The Police, the Professor, and the President

EGads. This has really turned into a big story out of stuff that happens too much in the US. President Obama should have stayed mum on it. He may think he is the philosopher king and this was a teachable moment, then he needs to do more than to remark on a case, where he couldn't have known the facts. His remark was inflammatory to be boot.

I just finished reading the police report, which Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC said proves false arrest on the lead in to Keith Olberman....yeah. Well, I guess I don't see it.

I'm not taking sides here. I think this stuff happens too often in the US and white America doesn't want to deal with it. Gates, if the police report is true, wasn't making his case very well. As eloquent and influential as Professor GAtes is, he should have just complied and then called a press conference. This is assuming he was making a scence (at his house, but come on, I'm white, such a thing is not likely to happen to me, but if it did, I'd comply, then complain like hell.

This is an issue for the City of Cambridge, not to waste time when we have so many serious things to wrestle with, like whether President Obama is a US citizen or not (another too silly non-issue).

We are invovled in two wars, we are in the worst economic downturn in a generation, we are on the brink of major health care reform, we have an energy problem, and we are expending immense energy on an arrest, correct or not, of a Harvard professor and a President who can't resist pontificating on every item that can be found in Google Reader.

If President Obama apologizes, he should apologize for sticking his nose in some place that his nose didn't belong. If this was false arrest, I have no doubt that Professor Gates will pursue his case in the courts.

President Obama opened this up, and now that Congress is going to debate a resolution that President Obama should apologize to Sgt Crowley, he can be blamed for this political crap that makes so many citizens, like me, take a dim view of our leaders.

Preventive Detention, preventing reelection

I was not and continue to not be an Obamamanic. I was, early on, a Hillary Clinton supporter but became increasingly disappointed in her campaign. I admit I did not think that the US was ready for a black president, but I also did not realize, early on, what a magnificent politician candidate Obama was. By the Indiana primary, after many long minutes in the ballot box, I voted for Obama because he ran a campaign like I thought one should be run, like a social movement.

I voted for him for president.

I did not, however, believe he was the super liberal, leftist, that many of his most ardent supporters did. I think many people projected their own views on him. He was especially skilled at getting people to do that.

So, that he has moved slower on Gitmo than many would like (me too). that he has backed off a little on Iraq withdrawal, that he has gone into Afghanistan (I agree wholeheartedly with that one), that he has not been bold in the specifics of his programs, though bold in scope, well, all that fits what I saw.

I also am not a single issue voter. So far, President Obama has been what I figured he would be. He is still a politician, he take a long view, and he tries to change the terms of debates. All intellectual stuff that I appreciate.

But, BUt, BUT, BUt, BUt......the May 20th NYT article on President Obama's talk on "preventive detention" sickens me. Article is here.

They [anonymous sources] said Mr. Obama told them he was thinking about “the
long game” — how to establish a legal system that would endure for future
presidents. He raised the issue of preventive detention himself, but made clear
that he had not made a decision on it. Several senior White House officials did
not respond to requests for comment on the outsiders’ accounts.

This really concerns me. What I am hoping all this was, was President Obama being the law professor who posed all kinds of arguments as just an exercise. To see how people responded, to hear arguments for and against. I sure hope so.

If President Obama moves forward in trying to establish some kind of preventive detention, which seems to completely turn our legal and political values on their head, I will be a single issue voter because to undermine due process as we understand it, is far worse than just about anything else the defender of our constitution is supposed to do.

What would pose as a threat? Providing material aid and comfort to terrorists? How about recognizing the legitimate politcal goals but denouncing the means? Would that be worthy of preventive detention? The very idea of this is frightening and I don't frighten easy.

Torture which has happened, repeatedly, and we (the public) don't care, the resistance in Congress to closing Gitmo (I'm not a Lyndsey Graham fan, but I agree with him completely on his position regarding Gitmo), I wonder who is going to resist preventive detention.

The terrorists win if we institute a legal shibboleth to begin preventive detention. Maybe they already have if we are seriously speaking about it.

First bank and financial institutions, then manufacturing and eventually everyone?

A reader left a comment on my last post, "Mob Rule in Congress" supporting something being done with the bonus paid to top talent at AIG. While I agree that this problem exacerbates the social problem of increasing inequality, the idea that Congress should do something unconsitutitonal (in reponse to anger and not the issue my reader raises, growing inequality) I still disagree (strongly) with. why? because will you ever see an angry populace demanding a pay increase for anyone? No. Anytime financial compensation gets into the public view, the resopnse is negative. Whether it be for CEOs, or for teachers, or for police, for legislators, anyone....the public gets miffed about it. I think it has to do with the growing inequality, but the answer is not to pass legislation one "high-paying" job at a time to curb the problem.

