Interesting story in the Washington Times about how Republicans are jumping on the technology bandwagon by joining in on the fun with twitter; and they are even beating out the democrats on Capitol Hill Ha! This is a moot story and I will tell you why. Current Republicans in the Senate and Congress aren’t going [...]
The Conservative Paper
The News Without The Left’s Bias
4
Feb
AP Pity Party: Obama ‘Escapes’
Published in The Conservative Paper
I suspect most readers’ first reaction to this will be, "There’s no way George W. Bush would ever have gotten this level of sympathy from an Associated Press writer."
You see, poor Barack Obama was having a hard time and getting stressed out after his first two weeks on the job. So he "escaped" with his wife to a Washington, DC public school.
The Associated Press’s ever-sympathetic (or, I should say, absolutely pathetic) Ben Feller broke out the Kleenex:
On the rockiest day of his young administration, President Barack Obama did what surely made him happy for a while.
He left.
With little notice, the president and first lady Michelle Obama bolted the gated compound of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in their tank of a limousine on Tuesday. They ended up at a Washington public school, greeted by children who could not care less about the collapse of a Cabinet secretary nomination.
"We were just tired of being in the White House," the president candidly told the gleeful second-graders at Capital City Public Charter School.
"We got out! They let us out!" Mrs. Obama said as the kids and their teachers laughed.
The White House said the Obamas’ trip had been planned, just not publicly announced.
….. The stop at the school underscored a promise that the Obamas made and insist they will keep: to avoid getting caught up in a White House bubble. They say they will be visible parts of the Washington community - even in the midst of a hectic day. Or a difficult one.
Oh brother.
I suspect that if George Bush had something like this, and had said "We were just tired of being in the White House," it would have been interpreted as a sign that he couldn’t handle his job.
3
Feb
On Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, correspondent Bill Plante reported on Health and Human Services Secretary nominee, Tom Daschle, failing to pay taxes and working as a health care lobbyist: "Daschle’s problem shines a light on something that usually stays in the shadows around here, and that is how connections work in Washington. When is a lobbyist not a lobbyist, and how does a power player, like the former Senate majority leader, not know that he owes back taxes?"
The report featured Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibilities and Ethics, who defended Daschle: "What Tom Daschle does is the more sophisticated kind of lobbying we have in Washington, where he’s a consultant. And he talks to people about the strategy for getting a piece of legislation passed…Maybe the truth of the matter is, you need some of those Washington insiders in order to make your new government work. But then let’s say that."
However, in a 2005 column by Ari Berman in the liberal magazine, The Nation, Sloan was quoted reacting to an ethics scandal surrounding Republican House majority Leader Tom Delay: "The fact that Tom DeLay is under criminal indictment and Senate majority leader Bill Frist is under criminal investigation is a historic first…This demonstrates the culture of corruption among the Congressional leadership that has become a cancer on our country." Berman’s column was posted on the CBS News website.
Later on Tuesday, Daschle withdrew from the nomination. However, Plante concluded his morning report by optimistically declaring: "The Senate is almost certain to confirm Daschle next week. After all, he was one of them. The White House just wants to change the subject. The president wants to talk about the stimulus plan and its tax relief instead of about who owes back taxes."
Here is the full transcript of the segment:
7:00AM TEASE:
MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: All the president’s men and their confirmation troubles. President Obama tries again with his commerce secretary nominee as tax troubles threaten his health nominee, Tom Daschle.
TOM DASCHLE: It was completely inadvertent. But that’s no excuse. And I deeply apologize.
7:08AM SEGMENT:
HARRY SMITH: A confirmation hearing is scheduled next Tuesday for former Senator Tom Daschle, nominated for secretary of health and human services. Initially believed to be a shoo-in, Daschle has a big tax problem. We’re joined by CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante. Morning, Bill.
BILL PLANTE: Morning, Harry. Daschle’s problem shines a light on something that usually stays in the shadows around here, and that is how connections work in Washington. When is a lobbyist not a lobbyist, and how does a power player, like the former Senate majority leader, not know that he owes back taxes? Let’s have a look at the Daschle dossier. When Daschle lost his seat in 2004 after 17 years in the Senate, he joined the law and lobbying firm of Alston and Bird, but he’s not technically a lobbyist.
