The Central Role of Mythology, White Supremacy, Capitalist Hegemony and Ideological Hubris in Modern American Politics Since 1945

NOTE: The following piece is an excerpt from a much longer forthcoming essay-in-progress on the cumulative societal effects of Modern American Political History since 1945:

THE NEW CONFEDERACY IS EXACTLY LIKE THE OLD ONE (PLUS IT TOO HAS ACCESS TO SOCIAL MEDIA...)
by Kofi Natambu
The Panopticon Review

...There are many debilitating myths about American history in general and American politics in particular. In fact it could be said that the widespread intellectual and social reliance, even obsessive dependency, on this enormous cobweb of lies, distortions, half truths, misrepresentations, and fallacies have contributed to an atmosphere of social discourse that is often drowning in a cesspool of rhetorical evasions and blatantly false assertions. One of the most dangerous and paralyzing of these myths has to do with the alleged progressive attitudes and values of the national white American electorate—especially in the so-called modern era since the end of World War II. One of the persistent articles of faith of this mythology has it that since the popular notion of the ‘American Century’ (which we now often rather arrogantly refer to as the recent history of ‘Amercian exceptionalism’) emerged as a slogan following the collective defeat by the Allies of the United States, Europe, (and ironically by the then Soviet Union) of the global forces of fascism led of course by the German Nazi Party, there has been an endless promotion in the media, popular culture, and in academia of the idea that the United States is fundamentally a progressive, forward looking nation that deeply loves and supports democracy and is a firm believer in the systemic eradication of all forms and vestiges of such virulently anti-democratic, repressive, and reactionary ideas and practices as institutional and structural racism, sexism, class oppression and exploitation, homophobia, and imperial militarism. However even a cursory examination of the actual history of the U.S. since 1945 indicates that this reading of a substantial majority of the white American electorate is not merely inaccurate and off the mark but delusional.

For a stark and very significant example consider what the national voting record of white Americans in presidential elections has been since 1948. It was in that year that former Vice President Harry Truman first ran for the office as the Democratic Party candidate following the untimely death of his predecessor President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in April of 1945 (who in November 1944 had won the presidency for an unprecedented fourth term—a future possibility that was eliminated by the passage of the twenty second amendment to the constitution in 1947 which stated that no presidential incumbent could henceforth serve more than two terms). However despite this new ruling and the fact that both the far left and far rightwing segments of the national Democratic Party bolted from Truman candidacy and ran their own independent campaigns (i.e. former Vice President in Roosevelt’s last administration in 1944 Henry Wallace of the Progressive Party and then Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond of the openly racist and segregationist “Dixiecrat” Party) Truman was still able to garner 53% of the white vote nationally, that along with the heavily truncated 71% of the black vote was barely enough to provide Truman with a surprising but very narrow victory over his Republican opponent New York Governor Thomas Dewey, whom the media and most political pundits had erroneously predicted would easily beat Truman.

What’s also significant about the national presidential election of 1948 is that except for only ONE other occasion in the past 64 years(!) the Democratic candidate for President (whether he was an incumbent or not) has failed to receive anywhere near a majority of the national white vote. Please allow me to repeat this harrowing statistic: In the last 16 presidential elections following Truman’s victory in 1948 and going back 64 years to the next presidential election in 1952, a substantial majority of white American voters have voted for the Republican candidate--again whether he was the incumbent or not--15 times. The ONLY exception in the past six decades is 1964 when former Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who assumed the presidency following John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November of 1963, ran on his own for the office a year later vs. arch conservative and rightwing political reactionary Barry Goldwater. Clearly, in what was essentially a national sympathy vote for the successor of the slain President Kennedy, Johnson received a whopping 60% of the national white vote, a figure that hasn’t been reached by any presidential candidate in the Democratic Party in the fifty years since; one would have to go back 70 years to 1944 in Franklin’s Roosevelt’s last presidential victory to find any Democratic Party candidate who won as large of a percentage of the white vote. In fact in the last 16 presidential elections Democratic Party candidates have only won a cumulative national average of 38% of the white vote. 

So the obvious question looms: What do these dramatic statistics tell us about the modern white American electorate since 1945? Well for starters it clearly tells us that the average white voter in general since 1945 has not supported and does not currently support a progressive social and economic agenda by the government. Of course this may change at some point in the near future (say in a decade from now) but I highly doubt it will change anytime soon in the foreseeable future (i.e. the next two national presidential election cycles leading up to and probably including 2020)...

The Deadly Combination of White Supremacy, The Infantile Hubris Of President Obama's Administration, And Our Perverse Complicity In Them Both In the United States Today

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Panopticon-Review/342702882479366

PLEASE NOTE: The shameless moral and political bankruptcy as well as sheer ineptitude and outrageous HUBRIS of President Barack Obama--and our equally shameful COMPLICITY as citizens!--in his endless rhetorical evasions, dishonest posturing, trite banalities, corny platitudes, and empty self serving pronouncements is an integral part of the harrowing national crisis facing this country in the 21st century...

http://www.thenation.com/blog/180946/we-tortured-some-folks?utm_medium=email&newsletter=email_nation&utm_campaign=Email+Nation++20140812&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_term=email_nation

‘We Tortured Some Folks’
by Tom Tomorrow
August 12, 2014
The Nation

http://m.thenation.com/blog/180943-death-michael-brown-and-search-justice-black-america

The Death of Michael Brown and the Search for Justice in Black America
by Mychal Denzel Smith
August 12, 2014
The Nation

Aaron Coleman, left, joins other protesters marching in Ferguson, Missouri, August 11, 2014. (AP Photo/Sid Hastings)
 
Last Thursday, Theodore Wafer was found guilty of second-degree murder for shooting and killing Renisha McBride, the 19-year-old woman who arrived on Wafer's porch after a car accident the night of November 2, 2013. The verdict came as a surprise. Having witnessed a jury acquit George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin, and another jury do the same for Michael Dunn in the killing of Jordan Davis (though Dunn was convicted on other charges that will lead to prison time), the idea that anyone would be held responsible for killing a young black person seemed like a fairy tale. It was a concept that only existed in the far reaches of the imagination.

Wafer will be sentenced on August 20 and could spend the rest of his life in prison. It's what counts for justice in our current system. But that Wafer will likely die behind bars offers little solace, knowing that this fact will not prevent future Renisha McBrides from suffering fates similar to hers. For a moment, though, his guilty verdict offered a bit of relief.

That relief was short-lived. On Saturday, August 9, 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, by a local police officer whose identity has not been released. Brown was walking with a friend, 22-year-old Dorian Johnson, on his way to his grandmother's residence in a nearby apartment complex. In an interview with MSNBC, Johnson says the two were walking in the street when a police car approached and the as-yet-unidentified officer instructed them to "get the fuck onto the sidewalk." They told the officer they were almost at their destination and would be out of the street in a minute. Johnson says at that point the officer slammed his brake, backed up and asked, "What'd you say?" while opening his car door and attempting to get out. The door hit Brown and then closed. Johnson says the officer then grabbed Brown by the neck.

He continues: "They're not wrestling so much as [the officer's] arm went from [Brown's] throat to now clenched on his shirt. It's like tug of war. He's trying to pull him in. He's pulling away, that's when I heard, ‘I'm gonna shoot you.'"

