Kamber's Comments

Solving the Palin Problem

2008-09-30T09:08:00.000-05:00

I don’t have all the details, but I understand angry Republicans are working feverishly to solve their “Palin problem”.

They were ecstatic when Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin first burst onto the scene as Sen. John McCain’s surprise choice to be his running mate. She was gracious, charming and “hot”.

Married to the “first Dude” with three kids named Willow, Trig and Track, the media ate up her life style. On her way to work she could shoot a moose and fire a librarian for not banning books.

In those first giddy days of cheering crowds and words by Teleprompter, no one seemed to worry that her qualifications to be a “heartbeat away from the presidency” rivaled those of Mayberry’s Barney Fife.

It was only after her interviews with Charley Gibson and Katie Couric, hysterically reproduced by Palin look-alike Tiny Fey on Saturday Night Live, that they put her in the Witness Protection Program.

She has become such an embarrassment that many Republicans are demanding she be dropped from the ticket. Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker wrote in National Review Online that if Palin were a man, “we’d all be guffawing.” Parker told how she watches Palin interviews “with held breath” her finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Calling the candidate “clearly out of her league” she wrote “if BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.”

What to do? The fact that Tina Fey is a dead-ringer could be the answer to the GOP dilemma. The idea is to keep her bubbly, charismatic presence on the ticket while not keeping her. Why not replace her with politically-savvy…Tina Fey?

That’s the deal they’re working on.

Republicans have so much as stake in this election they can give Fey just about anything she wants to stand-in for Palin through the election and perhaps the first six months in office.

Palin would replace Fey on 30 Rock but since that’s a scripted show and she’s an accomplished TV performer, NBC might be willing to risk it. Whether the “first Dude” replaces Alex Baldwin is just one of the details to be worked out. As anyone who has ever viewed 30 Rock knows, writers would have no trouble creating roles for Willow, Trig and Track.

Fey, a University of Virginia graduate, is not only a SAG Award-winning writer but a smart businesswoman up to the task of dealing with that burned out building known as the Bush economy. She created and produces 30 Rock that was NBC’s biggest winner in the recent Emmys.

Writing political satire as Fey has done for the past 10 years requires knowledge and understanding of the issues—something that totally eludes Palin. Bringing that quality to the McCain campaign would allow Kathleen Parker and other worried Republicans to loosen the grip on their TV remotes and view with pride, not horror, as their candidate responds to media interviews.

Like I say, they’re still working out the details.

Hillary Voters Know that Palin is a WINO

2008-09-10T08:55:00.001-05:00

The religious right-wing extremists who run the GOP have never liked Sen. John McCain—they consider him a RINO (Republican in Name Only).

So putting party ahead of country, McCain named an unknown, unqualified, self-described “hockey mom” with a Barney Fife resume to be a “heartbeat away from the presidency”.

As a Pentecostal who supports teaching creationism in the schools, Palin is from the farthest fringe of the fundamentalist wing of the GOP.

She has the religious right ecstatic. James Dobson, head of the radio-based ministry Focus on the Family, said he never could vote for McCain but Palin has changed all that. “I’ve not been so excited about a political candidate since Ronald Reagan.”

The cynical McCain not only expects Gov. Sarah Palin to rouse sleeping evangelicals, but to attract “disenchanted” Hillary Clinton supporters.

Hillary’s 18 million voters are a lot smarter than that.

Just as McCain is a RINO to his Republican base, Hillary voters know that on all the issues important to women, Sarah Palin is a WINO (Woman in Name Only).

Palin is dead wrong on every issue important to women, such as equal pay, health care, guns, choice, judicial appointments, stem-cell research, the war and protecting our environment, to mention a few.

From a wealthy rural state, Palin is totally out of touch with the issues that vex the American mainstream.

McCain boasts that Palin has “balanced budgets”. Big deal. Unlike governors in the lower 48 states where the failed Bush economy has forced them to make painful cuts in critical public services, balancing a budget in resources-rich Alaska means sending every resident a dividend check.

