Rush’s Clarification (Sort Of)

Ken AshfordObama OppositionLeave a Comment

From The Plum Line, an email exchange between Limbaugh and Greg Sargant:

After I asked Rush a question about the Michael Steele fight, Rush replied:

[P]lease, Greg, try to stand out from the MSM chorus and NOT distort, as they all are, on behalf of the Obama Admin, my meaning on wanting him to fail. I want the country to SUCCEED, as I have said until I am blue in the face.

I answered:

Rush, if I could ask a follow-up question, if Obama’s policies are designed to help the economy, and those policies fail — as you’ve said you want — doesn’t the economy, and by extention [sic] the country, suffer as a result?

Rush replied:

Obama’s policies are NOT designed to help the economy, and they won’t. That is why I want them to fail. Take a look around, Greg. We have been stimulating and spending for a year now and wealth is vanishing from Wall Street, people are losing jobs and savings. His policies stimulate only government and attack wealth, producers and achievers. Obama’s policies are not new, they are not hope, they are not change. They are page 1 of the standard liberal playbook. Tax and spend. And they have not generated econ recovery or private sector growth in all of history.

I asked:

I understand that you don’t think Obama’s policies are destined to succeed. Reasonable people can disagree about that. However, putting aside the question of what the policies are destined to do, is it true that if they succeed in their stated goal of righting the economy — however far-fetched that may be to you and others — then would that be good for the country?

Or, alternatively put, putting aside the question of what the policies are in your view destined to do, is it true that if they fail in their stated goal of righting the economy, won’t the country suffer further as a result?

Rush answered:

I reject your premise, especially since you are rejecting my answers. I will not put aside the question of what the policies are destined to do because that IS THE POINT.

At that I thanked Rush for the time, since his noon show was approaching. The takeaway here seems clear: Rush won’t say that it would be good for the country if Obama’s policies do succeed in righting the economy.

And there you have it.

Look, when Bush invaded Iraq, I didn't think it would succeed.  I thought that it would destabilize that country and that region.  But did I want Bush to fail and have Iraq destabilized, etc.?  Did I want an expensive and protracted conflict?  Of course not.  That would be unpatriotic (as rightwingers like Rush were quick to point out at the time).

But I understood that Bush's war policies, wrong-headed as they were, were DESIGNED to bring peace and stability to the region.  I didn't proscribe to the belief (and nobody did) that Bush was intentionally trying to fuck up the Middle East.

Yet, this is exactly what Rush is claiming about Obama, i.e., that his economic and stimulus policies are "not designed to help the economy" (my emphasis).  He is proscribing evil intent to Obama, rather than simply thinking Obama's agenda lacks merit.

Very strange.  And stranger still that Rush is the de facto leader of the GOP at this moment.

The Recovery Logo

Ken AshfordEconomy & Jobs & DeficitLeave a Comment

Aara_logo_2 

President Obama announced today that his administration will begin stamping an emblem on projects funded by the economic stimulus package so that people can easily recognize the effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Blasts from the past:

Usa_work_program 

NRA

Stupid Rich People

Ken AshfordEconomy & Jobs & DeficitLeave a Comment

ABC News:

Upper-Income Taxpayers Look for Ways to Sidestep Obama Tax-Hike Plan

President Barack Obama's tax proposal — which promises to increase taxes for those families with incomes of $250,000 or more — has some Americans brainstorming ways to decrease their pay, even if it's just by a dollar.

A 63-year-old attorney based in Lafayette, La., who asked not to be named, told ABCNews.com that she plans to cut back on her business to get her annual income under the quarter million mark should the Obama tax plan be passed by Congress and become law.

So far, Obama's tax plan is being looked at skeptically by both Democrats and Republicans and therefore may not pass at all.

"We are going to try to figure out how to make our income $249,999.00," she said.

I may not be the smartest blub when it comes to economic issues and taxes, but even I know that income tax doesn't work that way.  A tax increase effects marginal dollars as income grows, not the entire income.

In other words, if you make $275,000, then only that additional $25,000 is taxed at the higher rate.  The first $250,000 is taxed at the lower rate.

Therefore, you don't "save" any money by intentionally lowering your income to $249,999.  All other things being equal, an income of $249,999 will give a lower after-tax income than $251,000.

But fine.  If rich people want to make sure their income is under $250,000, then all they need to do is send me the difference.  If their pre-tax income is $275,000, send me $25,000.01.  I'll send a bill for my tax consulting services so it is all nice and legal.

