The other night a few drinks and some morbid curiosity led me to watch Aaron Sorkin and Rob Reiner’s The American President, a piece of mid-90s political porn about a President who gets a girlfriend. I’ve embedded the climactic scene above, and I think it’s the answer to the question of what Joe Klein wants in a President.
To make a long and tedious story as short as possible, President Michael Douglas is trying to push through his crime bill by compromising away the assault weapons portion, while supposedly hard-nosed political operative Annette Bening, who has been hired to butch up an environmental organization, wants to push through a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases. When Douglas lets Bening sleep over at the White House, social conservative Richard Dreyfuss makes their relationship a campaign issue. This leads Douglas to wuss out on a deal he made with Bening to push for her bill, so she dumps him.
After much breathless blah blah blah, the President strides into a press conference, laces into Dreyfuss, and says he’s going to re-introduce the crime bill with real gun control while simultaneously pushing for the environmental bill. The movie ends in a rosy glow before we can watch both pieces of legislation go down to miserable failure because 535 members of Congress aren’t swayed by some podium pounding by our square-jawed hero.
I’d say that this kind of West Wing drama is exactly what Joe Klein and all the other political connoisseurs want from a President. Lots of noble words accompanied by noble failure. In addition to being worldly, dirty and un-presidential, messy compromises just can’t be tied up in two hours, so they cut into lazy pundits’ TV and cocktail time.
And while we’re taking a trip down memory lane, let’s not forget that Klein spent the mid-90s writing his own fantasy piece about presidential politics, and lying about his authorship.
beltane
Joe Klein is a Village courtier. He, like all the rest, values frivolity over all else; it is part of the job description. Does anyone know what his annual income is? All of these “Stupid pundit” posts should include a reference to this so we are all made aware of how much our “job creators” value this type of corrosive stupidity.
numbskull
Well OK then. If everyone is convinced that the press is agin’ us, and that we need the press fo’ us, then give ’em what they want.
Really, what price is there to pay for giving the Douglas speech above and then doing what you were going to do anyway? In fact, when the compromise occurs, you get additional brownie points for having tried, and then being the bigger man for compromising.
Do you see the President getting any brownie points for his current approach?
Look, I don’t really care if Joke Line and all the other asswipes have their fondest aspirations fulfilled. But to the degree that you’re telling me that such is important for getting your agenda through in modern politics, then speechify away, Obama, speechify away!
evap
I think Primary Colors is the best thing Joe Klein has ever done. (That may be what we mathematicians call a trivial inequality…) The movie is even better than the book, and I watch it every year just before Election Day.
Omnes Omnibus
@numbskull: As has been pointed out numerous times across multiple threads, Obama has been speechifying. Joe Klein and his cohorts simply don’t talk about it, and it doesn’t get reported. Now what? More better bully pulpit?
Comrade Mary
Under what conditions would a president get credit for trying, even if he failed, and under what conditions would he just be branded failure? Could a tough speech and no action work once? Twice? Three times? Overall, would three qualified successes give the president more leverage to push through one stronger success?
beltane
@numbskull: The press is never going to be for us. If Obama struck a different tone, they would merely adjust their criticisms accordingly. That’s why the media itself should be attacked, instead of us reacting to every inane column one of these whores writes.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Just gloss over the comments to the last Joke Line thread and you’ll see he’s not the only one who wants a magical Hollywood pony president.
Emma
Started out with a larger comment. Got eaten in edits. never mind. Will try again.
cat48
Speaking of Villagers, Chuck Toddler has decided Obama can’t be re-elected b/c “the downgrade” happened on his Watch. A
“Senior Democrat” told him this a.m. So, no need for that Primary anymore folks. Looks like it’s the VP Joe!
Robin G.
The point of that speech was more or less that until that moment, the President had let Dreyfuss define the debate. Dreyfuss has pretty much lived on Meet The Press and whatnot and taken shot after shot without any response from the White House, which was trying to stay above the fray. While this is the climactic scene, the real lynchpin of the movie is where Michael J. Fox says that if only one person is doing the talking, that’s the person the people will follow — no matter what’s being said.
The movie doesn’t guarantee at all that the greenhouse gasses reduction is going to work out. The point is that the President is going to the mattresses. Obviously it’s a movie (and a romcom at that), so it ends on a very optimistic (and unrealistic) note, but a little more of this from the current administration would be nice to see. I still think Obama’s doing the best he can with a shit situation, but a little rousing oratory would cheer me up, I’ve got to say.
I don’t think Joe Klein would like this at all if it happened for real, by the way. I think he’d call it shrill.
(Full disclosure: I fucking love The American President, silliness and all. Had to defend.)
Danny
That says all you need to know really about the pathologies of contemporary US liberalism and our time. Here we have the best (pre-Obama) US president since 1968 who does something Presidents have done in all times – gets a blow-job.
And “liberal” Klein gets his panties in such a twist that he writes a thinly disguised roman a clef where he makes Bill Clinton out to be a pedophile who’s also responsible for his best friends (the Tru Progressive) suicide, and he makes Hillary out to be an Ice Queen guided by no principles and only pursuit of power.