Palin charmed the media with her gun-shooting exploits. She once shot a moose, probably on the quiet streets of “downtown” Wasilla where she served as a part-time mayor. Wasilla doesn’t have too many Bloods or Crips or concern over assault weapons that full-time mayors must deal with in places like New York and Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

Striving for a better, fairer America and appealing to the best that is in us, Hillary voters made history when they put 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling.

The McCain campaign is counting on a WINO to give us four more years of Bush.

Time for Tuck

2008-07-09T11:42:00.000-05:00

One of John McCain’s Arizona constituents is Dick Tuck.

Remember him? Tuck is the guy who made negative campaigning fun. His favorite victim was President Nixon. During one of Tricky Dick’s “whistle-stop” train tours, Tuck wore a brakeman’s uniform and signaled the engineer to start moving the train in the middle of Nixon’s speech. At a Nixon rally in L.A.’s Chinatown, Tuck put up a “Welcome Nixon” banner that in Chinese read “What about the Hughes loan?”, a reference to a scandalous loan Howard Hughes had made to Nixon’s brother. None of Nixon’s staff could read Chinese so the banner stayed up as a backdrop throughout Nixon’s speech. At Nixon campaign indoor events, Tuck posing as a fire marshal would offer reporters a miniscule count for attendance.

Before it was over Nixon and GOP strategists were muttering oaths and looking anxiously over their shoulders and around corners for the next Tuck attack on their carefully orchestrated campaign.

While Tuck could be worrisome and infuriating, he wasn’t lethal or malicious. Even Nixon supporters found themselves smiling at his antics. Later, Tuck’s roguish rapier wit gave way to the far more effective bludgeoning style of negative campaigning. When the Willie Horton ad appeared in 1988, it spelled the end for both Dukakis and Tuck.

Bur now, with John McCain as the Republican candidate, maybe it’s time for Tuck to come back. Who better than Tuck – now living in Tucson--to prick the hypocrisy of the “Straight Talk Express”? Who better than Tuck to get under McCain’s thin-skin, to bring to the boiling point that legendary McCain temper?

Admittedly, there are problems. Tuck’s demented schemes that tormented Nixon were raucously reported because the media didn’t like Nixon. Today’s mainstream press adores McCain. Also, today’s political skullduggery is conducted more on the Internet than at campaign events.

In the 1960s after the day’s political rally, reporters gathered in the most prominent local hotel bar to regale each other with Tuck’s latest escapade. Reporters don’t drink anymore. No longer is there a Jack Germond holding court with his midnight musings of candidate foibles and consultant mischief that helped educate us all.

Now we have the no-accountability of 527 “swift-boating” campaigns that tarnish the reputation of a decorated Vietnam War hero and convince a wide swath of gullible voters that Barack Obama is the Muslim Manchuria candidate.

No sensible campaign can deal with that.

Which is why we need Tuck.

Wake me when it is over

2008-06-16T08:11:00.000-05:00

Even as his approval rating sinks toward single digits, President Bush insists that future historians will have a more positive view. I wouldn’t count on it. One thing that may cloud their thinking is the fiscal as well as emotional hangover of the Bush war in Iraq. Evidence shows that Bush not only misled the country into an unnecessary war but put the enormous cost of the war on a credit card for future generations to pay—which includes those historians who will be evaluating his two disastrous terms in the Oval Office.

On thing sure to puzzle those historians is how in the Congress impeached a President for lying about sex and failed to impeach Bush who violated our Constitution so many times in so many ways that even the Supremes that put him in office are rebuking him.

We should all be grateful that former Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich had the guts to put on the record seven years of Bush deceptions and skullduggery and call for his impeachment. In a five-hour floor speech, Dennis let it all hang out. As the Indianapolis Star reported, “you cannot find a more complete and compelling indictment of the Bush administration.”

In all, Kucinich laid out 35 articles of impeachment, ranging from Article III: “Misleading the American people and members of Congress to believe Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, so as to manufacture a false case for war” to Article XVI that gives sordid details of Iraq contracting, how the Bush administration “recklessly wasted public funds on contracts awarded to close associates, including companies guilty of defrauding the government in the past, contracts awarded without competitive bidding, ‘cost-plus’ contracts designed to encourage cost overruns and contracts not requiring satisfactory completion of the work.” Oh yeah—those chosen to oversee the contracts, said Kucinich, were “their business partners.”