MELANIE SLOAN: What Tom Daschle does is the more sophisticated kind of lobbying we have in Washington, where he’s a consultant. And he talks to people about the strategy for getting a piece of legislation passed.
PLANTE: The Alston Bird firm represented a long list of clients in health services. Daschle also joined media investor Leo Hindery to chair a new company of regulatory experts. He was paid over $2 million, $83,000 of which was not reported because of a clerical error. Hindery also gave Daschle the use of his private car and driver. But it was only last June that Daschle asked his accountant if he owed taxes on the use of the car. And December when he paid $140,000 in taxes and penalties on the car and the unreported income.
SLOAN: Maybe the truth of the matter is, you need some of those Washington insiders in order to make your new government work. But then let’s say that.
PLANTE: Daschle says if he’s confirmed, he’ll take no part in any decisions affecting former clients. And he’s now apologized to his former senate colleagues and the public.
TOM DASCHLE: It was completely inadvertent, but that’s no excuse. And I deeply apologize.
PLANTE: The Senate is almost certain to confirm Daschle next week. After all, he was one of them. The White House just wants to change the subject. The president wants to talk about the stimulus plan and its tax relief instead of about who owes back taxes. Harry.
SMITH: Alright, Bill Plante at the White House this morning, thanks so much. And it’s — I think it’s going to get harder for Tom Daschle. In the New York Times editorial page this morning, it says he ought to pull out. So, we’ll see what happens.
MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: I’ve heard at least one person say ‘why should I pay my taxes if he didn’t?’ And he gets to be on the cabinet, so.
3
Feb
When Time magazine likes a liberal, they really, really like them.
Time’s profile of Obama’s "economic wise man" Larry Summers boils over with superlatives. The February 9 edition’s Table of Contents is brief, but gooey: "The brilliant, slightly bumbling man who may save our butt." His photo carried the caption: "Big brain: Summers is planning nothing short of a complete overhaul of the U.S. economy." The headline was "It’s Now or Never For Larry Summers: Obama’s brash and brilliant economic adviser has attained vast power and a chop on nearly every issue. Can the former Treasury boss sort out the financial mess before it gets worse?" The online headline was blunter: "Can Larry Summers Save the Economy?"
Turn the page, and former Time editor Strobe Talbott pays tribute in a bold-faced pull quote: "To have an argument with Larry Summers is a little like being run over by a tank with a Lotus engine." Liberals are touted for their brilliance. Smart conservatives are painted as Uncle Scrooge on Time’s cover (recall Newt Gingrich at the end of 1994).
The actual story on the National Economic Council chair, by Time’s Michael Scherer and Massimo Calabresi, includes one paragraph about his verbal gaffes (including a sentence about his dismissal from the top job at Harvard for suggesting women have displayed less scientific acumen), but it’s described as the fault of his "raw brainpower." The profile began with the adjective "wunderkind":
The walls are still bare in Larry Summers’ West Wing office, a cramped and cluttered perch overlooking the Rose Garden. The Bloomberg terminals have yet to be delivered, and the steam-powered White House e-mail system recently crashed. Add to all that the fact that much of Barack Obama’s economic team is still finding its way around the White House, and it’s somewhat remarkable that this economic wunderkind turned Obama adviser is moving at flank speed on the biggest restructuring of the U.S. economy since the New Deal.
Time magazine can find gauzy words for a man if the goal is imposing a lasting socialist scheme on the American economy. But is he up to the job?
But with unemployment soaring toward 25-year highs, housing prices plunging and the nation’s biggest banks facing insolvency, it is difficult not to wonder, Is Summers — is anyone, really — up to this herculean set of tasks at this impossible moment? And if the responsibility must fall largely on the shoulders of one man, does it have to be a guy in an ill-fitting suit who has a reputation for occasionally putting his foot in his mouth? The one who speaks in a disembodied patter while his nail-bitten fingers fiddle with his constant liquid sidekick, a can of Diet Coke? And then, just when you begin to ask yourself these questions, Summers starts speaking with an almost poetic clarity, in those perfectly formed sentences that have made him an in-house economist for three of the past five Presidents. "Any study of history reveals that with crisis comes enormous fluidity in the system," he says, a foot tapping now. "In Washington the transition from inconceivable to inevitable can be rapid if forced by events."
