The white male heterosexual patriarchy's death throes

I am struck today by how it used to be that Republicans would lie voters into thinking they were on the side of "everyman(woman)" only to fleece them when they got into office. I'm not saying that's totally gone - all one has to do is take a look at Romney's rather tortured attempt to explain himself to Michigan voters in order to see those efforts continue.

But based on what we've seen so far in this campaign, I can't help but envision a cadre of heterosexual white men sitting in some smoke-filled room trying to decide which group of American voters to piss off next.

Lets be honest, Republicans have never made much of an attempt to woo the gay and lesbian vote. As a matter of fact, they've done everything they can to fight the so-called "gay agenda." But in a few days one of their darlings of the future, Governor Chris Christie, has promised to veto a gay marriage bill passed by both houses of the New Jersey legislature.

Gays and lesbians pissed off - check

Its also true that African Americans have been a common punching bag for Republicans for years now with their dog whistles that stir up the base. And the truth is - since the Civil Rights era - there's no constituency that has been more loyal to Democrats than African Americans. So the likelihood of them providing much Republican support in 2012 against the first African American president is pretty much nil anyway. So I suppose you might say that it wasn't a touch call to take the dog whistles up to quantum level in terms of racism about "Blah Americans" and do everything possible to keep them from being able to vote.

African Americans pissed off - check

Dana Milbank thinks that when it comes to Latino voters, Republicans have an un impulso suicida.

What else but a death wish could explain the party’s treatment of the fastest-growing voting bloc in the nation? First was the wave of Arizona-style immigration laws. Then came the anti-immigrant rhetoric from the GOP presidential candidates. On Tuesday, Senate Republicans roughed up Adalberto Jose Jordan — because, well, just because they could.

Milbank goes on to explain that Adalberto Jose Jordan - who was nominated to become the first Cuban-born judge to serve on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Alabama, Georgia and Florida - is being blocked from confirmation in order to allow Republicans to play political games.

Latino Americans pissed off - check

But who would have thought that Republicans would take on the task of pissing off half the US population that happen to have a uterus (as well as those without one who support them)? And yet that's exactly what it looks like we're witnessing in the whole bru-ha-ha over access to contraception. I don't need to link to all the polls - I'm sure you've seen them by now. But you'd be hard pressed to find a woman these days who hasn't used these products either to prevent pregnancy, for other medical reasons, or both.

Female Americans pissed off - check

In the rational part of my brain the wheels are spinning trying to understand all this. Have those men in the smoke-filled room figured out some electoral path that leads to victory with the few remaining folks they haven't pissed off in this process? I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

This isn't rational. As much progress as we've seen over the decades on the racism/sexism/homophobia on which this country was founded, the white male heterosexual patriarchy has still assumed it was in charge. Those days are numbered now and everyone knows it...the beast is in its death throes. And in the process, its lashing out at every available target it perceives as a threat.

Time to let it die.

What's the president's job?

It seems to me that we've totally lost touch with the main tasks our constitution assigns to the three branches of government.

The Congress legislates
The President implements
The Supreme Court litigates

That came home to me once again when I read David Frum's reaction to what Grover Norquist said at the CPAC Convention as well as several commentaries on it from the left. Here's what Norquist said:

All we have to do is replace Obama. ... We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. ... We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don't need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate.

Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.

Frum and others picked up on an important point...this was a veiled swipe at a potential Romney presidency.

But the truth is, we also need to see a more serious consequence to what Norquist is suggesting. He's basically dismissing the main role of the presidency in our democracy - implementation - and pretending like the person in that position is merely some kind of lead legislator.

I'm sure that would be fine in Norquist's book because he simply wants to drown government in the bathtub. But as liberals it should be anathema to those of us who see good government as the main goal.

Need I remind you of what happened the last time we put a Republican in charge of implementing government? We got a totally unnecessary war where planning and strategic implementation were thrown to the wind. We got "Good job Brownie" following Katrina. We got a completely politicized and ineffectual Department of Justice. We got an Interior Department consumed with sex, drugs and graft scandals leading up to the BP oil spill. None of that had anything to do with legislation. It was all poor implementation.