That’s all one needs to know really. Not much have changed.
homerhk
the really stupid thing of it is that Obama HAS, on a number of occasions, used lovely rhetoric to advance his policy goals. Andrew Sprung has a detailed take down of Drew Western’s absurd column showing, for example, the passionate framing of the debate about the ACA wherein President Obama, with great rhetorical flourish, pines for universal health coverage. Or, how about his dismantling of the republicans at their retreat, the take down of Paul Ryan’s budget plan, his passionate defence of the “mosque” at “ground zero” (it’s not them and us, it’s just us), the defence of the consumer protection agency, the rhetorical push for repeal of DADT in the State of the Union. the list goes on and on. Each time he does that, progressives get out from under their rocks and say “that’s the President I voted for” or “where’s this Obama been all my life” until the next week when they start up with throwing the rocks instead. I realise that not everyone pays attention to all the speeches that Obama does but really if you’re a political commentator a la Klein or supposedly a la Western, you really should be that ignorant.
As for the famed question of “what Obama stands for”, personally I think that’s obvious reading his books, listening to him speak and I think that anyone who claims not to know is really being deliberately obtuse.
no video at work
But to Joke Line this President would never fail! The American People would be so moved by what he said and the way he said it and the fact the he is so gosh darn authentic that they would line up in the halls of Congress demanding their representatives vote in favor of this wonderful compromise.
Yevgraf
Chuck Todd is a dullard.
Anyway, I invite all who haven’t done it yet to read (or re-read) David Brock’s 2004 Republican Noise Machine to see how this all works
priscianusjr
And Klein is probably the best of them, IMHO.
Han's Big Snark Solo
I don’t think the press is against us so much. I just think it’s main concern is making money and will follow/blow up any story it thinks will drive ratings. It doesn’t give a damn about informing the American public. In short, most of the media are whores and we really should stop thinking of them as educators of the great unwashed American populace.
That’s not so true with Fox and Hate Radio though. They clearly do have a side, and they have an audience that is ideologically captive to them and only them. Fox doesn’t have to worry about following leads that bleed because their audience will not only follow them anywhere, but it will also NEVER question any “facts” Fox and Hate Radio provide.
hitchhiker
Political porn is apt. When I can’t take another day of watching our slow motion train wreck of a governing process, I pop in a dvd from The West Wing at random.
It’s very soothing. Imagine CJ taking down a Fox news reporter, repeatedly, with style and sass and grace? Remember when Jed gets into a political fight with some smug, over-reaching house Republicans over the budget? He marches over to the Capitol, where they make him wait in the hall. Then they capitulate.
Any real president would be curiously unsatisfying if that’s your standard.
priscianusjr
And Klein is probably the best of them, IMHO.@Danny:
Woodrowfan
What Robin said. There’s no guarantee the President will win (although clearly the audience is cheering for him) but that he is willing to openly espouse what he believes and to fight for it.
BalJu Commenter #2401
@evap: Agreed. I laughed myself sick reading Primary Colors. Are we REALLY sure K wrote it???
Also: Wag the Dog is great election night fare.
cat48
The Wingnuts are still whining about the Ryan takedown speech which was fairly mild. A WNut on msnbc whined abt it this weekend. I couldn’t believe it. That was in April.
Danny
@Han’s Big Snark Solo:
I agree that they’re not “against us”. What I think they are though is bullied by conservative grassroots and conservative media for decades with the “liberal media” slander. And the Village is stacked with stealth conservatives like Halperin. And FoxNews provide a never ending stream of newsworthy hit-jobs serving the conservative agenda. Overall that’s considerable headwind when we’re trying to push our message.
Lee Hartmann
I have no use for Joke Line. But as far as a “magical pony president goes…”
Obama:
– renominated Bernanke, who failed to see the bubble. check.
– picked Geithner, who similarly failed at the NY Fed to issue warnings – he had some regulatory responsibility. check. (by the way, check out some of those interchanges he had with Elizabeth Warren. No wonder she was dropped. And Rethuglican opposition? notice that they oppose anyone else they nominate?)
– failed to use HAMP in any meaningful way to help with mortgage foreclosures (see above). check.
– not only put in too small a stimulus, which was one thing, but afterwards claimed repeatedly it was ok in the teeth of the evidence that it wasn’t, actually, enough. check.
– failed to go after ANYBODY of any real responsibility for the vast quantities of fraud in the mortgage mess. check.
– failed to fill vacant positions on the Fed. check.
– borrowed the Rethuglicans meme that deficit reduction is what we need right right now, whereas the opposite is true.
check.
– chose Alan “300 million tits” Simpson for his Catfood Commission 1. check.
Screw the bully pulpit. I’ll give him (modest) credit for the health care Rube Goldberg plan – but could he please actually do something else right economically for a change?
Ash Can
OT, for some perspective on how far the GOP has fallen over the last few decades, go read Mark Hatfield’s obituary. RIP, one of the last sane Republicans.
Chris
@Robin G.:
Michael J. Fox: “People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they’ll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.”
Michael Douglas: “Lewis, we’ve had presidents who were beloved, who couldn’t find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty. They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.”
That second half of the quote was a very cynical and unfortunately quite accurate summary of why it’s not as simple as “just leading.”
wrb
@Omnes Omnibus:
Bigger with more Bully.
No one can tell me that he wouldn’t get coverage if he climbed a 200′ tall pulpit in the mall that was covered will bull hides and gave a speech naked.
He’s not trying.
Bill H.
Except that what Bush tended to do was lots of noble words followed by ignoble success, from both Republican Congress and from Democratic ones. “This is vital for national security” and “Congress must act without dely” on the Patriot Act, Authorization For Use of Miltary Force, Military Commisions Act, Telecom Immunity…
Big things don’t happen unless men with big vision make big fights for them.
kd bart
At cnn.com , Gergen is wishing for Churchill during WW II type leadership. Correct me if wrong but I don’t recall Churchill having to deal every step of the way with an opposition that was 100% against everything he attempted to do. In fact, wasn’t he brought in to save England from leadership, in his own party, that was willing to capisulate to Hitler?