Kucinich based his indictment of the Bush record on the government’s own documentation of wrongdoing.

Naturally, neither the Congress nor the news media paid much attention to Kucinich, causing even Fox News to wonder why. Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley says that America’s founders “would have been astonished by the absolute passivity, if not the collusion, of the Democrats in protecting President Bush from impeachment.

Leaving that for future historians to mull over, what about this:

I can understand it when the airlines start charging passengers for each pretzel and bag because we know they’re going bankrupt. But when you see gas prices racing toward 5 bucks a gallon, how do you square that with the oil companies making billions in profits? If we didn’t have two oil men in the White House, the thought of “nationalization” of the industry might occur so that the government could ease the pain at the pump and even have a few bucks left over to repair potholes in the Interstates.

Winning the Working Class Vote

2008-05-27T14:57:00.001-05:00

Democratic primaries in Kentucky and West Virginia have pundits punditing that Barack Obama can’t win the working class vote. But that’s when his opponent is Hillary Clinton. What if he’s taking on John McCain?

The Charleston Gazette tells about a “preposterous statement” McCain made when he traveled to one of the poorest areas of east Kentucky in April. Standing where Lyndon Johnson announced the War on Poverty in 1964, McCain declared poverty programs “do not work.” That surprised the people of Martin County where between 1969 and 1979 the poverty rate dropped from 56% to less than 25%.

The Gazette also noted that on the day McCain was in Kentucky, he said he opposed a Senate bill to give equal pay to women.

It’s clear that if elected McCain will continue the economic policies of George W. Bush, with more tax breaks for the wealthy and the back of his hand to everyone else. His tax cutting proposals for corporations would cost about $400 billion a year. To make up for the lost revenue, he plans to reduce the growth of Medicare.

This is McSame, staying the course.

When Bush took office in 2001, budget surpluses of $5.6 trillion were projected over the coming decade. Stan Collender, author of The Guide to the Federal Budget, writes that Bush pledged “to eliminate the national debt by the end of the decade because that’s what Bill Clinton did as his term was ending. The new Bush administration had to look at least as fiscally conservative as the Democratic White House it was succeeding.”

What we got instead was a misguided, unnecessary, never-ending war in Iraq sucking money out of every other government need. After Bush leaves office the debt held by the public will be close to $6 trillion, an 80% increase over what it was when he first became president.

Collender notes that the biggest problem will be that the federal government will be committed to paying about $200 billion a year in interest on the debt!

That’s money that would have been available to help fund Medicare, repair our crumbling infrastructure and create jobs that working people so desperately need.

So much for McCain winning the working class vote in November.

Can't Anybody Here Play this Game?

2008-05-16T13:52:00.000-05:00

Our hearts go out to the distraught Republican leadership after losing three in a row special elections that were held in GOP strongholds. How the mighty have fallen. It wasn’t too long ago that Karl Rove was crowing about a permanent Republican majority. In the ashes of recent losses, their elderly statesmen compare the party label to dog food that people won’t buy.

Just how bad is the GOP image? Party pollster Fran Luntz tells the Weekly Standard: “It used to be that Republicans won on economic and values and foreign policy issues. Democrats won on quality of life. Now Democrats are winning on everything.”

The Democratic primaries are generating millions of new voters while a stream of defectors cause more anguish for the GOP. Not since 1932 has the party been in such trouble.

What to do? In a fit of desperation, party leaders put their battered heads together and came up with a new slogan, fittingly copied from a drug maker’s anti-depressant pill. That probably won’t do the trick.

I feel so badly for these poor folks that I have a suggestion that might help. Why don’t they play on voters’ compassion? When I see the mighty reduced to rubble this way, I think of how Casey Stengel went from the all-winning New York Yankees to manager of the deplorable New York Mets. As terrible as the expansion Mets were, fans packed the old Polo Grounds to see them play. Thanks to the way Casey presented his team to the media, the Mets won the hearts of New York and were heralded everywhere as “lovable losers”.