Selected Five-Star Reviews of “Joe The Plumber”‘s New Book (From Amazon)

Ken AshfordRight Wing Punditry/Idiocy1 Comment

51TDYYSWypL._SL500_AA240_ "This is a good book for those with no training, education, or experience in political science, economics, or probably anything else, and wish to read the opinions of an unlicensed plumber who also has no training or experience in anything relevant."

"I could not put the book down. Seriously, something really sticky was on the cover"

"In this book and in real life, he graces us with precise wisdom after wisdom. His words may at first appear to violate all rules of logic, common sense and basic education. However, they are not nausiating and narcissitic hemorrhaging of willful ignorance they first appear to be, and his book is definitely not a shameless attempt to cash in on a quick media-driven fame. Mr. Wurzelbacher would never resort to such things! Rather, this magnificant ghostwritten tome of 200 pages is densely filled with nuclear-grade insights disguised as H-bomb grade idiocy, where every statement he throws and every question he asks blindsides us to challenge our own knowledge and assumptions. For example, when he pretends to be completely ignorant of the difference of revenue and income, he challenges us to examine our own understanding of the Internal Revenue Code: he has issued a somber reminder of the complexities of the U.S. tax system that bewilder and befuddle even the trained professionals. He then even went so far as to prove the exact point himself by not paying taxes for a while."

"The jury is still out on whether it was ghostwritten by a chimp or a fawning Public Relations grad student, but the message is as powerful as ever: even an incompetent dullard has feelings and thoughts. And, in America, even the simplest incompetent dullard among us has the potential to make some money by rejecting all critics, foisting himself before the camera, and, with a wink and a wry smile, inform us all that he is not ashamed to earn his pay on his back, one citizen at a time."

"This is a great book, one every true conservative should buy, and more importantly, read. Yes, I know that sounds like a tall order, but it's an easy read. Joe uses one and two syllable words (many of them, written forms of various grunts) almost exclusively. If I have one complaint, it's that the publisher, Pearlgate, printed it in ink rather than crayon like the original manuscript. Other than that, I think it truly is the perfect book for the average conservative."

Read them all.

The Bush Legal Memos

Ken AshfordBush & Co., Constitution, War on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

As much as possible, I've resisted Bush-bashing since he was ushered out of office.  He's gone, let's go forward I figure.

But certain legal memos of the Bush Administration, released yesterday, really are truly frightening.  Michael Isikoff from Newsweek gives an example:

In perhaps the most surprising assertion, the Oct. 23, 2001, memo suggested the president could even suspend press freedoms if he concluded it was necessary to wage the war on terror. "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," Yoo wrote in the memo entitled "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activity Within the United States."

This claim was viewed as so extreme that it was essentially (and secretly) revoked—but not until October of last year, seven years after the memo was written and with barely three and a half months left in the Bush administration.

That's right.  In a time of war, the president could (or so it was argued) legally suspend First Amendment rights.

1amendmemo

The PDF of that particular memo is here.  It also explains that Fourth Amendment rights (searches and seizures) can be avoided too.

The memo looks and reads like it was written by an articulate and educated person.  There are cites to cases, etc.  The problem however is that it is, well, bullshit.

Can you imagine — in this country — that the president should be able to prohibit speech, close down news venues, etc. simply because he needs to "wage war successfully"?  Yes, certain speech can be limited at any time (shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, or "speech" which reveals troop movements, etc.).  But the startling thing about the memos is that it wrests power from the courts to decide when and how that should be applied, and gives it exclusively to the Chief Executive.  That's a power grab of monumental significance.

That same memo also makes a hatchet job of the Posse Comitatus Act, the law which forbids the military from engaging in domestic law enforcement.  How does Yoo get around the Posse Comitatus Act?  By saying it overcome by the military’s national security function.  Essentially, he simply asserts that the PCA can be ignored in the interests of national security, and the President solely gets to decide when that would be.

Look, there are two kinds of lawyers: advocates and advisors.  Advocates are given a position and try to find cases and law which support that position.  Trial lawyers are advocates for their client (whether it be the state, a company, an accused, or whoever).

But legal advisors to the President are just that: advisors.  Their job is to present the true nature of the law — not how the law can be argued to support a particular position.  John Yoo and others in the Bush Justice Department were essentially arguing that the presence of a war allows the Commander-in-Chief to ignore the Constitution.  Literally, that is what they said.  Never mind the obvious fact that the presidential oath requires the President to protect, defend and preserve the Constitution.