Judas Escargot
Politics as entertainment is our problem: Entertainment excites the wrong brain centers.
In a sane world, politics would be about as exciting as deciding what grass seed to put down in your yard, what soda to buy, or what color shirt to put on in the morning.
I’ve said this before: I dream of an America with a boring, boring politics.
gogol's wife
@cat48:
Somehow 9/11 happening on somebody’s “watch” (an expression I despise) didn’t make much of a difference, only helped.
Ash Can
Also OT, the now-taxpayer-owned AIG is suing Bank of America for $10 billion over the 2008 crash. Like I say, it took five years to take Enron’s management down — 2008 won’t be over till the litigation is.
kd bart
Politics in this country hasn’t been the same since C-SPAN came into existence and decided to show live coverage of both Houses of Congress.
Robin G.
@Chris: I’m not sure that’s true, at least entirely. The American people (thanks to the media and the fact that the Republicans consistently kick the Democrats’ asses at messaging) so rarely get to see a real, straight comparison of leadership. When I get horrifyingly depressed at the state of my fellow citizens, I remember watching the 2008 debates and watching the blue approval line at the bottom of the screen pin high. When the people were presented with an hour and a half of uncut communication, they ran from John McCain. (It’s actually my greatest hope for 2012. None of the clowns the GOP is lining up would last five minutes in the debate ring with Obama.)
As a side note, my most referenced quote from the movie is, “How do you have patience for people who claim they love America, but clearly can’t stand Americans?”
Danny
@Lee Hartmann:
The funny thing about the Stimulus is that it by all appearances actually was sufficient – let’s not forget job growth was solid in april & may. Problem was that austerity in the states combined with the Tsunami and the Arab Spring, combined with austerity in Europe and the European debt crisis fucked up the world economy.
Those are facts that KThugians choose to forget about and instead just focus on the fact that Krugman and others advocated a bigger Stimulus. Sure with hindsight being 20/20 today we wish for a bigger one, but in may the Stimulus had worked pretty fine.
Not saying that a bigger Stimulus wouldnt have both gotten unemployment down faster and resulted in a more robust recovery, so that we could perhaps have weathered these calamities. Just saying that without the calamities the recovery would still be robust. That’s a good reason to temper whatever valid criticism Obama & Geitner got coming. Their responsibility for the mess we’re in is maybe 5-10% imho. They don’t deserve 75% of the blame, especially not from the left.
numbskull
@beltane: We’ll never know if the President doesn’t change his tone, will we?
moonbat
Look people, this is simply the result of a extremely weak Republican field. Where’s the drama? Where’s the horse race? Well then, we had better make one up. Hence Chuck Toddler’s unsourced source and all the Is Obama losing his base! stories.
When on the other side you are talking about the difference between Ms. Crazy Eyes, Gov. Good Hair4Jeezus and Mr. Flip Flop Flip, what else have you got to sell drama in the next election? Seriously what have you got?
Because of the rhetorical flourishes Obama has already made and Mr. Klein failed to notice, Tea Party affiliation is tanking. Even the great middle of the country is blaming the TP and Repubs for this mess. All this thrashing around is a desperate attempt to keep us from noticing this.
I guess it’s working (see Dirty Ole Doug J for the past weekend).
Superking
I would like a president who stands for something more than just compromise. Compromise is a necessity, but it is not a political value.
MikeJ
I remember way back when the slam against Obama was all he did was give pretty speeches.
wrb
@Lee Hartmann:
Summers, Geithner and Bernanke we actually very good choices for the time even if they have been terrible since. People forget how close were were to global collapse. It was not the time to bring in brilliant liberal academics who hadn’t run anything. If the the markets didn’t gain confidence what happened after wasn’t going to matter.
Remember how they rallied when Geithner was named?
Corner Stone
@Danny:
Krugman and others stated in realtime, not hindsight, what would happen with that size stimulus. They correctly predicted, at the time, that the stimulus would work for a short period and then lead to a crash in the states. Arab Spring and Japan have little to do with states laying off tens of thousands of workers.
OzoneR
followed by long articles about how Obama can’t deliver legislative victories and how he’s all words, no action.
liberal
@Danny:
LOL.
Nope. We’re in a classic balance sheet recession; takes long time to get out of those without massive stimulus.
numbskull
@Danny: It seems like you’re arguing that the stimulus was _almost_ enough, if it just hadn’t been for other things happening in the world.
Good thing “other things happening in the world” don’t usually happen.
And no, I’m not conceding that even in a perfect world the stimulus was enough.
liberal
@wrb:
Yawn. More excuses for letting the idiots that ran us aground in the first place steer the ship. Not to mention pathetic use of a fallacious assumption of dichotomy: the choice is either Geithner et al., or (presumably) Krugman himself and similar academics.
liberal
@Corner Stone:
Not just that; Krugman added, in real time w/o hindsight, that if the stimulus was too small, then after it had not cured the recession, there’d be no second chance because people would come back and say “but it didn’t work!”
But laughable statements like “in May the stimulus worked fine” means that Danny has no clue about the economy.
MBunge
@Corner Stone: “Krugman and others stated in realtime, not hindsight, what would happen with that size stimulus.”
So, if we give Krugman credit for that, does he also get the blame for pooh-poohing the need for debt and deficit reduction at this time, given that the S&P downgrade seems to prove Obama was abso-freaking-lutely right to focus on getting the biggest deal possible?