As Democrats we fall into this trap way too often. Most of our energy is focused on what the President is doing or has accomplished legislatively. Just take a look at most any list of President Obama's accomplishments. You'll very rarely see things about how FEMA prepared for a hurricane in New York, which probably saved lives and property during hurricane Irene. You'll not see much mention of the work Attorney General Holder is doing to clean up DOJ. The one thing we have heard more about is how effectively this administration planned and executed things like the mission to kill Osama bin Laden and the rescue of aid workers in Somalia. All of those - and many more - are stories of President Obama doing his main job...to implement good government.

Remembering a sane Republican Party

I mentioned before that I've voted for one Republican in the last 38 years. His name was Arne Carlson and he served two terms as Minnesota's governor (I only voted for him in his first election against a Democratic incumbent who was anti-choice and behaving erratically in office). Carlson has since been kicked out of the MN Republican Party and continues to argue for some sanity from the right.

Last night something reminded me of his personal blog so I decided to take a look. What I found is an article he wrote two months ago titled Bedford Falls or Potterville... Tell me if you too wouldn't welcome back this kind of Republican Party as the loyal opposition.

At this time of the year, many of us replay the marvelous Christmas film, It’s a Wonderful Life, starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. It is a lovely and meaningful story about the impact of a community oriented focus versus the selfishness of accumulating personal wealth. The choice is between a vibrant inclusive community of Bedford Falls where everyone is important and realizes the value of the big “we” as opposed to “Pottersville” which represents a decadent and dying town ravaged by one individual’s greed.

The choice is simple: everyone loves Bedford Falls and the wholesomeness of its community. In so many ways, it is the realization of the American Dream...

Today, we must decide whether we want to build a Bedford Falls or a Pottersville. Increasingly, this is becoming the debate...

Yes, the Republican Party went from moderate to what I call “the new Right”. But it was more than a shift in political philosophy. Leaders like Sutton and Pawlenty [former state party chair and governor] and numerous others saw the party as representing not only a different and more narrow philosophy but also as having the power to rigidly enforce that philosophy on its elected members. Orthodoxy prevailed over representativeness and the result has been that cooperative governance with Democrats, Independents and Republican moderates is not possible. It is either the way of the “new Right” or not at all.

Politics is no longer a contest of competing ideas with respect for dissent but increasingly the imposition of an authoritarianism that all too often is cloaked in patriotism and religion. In this environment, the party and its beliefs are paramount and elected officials serve the party. Any deviation is defined as “traitor”, “Rhino”, “disloyal”, etc....

However, my memory of Republicanism in Minnesota goes back to a party that was always building a better community...So many of our leaders came out of the progressivism of Harold Stassen while still committed to the conservative virtues of prudent financial management. Policies ranging from consumer and environmental protection to human rights to metropolitan governance bore the fingerprints of an endless array of community oriented GOP Governors from Elmer Andersen to Harold LeVander through Al Quie and on....

The Republican Party both in Minnesota and nationally has a choice to make. Does it want to build a true Bedford Falls with a commitment to the well being of the whole or does it want to lead us to “Pottersville” where the quality of life rests with the privileged few?

There are still some of us in Minnesota that remember the Republican Party former Governor Carlson is talking about. During his time in office I was pretty active on some issues with the state legislature and had some run-ins with his staff. So it wasn't all sunshine and roses. But it WAS a rational conversation. With the party he's describing these days (both nationally and at the state level), that's not possible.

I recognize that there may be parts of the country that might have never seen a Republican Party like the one that used to exist in this state. But for me its important to remember that its possible. That's why I'll keep listening to people like David Frum and Arne Carlson - in order to see if these few lonely voices have a chance to call them back from the wilderness they currently inhabit. I think our country could use a dose of sanity like that.

Progressive policies hiding in plain sight

I'm beginning to see that if you want to find where President Obama is pursuing his most progressive policies, you need to look beyond the "outrage of the moment" coming from both the left and the right to find what he's hidden in plain sight - but no one is noticing.