According to Johnson, the first shot followed not too long after. He and Brown both started running, Johnson ducking behind a nearby parked car and Brown continued past him. The officer fired a second shot, this one hitting Brown in the back. Johnson says Brown then turned around with his hands in the air and said "I don't have a gun, stop shooting!" The officer ignored Brown's words and fired several more shots.

Parts of Johnson's version of the story are backed up by another eyewitness, Piaget Crenshaw, who has said "They shot him, and he fell. He put his arms up to let them know he was compliant, and that he was unarmed. And they shot him twice more, and he fell to the ground and died."

Johnson's account of the shooting, as told to MSNBC reporter Trymaine Lee, differs from what St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar has told the press. "The genesis of this was a physical confrontation," he told CNN. He did not say what led to this confrontation, but asserted that Brown had physically assaulted the officer and a struggle over the weapon ensued. Brown was unarmed and the only casings recovered from the scene came from the officer's gun.

The details are always in dispute, but the result is always the same: a young black person is dead. More parents are in mourning. Another community is enraged.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board wrote, "Michael Brown didn't get due process." It's worse than that. Michael Brown was robbed of his humanity. His future was stolen. His parent's pride was crushed. His friends' hearts were broken. His nation's contempt for black youth has been exposed. A whole generation of young black people are once again confronted with the reality that they are not safe. Black America is left searching for that ever-elusive sense of justice. But what is justice?

Justice for Renisha would have looked like Michael Brown being able to attend college. Justice for Trayvon would have looked like Renisha McBride getting the help she needed the night of her accident. Justice for Oscar Grant would have looked like Trayvon Martin making it home to finish watching the NBA All-Star game, Skittles and iced tea in tow. And so on, and so on. Justice should be the affirmation of our existence.

In the absence of such justice, we take to the streets. We protest, we hold vigils and, yes, we riot. What options are left? Rioting/looting (what some would call rebellion) may not provide answers or justice. But what to do with the anger in the meantime? We are told to stay calm, but calm has not delivered justice either. Do we wait for the FBI to investigate? I guess, but what to do in the meantime, as the images coming from Ferguson echo Watts in 1965? We're told not to tear up our own communities, when time and time again we're reminded that they don't belong to us. Deaths like Michael Brown's tell us we don't belong here. What, then?

Counting the bodies is draining. With every black life we lose, we end up saying the same things. We plead for our humanity to be recognized. We pray for the lives of our young people. We remind everyone of our history. And then another black person dies.

Theodore Wafer's guilty verdict allowed us to breathe easy for a second, but the killing of Michael Brown sucked all the oxygen right back out of the room (or whatever was left after learning about Eric Garner. And John Crawford. And…). It's apparently a feature of what it means to be black in America: running from tragedy to tragedy, never having a moment to stop and catch your breath.


Read Next: Mychal Denzel Smith on why there is no such thing as a "war on whites."

http://newsone.com/3043701/michael-brown-st-louis/

Black People Have A Right To Be Raging Mad

August 12, 2014
By Michael Arceneaux
Newsone

Whatever perverse view the Ferguson police officer had of Michael Brown — and all Black men like him — before taking his life and leaving him to lay in his blood for hours afterward, his mother has made sure to counter such characterizations. Lesley McSpadden described her now-fallen son as a boy with the sort of disposition that made him more like “a big teddy bear” as opposed to someone who deserved to be slaughtered like a dog in the street. McSpadden went on to explain, “He was a good boy. He deserved none of this. We need justice for our son.”

RELATED: FBI Opens Civil Rights Case In Mike Brown Shooting

No stranger to this kind of disregard toward Black people’s humanity, attorney Benjamin Crump, who has since been retained by Brown’s parents, made his thoughts clear at a recent press conference. “I don’t want to sugarcoat it, their baby was executed in broad daylight,” Crump noted. “We want to know and see exactly what happened because this family rejects what the police authorities said at their press conference.”

As does Michael Brown’s friend, Dorian Johnson, who along with other eyewitnesses, disputed Brown’s killer’s claims that he shoved the officer and tried to wrestle the officer’s gun from him.

Any Black man living in this country and who values his life knows better than to tempt fate that way.

The truth may be less imaginative but no less chilling: Even when we don’t fight back, our presence is still intimidating to the point where select members of law enforcement feel no choice but to shoot us dead.

Such a revelation brings justified anger, and while Brown’s parents have encouraged protesters to remain peaceful, their rage is understandable.

Protesters arrived with signs and peaceful discourse and were greeted with dogs, rubber bullets, and tear gas.

And as New York Times correspondent Julie Bosman reported via Twitter, these rubber bullets were even shot in the direction of journalists and photographers. Meanwhile, area police officers describe the scene as a “war zone” and even when protesters sought an exit, the police reportedly blocked them from locating one. There’s since been word of one police officer referring to protesters as “fucking animals” during coverage on CNN.

Yet, some wonder why some of the protesters supposedly sang, “F*ck the police.”

And while I don’t necessarily excuse the acts of looters and those described as “rioters,” I do have empathy. This is why I take issue with Jonathan Capeheart’s “A Shameful Way To Protest the Michael Brown Shooting,” where he writes, “This is not how you make authorities understand your anger and concern. This is not how you get others to join your cause.”

You mean the authorities who shot a Black child in cold blood, left him in the street for hours as some sort of “example” to other people in his area, and greet peaceful protest with nothing but contempt and the intent to further antagonize? The same authorities who employ individuals who refer to the rightfully angry public as “f*cking animals.” The authorities who enter their neighborhood and limit their access?

I am not in the business of policing people’s emotions particularly with respect to dire situations such as these. Anger has its consequences, including irrational behavior. It doesn’t make it right, but learn to have compassion for people in a situation you have yet to experience. There’s a time for discussions on personal responsibility and there’s a time to look at tragedy and respect the rightful rage it creates.

Many people are angry and they are running on empty.

I am tired of having to write about people like Michael Brown. The same goes for 22-year-old John Crawford III, who was shot and killed after holding a BB gun in a Walmart. Like Brown’s mother, Crawford’s father described his son fondly, saying, “He was a good son and a good Father to his two children.”

We shouldn’t have to quantify our lives this way.

It doesn’t even matter if Michael Brown was a “big teddy bear” heading to college or that John Crawford was a good Dad. No matter what kind of personalities they had, there was no reason to slaughter them this way. We shouldn’t have to worry that once our lives are unjustly stripped from us, we will be purposely vilified in order to excuse our killers’ actions — as evidenced in the trending topic#IfTheyGunnedMeDown, and more hauntingly, in both trials relating to the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Renisha McBride.

Structural racism, widening economic inequality, a gun manufacturing lobby so hell bent on making money that they’ll probably see to it that guide dogs for the blind receive gun permits, plus the continuation of the militarization of police have all helped it be open season on Black people. You can’t help but feel exhaustion, grief, and yes, anger. To some, such rage may not “help our cause,” but the alternative clearly has its limitations too.

Cooler heads should prevail, but be clear about who the real hotheads causing trouble are.

 
http://newsone.com/3043864/potus-releases-statement-on-michael-brown-murder/

All, 

THE FOLLOWING RESPONSE IS A BULLSHIT STATEMENT BY A BULLSHIT PRESIDENT...
 
Kofi

 

POTUS Releases Statement on Michael Brown Murder

August 12, 2014
by Abena Agyeman-Fisher
Newsone

After teen Michael Brown’s fatal shooting by a police officer on Saturday, riots on Sunday, the Brown family holding a press conference on Monday, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announcing that they are investigating the shooting also on Monday, now President Barack Obama (pictured) has released the following statement regarding the incident.

