Kurt Vonnegut would not have been surprised but I am amazed. After the debacle of Joe Barton apologizing to BP for Obama's "shakedown" to create a $20 billion escrow account, the entire conservative blogosphere came to Barton's defense. Even after Tan Man Boehner threatened Barton with the loss of his committee seat, we see Newt Gingrich and other conservatives appear on Fox News and call Barton courageous. This is like the conservative support of the South Carolina congressmen who yelled "You Lie" at the State of the Union address. The Wall Street Journal warned that this fund set a precedent and wanted the government to pursue BP through legal means. And the capo di tutti, Rush Limbaugh called this "organized crime". Forget for a moment, that BP actually consulted the Republican leadership about this idea before they brought it up with Obama and the leadership approved. It's not like there is a wall between the corporate world and the Republican party.
The best defense of BP was Freedomworks' own Dick Armey, who said that the White House acted unconstitutionally in "forcing BP" to create the escrow account. This is rich coming from someone whose President enthusiasically embraced the doctrine of the unitary executive as the rationale for almost total power. Just days earlier Armey, head teabagger, told teabagger candidates to hide their affiliation because people think there are kooks. There is a rich irony here. Teabbaggers imitate American colonists who protested the East India Tea Company, while coming to the defense of British Petroleum. It's no mistake because Freedomworks enjoys the financial support of BP and Koch Industries, America's largest private oil company. Part of their work is to lobby for the lifting of all bans on offshore drilling.
(P.S. There were between 85-95 corporate agreements similar to the Escrow Fund during George W's administration. Remember Chevron agreeing to create a fund when they were caught violating the Iraq embargo? And the list goes on.)
The Baked Alaskan gave a full-throated defense of corporations claiming that support for corporations was the "American way". The absolute brazen support of corporations at this time is amazing. David Broder woke up from his coma long enough to suggest that while President Obama is mired in the Gulf crisis, he should look over his shoulder at the American corporations sitting on over $1 trillion that could be invested in the economy right now. What Broder didn't report is that Republican Senate leadership told the corporations to hold back until after the elections to move on this.
The Corporate Crime Reporter noted yesterday that EPA investigators have been trying to get BP prosecuted since 2005 because of safety violations, oil spills in Alaska and other problems but were stopped because BP provides 85% of the fuel for our military in Iraq.
So Washington pundits keep criticising Obama's Oval Office speech, saying the magic has worn off--probably for them. Darkness at Noonan called Obama a snake-bitten President.
I have to check myself with the flood of criticism from the right and the left and see whether any of this is really taking hold in the public. Remember the healthcare debate and all Americans opposed it except when the specific provisions of the bill were polled, which showed overwhelming support for them? The same is appearing now with Obama's proposals on the Gulf crisis.
Support for creating a fund of billions of dollars to compensate workers and businesses that have been affected. 82% Approve.
Support for increasing the amount of federal regulation of the oil industry. 68% approve
Support for changing the law so there is no limit to the amount of money BP can pay: 63% approve
Support for suspending all new drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and other offshore sites for six months. 58% approve
Support for filing criminal charges against BP. 53% approve
(CNN poll)
In addition over 70% support developing alternative sources of energy and nearly the same percent believe this will create more jobs.
If you notice,my posts this year have already surpassed the entire volume of last year. the reason is that I want to keep up the same rate as GOP Senate filibusters, which are now looking to top all of last year.
President Obama's Saturday morning address to the nation focused on Republican efforts--so far successful--in filibustering a new Jobs bill, that includes vital payments to state governments to save the jobs of teachers and law enforcement officers, extends unemployment benefits and also corrects the Medicare payments to doctors. Last year the Republican tactics were aimed at stalling the healthcare bill. This year it's flat out to kill aid to states and the unemployed. President Obama merely is asking for a vote on the bill. So far this has 57 votes. Nelson and Joe Lieberman (I-Knesset) are opposed.
I will return to the great deficit debate in a later post because this is where things will really get nasty. But for now I am absolutely astonished that Republicans can be so raw in acting against the public good. You really would have to look at the war against FDR in his first term to find such a precedent. I wish the opposition to Obama was all racially motivated. At least George Wallace was a populist racist. This is a total war by the wealthy and corporations to render us an undeveloped country. The final looting of the country.
I leave you with the true words that someone who voted four times for FDR and was "proud of it" said to me. President Ronald Reagan said to me," Remember large corporations are generally not very patriotic." You might recall this was when Pepsi and Archer-Midlands were actively trying to sabotage his policy toward the Soviet Union. The sentiment still stands.
I think I'll take the day off and read Michael Lux The Progressive Revolution: How The Best in America Came To Be (Wiley, 2009). Lux spends a great deal of his book on the progressive responses to corporate control of America.
Showing posts with label Joe Barton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Barton. Show all posts
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Tin Ear in D.C.
First, the Los Angeles Lakers are the 2010 NBA champions, winning their 16th title. But, boy, they won ugly. Or to be charitable, they spotted the Celtics 3 1/2 quarters before showing up. There are reasons for cliches--it did come down to who wanted to win it the most.
