The Light: Hillary

Leave it to Maureen Dowd to miss the forest for the trees in her argument that

“The Obama White House is too white.”

In Dowd’s latest NYT column, You’ll Never Believe What This White House Is Missing, she discusses the Shirley Sherrod incident, and writes that “unlike Bill Clinton, who never needed help fathoming Southern black culture,” the Obama white house just doesn’t get the “central African-American experience.”

Dowd contends the Obama administration had better shape up otherwise…

“…[T]his administration will keep tripping over race rather than inspiring on race.”

and

“We may not have a “nation of cowards” on race, as Attorney General Eric Holder contended, but we may have a West Wing of cowards on race.”

They are cowards. Period. Yet they use the Rovian tactic of blaming others for sins of which they themselves are guilty.

While Dowd understands that Barack Obama’s exotic background and upbringing in Hawaii may be a contributing factor to his seeming lack of understanding, she cannot admit that White House insensitivity on racial issues is due to much more than his being surrounded by “smart-ass white boys” as she puts it. The real problem stems from something far worse. His administration’s actions are governed by branding, political expediency and preserving Obama’s popularity.

When polling rather than conscience drives your actions, the Shirley Sherrod firing fiasco is the result.

Dowd then resorts to the typical “let’s attack FOX News for the hell of it” gambit:

“The West Wing white guys who pushed to ditch Shirley Sherrod before Glenn Beck could pounce…”

Dowd does not clarify what Glenn Beck “pouncing” actually meant – Glenn Beck pounced on the White House, not Sherrod. Beck felt they had unjustly fired her. But Dowd could not possibly admit that Beck took Sherrod’s side. Sherrod could not either from the looks of it and wanted to continue to paint FOX News as the bad guy when the network held off on covering the story until they got all the facts – unlike President Obama. Sherrod was forced to resign before FOX did any “pouncing.”

And what of the NAACP? They were the ones with the entire tape – why didn’t they speak on her behalf, if indeed they had the basis to do so?

Perhaps Andrew Breitbart was wrong to show the edited tape of Sherrod’s remarks. It is up to you to decide whether you believe he did so less to slam Sherrod and more to slam the audience at the NAACP dinner who reacted appreciatively to what he felt were reverse racist sentiments on her part.

Dowd also complains…

“At some level, [Obama] acts like the election was enough; he shouldn’t have to deal with race further. But he does.”

…“Who knew that the first black president would make it even harder on black people?” asked a top black Democratic official.

Um. I did. So did a lot of other folks on this blog.

In May of 2008, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson penned a piece entitled The Card Clinton Is Playing – accusing Hillary Clinton of playing the race card to advance her candidacy while ignoring the fact that the Obama campaign had been playing that card daily and with impunity. I responded to Mr. Robinson’s accusations. In pertinent part, I wrote:

…The few like Tavis Smiley, who criticized Sen. Obama for skipping the State of the Black Union, and I believe [Senator Obama] also decided not to speak at MLK’s anniversary event, raise an interesting point. Senator Obama is, perhaps of necessity, courting the white vote and taking for granted the African American community who vote for him in droves. I believe, if he were to be elected, aside from the great symbolic value of having him in office, which I grant you is no small thing, the AA community may suffer because the white liberal elite in the party pushing to elect him will feel they’ve put a band aid over the racial divide in this country, while in actuality doing little to heal it.

Apparently Dowd agrees, complaining that Obama is “light years” behind Bush on developmental help to Africa and wouldn’t let Muslim women in head scarves appear behing him at a rally because Obama staffers were afraid he would be painted “as a radical/Muslim/socialist.” She accuses his staffers of insensitivity — as if Obama were somehow not involved in these decisions. Isn’t he the President?

Ms. Dowd – it is not “insensitivity.” It is Obama’s ‘you are a notch on my bedpost, I use you for my own purposes and otherwise you can get lost attitude.’ This White House is run by a bunch of arrogant frat boys. What do you expect?

Dowd also reported:

“I don’t think a single black person was consulted before Shirley Sherrod was fired — I mean c’mon, “ said Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina. [snip]

“The president’s getting hurt real bad,” Clyburn told me. “He needs some black people around him.” He said Obama’s inner circle keeps “screwing up” on race.

A laughable comment to be sure. I don’t know whether President Obama needs “some black people around him” as much as he needs to grow some genuine leadership ability and the willingness to do his homework before making a judgment on an issue of which he knows nothing.