Let me give you a couple of examples:

First of all, while the left was screaming about the lack of a public option in health care reform, the bill included the most massive expansion of public health care in our lifetimes - by making about 15 million more people eligible for Medicaid. In addition, there were things in the bill like the "bomb" Rick Unger talked about - medical loss ratios - which will challenge the very basis of for-profit health care.

Secondly, while the left was outraged about the 2 year extension of the Bush tax cuts, President Obama was getting another $383 billion in stimulus for the economy.

Finally, while everyone was just sure that President Obama had caved on the debt ceiling deal, we now know that he was laying the groundwork for the possibility of the largest reduction in military spending in our lifetimes.

So today President Obama will release his latest federal budget. I'm sure that all the talk coming from both the left and the right will be about his proposed tax increases for the wealthy and investments in infrastructure, education and jobs.

Those are all important policies. But what will likely go unnoticed is something I read about a few days ago.

The White House believes it’s figured out how to get more money for clean energy programs touted by President Obama without having it become political road kill in the wake of the Solyndra controversy: Put it in the Pentagon.

While details are thin on the ground, lawmakers who work on both energy and defense spending policy believe the 2013 budget request to be delivered to Congress on Monday probably won’t include big increases for wind and solar power through the Energy Department, a major target for Republicans since solar-panel maker Solyndra defaulted last year on a $535 million loan guarantee from the DOE.

But they do expect to see increases in spending on alternative energy in the Defense Department, such as programs to replace traditional jet fuel with biofuels, supply troops on the front lines with solar-powered electronic equipment, build hybrid engine tanks and aircraft carriers, and increase renewable energy use on military bases.

This strikes me as one of President Obama's most brilliant moves...the greening of the military. As I've said before, our defense budget is over twice that of the entire national budget of countries like Germany. If the military goes green, it will have a HUGE impact not only on global warming, but on clean energy development in general. And the military loves it because it contributes to their security should access to oil from unstable foreign markets be limited.

The military support for this means that most Republicans will be pressured to be on board. But they'll likely have to stay quiet about it in order to maintain their position of calling climate change a hoax.

Liberals tend to have a knee-jerk negative response to ANY military spending but will have a hard time complaining about this level of investment in clean energy. And so they will find themselves in a bit of a conundrum as well.

In the end, I don't expect this part of President Obama's budget proposal to get much attention - even as its likely to be the part that actually passes. But it will go down as one of the President's most progressive achievements that will impact all of us for decades to come.

All of the sudden McConnell believes in minority rights

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Obama's rule requiring employer-based healthcare plans – even those sponsored by faith-based groups – to cover contraception infringes on the religious freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. The Kentucky Republican vowed to fight the policy until the White House "backs down."

"In this country the government doesn't get to tell you or your organization what your religious views are – and they could well be minority views – but the Bill of Rights is designed to protect the minority from the will of the majority," McConnell said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

(Emphasis mine)

Of course McConnell is terribly confused (or more likely lying) in that the Obama administration isn't trying to tell anyone what their religious views are.

But it kind of knocked me backwards a bit to hear him touting the Bill of Rights as protection of the minority from the will of the majority. That's not something you tend to hear from Republicans - ever.

As the older white heterosexual base of the Republican Party sinks into minority status in this country - perhaps we'll be hearing more of this kind of thing from them. I'd simply suggest that means also agreeing with Newark Mayor Corey Booker about how wrong it is to put gay marriage up for a referendum.

Chess Master or Pawn?

This week I highlighted an article about Obama's presidency written by James Fallows because I found it to be one of the most balanced reviews I've read. I said I couldn't parse it and only suggested that folks read the whole thing. Now that I have a bit more time on my hands (yeah for weekends!), I'd like to take a closer look at it.

In the beginning, Fallows asks an important question.

In office as during his campaign—indeed, through the entirety of his seven-plus years as a national figure since his keynote speech at the Democratic Convention in the summer of 2004—Obama has maintained his stoic, unflapped, “no drama” air...The earnestly devotional HOPE poster by Shepard Fairey was the official icon of the Obama campaign. But its edgier, unofficial counterpart, a Photoshopped Internet image that appeared as an antidote to the panic over polls and Palin, perfectly captured the candidate’s air of icy assurance. It showed a no-nonsense Obama looking straight at the camera, with the caption EVERYONE CHILL THE FUCK OUT, I GOT THIS!...

