Obama Destroys Goodwill on Healthcare by Commenting on Local Law Enforcement Issue

Following suit with Congress, the media has decided to cast aside the boring and unimportant debate on health care reform and instead shift the nation's focus toward public reaction to the arrest of African American scholar and beloved former major league home run king Henry Gates. President Obama has, to this point in his career, managed to stifle wingnut opponents by generally being above comment on things like misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges, but has tragically chosen to break that trend by saying police, "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates. Other than being an acquaintance of Gates', it's unclear why Obama would decide to say anything at all on the question other than, "Well, I'm the president of the United States of America and have been a bit too busy trying to fix the free world to know enough details to comment on this issue. You want the Mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Thanks, now, what were we here for again?" Not the best timing for his Terri Shiavo moment. Now the floodgates are open and all we can do is jam q-tips through our eardrums as the Rush Limbaughs of the world take carte blanche to make scientifically proven statements of genius like this. Barack Obama hates America and cops and health care and babies because, "...let's face it. President Obama is black."

Wait, so we're NOT getting healthcare?

Harry Reid has decided to ask the professor for an extension on his big Health Care Reform paper. Congress won't pass health care reform before the August recess that everyone in town's been sitting at the edge of their swivel chairs waiting for since June. Cooler heads will no doubt prevail after a month-long vacation, and health care should totally be solved by, like, mid-September at the latest. In other news, the economy lost almost half a million jobs last month. Recess for EVERYONE!

Great Ideas In American History

I love bars. I really do. They're a good place to meet interesting, socially lubricated people. A lot of fun nights start out in bars. They've got everything you could ever want: attractive people, booze, games, music, chicken wings- or do they? Now I know what you're thinking. I've been thinking about it for a long time myself. Bars are awesome, but when the hell are they going to find a way to mix the alcohol with guns? It only seems logical, and it's a much more definite way to decide the outcome of a bar fight- Indiana Jones style. Luckily, brave legislative pioneers in Tennessee and Arizona are all over it. Both states passed laws yesterday allowing patrons to carry firearms into establishments serving alcohol. This can't fail.

Hope for a Sane Drug Policy

Slate's Andrew Marantz points out in a recent article that the nomination of potential new Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, meant to be a happy medium between civil libertarians and the tough on crime crowd, appears to be a disappointment to both. Marantz notes however that Kerlikowske is, above all, a pragmatist, which coincides nicely with Obama’s allegiance to doing “what works.” He calls Kerlikowske’s nomination a “victory for common sense.”

One of the principles Obama has professed both during his campaign and in his short time as president has been deference to reality over political ideology. The war on drugs provides potentially the clearest litmus test for Obama’s willingness to put this principle into action, and a measure of its effectiveness. More than a half trillion dollars has been spent on the drug war since its inception, with the Bush Administration ramping up spending on the prosecution of marijuana crimes to $4 billion a year. This despite the fact that the “gateway theory” about marijuana at the heart of the administration’s efforts to curb pot use was debunked in studies before it had ever even been put to use by government anti-drug crusaders. This shift in priorities paved the way for the epidemic rise of methamphetamine, which, along with cocaine and other harder drugs, is responsible for the vast majority of the drug-related violence that is ostensibly the focal point of the war on drugs.

Though experiences in the drug war bare out that it may be a lost cause in general, the wrongheaded battle to eradicate pot use has been the root of the failure of the War on Drugs over the past decade, and it is on this issue that Kerlikowske’s tenure as Drug Czar will succeed or fail. That said, the question Marantz needs to address is: did Kerlikowske’s experience after the passage of Initiative 75 in Seattle change his way of thinking about the problem, or will he bring his prior objections to the federal level with his hands untied by the law? In other words, will Kerlikowske continue to flush billions in federal money down the toilet on chasing after potheads and medical marijuana growers, or will he shift the office’s priorities toward “what works?”

