Saturn Smith's Open Salon Blog

Hey Paul Krugman, where the hell are you, man?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:11:23 -0500

Let me say this up front: Paul Krugman is a genius. He's got a Nobel Prize, he's got a New York Times column, he's got a John Bates Clark medal and a full professoship at Princeton. Neither he nor anyone reading this needs me to say he's a genius, and yet I do so because I want everyone to know up front I know that an intellectual debate of economics with Paul Krugman is a fight I would never win. Ever. I accept this.

But there are some things in which the great man can't seem to find his way, and one of these things is the delicate dance of politics. Take yesterday's column, for example. Krugman offers the following as proof that the president has reversed his economic policy from pro-stimulus and pro-job-creation to, well, something else:

But in a recent interview with Fox News, the president sounded diffident and nervous about his economic policy. He spoke vaguely about possible tax incentives for job creation. But “it is important though to recognize,” he went on, “that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.”

Sure, that's not particularly encouraging if you want -- and Krugman does want, he deeply wants -- to hear the president come out and say, "We're gonna double down on the stimulus." But guess what? The usual audience at Fox News is not Paul Krugman or even his closest drinking buddies. It's the folks who believe that President Obama is not just willing but eager to run the country into so much debt that they'll find themselves and their grandchildren wholly owned Chinese subsidiaries by 2012. (Make a movie out of that, Roland Emmerich).

Likewise, Krugman's initial pro-stimulus quote from Larry Summers (which he unfavorably compares Obama's statement against) came from a 2008 Washington Post Op-Ed. Say what you will about the Post's tilt rightward, it's still getting read by a different class of D.C. inteligentsia than Fox News will probably ever see. Is it surprising that Krugman heard more of what he wanted in The Washington Post than on Fox News? Is anyone here stunned to find out that sometimes, politicians pander to their audiences?

What bothers me most about this column is that Krugman, who comes very close to being the liberal economic Oprah for all of his opinion influence, jumps easily and readily to the primary conspiracy notion of the last year: when Obama says things that sound pro-business, it's becuase he's been co-opted by an evil Wall Street cabal. Krugman:

It took me a while to puzzle this out. But the concerns Mr. Obama expressed become comprehensible if you suppose that he’s getting his views, directly or indirectly, from Wall Street.

Ever since the Great Recession began economic analysts at some (not all) major Wall Street firms have warned that efforts to fight the slump will produce even worse economic evils. In particular, they say, never mind the current ability of the U.S. government to borrow long term at remarkably low interest rates — any day now, budget deficits will lead to a collapse in investor confidence, and rates will soar.

Only two paragraphs earlier, however, Krugman outlined what's the most probable reason for Obama's Fox News quote. "Now, it’s politically difficult," he wrote, "for the Obama administration to enact a full-scale second stimulus."

"Politically difficult?" You know what's politically difficult? Health-care reform. Politically impossible is a better description of the likelihood of getting a second stimulus passed right now, and you can rachet it up to double impossible if the president's supposed to start that fight on Fox News.

I agree with Krugman, though, that some major government effort toward job creation is definitely needed. "[I]n the face of the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression, it’s much riskier to do too little than it is to do too much," he says, and that is absolutely a column worth writing. The problem is, Krugman relies solely upon public appearances to make his point (that Obama is against this), without taking into account that things other than Wall Street brainwashing parties happen behind closed White House doors. Take a slightly more nuanced look at the administration's behavior of late, and there's acutally some things to be encouraged about. We've recently seen a Joe Biden barnstorming tour, talking up the number jobs being created by the initial stimulus, for example; could it be a sign that someone wants to lay some groundwork for a possible second go?

That, by the way, is the kind of sign Mr. Krugman should be looking for, not a grandiose -- and ultimately politically suicidal -- declaration of second stimulus support on Fox News. Obama has a Nobel prize, too, but more importantly: he has the presidency. You don't get there without knowing how to play politics, and it's sad, and unfortunate, that Paul Krugman appears to have lost sight of that truth.

_{* Headline courtesy "Hey Paul Krugman."}

Geithner 2.0 debuts on Hill, sinks claws into congressman

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:11:15 -0500

Well, you had to know that on the day Salon posts its Sexiest Man Living, I'd be doing a Tim Geithner post, right? But I come to study Geithner, not to ogle him*. He's having another extremely rough week, as both a Democrat and a Republican have taken to the public forum to demand he loses his job: one on MSNBC Wednesday night, and one to Geithner's face.

