Blog entry

Weekend Watchdog

Terrance Heath — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:55:31 -0400

Every Friday in our Weekend Watchdog feature, we post suggested questions for scheduled Sunday guests. You can add your own questions in the comment thread. We'll also include contact information for the shows, so we can let them know what their viewers want asked. We'll post a wrap-up here on the blog on Monday.

For Senator Joe Lieberman (ABC's This Week): You recently traveled to Iraq with Seen. John McCain. Seen. McCain recently revised his estimate for victory in Iraq down from 100 years to a deadline of bringing American troops home by 2013 — just five years from now.

Based on what you saw in Iraq, what would it take get our troops out of Iraq and back home by 2013, and how soon would we have to start withdrawing troops to have even most of them out of Iraq in five years?

For Senator Jon Kyl (Fox News Sunday): You've criticized Seen. Barack Obama for suggesting that American troops could be withdrawn from Iraq by 2013.

Have you changed your mind on the feasibility of bringing American troops home by 2013 now that John McCain has proposed a timeline to do so?

For former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (CNN's, Late Edition): A year ago you told Roll Call, "The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail, and so far it's working for us."

Considering Republican's most recent loss in Mississippi, and concerns that Republicans could lose 20 more seats in Congress, do you still think being obstructionist is working for Republicans?

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Email CBS' Face The Nation at ftn@cbsnews.com

Contact ABC's This Week by clicking here

Remember: always be brief, polite and respectful when contacting the media, so our voices will be taken seriously.

Toward A New Washington Consensus

David Sirota — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:08:06 -0400

Join the book club for David Sirota's upcoming book, The Uprising, due out on 5/27.

For all the talk from "free trade"-backing politicians about needing to engage the world, most of them understand almost nothing about how the world sees our international economic policies. As I show in my new newspaper column this week, our so-called Washington Consensus policies on globalization are stirring a backlash in both the industrialized and developing worlds.

To report this column, I conducted exclusive interviews with two foreign leaders - Jack Layton, head of Canada's New Democratic Party, and Otton Solis, the Costa Rican economist who formed a new political party in his country that almost won the presidency. Both of them expressed deep concerns about NAFTA-style trade deals - not only because those deals empower corporations to overturn laws passed by democratically elected governments, but because they aren't "free" in any sense of the word - they include all sorts of protectionist provisions for corporate profits. And as the column shows, their sentiment is backed up by public opinion in their parts of the world.

This is all very relevant because - if you hadn't noticed - a heated debate over trade and globalization policies is currently occurring in American politics. As Democrats sharpen their fair trade talk and promises, people like John McCain are making wild accusations claiming that such moves will alienate the rest of the world - when in fact the actual public opinion data shows precisely the opposite. Far from quelling anti-Americanism and building diplomatic bridges, our current trade policies exacerbate anti-Americanism and burn what few diplomatic bridges we have left.

This isn't to say that the rest of the world is "anti-trade." That's the tired, cartoonish phrase that the "free" trade extremists use to describe anyone who wants a new trade policy (and I put "free" in quotes because, as Solis notes in my column, "free" trade deals are protectionist - they are just protectionist for corporations). Progressives here and abroad are all for trade and commerce - they just want the rules of trade to protect people and the environment, before they protect corporate bottom lines.

The problem, of course, is that the debate over globalization has left the "reality-based" world. While reformers are arguing with actual facts, figures and history, the Establishment argues with empty rhetoric that actually thumbs its nose at facts. Remember, it was none other than Tom Friedman - America's leading cheerleader for status quo trade policies - who actually went on national television and bragged that "I wrote a column supporting CAFTA. I didn't even know what was in it. I just knew two words: free trade." That's right - in the face of growing global animosity to America's trade policy, our country's leading Republican displays no understanding of trade policy, and our country's leading "intellectual" thinker on trade trumpets the fact that he advocates for trade deals that he doesn't even bother to read.