Further, with regards to drugs, how far is the Obama Administration willing to explore pragmatic options? Might it be possible to sell the decriminalization or even the legalization of some drugs to the American public as a means of diverting the billions of dollars going to drug enforcement toward economic recovery, or even as a means of bringing in tax revenue? Experiences in many countries that have decriminalized and legalized marijuana have yielded better results for far less money. Perhaps Obama, with Kerlikowske’s help, can shift the conversation on drug enforcement using the angle of economic prudence, much like we’ve seen with the energy crisis, which was once perceived to solely be the concern of archetypal tree-hugging hippies. The War on Drugs long ago took a back seat as a priority in the minds of Americans, but it might be Obama’s most clear-cut opportunity to demonstrate his allegiance to “what works,” in a way that, for the first time in the history of the drug war, actually might.

Ha Ha!

In our absurdist revelation of the day slot, we've got a woman in Italy who had the nerve to defy the government AND the church (two-fer) by... dying. She'd been in a coma for more than 16 years and completed her immoral act of civil disobedience while the Italian government and church bickered with her father over whether her feeding tube would be removed, as per her wishes. Score one for sanity.

I Don't Feel Stimulated

Is all the vitriol and stupidity surrounding the stimulus package getting you down? I know it’s been a huge bummer for me. The Democrats want to disburse money in the bill. The Republicans want to make it OK for people to hold onto theirs. How on Earth are we supposed to navigate our way through this minefield of completely unique and complex economic opinions? I mean people, this is really revolutionary stuff… Tax cuts? Spending? whoa- we’d better slow down with all this crazy change. Seriously, it’s too much.


Given that it doesn’t appear any type of third way solution is forthcoming, it looks like Congress had better choose between tax cuts or spending, and the American public had better be able to get behind whatever they choose. Hey, there’s an idea! Let’s see what America thinks is the best plan. But how? If only there were some democratic tool that would allow us to gauge the public opinion on how the economy could be saved… Some way where people could just, I don’t know, vote or something on whose ideas were better. Man, that sure would make things easier…

Sarcasm aside, seeing SENATOR John McCain on television babbling about how he doesn’t believe the stimulus as proposed by PRESIDENT Obama’s administration is the right way to go is simply stunning. Is this guy serious? What did we flush that billion dollars in campaign contributions down the toilet for if not, at the very least, to decide whether the fundamentals of Obama’s plan or McCain’s were better?

The problem doesn’t lie with McCain alone however. His idiocy is just part of a greater Republican strategy of completely ignoring the messages they’ve been sent via recent elections and simply proceeding with the basic party agenda- tax cuts.

Tax cuts can solve everything don’t ya know. Tax cuts are all you need to have a healthy and fair functioning capitalist economy. Companies know how to spend their money. I mean look, that John Thain had great taste. Companies always use the money they save to create jobs and reorganize their business models. It happens all the time. That’s why over the last eight years, which marked the rein of one of the most business-friendly administrations since trust-busting was all the rage, the American economy has exploded into the free-market utopia we all love to marvel at as we dress in our best for a thrilling Friday evening at the soup line.

For their part, Democrats, including Obama, haven’t done much to drive home the point that the changes to the stimulus the Republicans favor are pretty much the exact same thing that dumped us into this nightmare in the first place. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are, let’s face it, incompetent in their leadership roles. I’ve heard that Reid is a dynamo behind the scenes and knows the Senate rules better than anyone, but I have yet to see, in his two-plus years at the helm of the Senate majority, anything of import as a result of those skills. Pelosi has the unique gift of being able to completely smash years of built-up good will for anything- be it a cause, or a bill or the Democratic Party as a whole- with a couple of snide comments; comments that aren’t ever even particularly witty or scathing- just irritating enough to collapse an entire Democratic initiative.

