Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Inaugural Inanities

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The insipid, inane, inept, irrelevant comments by the Talking Heads probably weren’t any worse than in past years, but certainly not better.  My favorites (not):

1. Interviewers of African-Americans who asked, “How do you feel about Obama being the first African American president?” and were answered with a variant of, “I think it’s just fine.”

2. Peter Canellos in the Globe predicting that Hillary “is poised to be the most powerful secretary of state since James Baker in the first Bush administration.”  What? Turns out that this is because Obama will be so preoccupied with domestic matters that Hill can do whatever she wants. Check this out in 3 months, Peter, and, BTW, take the Globe by-out.

3. The endless, brainless repetition of the line that the peaceful transfer of executive power is one of the glories of the American system.  Actually not. In parliamentary democracies, which are more numerous and, arguably, more democratic than the American system, transfer of power is virtually instantaneous. Just last week pundits were complaining about the awkward interregnum that stretches two and a half months after the election. But now, American exceptionalism and American triumphalism win the day.

4. Pundits and pols who celebrate the passing of “bitter partisanship,” ranging from Jeff Jacoby (please take the buy-out, Jeff, please) to Obama himself. Folks, partisanship is what got Obama elected and what is changing the electoral map.  We need more of this, not less.

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  1. 1 – The African-American interviews:  This isn’t unique to this situation.  There are any number of stories where reporters ask the “feelings” questions, mostly to fill time it seems.

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    p>#2 – HRC as SOS: She may well be, BUT she needs the ear of POTUS and win any turf wars and ideological battles.  Colin Powell had the stature to be a strong SOS coming in, but was constantly outvoted by the neocons.

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    p>#3 – Peaceful transfer: We are certainly no longer unique in this regard, but we do have the longest tradition of directly (more-or-less, Electoral College aside) the top officer and willing relinquishing of power.  It is certainly something to celebrate as any other nation that does this has followed our example.  We owe an enormous debt to John Adams for recognizing the legitimacy of his defeat at the hands of Jefferson in 1800.

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    p>#4 – Partisanship: We need a spirited contest of ideas, but I have no interest in bitterness.  No party has a monopoly on good ideas and the best legislation often comes from joint efforts.

  2. The dramatic expansion of opportunities for African-Americans in this country is cause for celebration because it helps all of us, among other reasons. I don’t see anything wrong with asking people how they feel about this important demonstration of that principle. Let more people comment, so far as I am concerned.

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    p>Let’s see how SoS Clinton does. Canellos might well be right.

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    p>It is good to celebrate our tradition of peaceful power transfers. That’s a lot of power to be handed over without a fight.

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    p>If the past eight years have taught anything, it is the destructive power of excessive partisanship. A big reason the Republicans destroyed their commanding political position over the past eight years is because they increasingly became a party of furious partisans. They alienated the entire moderate section of the country. Closer to home, the success of BMG is based in no small part on our many independent and Republican commenters. Of course we need to be determined and not shrink from making our case, but pragmatism is what changed the electoral map most recently, not partisanship.  

    • Why are people disillusioned with the Republicans? There’s Iraq, for one. There’s the economy. Climate change. Any number of reasons that generally poll pretty high (climate change being one of them).

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      p>Let’s say that Iraq had worked out, that the economy was working great. Not that these would be true in any case as Republican policies were fundamentally flawed, but whatever. Do you really think people would still be angry at Bush for being “partisan”?

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      p>Don’t blame the Republicans because they were partisan. Blame them because their policies were awful and killed thousands upon thousands. And blame the Democrats who helped them along, while you’re at it.

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      p>I’d like to think the eight past years should teach us about the dangers of war, especially preemptive war. I’d like to think they should teach us about the importance of regulation. I’d like to think they should teach us about the danger of unfettered executive power. I think that these are somewhat independent of “partisanship”, as the bipartisan Washington consensus has been what has brought us so many of these things for so many years. Read this insightful Greenwald article for more:

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      p>

      Look at every major Bush initiative, every controversial signature Bush policy over the last eight years, and one finds virtually nothing but massive bipartisan support for them — the Patriot Act (original enactment and its renewal); the invasion of Afghanistan; the attack on, and ongoing occupation of, Iraq; the Military Commissions Act (authorizing enhanced interrogation techniques, abolishing habeas corpus, and immunizing war criminals); expansions of warrantless eavesdropping and telecom immunity; declaring part of Iran’s government to be “terrorists”; our one-sided policy toward Israel; the $700 billion bailout; The No Child Left Behind Act, “bankruptcy reform,” and on and on.
      …
      Over the last eight years, one can locate a couple of exceptions to this lockstep cooperation in the domestic policy realm, where Democrats managed to deny Bush’s wishes — the failure of Bush’s Social Security privitization scheme and some isolated disputes over the magnitude of tax cuts.  And there have been some Democratic initiatives — SCHIPs funding and mandating more home-time for troops — which were vetoed or filibustered.  But one is very hard pressed to find any meaningful examples beyond those isolated cases.  Indeed, the bulk of Bush’s most substantial defeats — immigration reform, Harriet Miers, the Dubai ports deal — came as a result of opposition from the Right, not from Democrats.