A disproportionately high number in the black community have been adversely affected by high unemployment, something NYT columnist Bob Herbert has pointed out many times. He too, is wondering why the President is “screwing up on race.”

Perhaps Rep. Clyburn and others are now regretting having played the race card on the Clintons during the primaries, who have done more for the African American community than Obama ever has.

President Obama had never in his career exhibited compassion or understanding of these issues, certainly not to the point of taking action on them. How did Dowd, Herbert, Robinson, Clyburn or anyone else assume he would be magically transformed once elected?

President Obama’s administration only uses the race card as a defensive tool and a shield against criticism of his inane policies and actions. That has officially backfired. It backfired in Massachusetts with his “the Cambridge police acted stupidly” remark, as it has once again with Shirley Sherrod.

More is required than different advisors.

The White House has a horrible habit of working reactively, resorting to a “don’t blame me — it’s the other guys fault” mantra. That is not genuine leadership, which, of course, has been the problem all along. Every time one of these incidents gets played out before the American people, it is further evidence that those in charge have not done their homework and cannot grow beyond making pathetic excuses for the same. Slowly but surely, the country is getting a glimpse into the real character of this administration.

A great American and loyal reader (thanks FL) shared a report recently produced by not-for-profits Essential Information and The Consumer Education Foundation. This report, Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America, has gotten little to no attention in the general media. What a shame. I find of particular interest the fact that a number of the currently discussed regulatory changes are directly addressing the points highlighted in this report. I personally view these proposed regulatory changes as substantiating this report and adding credibility to its effort. For the naysayers in the audience, I would ask you to review the report and reconsider your assessment.

I was struck a month ago by the incriminating statements put forth by Senator Chuck Hagel and CIA head Leon Panetta, which I highlighted on February 16th in Legalized Bribery. Those statements bluntly indict our massive system of lobbying, political fundraising, and the quality of those running for elected office! In light of that article, I am more and more convinced that our elected officials have turned their offices into massive for profit machines at the expense of our public well being.

I commend the authors of this report, Roger Weissman and James Donahue, for taking the time and making the extensive effort to expose the truth. The full report, 231 pages in length, spares no detail. In studying it, I found the information and analysis riveting. Let me try to summarize it for you.

The report chronicles in real detail how Wall Street showered Washington with $1.7 billion in campaign contributions and $3.4 billion upon lobbyists over the last ten years. That money went from the lowest members of Congress to the President of the United States. 55% of the contributions went to Republicans and 45% went to Democrats. Yes, a truly bipartisan effort.

The authors are beyond thorough in laying out how the . . .

financial sector showered campaign contributions on politicians from both parties, invested heavily in a legion of lobbyists, paid academics and think tanks to justify their preferred policy positions, and cultivated a pliant media — especially a cheerleading business media complex.

The report highlights the electricity crisis in California in 2000 and the Enron debacle as precursors of our current situation.

They quote FDR in his statement, “our enemies of today are the forces of privilege and greed within our own borders.” The same clearly holds true today.

Where were our leaders with the vision and foresight to protect the public? Feeding at the Wall Street trough!! Let’s review what the $5.1 billion bought Wall Street and who in Washington facilitated the process. Later I will highlight a number of politicians who collected substantial amounts of these dollars.

Part I : What Did the Money Buy?

1. the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act which separated commercial and investment banking activities. This act came out of the Great Depression. Former Fed chair Paul Volker supported Glass-Steagall in the late 90’s and still does today. The expected repeal of this Act allowed for the merger of Citibank and Travelers Insurance even before the formal repeal. President Clinton, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Congressman Phil Gramm, and Fed Chair Alan Greenspan were the primary supporters of this repeal.

2. the allowance of off-balance sheet accounting which promoted the increased leverage in banks.

3. the executive branch rejects financial derivative regulation. The CFTC (Commodities Futures Trading Corp), led by Brooksley Born’s effort, sought to exert regulatory control over derivatives. The CFTC was squashed by Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan. Then Deputy Treasury Secretary Larry Summers told Congress that CFTC proposals would cast regulatory uncertainty over a thriving market. Aside from Rubin, Greenspan, and Summers, Senator Richard Lugar and SEC Chair Arthur Levitt also supported the Clinton administration’s lack of regulatory oversight.

