She takes the long way around with a comparison to Texas, but a smart take from Rachel Maddow making a very good point about the repercussions of Putin's annexation of Crimea on Ukraine, Russia and the West. We recognize her very good point as insightful, since it is the exact same point we made three weeks ago.
"[Putin] has removed from Ukraine the most pro-Russian part of Ukraine... As despotic and corrupt as the pro-Russian leader - Yanukovych - might have been, he was, in fact elected Democratically in Ukraine, as recently as the year 2010. And do you want to know why that guy was able to win in 2010? He was able to win in 2010 because Crimea was part of Ukraine in that election... What that ensures in real political terms, what Putin just did today, is guarantee that Russia's neighbor to the west, the large and influential nation of Ukraine, will never again have a pro-Russian leader. And that's not only because Russia just marched across the border and took part of Ukraine, which is a way of not making friends with your neighbors, but it is also because of Ukraine's new shape. With Crimea missing, Ukraine has much less of a pro-Russian population than it used to have. Russia will never again enjoy having some pro-Russian kleptocrat like Victor Yanukovych as President of Ukraine... They will never again have anyone pro-Russian running that country right next door."
"With the annexation of Crimea, Putin has removed a large Russian voting block from Ukraine and with it destroyed any possibility of a Russia-leaning President ever again being elected in Ukraine. Ironically, Russia may have done Ukraine and the West a favor by removing any ambiguity about the sphere of influence Ukraine will orbit. Ukraine sans Crimea is overwhelmingly, undeniably, unambiguously pro-Western and will lock into the European orbit."
"Brussels, Belgium (CNN) -- Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk signed the political elements of a trade pact with the European Union on Friday, even as Russian lawmakers finalized the annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region. The signature of the deal in Brussels, Belgium, signals Europe's solidarity with Ukraine -- and has additional symbolic force because it was the decision of ousted Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych in November to ditch it in favor of closer ties with Russia that triggered the protests that spiraled into the current crisis."
Of course, all this presumes that Ukraine will now be permitted to chose it's own destiny politically and not have it chosen for them militarily by Putin and Russian forces.
Reaction to last week's debate continued to dominate the news cycle over the weekend, even overshadowing the drop in the unemployment rate reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday. Despite the clear Team Obama preference for moving on to other topics, any other topic, it was left leaning publications, pundits, and satirists that kept the debate story front and center.
Next week's New Yorker is indicative. As we would expect from this publication, the articles between the covers are generally sympathetic to the President. Example - David Remnick:
"The President has always been someone who takes the truth seriously and has a great faith in the American people and their ability to handle big ideas,” Burns said. “He doesn't patronize them. He uses the campaign as an educative process. He wants to win but also wants to be clear about his ideas…. He took complex ideas like Medicare and the debt and tried to explain it to people so they can understand them while at the same time not being patronizing. And he is doing this with an opponent who is completely dissembling on every issue!”
Regardless of the treatment inside the issue, the cover is brutal. Particularly in the reference to the empty chair last seen during Clint Eastwood's GOP Convention performance.
Wisconsin Favorite Sons Cannibals Jeffrey Dahmer and Eddie Gein
Memeorandum informs us the Madison, Wisconsin protest story crested the Yossarian* threshold and is now a mandatory post for all political bloggers.
Full Disclosure: Your loyal blogger has a few issues with the state of Wisconsin. I have driven the full length of the state more times than I care to remember, as there is no choice when transiting from Chicago to our family lake-side cottage in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Wisconsin produces little that is edible with deep-fried cheese curds the epitome of state cuisine, is responsible for foisting tasteless macro-brewed beers out of Milwaukee on the rest of the nation, is best known as the premier breeding ground of world-class serial killers (Eddie Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer being two examples of note), experiences periodic outbreaks of widespread community madness (Black River Falls), famously re-enacts the Vietnam war during deer season (with real bullets), and not coincidentally - is the home of the Green Bay Packers. Yes I am still bitter about the NFC Championship game. But I digress...