Mike
moonbat
Krugman is great with coming up with the perfect solution to all our economic problems, just not so great in devising plans on how to get them past the Senate filibuster in ’09 or a suicidally obstructionist House in ’11. I have no fault with his economics, but his answer to the political realities of the day usually boil down to “Obama’s not forceful enough!”
I know it’s icky, but politics is about horse trading and compromise under the most favorable conditions. Under this president we’ve had the opposing party publicly state that their sole objective is to make Obama a one-term president. Everything he likes, they hate. Everything he advocates, they oppose. They have no loyalty and pay no attention to anyone or anything outside their rapidly shrinking crazy base (see the recent debt ceiling debacle when even the Wall Street overlords were ignored). Someone please explain to me how More Bully Pulpit is going to solve that problem.
Sly
All major political success of any ideological camp or political party was the result of a compromise that, at the time, pissed off the hard-liners. Eventually the hard liners were forgotten and their descendants have come to deify the sell-outs. There are no exceptions to this rule.
@wrb:
The left would complain about the bull skins and animal cruelty, the right would complain about family values and nudity, and the middle would be too busy to notice, and only get word of it in an e-mail from Aunt Ruth saying how the 200 foot pulpit is a symbol of the Illuminati because she saw a video about it on youtube while off her meds.
This is America. The only reason why we have nice things is because, occasionally, we elect people who are smarter than we are and know how to game the system to our advantage.
Danny
@Corner Stone:
See when you’re doing that – in order to make KThug larger than life and slam Obama – you’re also making it like electing crazy Teabagger zealots Governor in Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida etc didnt make a difference. Like that wasnt political acts and didnt have consequences.
In fact you’re taking the willful actions of Republicans and laying them at the Presidents feet.
In reality teabagger Governors and teabagger lawmakers cut spending in the states. There’s no way KThug could have known that, unless he’s in possession of a crystal ball that’s as magic as Obama’s bully pulpit. Those were choices that people made, in the states. They could have made other choices. The brits could have re-elected Gordon Brown. And so on.
What KThug argued all along was that the Stimulus should have been bigger, and on policy he was right. But up until april-may the ARRA and the recovery was on track, albeit slow. Those are just facts.
What happened between then and now was the result of the factors I laid out. Not of Nostradamian fate manifesting itself.
Corner Stone
@MBunge:
Mike, your logic continues to astound.
The S&P downgrade had almost nothing to do with our debt. Their $2T math mistake should have been your first clue.
Mustang Bobby
The American President is a good movie, but that’s just it; it’s a movie. Too many people think Barack Obama is a movie, too, and they’re all “What oh what has happened to the Grand Dream of the Transformative Presidency?”
Those who pinned their hopes of sunshine and rainbows and wonderfulness on the election of Barack Obama and tried to dress him up as their dream date are bitterly disappointed that he was not able to banish all of the ills and flaws of the nation with the wave of his hand. Forget all that he has accomplished, beginning with healthcare and the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and a litany of both law and policy that wouldn’t have gotten the time of day from the Republicans, and concentrate on the most important thing: what have you done for me lately?
It’s called reality. There is always a post-coital letdown with a president, regardless of the party. FDR didn’t go far enough with the New Deal and was accused of being mercurial by his allies in Congress. John F. Kennedy’s memory is burnished by his assassination, but his administration was seen as stumbling and unsure at the time; the Cuban missile crisis was one step away from thermonuclear devastation. And Ronald Reagan, the Savior of the Western World, did not get Roe v. Wade overturned, did not get prayer back in school, did not shrink government (he left that to Bill Clinton), and he raised taxes nearly every year he was in office. Just as Christmas is never as good as the commercials and the carols hype it up to be, no president ever lives up to the bumper sticker, the stump speech, and the inaugural address.
A lot of people either forgot their history or they believed that with the election of the first black man as president, this time it would be different. Not so, especially not for a president who has been faced with the most concerted campaign of lies and vilification organized by a very well funded and coordinated collection of political action groups, radio talkers, and a major cable television network. Hillary Clinton’s “vast right wing conspiracy” in the 1990’s was an ice cream social compared to this enterprise. The election campaign of 2010 was just pre-season; when it comes to 2012, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Corner Stone
@Danny: I’m neither deifying Krug nor slamming Obama.
Just correcting your erroneous summary of actual real life events. The stimulus was always going to behave exactly as it has. There’s nothing Nostradamus about it.
Your rewrite is wrong.
drkrick
I don’t think the last part is accurate. I think the SOBs are dumb enough to think this kind of thing would work, just like it did for Jimmy Stewart.
Norwonk
I rather liked Primary Colors. Klein may have been unfair to Hillary, but it seems to me he nailed Bill Clinton’s character, both in its good sides and the bad. And unlike the presidential date movie, the novel is right about the disappointment we can expect from politicians.
zmulls
@29 Judas Escargot — Exactly the point I was going to make. It’s that today’s “newstainment” workers want to enjoy what they watch. They don’t want to think hard or work hard, or study. Boooo-ring.
Joe Klein’s real complaint is that Obama isn’t giving him good television. The Republicans give GREAT television, but Klein pretty much knows, in his brain or what’s left of it, that the GOP is wrong. But they are much more fun to watch, and more fun to talk about. And his job depends on having things to talk about.
It’s not restricted to Obama. I remember some columnist (forget who) complaining that Hillary Clinton went *on* and *on* about some stupid policy in detail, and the columnist was so very bored with it and just wanted to get to the bar. And I remember when Al Gore would stay after an event and answer question after question, not leaving until he absolutely had to, he wasn’t lauded for communicating effectively, he was “desparate” and “needy.” People want answers, reporters don’t want to have to sift through them.
