Whenever I hear people talking about "liberal ideas," I am always astounded that men should love to fool themselves with empty sounds. An idea should never be liberal; it must be vigorous, positive, and without loose ends so that it may fulfill its divine mission and be productive. The proper place for liberality is in the realm of the emotions.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Time to Play Whack-A-Mole, Bill O'Reilly Edition
I have not watched Fox News Channel that much this week, but I've probably seen a clip of Bill O'Reilly's book-hawking visit to the ABC-TV morning women's talk show yesterday, The View, at least a half dozen times. In particular, it shows two of the female co-hosts, strident liberal Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg, whom took exception to Bill O'Reilly characterization of the controversial mosque construction site near Ground Zero controversy, walk out in the middle of discussion, an unprofessional act. (My position on the mosque is clear, and I'll reprise at the end of discussion.) Mother hen Barbara Walters publicly rebuked the actions of her co-hosts. My personal opinion is that Fox News, by putting this into heavy rotation, is implicitly attempting to contrast its "fair and balanced" coverage to the disrespectful, intolerant liberal co-hosts (with the exception of token conservative former reality show star Elisabeth Hasselbeck) concurrently talking over each other and interrupting the occasional besieged, bewildered conservative guest (John McCain immediately comes to mind).
Bill O'Reilly is a shameless populist; he has the clueless arrogance of believing he is a spokesman for "the folks". There is a distinction between conservatism and populism; for example, a true conservative does not believe in "windfall profit" taxes on energy companies, try to arbitrarily cap executive compensation, scapegoat China for the country's trade deficit, or blame immigrants for government spending.
One of the key points in the O'Reilly segment which has gone largely unnoticed is the exchange between O'Reilly and Barbara Walters right before the kerfuffle in question. O'Reilly was discussing Obama's declining job approval rating when mainstream progressive Barbara Walters asks the obvious question: in essence, it's easy to criticize the President; let's be more constructive: what would you have done differently in his place? Bill, the "no-spin" guy, gave the predictable evasive response: he's not a macroeconomic guy.
Okay, Barbara, let me take a stab at the gotcha question. The first thing I would have done in Obama's place would have been to try to lock in my legislative base, knowing a traditional mid-term correction. Congress has been very unpopular, and a number of people wanted a stop to the partisan bickering. There were a couple of things I would have done: I would have delivered on a centrist agenda both to build confidence and to co-opt the minority. Using a large majority to run up a partisan legislative score is NEVER good politics.
Second, in terms of economic policies, I would have been mindful of a few things: businesses hate uncertainty, and the disposition of the expiring Bush tax cuts was key. I would have promised American businesses no new taxes or regulations over the coming two years or until the economy moved back to full employment. I would have focused on policies for permanent versus temporary tax cuts (e.g., payroll taxes) and other incentives to be as broadly defined as possible. I would have done everything I could to increase access to foreign markets for American goods and services (e.g., free trade pacts) and to make our business tax burden globally competitive. I would have set a good example by setting federal austerity measures; if the private sector had to cut back, so did the public sector in terms of head count, compensation, etc. I would have also done a better job of managing public expectations (e.g., the infamous promise that passing the stimulus bill would cap unemployment at 8% and promoting the myth of "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects).
Finally, I would have been very careful about expanding the government's involvement in health care, given a system already straining under inflationary cost pressures, shortages of personnel, an aging population and chronically underfunded entitlements (e.g., social security and Medicare). Knowing that most people are satisfied with the private sector health care they already have, I would have looked at things like reinforcing state/regional risk pools in a Medicaid-like cost sharing arrangement and focusing on coverage for catastrophic health conditions, certainly not shoving highly unpopular measures (which required odious deal making and an unprecedented mandate) down the nation's throat on a partisan basis.
Bill O'Reilly then went on to explain how Obama has been tone deaf to what the folks believe, a case in point being the construction of the mosque/cultural center within a few blocks of Ground Zero, the location of the Twin Towers attacked on 9/11. O'Reilly pays lip service to the property rights of the American Muslim community (you can almost hear him suggest a Seinfeld-like 'not that there's anything wrong with that' (being Muslim)) but argues that it is just not prudent or sensitive to build a mosque in the area because certain foreign-born religious fanatics murdered innocent civilians on 9/11. (This is the kind of thinking that, for example, suggests because a handful of rogue Catholic priests sexually abused young people, the Church should be prohibited from building new parochial schools, out of respect for the wishes of the victims.) You just don't get it, Bill: you can't judge a religion with a broad stroke: it's grossly insensitive and unfair. There are over a billion devout, peace-loving Muslims whom share our dreams of a better future for children and common moral values. Painting this as a US vs. Muslim battle just plays into the hands of religious radicals with their inflammatory, nonsensical Crusader rhetoric.
No, I wouldn't have walked out on you, Bill, but if the show was in Elmhurst, IL, I might get arrested.* If the show had more intelligent, articulate, civil hosts, you would have come out of the interview looking like Crazy Old Uncle Bill.
* "An Elmhurst resident was ejected from the room after rolling her eyes in reaction to something that was said by a council member. Members of the Elmhurst city council have asked the City Attorney to look into the creation of a 'disturbance and disorderly conduct' violation and to see if eye-rolling could somehow be shoehorned into its definition."
[Oops! I did it again...]Federal deficit for 2010 Down to.....$1.294T Dollars
I can just hear it now: the Democrats will note under the "Obama Recovery", in the fiscal year from October 2009 through September 2010, given the recession's end in June of last year, the federal deficit actually went down $112B from fiscal year 2009. That is equivalent to roughly 3.24% of government spending. In the meanwhile, subtracting out the bailouts to AIG, the car companies, and the GSE's, federal spending rose 9% year over year. In the meanwhile, social security payments are frozen for a second consecutive year because of low inflation. How are we doing on the national debt watch? On Bush's last full day in office, the total national debt stood at $10,628,881,485,510.23; Thursday it was at $13,606,947,094,101.90--an increase of just over 28%, just under $3T, over 3 months shy of Obama's second anniversary. In terms of disingenuous Democratic talking points about Bush's spending (keep in mind half of the years the Dems controlled one or both houses of Congress), consider this: Obama and the Dems, less than 2 years in office, have already added 61% of the entire debt accumulated during Bush's 8 years. There's an election in just over 2 weeks: Got a vote?
Bonus Obama Musical Spoof: A Modern US President
Political Humor
"California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has released a new TV ad in both Mandarin and Cantonese. This is part of her effort to reach out to the Asian community. That's how California works, where a white woman from back East, trying to replace an Austrian governor, runs an ad in Chinese to explain to people why she hired a Mexican maid." –Jay Leno
[Meg Whitman wanted to reassure her state's bondholders in terms they can understand that they are next in line after the state pays out its $100K+ State of California under-65 pensioners.]
"The Nobel Prize for economics was awarded to three economists. Should we have even given one out this year? If there's one thing we've learned over the past two years, it's that there's no such thing as an expert in economics." –Jay Leno
[The Nobel Prize Committee was inspired by last year's Obama acceptance speech; they thought it was good to spread some prize money around.]
Musical Interlude: The "British Invasion" of the 1960's Series
The Rolling Stones, "As Tears Go By"