Time’s writers really want to believe that he can not only imagine that socialist scheme, but make it a reality. Obama aides are marshaled to attest to the man’s superheroic ability:
Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, refers to him in briefings as "Dr. Summers," with a deference that suggests Summers has powers out of science fiction. Stopped in a White House hallway in late January, David Axelrod, Obama’s closest political aide, speaks with something akin to spiritual gratitude about having an intellectual like Summers around. "Quite frankly, I’m not sure we would have gotten him but for the fact that we have a crisis that is equal to his talents," Axelrod says. Summers, asked if he is up to the challenge, smiles and offers a diplomatic dodge. "I have confidence in what this President is able to do," he says.
The biggest paragraph of promotional goo (which includes the Talbott quote, a little longer) concerns his fabulous debate skills:
More than anything else, say his peers, Summers is a ferocious debater, capable of unpacking four or five contradictory theories at the same time. "To have an argument with Larry Summers is a little like being run over by a tank with a Lotus engine and to find the experience educational," says Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution. Such pastimes may come naturally to the first son of two noted economists who was born in New Haven, Conn., in the shadow of Yale, and grew up in Philadelphia not far from the University of Pennsylvania. Not only did he become, at 28, one of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard history, but a decade later he also went on to win the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal, given to the best American economist under the age of 40. Both his critics and his fans admit he is usually the quickest thinker in even the most rarefied rooms, with a family pedigree that includes two uncles who separately won Nobels for economic science. "All of us are deeply resentful," Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the chief economic adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign, says with a laugh. "In terms of just genetic ability to do this — not fair."
Look, a Republican was quoted – but only to underline Time’s point that Summers is brilliant. Scherer and Calabresi tout how Summers has set the tone for Obama seeing the economic crisis as an opportunity to ram more government intervention down America’s throat:
As both a campaign and a White House adviser, Summers helped guide Obama’s conviction that the economic crisis was an opportunity as well as a curse, a chance to accelerate many of his campaign pledges. In a column about the crisis published in September, shortly after he joined the campaign team, Summers laid out the fundamental thesis on which the Obama White House now operates. "For the near term," Summers wrote in the Financial Times, "government should do more, not less."
In Obama’s case, the government is supposed to do a lot more, and in record time.
3
Feb
During MSNBC’s live coverage on Tuesday of the sudden resignation of Health and Human Services nominee Tom Daschle, reporter Andrea Mitchell suggested to Republican Senator Jim DeMint that the American public will see this as the GOP having "brought him [Daschle] down." The Democratic nominee resigned over a growing controversy which revealed that the former Senate majority leader owed $140,000 in back taxes. (He has since paid them.) Mitchell sympathetically described talking to the ex-senator: "I just got off the phone with Tom Daschle. And it was an emotional conversation. He was clearly- it sounded as though he were tearful, overwrought." [audio excerpt here]
Later, while speaking to DeMint, Mitchell bristled at the South Carolina senator’s contention that Democrats were also skeptical of Daschle’s nomination. The journalist chided, "Well, Senator DeMint, you can say that the Democrats were uncomfortable as well, but they were all supporting him publicly." She then lectured, "So, this does read to the public as though the Republicans went after this man, someone that the President very much wanted, and brought him down."
Earlier in the interview, Mitchell again shifted focus to congressional Republicans and lamented the passing of an "all too brief honeymoon." She added, "I mean, is this- is there blood in the water now after this nomination has been withdrawn?"
Mitchell, who recounted how "tearful" and overwrought Daschle was when she talked to him on the phone on Tuesday, sounded a similar theme on November 6, 1990. During election night coverage of that year’s midterms, she described Senator Jesse Helms’ reelection over his Democratic opponent as a "heart-breaking race":
"This has really been a heart-breaking race….What happened here was a very strong racial message from Jesse Helms in the closing ten days of the race and it focused on something that we’ve found, found previously in Louisiana with the David Duke campaign."