4. Congress also blocked financial derivative regulation through legislation engineered by Senator Phil Gramm.

5. in 2004, the SEC succumbed to massive lobbying by Wall Street allowing for voluntary regulation. This acquiescence is the grossest example of the inmates running the asylum. In 1975, the SEC ruled that debt to net capital ratios had to be less than 12 to 1. This “voluntary regulation” led by Goldman Sachs and then CEO Henry Paulson allowed investment banks to develop their own net capital requirements. Merrill Lynch went to a 40:1 ratio. Then SEC chair Chris Cox acknowledged this voluntary regulation was a complete failure!

6. the bank self-regulation goes global.

7. the total failure to police the mortgage banking industry and its predatory lending. People may never have heard of outfits such as Aames Financial, Delta Funding, Ameriquest, Long Beach, and many more. These firms propagated massive frauds in lending to unqualified borrowers. They need to be brought to justice.

8. the federal government preempted a number of state consumer protection laws which would have mitigated a lot of the predatory lending.

9. the government allowed for purchasers of loans to escape accountability. Only the original mortgage lender would be liable for the predatory and illegal features embedded in the mortgages. This immunization of the investment banks eliminated their legal exposures and facilitated the continuation of fraudulent lending practices.

10. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac expand their footprints into the non-prime mortgage market. Many politicians fed from the Freddie and Fannie troughs, but nobody more than Chris Dodd and Barack Obama.

11. the merger mania in the banking industry has led to institutions now deemed “too big to fail.” This report believes these institutions should now be treated like highly regulated public utilities.

12. the debacle that played out with the rating agencies only further facilitated this mess. These agencies were and still are massively conflicted.

Part II: Who Paid What and Who Collected How Much 1998-2008?

– Commercial Banks spent $154 million in campaign contributions and $383 million on lobbyists.

— Accounting Firms spent $81 million in campaign contributions and $122 million on lobbyists.

— Insurance Companies spent $220 million in campaign contributions and $1.1 billion on lobbyists!!

— Investment Banks spent $512 million in campaign contributions and $600 million on lobbyists.

A very large percentage of the lobbyists were former government officials!!

While the report makes a number of recommendations, a few strike me as self-evident and vitally necessary:

1. derivatives must be regulated.
2. limited leverage within financial institutions
3. revise the compensation system for financial institutions so timing of reward is linked to elimination of risk
4. consumer advocacy groups

The list of politicians receiving the largesse runs approximately 80 pages and covers the Presidency to seemingly every member of Congress. I was also struck by the consistency of contributions received during each election cycle by Senators Schumer (D-NY) and Dodd (D-CT). Schumer represents the Wall Street territory while Dodd has been a longtime senior ranking official on the Senate Banking committee.

As I perused the financial data specifically for 2008, I paused and reflected on the fact that these institutions were, and to a large extent still are in dire financial straits. While in the process of receiving government support, they had made or were making campaign contributions. As the government has haphazardly reviewed expenditures at these organizations, let’s shed the floodlight right back on these campaigns. It is not difficult to track campaign contributions to politicians back to taxpayer funds injected into these firms. In light of that, I know it will never happen but I believe the political campaigns should return those dollars to the public. Who received how much money in 2008? While not totally comprehensive, my back of the envelope analysis shows the following:

Barack Obama: $3.9 million
John McCain: $2.1 million
Hillary Clinton: $2.5 million
Rudolph Giuliani: $1.1 million
Chris Dodd: $650k
Mitt Romney: $1.060 million
Rham Emanuel: 160k

President Obama, Madame Secretary and gentlemen, please make those checks payable to “American Taxpayer” and let’s begin to return some integrity to our political process.

Where’s the media to shed light on this travesty? Oh yes, they are compliant and cheerleading.

Robert Rubin, he’s our man, if he can’t do it, Greenspan can,
Alan Greenspan, he’s our man, if he can’t do it, Paulson can,
Henry Paulson, he’s our man, if he can’t do it, Dodd can,
Chris Dodd, he’s our man, if he can’t do it, Gramm can,
Phil Gramm, he’s our man, if he can’t do it, Obama can…

Uh, oh!! We got real problems!!

LD

**Cross-posted from my blog, Sense on Cents. Come by and visit!

In her NY Times column yesterday, “Sweet on Caroline,” Maureen Dowd finds yet another way to display her Hillary Derangement Syndrome by defending Caroline Kennedy in her bid for appointment to the Senate. In the process, MoDowd not so subtly plunges yet another dagger into Senator Clinton’s heart. Contrary to her mission in this column, however, MoDowd only succeeds in proving that, in Caroline Kennedy’s case, less is more — since Caroline is far less qualified than the far more capable Hillary was when she was first elected to this seat in 2000.