Which brings us to our battered President. For weeks, there was a drumroll of criticism that the President had not called or met with BP CEO Tony Hayward. Then he meets with him and the criticism was that it only lasted 20 minutes. The net of the meeting was an escrow fund of $20 billion for the Gulf and another $144 million to compensate oil workers during the period of the moratorium. Clearly, this was the only piece of good news from the whole BP Gulf disaster.
Republicans at the urging of Karl Rove have been planting this idea since the beginning of the Obama administration that the President would be like Jimmy Carter or we'll make him into one. The Gulf disaster for Republican strategists would not be Obama's Katrina, since that reflected on George W, but rather the equivalent of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. The media would start the old Ted Koppel Day 300 and counting timeclock and Obama would be mired in the mess for the rest of his term.
Throughout the last 18 months, I have had doubts about whether the general public understood the commitment of the Republicans to destroy the Obama presidency. Most of the dirty work was done through filibusters and procedural maneuverings few people, except insiders, know or understand. Even progressives howl about why the Democrats with massive majorities can not pass the needed legislation. The net effect is to create the image of ineffective government and an inept administration. Therefore you should long for an authoritarian white father, who wouldn't believe in government but would wave the flag and invoke patriotism.
No Republican I have talked to or any of their public voices have admitted the country was or is in a Depression. The stimulus package was an unnecessary boondoggle of government spending and a vast extension of government's role in the economy. Financial reform is not the restoration of pre-1992 regulations but a government takeover of the economy and stifling of the private sector. Therefore, the mantra became "jobs" and the "deficit". Let's conveniently forget that by the end of this year, the Obama Administration will have created more jobs than the entire George W. Bush Administration.
If you didn't follow the extent of corporate funding of the congressional Republicans and the intent of their actions, you might think their case was plausible.
The President was said to lack emotion, backbone,courage and was too professorial and, according to former Reagan speechwriter Darkness at Noonan, out of touch with the American people.
There are gaffes, there a misstatements but then there are moments when the whole game is laid bare for all to see. Yesterday was one of them. D.C. lawyers had finally wakened up to the fact that they could litigate all their lives and never achieve the $20 billion escrow account for the victims of the Gulf disaster. Seasoned lawyers called it miraculous and noted that it was done without the necessary lawsuits. It was pointed out that the victims of the Valdez had to wait almost a generation of fighting the oil companies to get compensation and even that was severely cut down by the Supreme Court. In this case, the escrow account will be administered by the "special master" who handled all the claims for 9/11 victims, someone who was praised by both parties for his integrity and diligence.
If you are on the other side of the aisle, you might want to remain quiet or shift the subject. But the Heritage Foundation rolled out a position paper criticising the deal as an infringement on the rights of BP shareholders. The Republican Study Group, composed of 100 House members, wrote that the escrow account was a "shakedown" and a "slush fund". Haley Barbour, Governor of an effected state, worried about BP financial health. Michelle Bachman said that the account was Obama's ATM.
This is the type of rhetoric we have been used to for the duration of the administration. But what changed the situation was the nationally broadcast apology to BP's CEO Tony Hayward by Rep. Joe Barton of Texas for his treatment at the White House. Barton was simply repeating the Republican talking points. He was not talking as a single person. He went on to say that BP had been shaken down with Attorney General Eric Holder in the room. The key here is that the Justice Department is actively investigating bringing criminal charges against BP. The implication was that President Obama had intimidated a private corporation into ponying up the money.
The response both in the House and from the television audience was immediate. People were outraged not that Barton attacked President Obama but that he so clearly, as did other Republicans on the Committee, side with a foreign corporations over the people of the United States. John Boehner had to bring Barton into his office and threaten him with taking away his seat on the committee. Then out of Boehner's office came a press release ,ostensibly from Barton, retracting his apology to BP and saying his use of the word" shakedown" was miscontrued.
Then Republican mayhem ensued. Other congressmen did not get the memo and kept reiterating the same talking points; while congressmen from the Gulf States demanded Barton lose his seat. It also didn't help that BP's CEO Tony Hayward came across as lying through his teeth and simply did not generate any sympathetic feelings.
But the damage was done. The Republicans had been exposed as simply shills for the big corporations and nothing else. The plight of the citizens on the Gulf Coast clearly didn't matter. They would walk over their corpses for political gain. And what was startling to everyone was that it was so obvious and clear.
Within two hours, the Democratic fund-raising machine was up and running, exploiting the moment.
There was an interesting poll this morning that showed that 60% of Americans believe that President Obama cared for people like themselves.
This was brought home to me by a letter that was sent to Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish, which spoke about this woman's father who was a "marsh rat", who wanted to retire to a small cabin in the marshes and fish all day. This father was a real Arcadian, originally spoke French as his first language. Not an Obama supporter, he listened to the Oval Office speech. The woman wrote that when Obama pivoted on the "blessing of the fleet"section of his speech, her father cried and the President had his support from then on it.
