If the Hippies Cut Off Their Hair, I Don't Care*

* Jimi Hendrix. My music brainworms increase with age. I'll have to consult Oliver Sacks about this.

Wow, the Democrats can really step on their message. If the last few weeks didn't make the stark choice in this year's election any clearer, then let the Democrats shoot themselves in the feet. Yesterday was a gift day for both President Obama and the Democrats. In the morning at the Reagan Building, President Obama signed the most far-reaching change in our financial system since the Great Depression and the cherry on top was the Consumer Protection Aghency. Then the Senate finally managed to pass the extension of unemployment benefits. Third, the Pew Foundation issued its report about the tangible benefits consumers are seeing from the Credit Card bill passed previously by the Democrats. Coupled with a week of Republicans openly proclaiming a return to George W, you would think the Democrats finally had momentum.

But No! This has happened repeatedly during the Obama years when the Administration needs lift and has a right to reach it. Instead, we are treated to a 24-hour news cycle that obliterated these achievements by focusing on the firing and re-hiring of Shirley Sherrod, a USDA employee who had spent decades working with both black and white farmers. The administration was set up by conservative internet prankster Andrew Briebart, the man who brought you the ACORN pranks, and Fox News, which needed a new race story after the New Black Panthers started to fade after 80 shows. Not only did the administration react poorly and try to limit damage control by firing Ms. Sherrod without even thinking about it, but the rehiring was handled so poorly.

Almost as a parody of liberalism, Tom Vilsack rehired her for a post on racial relations. As Willie Nelson wrote yesterday on Huffington Post, this woman was key during the FARM AID years for saving hundreds of farms in the South. Instead, a correction of the situation really called for her to be in charge of a program on rural poverty. That was her expertise to which she devoted several decades of work. Instead, she gets to be a black women, not an expert. But the damage to the larger events of the day have been done and actually vindicates Roger Ailes constant playing of the race card against the Administration.

Rachel Maddow did an excellent job on her show by putting all these racial eruptions during the Obama years in perspective and concentrating on the political strategy behind them. She obviously struck a raw nerve because Joe Scarborough this morning blasted her for bringing up the old Republican Southern strategy as if it were relevant. But, Joe, you know it is. Eugene Robinson on Rachel's show made the age-old point that you stand up the bullies, not kowtow to them. Conservatives hunt in packs and not alone. He did say that the whole Breibart episode revealed the whole race-baiting card more fully and that the Administration should push back and exploit it.

The whole Sherrod scandal was manufactured for several reasons. First, the news media had finally begun to examine the racism of the tea baggers. Ths provoked public internal fights among teabaggers. The President himself forcefully started criticizing Republicans on unemployment extension and the message started to gain traction. The Republicans started self-destructing with their calls to return to George W. The right's message was being seen as the Emperor's New Clothes. So a return to the politics of racial fear was called for and Andrew Breibart specializes in this.

There is an actual concrete reason for the Sherrod scandal that actually involves the USDA. The USDA has settled claims under the Obama Administration made by black farmers, who have been deprived of their land over the years. The settlement has riled up southern Whites and none of the pundits would have a clue as to what this issue was about.

Anyone who lived through the various Clinton Scandals would see the old pattern. Drudge used to put his siren on and make some allegation. The conservatives would rage about this new injustice. Then to be "balanced" the mainstream media would have to cover it as a real story. Then one had to have congressional action. Here with Fox News, you have a commercial incentive for the other networks to make these things real. Fox News with its right-wing stringers like Breibart and the ACORN kid gin up a story and can run it on all their shows for as long as it takes for the other networks to cover it. First the other networks don't want to be scooped and second they have to look like they consider "conservative" points of view because they view this demographic as essential to their ratings. So from the extreme, you legitimize basically bogus news. It's no wonder white supremacists find it comfortable now to not only express their opinions but also even write legislation on immigration.