Ms. Dowd begins in her usual snide fashion:

Ask not, you know, what your country can, like, do for you. Ask what you, um, can, you know, do for your country.

After a lifetime of shying away from the public spotlight, Caroline Kennedy asked herself what she could do for her country.

Her soft-spoken answer — to follow her father and two uncles and serve in the Senate — got her ripped to shreds in the, you know, press.

I know about “you knows.” I use that verbal crutch myself, a bad habit that develops from shyness and reticence about public speaking.

Wow. That’s so nice of you, Mo, to first make fun of Caroline Kennedy’s crutch of saying ‘you know’ 120 times in one interview – only then to excuse it. This ignores the fact that Ms. Kennedy’s “you knows” may cover the fact that she doesn’t have very much that is pertinent to say otherwise. Mo then continues fawning:

I always thought that Caroline and her brother, John, had special magic capital in America because of their heartbreaking roles in the Kennedy House of Atreus.

… I found it bizarre that when Caroline offered to use her magic capital — and friendship with Barack Obama — to help take care of New York in this time of economic distress, she was blasted by a howl of “How dare she?”

How dare she indeed. Let me inquire of Ms. Dowd: how does Caroline’s “friendship” with Barack Obama or her magical Kennedy name enable her to magically help the beleaguered State of New York?

Is Ms. Dowd implying that if a Senator is not a ‘friend’ of Barack Obama, his or her state’s needs will be ignored? Surely, Hillary Clinton has done an amazing job for her constituents and earned their respect, despite the fact that the Bushes and Clintons are like oil and water. For one thing, Senator Clinton fought for and got better care for first responders after 9/11 when President Bush ignored their needs. She did it without the ‘magical friendship’ Ms. Dowd insists is so important. Furthermore, many in NY Congress as well as local representatives refused to abandon Hillary for Obama during the primary, though they were under great pressure to do so. They stuck with her for one reason: they each made clear, when they needed Hillary, she always showed up for their districts. Yet, Ms. Mo still treats Senator Clinton like a carpetbagger. How is it that Caroline is magically equipped, simply by virtue of the Kennedy name to rescue New York? Dowd then states:

Although Americans still have enough British in their genes to be drawn to dynasties, W. has no doubt soured the country on scions. And the camps of the other two New York dynasties — the Clintons (still bitter about Caroline’s endorsement of Obama) and the Cuomos (who’d like that Senate seat for Andrew) — have certainly done their best to undermine Caroline.

Who has undermined her? Ms. Kennedy has done a fine job of doing that for herself. And why shouldn’t NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo want the seat – he is also far more accomplished? What about Congresswoman Carol Maloney – probably Hillary’s pick? Why should the far more qualified woman once again be overlooked? Why do we seem hell bent for leather to promote “American Idol” in this country? What has happened to the American dream of working for and earning what you want in life? And why do we assume the Clintons are bitter about Caroline’s Obama endorsement? And what does that have to do with the fact that Congresswoman Maloney is more deserving and more qualified for this appointment in her sleep than Caroline Kennedy?

Sounds like Ms. Dowd is the one who is bitter. The Clintons are husband and wife. No dynasty there that I can see, but Mo still pulls out the same old, tired narrative of ‘no dynasties’ that Obama used so effectively when trumpeting his excuse for CHANGE. Um, except when the dynasty is “Kennedy” – then the sky’s the limit. Heaven forefend we have someone who has some idea what the hell they are doing. But since we just elected a President who hasn’t a clue, perhaps Ms. Dowd feels we should keep the trend going. Ms. Dowd refers to Caroline Kennedy as offering the Senate “an infusion of class, intelligence and guts.” Guts? Um, you know, yeah, err, aah, you know aaaaaaand….yeah.

“People complain that the 51-year-old Harvard and Columbia Law School grad and author is not a glib, professional pol who knows how to artfully market herself, and is someone who hasn’t spent her life glad-handing, backstabbing and logrolling. I say, thank God.”

Oh, Mo! You’re kidding me, right? And your beloved “Obambi” hasn’t spent his career glad-handing, backstabbing and logrolling??! Certainly, P.E. Obama hasn’t any idea how to “artfully market” himself, does he?