You can read the whole column at the San Francisco Chronicle, Denver Post, Ft. Collins Coloradoan, In These Times, TruthDig, Credo Action, or Creators. The column relies on grassroots support, so if you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site. Thanks, as always, for your ongoing readership and help contacting local editors. This column couldn't be what it is without your help.

Chasing the Rainbow: Can We Capture It?

Isaiah J. Poole — Fri, 16 May 2008 11:02:19 -0400

I flashed back to the Rev. Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign, which aimed to build a "rainbow coalition" of working-class people based on progressive populist economic policies, earlier this week in my post on Firedog Lake.

It is easy to get discouraged by the racial polarization evident in the election results in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. There is, as my colleague David Sirota has been writing, a serious racial chasm in this country—and, frankly, in the Democratic Party.

But, to borrow a line from Scripture, "we are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed."

I believe that it possible to begin to bridge the chasm—or at least narrow it significantly—as those who have been hurt by Bush administration policies come to understand that their pain is broadly shared and that the solutions are just as broadly beneficial.

I don't expect to win over all of the white voters who have told exit pollsters that the race of a candidate is important to them and that therefore they will not vote for an African American, regardless of who he is or what he says. But the spirit of what Jackson envisioned—a polyglot assemblage of people with common dreams convinced to set aside their differences and embrace their hopes—can take shape in the midst of the devastation of the Bush era.

It will take a presidential candidate who is willing to speak directly to their hopes and their anxieties in ways that are both practical and unapologetically progressive. Spelling out exactly what that means is the challenge of the "Making Sense 2008" project the Campaign for America's Future launched this week, which you will be seeing and hearing more about in the coming days.

In the meantime, I'd like to ask you: What would it take to build a "rainbow coalition" that unites people across race and class lines around a progressive agenda for change? The conversation started at Firedog Lake; I'd encourage you to continue it in the comment thread below.

America Will Be ...

Terrance Heath — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:44:50 -0400

I knew as soon as the California Supreme Court marriage ruling was posted, that I would read the whole thing. I started reading it at my desk, after it was posted, but stopped once got to the "bottom line" of the ruling — and, truly, because as I realized what I was reading, and what the California Supreme Court had said, the emotion was too much.

I wasn't born when the Brown v. Board of Education ruling was handed down, so I don't know what it was like for those Black Americans who heard it or read it and realized what the court had done. But I think I have an idea, based on what I felt yesterday after reading the decision.

I know it was a state supreme court decision, and one that doesn't apply to me all the way over here on the other side of the country. But yesterday, reading the decision, I felt a little bit more like an American. And maybe even just a little proud of my country.

This is something I meant to write at the time, but that occurred to me yesterday, as I was walking home. Reading the CA Supremes ruling yesterday, and thinking about my own feelings, I thought about Michelle Obama's comments about finally being proud of America. I understood what she meant even then, but more-so after yesterday's ruling.

Yesterday, I finally felt just a little proud to be an American. Finally.

To understand where someone like Michelle Obama is coming from — or yours truly, for that matter — you have to look a America through the prism of someone without the privileges upon which it was founded from the beginning; from the perspective of people for whom the promises of being an American in America have been historically held out of reach.

From that perspective, pride in America is based more on its strides towards what it could become — were it to live up to all it promises to be on paper, for all its citizens — what it is or where it is at the present moment. America is something different for, say, Cindy McCain than is is for Michelle Obama, or than it is for me.

In some ways, we're proud of an America that has yet to be, and that we hope will be someday. Langston Huges probably said it best.

Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-- Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

…O, let America be America again-- The land that never has been yet-- And yet must be--the land where every man is free. The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-- Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-- The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America!

O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath-- America will be!