      Bipartisanship — cooperation and agreement among the two parties — is the standard operating practice of Washington, and it has been for many years.  It’s certainly been vastly more common than the “partisan gridlock” that conventional Beltway wisdom spouters relentlessly complain is plaguing our political process.  There has been far more harmony and agreement among the two parties, particularly their leaders, than there has been acrimony and discord.  I’m asking this literally:  how would it have even been possible to have substantially more bipartisanship over the last eight years than we actually had?

      • First of all, my “agreed” was to Christopher, not to STG, with whom I don’t agree!

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        p>As to partisanship, maybe you voted for Obama because of his policies, but I think millions of people voted for him because they sensed danger in the way the country was divided under the Bush years — the same path McCain and Palin seemed intent on taking us. The whole “no red states no blue states” stuff is very powerful — more powerful, for many voters, than the specific issue of Iraq, for example. Consider that Obama and Clinton’s position on Iraq going forward were very similar, yet Obama was seen as the fresh thinker, Clinton as the old thinker, which helped Obama at the polls. I submit that the scars of the partisan battles of the Clinton administration (and Mr. Lynne is right, they go back more than a decade) hurt the SoS and helped Obama.

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        p>In any event, the ideas are not mutually exclusive since the Republicans were both progenitors of their own policies and highly partisan.

        • As you’re right in that these narratives of bipartisanship are very influential in themselves. I’m simply saying that they are mostly myths, and that the worst ideas (see: Iraq, Vietnam, military spending, deregulation, military commissions) are far too often bipartisan.

          • I think people confuse “bipartisanship” with “government getting things done”.  People get angry because government doesn’t accomplish anything and they blame it on partisan politicking.  

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            p>In fact, the real reason government doesn’t get anything done (domestically anyway) is the prevalence of Republican views: deregulation, small government, spending cuts, etc.  And Democrats have been afraid to challenge some of these positions until recently.

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            p>I think a lot of people voted for Obama because he was able to express the possibility of what an activist government can do.  This idea is sold in terms of “together we can”.  A lot of people want everyone to work together and to use government as a vehicle for that. They confuse that with bipartisanship. But one could argue that this is a very partisan view.  

  3. why liberals are always so enthralled by parliamentary systems.  I suppose that in such a system, there is more likely to be one (of the 300) parties with which you agree on every blessed little thing.

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    p>I find the lack of a parliamentary system of government to be a feature, rather than a bug, of our republic.

    • … has it’s appeal, but for me it has more to do with the fact that our system is designed to stop things more that start them.  It’s exactly the wrong sort of system for doing things like fixing health care.  Incidentally, the extent to which the party choice thing could be said to be more attractive to liberals, I think its not so much because of anything liberal so much as its because the Democratic party always seems to splinter more easily than the GOP.

      • “designed to stop things”

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        p>I would add “from becoming further screwed up.”

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        p>Again, a feature, says I.

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        p>I do agree that the Dems seem to splinter more often, because it is, in its worst moments, an uneasy coalition of interest groups, each of which thinks it advocates for The Most Important Issue That Has Ever Existed, And In Favor of Which Any Other Interest Can Be Shivved, for the Greater Good of the Cause.

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        p>Unless the GOP gets its Sh–t together, though, it runs the risk of fracturing at the fault between the religious and the business/libertaraian conservatives.  If that happens in 2010 and 2012, its Katy bar the door.

        • … from being screwed up or being fixed.  It’s only good if you suspect things will only get worse and that none of the problems you have now are emergencies.  IMO, one of the reasons the President has assumed more foreign policy and defense responsibilities than outlined in the constitution is that as communications have become speedier, the reaction time of the governments has needed to be speedier as well.  Hence you see police actions and foreign policy, monetary policy being more associated with the Executive than the Legislative branch.

        • … desires in the stimulus bill, Ezra  adds some perspective on exactly how easy it is to stop what should be popular legislation:

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          p>

          Whats actually interesting here is the political economy of the play: Schumer is trying to band together with other Senators from “highly urbanized states” to more effectively advocate for urban interests. Tough lift. The Senate is designed to screw over urbanized, which is to say populated, states. Every state gets two senators, no matter the state’s population. Thus, the 21 smallest states have the population of California but 42 Senators compared to California’s two. Those 21 smallest states thus have the power to filibuster legislation on their own even though they represent exactly as many people as Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. You can’t redress this imbalance without changing the Senate. And you can’t really change the Senate.

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