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Obama held a press conference today, mostly to attack those who criticize his surrender on taxes.
Remember Jon Lovitz as Michael Dukakis in an SNL parody of the Bush-Dukakis debate, saying, “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy”? I’m guessing every time Hillary Clinton sees Barack Obama speak about the Republicans, she wonders how she could possibly have lost to him. I know McCain does.
WHAT HIS NUMBER ONE PRIORITY IS: “My number one priority is to do what’s right for the American people, for jobs, and for economic growth.” And how’s that going?
REALLY? “This is real money for real people that will make a real difference in the lives of the folks who sent us here.”
WHAT SOME WOULD HAVE PREFERRED: “Now, I know there are some who would have preferred a protracted political fight, even if it had meant higher taxes for all Americans, even if it had meant an end to unemployment insurance for those who are desperately looking for work.” The assumption here is that he would have lost the fight. It’s pretty much always Obama’s working assumption that he will lose any fight. And then, funnily enough, he does.
WHAT HE’S SYMPATHETIC TO: “And I understand the desire for a fight. I’m sympathetic to that.” If by sympathetic, you mean condescending.
WELL THAT CAN’T BE TRUE, BECAUSE YOU JUST AGREED TO EXTEND THEM: “I’m as opposed to the high-end tax cuts today as I’ve been for years.”
ALSO IN THE SHORT RUN. YOU KNOW, NOW. “In the long run, we simply can’t afford them.”
THAT MUST HAVE THE REPUBLICANS TREMBLING: “And when they expire in two years, I will fight to end them”.
AND REPUBLICANS’ RESPONSIBILITY IS TO PREVENT THAT. EVIDENTLY. “And my responsibility as President is to do what’s right for the American people.”
HE HAS AN OPTION! YAY! “Now, I have an option, which is to say, you know what, I’m going to keep fighting a political fight, which I can’t win in the Senate”. Well, not with an attitude like that, mister.
“Or alternatively, what I can do is I can say that I am going to stick to my position that those folks get relief, that people get help for unemployment insurance. And I will continue to fight before the American people to make the point that the Republican position is wrong.” Oo, he’ll fight. Well, fight to make a point. Which isn’t so much fighting, in the strict sense of the term, as meekly objecting.
But the reason he can’t fight, is that there would be consequences for people. Er, what did he think running a country was about? “Now, if there was not collateral damage, if this was just a matter of my politics or being able to persuade the American people to my side, then I would just stick to my guns, because the fact of the matter is the American people already agree with me.”
And the reason he can’t win, is that the Republicans are, um, determined. “Well, let me say that on the Republican side, this is their holy grail, these tax cuts for the wealthy.”
“But the fact of the matter is, I haven’t persuaded the Republican Party. I haven’t persuaded Mitch McConnell and I haven’t persuaded John Boehner.” Dude, it isn’t about persuasion.
YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS TEMPTING? CHOCOLATE CAKE. “I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case, the hostage was the American people and I was not willing to see them get harmed.” So is the concern that the American people will get harmed, or that he’d be blamed for it rather than the hostage-takers?
WHAT HE COULD HAVE ENJOYED: “Now, I could have enjoyed the battle with Republicans over the next month or two, because as I said, the American people are on our side.” And yet, with an entire people, whose leader you are, behind you, you keep losing. Funny that.
WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN UNACCEPTABLE: “if we had made a determination that the deal was a permanent tax break for high-income individuals in exchange for these short-term things that people need right now, that would have been unacceptable.” So we’ve got surrender on the instalment plan instead.
A VERY UNIQUE CIRCUMSTANCE: “Q: If I may follow, aren’t you telegraphing, though, a negotiating strategy of how the Republicans can beat you in negotiations all the way through the next year because they can just stick to their guns, stay united, be unwilling to budge -- to use your words -- and force you to capitulate? THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think so. And the reason is because this is a very unique circumstance. This is a situation in which tens of millions of people would be directly damaged and immediately damaged, and at a time when the economy is just about to recover.”
HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY: “And I will be happy to see the Republicans test whether or not I’m itching for a fight on a whole range of issues.”
WHAT HE SUSPECTS: “I suspect they will find I am.”
HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY: “I’m happy to have that battle. I’m happy to have that conversation. I just want to make sure that the American people aren’t harmed while we’re having that broader argument.”
HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY: “I am happy to be tested over the next several months about our ability to negotiate with Republicans.”
