The Medal of Freedom...Finally!

At a ceremony on November 24th at the White House, President Obama will award the Medal of Freedom (posthumously) to Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney...finally!

Valerie Jarrett has Obama's back. So of course she's a target.

My tin foil hat wants to know why all of the sudden it is officially "Pick on Valerie Jarrett" week for pundits. In case you missed it, there have been two big hit pieces on her in the last couple of days. One from Carol Felsenthal and another from Noam Scheiber. Coincidence? You tell me.

I didn't read the one from Felsenthal - mostly because its in Politico and I know enough about what you get there. But I did read the one from Scheiber. Here are my three take-a-ways.

First of all, a cornucopia of red flags should emerge right away with this:

A decade after his [Obama's] ascent, there is still a basic unknowability about him, a puzzling gap between his talents and the public’s enthusiasm for his years in office.

Scheiber saying the President is "unknowable" is basically the same thing as Chuck Todd writing a book about him titled The Stranger. Of course that doesn't stop either of them from writing thousands of words about President Obama filled with all kinds of assumptions and projections. Its nonsense. Simply by paying attention and having an internet that provides me with more information than I can process, I know this president better than another other in my lifetime - even without "insiders" whispering in my ear.

And Noam, that "gap between his talents and the public's enthusiasm" is actually a product of racism combined with a completely inept media (see: "basic unknowability" above).

Secondly, Scheiber goes on to tell all kinds of stories about Valerie Jarrett and President Obama from "unnamed insiders" and various activists. This is where he comes off sounding like just another Politico reporter. But if you are to learn anything from what he has to say, its most likely to be a confirmation of why this President so dislikes how the DC village game is played. It all comes off like a bunch of middle school girls railing about who gave them the "side-eye." A couple of them are just SURE that President Obama wasn't speaking his mind when he talked to them and that Jarrett had obviously whispered something to him behind their backs. Oh, Puhlease!!!!

Finally, the most telling part of the article comes near the end when Scheiber demonstrates that what he's writing is actually more about himself that either Obama or Jarrett.

The Obama era has been deeply disorienting for the left. Eight years ago, progressives would have delighted at the idea of a president who withdrew from Iraq, remade the rules for Wall Street, slowed the proliferation of greenhouse gases, brought the country within spitting distance of universal health care, and multiplied the rights of gays and lesbians. And yet it’s hard to be a self-respecting progressive these days and not feel a frustration that borders on disillusionment. The victories have been muddled, the errors unforced, the ambitions preemptively scaled back.

That last sentence is exactly why those of us who are pragmatists started calling folks like this "purists." I would love to have the opportunity to ask Mr. Scheiber which progressive victories in this country have avoided being muddled, error free, and scaled back. Bless your self-respecting progressive heart! You seem totally clueless about the fact that this is always how its been done.

For a guy who just suggested that this President is still basically unknowable, its interesting that - in an attempt to sooth his self-respecting heart - Scheiber actually has a label for him that explains all this: Boardroom Liberalism. Oooo, sounds bad, doesn't it?

It believes that the world works best when these elites use their power magnanimously, not when they’re forced to share it. The picture of the boardroom liberal is a corporate CEO handing a refrigerator-sized check to the head of a charity at a celebrity golf tournament.

Nope. The picture is of a CEO who gets called out in a State of the Union speech because s/he raised worker's pay when Congress refused to. How's that "forcing" working for ya, Noam?

But lets get back to Ms. Jarrett. When Barack Obama went to Washington, he knew he'd need someone he trusted to have his back. It sure wasn't going to be folks like Leon Panetta. Valerie Jarrett is that person. And so, of course she's a target.

What must Republicans do to win back West Coast voters?

One of the narratives that has come out of the 2014 midterms is the idea that Democrats need to figure out how to appeal to southern white voters. What occurs to me is that this is very similar to what I remember hearing prior to the Clinton/Gore years. It became convention wisdom that the only way for Democrats to win national elections was to nominate white southerners. That's because it looked like the only way to break through the stranglehold Republicans had gained on the presidency from Nixon through Reagan (minus an assist from Watergate), was to run with Southern Governors (Carter and the Clinton). As a son of Hawaii and Illinois, Obama broke that narrative. But it seems like lately we've returned to it again.

And so this morning I've been spending some time studying this page with pictures of presidential election maps in the United States. I'm not a historian, so there's probably a lot of specifics I missed. But overall, what I see during "modern" times is a country that was very blue during the FDR years and began to turn pretty red during the Nixon/Reagan years. That's what Bill Clinton was facing in 1992 when he ran against George H.W. Bush. How did he win? Here's the map.