First, on Wednesday night, Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Ore., and also my congressman) went on "The Ed Show" on MSNBC and in a nicely staged interview [transcript] said he thinks "Timmy Geithner" should lose his job. The reason? Oh, so many reasons, said Mr. DeFazio: there was this AIG scandal, see, and Tim Geithner wouldn't answer DeFazio's question about some of Goldman's swaps, and also, there's this extra TARP money left, and Geithner won't hand it out to non-financial institutions, and also, there are businesses in his district that can't get a loan. Also, it's so much fun to make the Treasury Secretary sound like a twelve year old. Timmy? Really, Petey, you wanna go down that road?

DeFazio later did a brief Q&A with the Wall Street Journal, where his concluding point about why Geithner should resign is that Geithner serves Wall Street, will always serve Wall Street, has always served Wall Street, named his children after Wall Street, eats Wall Street Wheaties for breakfast, etc. etc.

OK. No one should really be surprised to hear Peter DeFazio calling for Tim Geithner's head. It's kind of like hearing Dennis Kucinich call for a Department of Peace -- two parties, inevitably at odds, continue to disagree. Still, it made the headlines (including at the WSJ, where it's the fifth-most-popular piece today), in part because DeFazio seemed to imply he had a bunch of colleagues who were with him (something he backed away from in the WSJ piece).

By far the more interesting of these exchanges is the one that happened in yesterday's hearing before the Joint Economic Committee. Ranking Congressman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, had about a 2 minute speech detailing the failures of the the Obama administration's economic policies broadly and Geithner's role as "point man" personally. He quoted DeFazio's call for Geithner to resign and then, at about 2:30, got to his own point:

BRADY: Conservatives agree that, as point person, you've failed. Liberals are growing in that consensus as well. Poll after poll shows the public has lost confidence in this president's ability to handle the economy. For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post?

GEITHNER: Congressman, I, it is a great privilege for me to serve this president, and I am grateful for the chance to address the range of concerns you said -- I agree with almost nothing of what you've said, and I think almost nothing you've said represents a fair and accurate perception of where the economy stands today. Now, I think that, it's important to start -- welcome the advice, that you're providing, after you gave this president an economy falling off the cliff, values of American savings cut almost in half, millions of Americans out of work, again, the worst financial crisis that we've seen in a generation --

BRADY: Remind me, Mr. Secretary, what post you were holding, when President Bush left office?

It devolves from there into a pretty fantastic tussle that went something like this:

BRADY: Isn't it true that everything is all your fault, you ridiculous corrupt Wall Street banker Democrat Treasury Secretary who hates Americans and jobs?

GEITHNER: Isn't it true that everything is actually your fault, you Republican Bush-supporting sneaky snake of a CONGRESSman who hates Americans and jobs?

It's kind of an old argument. What's new? This is not the Inaugural's Geithner. This, my friends, is Fiesty Geithner 2.0, a Geithner who's been through both the wars and the P.R. bootcamp that follows them, a Geithner who knows the party line and is now owning it. Who broke the economy? Give you a hint: it's someone who, according to Geithner, is guilty of "eight years of basic neglect of basic public goods, in health care, in education, in infrastructure, in how we use energy." Rhymes with "W."

When did kitty grow some claws?

Maybe around the time that congressmen started making ridiculous charges, like DeFazio's charge that Geithner and Co. have held onto the TARP money with some outlandish idea that they might use what's leftover to pay back, well, the initial loan. Crazy talk! Return money without spending it? WTF, Geithner? Pandering to your conservative base a little too much?

Except, oh, wait, according to Mssr. Brady, they hate your guts, too. If a man's being attacked from one side for not spending enough and from the other for spending too much, too recklessly -- is he actually getting it right?

David Brooks -- and whoa, do I hate to have him as an ally -- says yes in a column in today's New York Times:

Well, the evidence of the past eight months suggests that Geithner was mostly right and his critics were mostly wrong. The financial sector is in much better shape than it was then. TARP money is being repaid, and the debate now is what to do with the billions that were never needed.

So... why is there a dual attack on Tim Geithner around the same time that some are concluding maybe things have actually worked out? Maybe it's because if Tim Geithner got things right, then some of the folks who were calling for his head from Day 1 have gotten things wrong. What an awkward place to be in, particularly if, like my congressman, you voted against the stimulus bill.

Mr. Brady, who voted for TARP, does have a point when he says, at the end of this clash, that those responsible -- in this case, he means Geithner -- should have to offer their excuses "to the millions of American who no longer have jobs because of your decisions... At some point you have to take some responsibility for your decisions."

Indeed. I know it's a bitter pill to swallow, but I don't think Congressmen are getting anywhere by trying to point their fingers at the Treasury Secretary who wasn't Treasury Secretary during the initial bailout as its great, singular villain. They were there, too. Good on Tim Geithner for pointing a finger back at them.

_{* Nor will I ever.}

Giuliani out, and maybe in, in 2010.