From POTUS:

The death of Michael Brown is heartbreaking, and Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to his family and his community at this very difficult time. As Attorney General Holder has indicated, the Department of Justice is investigating the situation along with local officials, and they will continue to direct resources to the case as needed. I know the events of the past few days have prompted strong passions, but as details unfold, I urge everyone in Ferguson, Missouri, and across the country, to remember this young man through reflection and understanding. We should comfort each other and talk with one another in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds. Along with our prayers, that’s what Michael and his family, and our broader American community, deserve.

http://newsone.com/3043091/michael-brown-shooting/

NAACP: Feds Must Investigate Black Teen’s Murder By Police
 
FERGUSON, Mo. — A local NAACP chapter has called for a federal investigation into the death of a Black teenager who was shot by police in a St. Louis suburb.

Eighteen-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed Saturday afternoon near his grandmother’s house by a Ferguson police officer. St. Louis County police have not given a reason for the shooting, which happened in a predominantly black suburb a few miles north of downtown St. Louis.

After the shooting, a confrontation between police and hundreds of neighborhood residents lasted several hours, with shouts of “kill the police.” At the height of the post-shooting tensions, police called for about 60 other units to respond to the area in Ferguson, a city of about 21,000 residents, about two-thirds of whom are black.

The St. Louis County Police are investigating the shooting. But John Gaskin, a member of the St. Louis County NAACP, said the FBI should get involved “to protect the integrity of the investigation.”

He alluded to the 2012 racially charged shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by a Florida neighborhood watch organizer who was subsequently acquitted of murder charges, as well as the New York man who died from a police chokehold after he was confronted for selling individual cigarettes.

“With the recent events of a young man killed by the police in New York City and with Trayvon Martin and with all the other African-American young men that have been killed by police officers … this is a dire concern to the NAACP, especially our local organization,” Gaskin said.

State Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that she would ask the U.S. Justice Department on Monday for a formal investigation.

Brown’s grandmother, Desiree Harris, said she saw him running in her neighborhood Saturday afternoon. Just minutes later, she heard a commotion and went outside to check on it. She found Brown’s body less than two blocks away.

“When I got up there, my grandson was lying on the pavement. I asked the police what happened. They didn’t tell me nothing.”

Harris said her grandson had recently graduated high school and was looking forward to the future.

“My grandson never even got into a fight,” she said. “He was just looking forward to getting on with his life. He was on his way.”

McSpadden had harsh words Saturday for authorities: “You’re not God, you don’t get to decide when you get to take somebody from here,” she told KSDK.

Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson told the Post-Dispatch that the officer involved has been placed on paid administrative leave.

“We are hoping for calm and for people to give us a chance to conduct a thorough investigation,” Jackson said.

Lesley McSpadden, left, is comforted by her husband, Louis Head, after her 18-year-old son, Michael Brown was shot and killed by police in the middle of the street in Ferguson, Mo., near St. Louis on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2014. A spokesman with the St. Louis County Police Department, which is investigating the shooting at the request of the local department, confirmed a Ferguson police officer shot the man. The spokesman didn’t give the reason for the shooting. (AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Huy Mach)

http://newsone.com/3043919/ferguson-uprising-community-protests-cop-execution-of-michael-brown-live-stream/

Ferguson Uprising: Community Protests Cop Execution Of Michael Brown       [LIVE STREAM]
by Kirsten West Savali
August 12, 2014
Newsone

Ferguson, Missouri, a community unchained, continues to protest the heinous murder of unarmed teen Michael Brown by police officers last Saturday afternoon.

With cries of “paid assassins,” “no justice, no peace, and “f*ck the police,” the crowd continues to demand justice for the family of Mike Brown.

In the days since Brown’s slaying, police officers in Ferguson have called the outraged community “f*cking animals,” and descended on their neighborhoods with tanks, dogs, rubber bullets and tear gas.

But the citizens of Ferguson are not backing down.

Shocking Failure of President Obama in First 2012 Debate Leads to Immediate Crisis in His Campaign For Re-election

All,

It's time to tell the WHOLE TRUTH and nothing but about  last night's ludicrous "debate" between the President and one of the most despicable immoral cretins ever to run for the Presidency, Mitt Romney. Incredibly Obama LOST bigtime!  What an utterly pathetic performance by  the President!  He was unbelievably bad.  JUST FUCKING AWFUL.  He looked and sounded scared, defensive,  distracted, weak, unengaged, confused, and WOEFULLY ill-prepared.  It was a complete disaster that actually made Romney the pathological liar look and sound credible.  Which is absolutely stunning given the ever present reality that nearly every single thing out of his mouth was 100% FALSE.  And yet Obama stood there at the lectern stupidly looking down and scribbling notes (?)  and refusing for 95% of the entire evening to make any eye contact with either Romney or the camera, while endlessly droning on and on like he was pedantically lecturing at an absurdly boring college seminar.  It was a ridiculous performance which has inexplicably now given Romney an opening and a real opportunity to win this election that he NEVER should have had at all if only Obama had simply shown some GUTS and taken on his moronic opponent like a real LEADER and not an egocentric and cowardly chump looking for somebody to feel sorry for him and suggest that Romney was simply taking advantage of his "goodwill" or "politesse" or whatever the fuck kind of boneheaded and silly excuse the President was indulging in.  To say I was shocked, stunned, angry, or "disappointed" would all be vast understatements. Watching Obama tonight all I really felt was DISGUST...To think that I and so many other people are going to have to vote for this coward because the psychotic "alternative" is far worse just sums up why this particular presidential election is the DEPRESSING FARCE that it really is and one of the worst I've ever seen...I've been saying since 2008 that the only way that Obama could lose his bid for re-election in the end would be a lethal combination of RACISM AND HUBRIS...THEIR RACISM AND HIS HUBRIS.  After tonight I feel that way now more than ever...

Kofi 

Comment by Chuleenan on last night's debate that she sent to the Obama website:

I'm writing because I'm VERY disappointed in the president's debate performance tonight. He didn't engage, didn't debate. He lectured! I didn't want to hear a wonky talk from him. I can't believe he didn't attack Romney, didn't address the $716B in Medicare cuts that are in the Ryan budget but that Romney kept saying Obama was cutting. I know they're not cuts but why let Romney's dishonest repetition of those comments stand? I'm still voting for Obama but he better do much better at the next debate and act like he cares.

https://www.facebook.com/miketrose/posts/394573503942481

Seven Chances Obama Missed
www.newyorker.com

 
President Obama did badly in his first debate—by his standards, by those of his supporters, and in comparison to Mitt Romney.
 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/04/its-time-for-obama-to-bec_n_1940049.html

"Surely, Obama’s campaign strategists know this. So why did the President avoid a heavy counter-attack of Mitt Romney? A lot of black people in social media are saying it’s because the President has to avoid looking like an angry black man. No one (and by no one, they mean white people) wants the specter of a black man threatening or sassing the good, smart white businessman who only wants what’s best for us. Sigh.

During Obama’s April 26, 2007 primary debate in South Carolina, he received a softball question that he flubbed, perfectly illustrating how race binds his words and actions.

Q: The NAACP has asked tourists, groups and sporting events not to come to South Carolina until the confederate flag has been removed from the statehouse grounds. Do you agree with that? Why are you, the candidates, in South Carolina if they support the NAACP? A: I think that the Confederate flag should be put in a museum. That’s where it belongs. But we’ve got an enormous debate that’s taking place in this country right now. And we’ve got to engage the people of South Carolina in that debate.