The press whines that she doesn’t have a pat answer about why she wants the job. I’ve interviewed a score of men running for president; not one had a good answer for why he wanted it.

Gee, does that include P.E. Obama – the one you touted this entire election season while excoriating the far more qualified, eloquent (sans teleprompter) and caring Hillary Clinton at every opportunity? I believe when Obama was asked the first thing he would do as President, he said he would “put his feet up behind the desk.” Awe inspiring.

Ms. Dowd then tells us Caroline’s relatively inarticulate and inexperienced manner is no worry, since she “knows Caroline Kennedy.”…

“She’s smart, cultivated, serious and unpretentious. The Senate, shamefully sparse on profiles in courage during Dick Cheney’s reign of terror, would be lucky to get her.

Anyhow, it isn’t how you say it. It’s what you say. Hillary Clinton is a great talker, but she never stood up in the Senate to lead a crusade against any Republican horror show, from Terri Schiavo to the Bush administration’s dishonest push to war.”

I see, but Barack Obama stood up to …???? Who exactly? What crusade did the inspiring speaker, Mr. Hopey-Changey lead? Who did Joe Biden stand up to? Or Kerry? Or any of them? Furthermore, P.E. Obama supposedly made an anti-war speech in 2002 and then when elected to the Senate in 2005, spent the rest of his time voting in lock step with his party and rubberstamping everything that President Bush wanted. Senator Clinton, gave her vote for the IWR in 2002 very reluctantly, as her speech on the Senate floor shows. The very next day she, along with Senator Robert Byrd, set about restricting George Bush further in terms of what powers this IWR would grant him.

Again, Hillary is being judged by a ridiculous double standard. Dowd actually has the nerve to criticize her for not being the lone Senator to stand up against Bush and his cadre but the man Dowd affectionately named “Obambi,” who never stood up to anyone, or for anything, gets a pass. Does she even realize or care how contradictory this nonsense is?

And if we are going to talk about Terry Schiavo – didn’t Obama vote to keep her alive?

What the hell is Mo Dowd going on about here? She seems to conveniently forget that very man she spent the last year fawning over is just as vapid and chameleon-like as they come. Moral courage? How about political expediency? That is the only term our President-to-be understands.

I find Dowd’s closing words most hilarious:

Sitting in the Senate gallery on Tuesday as senators were sworn in by Dick Cheney, I saw plenty of lawmakers who had benefited from family.

It isn’t what your name is. It’s what you do with it.

So dynasties are OK as long as you are a Kennedy. But Hillary Clinton, who Dowd predictably finds time to trash once again, had far more accomplishments on her own that Caroline Kennedy ever had, only got to her Senate seat and a run for the nomination because of her husband? I see. Ms. Dowd sounds more like Chris Matthews every day. Jealous much? Hillary Clinton has done a great deal with her name but her detractors still are determined to pretend her accomplishments are non-existent, probably to make Caroline look better by comparison. Sorry. Not working.

What exactly has Caroline Kennedy done that entitles her to jump to the head of the line in front of Carol Maloney and Andrew Cuomo?

It is far more likely that Ms. Dowd chooses to champion Caroline because she is sweet and non-threatening – no brilliance detected. Hillary surely is a far more intimidating character. I have nothing against Caroline Kennedy personally. The question in re Caroline Kennedy isn’t what’s wrong with her – it’s what’s right with her for this particular job? Out of nowhere, she crooks her finger to get a Senate seat and it should be granted her?

The rather clueless Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post also chimed in…

“Caroline has always been part of my consciousness: the lucky little girl with a pony and an impossibly handsome father. What a fitting coda … to have the little princess grow up to be a senator.”

So in order to have a “storybook ending,” let’s put a totally unqualified Kennedy in the seat. Marcus enjoyed giving Mr. Obama a storybook ending as well. For those who don’t remember, Marcus is also one who saw fit to trash Hillary Clinton endlessly.

So a qualified woman is to be vilified and held to impossible standards – but one with no qualifications for the job is to be nursed along at every turn? What kind of a message are we sending with this behavior? When we send a woman up who is unqualified and she falters, she makes it twice as hard for the truly qualified female candidate to be sent up the next time.

The bottom line is this: When we lower the bar to suit an unqualified woman, or a minority of either sex, you are making it that much more difficult for a qualified person in the same category. Unqualified men seem to get by with little consequences, however.