It's simply astounding.  Yoo and others have committed legal malpractice by rendering advice so clearly refuted by the vast majority of the law.  These are not merely differences of opinion about that law — these are, as WaPo notes, "legal errors".

The Right’s Rush Problem

Ken AshfordObama Opposition, RepublicansLeave a Comment

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum weighs in, anti-Rush:

Here’s Rahm Emanuel on Face the Nation yesterday: “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican party.”

What a great endorsement for Rush! (And we know Rush is fond of compliments – listen to his loving account in his CPAC speech of the birthday lunch given him by President Bush just before Inauguration Day.)

But what about the rest of the party? Here’s the duel that Obama and Limbaugh are jointly arranging:

Well, I don't think Obama is really "arranging" to make Rush the face of the GOP.  Rush, the great grandstander that he is, doesn't need Obama's aid to do that.  But to the extent that Obama is interested in painting Rush as the face of the GOP, he is (wisely) doing so behind the scenes, letting his surrogates pick up the brushes.

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of “responsibility,” and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

Rush knows what he is doing. The worse conservatives do, the more important Rush becomes as leader of the ardent remnant. The better conservatives succeed, the more we become a broad national governing coalition, the more Rush will be sidelined.

I don't get how that first sentence jibes with the remainder of the paragraph.

But do the rest of us understand what we are doing to ourselves by accepting this leadership? Rush is to the Republicanism of the 2000s what Jesse Jackson was to the Democratic party in the 1980s. He plays an important role in our coalition, and of course he and his supporters have to be treated with respect. But he cannot be allowed to be the public face of the enterprise – and we have to find ways of assuring the public that he is just one Republican voice among many, and very far from the most important.

I think the comparison to Jesse Jackson of the 1980s is misplaced.  Jackson was, after all, a politician (he ran an admirable campaign for the presidency in 1984, gaining 21% of the popular vote in the primaries).  Sure, Jackson was outside the mainstream, which made him both odd and have a popular following, but he was an entertainer (as Rush is).

The better comparison is: Rush is to the Republicanism of the late 2000s as Michael Moore was to the Democratic party of the early 2000s.  With one big exception, of course.  And that Rush has LOTS of influence and the ability to drive a wedge into the Republican party.

In fact, that is precisely what he is doing.

UPDATE —  James Woolcott says it better:

During its Rovian/Fox News heyday, the right tried to make Michael Moore's mug the face of the Democratic Party, hold Democrats responsible for every egregious thing Moore said or did. It only partially succeeded because Moore was too independent an operator to be seamlessly morphed with Al Gore and John Kerry. But Limbaugh bleeds Republican red. He has been glorified and embraced as the perfect Ganesh by Newt Gingrich, CPAC, and the Bush family. He is the face and mouth of the conservative movement. A mouth that has swallowed Michael Steele whole, and has room for plenty more.

GOP Meltdown

Ken AshfordObama OppositionLeave a Comment

Wow.  The infighting is very ugly:

In a little-noticed interview Saturday night, Steele dismissed Limbaugh as an “entertainer” whose show is “incendiary” and “ugly.”

Steele’s criticism makes him the highest-ranking Republican to pick a fight with the popular and polarizing conservative talk show host.

But the new RNC chairman’s extraordinary comments won’t sit well with the millions of conservative listeners Limbaugh draws each week, and Steele aides scrambled to limit the damage Monday morning by trying to change the subject.

And Rush responded:

Yes, said Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, I’m incendiary, and yes, it’s ugly. Michael Steele, you are head of the RNC. You are not head of the Republican Party. Tens of millions of conservatives and Republicans have nothing to do with the RNC and right now they want nothing to do with it, and when you call them, asking them for money, they hang up on you. I hope that changes. I hope the RNC will get its act together…

It seems to me that it’s Michael Steele who is off to a shaky start….

Now, Mr. Steele, if it is your position as the chairman of the Republican National Committee that you want a left wing Democrat president and a left wing Democrat Congress to succeed in advancing their agenda, if it’s your position that you want President Obama and Speaker Pelosi and Senate leader Harry Reid to succeed with their massive spending and taxing and nationalization plans, I think you have some explaining to do.