People who point to Michelle Obama's privileged lifestyle forget that whether her current lifestyle was always her lifestyle, she grew up a black child and became a black woman in the America that was and is, not the America that will be. (Perhaps it's safer to say the America that can be.) She has almost surely seen much to make one less than proud. And, as I remember the pictures of her reunion with her South Carolina relatives — having grown up in the south myself — I know she must have relatives who have witnessed much that wouldn't inspire pride, and she's listened to their stories.

From her perspective, how much hope must be inspired by the reality that her husband is the first black (or brown) man to have a real shot at becoming president? How much hope that wasn't there before? How much hope that was nursed, unfulfilled for generations, until this moment? How much hope, nursed on an abiding faith that American can be — will be — all it has promised to be, someday?

I was a high school student when the Bowers v. Hardwick decision came down. As a gay person, I felt divorced from the constitution and my country. It wasn't until Lawrence v. Texas that anything changed for me, and by then I'd seen and heard much that didn't inspire pride. But something shifted a little yesterday, and now I have a "wait-and-see" attitude.

Peggy Noonan recently asked "Who would have taught Barrack Obama to love his country?" My experience is that plenty of people will tell you that you should love your country, and will speak at length about why. But depending on who you are, you may learn to love your country, but experience will have taught you to sometimes love it — and hold it — at arms' length.

If I feel pride, it's not the same as might be expected, but closer to what Booman said.

Where did I learn to love my country? Who taught me to love it? What did I find loveable? I'm not even sure of the answer, although my parents and my teachers and the programs I watched on television and the books I chose to read all played a part. I learned to love the Constitution of the United States. I learned to respect and admire the Founding Fathers of this country, despite all their flaws. I came to understand that our Republic was something new and fragile, and that it needed protection from both within and without. And I, of course, learned to love the area that I grew up in, and all the wonderful national parks around the country that I visited during summer vacations as a child. And I loved baseball and football, and mint chocolate chip ice cream. In other words, I learned to love my country the same way that Barack Obama learned to love it...by growing up here and learning a little history.

…I'll tell you another thing. I don't normally get my pride and my love off of the accomplishments of others. I do have pride and love for our Constitution and our system of governance, but my love of country has nothing to do with the gold miners that forced the Native Americans off their land in violation of treaties, nor with the Nazi-sympathizer Henry Ford, nor even with the enterprising Wright Brothers. I'm all for clean-running trains, planes, and automobiles, but I don't love my country because of them. I wouldn't die for my country to preserve the internal combustion engine. I'd die to preserve the Constitution. And by Constitution, I do not mean the Estate Tax, Peggy. Or whatever other supply-side economic policy you think made it possible for Americans to figure out air travel.

Yesterday, I heard a whisper of an America that never was to me, and that I hope will be. Inspired now, I will work harder to make it so.

Bush's Global Failure Tour

Bill Scher — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:40:54 -0400

Yesterday, President Bush was in Israel, and equated speaking with Iran with "the false comfort of appeasement." Today in Saudi Arabia, Bush will likely fail (UPDATE: has failed) to persuade the kingdom to pump more oil and help lower gas prices.

The events are related.

Bush's saber-rattling with Iran raises concerns of war and more disruption of oil supplies, which prompts speculators to raise prices.

And while Bush ran for president in 2000 with the promise to lower gas prices by "Us[ing] the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot." That was when crude oil was at $30 a barrel. Today it's at $128.

That's in part because Bush's failed foreign policy has depleted our political capital with the Saudis. Energy Wire's Steve Mufson reports:

President Bush pays another visit to Saudi Arabia this week, but the visit isn’t likely to produce new flows of oil from the world’s biggest exporting nation. That's not just a matter of Bush's own diplomatic shortcomings - it's also linked to changes in the U.S.-Saudi relationship and changes in the kingdom’s view of its self-interest.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman told me before I visited Riyadh last fall that years ago, the U.S.-Saudi relationship was based on a perceived exchange of U.S.-provided security for Saudi-exported oil. Nowadays, Saudi Arabia questions whether the U.S. invasion of Iraq enhanced the kingdom’s security and the region’s stability. And the Saudi royals also wonder whether the giant U.S. military can really protect the kingdom’s oil infrastructure from terrorist attacks. On the U.S. side, many analysts believe that Saudi Arabia, by cutting its oil output on several occasions over the past nine years, helped drive prices up to their current peak.