Having won the Wisconsin gubernatorial election in November, Republican Governor Scott Walker set out to do exactly what he said he would do as a candidate. This outraged many Democrats and liberals both in and out of the state, who apparently believe he should govern more like the Democrat who lost.
A few days ago Rachel Maddow sounded the liberal alarm and, as is often the case, her clarion call is the clearest articulation of the progressive case. We learn from Rachel that nothing less than the entire future of the Democratic Party is at stake in Madison, Wisconsin. Recall that the Democratic Party was characterized as a juggernaut only two short years ago, riding an unstoppable permanent demographic realignment over Republican Party roadkill with an open highway of political dominance rolling out before them. Yet now, suddenly and inexplicably the Democratic Party is facing political extinction in Madison, Wisconsin:
There is a downside to being crystal clear in your argument. You can be shown to be clearly wrong. Such is the case with the first claim of Maddow's case, that the state fiscal problems were all ginned up by the new governor. Politifact reports she clearly got her facts wrong:
"There is fierce debate over the approach Walker took to address the short-term budget deficit. But there should be no debate on whether or not there is a shortfall. While not historically large, the shortfall in the current budget needed to be addressed in some fashion. Walker’s tax cuts will boost the size of the projected deficit in the next budget, but they’re not part of this problem and did not create it. We rate Maddow’s take False."
The rest of Maddow's argument - that this is really all about money flow to Democratic Party - has merit. In fact, the right and left completely agree on this point. John Fund via Da Tech Guy:
'Labor historian Fred Siegel offers further reasons why unions are manning the barricades. Mr. Walker would require that public-employee unions be recertified annually by a majority vote of all their members, not merely by a majority of those that choose to cast ballots. In addition, he would end the government’s practice of automatically deducting union dues from employee paychecks. For Wisconsin teachers, union dues total between $700 and $1,000 a year'
This is what this is all about, nothing else, that’s why the biggest guns in the democratic party are fighting this fight. They know those dues will end up funding their campaigns, if they lose this fight here it’s all over..."
Isn't it great when the right and left, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives can come together, be of one mind and agree on the facts? Krugman echoes Maddow's thoughts, saying this is all about power for Republicans, yet with a partisan blind spot as big as Wisconsin, he fails to notice that this is also all about power for Democrats. And no - this is not a "false equivalency". This is as equivalent as it gets.
Democrats believe that Republican politicians are the beneficiaries of corporate largess and consequently vote taxpayer funds into profits for private contractors, "public-private" partnerships, and contracts for unnecessary weapon systems, with the expectation that portions of said profits are funneled back into supporting Republican campaigns. Republicans believe that Democrats continually increase spending on the size of the public sector and legislate union-friendly rules in order to increase the base of forced dues payed into union coffers which in turn funnel money back into supporting Democratic campaigns. They're both right. May the circle be unbroken. Kumbayah.
This is one reason (among many) why The Dividist is so adamant that neither party can ever be trusted with all the keys to the castle. Ever. Without exception. Regardless of individual candidates. But I digress... Meanwhile, back in Madison, the public sector unions have again organized protests at the steps of the capitol to exercise their Democratic right to shut down the Democratic process and subvert the Democratically expressed wishes of the Wisconsin electorate, in order to be sure that the money flow to the Democratic Party is not interrupted.
"An election was held in Wisconsin last November. The Republicans won. In a democracy, there are consequences to elections and no one, not even the public employees unions, are exempt from that. There are no guarantees that labor contracts, including contracts governing the most basic rights of unions, can't be renegotiated, or terminated for that matter. We hold elections to decide those basic parameters. And it seems to me that Governor Scott Walker's basic requests are modest ones--asking public employees to contribute more to their pension and health care plans, though still far less than most private sector employees do. He is also trying to limit the unions' abilities to negotiate work rules--and this is crucial when it comes to the more efficient operation of government in a difficult time...
Public employees unions are an interesting hybrid. Industrial unions are organized against the might and greed of ownership. Public employees unions are organized against the might and greed... of the public?
