A Wingnut Monday: catfood lobby Edition

Attaturk: We demand Cold-Hearted Bastards

To the surprise of well, no one, the conservatives of the Senate have announced their standardsfor a good Supreme Court Justice:

Sen. Jon Kyl made clear he would use the procedural delay if Obama follows through on his pledge to nominate someone who takes into account human suffering and employs empathy from the bench.

Boy I sure hope Obama asked potential nominees which they enjoyed more, drowning kittens or puppies? Kyl is going to want to know.

Is Werner Klemperer's character from Judgment at Nuremberg still available?

digby: Burning The Strawman

I set out this morning to write a piece rebutting Helene Cooper's silly NYT article accusing Obama of attacking strawmen in his speeches (just like Junior!), but got tired and depressed about half way through and just gave up. The villagers are so in love with their new "Obama is just like Bush" meme that they aren't even trying to make sense with it. Luckily for you, Publius at Obsidian Wings took the time to rebut the ridiculous thing in detail, so you can see just how idiotic her thesis really is.

I have no problem legitimately criticizing Obama for positions he's taken that are consistent with the Bush administration, but when the press starts this kind of puerile foolishness, you know the honeymoon is over and we're back to politics for dummies. It's not a good sign. Conservatives tend to be the ones setting the agenda when that happens.

• publius: Helene Cooper Needs To Discover Google, Lexis
  

  So let's say I'm Helene Cooper of the NYT. And let's say I have a great idea for an article -- the premise is that Obama knocks down pretend strawmen in his speeches just like Bush used to do (e.g., "Some have said...").

  It would be a good idea for an article -- if it were true. But it's not, as about 15 minutes of Google and Lexis would show. But Cooper went ahead and wrote it anyway.

  The difference between Bush and Obama's arguments is fairly simple -- Bush just made stuff up, while Obama's critics are actually making the critiques that Obama attributes to them. Somewhat hilariously, Cooper herself concedes this on several of the supposed examples of Obama's "strawman" arguments. She notes, for instance, that the criticisms Obama cites were made by real, living, breathing, non-straw-filled people like John Kyl, Anne Applebaum, Bill Kristol, and Jeffrey Kuhner.

  There's a more detailed breakdown of the article below the fold:

  Exhibit A of Cooper's article is that Obama is supposedly pretending that critics are saying he's bitten off more than he can chew. This is most prominent "strawman" that Cooper presents:

  “There are those who say these plans are too ambitious, that we should be trying to do less, not more,” Mr. Obama told a town-hall-style meeting in Costa Mesa, Calif., on March 18. “Well, I say our challenges are too large to ignore.”

  Mr. Obama did not specify who, exactly, was saying America should ignore its challenges.

  A couple of problems here. First, Obama didn't claim his critics were saying "ignore challenges." He claimed they criticized the way he approached challenges by trying to do too much.

  But more to the point, Obama has been routinely criticized for trying to do too much. It's a common refrain, and it was particularly common around mid-March when he was making the comments Cooper cites. Here's a short sample:

  David Broder, 3/15/09:

  I was struck last week to read heartfelt pleas to Obama from my Post colleague David Ignatius and David Brooks of the New York Times to get his priorities straight and concentrate on the crucial task of rescuing banking, credit, housing and jobs.

  These are people who deeply admire and respect Obama and wish him nothing but success. But, like some thoughtful congressional Democrats with whom I have spoken, they worry that he has bitten off more than he can chew.

  David Brooks, 2/23/09:

  Yet they [the Obama team] set off my Burkean alarm bells. I fear that in trying to do everything at once, they will do nothing well.

  Matt Lauer, 3/11/09 (interviewing Romer - Lexis):

  Let me just ask you about this idea that's been going around Washington and elsewhere over the last couple days that the president and the administration have simply bitten off more than they can chew in the early days of this administration.

  Martin Bashir, 3/11/09 (Nightline):

  And when we come back, President Barack Obama's full plate. Impressive multitasking or biting off more than he can chew?

  John King, 3/15/09 (CNN - interviewing Cheney):

  As you know, there's a debate in this town about whether the president is trying to do too much too fast. This is the "Sunday Ledger-Enquirer" in Columbus, Georgia. And a Knight Ridder story here about is Obama trying to do too much too fast.

  I could probably have come up with another two dozen examples, but you get the point. The main strawman in her article turns out to be one of the most common and fundamental critiques of Obama in mid-March.

  Moving on -- Cooper also claims that Obama cited strawman critiques of his March appearance on Leno:

  Mr. Obama continued on the offensive against straw men that day in Los Angeles, pointing out that critics told him not to go on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" on NBC because “I can’t handle that and the economy at the same time.”

  Hilariously, Cooper then points out that John Kyl (in the Senate Republican leadership) made this precise critique. She tries to spin her way out of that, but it doesn't really work. But there are other critiques too:

  Hannity, 3/18/09 (Lexis):

  JERI THOMPSON [GOP Consultant]: Well, people thought that -- people thought that was Obama, too, and we haven't gotten that. He seems to be stunningly distracted. And I'm thrilled that he's gotten his basketball brackets in, and you know, he's on Jay Leno tonight. And I know he's...
  