Ms. Dowd may excuse Ms. Kennedy’s ‘verbal crutch,’ but that does not excuse her lack of deserving or qualifications otherwise. It also doesn’t excuse the fact that women like Ms. Dowd and Ms. Marcus seem incapable of celebrating a truly qualified and capable woman like Hillary Clinton over a truly unqualified, dissembling man.

[Cross-posted from Heidi Li's Potpourri]

Richard Cohen’s sister is canceling her inauguration party because of President-elect Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to bless Mr. Obama’s taking the office of the Presidency of the United State.

According to her brother’s column in the Washington Post, what made her do this is the way in which Mr. Obama’s choice to pick this pastor for this occasion serves as a special sort of condoning of Mr. Warren’s views about gays and lesbians.

I agree with Richard Cohen, and apparently his sister, that these views should be regarded as totally unacceptable by anybody who has any sense of the importance of civil rights and indeed of human rights. I also agree with Richard Cohen’s view that as a somebody running for the office of President and who was at the time a U.S. Senator, Mr. Obama had a particular responsibility for denouncing his then-pastor’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ, for giving the anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan a special award during the primary season.

I find it troubling that neither Mr. Cohen nor apparently his sister have not been, as far as I can tell, overly concerned by President-Elect Obama’s equally eloquent silence and inaction regarding the sexism and misogyny directed at Senator Clinton and her supporters, particularly the sophomoric expression of these attitudes by Jon Favreau, the man writing President-elect Obama’s inaugural address. (I shudder to think what the reaction of the Cohen family would have been if Favreau had been found on YouTube horsing around calling somebody a “homo” - maybe then Richard Cohen’s sister would join us in our demand that the President-Elect fire this sophomoric bigot as his chief speech-writer. Whether a bigot is slick (Warren) or juvenile (Favreau), he is still a bigot.)

It is tempting to forget in this sort of dynamic who the real problem is. As is clear from what I have written so far, I wish Richard Cohen and his sister would be, respectively, writing about and canceling inauguration parties as much over Mr. Obama’s inaction in the face of sexism and misogyny as they are in the face of anti-Semitism and gay-bashing. And yes, I wish that Richard Cohen’s sister had paid attention to and given greater weight to the fact that she had the option to work to elect somebody who, both as a Senator and as a Presidential candidate, repeatedly marched in Pride parades and met with editors of gay newspapers across the country rather than working for somebody who would not even have his photograph taken with Gavin Newsome.

But I am not falling into the trap that lies that way. Just because people got it wrong before does not mean they cannot help matters now. People can learn. So despite the bit of complaining above, I am not going to point a finger at Richard Cohen’s sister (or, for that matter, at Katha Pollitt for decrying the misogyny involved in the Warren choice when Pollitt, like Richard Cohen’s sister, opted to support Mr. Obama for the presidency when it was already obvious that he was complacent, to say the least, about sexism and misogyny). I am just pleased that they are starting to pay attention now and apparently coming to understand better who they voted for. To quote Richard Cohen: “The real problem has nothing to do with ministers and everything to do with Obama’s inability or unwillingness to be a moral leader. Sooner or later, he just might have to stand for something.”

Aye, there’s the rub. During the primary season and the general election a friend of mine who spent some considerable amount of time listening to me lament the Democratic Party’s poor judgment in making then-Senator Obama their poster-child, kept saying to me that the real problem with Mr. Obama is that he is an “empty suit”.

That term seemed to me too tepid back then. But I have come to see it as the essential problem behind the problem of Mr. Obama’s inability or unwillingness to be a moral leader, and possibly any kind of leader. To be a moral leader, to stand for something means that you have to fill out your suit, your office, your position. To be an “empty suit” is to be a person who cannot draw a line in the sand, precisely because you do not have an arm and hand within that suit to use to reach out and draw that line. To be an “empty suit” is to be devoid of the weightiness that real leadership requires, including the gravitas to admit to a mistake and change one’s position (drop the bigoted minister and lose the bigoted speechwriter; say you have been wrong to dig in your heels rather than listen to the concerns of so many of the people who worked so hard to elect you). To be an “empty suit” is to be a moral vacuum.

I refused to vote for John McCain for a number of reasons but among them was the fact that while I knew he had the capacity for moral leadership, I did not care for the directions toward which his moral commitments would lead my country. I refused to vote for Barack Obama because I knew he came up empty on the capacity for moral leadership.