He started out strong, then conceded that the confederate flag was a matter of debate. And when he got to the Oval Office, he continued the Presidential tradition of sending dead Confederate veterans a wreath for their Arlington National Cemetery monument."

All,

The quote above from the following article is an expression of a profound intellectual, moral, and political COWARDICE with respect to white people and their racist bullshit generally that I see far too often in blackfolks today and ESPECIALLY in the generation(s) under the age of 50.  In some very disturbing and self destructive ways I also see President Obama (who turned 51 on August 4) as a major and rather bizarre "generational spokesman" for these reactionary attitudes and values regarding the absurd racist category and pervasive American FEAR AND HATRED of the "angry black man" (who BTW is "also" a "human being").  Until we all wake up from and denounce this self induced COMA and COWARDICE among black people today we will be and remain SLAVES AND VICTIMS of the 21st century edition of the the racist doctrine of white supremacy--which is to say "Slavery by Another Name"... Whether Obama is President or not...

Kofi

It's Time For Obama To Become The 'Angry Black Man' 
By Kelly Virella

Dominion of New York    

10/04/2012

President Obama performed so badly in the debate last night that Amy Davidson from the New Yorker was able to cite seven opportunities he missed to nail Mitt Romney. I think her most egregious example was the President’s failure to swoop down on Romney’s comment that he needed to tell his attorney about the tax deduction Obama said U.S. corporations receive when they move American jobs abroad.

Romney said: “You said you get a deduction for getting a plant overseas. Look, I’ve been in business for twenty-five years. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I maybe need to get a new accountant.”

Obama should have said, according to Davidson:

a) “Sounds like you have a lot of experience moving jobs overseas.” b) “Governor, you’re the one who is wrong. You might even find that deduction in the hundred of pages of your own returns” c) “I don’t know, Governor, based on what we know about the rate of taxes you pay, you might want to keep that accountant.” (Nick Paumgarten came up with that one in The New Yorker’s live chat.)

The President’s failure to catch that rhetorical softball was bad, but far worse was his glaring refusal to confront and sting Romney for flip-flopping on big matters like his tax plan. The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Factcheck.org all agree that Romney has proposed a $5 trillion tax cut. As a Facebook friend of mine suggested, Obama could at any moment have pulled back and said, “Ok, yesterday you had one tax plan. Now you say have another. What exactly is your plan? I have time for you to explain it.”

Romney changed his entire tone during the debate, largely by parroting Obama’s talking points, leading a lot of viewers to wonder — egged on by moderator Jim Lehrer’s questions — how the two men actually differ. Smarter people than me, including Gene Demby writing for Dominion of New York, say the impact of Presidential debates is overstated. But if this debate is an exception, Romney’s parroting of Obama could very well be a major blow to Obama’s campaign.

Most likely, Romney’s logic is that if white independent voters are given a choice between a black man and a white man with the same ideas, the white voters will choose the white man, because he makes them feel more “comfortable.” It’s a very cynical way of thinking that could actually help Mitt Romney win this election.

Surely, Obama’s campaign strategists know this. So why did the President avoid a heavy counter-attack of Mitt Romney? A lot of black people in social media are saying it’s because the President has to avoid looking like an angry black man. No one (and by no one, they mean white people) wants the specter of a black man threatening or sassing the good, smart white businessman who only wants what’s best for us. Sigh.

During Obama’s April 26, 2007 primary debate in South Carolina, he received a softball question that he flubbed, perfectly illustrating how race binds his words and actions.
 
Q: The NAACP has asked tourists, groups and sporting events not to come to South Carolina until the confederate flag has been removed from the statehouse grounds. Do you agree with that? Why are you, the candidates, in South Carolina if they support the NAACP? 

A: I think that the Confederate flag should be put in a museum. That’s where it belongs. But we’ve got an enormous debate that’s taking place in this country right now. And we’ve got to engage the people of South Carolina in that debate.

He started out strong, then conceded that the confederate flag was a matter of debate. And when he got to the Oval Office, he continued the Presidential tradition of sending dead Confederate veterans a wreath for their Arlington National Cemetery monument.

I understand that as a black man at the helm of this nation, Obama is in a pickle. Ta-nehisi Coates wrote a great description of that predicament in his landmark “Fear of a Black President” essay:

“Part of Obama’s genius is a remarkable ability to soothe race consciousness among whites. Any black person who’s worked in the professional world is well acquainted with this trick. But never has it been practiced at such a high level, and never have its limits been so obviously exposed. This need to talk in dulcet tones, to never be angry regardless of the offense, bespeaks a strange and compromised integration indeed, revealing a country so infantile that it can countenance white acceptance of blacks only when they meet an Al Roker standard.”

I don’t pretend to be happy around white people, which is one reason I probably could never be successful in a corporate environment. But I do understand and respect the compromise that black people make everyday to get along in their workplaces, including the White House. I even understand why, back in 2007, Obama didn’t say about the Confederate flag, “The South lost a war that left hundreds of thousands of Americans dead, while defending slavery. The flag is history. Put it in a museum and move on.”

Putting up with BS is part of what keeps President Obama alive. So I’ve stood behind most of his compromises and concessions. But I’m at the point now where I really need to see someone in power — namely my President — challenge it.

The fear that white people will perceive us as angry controls the behavior of far too many powerful black people — possibly even the most powerful black person in the world, the President of the United States of America.

How long will we allow this type of fear to control us? When will be the right time for us to speak our minds on our jobs, in our Presidential debates?

If your answer is never, that’s a problem.

I’m not asking Obama to go Redd Foxx or Sherman Helmsley and start clowning Romney. I am simply asking him to be firm and direct, to be the authority figure that he is, to be the President.

Some white people won’t have a problem with it. Some will. It could cost him the election. It could propel him to victory.

The point is: No one really knows what would happen if the President truly challenged Romney in a debate. The only way to find out is by trying.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11930-a-nationally-televised-presidential-fail

A Nationally-Televised Presidential Fail
Thursday, 04 October 2012
By William Rivers Pitt, Truthout 
Op-Ed

President Barack Obama, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and moderator Jim Lehrer, center, after the presidential debate at the University of Denver, in Denver, October 3, 2012. (Photo: Doug Mills / The New York Times)

 
"I don't know how he let Romney get away with the crap he threw out tonight."

--Chris Matthews, MSNBC
10/03/2012

It is never a pleasant experience to lead an article with a Chris Matthews quote, but in this instance, it suits the moment. Something like 60 million people tuned in Wednesday night to watch President Obama and Governor Romney face each other in the first debate of the election. What they got, in the end, was a mess.

First of all, and let's just get this one out of the way, it is my devout hope that Jim Lehrer has moderated his last debate. The man lost control of the situation from the beginning, interrupted the participants on multiple occasions, and allowed Mr. Romney to steamroll through time limit after time limit. It was as if some recently-unemployed NFL replacement referee wandered onstage and took the moderator's chair. Lehrer seemed to have no conception of the purpose of his role in the event, threw flags that were not warranted, and called holding penalties that only served to interrupt the flow. Jim Lehrer, sad to say, made David Gregory's performance during the Scott Brown-Elizabeth Warren debate look like Masterpiece Theater by comparison, and that, my friends, is saying something.