Pay attention, John Boehner, here’s how Casey did it:

First, you’ve got a Presidential nominee who is the oldest in our history and while Democrats will be too polite to draw voter attention to it voters are sure to notice. Shortly after Casey Stengel led the New York Yankees to five straight World Series titles, he was fired because he was believed to be too old to manage. When he came out of retirement to manage the Mets, he made light of his age: “It’s a great honor to be joining the Knickerbockers”, a New York baseball team that last played around the time of the Civil War.

After losing Denny Hastert’s seat and should-be “locks” in Louisiana and Mississippi, GOP brass put the blame on “bad” candidates. That’s not how Casey would have explained it. Here is his positive spin: “I’ve been in this game a hundred years, but I see new ways to lose I never knew existed before.” As for “bad” candidates, Casey told reporters about two of his rookies: “See that fellow over there? He’s 20 years old. In 10 years he has a chance to be a star. Now, that fellow over there, he’s 20 too. In 10 years he has a chance to be 30.”

Ready for the Fall

2008-05-02T09:14:00.000-05:00

The greatest myth perpetrated this election cycle is that the nasty, bitter Democratic presidential campaign will leave the party divided this fall. Sure, supporters of the losing candidate will be angry and disappointed and may sulk a bit, but any notion they will go for Sen. John McCain in November is Republican fantasyland.

When the Democrats leave Denver in August, their presidential nominee will have a double-digit lead and the “battle” over lapel pins and Bosnian snipers won’t even be a blip on the voter radar honed in on Iraq, the economy and eight years of Republicans Gone Wild.

No matter how many times McCain says “my friends,” he will have few of them among general election voters when they give unbridled attention to his position on issues they care about.

Soaring gas prices, stagnant wages and the housing collapse have our economy in tatters, and McCain concedes this isn’t his strong suit even though “I’ve got Greenspan’s book.” Our failing economy is one of the casualties of the Iraq War that McCain continues to strongly support. At long last, the media are beginning to ask some hard questions about the cost of the war.

Ron Brownstein of National Journal poses this question for McCain: “If the war really is crucial to America’s security, shouldn’t today’s taxpayers finance it?” As has been pointed out numerous times, Iraq is the first major war that this country has fought by transferring the entire cost to future generations through government debt. President
Bush never proposed raising taxes to pay for the war. Worse, in 2003 he substantially cut taxes, unprecedented in war time.

Expect more of the same from a McCain administration. McCain has already endorsed tax cuts that would cost more than $300 billion a year, including reduction of the corporate income tax from 34% to 25%. And, of course, he wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, another $110 billion.

A constant worry to families across America is our deteriorating health care system where rising costs leave nearly 50 million with no insurance coverage and millions more underinsured. The current system cherry-picks the healthy and tells those with chronic diseases to get lost. When a journalist asked if the Senator’s skin cancer might make him sympathetic to the idea of requiring that insurance companies offer policies to those with such conditions, McCain responded: ‘That would be mandating what the free enterprise system does.” (He is referring of course to a system that does indeed allow insurance companies to choose the healthiest people and refuse coverage to those who are sick.)

McCain told the Boston Globe he would give people with preexisting conditions “an extra tax credit” to help pay for insurance funded by savings in the Medicaid program. The Columbia Journalism Review made this observation: Where does McCain think the Medicaid savings will come from? Does he mean cutting benefits to poor people who depend on Medicaid for health care? Or from middle-class families who rely on Medicaid to pay for nursing home care?

Real issues like these keep people awake at night, and only the Democrats offer real solutions. I think I’m really going to enjoy the fall campaign.

That nutty, greedy 19%

2008-04-10T11:32:00.001-05:00

No one could be surprised at recent polls showing 81% of the American people believe the country is going to hell in a hand-basket. We know who those people are, because we are those people. But I’m more interested in that 19% who think everything in peachy.

You begin, of course, with Bush Administration political appointees, the oil companies and defense contractors.

Next come those who subscribe to the Weekly Standard and Wall Street Journal, listeners to right-wing radio, and viewers of Fox News.