In some ways, moral emptiness, especially in a President, is worse than moral wrong-headedness. The morally wrong-headed leader takes a stand, e.g. George W. Bush’s legitimization of torture, and one can rally people against the stand she or he takes. The morally empty leader takes no stand. Under these circumstances, her or his silences often allow people to forget that the blank that exists in lieu of a leader is the appropriate target of criticism. After all, it seems easier to go after people who actually do take stands (Rick Warren, for example) rather than the person who silently enables wrong-headed person to gain in stature. But this is sleight of hand. The real problem is the enabler, the person who allows the sophomoric sexist to put words in his mouth, the person who lets bigoted clerics and their churches affiliate with him.

So, to Richard Cohen’s sister and to Katha Pollitt, I say welcome to my party - the one that got lost in 2008, the one that expected moral leadership of a certain kind from a Democratic president. Now that you are here, I hope you can help me figure out what we are going to do with the empty suit about to occupy the Oval Office. If that empty suit thinks he can pick up sufficient evangelical money and votes in 2012, he is not going to listen to bloggers and op-ed columnists whose votes and followers he thinks he can replace with the support of the evangelicals, regardless of the detestable content of many of their views and some of their conduct. Personally, I do not think we can give the empty suit the sort of backbone necessary to resist the lure of that support. If we cannot give this empty suit some backbone, we need, as I have written before, to start figuring out how we can have a better candidate on offer in 2012. So to the people who are canceling their celebrations, may I suggest that they use the time and effort saved to start solving that problem. We need to coalesce now around somebody who can fight for a nomination by a major Party - probably the the Party formerly recognizable as the Democratic one - who is what Obama’s supporters hoped he would be and what I fear he is not.

I haven’t been doing much writing the last few days, instead I have been thinking, reading and observing. I just finished reading the threads from Welcome Back, Find Some Reason, and Larry’s comments:

“I take back nothing I have written about Barack and Michelle Obama. That said, I don’t want to see them destroyed or to fail. For the sake of our country I hope that Barack has a successful Presidency. While I am not happy he is in the big chair, it is what it is. I do not require anyone to bow down at the altar of Obama. But I also do not prohibit or ban folks who do. For me the beauty of America is our diversity. We have got to learn how to disagree without going into pure visceral hatred.”

and, “I simply point out the reality that he will be sworn in as President. And at that point we judge him by what he does and not what he was. Is that fair?”

Reading all the comments by all of you, and emails from my family and friends, I am still as perplexed as ever. How do we move forward? How do we hold the DNC accountable for all the crap they pulled this election cycle? How do we still hold Obama’s feet to the fire on his promises, and his policies, but hope for a positive outcome for our country?

How do we *move on* after suffering personal attacks, witnessed character assassinations on some of our favorite people, and witnessed the most vile sexist attacks on women across the country, (Hillary supporters were victims to many sexist attacks on blogs and in the media.) as well as on two leading women in our government. It was impossible for many to not take those attacks personally.
(more...)

What If It Had Been the Clintons?

What if Bill or Hillary Clinton’s grandmother had died the day before the election? Let’s speculate.

Republicans would have flown back from campaigning to hold emergency hearings in both the House and Senate to “investigate”. The right wing and religious wackos would have crash produced an “educational” video adding the grandmother’s death to the Clinton Death List. Vince Foster’s bones would have been dug up and desecrated yet again. Servers around the world would have crashed and burned, unable to accomodate the outpouring of sewage published by “citizen journalists” on right wing blogs. The media would have “reported” every crackpot conspiracy theory, prefacing their “reports” with the words “some people say” or, just to add a dash of credibility, “sources say” — if by “sources” you mean commenters on the Free Republic . And then they would have voted to impeach all over again, throwing Hillary Clinton in for good measure. Meanwhile, Democrats would be busy polling to figure out what to do - all while allowing the train of sanity to go off the rails.

Just to make sure I make myself clear to those who interpret eveything they read literally, I AM NOT SUGGESTING that Obama deserves this treatment. I’m just marveling yet again at the insanity that gripped this country during the 8 years of the Clinton presidency, which rose again in all its hideous glory during Hillary Clinton’s run for the Democratic presidential nomination.

I’m still waiting for the Republicans, insane Clinton haters and their amen corner in the press corps to apologize for pissing away taxpayer dollars and squandering valuable airtime and ink on this public lunacy to return the money and issue a formal apology to the country for flushing their responsibility to the public down the commode.

Still waiting.

Still waiting.