A SAFE PLACE: “Part of what I want to do is to essentially get the American people in a safe place so that we can then get the economy in a stable place. And then we’re going to have to have a broad-based discussion across the country about our priorities.” And how you’ll surrender them.
AND NOW IT’S EVEN LESS SO: “And that’s going to mean looking at the tax code and saying, what’s fair, what’s efficient. And I don’t think anybody thinks the tax code right now is fair or efficient.”
WHAT HE DOESN’T SEE: “And in that context, I don’t see how the Republicans win that argument. I don’t know how they’re going to be able to argue that extending permanently these high-end tax cuts is going to be good for our economy when, to offset them, we’d end up having to cut vital services for our kids, for our veterans, for our seniors.”
HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY: “But I’m happy to listen to their arguments.”
Oh dear muppety Odin, how does he continually fail to learn anything? It doesn’t fucking matter whether the Republicans “win that argument,” because it’s not an argument, and anyway you’ve said, several times in this press conference, that they’ve lost the argument, as shown by the polls. It’s not an intellectual discussion. To paraphrase Sean Connery, he brought a well-reasoned disquisition to a gun fight. And plans to keep doing so in the future. You’d think all the bullet holes in his policies would be enough of a fucking hint by now.
And by the way, my lame duck-droid governor, Mr. Schwarzenegger, has called a special session of the Legislature so that he can push yet again his proposal to end vision care for poor children. So fuck all Republicans, is what I’m saying.
On why he doesn’t think the R’s will hold raising the debt ceiling hostage: “But once John Boehner is sworn in as Speaker, then he’s going to have responsibilities to govern. You can’t just stand on the sidelines and be a bomb thrower.” Has he ever MET John Boehner? Does he not remember Newt Gingrich? Of course a Republican speaker of the House can stand on the sidelines and be a bomb thrower.
What will be different when these temporary extensions end in two years? “we will have had two years to discuss the budget -- not in the abstract, but in concrete terms.” Oh good, more “discussion.” “And I think it becomes pretty clear, after you go through the budget line by line, that if in fact they want to pay for $700 billion worth of tax breaks to wealthy individuals, that that’s a lot of money and that the cuts -- corresponding cuts that would have to be made are very painful.” First, they don’t want to pay for the tax breaks. They don’t care about paying for the tax breaks. I thought we’d established that. Second, would the very painful cuts be to the wealthy? No? Then they don’t care. They do not fucking care.
And then he got down to really bitching about his critics on the left: “This is the public option debate all over again. So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans, something that Democrats had been fighting for for a hundred years, but because there was a provision in there that they didn’t get that would have affected maybe a couple of million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people and the potential for lower premiums for 100 million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise.” Well, let’s see, first you said you wanted it included, and then when the other side objected, it wasn’t included. What’s your definition of compromise, if that isn’t compromise?
I DON’T KNOW, SEEMS TO WORK PRETTY DAMNED WELL FOR THE REPUBLICANS: “Now, if that’s the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then let’s face it, we will never get anything done.” As opposed to getting everything done the Republicans want done. “People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position...” I know I’m feeling terribly satisfied right now. “...and no victories for the American people. And we will be able to feel good about ourselves and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are and how tough we are”. As opposed to your feeling sanctimonious about how pure your intentions are and how realistic you are.
Have you noticed how Obama is never so sanctimonious as when he’s castigating the left for being so sanctimonious?
“This country was founded on compromise.” Er, the American War of Semi-Independence? (Update: Rick Perlstein writes on his Facebook page, “Give me liberty or give me illness.” “Loosen my restraints somewhat or give me death.”) “I couldn’t go through the front door at this country’s founding. And if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn’t have a union.” Oh, I see, the compromise of slavery. That’s your standard for a really good deal, is it? I guess the unemployed should be happy the Republicans weren’t demanding a repeal of the 13th Amendment. Yet.
Headline of the Day: NYT: “U.S. Strains to Stop Arms Flow.” Given that the US is by far the largest purveyor of arms in the world (a fact which makes a belated appearance in the story’s 7th paragraph), this headline produced in my mind the unfortunate image of Uncle Sam on the toilet, shitting out an unstoppable diarrhoeal flow of weaponry. Now that image is in your head too – you’re welcome.