Then you go to all those lenders and speculators who guessed wrong on the housing market, lost billions, but were bailed out by a federal government that never fails to feel corporate pain.

But the really big chunk of the nutty, greedy 19% is found in the healthcare industry. For the nation’s HMOs and PPOs and their drug company co-conspirators, is this a wonderful country or not? They ride herd on the most wasteful, dysfunctional health care system in the western world and rack up obscene profits. As insurance premiums soar and millions more are priced out of coverage, they simply hire more people to deny claims, knowing that “value” is in the paper-work, not the patients.

Things have gotten so bad that just the other day a new survey revealed that 59% of doctors now support universal health care. “As doctors, we find that our patients suffer because of increasing deductibles, co-payments, and restrictions on patient care,” said Dr. Ronald Ackermann. “More and more, physicians are turning to national health insurance as a solution to this problem.”

The conventional political wisdom is that won’t happen. The health insurance lobby is so powerful on Capitol Hill that even with doctors on board, “Medicare for all” doesn’t have a prayer. Medicare itself is under fire by the Bush Administration that keeps urging funding cuts to help pay for the war in Iraq.

To see how times have changed, one of Medicare’s staunchest defenders is the American Medical Association. Dr. Nancy Nielsen, AMA’s president-elect, has asked Congress “to preserve access to healthcare for the millions of senior and disabled Americans who rely on Medicare.” This July, payments to physicians caring for Medicare patients will be slashed. “These real cuts have serious consequences as physicians will be forced to limit the new Medicare patients they can treat this year,” said Nielsen.

When President Lyndon Johnson pushed for Medicare legislation in 1965, AMA was bitterly opposed. Their lobbyists thought they had LBJ in a corner when they told him his Medicare bill was flawed, that it wouldn’t even cover the most vulnerable Americans—those under 65 who were poor. LBJ slapped his big hand on his desk and said, in effect, “by golly, you guys are right. How could I have overlooked that?” A week later, he introduced Medicaid legislation. Congress made history by approving both Medicare and Medicaid, easing the medical suffering for millions of poor and elderly Americans.

With AMA and an overwhelming percentage of the American people in support, why can’t the next Congress face down the trillion-dollar insurance and drugs lobbies and pass universal health care?

In any crime scene, the advice is “follow the money”. And with this crime, it isn’t just that nutty, greedy 19% that is the problem.

5 Years and Counting

2008-03-31T13:06:00.000-05:00

The Iraq War is five years old. What can you say? It has been a dreadful, depressing, costly misadventure, the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history.

Trust me: this war is such an albatross around the neck of the Republican party that even if fractious and disorganized Democrats muddle until November 3 before they decide upon a candidate for President, he or she will still win the election.

It is apparent President Bush knew very little going into Iraq, and after five horrendous years with nearly 4,000 lives lost and 60,000 injured, he has learned nothing. How else do you explain the celebratory mood from those who launched the war?

In a Pentagon address marking the anniversary of the Iraq invasion, President Bush was optimistic. He said “the surge” had turned the situation around in Iraq and that the “high cost of lives and treasure” has been worthwhile.

Veep Cheney, fresh from a Baghdad weekend, agreed the war has been “a successful endeavor” and “well worth the effort.”

Republican Presidential nominee John McCain, with loyal Democratic sidekick Joe Lieberman whispering factual corrections in his ear, claims “America and our allies” (whose numbers are dropping faster than the value of the dollar) “stand on the precipice of winning a major victory against radical Islamic extremism.”

Also popping the bubbly are America’s military contractors. They not only have made a fortune off the Iraq War but aided and abetted by the Bush Administration have devised ways to avoid paying taxes. Kellogg Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, has hauled in more than $16 billion in federal funds, but with a mailing address in the Cayman Islands managed to avoid at least $500 million in U.S. taxes.

To escape government scrutiny, both Halliburton and KBR moved their headquarters to Dubai. Justice Department lawyers have proposed a new rule that would provide for Congressional oversight of U.S. contractors, but the White House slipped in language that would exempt contractors who work overseas. Vermont Rep. Peter Welch is demanding an investigation.

