The Last Chance Democracy Cafe

Barack Obama has just made his first appointment to the federal bench, naming U.S. District Judge David F. Hamilton, from Indiana, to the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. By all accounts, Judge Hamilton is extremely well qualified for the job, as well as being fairly moderate from a political standpoint.

It was the latter attribute — Judge Hamilton’s relatively moderate political views — President Obama chose to emphasize in announcing the appointment. Who can blame him? Clearly, he’s hoping to avoid the contentious confirmation battles of the past.

Nice idea.

But then so was the perpetual motion machine.

Let’s see how this latest blast of post-partisanship is working out for the president: not so well, it would seem. As the headline at the far right Christian Broadcasting Network announces: “Judge Hamilton Under Attack.” The “article” goes on to quote the Republican-organized web site, Judicial Confirmation Network, as follows:

Hamilton has a history as a hard-left political activist, and his choice signals that Obama does intend to push extreme liberals onto the bench and politicize the courts as we’ve never seen before.

Let’s call this a teaching moment, not so much for Obama himself, who probably knows the truth, but for the national media: bipartisanship simply isn’t in the cards when it comes to judicial appointments. Nominating moderate Democrats won’t prevent confirmation fights. Nominating independents won’t prevent confirmation fights. Hell, nominating non-nutty middle/right Republicans won’t prevent confirmation fights.

The far right needs confirmation fights. They’re the lifeblood that just might be enough to keep their movement on life support, as opposed to having it carted off to the morgue (and ultimately buried in an unmarked grave to keep angry Americans harmed by its former rule from vandalizing the site). Raging against “liberal judges” (long after the federal judiciary had been turned into a right wing paradise by years of appointments by GOP presidents) has been the principal clarion call of the far right for over a generation.

And they aren’t about to give it up now — no matter how reasonable Obama’s appointments seem to be to those of us living in the real world. And the Republicans in the Senate, with perhaps a few occasional exceptions, won’t cross them. They never do.

But if this is to be a teaching moment, then exactly what is being taught? Here are my suggestions for two lessons to be learned:

As to the media: get a clue guys. You can’t expect Obama to be successfully bipartisan with a rabid dog.

And as to Obama: If you have to do the time anyway (being accused of making far left appointments) you might as well do the crime (you might as well send up a few).

Update: Let me be clear. I very much doubt the far right can prevent the appointment from going through — although they may claim 20 or 25 no votes and slow things down a bit. No, this is about making a lot of noise.

Look, I’m as angry as the next guy over the AIG bonuses, but passing a confiscatory tax bill to get back at the people receiving the bonuses is horrible policy. Even assuming doing this would be constitutional (and I have my doubts), it would be awful policy. Do we really want to get Congress into the business of passing punitive tax bills against unpopular people? It’s not hard to see how that could lead to some really ugly things.

Surely there’s a better way to do this.

A few days ago, I posted a piece titled, “Beware the experts, Barack.” One reader took offense, saying:

It’s President Obama.

I doubt you’re on a first name basis with him.

So what do you think about this? On the one hand, I can see the commenter’s point: in general the president deserves the respect of being called “Mr. President,” although many of us didn’t show George W. Bush that deference. If I were actually speaking directly to Barack Obama, obviously, formal address would be called for. Similarly, if I were writing a column for The New York Times, referring to the president by his first name would at least arguably be out of bounds.

But this isn’t The Times — it’s a blog. And part of the charm of blogging is a certain snarky informality. This often leads to a faux familiarity — supposedly speaking in personal terms to important people you’ve never actually met (and who might call security if you suddenly showed up). Personally, I don’t see much wrong with this: and, besides, naming a post “Beware of experts, Mr. President” seems dorky to me, and even a bit officious for a blog post.

You can trust me that when I purport to speak directly to President Obama, by whatever name, I’m under no illusion that the message will actually be received.

So, give me your honest take. Is pretending to speak to the president by using his first name out of line?