The events in Wisconsin are a rebalancing of power that, after decades of flush times and lax negotiating, had become imbalanced. That is also something that, from time to time, happens in a democracy."
"Roosevelt's reign certainly was the bright dawn of modern unionism. The legal and administrative paths that led to 35% of the nation's workforce eventually unionizing by a mid-1950s peak were laid by Roosevelt. But only for the private sector. Roosevelt openly opposed bargaining rights for government unions. "The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," Roosevelt wrote in 1937 to the National Federation of Federal Employees. Yes, public workers may demand fair treatment, wrote Roosevelt. But, he wrote, "I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place" in the public sector. "A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government."
As Klein notes, the politics of power has a way of balancing itself out. The media and Democrats exclusive focus on the union power-play fight over the union give-backs in the "Scott Walker Budget Repair Bill", have allowed some of the possibly more egregious issues buried in this bill to remain relatively unnoticed. As with Democrats in 2009, the seeds of destruction for the resurgent Wisconsin Republicans are being planted now in 2011. Perhaps in this very bill.
Well, Democrats are always welcomed in Chicago. Maybe the Wisconsin legislators should stay in their Illinois hideouts. They may find that they will be more welcomed in the President's old Cook County stomping grounds than back in their home districts. *Paraphrasing Joseph Heller's famous protagonist from Catch 22 - "What if everyone was blogging about about the Wisconsin protests?" I can only respond as did Bomber Pilot John Yossarian: "Then I'd be a damn fool not to".
The left-o-sphere is up in arms. Theright-o-sphere cannot contain their mirth. Keith's "good friend and colleague" Rachel Maddow (who owes her TV career on MSNBC to Keith Olbermann) explains exactly what happened:
If you look past her sympathetic demeanor and pay close attention to what she is saying, the unmistakable takeaway is that Maddow is standing foursquare on the side of MSNBC management. She is saying her “good friend and colleague” Keith Olbermann was flat out wrong. Worse than that - he was "Fox News wrong."
She spends several minutes tut-tutting over a litany of egregious examples of Fox personalities raising funds and contributing to Republican candidates and causes. Well and good, but once she starts down that path, there is no way to backtrack and justify Olbermann's contributions to Democratic candidates as acceptable since – you know – that would make MSNBC just like Fox.
It is obviously important to Maddow to demonstrate that she works for a news organization that has higher standards than Fox. Important enough that her “good friend and colleague” Keith Olbermann had to go under the bus. She even seems to agree the punishment meted out from MSNBC management is fair (as long as the suspension does not go on to long), concluding with a wish that he will be back soon. Perhaps it was more like a plea for a (MSNBC News) Presidential Pardon. Perhaps in the expectation that Olbermann will show remorse and get some time off for good behavior. Perhaps.
Meanwhile - unlike Maddow - neocon nemesis William Kristol has Keith Olbermann's back with a full throated defense:
First, he donated money to candidates he liked. He didn’t take money, or favors, in a way that influenced his reporting.
Second, he’s not a reporter. It’s an opinion show. If Olbermann wants to put his money where his mouth is, more power to him.
Third, GE, the corporate parent of MSNBC, gives money to political organizations. GE executives and, I’m sure, NBC executives give money. Why can’t Olbermann?
Perhaps Olbermann violated NBC News “policy and standards.” But NBC doesn’t have real news standards for MSNBC—otherwise the channel wouldn’t exist. It’s a little strange to get all high and mighty now.
But there’s now a Republican House, and perhaps GE is trying to curry favor by dumping Olbermann?
Republicans of the world, show you believe in the free expression of opinion! Tell the crony corporatists at NBC—keep Keith!"
I'm not going to try and sort this out.
One voice is yet to be heard.
What will Keith do?
*Paraphrasing Joseph Heller's famous protagonist from Catch 22 - "What if everyone was blogging about about Olbermann's suspension?" I can only respond as did Bomber Pilot John Yossarian: "Then I'd be a damn fool not to".