The angry mob should be largely ignored...I doubt it will carrry over to the next election.

the growing inequality should be dealt with by a more progressive tax structure (though I detest the idea of increasing taxes on work....let those who performed for their bonus have it, but those who just reap the dividends of others' work...capital gains, should be taxed at least as much as work).

Pass legislation making unions more relevant, easier to form, collectively bargain all state jobs...though a good argument can be made not too, but I'd still support it.

Get the nurses, accountants, police, firefighters, teachers, dental hygienists, SECRETARIES, all unionized, and that would help narrow the income inequality gap very quickly. And it would not be under goverment action.

But, apparently President Obama is not reading my blog. Because he is going to try to legislate compensation. One could argue that since the government owns so much of these banks, that they are the new boss, but it looks like more than that: Here is the full article. Here is the excerpt:

One proposal could impose greater requirements on company boards to tie
executive compensation more closely to corporate performance and to take other
steps to ensure that compensation was aligned with the financial interest of the
company.

And why only tie executives? why not junior exectuvies, secretaries? Why not me, a college professor to how many student credit hours I generate? Doctors are billable hours folks, why not me, or anyone? Nope, I don't agree with this, it is not for the defensible reasons (decreasing social inequality), it is for purely political reasons and of the worst kind--anger. this is not leadership. This is little different than what George Bush did with the Iraq war.

Mob Rule in the Congress

All the public outrage at AIG paying bonuses to its top people with public money lead Congress to pass an unconstitutional law to tax those bonuses at a 90% tax rate. While I can appreciate the political win this was for Dems, because the angry public will like what Congress did, but half of Republicans voted for a 90% tax bracket. Genius.

Nevertheless, passing an obvious unconstitutional law, even though it will never get through the Senate, is a momentous waste of time. There is serious stuff that needs to be done. Anger like this is a flash in the pan, these political stunts don't address the anger that will still be there a month from now.

We blew up our constitution in a fit of fear following 9/11 and now anger over legal employment contracts, lead to a willingness to violate the constitution. Shameful.

President Obama nailed it on the head on Leno's show, these practices are legal. And that is a problem.

But, if President Obama thinks he can handle all this stuff with laws, he is nuts. The money will find a way.

The AIG bailout is a distraction from the much more serious issues facing us. Even the price tag of the bonus is dwarfed by the what, trillion that the government has printed? Here comes inflation to eat away at my retirement...what the market downturn didn't get, inflation can eat away at, too. Yippee.

I hope President Obama can fix this mess. But, I don't think anyone, really, if they are honest, really knows how to do it. There are ideologues of all stripes, but they operate more on maintaing the truth of their ideology than fixing the problem.

How about ‘hoping’ for greater good to prevail?

previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune-Star, 3/15/09

“I hope he fails.” These four words, uttered by conservative political entertainer Rush Limbaugh during his radio broadcast on Jan. 16, 2009, referring to the imminent Obama presidency, and later reiterated at the Feb. 28, 2009, CPAC meetings aimed specifically at the stimulus package, has set off something of a firestorm.

I think it is also important to include this from Mr. Limbaugh’s January broadcast, after linking liberalism and socialism and implying that President-elect Obama is a socialist, he said: “So I can answer it, I hope he fails. And that would be the most outrageous (italics added) thing anybody in this climate could say. Shows you just how far gone we are. Well, I know, I know. I am the last man standing.”

“Most outrageous” has more to do with Mr. Limbaugh’s statement than his likely views on Mr. Obama or politics in general. I sometimes wonder why no one has ever thought Mr. Limbaugh is just the Elmer Gantry of conservative politics.

There is no doubt that Mr. Limbaugh’s “most outrageous” remarks have stirred the pot. Democrats and liberals are reaping some benefit from the controversy, but the real food fight is among Republicans and conservatives. As I write this, Newt Gingrich is squaring off against Mr. Limbaugh while Michael Steele, Chairperson of the RNC, continues his fence straddling (he seems not good at it and has fallen onto the fence several times likely damaging sensitive aspects of his standing among Republicans and conservatives).

What prompted me to write this essay are Web polls, similar to the one this paper began running, asking if it was unpatriotic to hope President Obama fails. I think polls like this are meaningless, usually leading to wasted energy that could be focused on dealing with the problems at hand. Just as supporters of President Bush’s controversial invasion of Iraq silenced (patriotic) criticism of that decision with attacks on critics’ patriotism, some Democrats, including those in President Obama’s administration are doing the same. Partisans point fingers and justify their actions with, “well, you did it when you were in power.” These exchanges are reminiscent of a schoolyard except no teacher steps in to remind the children that “two wrongs don’t make a right.”