BTW, please don’t use this post to criticize the reader who left the comment. While I personally don’t agree fully with his point, we all sometimes get mad about things other people may consider no big deal (the Democrat Party anyone?).

Lincoln Chafee, the former Republican senator from Rhode Island, is clearly insane. It’s sort of sad having to say it, given that he was long one of the few marginally rational Republicans in Congress. Still, how else to explain this:

One of Barack Obama’s high-profile Republican endorsers during the campaign said he was “stunned” that the president could muster only three Republicans votes for his stimulus package and put the blame squarely at the president’s feet.

In an interview with the Huffington Post, former Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who endorsed Obama during the Democratic primary, acknowledged that the president’s post-partisan appeal was suffering from a dearth of moderate Republicans in Congress. But he added that the “onus was on” Obama to get broad backing on his first major piece of legislation. And by this metric, he failed.

“The whole appeal of the Obama candidacy was post-partisan, and to get off to that start I thought was surprising,” said the Rhode Island Republican. “Ultimately, the chief executive has so much power, and just as a spectator, I thought the onus was on him to just to make it happen. Get 80-or-so votes on your first big initiative, whatever it is.”

It would seem that you can take the senator out of the Beltway, but you can’t take the Beltway out of the senator. What unmitigated dog do-do. Here we are in the middle of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression and what is Chafee despondent about? Is he feeling shame, per chance, for the disastrous failure of the GOP economic policies he aided and abetted? Or perhaps singing the blues over the fact that millions of Americans are losing their jobs?

No, the real tragedy, according to Chafee’s worldview, is Barack Obama’s “failure” to get more than a few Republican senators to support the stimulus package. Further, according to Chafee, this failure of post-partisanship is Obama’s fault, notwithstanding GOP obstructionism. You see, it was Obama’s obligation to do whatever was needed to get more Republicans onboard, even, apparently, if that meant stripping the guts out of the package, thereby destroying its effectiveness in fighting the deepening recession.

I think we may have just figured out why the Titanic sank. My guess is that one of Lincoln Chafee’s ancestors was the captain and, after the iceberg was sighted, he decided that trying to build consensus among the crew was more important than steering the ship to safety.

Allow me to repeat myself: this dude is certifiably insane. No one outside of the insular little world of Beltway insiders gives a rat’s ass about bipartisanship anymore: people have bigger fish to fry. And the only reason anyone ever cared about it was because they thought having people get along better in Washington might help get things done. But the GOP wasted no time after Obama’s election in making it clear that wasn’t going to happen. So people moved on.

Everyone that is except Lincoln Chafee.

One of George W. Bush’s most glaring shortcomings as president was his utter disdain for expertise. Never one to read a position paper when a gut reaction would do, he despised all forms of expert opinion: he seemed to view book learning in much the same way he did diplomacy — as sissy stuff.

Thus far, at least, Barack Obama has been refreshingly different in this, as in so many other respects. Science is back baby! And brainy people now swarm the White House thicker than the vultures circling Michael Steele’s political head.

So why do I feel so uneasy?

Have you ever read “The Best and the Brightest”? It’s the story of how the brilliant people John Kennedy brought into the government — men like Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy — helped lead America into the nightmare of Vietnam. The moral, as Frank Rich noted a few months ago in making a very similar point, is that “The Brightest Are Not Always the Best.”

And so I find myself wondering: is it possible that Obama loves expertise a little too much, especially in the field of economics?

What got me thinking this way was his recent comment about blogs. I quoted him yesterday, but it bears repeating:

“Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,” he said, “is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another — well, you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they’ll be fine.”

I have no problem at all with President Obama ignoring blogs — including this one (sniff, sniff). As I said yesterday, it would actually be damn poor judgment on his part to rely on them very heavily (although blogs, taken in small doses, could certainly be useful in providing a shortcut to thinking outside the White House bubble).