That 7th paragraph notes that the US “has drawn criticism” for starting an arms race in the Middle East with its bounteous provision of weaponry to Israel and Saudi Arabia, “But it has also taken on a leading role as traffic cop”. But? The NYT persists in seeing a contradiction where there is none, presenting a narrative in which the US is bravely and benevolently attempting to restore sanity to the world, where in fact the massive flow of arms from the United States is part and parcel of the policy of denying to others, such as the Palestinians of Gaza, the means of defending themselves. Honestly, this is so obvious that I feel silly even having to point it out, but it does seem to have eluded the Times.
Secretary of War Jacob Dickinson, who recently visited the Philippines, of which he is overlord, if I understand the organizational structure of 1910 US colonialism correctly, says the desire of the Filipinos for independence is “very general,” but tough shit because they simply won’t be ready for it in the present generation. But he sees many signs of progress: 493 miles of railroads, education, less headhunting, everyone’s learning English, lepers are being sent to a leper colony, etc.
Two negroes who allegedly burned a barn are lynched near Monroeville, Alabama.
The coroner’s jury in Newark is investigating the fire that killed 25 female employees of the Wolf Muslin Undergarment Company last month. The company’s vice president testifies that the forewoman, Anna Haag, who conveniently died in the fire, was completely and entirely to blame.
Taft delivered his State of the Union Address, at 27,651 words the longest ever (a record still unbeaten), possibly because he insisted on summarizing every damn thing that happened everywhere in the world in 1910. Lots of stuff about arbitration of border disputes, tariffs, etc. Typical sentence: “All these tariff negotiations, so vital to our commerce and industry, and the duty of jealously guarding the equitable and just treatment of our products, capital, and industry abroad devolve upon the Department of State.” The reading-out of the document in Congress emptied the place out, with only a dozen congresscritters remaining to the end, and those mostly talking amongst themselves. The reading in the Senate took half the time as in the House, because of “liberal skipping.”
Taft wants the next (Democratic) Congress to give him a new banking law, federal incorporation of businesses, Panama canal fortifications, and subsidies for American shipping, especially to South America. He does not want any new legislation regulating corporations, saying “we can stop for a while” and just enforce the existing ones. He wants Alaska to be ruled by a commission appointed by himself, the same system as the US uses in the Philippines. His proposed budget for fy 1911-12 is $630,494,013.12, $52,964,887.36 less than for fy 1910-1, not counting Panama Canal expenses. A $50 million budget surplus is expected.
The US has arrested Juan Sanchez Azcona, former member of the Mexican Congress, opposition journalist, and a revolutionary leader (later Madera’s secretary) on trumped-up Mexican charges of obtaining money under false pretenses.
The Justice Dept indicts the “Bathtub Trust,” 16 companies and 32 individuals which control 85% of the enamel ironware bathtubs, sinks and lavatories made in the US.
The Immigration Commission reports to Congress, recommending restrictions on the immigration of unskilled laborers. It says that most immigrants these days have been economic immigrants, not people fleeing intolerable conditions, so Americans should stop “treat[ing] that immigration movement from the standpoint of sentiment”. It suggests several possible methods of restricting immigration: a literacy test, the exclusion of unmarried unskilled laborers, quotas on “particular races,” etc. It wants to add to the exclusions or limits on Chinese, Japanese and Korean immigrants an agreement with the British Empire to ban Indians.
800 Mexican soldiers are approaching 600 revolutionists and a battle is anticipated soon in Chihuahua. It is expected to be small and yappy.
Schoolboys in Jersey City whose current school is being closed went on “strike” to protest that they were being transferred to a crappy school rather than the good one with a swimming pool and gym. A police sergeant broke up the strike by beating them with his belt. The Times finds this hilarious
Headline of the Day -100: “Big Kaiser Wilhelm Drops Screw at Sea.” Turns out to be a German liner called Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, not the actual Kaiser Wilhelm. One of its propellers isn’t functioning. Again, that’s a ship, not the actual German head of state.
Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science, dies of natural causes at 89.
An actor and a critic duel with swords on the outskirts of Paris, lit by automobile lamps. The actor ran the critic through the lung.
BP is objecting to government estimates of the Gulf oil leak, on which fines will be based, saying they “rely on incomplete or inaccurate information, rest in large part on assumptions that have not been validated, and are subject to far greater uncertainties than have been acknowledged.” So exactly like BP’s safety procedures then.
According to Episcopal Bishop Charles Brent, Filipinos don’t like Americans.