Why are you running the Republican Party? Why do you claim you lead the Republican Party when you seem obsessed with seeing to it that President Obama succeeds? I frankly am stunned that the chairman of the Republican National Committee endorses such an agenda…

Steve Benen adds:

Democrats would, under normal circumstances, work very hard to drive a wedge between the Republican Party's leadership and its activist base. Over the last couple of weeks, that's happening anyway, without Dems having to lift a finger.

The one person rank-and-file Republicans follow with the most enthusiasm is using his show to bash the Republican Party, insult the RNC chairman, and undermine the party's fundraising efforts. What's more, with his comments yesterday, Steele effectively baited Limbaugh into launching today's tirade, which only keeps the right-wing blowhard front and center for another day.

If the DNC were writing the script, it would look quite a bit like this.
The next step will be the RNC's efforts to mend fences and make Limbaugh (and his audience) happy again. We'll see how that goes.

Full-On Crazy

Ken AshfordObama OppositionLeave a Comment

Andrew Breitbart of the Washington Times welcomes the new Messiah, and no, it's not Obama.

Brace yourselves.

The mood at the Omni Shoreham Hotel late Saturday afternoon was off the electrical meter when Rush Limbaughtook center stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

***

Fox News joined C-SPAN in carrying the nearly hour-and-a-half experience, while CNN broke ranks with the "mainstream media" and aired most of the speech as well.
It was an address that could have altered the election had it been delivered early last fall by any Republican presidential candidate.


About midway through Mr. Limbaugh's clear-headed, timely and sometimes rambunctious call to ideological arms, my BlackBerry began buzzing with elated text messages from across the Omni and across the nation.

A friend in Los Angeles e-mailed a one-liner: "Best speech I have ever seen."

My urbane father-in-law, the first person I knew who copped to listening to Mr. Limbaugh and who has been witness to most of the big events of the modern age, called it the "most thrilling thing [he's] seen on TV."

Hugh Hewitt simply titled his post-speech blog post "The Speech, 2009" and wrote: "Rush gave a speech … that will be talked about for years and even decades."
Spokespeople for CPAC said it was the best-received speech in the conference's 36 years. And that included Ronald Reagan, who, by the way, was no rhetorical slouch.

By any measure, Mr. Limbaugh hit the ball out of the park. He may have done so for the team that, these days, many people are rooting against. But the ball did land over the fence.

Breitbart then took a Rush-like swing at the MSM media:

With newspapers long ago judged as far gone on the left and television networks turned off for good by enraged customers, the media has good reason to hate Mr. Limbaugh.


Mr. Limbaugh is the man who is most to blame for their demise. No wonder they bad-mouth him every chance they get.

I'm not sure how much more delusional a pundit can get.  The so-called demise of newspapers has absolutely nothing to do with Liimbaugh, and everything to do with the Internet.  Is there any sane person who disagrees with that?

During the campaign and up to the present, conservatives have mocked Obama for his "messiah" complex.  And then we read something like this: insane hero-worship of a man who says he has "talent on loan from God".  Any cognitive dissonance there?  Hardly.

This is, of course, a gift for Obama.  Rush is an effective spokesman for the same-old same-old of the Republican party, a party whose policies have gotten into this mess and which voters have massively rejected.  In rooting publicly for Barack Obama's failure, Limbaugh may be leading the conservative movement to a smaller, fringe-like existence in the halls of power – but it will an existence that he can easily dominate… to the exclusion of any political leader of the party.

As Suspected

Ken AshfordObama OppositionLeave a Comment

Following up on yesterday's post, it turns out that Jindal wasn't telling the truth after all.

For those needing a recap, here's the video of the relevant portion of Jindal's response:

Some story, huh?  Turns out, it's not so true.

Specifically, when Jindal told the nation that he was in the sheriff's office "during Katrina," he didn't mean "during Katrina." Days later, well after the incident with the boats, Jindal visited with the sheriff. 

When Jindal said he'd "never seen [the sheriff] so angry" as he "was yelling into the phone" about rescuing people, that wasn't exactly right, either. Jindal heard about the story after the fact.

We know this now because Jindal's spokesman has "clarified" this anecdote for us.

Implications of this?

This is no minor difference. Jindal's presence in Lee's office during the crisis itself was a key element of the story's intended appeal, putting him at the center of the action during the maelstrom. Just as important, Jindal implied that his support for the sheriff helped ensure the rescue went ahead. But it turns out Jindal wasn't there at the key moment, and played no role in making the rescue happen.