Yesterday, in a background briefing, the administration announced a three year spending freeze on portions of the budget. Since departments with the fastest growing government expenditures like Defense, VA, the State Department, Homeland Security and entitlements are excluded from the "freeze", it will have a negligible effect on the ballooning deficit. NYT:
"The payoff in budget savings would be small relative to the deficit: The estimated $250 billion in savings over 10 years would be less than 3 percent of the roughly $9 trillion in additional deficits the government is expected to accumulate over that time."
Shortly after the announcement, Jared Bernstein, economist and economic adviser to Vice President Biden, appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show - the media outlet that is arguably the most direct conduit to the progressive community. Mr. Bernstein proceeds to soft pedal even the very modest impact the policy would have on deficits, almost apologizing for it, and practically promising that the administration will really continue to be the big spenders that the progressives know and love. Maddow wasn't buying what Jared was selling:
Rachel Maddow has been waxing eloquent of late about what she considers "abuse" of the filibuster rule in the Senate by Republicans "obstructing" the legislative process. She ignores the simple fact that there is a 60 vote filibuster proof Democratic majority in the Senate, making it mathematically impossible for the Republicans to maintain a filibuster on anything. At worst, they can be accused of enabling Democratic party obstruction on any given bill. That said, she and Ezra Klein make some interesting points in Monday's show about the history and evolution of the filibuster rule in the Senate.
As any good partisan, Rachel complains loud and long about the GOP "abuse" of the filibuster, while glossing over the Democratic "abuse" of the same procedural tool. To be fair, she does make a perfunctory mention of the Democrats use of the filibuster to block George W Bush judicial nominations. The Republicans had a smaller majority in the Senate at the time, so the Democrats then (unlike Republicans now) actually could filibuster anything.
That 2005 episode famously prompted a Republican leadership threat invoking the "nuclear option" to change the Senate rules and limit the use of filibusters. The showdown was averted by the bipartisan "Gang of Fourteen" led by John McCain, effectively saving the filibuster and earning him the enmity and derision of the right. Those same partisans on the right should be on their knees right now thanking John McCain for allowing Republicans to retain what little relevance they have in the Senate today. At least they can attempt to cobble together bipartisan filibuster efforts (which is the only kind that can succeed in this particular Senate). Run of the mill partisan hypocrisy aside, it was this exchange that caught my attention:
MADDOW: "Well, this has been a subject of frustration to people in both parties at different times and at different, more or less, convenient intervals... How hard is it to get rid of the filibuster? I feel like I‘ve read a lot of different analysis about how many votes it would take and what process you‘d need to kill it if you wanted to. KLEIN: "People disagree on this... What you‘d basically, I think, need to have is Congress will need to remember that it is supposed to be an independent branch of government that is supposed to act on major, going concerns. And so, you‘d have the two parties get together and decide, “We don‘t want it to be the case that when we‘re in the majority, we can‘t do any of the things we promised the American people we‘d do.”And so, six years from today, when we don‘t know who will be in power the filibuster phases out. But for that to happen, you need Congress to begin acting like a branch of government and not just an attachment or an accessory of the president—which hasn‘t been the case for sometime now."
Somebody once said something about the consequences of failing to learn the lessons of history. You might think Ezra and Rachel would learn something from the Republicans who were once so exercised by Senate filibusters, and who are now - less so. But, let's go with Ezra's six year proposition. Contrary to his assertion, we can make an educated guess at what the Senate will look like six years hence.
I'm already on the record about the likely composition of the Senate over the next two election cycles. On Tuesday, Chris Matthews took a closer look at the "Top 5 Endangered Senators" in 2010 cycle:
Interestingly, the top 5 endangered Senators are all Democrats. This clip is worth watching just to see Matthew's ham-handed shilling for all five, including the pithy observation that only stupid voters in Connecticut would try to unseat incumbent Chris Dodd. More to the point, the 2010 Senate election will be played out on a structurally even playing field, with each party defending an equal number of seats. Losing five seats would have to be considered a rout and unlikely under those circumstance, but nevertheless, Ron Brownstein and Charlie Cook invoke that very possibility (at the 6:20 mark).:
Chris Mathews: "Who is the most vulnerable Democrat?"