The New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals writes a letter to Kaiser Wilhelm to complain about a statue in Cologne of the kaiser on a horse with a docked tail. Er, the horse has the docked tail, not the kaiser.
Britain is also censoring Strauss’s opera Salome: the Lord Chamberlain has commanded that John the Baptist’s head not be visible.
The French Academy of Sciences is divided on whether to admit Marie Curie, who, their keen scientific observation has detected, is a woman.
In Italy, a military airplane crashes, killing an officer and a private. This is the first multiple-fatality plane crash in history.
Name of the Day: One of the witnesses at today’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell hearings: Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Roughead.
Massachusetts Governor-Elect Eugene Foss has embarked on a campaign to derail Senator Henry Cabot Lodge being re-elected. It’s worth spending a little time on it as a window into the rhetoric and reality of representative democracy in 1910. In those pre-17th Amendment days of indirect election of US senators, Foss’s campaign was also necessarily indirect, attempting to raise enough public ire to pressure the Legislature, but having to do so right after a new Legislature was elected, when that pressure would be least effective.
Foss gave an anti-Lodge speech to a meeting following a torchlight procession in Provincetown. He insisted that the November election which elected him and overthrew the incumbent Republican governor was also a “vote of censure” on Lodge, who should have responded by standing down. Instead, “Working in silence and secrecy he resorts to his self-constituted political machine, the machine which has dominated Massachusetts politically for years. He is seeking the counsels of those whom he serves, the privileged interests, and ignores the verdict of the people. He has never mingled with the people or worked shoulder to shoulder with them. He has never been a vital part of the industrial life of the Commonwealth.”
Foss attacks Lodge for sponsoring, early in his career, the failed Force Bill, “a measure that causes every honest man to blush.” The Force Bill was an attempt to federalize the running of elections in the South, to prevent African-American disfranchisement (and also ensure Republican dominance there). Lodge has also opposed federal income tax and favored high tariffs. “I fail to find in Sen. Lodge’s record any vote in favor of the rights of the people, or any championship of the people. So far as the people are concerned his legislative record is a blank.”
But there is no insurgent movement in the Republican Party in Massachusetts as there is in other states because “Sen. Lodge and his machine have strangled every Progressive who showed his head.” “This campaign marks the beginning of the end of Senator Lodge. I say it is the end because he cannot maintain by methods of secrecy, sinister influence, and wire-pulling the leadership of his party. The day of these things has gone by. He declines to come out into the open, and for this reason, if for no other, he is doomed. He is fighting secretly through his machine”.
A NYT editorial on NY’s selection of a senator urges Democrats to defy the attempt of Tammany’s Boss Murphy to railroad his choice through the Legislature, to make their views known by speaking or writing to their state legislators, writing letters to the editor, speaking to their neighbors, holding mass meetings, etc. What the Times doesn’t want, though, is direct primaries, calling them “a first-rate device for strengthening the hands of the bosses”, who “know how to get out their vote”. (The selection of the next New York senator ground the business of the Legislature to a halt during 2½ months of caucus fights, backroom deals that fell through, and 60 ballots of the Democratic caucus.)
The mayor of Fort Worth calls Andrew Carnegie “misguided” for building libraries, because only the rich go to libraries, forcing the poor have to pay taxes to support them. Texas, ladies and gentlemen, Texas!
Grumpy the Clown passes literacy test, may take his seat in the Brazilian Congress.
Too... many... easy... jokes... brain... shutting... down........
First Chicago, now Cleveland: Strauss’s Salome banned. The St Louis police chief says he will have to see it for himself to judge whether it should be banned, but since only one performance is scheduled there, the opera will go on.
Thomas Edison has invented some sort of flying machine. He mentions in passing that he has an old patent, but doesn’t want to talk about it or develop it, and says he has no real interest in airplanes. The machine “consists of a basket hung on a vertical shaft, on the upper end of which revolve box kites or some other form of aeroplanes, at sufficient speed to lift the whole affair.” Er, that’s a helicopter. Edison invented the helicopter, but wasn’t interested in aviation, so he didn’t develop it.
Gov-Elect Woodrow Wilson suggests that the next president should be Ohio’s Governor Judson Harmon.
A house fire in Des Moines at midnight. An old woman appeals for someone to save her trunk. One bystander volunteers to go in. Firemen try to stop him, but he goes in anyway, and drags it to safety. That bystander: Governor Beryl Carroll, who’s probably being so brave to make up for having a girl’s name. (No, I don’t know what was in the trunk.)