The GOP is doing reality television. Obama is doing PBS.
Danny
@Corner Stone:
Do you mind telling us then what macroeconomic factors changed between march 2011 and august 2011? Was it stimulus spending running out? Or was it something else?
Captain Haddock
Well to be fair to Klein he had to lie about his authorship. After all, the Clintons had killed several people (most notably Vince Foster and their partners in the Arkansas Cocaine Ring).*
*I miss those simpler days…
numbskull
@moonbat: You’re correct. Krugman is the economist with a solution to the problem. Obama is the politician who is supposed to push the correct policy. It helps in this instance to start with the economist with the correct solution. How do you know who is correct a priori? It’s tough, but a good first step is to not go with the guys who have already failed.
Corner Stone
@Danny: The continued erosion of public sector jobs is in large part due to the stimulus running out. Private sector job growth isn’t sufficient to catch up or overtake the gap with enough force.
Rhoda
@Bill H.: Those are things tied to 9/11; hell FDR took on the world after Pearl Harbor. There is nothing easier to start than a war. Except cutting taxes.
Now, tell me how far he got trying to privatize social security.
4tehlulz
Oy vey: WASHINGTON (AP) — S&P downgrades Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, home-loan bank debt
scav
@4tehlulz: I don’t even care if it’s true, I’m laughing so hard at that.
jwb
@4tehlulz: It looks like the markets are going off the cliff today and this won’t help.
MBunge
@Corner Stone: “The S&P downgrade had almost nothing to do with our debt. Their $2T math mistake should have been your first clue.”
So, why did S&P downgrade? Because they just flipped a coin? Would doing NOTHING about the debt and deficit, which is what Krugman advocated, have made them LESS likely to downgrade?
It’s easy to always be right if you’re never held accountable for all the times you’re wrong.
Mike
JCT
@Beltane
You nailed it – he lives not far from me in a gorgeous home. I know him pretty well, his wife is delightful, he is mostly a self-serving asshole. It’s like those old E.F. Hutton commercials, the minute he opens his mouth in a crowd you can tell he expects everyone to stop talking and listen to him. Tedious.
scav
@MBunge: Idiot. Sometimes doing nothing until you’ve time to think is better than immediately running around the small rowboat screaming DOWNGRADE DOWNGRADE DOWNGRADE this mother-fucking boat ! ! !, although the latter makes for a far better movie.
Kane
Joe Klein claims that he wants the president to tell a story about good guys and bad guys. It’s a story that he and the rest of the media could very well tell on their own, so that’s not really the story that he wants. Instead, what he really wants is to write the story of how Obama gets into the mud with his opponents. It’s a story the media has been craving since 2008.
Corner Stone
@MBunge: A couple things. First, I am not holding up Krugman as a super hero or any other type nonsense. In this thread I pointed out what I believe to have been an error regarding effects of the stimulus. Krugman used economic models, math, and charts and all that voodoo, in realtime, to illustrate the kind of behavior we would see from the stimulus. It wasn’t hindsight. He and others demonstrated, at the time, what the stimulus was predicted to do.
Second, if we take S&P at their word, the downgrade was more about shocking political intransigence and the ability to get anything positive done through Washington. So far as I am aware both Moody’s and Fitch reiterated their highest rating for the USA on 8/2/2011 and haven’t yet changed that outlook. I could be wrong but I think that’s still correct.
IMO, and I can’t prove it in anyway, I think S&P downgraded for political reasons in an attempt to damage Obama’s re-election bid. I think the debt is an excuse, and not the driving factor.
MBunge
@scav: “Sometimes doing nothing until you’ve time to think is better than immediately running around the small rowboat screaming DOWNGRADE DOWNGRADE DOWNGRADE this mother-fucking boat !”
So, even though all the credit agencies were warning the U.S. about getting the debt and deficit under control and even though one just downgraded the U.S. because we didn’t do enough to cut the debt and deficit, doing nothing at all would have somehow led to a better result.
Whether you’re in the Tea Party or not, wanting something to be true doesn’t make it so.
Mike
scav
@MBunge: The credit agencies haven’t been covering themselves with orecular glory for a long time so why the hell should they be the defining orecular world of DOOM about fucking anything? They’re not impartial players in this shing dong, they’ve got an agenda. I just somehow don’t think the U.S. exists to serve the U.S. Stock market although I know that’s a freaking heretical position to take in this nation. I’m actually leaning more toward the position that S&P are making all these downgrades now more as an advertising move so they can prove down the line that they were first in line predicting the already inevitable downturn, irregardless that they’re making it worse by doing so. PR trumps all.
Stefan
Krugman is great with coming up with the perfect solution to all our economic problems, just not so great in devising plans on how to get them past the Senate filibuster in ‘09 or a suicidally obstructionist House in ‘11. I have no fault with his economics, but his answer to the political realities of the day usually boil down to “Obama’s not forceful enough!”
Krugman is not a politician — he’s an economist and a pundit. It’s not his job to devise political strategies for getting legislation enacted; rather, it’s his job to offer an economic analysis of the situation and to arm his side with facts, figures and arguments. So yeah, Krugman’s not so great at devising plans — but since that’s not his role in the first place, why should he be?
Stefan
In reality teabagger Governors and teabagger lawmakers cut spending in the states. There’s no way KThug could have known that, unless he’s in possession of a crystal ball that’s as magic as Obama’s bully pulpit.