Of course, Bush's failure in foreign policy wouldn't hurt us at the pump as badly if he implemented an energy policy that made renewable fuels and energy-efficient cars widely accessible and affordable. But instead, he and his fellow conservatives protected subsidies to Big Oil, blocked investment in renewable energy and perpetuated the oil addiction.

We were already painfully aware of Bush's twin failures in foreign policy and energy policy. Apparently, Bush wanted to take the failure show on the road and give it the spotlight of the world stage.

Weekend Watchdog: Open Thread

Terrance Heath — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:17:15 -0400

We're in the process of trying out some new approaches to the Weekend Watchdog. One of them is this open thread, where we hope longtime "watchdogs" and the uninitiated will engage in sorting out what questions about which issues and news items from the past week this Sunday's yet-to-be announced guests should face.

Make your suggestions and pose your questions in the comments, and when the guests are announced this evening we may pick some of your questions for the Watchdog. Come back and check out our usual Weekend Watchdog post to see who's on the guest list and whether your question is on the Watchdog list. (If it is, you might contact the shows to suggest they ask your question. Invite your friends to join in. The more the merrier.)

Some of the more interesting items from this week's news include:

A stunning loss for Republicans in a Mississippi special Congressional election, that has the party worried about prospects for the Fall and beyond.
The Republicans' attempt at rebranding themselves as a "change" party pretty much got them laughed out of the room.
President Bush's remarks at a celebration of Israel's 60th anniversary raised a storm of controversy and assertions that his policies have made America and Israel less safe.
Meanwhile, back home, jobless claims are up again, the foreclosure rate is skyrocketing, Americans are taking out loans to pay for basic needs and spending those stimulus checks on the same things, and more of us are stressed about maintaining our standards of living.

That ought to be enough to get us started. What's on your mind? If you could ask one question on "Face the Nation," "This Week," or "Meet the Press" what would you ask? Let 'em rip in the comments. And, as always, keep things polite and respectful, as practice for when you contact the shows with your question.

Check the NY Times Magazine This Sunday

David Sirota — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:08:57 -0400

Just wanted to let regular readers in on a project I've been toiling away at for some time that's now coming to fruition. I am scheduled to have a piece in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine that deals with some interesting issues boiling up in key swing states. I'll have more to say about the article when it comes out, but that's all I'll say for now. Be sure to check it out when it comes out and send me your feedback.

Do Conservatives Really Want to Shed the "Block-and-Blame" Label?

Isaiah J. Poole — Thu, 15 May 2008 11:41:02 -0400

It is, as our co-director Robert Borosage pointed out this week, ludicrous on its face. House Republicans, coming out of their weekly caucus on Wednesday, started touting their latest slogan, "the change you deserve," and they are being virtually laughed out of the room.

In the meantime, Republicans are engaging in a degree of hand-wringing that hasn't been seen in the party since the post-Watergate days. National Republican Campaign Chairman Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., was quoted in Politico:

“A large segment of the American public doesn’t have confidence in the Republican Party to deal with the issues in front of us. What we have to do is look in the mirror a bit and ask how we lost our way.”

Well, Mr. Cole, maybe conservatives like you might learn how to say "yes" to what the American people want rather than continue your obstructionist, block-and-blame strategy.

To take just one example, you and House Minority Leader John Boehner could have worked more cooperatively with Democrats last week on a mortgage relief bill. House Banking Committee chairman Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., has been getting mainstream media kudos for bending over backwards to listen to the Bush administration and find common ground. Yet, when the final legislative package went to the House floor last week, it was met with a veto threat from President Bush and stubborn rejection from a majority of House Republicans.

Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein's take on what happened fits the block-and-blame narrative:

Why the House Republican leadership decided to oppose the bill remains a mystery. The most charitable explanation was that it ran afoul of its free-market ideology. The more likely explanation is that it understood that the economy had become the most salient political issue in the coming election, and it was determined to deny the Democrats who control Congress the chance to show they had done something about it.

Whatever the reason, Republicans leaders were apparently successful in pressing the White House to stop negotiating with Frank and oppose the legislation. Suddenly, Treasury officials who had signed off on the portions of the bill dealing with Fannie (Mae) and Freddie (Mac, the two major mortgage financing institutions) began raising new objections. And the White House announced that President Bush would veto the bill, calling it a bailout for speculators and lenders and complaining, alternatively, that it would not help many homeowners and that it would cost far more than the estimated $2.5 billion over five years.

At the time of this writing, a decent mortgage relief compromise might yet get past the conservative naysayers in the Congress and past the biggest naysayer of all, George W. Bush. But conservatives still show few signs of realizing that they are paying the price for a strategy of obstruction that, after Democrats took control of the Congress in 2006, they deliberately and systematically followed.

Even the memo House Republican leaders sent to their members on Tuesday is stuck in block-and-blame-ism, accusing the Democrats of "promises made, promises broken" when, in fact, dozens of bills passed by the House Democratic majority have been snagged in the Senate by an obstinate Republican minority.

The Republicans are right about one thing in that memo: "This has to change. It must change." But that change will have to start with conservatives recognizing that the American public is not interested in more of their government-off-your-back-and-into-my-pocket ideology. Americans want an economy that offers them a fair chance to prosper, and since conservatives have had their chance to bring that about and have failed, they should get out of the way.

How Progressives Can Be Making Sense in 2008

Bernie Horn — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:18:54 -0400

Let me tell you about a new project from Campaign for America’s Future called "Making Sense 2008." Or, if you want, skip this advertisement and go right to the project’s first set of talking points.

I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that most Americans are progressive on most issues. By margins of at least two to one, our fellow citizens believe corporations and upper-income people are paying too little in federal taxes; oppose repealing the federal estate tax; favor quality, affordable health care for all “even if it means raising your taxes”; support the idea that the federal Medicare program should negotiate prescription drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies; want federal action to address global warming; would require auto manufacturers to make cars more energy efficient; say laws covering the sale of handguns should be more strict; think labor unions are necessary to protect workers; believe that gays and lesbians should be able to serve openly in the military; and do not want the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

That’s the good news. Here’s the bad. Most Americans also support traditional conservative principles—limited government, lower taxes, free markets, and personal responsibility. (Yes, friends, polls persistently show this.) In other words, a large group of Americans favor both progressive policy and conservative philosophy. As a result, they may side with either progressives or conservatives, depending on how a political question is framed.

These are the persuadable voters. They’re the ones who will make the difference in the 2008 election because, unlike the progressive/Democratic or conservative/Republican base, they can be persuaded to join either side. And the only way to persuade them is to address issues that are most important to them in language that appeals to them.

Here’s my point—I doubt that very many of this column’s readers are persuadable voters. You’ve made up your mind already. So you’re different than the people we have to convince. Compared to persuadable voters, you may have a different set of concerns and somewhat different values, and you undoubtedly pay more attention to political news, know more political facts, and make different assumptions when thinking about issues.

In short, if an argument appeals to you—a committed partisan—it probably doesn’t appeal to persuadable voters!

So I’m asking you to do something that is not natural for progressives—take direction from poll-tested message frames. How will you know what to say? Making Sense 2008 will produce and distribute research-based talking points on a variety of issues during the election season.

\The first is about McCain’s health care plan and you can see it here: http://www.ourfuture.org/makingsense2008. If you want to receive these talking points—sent about once a week at first and then more frequently as Election Day approaches—please sign up by clicking here.