But that gripe only goes so far. Mr. Obama, I am sure, was counseled to be cautious on Wednesday night; after all, he's ahead, and all the pressure was on Romney to come through in a big way. For my part, I had high hopes that Mr. Obama would be aggressive with Romney, pin him down on any number of the contradictions and outright fabrications that define the GOP candidate's campaign, and park the argument once and for all in front of the largest audience this race is likely to see: this guy is a fatuous gasbag, a rudderless bullshit artist of the purest ray serene, and here is the proof...and here, and here, and here, and also here and here, and here, and also here.

It did not happen that way.

Three moments from Wednesday night stand out for me in high relief.

The first came when Mr. Romney re-re-re-re-re-told the $716 billion Medicare lie around 43 minutes into the debate. To wit: "Under the president's plan, he cuts Medicare by $716 billion, takes that money out of the Medicare trust fund and uses it to pay for Obamacare," said Romney. This is a brazen lie, which was debunked in front of a massive television audience by former President Bill Clinton during the Democratic National Convention to lethal effect. This was around the tenth outright lie Romney told on Wednesday night, but would not be the last. Mr. Obama, in that moment, had a golden opportunity to blow Mr. Romney right out of the room. By calling Romney out on that one epic deception, by driving the point home hard and deep, Obama would have in the process called every other assertion Romney made, and would make, into question. Tag a liar for being a liar, and he stays a liar in the eyes of all in observance.

But that great big fat hanging meatball of a pitch sailed right over the plate, and Mr. Obama did not swing at it. A dozen other like-sized lies meatballed their way slowly and ponderously through the strike zone as the evening ground on, and in similar fashion, Mr. Obama turned up his nose and allowed them to slap into the catcher's mitt unmolested.

The second moment came during the "Role of Government" segment. Both candidates, when asked about their opinions on the role of government in American society, delivered a word-salad that best represents...well, nothing, really, at all. Word-salad is made of iceberg lettuce: it has no nutritional value, very little taste, but will pass through the system without upsetting the digestion. Romney and Obama both went into safe and happy mode during this portion of the debate, which I am sure pleased the Romney camp to no end, because it was during that segment that they were most in peril.

See, in a discussion of the role of government, Mr. Obama could have brought up Mr. Romney's widely-known opinions on 47 percent of the populace, and annihilated for all time the idea that half the country is comprised of victims who only want to live on the public dole. He didn't. Mr. Obama could have brought up the state-level GOP government jihad on women's reproductive rights, and indeed on women's very lives.

He didn't.

Mr. Obama served up another word-salad instead, and allowed Mr. Romney to escape a moment that could have defined not only this campaign, but the ongoing argument in this country. Mr. Obama had the opportunity, in front of 60 million people, to tattoo the catechism of the far right onto Mr. Romney's forehead, but once again, he let the moment slide by.

Which brings me, most frustratingly, to moment number three.

In minute 77 of the debate, Mr. Romney donned a big, sad hound-dog face and rolled off a litany of economic woes currently being endured by the American people. Here is the big chance, I thought as I watched, for Mr. Obama to put the bricks to his opponent in undeniable fashion. Here is the moment to repeat everything Romney said about high unemployment, more people on food stamps and all the rest of that sad, accurate assessment of modern American life...and then remind the country of the Republican Party's catastrophic record during the 21st century, remind everyone that Romney is a Republican, and say, "You built that."

Talk about a zinger.

But of course it didn't happen. Mr. Romney was allowed to go on and on about the economic problems America is dealing with without ever once having to recognize and answer for the fact that it was the policies of his own party - indeed, the policies he still espouses - that caused this whole debacle to begin with...because Mr. Obama failed to hold all that against him. It isn't as if Mr. Obama doesn't know these things. He does. We all do; it's axiomatic at this point. He just failed to call the guilty parties to account, on national television, in front of 60 million Americans, at the moment when doing so would have, quite simply, sealed the deal.

Mr. Obama had opportunity after opportunity to draw a bright, shining line between the policies he is pursuing and the demented nonsense being espoused by his opponent, and he could not summon the will to do so. Mr. Obama had the opportunity to underscore the dangerous madness boiling behind the scenes of Romney's plastic-fantastic campaign, and he failed to do so. Allowing such a freight of nonsense to pass undisturbed gives that freight unwarranted legitimacy, and Mr. Obama was too polite - or too whatever - to call out The Crazy for what it is.

Here's what I know for sure: The "mainstream" news media has been slavering for an opportunity to explode the headlines and TV shows with "Romney's Back, It's Close!" stories, because a close race is what moves the money their way. They got their chance on Wednesday night, and they will take it. Welcome to the rest of the week, and the weeks to come.

Here's what I know for sure: blaming the moderator is a weak excuse. Jim Lehrer was terrible, but Mr. Obama is very suddenly running out of time to demonstrate that he is the President of the United States of America, and not just a nice guy who allows himself to be interrupted with a pained look on his face by a professional liar and an incompetent media fossil.

Here's what I know for sure: despite a lot of people's giggling self-satisfied assurances over these last comfortable summer months that the deal has already gone down and the history of this race is already written, this election is, in fact and all of a sudden, far from over.

And they say Mr. Obama hasn't gotten anything done. On Wednesday night, he turned a rout into a contest again, and all by himself. Given the state of the race on Wednesday morning, that's quite the accomplishment.

Or something.

Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission of the author.

William Rivers Pitt is a Truthout editor and columnist.  He is also a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of three books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know," "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence" and "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation." He lives and works in Boston.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/04/mitt-romney-47-debate_n_1937966.html?ir=Black+Voices&ref=topbar

All,

Like I said earlier:  it was abject political COWARDICE on Obama's part that he never mentioned or attacked the "47%" statement by Romney the Liar...

Kofi

Mitt Romney's 47% Remarks Absent From Debate

Huffington PostOctober 4, 2012

DENVER -- Among many topics not mentioned during Wednesday night's first presidential debate was Mitt Romney's controversial comment about 47 percent of Americans viewing themselves as "entitled" to government benefits.

That comment, videotaped at a private Romney fundraiser for wealthy donors, has been at the epicenter of President Barack Obama's attacks on his GOP opponent over the past few weeks, with his campaign even putting out an ad on the topic. Its absence in the debate, therefore, was conspicuous and a bit head-scratching.

"Seriously, Dems, can you believe that Obama never used the 47% video? Incredible!" tweeted political analyst Larry Sabato.

"Why not push the 47 percent comment that is the subject of saturation ads? Keep pres above it? Or deny Gov Romney chance to explain it?" wondered Carl Hulse of The New York Times.

Some of the spin coming from the Obama campaign and its surrogates after the debate seemed contradictory or unbelievable. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley argued that Obama didn't mention the 47 percent comment because "he's a gentleman."

"I think the president wanted to come in tonight and not deliver attack lines," said Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki. "He wanted to lay out what his plans were -- what his economic plans were, how he was going to protect health care and we did exactly that."

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, meanwhile, said, "It just didn't come up in the course of the conversation. We continue to believe it is a very clear difference. Gov. Romney is trying to run away from that comment. It just didn't come up tonight."

These explanations don't work together. Either Obama was planning to discuss it and it didn't come up, or he wasn't planning on offering "zingers" at all. A top Obama official, when asked for a concise explanation, conceded that avoiding it was part of a strategic decision before the debate.

"We weren't going to do a bunch of political stuff tonight," the aide said, adding that the debate "was about looking in the camera and laying out the choice and the plans."