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:11:06 -0500

There's word today that Rudy Giuliani is not going to run for governor of New York in 2010, but that he's probably going to challenge Kirsten Gillibrand for the same Senate seat he started to run for in 2002. The New York Daily News says this is all part of a plan to position himself for a 2012 presidential challenge.

Pop quiz: Where do you go after you lose a presidential election? Disneyworld, Rudy, not Crazytown. Let's recap some of the major career highlights for Mr. Giuliani since leaving office in 2002:

He's had an extremely public and acrimonious divorce from his second wife, which was finally settled for about $7 million and was apparently so bitter that he's been estranged from both of his children.
He's kept some bad company, most notably Bernard Kerik. Kerik, who Giuliani went into business with and also encouraged President Bush to appoint as director of Homeland Security, is currently in jail and recently pled guilty to eight felonies. He faces at least 2 years in prison.
He ran a presidential campaign that bordered on the bizarre, skipping entire state primaries on the premise that Rudy just couldn't lose.

Stack on top of that any number of headline-grabbing personal and professional decisions (the recent kick-up about his aggressive, divisive campaigning on Mayor Bloomberg's behalf comes to mind) and most reasonable people would conclude that 2010, just like 2008 and 2002, will not be Rudy Giuliani's year.

It's hard for me to understand who might be advising Rudy Giuliani these days, other than the notable firm Rudy Giuliani's Ego LLC. If he really wants to prove he's back in the game of leadership, perhaps the best step to take right now might be, well, to exercise some leadership, to spend time building a positive reputation based on something other than visible leadership during a terrible time. Now is not the time to launch another campaign based on the same set of accomplishments and skills that haven't managed to win over the state or the country yet.

To run again with the same résumé as always is the ultimate show of arrogance. Go out and do something, Giuliani, instead of trading on a name that's lost significant value since its high-water mark in 2001. Then come back and use the experience to lead.

Thanks, CNN, for making Lou Dobbs

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:11:58 -0500

Every piece I've read so far about the sudden (if not unexpected) resignation of Lou Dobbs has mentioned the same fact: Lou Dobbs was one of the charter CNN anchors. Maybe this is because Mr. Dobbs himself mentioned that during his good-bye broadcast, calling himself "the last of the original anchors here on CNN." Though most pieces use this to describe how Dobbs has changed, there's a better -- sharper -- argument to be made. If Lou Dobbs helped start CNN, if Lou Dobbs has at times been crucial to its success, if Lou Dobbs was once so friendly with CNN that they trumpeted his 2001 return with ads I still remember, hailing him as a returning hero -- then did Lou Dobbs make CNN, or did CNN make Lou Dobbs?

(Hint: It's the latter).

In all of the pomp and lack of circumstance surrounding Dobbs' departure, CNN's news chief, Jonathan Klein, seems at pains to suggest that the split is because CNN is too objective for Dobbs' tastes. In both his official statement and his e-mail to staff, Klein said, "Lou has now decided to carry the banner of advocacy journalism elsewhere," presumably implying that banner wasn't welcome at CNN.

Maybe it isn't. But it has been for at least eight years during the Dobbs reign, and for CNN to now play-act like this is an amiable break-up of two entities who've changed independent of each other's influences is, well, crap.

CNN has been relentlessly ratings-focused for years. Check out any of their prime-time news shows on any given night, and you'll see programming that isn't primarily focused on reporting on the important stories of the day -- you'll see a newscast designed to get the most popular news to the most people. Don't believe me? Just count the gimmicks. If it's not John King and his magic wall -- which you'll now be seeing during the former Dobbs hour -- it's the supremely lame "Girl Reads Blogs" segment that keeps popping up, or their much-touted partnership with Facebook. CNN also devoted hours of coverage to the Caylee Anthony story, not just on Nancy Grace's hour but on its flagship AC360 show.

In fact, AC360 and its host, Anderson Cooper, pretty much completely encapsulate the CNN Popularity Game Plan. Cooper has been touted as "a reporter who's got that magical something" by no less than Jon Klein, and the show is promoted probably more on the strength of Cooper's personality than on his access to sources. Post-Katrina, when Cooper was standing in New Orleans and screaming for help, he was getting not only high ratings but also a ton of attention for the network, behavior that's been rewarded with continued anchorship of a two-hour flagship prime-time newscast.

Dobbs must have learned this lesson over years at CNN. Bringing more eyes to the screen meant getting more network attention. When he published his book, Independents Day, Dobbs managed to snag interviews on all of CNN's major shows, including with Anderson Cooper -- some nice cross-marketing that must have benefitted both CNN and Dobbs himself.

For CNN to now act like Lou Dobbs magically decided to get radical and start yelling denies that CNN encourages its anchors and commentators to yell, to scream, to draw attention as much to themselves as to the news they're reporting. CNN: The Most Trusted Name in News is also, after all, CNN: The Creator of Crossfire.