So yes, of course, it’s fine for Obama to ignore blogs. But is it just me, or was there perhaps a hint in his dismissive attitude toward non-experts that he’s become a bit starstruck? He’s surrounded himself with exceptionally gifted people and may rightfully take pride in his appointments. I just hope he doesn’t become too enthralled by (and deferential toward) their genius — especially the ones dealing with the economy.

I’m reminded of a story David Halberstam, the author of The Best and the Brightest, tells in the book:

Johnson, after his first Kennedy cabinet meeting, raved to his mentor, the speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn, about all the president’s brilliant men. “You may be right, and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say,” Rayburn responded, “but I’d feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once.”

Being smart and being right don’t always go together.

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I won’t even try denying it. When compared to the brainy insider types, people like Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, who are running Barack Obama’s economic policy — and let us all stand with our mouths appropriately agape in awe and wonder at the very mention of their names — those of us supporting disreputable (and socialistic!) things like growing the stimulus package and nationalizing failing banks are a fairly motley bunch. Who can blame Obama for wanting to keep us at arm’s length?

I mean, some of us are even of that lowest of all breeds — quick, lock up the children and the womenfolk — the bloggers. And Obama made it crystal clear in his recent interview with The New York Times that he has little use for such reprobates:

Mr. Obama rode to the White House partly on his savvy use of new technology, and he has a staff-written blog on his presidential Web site. Even so, he said he did not find blogs to be reliable, citing the economy as one example.

“Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,” he said, “is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another — well, you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they’ll be fine.”

I actually have no problem with the substance of Obama’s comments about blogs (although I could have lived without the dismissive tone). Blogging serves many valuable purposes: directly establishing national economic policy probably shouldn’t be one of them. Even a blog lover like me wouldn’t suggest the president click onto a random Daily Kos diary, then, impressed by what he reads, completely rewrite US economic policy in response (although if the choice is between that and having him continue to listen to Geithner, well . . .).

But as Paul Krugman — blogger and Nobel Prize winner — has pointed out, bloggers are far from the only people urging Obama to be more audacious in working to save what’s left of our economy:

A real fix for the troubles of the banking system might help make up for the inadequate size of the stimulus plan, so it was good to hear that Mr. Obama spends at least an hour each day with his economic advisors, “talking through how we are approaching the financial markets.” But he went on to dismiss calls for decisive action as coming from “blogs” (actually, they’re coming from many other places, including at least one president of a Federal Reserve bank), and suggested that critics want to “nationalize all the banks” (something nobody is proposing).

As I read it, this dismissal — together with the continuing failure to announce any broad plans for bank restructuring — means that the White House has decided to muddle through on the financial front, relying on economic recovery to rescue the banks rather than the other way around. And with the stimulus plan too small to deliver an economic recovery … well, you get the picture.

For all I know, Geithner may be right and Krugman wrong. When it comes to economics, a fair degree of skepticism and uncertainty is always in order. What bothers me, speaking as a non-expert, however, is how one-dimensional the advice Obama’s receiving seems to be. It’s all insider conventional wisdom, all of the time. What happened to the brave talk of the president surrounding himself with divergent viewpoints?

Geithner and Summers? That’s some Team of Rivals you have there, Mr. President. All the diversity of a litter of cloned puppies, but without any of the cuteness.

I suspect Paul Krugman isn’t at the head of Obama’s hit parade when it comes to economists. Krugman’s preference for Hillary Clinton during the primaries was hardly hidden, and he’s been consistently on the president’s (honorable) butt ever since. But the truth is that Krugman not only carries considerable authority on economic issues, he also speaks powerfully to many of the folks who form the base of Obama’s political support — people he’ll need in the fights ahead. 

So, here’s my suggestion, Mr. President: swallow hard and, if for no other reason than as a goodwill gesture to your supporters, put your money where your political mouth is by reaching out to “the other side.” Give Krugman one hour of your time to make his case. Let him tell you personally why he (and so many others) believe a more aggressive approach is needed if we are really to address this economic nightmare.

You may well decide to ignore him and stay the course.

But what do you have to lose by listening?

