.  (We can afford it, it’s not our money anyhow.  Sound of eyebrows raising, like drawbridges or Michigan bridge at rip tide.)

“Steep discount” on loans at “fair-market value” to be determined by apparatchiks in city govt.  What could be more fair?  Serfs get new affordable mortgages from the lords of the manor, and the system works!  (System? Seat of pants system if any.)  In long, run we’re all dead, said Lord Keynes, he of the Bloomsbury crowd —sexual cut-ups all, by the way.

FHA not so sure about this mortgage seizure: something about “sound operations” and “taxpayer expense.”  Oh?  What are they? aldermanic Finance Committee members ask, turning to each other in shock and awe.  What the hell is that FHA talking about?  Then back each to his coloring book, or drawing board the expression is, shaking head at the mystifying gaucherie of that mysterious agency with its talk of “chilling effect” on market.

Mayor R. is not sure if he likes it.  Wind not blowing strong enough yet to dry his wettened forefinger held at eye level, his best determinant for seat of his pants decision-making.  But the first rule of statism is bound to win out, don’t just stand there, do something, or look like it.

(Besides, as Steve Bartin points out, “If this passes, the potential for corruption will be unlimited.”  So who needs statism as a ruling orthodoxy?)

Paul West of Chi Trib as Dem campaigner

Chi Trib and its sister, LA Times, are off to a flying start for the campaign to make sure Paul Ryan never becomes vice president.  This batch of stories I offer as evidence in globo, but today’s Chi Trib hard copy offers something worth analyzing.  (It’s also among the batch.)  I speak of “Romney’s choice of Ryan pleases both left and right,” a textbook-worthy case of campaign literature coming on to us as “analysis,” a favorite Chi Trib fig leaf from years back.

Yes, Virginia and all you listeners at sea and all you Trib editors, we do read your Sunday-morning hard copy, even if it’s by an LAT fellow, in this case the inimitable Paul West, fresh off his 8/9 prediction, where all the smart money was lying, that Portman would be THE MAN.  What a guy.

“With every passing day,” he wrote,

it’s increasingly likely that Mitt Romney will reject a more ideological, movement-style conservative and announce instead that he’s running with Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, a well-regarded member of the party establishment.

This is only a guess, of course, and hardly rates as a “wow” if it turns out to be accurate.

I love that declining to be named a very sharp fellow, since it was so obvious.  Where does our favorite newspaper company get such stalwarts?

So he took a sucker punch with the Ryan pick, so today he was constrained to make the point of what a bad choice this was for Romney.

Both sides were happy at the Ryan choice, he pundited, observed, analyzed, whatever, which means one side is being foolish.  Which one?  Well, for one thing,

Romney appears to have concluded that success was iffy on his original course — to make the election a referendum on Obama. The new and decidedly different trajectory will make the fall election more of a choice between contrasting visions of the future — a frame that Obama had already been attempting to put around the contest.

Hapless fellow, he, seeking to make silk purse from sow’s ear.  It must be true.  Take the word of the guy who ran Bob Dole’s campaign in 1996!  (Still on West’s tickler after all these years, long since transferred to his I-Whatsit.)

“Romney must have recognized that what he was doing was not working and he needed to shake the race up,” said Scott Reed . . .

who added that the choice energized the base.

A top Bush strategist from the 2004 election sniffed at this:  “This Ryan pick isn’t going to help close the gap with Latino voters. This isn’t going to persuade suburban, middle-class moms to support the ticket.  . . .”  Uh-oh, even Republicans aren’t happy.

So why the heck was EVERYBODY HAPPY on Larry Kudlow’s radio show Saturday afternoon, where waves of ecstatic commentary were enough to make a grown man weep for joy.  Oh wait.  The base.  Bad idea to pay them any mind.  Euphoric base-members need not apply for entry into the World of West and Fellow Newsies.

Anyhow, even the base isn’t so sure.

. . . influential conservative voices, including the Weekly Standard magazine, had launched an aggressive push for Ryan — even while acknowledging, as the Wall Street Journal editorialized in making the case for the Wisconsin congressman, that some leaders of his own party consider the 42-year-old too young and too risky and feared that his selection “would make Medicare and the House budget the issue, not the economy.” [italics mine]

And then a quote from Ralph Reed, and that does it for the tickler, so thin it is with base members.