The Obama Administration has to find a way to develop a strategy to either circumvent this process or to ride over it. The optics of their political management is awful. Almost the entire George W administration was spin--all hat, no cattle. The Obama Administration is no hat, lots of cattle but they seem unable to capitalize on it.

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on this subject drew great praise from the progressives and it should. But Olbermann doesn't seem to get the fact that President Obama can't come out firing because he would fall into the ultimate race trap. He would then be seen as an angry black man. Other people can and certainly Administration officials should take the initiative to fire back at the right's campaign to make Barack Obama the next Willie Horton. The administration played small ball--first wrongfully ,as Olbermann pointed out,engaging in immediate damage control, and then righting their own wrong, which they did clumsily at best. The broader image was that the Administration made mistake and unlike the last one immediately apologized and corrected it. But Olbermann's larger point was correct--why does the Administration keep allowing Fox and the Right's echochamber write the script and compose the score.

I have yet to read a single comment on Rush Limbaugh's racist rants on this episode. He went so far as to link Ms. Sherrod to Obama's Healthcare reform. Ms. Sherrod is seen as typical of the incompetent radicals who have insinuated themselves into the administration to advance their radical agenda. And ,white people, she would be one of those types of people in charge of your healthcare. This is not the first racist tirade from Limbaugh. This is just a continuation of his rants against the Obama Administration since the first day. At first, observers felt that his racist rants were his effort to block the inroads Glenn Beck was making into the Right Wing World. But as time moves on, it's just simply that Limbaugh is a racist.

So can the Democrats recoup? Well, they're going to have to hand out Karl Rove talking points. After the Republicans spent the last two weeks ranting about the deficit and unemployment benefits, then demanding the tax cuts for the wealthy remain in tact, the Democrats, who had been behaving as mature adults, decided this morning to blow out their brains. Senators Kent Conrad, Bayh and Nelson came out this morning in favor of preserving the tax cuts for the wealthy because the economy hasn't recovered sufficiently. And naturally, they claimed they would not offset the deficit created by them. These three guys just blew a massive hole in the major Democratic talking point since the Recession began. Tax Cuts and unpaid for entitlements like Medicaid D as well as two wars generated the massive deficts we have.

As I wrote yesterday, the House was going to preserve the Middle Class tax cuts and eliminate the wealthy so as to politically box the Republicans in. This would be shrewd politics forcing the Republicans to be overtly for the rich and corporations. Stay tuned because if the Democrats capitulate on this tax rates for the wealthy, they may lose the whole ballgame.

Meanwhile, Speaker of the House-To-Be The Tan Man John Boehner said he had empathy for the unemployed because he has three brothers who have lost their jobs during the Recession. Although he admitted, he hadn't checked to see how they were doing. I guess he was too busy playing golf. What would he do for job creation? Nothing. Cool.

Senate Democrats have a chance to redeem themselves if they push for the jobs bill that provides for small business loans. While Elizabeth Warren doesn't know whether these loans will create the number of jobs promised, some say that it will generate millions of jobs. The Republicans oppose it--which should be another nail in their electoral coffin. It's now a matter whether the Republican Long War strategy has worn the Democrats down that they can't push for anything substantive anymore.

Since we eliminated the debt yesterday, I want to fine tune the McColm Social Security Plan. As I wrote, by raising the limit on the FICA tax, we fund Social Security to infinity and beyond. But a blogger points out that what we can do is modify the McColm Plan and cut the FICA tax rate in half because the wealthy--say $1 million a year--only pay .066% now. The elimination of the limit will generate massive surpluses like the 1983 Reagan Social Security change but with a change in the tax rate to 3% this will stimulate the economy because the middle class will bring home more in their paycheck. Clever, Hey?

Representative Lynn Woolsey, the co-chair of the progressive caucus, is sponsoring a strong public option bill for the healthcare reform. If she could put this in terms of enlarging Medicare for All, the Howard Dean solution, then we are on our way to fiscal sanity.