In 2004, when moderate/liberal Republican Colin Powell resigned his post in George W. Bush’s State Department, Mitchell mourned, "This really is a regretful moment and a passing of a great potential leader. Colin Powell was so undercut by many of the other cabinet officials and never had the full backing to do some of the things that he really wanted to do."
A partial transcript of two of Mitchell’s exchanges, which began at 12:53pm, follows:
NORAH O’DONNELL: We’re also joined now by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, as well as our bureau chief, mark Whitaker. Let’s go first to Andrea Mitchell. Because, I understand you have spoken with former Senator Tom Daschle. What did he say?
ANDREA MITCHELL: I just got off the phone with Tom Daschle. And it was an emotional conversation. He was clearly- it sounded as though he were tearful, overwrought. He said, "I read the New York Times this morning and I realized that I can’t pass health care if I am too much of a distraction and when I saw what the Republicans were saying and read the Mew York Times, I called the President this morning." And then, he said, "I’ve got to go." So, it was a difficult conversation. Look, I’ve known Tom Daschle a long time. All of us have covered him for a long time. And he was such an early and critical supporter of Barack Obama in the Senate community, when it was Hillary Clinton versus Barack Obama, and she was initially the front runner as you well know, Norah, and it was Tom Daschle who went one by one and was basically Barack Obama’s envoy to Washington.
1:01pm
ANDREA MITCHELL: Let me bring in Senator Jim DeMint who was one of those calling for him to step down. Senator, thanks for joining us. You’re joining us from the phone. But, let me ask you whether you feel that he could have been effective or whether, whether these issues all cumulatively made it impossible for him to be an advocate for major health care legislation?
SENATOR JIM DEMINT: Well, I think, it’s very unfortunate that this happened. He’s a friend of a number of those in the Senate and I’m sure he had a lot of qualifications. I had a good meeting with him and knew I was going to disagree on policy but that was not going to keep me from supporting him. But, the tax issue gets back to what you were saying in the lead in, that the campaign promised change from the status quo of politics here in Washington and I’m afraid the way the story built around Tom Daschle was just big lobbyists and folks not paying any taxes on big salaries and the American people were really mad about it because we’re paying taxes and on a lot less income. And hundreds of calls into my office just kept telling me this is not right. This is not the change we bargained for. So, while it’s unfortunate, I think this is probably a very good thing that happened to the President Obama administration. I think the only thing that could have made it better is if he would have stepped forward and made it clear that he was withdrawing the nomination in order to demonstrate his leadership and his desire to have a lot of integrity around him.
MITCHELL: Does this incident tell you, and is this the mood of the Republicans that, whatever brief, all too brief honeymoon and bipartisanship flowered here [sic] in Washington over the past two weeks has evaporated? I mean, is this- is there blood in the water now after this nomination has been withdrawn?
DEMINT: Well, I don’t think this was a partisan issue. I think probably the Democrats in the Senate heard as much from their constituents as mine about this tax issue and so I don’t- I did not see it as partisan. I did not see [audio drop out] rising up. A lot of us were waiting to see, but once I found out more about what really happened, I called on the President to withdraw his nomination. And while I regret that it happened, I’m glad it did. It clears the air so we can get back to the economic problem we’re having in our country.
MITCHELL: Well, Senator DeMint, you can say that the Democrats were uncomfortable as well, but they were all supporting him publicly. So, this does read to the public as though the Republicans went after this man, someone that the President very much wanted, and brought him down.
DEMINT: Well, I would be surprised if it played that way with the American people. Because, I don’t think they saw the Republicans bashing Tom Daschle and a lot of Republicans are friends with Daschle. But, it came down to, it wasn’t about Tom Daschle at all but it was just about presidential leadership and his promises to change this place and I think this was just getting in the way. So, ultimately this will help the administration and the president can move on to important things.
MITCHELL: Senator DeMint, thanks so much for joining us.
3
Feb
It hardly balances all of the airtime given to liberal proponents of President Obama’s plans for massive government spending as “stimulus,” but an actual network news program actually presented a single story outlining the conservative free-market approach to today’s economic problems. On Saturday’s Good Morning America, ABC correspondent John Hendren examined what he termed “a growing movement among economists, who say the best way out of this recession is to do nothing. Nothing at all.”