Obama correctly recognizes this moment in American history as one that needs to be handled with bold but steady action. He knows he must maintain an air of dignity and calm in the face of these dire times. His view of the situation leads him to believe that, in order to meet all of these qualifications, the stimulus and his efforts to influence its passage have to be managed on a bipartisan basis. This is false. Adherence to the myth of the effectiveness of bipartisanship is a naïve rhetorical notion that needs to be done away with for all time in this country. As with many of the ailments of American society circa 2009, we can blame this one on George Bush and his band of psychotic megalomaniacs.

It goes like this. The George Bush era was marked by fierce partisanship. He was unapologetic in governing on a 50 per cent plus 1 basis. He rammed every legislative initiative he could down Congress’ throat when he didn’t just circumvent the entire legislative process outright. If anyone got in his way or raised a dissenting voice, he or his minions ruin their political careers (see: Max Cleland). What were the results of these actions? Almost a trillion dollars spent on a meaningless war. Our country’s reputation around the world eviscerated. Banks failing all over the place. Home foreclosures and unemployment staples on nightly news reports. Crumbling infrastructure. No visable improvement in any single aspect of life. To put it simply, George Bush ran a very partisan administration, and at the end of his time in office America had become a hellhole. People can then be forgiven if these observations lead them to believe that partisanship is a bad thing, but maybe there’s no causal relationship there at all.

I submit that the complete and utter failure of the Bush administration in every aspect of governance was the result of simple incompetence, corruption and a set of ideas that were bad to begin with. The laundry list is too long to rehash here, but I’ll give the briefest of lists of examples of each; Hurrican Katrina relief efforts, the U.S. Attorney scandal, and tax cuts (there they are again) as an answer to every possible economic question. Let’s say Osama bin Laden had been found carrying out nuclear weapons from Iraq in a radio flyer with receipts on them signed by Saddam Hussein, or that New Orleans had been restored to the bustling cultural and tourism center it was pre-Katrina. Let’s say tax cuts had sparked an outpouring of private investment into millions of new jobs that were focused on creating energy-efficient cars and buildings. Would anyone be lamenting the evils of partisanship if any those things had happened?

Obama can be bold, calm and dignified by not getting in petty battles with petty men and women in Congress or in the media. But he doesn’t need to sacrifice the ideas that people voted him into office to execute in the first place. And he certainly doesn’t have to show deference to people who are literally advocating more extreme versions of the economics that got us to this point. If people wanted John McCain’s stimulus package, John McCain would be the president. If people thought tax cuts were the way out of this repression (recession heading toward depression), Republicans would have a majority in both houses. Republican ideas have failed, and been rejected. This is reality. Obama must govern based on this reality.

To caste an even darker pall over this whole situation, all the prize-winning economists we’ve spent the last eight years ignoring while we established this free-market paradise say the entire argument in Congress is pointless because the stimulus would need to be about TEN TIMES the size of anything being discussed in order to have any prayer of even making a dent. Fat chance.

My fellow Americans, you endured an awful lot of mindless political babble over the past two years to be putting up with this same old stuff now. You contributed record amounts- ungodly amounts- of money to political campaigns. You gave your time. I gave more of my time and money to the effort than I have to anything else in my life. I’m not alone. We all have a lot invested in this. My best friend is about to graduate college as a history major. For the last four months he’s been half-joking about starting a career as a forklift operator when he gets his now-useless diploma. The joke gets a little less funny every time. We’ve got PhDs jumping over each other to run cash registers at McDonalds. Spare me the “any job is a noble/ honorable/ whatever” speech. You don’t want to have dedicated years of your life to something, only to have it have been a complete waste, and neither does anyone else- no matter how honorable. We can do better. We saw the promise of better with the hope of “change you can believe in.” How about starting by demanding the change you signed up for.

EXTRA*This article says more in a few sentences than I could say in a book. Note the last sentence.

Oh My God it's All Over

So- sorry again for the abandonment. One campaign turned into another... and another- all with nondisclosure agreements. And whoa- things have changed, huh? My guy won the election. At least my first guy did. Good stuff. The other two didn't fare so well, but hey, I did my job so I feel pretty good about my first (and, God willing, last) forays into the campaign life.