Ron Brownstein: "I would say Dodd. One thing to keep in mind though Chris... In big years, in wave years, in 1980, 1986, 1994, 2002, 2006 all the close Senate races went the same way. In many ways, these guys are not entirely the captain of their fate...
Chris Matthews: "Can a Republican lose this year coming up? Can a Republican incumbent lose any race anywhere next year?
Charlie Cook: "I would not be surprised to see no Republican incumbent House or Senate lose."
Even if there was a five seat shift, the Democrats would retain a majority with Joe Biden breaking the partisan tie. I am sticking with my forecast of a net gain of 3 seats for Republicans. Regardless whether it is 3 or 5 in 2010, it gets more interesting in 2012, when the field tilts dramatically in favor of Republicans. Of the 33 seats contested, the Democrats will be defending 24 seats, and the Republicans only 9. Even if they win 2 seats in 2010, it is virtually a fait accompli that the GOP will retake the Senate majority in 2012. In 2014, 21 of the 33 seats are defended by Democrats and 12 defended by Republicans. Again - advantage GOP.
Which brings us back to Ezra Klein's plan for phasing out the filibuster. "And so, six years from today, when we don‘t know who will be in power the filibuster phases out...". Uh Huh. Should Klein's plan actually find support on the Senate floor, it raises the specter of a simple majority of Republicans in 2015 undoing the Health Care plan that required a 60 vote Democratic plurality in 2009. Definitely in the "be careful what you wish for" category.
UPDATED: 19-July-2008 In my last post I said that the New Yorker magazine "cover is not the real story. The real story is the reaction to the cover by Obama, his campaign and his supporters." Rachel Maddow goes one better, saying "the details in the New Yorker cover drawing are not the story, the outrage over the cover are not the story, the potential consequences of the cover are the story." Hmmm.
Keith Olbermann is still on vacation, so Rachel Maddow is filling in on MSNBC's Countdown. In general I think this has been a trade-up. I like Maddow. Don't agree with her most of the time, but I like the way she thinks. However, when a journalist television personality decides to crawl right in the bag with a political candidate, it is apparently written in stone that said personality must twist themselves into an intellectual knot and make utter asses of themselves on the air in defense of their object of affection. It does not matter if it is Rush Limbaugh carrying water for big spending, big deficit, big government Republicans under GWB, or the regularly scheduled Keith Olbermann and Jonathon AlterObama Infomercial on MSNBC or Maddow substituting for Olbermann last night. An interesting oddity is that Jonathon Alter reprises his role as sidekick sycophant with Rachel. He should worry about being typecast:
MADDOW:Jonathon, Isn't the real problem here that way too many Americans are too stupid to get the joke? ALTER:Yes, Rachel, 13% of Americans are so stupid that they tell pollsters that they believe these lies, so there are consequences from an image like this and the New Yorker should have considered the consequences of stupid Americans seeing this image. MADDOW:In that context do responsible journalists and commentators like us have a responsibility to explain to stupid Americans that Obama is not a Muslim every time this comes up? ALTER:Yes Rachel, this is part of our responsibility - to take the time to refute these lies for all those low information (stupid) voters out there who are not paying attention. But it is still a problem because these voters are so stupid that they will just look at the picture, not get the joke, and not listen to us.
True to his word, Jonathon Alter dedicated his column today to once again explaining to the stupid American voters that Barack Obama is not a Muslim and the New Yorker cover is a joke.
"... the New Yorker cover, now being displayed endlessly on cable TV, speaks louder than any efforts by Obama supporters to stop the smears... negative images burn their way into the consciousness of voters in ways that cannot be erased by facts. With one visual move, the magazine undid months of pro-Obama coverage in its pages."