I do think, with no evidence that I can marshal here, that there is a sector of Americans who believe to criticize the president, regardless of party, is unpatriotic. I think they are wrong, for what that is worth, but it would be an interesting poll that some news organization should conduct.

Fox News sponsored a poll of 900 registered voters in August of 2006 and found that 7 percent of Republicans, 34 percent of independents, and 51 percent of Democrats did not want President Bush to succeed. Overall, 63 percent wanted him to succeed despite President Bush’s approval ratings in the 30s at the time. This suggests a more sophisticated understanding of issues than we are seeing now, or at least at how they are being framed.

A person “hoping” that President Obama fails is different than someone believing the president is wrong. I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny. I don’t hope it doesn’t make a delivery at my house on Easter. To “hope” that something doesn’t happen (or to hope it does) suggests some level of belief in the possibility. Hence, Rush Limbaugh hopes President Obama fails because he recognizes the possibility that he could succeed. It is not that Mr. Limbaugh believes Mr. Obama will fail, it is that he recognizes that he could be successful, thus he “hopes” he fails.

Among President Obama’s goals is to stabilize and unfreeze the credit markets. I cannot imagine that many would disagree with that goal. Since no one really knows how to solve the problem, how we get there is going to cause disagreement. To “hope” that the plan fails, seems to me, to put partisan differences above the greater good. To believe the plan will fail or have deleterious side effects is, for some, intellectual honesty, as would be to also admit, “I hope I am wrong.”

Hoping that any president fails isn’t unpatriotic; however, it is intellectually dishonest.

The poiltical press' response to President Obama

As I have said before, as a sociologist I am often more interested in how people react to something than the something in general. For instance, President Obama's first days in office and his attempts to reach across the isle to Republicans, his first press conference, his first anything. Well, I think to myself, okay, he still looks presidential, he seems to be doing his best to keep doing what he promised, (I'm not crazy about the stimulus package), but what is more interesting is to read and listen to the political talking heads.

So many political wags seem to think that President Obama's attempt to woe Republicans was a waste. He got nothing for it. Not a single Republican in the House voted for the plan and only three did in the Senate and the plan got lots trimmed from it (stuff I thought was actually good to have in the bill).

I guess what gets me is that these supposedly politically savvy reporters know little about basic group dynamics. So, when President Obama gets no takers on the Republican side does that make President Obama a bad politician or are the Repbulican's dumb? Depends on the perspective of the reporter/blogger/wag. The libs think the Republicans are dummies and the cons think President Obama isn't as good as people think.

What does this say about the entire pundit industry? Should we really beleive that the partisanship in Washington is just a matter of a lack of informal bonhomie? President Bush tried the barbecue attack, he gave up when it didn't yeild anything. Him, Ithink thought there was no principal in any of this. I hope President Obama doesn't think he can do the back slapping, buy you a couple of beers and now you'll vote the way I want you to....I hope that isn't who I voted for. yet, that seems to be what many political reporters view politics as. Or, that the "charm offensive" isn't good enough or is silly.

I don't know what I think. I've never been much on charm offensives but I am big on communiation. Without huge majorities in both houses of congress, a president has to be a broker/organizer. he has to put a coalition together, and in the Senate, he has to have some Republicans. This is how pork gets into bills. This is how bills get altered in order to bring just a couple of people in.

This is how the game is played. Why do we (and political reportes) seem to lament this.

And don't we want our politicians to be principaled? Many times our pols vote in odd ways because they are afraid of voting against popular bills, lest it cost them in the next election. Okay, the one principal you an usually count a politican to follow is to vote not in tremendous opposition to the way the folks back home want you to. It is easier, in many ways, to stand up to the political bosses, than to the folks back home. Isn't that what we want or we vote the bum out?

The deadening stimulus

Here is the lead in a Washington Post story on the political straits of the "stimulus package:"

Senate Democratic leaders conceded yesterday that they do not have the
votes to pass the stimulus bill as currently written and said that to gain
bipartisan support, they will seek to cut provisions that would not provide an
immediate boost to the economy.

All I can say is GOOD!

I am disappointed in President Obama. I think he should have been willing to be more critical of the Democrats instead of trying to rationalize the unnecessary parts of the stimulus package. It if were me, it would only be infrastructure.

The environment must degrade to save the economy

CNN ran a piece today (no link cause I'm writing this on an iPod) that reports economists are warning that Pres. Obama can't both save the enviroment and the economy. Think about that. I hope Pres Obama does not fall into this either or trap. When will we begin to see that saving the environment is to save the economy.