That seems to validate the idea that Clinton won because he had appeal in the south, doesn't it? 

But what I noticed this morning is something I've never heard anyone mention before. It wasn't until the Clinton election in 1992 that Democrats won the west coast states (California, Oregon and Washington). For example, prior to that year, California had only gone blue once (1964) in over 40 years. Beginning that year, those 3 states turned blue and have been solid ever since. They provided Clinton with 17 more electoral votes than he won from southern states (72 vs 55).

I'll have to leave it to others to answer the question about why the west coast went blue in 1992. My point is to wonder why pundits never developed a meme about asking Republicans what they need to do to win back the west coast. I don't have the answer to that either. But its a perfect example of how a narrative (i.e., story) shapes our conversations. 

P.S. I recognize that the talk lately about Democrats appealing to white southerners is in the context of midterm Congressional elections - not presidential elections. As I've said before, Democrats have some big challenges to face when it comes to midterms. So I agree...we need to have that conversation. I'd just like to suggest that the answers to those challenges could be more broad than conventional wisdom suggests.

Fewer people are homeless...I blame Obama

This report from HUD documenting a continuing decline in homelessness didn't get much attention while everyone was freaking out about Ebola and ISIS.

In 2014 state and local planning agencies reported that since 2010:

• Number of homeless people has dropped 10%.
• Number of homeless people who are unsheltered dropped 25%
• Veteran homeless dropped 33%
• Chronic long-term homeless dropped 21%
• Number of families with children who are experiencing homelessness dropped 15%
• Number of unsheltered homeless families dropped 53%

It reminded me that Michael Grunwald - in his book The New New Deal - was the only journalist who noticed that, tucked away inside the 2009 stimulus bill, was this little nugget.

...the administration dusted off a tiny Bush-era experiment in preventing homelessness and ramped it up sixtyfold using stimulus dollars, ultimately helping 1.2 million Americans on the verge of being evicted from their homes.

You can read more about the ongoing effort HUD credits for this success - Opening Doors - which was created in 2010.

And so, for the "what-have-you-done-for-me-lately" crowd...yet another Obama administration success story.

I'm not interested in class "warfare"

Anyone who reads here regularly knows that I respect BooMan's political analysis a lot. I quote/link to him all the time. But I have to take major exception with something he recently wrote titled: Only Class Warfare Can Save the Country. I've been pondering my reaction to that post (and this one) for a while now. You can see the results of that here and here.

When BooMan singled out Sen. Elizabeth Warren's post-election op-ed piece as an example of how this class warfare would be engaged, I began to ask myself how her rhetoric and solutions differed from what President Obama has been saying for some time now. The President doesn't tend to talk in terms of "class warfare" (although, neither does Sen. Warren). But, as I've pointed out before, since his announcement to run for president, he has consistently called income inequality "the defining issue of our time."

In order to answer the question about differences, I went back to the speech President Obama made in Osawatomie, KS about the economy. But before we even get to comparing the specifics, please note that BooMan's prescription for class warfare is based on the idea that it is the one way the Democratic Party can regain any appeal to southern white voters. The truth is that there is not that much of a difference between what Sen. Warren and President Obama prescribe. But there is one GLARING difference for southern white voters in the messenger - as opposed the the message. In case you hadn't noticed...Barack Obama is black. What looms large over BooMan's analysis - but is never actually spoken - is that perhaps southern white voters will hear it from a white woman. That assumption alone sends up all kinds of red flags for me.

As I've already said, there's not much difference between what Sen. Warren and President Obama prescribe. But there are a couple of glaring differences in how their messages are framed. For example: Senator Warren says this:

It’s not about big government or small government. It’s not the size of government that worries people; rather it’s deep-down concern over who government works for. People are ready to work, ready to do their part, ready to fight for their futures and their kids’ futures, but they see a government that bows and scrapes for big corporations, big banks, big oil companies and big political donors — and they know this government does not work for them.

While President Obama talks a lot about holding big corporations accountable, there is a reason why he went to Osawatomie to make that speech. Its the town where, 100 years ago, Republican President Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech about a "New Nationalism." Over and over again, President Obama noted that the ideas both he and Sen. Warren are espousing have been embedded in the fabric of this country.

I’m here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we’re greater together than we are on our own. I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules. These aren’t Democratic values or Republican values. These aren’t 1 percent values or 99 percent values. They’re American values. And we have to reclaim them.

If we paid attention to our history, we'd know that it was the success of the Southern Strategy that convinced working class whites that "this government does not work for them." Sen. Warren affirms that message and President Obama suggests that we can reclaim the value of working together for the common good.