Look, I have no problem with Alter's thesis - the "Obama is a Muslim" lie must be challenged, confronted and corrected in the strongest possible terms. I have done so myself here and at Donklephant and will continue to do so.
But perhaps Maddow and Alter, and other Obama supporters wringing their hands about the 12-13% of "low-information" voters in the poll should consider the possibility that they are not all ignorant and stupid. Consider what Craig Crawford said on MSNBC a few hours later - David Shuster, substituting for Dan Abrams on "Verdict!" joined those on the left who are hand-wringing about the same poll, when Craig Crawford floated the right answer:
SHUSTER:"...there is some new polling from “Newsweek” that underscores Obama‘s potential problem. Twelve percent think he‘s a Muslim and 12 percent say he used the Koran for a Senate swearing in ceremony, 39 percent believe he attended an Islamic school in Indonesia, while 26 percent think he was raised a Muslim. None of those are true. Craig Crawford, how, in your view, should Obama address this?" CRAIG CRAWFORD, MSNBC ANALYST: "...But, as far as the percentages of people believing he‘s a Muslim, he‘s got time, he‘s just got to keep making the case, putting those speeches out there, and talking about his faith, and trying to deal with it. I‘m not sure a lot of this people actually believe this. I think they just don‘t like him and don‘t like to say it."
Bingo. Here is the real "joke". While there are indeed wingnuts on the right who really believe that Obama was a Muslim, or that he is the Anti-Christ, or he is an Islamic "Manchurian Candidate", or whatever stupid thing they want to worry about today, it is entirely possible that most of that 12% do not really believe it. They just like messing with the pollsters and left wing pundits who get their panties in a bunch whenever they read polls like this. And if that is the case, the real joke is on condescending pundits like Alter and Maddow who are so concerned about these "low-information" voters.
Jonathon, Rachel - Relax.
They're just messing with you.
UPDATE: 19-July-2008
This is too cool. In the Countdown video clip, you hear Jonathon Alter say this:
"In 1925 when the New Yorker was founded, the founder Harld Ross specifically said to investors, that the magazine was not for the little old lady in Duquque."
In the linked column, Alter repeats the theme saying:
"When Harold Ross founded The New Yorker in 1925, he told potential investors that it was not edited for "the little old lady from Dubuque." This is still true, as the flap over the latest cover suggests."
Alter then proceeds to explain why the New Yorker cover is "indisputably harmful" with those unsophisticated "low information" voters, like that little old lady from Dubuque. The only problem with Jonathon Alter's thesis, is that when the New York Times went to Dubuque, they learned that "The Old Lady in Dubuqe is smarter than you think.":
"When The New Yorker came into being in the 1920s, its founder, Harold Ross, held up Dubuque as the sort of backwater he wanted nothing to do with. Ross, with Eustace Tilley nose in the air, said the magazine would not be “edited for the old lady in Dubuque.” Not surprisingly, Dubuquers thought it terribly snooty of him, not to mention unfair. But they know enough to recognize satire.
“Yeah, we get it in Dubuque,” Mr. Rusk said by phone. “Anybody with a reasonable sense of humor” does. “The New Yorker, which touts itself, accurately, to be a highly intellectualized and savvy sort of a publication, ought to be able to get away with that,” he said. “If they can’t, who can?”
Score one for Dubuque, which is more than you can say about some people in this city. Let’s not even go into the reflexive condemnations of the drawing from Mr. Obama and Senator John McCain. Both know that you can hardly go wrong in national politics attacking a publication like The New Yorker and those smart-alecky fops who read it and think they’re better than everyone else. The thing is, though, that some who have accused the magazine of elitism are themselves elitists. They include outraged writers of letters to the editor who talk about Mr. Obama in near-Messianic terms. Some of them strongly suggest that too many Americans lack the brains to recognize the illustration for what it is, and will think it to be literally true."
Exactly right. Jonathon Alter = Elitist. Rachel Maddow = Elitist. Those who criticize the New Yorker cover on the basis of not unduly influencing those poor "low-information" voters? Elitists one and all.