Then a generic nod to Romney-Ryan strategy coming up, devoid of hard-hitting specifics as if there were none, followed by a trove of Dem talking points (with which West and Newsie Friends are considerably more familiar):

Democrats will attempt to use the budget proposals to amplify attacks they’ve been making against the Republican presidential candidate. Ryan’s proposal to eliminate capital gains taxes would do away with much of Romney’s own tax liability, allowing Democrats to remind voters that Romney refuses to disclose his taxes from before 2010. Democrats will argue that Ryan’s plan shreds the social safety net in the same way that Bain Capital, Romney’s former firm, laid off workers and left them without health insurance.

At the same time, Democratic candidates at all levels will blast away at hot-button issues that, for decades, they’ve managed to turn to their advantage at election time — protecting Medicare and Social Security against the presumed perils of Republican overhaul proposals.

Seniors, a group that narrowly supports Romney over Obama, are particularly sensitive to changes in programs that most of them rely on for their income and healthcare. Even though Romney says his plan wouldn’t affect current recipients, adding Ryan to the ticket could affect GOP chances in senior-heavy Florida, the biggest battleground state, where the presidential race is currently a tossup.

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, in an email to supporters, said Ryan “would end Medicare as we know it and slash the investments we need to keep our economy growing — all while cutting taxes for those at the very top.”

And a final very gloomy summing up from a Democrat source:

Romney now faces “the same risk that the Republicans faced four years ago in the selection of Sarah Palin,” Democratic pollster Peter Hart said. “It can look good on Day 1, on Day 10. The question is, can it make it to Day 30? Ryan obviously brings substance and knowledge to their campaign. But on the other hand, he is now wrapped neatly around the neck of the Republican ticket.”

OK, P. West, we get it.  So you didn’t think Romney had it in him to pick the author of a controversial plan.  You were wrong, but you’re right about the un-wisdom of the pick.  Sure you are.  This time is the time for you.  Good luck.

On the range is heard . . .

. . . an encouraging word:

Of course, if Romney were a corpse as yet unburied on the model of Bob Dole and John McCain, he would lose. If you do not all that much care whether you win or not, you will lose. But Romney wants to win. He is a man of vigor, and he has a wonderful case to make. He is a turn-around artist, and this country desperately needs turning around.

This fellow sees a Literary Digest moment in our future, taking polls as the too certain trumpets in each case, 2012 and 1936.

Say it ain’t so, Harry, please

Oh brother (where are thou when we need thee?), not only must we wonder if Harry Reid’s parents were married, pending production of a wedding certificate, but now a worse allegation has arisen, in the much-acclaimed or at least -consulted Urban Dictionary:

“Harry Reid,” the dictionary now says, is defined as “[a]n unofficial rap sheet of alleged pederasty and sexual abuse of minors by anonymous sources that may not exist.”

The definition emerged, the dictionary notes, “after an explosion of reports surfaced online and on the airwaves, that [Reid] is a serial pederast. The outlets reporting the allegations all protected the anonymity of their sources, and no one knows if the allegations are true, but they’re out there. A spokesperson for Reid declined to deny them.”

Come onnnnn!  A majority leader about whom such important matters are uncertain?  We can’t have it, I say.  We simply can’t have it!

(Mature readers only)

Mark Brown has his red-meat issue, defense of welfare mothers

Baaaad Marky Brown here.  None of the cool, calm, collected columnist he usually demonstrates — more like his 2008 primary campaign against racist Dems who did not vote for Obama.

Mitt Romney on Tuesday reclaimed welfare as a central issue for Republicans this campaign season based on a specious and cynical claim that President Barack Obama has “dismantled” Clinton-era welfare reform.

Specious and cynical: the issue is joined, gloves off, aiming at jugular.

It’s been 16 years since former President Bill Clinton led a bipartisan effort to fix the nation’s welfare laws, most notably by requiring recipients to work or go to school.

And ever since, Republicans have rued the loss of one of their favorite red-meat issues on the campaign trail. It’s tough to rail against “welfare mothers”— long a favored target of political panderers of all stripes — when you’ve already taken credit for fixing the welfare system

Oh gosh, those old welfare mothers and political panderers.  Go Mark!  (At this point the careful reader went to the next thing, unable to deal for the moment with the baaaaad Marky B.