But perhaps even more importantly, there's a reason why BooMan calls it class "warfare." That indicates there is an "us vs them" battle to be engaged. Here's how that sounds from Sen. Warren:

At this very minute, lobbyists and lawyers are lining up by the thousands to push for new laws — laws that will help their rich and powerful clients get richer and more powerful. Hoping to catch a wave of dealmaking, these lobbyists and lawyers — and their well-heeled clients — are looking for the chance to rig the game just a little more. But the lobbyists’ agenda is not America’s agenda.

Once again, President Obama tells the people in Osawatomie why he wanted to invoke Teddy Roosevelt.

“We are all Americans,” Teddy Roosevelt told them that day. “Our common interests are as broad as the continent.” In the final years of his life, Roosevelt took that same message all across this country, from tiny Osawatomie to the heart of New York City, believing that no matter where he went, no matter who he was talking to, everybody would benefit from a country in which everyone gets a fair chance.

And well into our third century as a nation, we have grown and we’ve changed in many ways since Roosevelt’s time. The world is faster and the playing field is larger and the challenges are more complex. But what hasn’t changed -- what can never change -- are the values that got us this far. We still have a stake in each other’s success. We still believe that this should be a place where you can make it if you try. And we still believe, in the words of the man who called for a New Nationalism all those years ago, “The fundamental rule of our national life,” he said, “the rule which underlies all others -- is that, on the whole, and in the long run, we shall go up or down together.”

I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of wars - whether they be in the Middle East or here at home. But more than that, what message do you think would be more effective in taking us beyond the divisions created by the Southern Strategy? Pretty interesting to me that its probably the black guy's.

Going Forward: Division or Hope?

Leonard Pitts pretty much nails his post-mortem about the 2014 elections in a column titled: Cynicism won midterm elections.

The Democrats had nothing to say and said it ineptly, running from the achievements of recent years — the Affordable Care Act, falling unemployment rates, a soaring stock market — and the president who presided over them like Usain Bolt from a house fire...

The Republicans also had nothing to say, but they said it loudly and with great certitude: “Obama caused Ebola! Obama caused ISIS! Obama is going to give your job to an illegal! GOP: 2014!”...

Cowardice squared off against cynicism Tuesday, and cynicism won. But there is something wrong when those are the only options on the ballot.

Now that its clear that cowardice lost (DUH!), lots of Democratic strategists are thinking that perhaps its time to fuel division as the answer: blacks vs whites, Main St. vs Wall St., men vs women, etc.

I'd like to remind everyone about the single most important reason that Barack Obama is our president today.


Its become "conventional wisdom" that Obama got elected because he opposed the war in Iraq. To that I'd say...no one would have ever heard about that position if it weren't for this speech. It roused a divided nation to a higher ideal...and gave us hope in a better future. 
Here's Pitts again:

People for whom everything is about politics tend to forget that most of us do not see the world that way. Red or blue, left or right, most Americans simply want a government that works, that gets things done, and a nation that stands for something, that means something in the world beyond just a parcel of land where a bunch of people live.

This is why Obama’s words electrified 10 years ago; they seemed to connect people to ideals larger than their own lives.

If you think that a few years in Washington D.C. made President Obama less "naive" about all this, listen to what he said at the end of his 2012 victory speech.


At about 20:25:

I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I'm not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight.

I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting...

I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We're not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America.

More than anything else, President Obama's message has always been that - no matter what divides us (race, gender, class, ideology, religion etc) - there is something deeper that unites us. When we tap into that, we can find the courage and hope to actually listen to each other and address our differences.

As Pitts points out in his column, all that seems "flatter than a left-out cola" right now. But its exactly what Rev. Joseph Lowery called "good crazy."


So as we begin to think about how to go forward in this country once President Obama's second term is over, I'll be looking for a little "good crazy." In other words, people who understand - as Rubem Alves once said - that "the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual." Now that I've had the experience of being led by someone like that, I'm not interested in going back to cynicism, cowardice and division.

This one goes out to Loretta's Mom

Michael Daly has written a wonderful article about Lorretta Lynch's background (hat tip to my friend @AlanMandel). You should go read the whole thing. 

But I got all verklempt when I read this:

Her mother, Lorine Lynch, started life as a farmhand. Loretta Lynch recalled aloud at the swearing-in ceremony for her first stint as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York in 1999 that she once asked her mother why she had labored in the fields.

“So you wouldn’t have to,” her mother had told her.

As Loretta enters into the national spotlight, I want to give a shout-out to her Mother, Lorine. That kind of sacrifice doesn't just mean that your daughter didn't have to labor in the fields. Millions of black women and girls all over the country will see the world of possibilities just a little bit differently after today.