There’s no doubt that George W. Bush’s administration has been a catastrophe, and that historians will one day rank him as one of our nation’s very worst presidents. That’s why this election is so critical—the very soul of America hangs in the balance. We’ve got to take back America, and soon, before solutions to national and global problems slip beyond our reach. I know you’re going to work your hearts out. Let us help you become a more effective advocate.

Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will

Ben Shepard — Wed, 14 May 2008 20:30:46 -0400

You know that our national infrastructure isn't in great shape. Maybe you walked to work because the subway got rained out. Maybe you've flown out of O'Hare. Maybe your car fell into a sinkhole. But it's much worse than you think. An excellent post by Danny Wilkins at Scholars and Rogues catalogs the damage. I don't want to spoil all the surprises, but here's an preview.

In Northern California, “more than 1,100 miles of aging levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and its watersheds … contain the fuel that powers the world’s 6th largest economy – water,” according to the state agency that administers the system. “It has been estimated that the loss to California’s economy could be $30 to $40 billion in the event of massive levee failures caused by a 6.5 magnitude earthquake in the Delta region

And so with the dams, with the plumbing, the bridges, the water system. All bad, but it's worse than you think. Despite the looming crisis, Washington isn't doing diddly. As as (another) excellent Wilkins post reveals, the only pending infrastructure legislation is inadequate. And the proposals of the presidential candidates?

Their positions are vague, and financial proposals offer a scant percentage of what’s needed.

Here's Wilkins' on Obama's proposal

Take, for example, Sen. Obama’s issues statement under “Keeping Our Drinking Water Safe“: He seeks “$37.5 million over 5 years for drinking water systems to upgrade their monitoring and security efforts [emphasis added].” But the long-term physical viability of those facilities is never mentioned. To Sen. Obama’s credit, he says he will “pursue a major investment in our utility grid to enable a tremendous increase in renewable generation and accommodate modern energy requirements, such as reliability, smart metering, and distributed storage [emphasis added].” But that investment is unspecified, as most campaign promises of presidential candidates usually are. It is merely a “talking point.” Sen. Obama does have an issues plank for “transportation.” He seeks “a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank” to be funded by $60 billion over 10 years to supplant current federal spending. Frankly, that’s a pittance, and the senator’s accompanying fact sheet does not explain how it will be funded.

And on Clinton:

On Aug. 8, just seven days following the I-35W bridge collapse, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton unveiled her “Rebuild America Plan” in a speech in Rochester, Minn. The plan would:
• establish a $10 billion “emergency repair fund” to address the backlog of critical infrastructure repairs. (That’s spread over 10 years, or only $1 billion a year.)
• provide $250 million in “emergency assessment grants” to the states to conduct immediate safety reviews of their high-priority, high-risk infrastructure assets. (That’s insufficient to deal with 50 states’ needs.)
• appoint a commission to carry out a comprehensive assessment of our engineering review standards so to better prioritize needed repairs on bridges and roads. (More study? Sure. Why not?)
It’s worth wondering if this plan existed prior to Aug. 1. It appears wholly inadequate to begin to address the nation’s infrastructure needs....

And McCain?

The only references to infrastructure on the issues section of presidential candidate John McCain’s Web site are contained in his agenda on climate change: “A Comprehensive Plan Will Address The Full Range Of Issues: Infrastructure, Ecosystems, Resource Planning, And Emergency Preparation” and in his statement of stewardship of natural resources: “Ensuring clean air, safe and healthy water.”

Whether you are a Clintonite or an Obamista (hell, even an McCainiac), here's an issue to pursue. Forward Wilkins' post to your candidate. Write your own infrastructure policy. Talk to your family and friends about bridges and dams. Buy a black marker and white T-Shirt, write 'SAVE OUR AQUEDUCTS" on the shirt and walk around the block. Raise some infrastructural consciousness.