Borrowed from the title of Maya Angelou’s great book. Only in this case, the bird singing is Anita Moncrief, a former ACORN employee. Oh, yes - she’s singing like a canary in this intriguing article from the Wall Street Journal the other day,
An Acorn Whistleblower Testifies in Court, The group’s ties to Obama are extensive.

Can I just say from the outset, no freakin’ DUH??? Like we didn’t already know this! Now, there is testimony to back up what we have been screaming from the top of our lungs: ACORN and Obama ARE CONNECTED. What does it take already? According to the article:

Acorn, the liberal “community organizing” group that claims it will deploy 15,000 get-out-the-vote workers on Election Day, can’t stay out of the news.

The FBI is investigating its voter registration efforts in several states, amid allegations that almost a third of the 1.3 million cards it turned in are invalid. And yesterday, a former employee of Acorn testified in a Pennsylvania state court that the group’s quality-control efforts were “minimal or nonexistent” and largely window dressing. Anita MonCrief also says that Acorn was given lists of potential donors by several Democratic presidential campaigns, including that of Barack Obama, to troll for contributions.

Glad to hear the FBI is getting involved in this now - I sure hope it isn’t too little, too late.
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SusanUnPC’s Note: Even my hardcore Republican relatives fervently wish that Hillary were running against McCain because they know that she could address this crisis while they have no faith — none — that Obama will know what to do or make the right choices. Additionally, Ricki Liebermann’s daily newsletter quotes our friend Alegre at Alegre’s Corner on Hillary’s statements — which is what our wonderful writer NancyA is sharing with all of you below:

“Hillary took to the floor of the Senate today to lay out her plan for halting the economic meltdown, and her Senate staff has the video of her speech up online. … [L]isten to what she’s got to say. She’s speaking about what needs to be done NOW to address the economic meltdown taking place up on Wall Street this week. She talks in detail for over 20 minutes and dammit, it just breaks my heart that someone this capable and brilliant isn’t headed to the White House this fall.”

COMPARE AND CONTRAST: Ricki Lieberman and Ann, a No Quarter reader, strongly suggest you compare the video that NancyA has posted below with, ahem, Barack Obama’s video on “solving our financial crisis.” Obama urges everyone to “watch the ad and share it with everyone you know.” Uh, Barack, I think we’ll be sharing Hillary’s video that NancyA put up below.

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NANCYA’s post: While Senators John McCain and Barack Obama were auditioning for who could best handle a national economic emergency, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton released the following statement from her office in Washington, DC. As usual Senator Clinton understands the dangers of this “once in a century” crisis. She calls it “the greatest market upheaval since the Great Depression”. She did the following:

…called for swift and strong action to stem the growing credit crisis on Wall Street. Assailing the Bush Administration for ignoring repeated warnings of the growing crisis and failing to provide adequate oversight of an increasingly complicated market, Senator Clinton offered a series of bold, specific proposals, including creating a new version of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) to restore confidence in the market, curbing the most damaging and manipulative trading practices, providing relief to homeowners facing foreclosure, and reasserting competent federal oversight.

She outlined several proposals. Here is a list of her proposals: (more…)

Once again, in amongst all the clutter and crap I read.  Once again The Economist gets right down to the point and clarifies an issue for my little boy’s brain.  I don’t know if it’s just the make up of the Brit’s brain or the outsider’s freedom of expression, but these folks continually prove my most valuable resource.

From the September 13th 2008 issue:

THIS was supposed to be the year in which America’s feminists celebrated the shattering of the highest glass ceiling. They had the ideal candidate in Hillary Rodham Clinton, a woman who had been tempered in the fires of Washington. And they had every reason to think that she would whip both the young Barack Obama and the elderly John McCain.

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The New York Post learned today that Reverend Wright is actually Reverend Wrong. Apparently our “pious” Reverend Wright — who was the pastor and confidante of Barack Obama for 20+ years, baptized both of his daughters, married him and Michelle, and “blessed” their mansion — has been carrying on with a younger woman in Texas. Here’s more from the Post:

He almost wrecked Barack Obama’s presidential dreams, and now firebrand pastor Jeremiah Wright has helped destroy a Dallas church worker’s marriage - and her job, The Post has learned.

You’ve seen the disgusting video of Reverend Wright, in a Sunday sermon, doing the the “hump” to suggest that Bill Clinton “done us wrong”:

The background story to Wright’s second marriage calls into serious question Wright’s “right” to preach to anyone. Here’s more from the Post: (more…)