Hendren gave three soundbites to Cato economist Dan Mitchell, who pointed out that “government spending doesn’t work very well,” how “bad government policies got us into this mess,” and that while letting the free market run its course might be painful, “we can make that transition much quicker and have a faster and stronger recovery.”
Hendren termed the free market economists “do nothings,” but suggested they may be influential enough to at least block a little of the runaway spending. Hendren told co-anchor Bill Weir: “Now, the do-nothings know they’re going to lose this debate. But they’re hoping to hold down the size of the stimulus. As one economist told me, I can see them cutting $100 billion, and that ain’t chump change. Bill?”
The hook for ABC’s story seems to have been the big full-page newspaper ad Cato ran the previous day in the New York Times and Washington Post. The ad begins by quoting President Obama declaring that everyone agrees with him — “There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy” — followed by large letters proclaiming: “With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.”
Over the signatures of more than 250 economists, the Cato ad declared:
Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan’s ‘lost decade’ in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policy makers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.
Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the networks loved to champion anti-war dissenters as offering a valuable minority opinion on an important issue, but other than this one ABC story there has been virtually no acknowledgment by the networks of those like Cato’s Mitchell who argue that the Democrats’ big government spending plan will delay our eventual recovery from this recession, not “stimulate” the economy to renewed prosperity.
MRC intern Mike Sargent noticed the segment appeared at about 7:12am ET on the January 31 Good Morning America and provided this transcript:
BILL WEIR: Turning to politics now. And in his weekly radio address, President Obama is once again urging Congress to pass his stimulus plan ASAP. The Democrats’ bill didn’t get a single Republican vote in the House, and now faces a skeptical Senate, some who say the best stimulus is no stimulus. ABC’s John Hendren is in Washington. Good morning.
JOHN HENDREN: Good morning, Bill. The debate on Capitol Hill has been all about the size of the stimulus. Should it be merely big? Bigger? A behemoth? But there’s another school of thought that’s getting less attention. Call them the do-nothings. In these free-spending times, there’s a growing movement among economists who say the best way out of this recession is to do nothing. Nothing at all.
UNIDENTIFIED ECONOMIST: I think there’s nothing wrong with doing nothing.
HENDREN: Nor do the 250 other economists who signed on this week to this ad in The New York Times and Washington Post.
CATO SENIOR FELLOW DAN MITCHELL: Government doesn’t work very well. We tried big spending under Bush. It didn’t work. We tried big spending under Hoover. It didn’t work.
HENDREN [While an animated Uncle Sam pumps up a large green ball with a dollar sign on it]: President Obama and supporters of the nearly $1 trillion stimulus says it works like this. In a recession, money is scarce. So, the government needs to pump money into the economy. That gives consumers money to spend. And the economy rises. The do-nothings say letting the free markets run their course might cause short-term pain.
MITCHELL: A lot of bad government policies got us into this mess. And we don’t have a magic wand that’s just going to get us out right away.
HENDREN: But they say it would end the recession more quickly and leave the economy stronger. Take Circuit City. The electronics retailer is shutting its doors and laying off 34,000 workers. The do-nothings say that paves the way for stronger rivals like Best Buy, to take over market share. It’s all vinegar and no sugar. During the hard times, the do-nothings argue, Americans would pay down their debt and cut back on the kind of borrowing and spending that brought the economy to where it is now.
MITCHELL: Some of the discomfort from that is probably unavoidable. But at least we can make that transition much quicker and have a faster and stronger recovery.
HENDREN: The do-nothings point to the banking bailout. Since Uncle Sam invested $165 billion in the nation’s eight largest banks, they’re worth $418 billion less than they were in October. That’s a loss of more than 1,000%. Now, the do-nothings know they’re going to lose this debate. But they’re hoping to hold down the size of the stimulus. As one economist told me, I can see them cutting $100 billion, and that ain’t chump change. Bill?
BILL WEIR: Interesting idea, John, in these days when we’re throwing around the word “billion” a lot.