At the very least, Obama campaign senior adviser Robert Gibbs said on Tuesday that he expected moderator Jim Lehrer to bring up the topic.

"I have no doubt that the moderator is going to ask Romney maybe to spend a little bit more time telling us more elegantly, in his words, what he meant by what he said," Gibbs said, adding that he expected Obama to say "47 percent" 47 times.

Romney senior campaign adviser Kevin Madden also said he believed "a lot" of the reason it didn't come up was because Lehrer never raised it.

One Republican official had another explanation for why Obama didn't bring it up: "cockiness."

"I think it was a loser for the president to bring something like that up, because the president's created a monstrosity in this government," added Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus.

Still, it seemed like the Romney campaign was perhaps surprised the famous remarks were never mentioned. When asked whether Romney had prepared a response, Madden replied, "You prepare for everything, right? Sort of like the Boy Scouts."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/05/simon-schama-on-how-obama-threw-it-all-away-in-the-denver-debate.html

Simon Schama on How Obama Threw It All Away in the Denver Debate
by Simon Schama  

October 5, 2012

After the president’s calamitous performance on Wednesday night, historian Simon Schama asks if Obama has it within himself to turn things around.

As the whoppers tumbled from his smiling lips, Pinocchio Romney’s nose grew so long that it was practically poking out the eye of his mournful opponent. But even had it struck raw cornea, the president would have politely removed the intruding proboscis to say, “Governor Romney, I probably agree that the nation could do with a good eye-watering, though we disagree on the manner in which it would be administered,” or some such snappy retort.

President Barack Obama looks over to a group of supporters after walking off stage at a campaign event at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Thursday, Oct. 4, 2012, in Madison, Wis. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Photo)
 

Quick! Somebody call the Rejoinder-Implant Service before it’s too late! Which it already may be. Especially if Obama sticks with the prep team who did such a tiptop job in Denver. Maybe next time they’ll tell him: “It’s TV Mr. President. They don’t actually turn off the camera pointing at you when you’re not speaking, so all in all, best not to be caught constantly chin down, nose in your notes. How about paying attention to what the other guy is saying, looking his way even? That way you get to think of a response.”

Obama astoundingly allowed Governor 47 Percent, of all people, to pose as a paragon of social understanding. That’s how staggeringly bad it was.

It’s hard to see how there can be a comeback. God knows there weren’t any on offer from the presidential side even when Romney had the brass to claim that he and his party weren’t actually proposing tax cuts for upper income Americans! How about a reply playing on memories of a certain embarrassing video: “Well Governor, if you’ll pardon the expression, that’s RICH coming from you!”

To be fair to Obama, he did make an effort to contest some of the more outlandish suggestions, like that somehow he alone had been responsible for deficit bloat rather than the calamitous policy of his predecessor and other Republicans. And he asked Romney to specify the closed loopholes and terminated deductions that are supposed to make good the revenue lost from tax cuts. But he did so in a tone of weary exasperation, letting Romney slither around the question rather than treading on his tail until he came up with answers like “mortgage deductions,” as in “end of.” Instead of the Clintonian chuckle of disbelief we got the sour grimace of silent reproof.

Some of us saw this coming, for truthfully, while he was often an astonishingly inspiring orator before the crowds, Obama was not an especially nimble television debater in 2008. Hillary often cleaned his clock, but he had already got the nomination numbers in the bag, and he lucked out in the election with his opponent’s choice Sarah Palin as running mate and the unfolding of the Bush mega-meltdown.

Obama astoundingly allowed Governor 47 Percent, of all people, to pose as a paragon of social understanding. That’s how staggeringly bad it was.

What does this tell us? That Obama is someone who perhaps thinks of The People in an abstract rather than personal way—or who at least rises  to the occasion best when summoned by rhetoric. But television isn’t like that. Its “debates” aren’t really debates at all, but a way of making a personal connection with millions of people as if there were just a handful of them in the room. Television feeds on bright little bursts of energy, like the hopped up yapping that Romney has mastered along with the capacity of turning complex issues into a chummy infomercial. One of his lame pre-packaged zingers was that as a father of five boys, he’s gotten used to people repeating an untruth in the hope that saying it often enough would make it true. It was directed at Obama’s and the Democrats’ shocking allegation that Romney and his party are in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy. But if Obama had been remotely on his game it ought to have rebounded against Romney, for that is precisely what his party has proposed for three decades, all the while claiming against massive historical evidence that those tax cuts would pay for themselves by stimulating economic growth.

There was something else that went badly missing from what, if you are a Democrat, was a wretchedly dispiriting evening—and that was the opportunity of articulating a clear, strong, unapologetic affirmation of the principles by which the Democratic Party has tried to govern America since the New Deal: of compassion in times of hardship; of fairness when sacrifices are called for; of integrity and competence when cleaning up the wretched mess so often left by the other side; of realism in the face of wishful thinking; of a national community rather than a collection of  self-interested individuals. Those are, in fact, the themes that were sounded loud and clear at the Democratic convention and which have been reiterated by Obama himself many times on the campaign trail. But astoundingly he allowed Governor 47 Percent, of all people, to pose as a paragon of social understanding! That’s how staggeringly bad it was. And it was because he and his team thought it would be a smart move just to coast along on poll numbers that were already evaporating before the debate began.

Never has such a strong political hand been so needlessly, carelessly, calamitously thrown away.

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Simon Schama is a professor of history and art history at Columbia University.  He has been an essayist and critic for The New Yorker since 1994, his art criticism winning the National Magazine Award in 1996.

http://cumberlink.com/news/opinion/columnists/rich_lewis/opinion-nice-guy-obama-may-have-lost-the-debate/article_b08d1f98-0dd7-11e2-bfc6-001a4bcf887a.html?comment_form=true

Opinion: 
Nice guy Obama may have lost the debate

by Rich Lewis

Sentinel Columnist
 
On the issues as presented, Mitt Romney was the winner of the debate by a fairly wide margin. However, it is not at all clear that he achieved the kind of personal appeal that so many observers thought was a central goal of the event for him.

Romney was on the attack from the minute the debate started — and he was well prepared. On issue after issue, he went after President Obama with details and examples to support his claim that the president had failed to follow through on promises to bring the country out of recession.

That was to be expected. Romney is smart and experienced and, realizing its importance, he’d been preparing for this debate for a long time.

What was not expected was the president’s failure to punch back with any force or authority. Obama is widely regarded as a great speaker — and he has proven to be so on numerous occasions. But debating requires a different set of skills — and the president either doesn’t have them or chose not to use them. In contrast to Romney’s rapid-fire, tightly structured attacks, Obama was generally tongue-tied, often groping for the right words and often not quite finding them.

Romney never abandoned the offensive, while the president made only a few, somewhat feeble references to well known weaknesses in Romney’s policy positions.

In short, it was boxer and punching bag for most of the night.

The two men’s body language only reinforced the impression that Romney was steamrolling the president.

Romney delivered his criticisms directly to the president, head up and eyes straight ahead. He also spent a lot of time addressing the camera — which, given the way television works, means addressing the millions of viewers who had tuned in to watch.

Obama, in contrast, spent an inordinate amount of time talking to moderator Jim Lehrer — probably the least important member of that audience of millions. On the occasions where Obama spoke directly to the camera, he was effective, but there was far too little of that.

Worst of all, though, the president often did not raise his head to look squarely at Romney during the times when he addressed him directly. He seemed to be avoiding confrontation — appearing deferential and even a bit intimidated.