I'm glad to see Lou Dobbs gone (though I do worry about where he'll land), but I'm sorry that his departure has encouraged CNN to brag about its own objectivity and hard-news focus. Far from being the network too objective to contain him, CNN birthed Lou Dobbs by encouraging him to seek higher ratings and more viewers, to use more gimmicks, to create himself as a character delivering finely-tuned reports to an eager audience. That he's now an uncomfortable fit for the network is a mark of its success at beating the news-drive out of its stars, and one that, really, they should be addressing in his absence, unless they want to see a John King book, Royally Pissed, hitting shelves by 2012.

Which Founding Father is on your Mixtape?

Mon, 9 Nov 2009 18:11:04 -0500

I may have mentioned my fascination with Alexander Hamilton a few times before. Well, it turns out (thank goodness!) I'm not alone.

At a May 12 evening of Poetry and Spoken Word performances at the White House, Broadway writer Lin-Manuel Miranda performed a piece from his upcoming hip-hop concept album, The Hamilton Mixtape. The White House put video of the event online last week, and... it's absolutely worth 4:27 of your time. (Transcript follows)

To which I say: thank you, universe, for creating the perfect combination of my artistic and dorkish interests. If I had a video projector, I'd load this video and broadcast it on a wall in my living room every evening until a spontaneous Alexander Hamilton dance party began.

This has led, as well, to a fun afternoon game of trying to figure out other interesting concept albums and artistic mash-ups having to do with the founding generation: Green Day does George Washington might be my favorite, but I think there's got to be an album in the Marquis de Lafayette's life story, too.

So, just out of curiosity: Anyone else have a great idea for a ripped-from-American History concept album?

Transcript (and please understand all punctuation mess-ups in the lyrics are mine):

I'm thrilled the White House called me tonight, because I'm actually working on a hip-hop album, uh, a concept album about the life of someone I think embodies hip-hop: Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. You laugh! But it's true. He was born a penniless orphan in St. Croix, an illegitimate birth, became George Washington's right-hand man, became treasury secretary, caught beef with every other founding father, and all on the strength of his writing. I think he embodies the word's ability to make a difference.

So, I'm going to be doing the first song from that tonight; I'm accompanied by Tony- and Grammy-winning music director Alex Lacamore. [Applause] Uh, anything you need to know? I'll be playing Vice President Aaron Burr, and snap along if you like.

How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore

and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot

In the Carribbean, by Providence impoverished, to squalor,

Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?

The ten-dollar Founding Father without a father

Got a lot farther

By workin' a lot harder

By bein' a lot smarter

By bein' a self-starter

By fourteen they had placed him in charge of the trade and charter

And every day more slaves were being slaughtered

And carted away across the waves

Our Hamilton kept his guard up

Decided he was longing for something to be a part of

The brother was ready to beg steal borrow or barter.

Then a hurricane came,

Devastation reigned,

Our man saw his future drip drippin' down the drain.

Put a pistol to his temple

Connected it to his brain

And he wrote his first refrain

A testament to his pain.

The word got around: They said, "This kid is insane, man!"

Took up a collection just to send him to the mainland

Getcha education; don't forget from whence you came,

And the world is gonna know your name!

What's your name, man?

Alexander Hamilton. His name is Alexander Hamilton.

There's a million things he hasn't done.

But just you wait. Just you wait.

When he was 10, his father split

Full of it, debt-ridden.

Two years later, see Alexander's mother, bed-ridden,

Half-dead, sittin' in the room, sick himself,

Alex got better but his mother went quick.

Moved in with a cousin. The cousin committed suicide

Left him with nothin' but ruined pride.

Somethin' new inside him, a voice

Saying Alex, you gotta fend for yourself,

He started retreatin'

And readin'

Every treatise on the shelf.

Now, there would've been nothin' left to do

For someone less astute,

He would've been dead and destitute

Without a cent of restitution.

Started workin'

Clerkin' for his late mother's landlord

Tradin' sugar cane and rum and other things he can't afford

Skinnin' for every book he can get his hands on

Plannin' for the future: See him now

As he stands on the bow of a ship headed for a new land

In New York you can be a new man.

The ship is in the harbor now,

See if you can spot him:

Another immigrant comin' up from the bottom

His enemies destroyed his rep; America forgot him;

And me? I'm the damn fool that shot him.

Alexander Hamilton,

We were waiting in the weeds for you.

You could never back down.

You always had to speak your mind.

But Alexander Hamilton, we could never take your deeds from you.

In our cowardice and our shame,

We will try to destroy your name.

The world will never be the same, Alexander!

Yeah, I'm the damn genius that shot him.