What? There’s no way that Krugman could have known that obstructionist radical Republicans would be obstructionist radicals? Um, I think we all knew that, and we all predicted it well ahead of time.
scav
@scav: Substitute Rating Agencies, not Credit Agencies in the above to improve the sense, although I’m fond of neither.
ruemara
I’m glad I’ve never seen the American President or West Wing. It sounds like this is what people who are disappointed life isn’t like Avatar or the Lord of the Rings watch to prove they are serious.
OzoneR
@Stefan:
then he should stop complaining about politicians are unable to enact his ideas.
MBunge
@scav: The credit agencies haven’t been covering themselves with orecular glory for a long time so why the hell should they be the defining orecular world of DOOM about fucking anything?
And whether you’re in the Tea Party or not, just being pissed off doesn’t actually accomplish anything.
Mike
scav
@MBunge: FYI, immediately screaching tea party tea party isn’t actually making your line of argumentation stronger. I admit to being entirely unconvinced by you or your voice of DOOM cohorts. Guess that’s why there are elections. piss off and oo
4tehlulz
Oh yay. Even more good news:
I guess the only solace I have is that I’ve been in cash and missed the fun, not that it’ll matter.
OzoneR
What’s ironic about this whole thing. I’m reading obits of former NY Governor Hugh Carey who died this weekend and in every obit people talk about how he succeeded by being compromising and fair rather than partisan and shrill.
I guess it works when you’re white.
Corner Stone
@ruemara:
I remember liking The American President, even though it’s a “chick flick”. Haven’t seen it for years so don’t know how well it stands up today.
Fwiw, I’d suggest giving it a chance.
I popped in and out of West Wing, mainly out. Some high points for drama/script. Great acting by solid actors. Not realistic in any way.
Corner Stone
@scav: Am I missing something on the “Tea Party” references he keeps mentioning?
Djur
@MBunge: Yeah, it’s a good thing we passed the austerity bill, or else S&P might have downgraded our credit.
Southern Beale
Wow, you mean back in 1995 a president — even a fictional one — could stand before the White House Press Corpse and utter the words “global warming” and the earth didn’t open beneath his feet?
My how times have changed. Here we are, 2011, and “global warming” is now somehow “controversial” … something real politicians shy away from. Yeah, I miss the ’90s.
There is an entire body of film work featuring Democratic Presidents who stand up before the press, the people, you name it and tell it like it is. Martin Sheen as President Bartlett on The West Wing. Kevin Kline as “Dave.” Michael Douglas. They all give great speeches where they show everyone who the real grown-ups are.
It’s my favorite fantasy genre. I have to think it comes from the fact that we simply don’t have that in reality.
OzoneR
@Southern Beale: I thought Dave was a Republican?
chopper
@4tehlulz:
yeah, this is going to be fun. i have lots in bonds, which to be fair is returning all of jack and shit these days, but it’s still positive. wish i could have split off some cash to buy some precious metals but i have a kid, and a wife in a 10-year grad school program.
i’m imagining states that are at the brink of bankruptcy are going to be fucked. rick perry’s inevitable run for president may take a big hit here since texas is most of the way to fucked already.
MBunge
@Corner Stone: Am I missing something on the “Tea Party” references he keeps mentioning?
I know comprehension isn’t exactly a strong point with you, but I think the sentence “Whether you’re in the Tea Party or not, wanting something to be true doesn’t make it so” is pretty self-explanatory.
You don’t have to agree with it, but it’s kind of sad to not understand it.
Mike
MBunge
@Djur: Yeah, it’s a good thing we passed the austerity bill, or else S&P might have downgraded our credit.
1. If Moody’s and Fitch had downgraded as well, take the current mess and multiply it by 3.
2. S&P was pretty clear beforehand that passing something like “The Grand Bargain” would have avoided a downgrade.
3. A debt deal that cuts only $22 billion in the immediate future is not “austerity”.
Mike
OzoneR
@Djur:
and Moodys.
Stefan
then he should stop complaining about politicians are unable to enact his ideas.
Well, no. He’s a pundit. It’s his job to complain, to wage the war of ideas. It’s the politicians’ job to enact those ideas into actual legislation. It’s part of his role to put the pressure on.
Corner Stone
@MBunge: Are you saying scav is a member of the Tea Party? Or is it anyone who disagrees with you? Or is it just throw in non sequitur?
OzoneR
@Stefan:
Then he should he should get involved in politics when asked and stop hiding behind the “I’m just an economist” excuse.
Rihilism
HIGHLARIOUS!
chopper
@OzoneR:
i don’t mind a guy who’s an economist, not a politician, bitching about politics and what should or shouldn’t happen. clearly kthug is at his best on raw macro stuff and he misses stuff on the political side of things mostly with regard to what can and can’t rationally be done. not every pundit has to be the total package.
what is wacky is all the regular people who take his political stuff and point to it without understanding that caveat. like ‘this dude has a nobel and he’s smart as shit and he thinks obama should have gotten a bigger stimulus!’. appeals to authority are at their weakest when the authority is arguing in an area that isn’t as much his area of expertise.
aisce
@ hillary’s boyfriend
yes, he is saying that the left has its own tea party, just without the cute name. or the political relevance.
it’s a way of mocking and delegitimizing you silly cretins. because you deserve to be mocked and delegitimized.
glad i could be of service.
drkrick
Partially true. When discussing the economics, this is fine. When complaining bitterly that his preferred policy isn’t in place, some acknowledgement of the fact that there’s more than the ignorance and malfeasance of the incumbent President standing in the way would be nice.