Maybe like the Lakers, President Obama will have to win ugly.
Which brings us to our battered President. For weeks, there was a drumroll of criticism that the President had not called or met with BP CEO Tony Hayward. Then he meets with him and the criticism was that it only lasted 20 minutes. The net of the meeting was an escrow fund of $20 billion for the Gulf and another $144 million to compensate oil workers during the period of the moratorium. Clearly, this was the only piece of good news from the whole BP Gulf disaster.
Republicans at the urging of Karl Rove have been planting this idea since the beginning of the Obama administration that the President would be like Jimmy Carter or we'll make him into one. The Gulf disaster for Republican strategists would not be Obama's Katrina, since that reflected on George W, but rather the equivalent of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. The media would start the old Ted Koppel Day 300 and counting timeclock and Obama would be mired in the mess for the rest of his term.
Throughout the last 18 months, I have had doubts about whether the general public understood the commitment of the Republicans to destroy the Obama presidency. Most of the dirty work was done through filibusters and procedural maneuverings few people, except insiders, know or understand. Even progressives howl about why the Democrats with massive majorities can not pass the needed legislation. The net effect is to create the image of ineffective government and an inept administration. Therefore you should long for an authoritarian white father, who wouldn't believe in government but would wave the flag and invoke patriotism.
No Republican I have talked to or any of their public voices have admitted the country was or is in a Depression. The stimulus package was an unnecessary boondoggle of government spending and a vast extension of government's role in the economy. Financial reform is not the restoration of pre-1992 regulations but a government takeover of the economy and stifling of the private sector. Therefore, the mantra became "jobs" and the "deficit". Let's conveniently forget that by the end of this year, the Obama Administration will have created more jobs than the entire George W. Bush Administration.
If you didn't follow the extent of corporate funding of the congressional Republicans and the intent of their actions, you might think their case was plausible.
The President was said to lack emotion, backbone,courage and was too professorial and, according to former Reagan speechwriter Darkness at Noonan, out of touch with the American people.
There are gaffes, there a misstatements but then there are moments when the whole game is laid bare for all to see. Yesterday was one of them. D.C. lawyers had finally wakened up to the fact that they could litigate all their lives and never achieve the $20 billion escrow account for the victims of the Gulf disaster. Seasoned lawyers called it miraculous and noted that it was done without the necessary lawsuits. It was pointed out that the victims of the Valdez had to wait almost a generation of fighting the oil companies to get compensation and even that was severely cut down by the Supreme Court. In this case, the escrow account will be administered by the "special master" who handled all the claims for 9/11 victims, someone who was praised by both parties for his integrity and diligence.
If you are on the other side of the aisle, you might want to remain quiet or shift the subject. But the Heritage Foundation rolled out a position paper criticising the deal as an infringement on the rights of BP shareholders. The Republican Study Group, composed of 100 House members, wrote that the escrow account was a "shakedown" and a "slush fund". Haley Barbour, Governor of an effected state, worried about BP financial health. Michelle Bachman said that the account was Obama's ATM.
This is the type of rhetoric we have been used to for the duration of the administration. But what changed the situation was the nationally broadcast apology to BP's CEO Tony Hayward by Rep. Joe Barton of Texas for his treatment at the White House. Barton was simply repeating the Republican talking points. He was not talking as a single person. He went on to say that BP had been shaken down with Attorney General Eric Holder in the room. The key here is that the Justice Department is actively investigating bringing criminal charges against BP. The implication was that President Obama had intimidated a private corporation into ponying up the money.
The response both in the House and from the television audience was immediate. People were outraged not that Barton attacked President Obama but that he so clearly, as did other Republicans on the Committee, side with a foreign corporations over the people of the United States. John Boehner had to bring Barton into his office and threaten him with taking away his seat on the committee. Then out of Boehner's office came a press release ,ostensibly from Barton, retracting his apology to BP and saying his use of the word" shakedown" was miscontrued.
Then Republican mayhem ensued. Other congressmen did not get the memo and kept reiterating the same talking points; while congressmen from the Gulf States demanded Barton lose his seat. It also didn't help that BP's CEO Tony Hayward came across as lying through his teeth and simply did not generate any sympathetic feelings.
But the damage was done. The Republicans had been exposed as simply shills for the big corporations and nothing else. The plight of the citizens on the Gulf Coast clearly didn't matter. They would walk over their corpses for political gain. And what was startling to everyone was that it was so obvious and clear.
Within two hours, the Democratic fund-raising machine was up and running, exploiting the moment.
There was an interesting poll this morning that showed that 60% of Americans believe that President Obama cared for people like themselves.
This was brought home to me by a letter that was sent to Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish, which spoke about this woman's father who was a "marsh rat", who wanted to retire to a small cabin in the marshes and fish all day. This father was a real Arcadian, originally spoke French as his first language. Not an Obama supporter, he listened to the Oval Office speech. The woman wrote that when Obama pivoted on the "blessing of the fleet"section of his speech, her father cried and the President had his support from then on it.
Maybe like the Lakers, President Obama will have to win ugly.
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