There's far too much to cover in a simple blog post and I'm already feeling the rust getting in the way of the quality literary and political analysis all ten of you who've read this thing had come to expect in your two-year on and off, awkward relationship with the internet sensation that has been Politics and Outrage (formerly known as Final Audit). I would however like to say that I just completed what is possibly the most ridiculous Google map of all time tracing my travels around this great blue country of ours since June. It adds up to more than 10,000 miles- almost all of which were in a car. And that excludes the daily commute. I also got a tattoo and a philosophical theory on life, though not necessarily in that order. Anyway Barack Obama is the president and gas is cheap so hey- energy crisis solved!

I am going to try to muster the strength after six plus months of 16-hour day, seven-day weeks to get this thing back up and running again. After all, the things causing outrage never really cease do they? Now that my former big boss has the big job it's time to hold his feet to the fire. And do that I will. Although I've gotta say, so far, so good.

In any event, you're likely to see something of a new bent on all things political and otherwise, as my eyes seem to have opened upon some new things since I last wrote. I'll continue however to be the fair, eloquent and level-headed couch pundit you've all pined for all these many months. Let's not let it be six months before we talk again eh?

Come on back and tell your friends. They'll thank you for it.

Geoff

The Job

Sorry for the long delay between posts, but the writing frequency tends to slide when the impetus created by a column writing class isn't there anymore. After a long and stressful process and after sadly having to turn down what would likely have been a great writing and reporting opportunity, I have finally landed somewhere- with the Obama campaign. I'm sure it shocks those of you who know me or read the blog to know that I actually favor Barack Obama, but I can't be expected to be objective about everything.

So I'm making the long journey back to Chicago in my probably-won't-make-it-but-gonna-try-anyway car starting out this Friday, and then me and my oldest political co-conspirator are hitting the road to Virginia, where we'll be working for the Obama campaign as organizing fellows for a minimum of six weeks. I'll do my best. Anyway, I could spend all day bragging about how I'm going to live in a stranger's house and how I'm not getting paid at all, but the point of my writing on this is to let you know that, like last year, it's very likely that the campaign will make me cease the blog while I'm on it, so sorry. If they don't make me stop however, expect that in the forty-five seconds of free time per week I'll have that I will be keeping you apprised of life on the campaign. Wish me luck, but more than that, wish Senator Obama luck.

Later,

Geoff

Barack Obama is Smart- Get Over It!

Barack Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. He is smart. He's smarter than you. He's smarter than me. He's the smartest man in the room. He wants to be the president of the United States. I want the president of the United States to be smarter than you. I want him to be smarter than me- a lot smarter. It's an impossible job, but I want the person who is flailing around trying to do it to actually know the difference between a Sunni and Shia. I want them to actually know and respect the words of the Constitution. I want them to know the ins and outs of economic theory. I want them to know everything, and if they don't I want them to find guys that do, and hire them. Anti-intellectualism is, well... it's the dumbest thing around. Roger Simon over at Politico has a great commentary on how the ridiculous requirements of campaign politics are starting to warp the best parts of the Obama candidacy.

Barack Obama is Black- Get Over It!

There is a phrase that keeps popping into my head as this soul-deadening Democratic primary wears on. I try to stay positive in the face of this phrase. I try to dismiss it as a problem of the past. But I can’t. The numbers testify to its seriousness- to its significance. It represents what may be Barack Obama’s biggest weakness, and there’s nothing he can do to change it- unforgivable blackness.

Unforgivable blackness was a phrase coined by W.E. B. DuBois to describe the struggles of legendary heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson as he tried to earn the respect and acknowledgement of white boxers and the media. Johnson dominated the sport in his time, winning bouts all over the world. The more fighters he beat, the harder it was for him to find competition. White fighters began to refuse to fight him, saying that he was “inferior.” Fighters that did face him could rarely say the same.