The Chicago Opera Company refuses to perform Strauss’s opera Salome after the police order them to censor the “offensive” features, especially the “head scene.”
Capt. Scott’s expedition starts for the Antarctic.
The British Parliament is dissolved, with the second general election of the year to be held in December. It will be fought largely on the issue of the legislative veto of the (overwhelmingly Tory) House of Lords. The king has promised Prime Minister Asquith that if the Liberals win another election and the Lords remain stubborn, he will name as many new peers as are needed to pass the veto – and it could be hundreds. But Asquith is not allowed to tell the public this because of the traditional secrecy of communications between prime ministers and monarchs.
Ireland is also an important election issue, with the Liberals promising Home Rule and the Tories – most of whom call themselves Unionists precisely to highlight this – promising to continue ruling Ireland from London. We’re just beginning to see the notion of a divided Ireland emerge as a response to the imminence of Home Rule. A meeting of delegates from Ulster adopts a resolution to refuse to pay any taxes or obey any laws passed by a parliament in Dublin. It also plans to set up an Ulster militia and purchase arms. (I suspect their definition of Ulster is 9 counties, rather than the 6 that wound up being excluded from the Republic of Ireland).
According to the White House, the latest WikiLeaks doc dump “runs counter” to the goal, which President Obama completely and entirely supports, of “responsible, accountable, and open government at home and around the world”. Huh. Must be the kind of responsible, accountable, open government that requires lots of secrets.
WikiLeaks has also “put at risk... the cause of human rights”. Um, how do you figure that?
The strike by the NYC vendors of hot sweet potatoes (“hot sweeties,” in the vernacular) has failed. Many of them will now sell baked apples instead.
Speaking of hot sweeties, a NYT editorial suggests that the British judge who presided over trials of suffragettes last week missed an opportunity to sentence them to something more creative than “40 shillings or a fortnight,” “which matches ill with the innovation presented to the contemplation of the world by the spectacle of a lady kicking a Cabinet Minister’s shins. ... Possibly a clue might be found in the ladies’ ambition to be treated as men. Why not grant their heart’s desire? Why not cut their hair short, for example... Since the ladies kick, why not apparel them for the pastime? That is to say, why not put brogans on them, and trouserettes? Then they might be provided with a ticket of leave good as long as they wore their new clothes.” Somehow I don’t think they’re taking the women’s suffrage movement very seriously.
In France, a sailor charged with deserting his ship in Portland, Oregon proves that he had been drugged and put to work as a slave in a lumber camp in Oregon for several months.
24 women and girls are killed in a fire in a four-story building in Newark, NJ, which housed a gas lamp factory on the 3rd floor (where the fire started), a couple of paper box factories below that, and the Wolff Muslin Undergarment Company on the 4th floor, from which came most of the dead. One of the two fire escapes, all NJ law required on the 150-foot-long building, was blocked by flames. Many of the factory workers jumped as the flames reached them, only to be impaled on the spikes of a gate.
A newspaper in Virginia arranges for a plane to fly over the Virginia State Penitentiary, so the lifers can see a plane for the first time. They were suitably awe-struck.
Tourist advice: if you are traveling in France in 1910, be aware that pocket cigar lighters are illegal, because they infringe on the match monopoly, an important source of government revenue.
As of today, we have been in Afghanistan for as long as the Soviets were. USA! USA! USA! Proudly capturing Osama bin Laden for 9 years, 50 days.
David Petraeus says the goal is to ensure that Afghanistan “is never again a sanctuary to al-Qaida or other transnational extremists,” which we will do by “help[ing] Afghanistan develop the ability to secure and govern itself. Now not to the levels of Switzerland in 10 years or less, but to a level that is good enough for Afghanistan.” Dare to dream, general, dare to dream.
Cardinal Gibbons (only the second Catholic cardinal from the United States) tells girl students at St Catherine’s Normal School not to follow women’s suffragists or, as he calls them, “those who have become mannish in their ways and who fight for a place in politics.” Because “The place for the woman is in...” wait for it... “the home.”
An elephant named Queen, of the Frank A. Robbins Circus, is executed with cyanide after having trampled her keeper (she also killed a little girl, but that was some years ago). Queen was supposedly 87 (that would be really old for an elephant, but not impossible).