If you had turned off the sound and just watched the picture, you would have bet that Romney was the president and Obama the challenger. You can bet neither Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton would have allowed themselves to shrink in that way.

So, on the one hand, many of Romney’s statements about Obama’s failures, or the virtues of his own plans, went unchallenged in any effective way. At the same time, the president seemed to be physically retreating from the barrage of arguments pouring from the other podium.

As for closing statements, Obama’s was rambling and lacked a central message. Romney’s was forceful and neatly packaged all his key positions.

That adds up to a solid win for Romney.
Now for the other side of the coin — and there is always another side.

Though easily the dominant debater, Romney was far from completely appealing. He was in energy overdrive the entire night – almost manic at times — speaking so rapidly and intensely that I half expected him to burst into flames. After an hour or so, Romney was simply wearing me out. I was exhausted. There was something unpleasantly machine-like in the presentation — which, of course, plays into a stereotype that Romney has been struggling to overcome. He was mouthing the right words, stressing his compassion for the poor and downtrodden — but the words were not in synch with the affect.

If, as many people have suggested, Romney needed to make people like him more than he needed to score argumentation points, then he may well have won the battle and lost the war. We’ll see plenty of polls in the next few days to suggest which way that falls.

Obama may have been hindered by his own concern about stereotypes. From the beginning of his rise to the presidency, Obama has been wary of coming across as the “angry black man.” Just this week, Fox News’ Sean Hannity and other right-wing media agitators were trumpeting “discovery” of a video from 2007 of Obama speaking at a black college that purportedly shows him engaging in a radical, racial politics that they claim he deliberately hides from the general public. It was a stupid ploy — the video had been extensively discussed in the media in 2008. Nonetheless, it may have touched a nerve in the Obama campaign and caused them to advise the president to avoid appearing overly aggressive in the debate. But there is a big difference between careful coolness and complete passivity.

At the same time, the president was an appealing figure. Passivity can be read as humility. The president went through a natural range of emotional expressions. He came across as what we know him to be — a thoughtful, reasonable, compassionate guy. Still, being a nice guy doesn’t mean you have to roll over and surrender. That’s something the Obama camp must fix before the next debate.

I have no doubt that most people will say that Romney won the debate. And that is true in many ways.

But it doesn’t mean he won the hearts of voters who have concerns about his core values and intentions.
 
Rich Lewis’ email address is rlcolumn@comcast.net.

Maureen Dowd On President Obama's Jobs Bill Speech and the Dire Necessity To Revive His Administration (Before It's Too Late)

Maureen Dowd
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/opinion/sunday/dowd-sleeping-barry-awakes.html?src=un&feedurl=http://json8.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.jsonp

"As always, the same questions persist in our long, fruitless effort to pierce the Obama opacity. How long can the president sustain the sizzle before the fizzle? Does he get it together when the country’s in trouble or when he’s in trouble?"

"It’s still impossible to sum up what Obama’s presidency is about right now, except saving his own job."

All,

Though many of his supporters simply don't wanna hear it about this President, I think Maureen Dowd is unfortunately 100% correct in her general assessment of Obama's mixed and confused motives...Let's face facts: Obama's biggest and most disturbing character flaw (which far too often rules his political instincts and thus his general goals, strategy, and tactics) is and has always been HUBRIS. When the overweening demands and desires of personal ego begin to dictate and guide how one approaches the resolution of problems--and the resulting insecurities when things inevitably go against you or when unforseen adversity strikes--it serves as a big and very distracting impediment to having the courage, tenacity, integrity, and perserverance that it takes to get important things done--whether a large number of people oppose, hate, or dismiss you or not. One can't possibly be "loved" or even "liked" by "everyone" and it's a sign of real weakness in a person when they think they can simply 'charm' or impress people enough to either receive their fawning, uncritical support and/or effectively neutralize ones opposition enough to make it possible to ultimately prevail in any and all circumstances. When one stupidly "negotiates from behind" all the time as Obama invariably and inexplicably does when locked in any battle with his and our political and ideological enemies, it doesn't suggest-- as Obama keeps vainly insisting-- that he is simply trying to be 'fair, objective, and balanced' in his approach but rather that he is simply afraid of them and their fierce opposition because it would expose him to being publicly rebuffed and thus embarrassed. But of course this kind of opposition does lead to Obama's enemies rebuffing his advances and he winds up being both defeated and embarrassed anyway. So it's a double bind of his own making (or subconscious/unconscious choosing). This is the eternal dilemma that Obama finds himself in because he is not fundamentally informed or guided by a firm commitment to specific PRINCIPLES and VALUES which supersede and transcend one's personal ego involvement and which determine how and why one engages their opposition in the public and private combat over ideas, priorities, and desires...
Kofi


OP-ED COLUMNIST

Sleeping Barry Awakes
By MAUREEN DOWD
September 10, 2011
New York Times

WASHINGTON

The president was strong and House Republicans were conciliatory.

There was only one teensy-weensy problem: The president is weak and House Republicans are obstructionist.

Congressional Republicans, heeding polls indicating that their all-out assault on President Obama was risky, finally tempered their public comments after the jobs speech on Thursday and stopped acting like big jerks.

Obama, heeding plummeting polls and beseeching voices from his despairing base, finally deigned to get tough.

In the capital of political tactics, it was just another fine day of faking it.

The president’s supporters had a single reaction to the fiery address to Congress: It’s about time. But as before when Obama had tried to pivot to jobs, an emergency intervened: Democratic surrogates on TV had to talk about the 9/11 plot before being able to talk about the jobs plan.

In case reporters were too dense to get the point, Eric Cantor’s office underlined it in an unsubtle press release. The headline, “Cantor, House Republicans Strike New Tone, Focus On Areas Of Common Ground,” acknowledged that the snarky, obstreperous old tone wasn’t working for them.

Cantor, the House majority leader, who has had an antagonistic relationship with the president, also wrote an op-ed piece for The Richmond Times-Dispatch demurely titled, “Job Creation — A Priority Both Sides Can Agree On.”

Acting less like the bane of Obama’s existence, John Boehner encouraged Republicans to attend the speech and offered no formal response.

Slyly going into Cantor territory on Friday, the president promised a sustained campaign to sell Americans on his plan. A re-energized Obama urged students at the University of Richmond to lobby lawmakers: “I want you to call, I want you to e-mail, I want you to tweet, I want you to fax, I want you to visit, I want you to Facebook, send a carrier pigeon.” (No letters? No wonder the Postal Service is going bust.)

As always, the same questions persist in our long, fruitless effort to pierce the Obama opacity. How long can the president sustain the sizzle before the fizzle? Does he get it together when the country’s in trouble or when he’s in trouble?

Certainly, Obama cares that Americans are in pain. Yet he has been unable to move away from his academic disdain for hardball and his alpha addiction to buzzer-beating wins.

So while the country has grown ever more scared, miserable, broke and broken, the president has too often been absent, quiet, ambivalent, impenetrable and inscrutable.

The master of his own narrative in print let the Republicans define the narrative in politics. And Obama likes to come in late, after the other players have staked out positions. It’s a strangely risk-averse tact, given the fact that he took two of the boldest risks in history — jumping into the presidential race in the first place and giving the kill order on Bin Laden on sketchy intelligence.

But when his polls plummeted, the Sleeping Beauty President roused himself to transform back into a semblance of the 2008 electrifying phenomenon.