While Hillary Clinton scrapes the bottom of the campaign barrel in an egomaniacal attempt to steal the nomination, her new strategy of trying to paint Obama as unelectable is an underhanded appeal to the same irrational race-baiting tactics used to denigrate Johnson a century ago, and to denigrate other African Americans for centuries before that.

It didn’t start out this way. When Obama was 30 points down in national polls and Clinton was shopping for new Oval Office drapes, she wasn’t talking much about Obama being unelectable. When her experience argument was doing well and she had Bill’s coattail support of the black community, she talked about health care, not electability. Then Iowa happened. Bill Clinton started talking tough before New Hampshire, attacking Obama’s veracity and war opposition record. A win there erased any doubt the campaign had left about using attack politics.

The days before and after South Carolina were marked by racially charged campaigning. Bill Clinton brushed off the huge defeat by comparing Obama’s run to the doomed campaign of Jesse Jackson. At this point, the Clinton camp had lost the black vote, and they knew it. There was no more reason to pander for it.

The stalemate of Super Tuesday confirmed that the Clinton campaign had been outclassed and outworked on the ground by Obama. Having planned for the campaign to be over after Super Tuesday, Clinton stumbled through the month of February, taking loss after loss. She was down so many delegates by the time of the Texas and Ohio primaries that her nomination would have been inherently illegitimate.

Recognizing the desperation of her situation, Clinton finally turned to the race issue. Of course, it’s no longer politically prudent to attack a candidate directly on the basis of their race. And with a candidate who has enthralled audiences as Obama has, Clinton’s task has become reminding voters that Obama is black.

The Jeremiah Wright controversy allowed her to do that and simultaneously demonstrated the sad reality that race is still an issue for any candidate. Obama was left to defend the fundamental differences between the white and black church and, in a speech gracefully elucidated some of the unspoken complexities of American race relations, the fundamental differences between black and white people. Clinton harped- created more divisions. Obama shouldered the responsibility.

Clinton’s Pennsylvania victory only moved the battle closer to the inevitable choice between a clean Obama nomination or a stolen Clinton one. Since then, that nails on chalkboard euphemism “unelectable” has become the central talking point of the campaign. Clinton has recast herself from “anti-hope” to “the great white hope.” Though their platforms are almost identical, though he has almost twice as many primary victories and though he’s defeating her in the popular vote, Obama is now unelectable according to Clinton.

By unelectable of course, Clinton means black. Clinton’s task is now to convince every Democratic voter and, more importantly, every superdelegate, that they should throw their support to her because Barack Obama is black and America will not elect a black man to be its president. It is a harmful line of logic and Clinton’s perpetuation of it is why she will not get the nomination.

Yes, there are voters who will not vote for a black candidate. But Obama’s campaign message is about hope. It’s about a belief that not only can things get better, but that they are better. Obama constantly reminds people about how his life story could not have happened anywhere but America. After all, Jack Johnson couldn’t even eat in most restaurants to celebrate his victories. So though Obama has a tougher road ahead because of his race, we can take heart in the fact that, despite Clinton’s implications, his race no longer makes it impossible to travel that road.

Obama will likely back into a nomination victory sometime in June, just after Puerto Rico casts the final ballots of the campaign. Clinton’s message about Obama’s electability will have been hammered into the collective Democratic mind and rightfully rejected. It will be our chance to prove that we want a new time and place, where Clinton is the standard bearer for the old time and old place.

The unelectable argument expires at the end of a primary season, so John McCain will be left with only two choices. He can attack Obama’s character, or he can attack his policies. Obama has Rezko and the Weather Underground, McCain has temper, Budweiser and Geritol. In 2008 it will be unforgivable blackness versus unforgivable age. With the problems facing the country today, I want to believe people recognize that it’s time to look past race and look toward actual leadership. Besides, no one could do worse than the last eight years, dominated by unforgivable stupidity.