Krugman’s preferred policy set had no chance of enactment in the last Congress, let alone this one. It might be nice if he gave some thought to the optimal set of policies (if any) that could plausibly be put in place earlier than January 2013 or 2015. Although given the proclivities of the Clown Car Conservatives in charge now, endorsement by Krugman would be the same kiss of death as endorsement by Obama.
Calming Influence
Why is square-jawed tough talk taken as the antithesis of accepting politically realistic compromise? I’m having trouble understanding why the American president can’t explain to the American people the potential benefits of a public option, for example, before taking it off the table.
I just want him to help us help him, but if all people ever hear of the public option, the need for increased tax revenue, etc., comes from Fox News, then naturally it’s going to be politically impossible to achieve.
The Republicans having been trying to kill Social Security and Medicare for decades, and the only reason that cuts to those programs, unthinkable even 10 years ago, are now on the table is that the Right argued for cuts every chance they got, well before they had any hope of actually achieving them.
lol
To everyone claiming Bush did what he wanted, let’s go through his legislative victories:
Tax cuts – Both sets passed through reconciliation.
USA Patriot Act – 99 votes thanks to 9/11.
NCLB – Championed by Ted Kennedy so it got bi-partisan support and passed with 87 votes in the Senate
Medicare Part D – Got 61 votes to beat cloture. (and got 70 on an earlier version)
Afghanistan – 9/11.
Iraq War – Got 70+ votes with support from Dem Hawks.
Clean Skies – Died in committee.
SS Privatization – Never got introduced.
ANWAR Drilling – Filibustered.
So that’s his legislative record.
slippy
@evap:
Well, if one intends to rest on one’s laurels, one should least make sure they’re not shit-berry laurels.
NMP
Firstly, can we finally admit that for all their purported intellectual superiority, liberals watch too much television and movies. But since movies seem to be the only way to reach some liberals, I think the most apt movie scene that should wake liberals up to reality is the scene from Jerry McGuire when Jerry and his true believer colleague (Renee Zellweger) depart after his righteous, tear jerking and “hell yes” enducing speech. The elevator doors shut and everyone immediately returns to work. You can transplant that scene to the halls of Congress. After every great presidential speech, legislators and lobbyists go right back to what they were doing. The rare oaccassions a speech has made a difference is when movements capitalized on the speech, e.g. “I Have A Dream”. Where’s the progressive movement? A few faceless progressive bloggers and a third rated primetime line-up on MSNBC constantly complaining about what the President is not doing does NOT a movement make.
Bill H.
@Rhoda:
Irrelevant. They would not have happened if he did not go to bat for them. They did not happen “by consensus.”
FDR took on isolationists and Nazi supporting big business. He did “Lend Lease” essentially against the will of Congress. He didn’t start the war, Congress did after 12/7/41. He was opposed to war, he just wanted to support Britain and her allies, while Congress and the “money party” did not.
MazeDancer
1972 – The Candidate
IMHO, the best political movie ever made. And Top Ten movies ever.
Written by William Goldman, great, great writer, one of Sorkin’s precursors. Directed by Michael Ritchie. Robert Redford in the title role.
Brilliance.
Politics remain unchanged.
Including that Father-Son thing. How many Candidates haven’t been trying to prove something to Daddy? Not many.
SG
Obama’s use of the so-called bully pulpit has been sporadic at best and usually long after Republican lies have become cemented into the public and media consciousness. And he has demonstrated little willingness to counter the lies and distortions, as if he prefers to make nice with his enemies in the vain (and, by now, stupidly pig-headed) belief that this time they’ll play ball. Whether his failures have been by design or incompetence is moot.
At this point, I can’t stand to even hear Obama’s voice. Damned if it doesn’t infuriate me almost as much as Bush at the height of his obnoxiousness.
I don’t expect Obama to deliver a radiant, magic speech that will miraculously heal our divisions and bind up our politics.
What I expect is a smart Democrat (the real kind) who meets with his congressional caucus and targeted Republicans one by one behind closed doors and freakin’ twists arms unmercifully to pass key legislation. He’s the president, for God’s sake, and the power of his office is immense — if he would only use it. He has an arsenal of carrots and bludgeons but the only people he’s been meeting with in secret session have been the insurance and pharmaceutical loybbists and fucking John Boehner.
Why has the Democratic caucus been allowed to go off message and freelance? Why have Blue Dogs been allowed to sink key legislation? A president can make or break a politican in his party. He can make sure someone gets adequate funding for reelection or gets primaried. If he’s popular (which Obama was before he wasn’t), he can boost a candidate’s mojo with joint appearances and the promise of juicy Federal projects. Or he can promise that the military base in a recalcitrant Dem’s state is slated for closure, or the new Federal courthouse will never be in the target district.
The Republicans cribbed the playbook on this from LBJ and they’ve worked their caucus brilliantly. That’s why the pitifully few moderates remaining — Snowe, Collins, et al — never vote against their party on key votes.
But it doesn’t matter. Obama is either unwilling or unable to do anything but open the cash register and give away the store before the thugs are even inside the door.
Paul
What you’re missing is that climate change is a really big deal. We’re running out of time to deal with increasing concentrations of CO2. Back in the mid-90s there was a point at which its likely we could have stopped the temperature rise (by cutting emissions).
Now we’re trying to figure out how to adapt with temperature rise, and the minimum rise we can live with.
The failure of the democrats, Harry Reid in particular who torpedoed a bipartisan deal to help with election chances in 2010, and Obama for not supporting a deal publicly as much as he should have, has caused great damage to the US, both in international politics, and to the country as a whole.