Whether things seem to be going very well or very badly around him—whether he is announcing the death of Osama bin Laden or his latest compromise in the face of Republican opposition in Congress—Obama always presents the same dispassionate face. Has he been so calm because he has understood so much about the path ahead of him, and has been so clever in the traps he has set for his rivals? Or has he been so calm because...he has been so innocently unaware of how dire the situation has truly been?

This is the central mystery of his performance as a candidate and a president. Has Obama in office been anything like the chess master he seemed in the campaign, whose placid veneer masked an ability to think 10 moves ahead, at which point his adversaries would belatedly recognize that they had lost long ago? Or has he been revealed as just a pawn—a guy who got lucky as a campaigner but is now pushed around by political opponents who outwit him and economic trends that overwhelm him?

When Fallows gets to the point in the article where he critique's President Obama's performance, here's what he sees as the weaknesses.

Inexperience: that Obama’s own lack of executive experience left him reliant on the instincts and institutional memory of others—and since so many of his appointees came from the Clinton administration, he was also vulnerable to ’90s-vintage groupthink among them. This was particularly true, as we’ll see, during his response to the economic crisis in his first year in office, and then during his showdowns with Congress after Tea Party–inspired Republicans regained control of the House.

Coldness: that what looks serene in public can seem distant and aloof in his private dealings and negotiations.

Complacency about talent: that the disciplined excellence he demands of himself—in physical fitness and appearance, in literary polish of his speeches, in unvarying control of his mood and public presentation—has not extended to demands for a comparably excellent supporting staff.

Symbolic mismatch: that Obama’s personal achievement in rising to the presidency betokened, for much of the electorate, far more sweeping ambitions for political change than Obama the incrementalist operator ever had in mind.

And when it comes time to look at strengths, here's what Fallows says:

What I’ve concluded now is that Obama has shown the main trait we can hope for in a president—an ability to grow and adapt—and that the reason to oppose his reelection would be disagreement with his goals, not that he proved unable to rise to the job. As time has gone on, he has given increasing evidence that the skills he displayed in the campaign were not purely a fluke.

“Three of the most important things he has done are hardest to appreciate,” Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader and an early supporter of Obama’s presidential campaign, told me...

The first is a negative accomplishment: avoiding an economic catastrophe even worse than the one the United States and the world have been through...

The second is what Daschle called “the dramatic improvement in the American image abroad.”...

And finally, according to Daschle, the health-care bill that passed so narrowly and is so controversial will, especially if Obama is reelected, rank with Medicare in the list of legislative and social achievements by Democratic presidents.

I wonder if you see the same thing I do in these two lists. When it comes to weaknesses, they're all about personality and process. And the strengths all point to very real accomplishments.

I would suggest that this difference pretty much answers Fallows original question about whether or not President Obama is a chess master or pawn. Could it be that in assessing his personality and processes people like Fallows are simply focusing on and/or interpreting the wrong things? How did he get to those major accomplishments if his process was so lacking?

In the end, at least Fallows demonstrates that he's heard (and maybe even embraced) an alternative view of the process.

But those around him make the case that in addition to being very unlucky (in the circumstances he inherited) and very lucky (in the Republican field that chose to run against him), Obama also shaped his luck by being shrewd, in three significant ways. First, according to this view, he always kept his eye on what mattered most, namely avoiding another recession—and compromised and backtracked only when, in his assessment, the alternative would have been a greater economic risk. Next, he absorbed pummeling by Republicans not so much because he was weak or unsuspecting as because he recognized problems the over-reaching opposition was creating for itself, much as he had during the 2008 primaries (and much as Bill Clinton had in 1995). And finally, that while like all presidents he came in unprepared, he adjusted as fast as anyone could have expected and was increasingly in control of events as time went on.

In other words, the chess master continued to focus on his North Star, marginalized Republicans with his conciliatory rhetoric as ruthless strategy, and learned/adjusted as the situation developed...pretty much what we've been saying all along.

Suddenly I See