He always must be chided and cajoled before he gets re-engaged. Among other times, it happened during his campaign, when key donors went public with their displeasure at his laconic attitude.

He’s eternally the gifted and sometimes indolent student who has to be wooed and pressured into making the game-winning shot. As one aide joked, “We work 6 to 9 and he works 9 to 6.”

But the odd rhythms of his temperament are less interesting when so much is at stake. Bill Clinton drifted for a time during his presidency, also needing the guillotine to focus his mind. But at least he was drifting on an ocean of peace and prosperity. Disengaging when the United States and the world are going to hell is playing with fire.

We never knew which Clinton would show up: Saturday Night Bill, as Dick Morris called the man of uncurbed appetites, or Sunday Morning Bill, a talented and passionate pol. Now Obama offers his own version of the split-personality presidency: Do we get Energizer Barry or Enervating Barry?

It’s deeply confusing to a country that’s already confused, as well as to the Democratic Party. Will he ever get that through his magnificent brain? The nation deserves clarity and consistency.

Each time Obama goes through a period of lying doggo, his opponents — from Hillary in the primaries to the Tea Party in the summer of 2009 to the House Republicans during the debt-ceiling debacle — get an infusion of oxygen.

The reawakened Republicans are no longer the loyal opposition. They’re revolutionary Bolsheviks who want to eat Obama alive.

When the president stays insulated with his little circle that doesn’t know how to push his messages, and he lets the nihilist Republicans go unchallenged in their crazy claims to be saving the country they’re hurting, he sets the stage for Rick Perry.

It’s still impossible to sum up what Obama’s presidency is about right now, except saving his own job.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/us/politics/09payroll.html?ref=economy


Obama Challenges Congress on Job Plan

Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Obama presented a jobs plan to a joint session of Congress on Thursday night in the Capitol.

By MARK LANDLER
September 8, 2011
New York Times


WASHINGTON — Mixing politically moderate proposals with a punchy tone, President Obama challenged lawmakers on Thursday to “pass this jobs bill” — a blunt call on Congress to enact his $447 billion package of tax cuts and new government spending, designed to revive a stalling economy and his own political standing.

Speaking to a joint session of Congress, Mr. Obama ticked off a list of measures that he emphasized had been supported by both Republicans and Democrats in the past. To keep the proposals from adding to the swelling federal deficit, Mr. Obama also said he would encourage a more ambitious target for long-term reduction of the deficit.

“You should pass this jobs plan right away,” the president declared over and over in his 32-minute speech, in which he eschewed his trademark soaring oratory in favor of a plainspoken appeal for action, stiffened by a few sarcastic political jabs.

With Republicans listening politely but with stone-faced expressions, Mr. Obama said, “The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy.”

Though Mr. Obama’s proposals — including an expansion of a cut in payroll taxes and new spending on public works — were widely expected, the package was substantially larger than predicted, and much of the money would flow into the economic bloodstream in 2012. The pace would be similar to that of the $787 billion stimulus package passed in 2009, which was spread over more than two years. Analysts said that, if passed, the package would likely lift growth somewhat.

While Republicans did not often applaud Mr. Obama,, party leaders greeted his proposals with uncharacteristic conciliation. Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, and other Republicans signaled a willingness to consider at least some of the measures, reflecting what some have described as anger in their home districts over the political dysfunction in Washington.

“The proposals the president outlined tonight merit consideration,” Speaker John A. Boehner said in a statement. “We hope he gives serious consideration to our ideas as well.”

Still, analysts said it was unlikely that the White House would win Congressional approval for many elements of the package.

For Mr. Obama, burdened by the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, the address crystallized the multiple challenges he faces, among them reviving a torpid economy with a Republican House that, however receptive some of its leaders appeared Thursday, has staked out a relentlessly confrontational course with the White House. The president must also shake off a perception, after so many speeches on the economy, that he has not delivered on the promise of his oratory.

After weeks on the defensive, however, Mr. Obama seemed to get off his back foot. He framed the debate over the economy as a tug-of-war between mainstream American values and a radical, antigovernment orthodoxy that holds that “the only thing we can do restore prosperity is just dismantle government, refund everyone’s money, let everyone write their own rules, and tell everyone they’re on their own.”

With a difficult re-election bid looming, Mr. Obama declared that his vision would appeal to more voters. “These are real choices we have to make,” he said. “And I’m pretty sure I know what most Americans would choose. It’s not even close.”

At times, he edged into sarcasm. Promoting the extension in the payroll tax cut to Republicans, Mr. Obama said: “I know some of you have sworn oaths never to raise any taxes on anyone for as long as you live. Now is not the time to carve out an exception and raise middle-class taxes, which is why you should pass this bill right away.”

The centerpiece of the bill, known as the American Jobs Act, is an extension and expansion of the cut in payroll taxes, worth $240 billion, under which the tax paid by employees would be cut in half through 2012. Smaller businesses would also get a cut in their payroll taxes, as well as a tax holiday for hiring new employees. The plan also provides $140 billion for modernizing schools and repairing roads and bridges — spending that Mr. Obama portrayed as critical to maintaining America’s competitiveness.

The president insisted that everything in the package would be paid for by raising the target for long-term spending cuts to be negotiated by a special Congressional committee. He did not go through the arithmetic, but said he would send a detailed proposal to Congress in a week. Senior White House officials said the amount of increased spending cuts would hinge on how much of the plan gets through Congress.

Mr. Obama said most of his proposals had support from both parties, a contention that Republican leaders rejected. “There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation,” he said. “Everything in here is the kind of proposal that’s been supported by Democrats and Republicans.”

After a summer consumed by bitter debate over how to reduce the debt and deficit, Mr. Obama kept his focus squarely on the need to create jobs. He acknowledged that the government’s role in fixing the problem was limited, but rejected the Republican argument that Washington’s major contribution would be to eliminate regulations.

“Ultimately, our recovery will be driven not by Washington, but by our businesses and our workers,” he said. “But we can help. We can make a difference. There are steps we can take right now to improve people’s lives.”

Still, even if every one of the proposals were passed by Congress — something that is extremely unlikely to happen — the measures would not solve the economy’s problems, forecasters say, though they would likely spur some growth.

And that encapsulates the quandary for Mr. Obama: so long as there is no evidence of improvement in the job market, his economic call to arms — backed by a familiar list of proposed remedies — may not resonate with an American public grown weary of stagnation and an unemployment rate stuck at 9.1 percent.

Even the scheduling of the speech set off a tempest when Mr. Boehner rejected Mr. Obama’s request to address Congress on Wednesday, the night of a Republican presidential debate. At Mr. Boehner’s request, the White House agreed to move the date to Thursday, which meant Mr. Obama had to wrap up his remarks before the New Orleans Saints and the Green Bay Packers kicked off the N.F.L. season. As Mr. Obama was entering the chamber, microphones caught him assuring a lawmaker that his speech would not interfere with the game.

In setting out his program, Mr. Obama was, in effect, daring Republicans not to pass measures that enjoy support among independent voters and business leaders. If the Republicans refuse to embrace at least some of the measures, administration officials said, Mr. Obama will take them directly to the American public, portraying Congress as do-nothing and obstructionist.

“Maybe some of you have decided that those differences are so great that we can only resolve them at the ballot box,” Mr. Obama told the lawmakers. “But know this: the next election is fourteen months away. And the people who sent us here — the people who hired us to work for them — they don’t have the luxury of waiting fourteen months.”