As you may have heard, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld all but two counts of Don Siegelman’s conviction. Based upon a close study of the case, I’m convinced this was not only a politically motivated prosecution, but a serious miscarriage of justice.

Hopefully, Siegelman will eventually find some measure of justice. Meanwhile, this remains a stain on the American system of justice.

For background on the case check here.

To repeat myself, yet again: Does a day ever go by anymore without another terrifying revelation about global warming?

Call me an alarmist if you must, but Jesus.

(Reuters) Arctic summer ice could vanish by 2013: expert

The Arctic is warming up so quickly that the region’s sea ice cover in summer could vanish as early as 2013, decades earlier than some had predicted, a leading polar expert said on Thursday.

Warwick Vincent, director of the Center for Northern Studies at Laval University in Quebec, said recent data on the ice cover “appear to be tracking the most pessimistic of the models”, which call for an ice free summer in 2013.

The year “2013 is starting to look as though it is a lot more reasonable as a prediction. But each year we’ve been wrong — each year we’re finding that it’s a little bit faster than expected,” he told Reuters.

I had always counted on global warming not getting real bad until, well, until after I’m dead. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and men. Speaking of which, I wonder if the mice will outlive us.

No one is more dedicated to diplomacy than me, or more skeptical of war as an instrument of national policy. I will guarantee you, however, if I had been around on December 7, 1941, my response to the day of infamy wouldn’t have been to propose peaceful negotiations with the Empire of Japan.

Sometimes, in times of crisis, even one’s most cherished beliefs must give way to painful reality. And if the American economy isn’t in a crisis now, I hope not to see one anytime soon.

The good news, of course, is that we finally have a president who gets it. And while I’m sympathetic to Paul Krugman’s argument (yes, he’s one of my heroes too) that the stimulus package wasn’t aggressive enough, $780 billion ain’t chicken feed. And politically it may have been the best Obama could do.

Besides, the stimulus bill is old news: the fight now is over Obama’s budget submission, a proposal I have previously described as probably the single most consequential liberal initiative we’ve seen in over a generation. Krugman, by the way, is also in love with the proposed budget.

And the really terrific thing is that unlike most other types of legislation, under the Senate’s rules Republicans can’t filibuster the budget. All Obama needs is a simple majority vote — just like in a real democracy! Nirvana at last, right?

Well, maybe not.

We’re forgetting, after all, David Broder’s chosen ones. And so enter THE MODERATES. May God have mercy on our wretched liberal souls.

From Politico:

Moderate and conservative Democrats in the Senate are starting to choke over the massive spending and tax increases in President Barack Obama’s budget plans and have begun plotting to increase their influence over the agenda of a president who is turning out to be much more liberal than they are.

A group of 14 Senate Democrats and one independent huddled behind closed doors on Tuesday, discussing how centrists in that chamber can assert more leverage on the major policy debates that will dominate this Congress.

Afterward, some in attendance made plain that they are getting jitters over the cost and expansive reach of Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget proposal.

First things first: as frustrating as all this can be, the truth is that Democratic members of Congress aren’t supposed to walk in lockstep with Barack Obama, even though the Republicans usually did so with George W. Bush. The separation of powers and all that. So I have no great problem, for example, with those congressional Democrats who worry that proposed limitations on itemized deductions for wealthy taxpayers could hurt charities: that sounds like a reasonable point of debate.

But the knee-jerk nonsense we’re starting to hear from some of these so-called moderate Democrats — playing right into the hands of disingenuous Republican talking points — about the “massive” size of the spending package is nothing short of pathetic. These folks, as members of the United States Congress, should be smart enough to know that the size of a spending package, like the nature of time and space itself, is relative: what might fairly be described as “massive” spending in times of peace and economic strength, may actually be downright miserly during war and recession.

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Wow, now comes word that during a recent appearance as a fan at a basketball game, Barack Obama engaged in some friendly trash talk with an opposing fan.

Time to give it up Republicans: America is never going to fall out of love with this guy.