Stefan
@OzoneR:
Wait, I said he’s not a politician, he’s a pundit/economist, and your reply is “Then he should he should get involved in politics when asked and stop hiding behind the ‘I’m just an economist’ excuse”?
That makes no sense. Why should he stop doing what he’s good at — providing informed, fact and numbers based analyses of the politico-economic situation — to do what he’d be demonstrably bad at — being a politician? How is “I’m just an economist” an “excuse” rather than a simple statement of fact?
This is a particular kind of anti-intellectual bias, where the intellectual is scorned for not somehow getting his hands dirty. But again, not everyone is good at everything, and Krugman as a talented writer and trained economist is far better and more effective doing what he does than he’d be as a deal-maker.
Stefan
Krugman’s preferred policy set had no chance of enactment in the last Congress, let alone this one.
Overton Window. If no one ever argues the left side of things, then the Overton Window gets dragged farther and farther to the right, so that eventually Obama’s moderate-centrist position is seen as the leftward most permissible and, functionally, the equivalent of Kenyananticolonialmarxistsoshulism.
MBunge
@Stefan: Why should he stop doing what he’s good at—providing informed, fact and numbers based analyses of the politico-economic situation—to do what he’d be demonstrably bad at—being a politician?
The problem is that Krugman’s criticism of Obama is frequently political. He’s not saying “X is better than Y”. He’s saying “Obama should do X” or “Obama is an idiot for not doing X” without dealing with or even acknowledging the political factors that make X very difficult to accomplish or risky to attempt.
Mike
lol
@Stefan:
There’s a difference between beating the drum to say “The stimulus needed to be twice as large. We need to generate demand” and saying “Obama pared down the stimulus because he’s a weak corporate tool obsessed”.
The first kind of criticism moves the Overton window. The second just reinforces right-wing criticisms. Most criticism of Obama by the left generally falls into the second category.
Krugman’s economic analysis is generally spot-on but he frequently falls into the trap of arguing that Obama could’ve gotten something better if he just LEADED HARDER. Also too BULLY PULPIT.
Appropriations Chairman Rep David Obey:
The problem for Obama, he wasn’t as lucky as Roosevelt, because when Obama took over we were still in the middle of a free fall. So his Treasury people came in and his other economic people came in and said “Hey, we need a package of $1.4 trillion.” We started sending suggestions down to OMB waiting for a call back. After two and a half weeks, we started getting feedback. We put together a package that by then the target had been trimmed to $1.2 trillion. And then [White House Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel said to me, “Geez, do you really think we can afford to come in with a package that big, isn’t it going to scare people?” I said, “Rahm, you will need that shock value so that people understand just how serious this problem is.” They wanted to hold it to less than $1 trillion. Then [Pennsylvania Senator Arlen] Specter and the two crown princesses from Maine [Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins] took it down to less than $800 billion. Spread over two and a half years, that’s a hell of a lot of money, but spread over two and a half years in an economy this large, it doesn’t have a lot of fiscal power.
Is it too much to ask for Krugman et al to pin the blame where it belongs?
OzoneR
@Stefan:
He shouldn’t, he should stop commenting on politics. Saying “we need a bigger stimulus” is one thing, saying “Obama sucks because he didn’t get a bigger stimulus” is another. Political realities prevented a bigger stimulus. If Krugman thinks a bigger stimulus should have and could have been passed, he should tell us how to do it, or he should stop saying Obama could have and just stick to “we needed a bigger one.”
SG
@OzoneR:
Stop commenting on politics because he isn’t a professional politician or a political scientist? Then what are all of us here — and damn near everyplace else on the internets — doing by having the nerve to comment on politics? By that standard, the entire NYTimes OpEd page should be condemned. (Something to be devoutly desired in the case of Brooks, Douthat and Dowd…) But that’s why they call it an “Opinion/Editorial” page.
Scott P.
Of course that is a complete misunderstanding of what Obama has said. He has said Reagan was right to raise taxes in order to increase revenue. He has said that Reagan was a successful politician because he was able to unite Americans behind his policies. So what? Was he wrong?
kth
The truly despicable thing about Primary Colors, btw, wasn’t that Klein tried to conceal his authorship, but that the Vince Foster character (the one played by Kathy Bates in the film) kills herself, not because she was the victim of a fact-free, 100%-innuendo wilding by the Wall Street Journal (the actual cause of the Foster suicide), but because the Clintons had proven to be all-too-human.
steve herl
Now this really pisses me off. After voting for Obama and hoping for nearly three years he would do something to improve the economy, I finally gave up and started shorting the market. This week I’m making out like a bandit and the last thing I need is our leader to grow a pair and start badmouthing the Repugs. Now that Timmy the Geitner has signed on to the bitter end, it looks like clear sailing if you’re betting on economic disaster. On the other hand, if you missed this play in the market you’ll have another chance when President Perry takes over.
central texas
“I’d say that this kind of West Wing drama is exactly what Joe Klein and all the other political connoisseurs want from a President. Lots of noble words accompanied by noble failure”
With the possible question of the “nobility” of the failure, it seems to me that this perfectly sums up the Obama administration’s tactics and outcomes.
AxelFoley
@central texas:
Says the one from Texas.
MBunge
@kth: because the Clintons had proven to be all-too-human.
Would Bill Clinton have let Monica Lewinsky go to federal prison if it meant he would have never had to tell the truth? Ask yourself that the next time you think all that was wrong with the Clintons is that they were “all-too-human”.
Mike