There's a larger point here, though. The central anecdote of the GOP's prime-time response to President Obama's speech, intended to illustrate the threat of excessive government regulation, turns out to have been made up.

I have a political adage that I'm trying to get into the mainstream.  I call it "The Reagan Cadillac-Driving Welfare Queen Adage".  It's basically this: if you have to lie, fabricate, embellish, exaggerate, or mislead others as to the factual basis of a demonstrative anecdote, then the policy or position you are advocating through the use of that anecdote must lack merit.

Reagan Cadillac-Driving Welfare Queen Adage…. meet Bobby Jindal.

Sticks and Stones

Ken AshfordObama OppositionLeave a Comment

Picture-4 Huckabee called Obama a socialist yesterday.  Sen. DeMint (R-S.C.) called Obama a socialist today.  And of course, calling Obama a "socialist" was S.O.P. during the election season. (Both Palin and McCain invoked the phrase).

Socialism is, of course, a political theory and economic system in which the collective (i.e., the government) owns industry (the means of production) and capital.

Now when Republicans call Obama a "socialist", it is typically at rallies and conventions where conservatives gather.  It's red meat; a crowd-pleaser… for that crowd. 

But it is hyperbolic rhetoric, which is a nice way of saying that it is not literally true.  And in its attempt to "rebrand" the GOP party, how wise is it to cast the Republican Party's message as something which is demonstrably false?. 

It seems like just screaming "socialism!" at every turn probably isn't the best way back to power.  It will fare no better than screaming "unpatriotic" at those who opposed the Iraq War.

There are legitimate complaints to be uttered about Obama's policies.  I myself can think of a few, without resorting to silly breathless sky-is-falling rhetoric. 

Why can't the loyal opposition be more serious?  Why must they be so tone deak to those outside the farthest-right fringe?  And why can't they realize that Obama already won the 2008 populist revolution?

Pictured above: an actual bumper sticker being sold at the CPAC convention this week

Ex-President Bush Goes Back To School

Ken AshfordBush & Co.Leave a Comment

Pershing Elementary School in Preston Hollow, Texas:

The Bushes [George and Laura] were scheduled to visit three classes, but they ended up popping in on any room with an audience.

Ducking in one room, Bush asked, "Hey kids, do you know who I am?"

Gasps all around, and then someone blurted, "George Washington!"

O.K.  That didn't go well.  But a little later…

…..at an ESL [English as a Second Language] class, Bush tried introducing himself in Spanish. Only it was a little too West Texas for the Spanish speakers. He tried again. Blank looks. Even held up three fingers. You know, a 'W." Still nothing.

Finally, Pershing's innovative, energetic principal, Margie Hernandez, stepped in with a Spanish introduction.

Ohhhhhhh.

The kids laughed at the confusion. The former president laughed. The principal laughed, out of relief, mostly.

Awwwwkward.

Once he finished his tour, he addressed a school assembly, where he related his favorite question of the morning:

"Why did you come here?"

Hmmmm.

Still, the visit was a success… in that he didn't read from My Pet Goat, and America wasn't attacked.  So, you know, small blessings….

An Open Letter To The GOP

Ken AshfordRepublicansLeave a Comment

Stop it. 

Stop it now. 

It's uncomfortable to look at. 

Stop trying to be cool.  Stop trying to be "hip".  Stop with "the Twittering".  Don't try to convince us that the Republican Party is "off the hook".  Don't look at the RNC chairman (an African-American) and shout, "You be da man!".  Don't be sending some "slum love" to Republican governor Bobby Jindal, thinking that, because he is Indian, you have to make some reference to Slumdog Millionaire.

Just stop it all.

I get embarrassed for you.

It's like when my mother, circa 1980, went to a ZZ Top concert.  Or me, circa today, trying to do hip-hop.  It's just too psychologically jarring and it makes people uncomfortable.

What the hell are you thinking?  Did you see Obama win, largely because of the youth vote, and figure that the reason he won was because he was "fresh" or "fly", or even "da bomb"?

Consider this: maybe — just maybe — Obama won the election (including the youth vote) because of his policies, which he articulated with eloquence and sincerity.  Maybe it was his seriousness about the issues facing America that won over the electorate.  Did you think that just because he was black, he was edgy or tuned in to America's youth… so now you have to do the same?

And you think engaging in ebonics on Twitter is the way to do that?

Stop it.  You're being Poochie.