  HANNITY: When does he even work?

  CA GOP Spokesperson, 3/18/09:

  ["H]ow is the regular Californian being helped out (by his policies)?" asked Hector Barajas, spokesman for the state Republican Party. "We just sent out 9,000 pink slips to California teachers - and he's about to go on the Jay Leno show? It just shows the lack of priorities of this president."

  After finishing with the domestic policy strawmen, Cooper moves on and cites a few foreign policy strawman arguments. There's no need to tear this part of the article down because Cooper does it herself. For virtually every strawman she cites (e.g., criticisms of reaching out to Iran, eliminating nuclear weapons), she cites prominent pundits who actually made the very arguments Obama cited.

  But her attempt to distinguish the Iranian outreach is almost embarrassingly absurd:

  And White House officials pointed to columns in both The New York Times (William Kristol) and The Washington Times (Jeffrey Kuhner) that criticized Mr. Obama for trying engagement with Iran’s leaders. But by saying “Iranians,” instead of the more specific “Iran’s leaders,” Mr. Obama took that criticism a step further, before knocking it down.

  Strawman!! I take it all back -- Obama's clearly just making crap up. I mean, who would ever refer to Iran's leaders as "Iranians"? It's nutty.

  Google and Lexis are valuable tools -- they should be used. Also, whenever you have to rely heavily on Bill Safire for quotes, that's usually a bad sign.

digby: Fiscal Scolds Hoping For Catastrophe

Here's the latest from the catfood lobby:

When the trustees of Social Security and Medicare recently reported on the economic outlook for these programs, the news coverage was universally glum. The recession had made everything worse. Social Security, Medicare face insolvency sooner, headlined The Wall Street Journal. Actually, these reports were good news. Better would have been Social Security, Medicare risk bankruptcy in 2010.

It's increasingly obvious that Congress and the president (regardless of which party is in power) will deal with the political stink bomb of an aging society only if forced. And the most plausible means of compulsion would be for Social Security and Medicare to go bankrupt: trust funds run dry; promised benefits exceed dedicated payroll taxes. The sooner this happens, the better.

That the programs will ultimately go bankrupt is clear from the trustees' reports. On pages 201 and 202 of the Medicare report, you will find the conclusive arithmetic: over the next 75 years, Social Security and Medicare will cost an estimated $103.2 trillion, while dedicated taxes and premiums will total only $57.4 trillion. The gap is $45.8 trillion. (All figures are expressed in "present value," a fancy term for "today's dollars.")

The Medicare actuaries then dryly note what would happen once the trust funds for Social Security and Medicare's hospital insurance program are depleted: "No provision exists under current law to address the projected [Medicare] and [Social Security] financial imbalances. Once assets are exhausted, expenditures cannot be made except to the extent covered by ongoing tax receipts." Translation: benefits would fall. Social Security checks would shrink; some Medicare bills wouldn't be paid in full—and the shortfalls would progressively worsen. Retirees would scream. Hospitals might shut. No president or Congress would abide the outcry; even the threat of imminent bankruptcy would rouse them to action. But restoring the programs' solvency would confront Congress and the White House with fundamental questions.

My God, the sky is falling. Right now the social security trust fund isn't going to run out of the surplus we've all been paying into it since 1983 until 2037, which is a real shame. If only we could make it go bankrupt now and use all that money for tax cuts and wars.

Just a little reminder --- here's Ronald Reagan raising the same alarm over 45 years ago:

But we're against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments to those people who depend on them for a livelihood. They've called it "insurance" to us in a hundred million pieces of literature. But then they appeared before the Supreme Court and they testified it was a welfare program. They only use the term "insurance" to sell it to the people. And they said Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government, and the government has used that tax. There is no fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial head, appeared before a congressional committee and admitted that Social Security as of this moment is 298 billion dollars in the hole. But he said there should be no cause for worry because as long as they have the power to tax, they could always take away from the people whatever they needed to bail them out of trouble. And they're doing just that.

A young man, 21 years of age, working at an average salary -- his Social Security contribution would, in the open market, buy him an insurance policy that would guarantee 220 dollars a month at age 65. The government promises 127. He could live it up until he's 31 and then take out a policy that would pay more than Social Security. Now are we so lacking in business sense that we can't put this program on a sound basis, so that people who do require those payments will find they can get them when they're due -- that the cupboard isn't bare?

These people have been saying the same thing for over half a century and they'll keep saying it until the program is gone. I don't know why anyone still listens to them.

If only these people cared as much about the future of the planet as they do about the projected SS revenues a century out, we might start to make some rational policies. They simply want to break the generational bond between the young and old and are always looking for a good moment of impending crisis (or "opportunity" like a rising stock market) to put an end to the program. Whatever works.

As for Medicare --- there's no fixing it without health care. But they know that too --- which is one of the reasons they will block reform.

These people are zealots. And anyone who engages them with any earnest intention to make a deal will be thwarted. They know exactly what they want and it isn't "solvency." It's the opposite --- as that column makes crystal clear.