After five years, the war has cost more than $522 billion. That’s a figure we can’t even contemplate. That’s why I’m grateful to Sen. Mary Landrieu for putting “billion” into perspective: “A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive. A billion days ago, nobody walked on the Earth on two feet.”

Somewhere I read that a Nobel Prize-winning economist estimates the total cost of the Iraq War could top $3 trillion.

Help me out here Mary. A trillion days ago…

What to do? Enjoy!

2008-03-26T13:51:00.003-05:00

As the train wreck known as the Democratic Presidential primaries rattles into Pennsylvania, practically the entire party establishment is looking at Chairman Howard Dean and muttering as Oliver Hardy would to Stan Laurel, “this is a fine mess you’ve got us into…”

Fine mess indeed. This could be such a triumph that I have to think Howard planned it this way. Instead of the unforgettable shriek he let loose after the Iowa primary results were in, I expect he is rubbing his hands and chuckling the way leaders do when a great plan comes together.

Everyone knows this is an election where the only way Republicans can win is for Democrats to find a way to lose.

The independent vote that GOP nominee John McCain once attracted is bitterly opposed to a disastrous war that he would pursue for another hundred years. If that weren’t enough, there’s the declining dollar and 4-buck a gallon gas. And it is a given that no incumbent party ever won an election when the economy went into recession on their watch.

So how can Democrats possibly lose? Well, there are problem areas, such as the nasty name-calling that has another two months to run, what to do about Michigan and Florida, and those up-for-grabs super-delegates.

Some Democrats worry that week after week of bitter primaries just might hurt their chances. Real Democrats know this back-and-forth bloodletting generates continuing interest among voters and media while conditioning the eventual winner to withstand whatever muck the GOP swift-boaters throw in the fall.

While it is true that voters like both Obama and Clinton, it is also true that the candidates themselves and their top staff people detest each other (anyone ever involved in a political campaign knows this is true). So forget the “dream ticket” scenario—the eventual nominee is more likely to select Eliot Spitzer as a running mate.

Lots of nasty things have been said about each candidate, mostly by surrogates, but nothing Democrats haven’t heard before. Because of race and gender, epithets are riskier than usual, allowing pundits to find affronts that often don’t exist.

There are Nervous Nellies like Democratic strategist Matt Bennett who is concerned that these attacks “could make our nominee the New York Mets of politics—winning in the spring only to lose in the fall.”

Others fear that with Democrats fighting on and on with no end in sight, while the GOP contest is over, gives McCain a tactical advantage. He has time to relax and shore up his vulnerabilities. Not to worry. His first act was to traipse over to the White House, where he received a toxic embrace from President Bush, providing Democrats with a photo-op that will be featured on millions of “McSame” campaign posters in the fall.

Democrats should be proud of their much-ridiculed party rules. When Howard Dean invalidated nearly two million Democratic votes in Michigan and Florida, he was playing by the rules. Even after all the primaries and caucuses, neither of their extraordinary candidates is likely to have enough pledged delegates to claim the nomination. What saves the day are party rules, enlisting the aid of super-delegates who have been waiting since the1982 DNC convention for the opportunity to exercise their judgment and “do the right thing.” (Those who worry about a “backroom elite” ignoring the wishes of the majority need to understand that super-delegates are savvy, lifelong Democrats who didn’t get where they are by disappointing people.)

Play by the rules. The American Dream is built on the notion that if you play by the rules you’ll get ahead. That hasn’t been true for several years, but that’s why “change” is the dominant theme of this election season.

Only the fighting Democrats are on the media radar these days. The anointed but unloved Republican nominee simply grows older. By November voters may see his name on the ballot and ask: “Who knew?”

Nice going Howard. This time when the results are in, a simple yell of victory will suffice.

Why a tax rebate?

2008-02-28T10:17:00.001-05:00

With the economy tanking, our government is doing what it does best to solve the problem (and what got us into this mess in the first place): write a check. To everybody. Your check may already be in the mail.

I’m disappointed by both the Obama and Clinton campaigns. Why didn’t one of them seize upon this crisis to strongly recommend a public works program that puts money in people’s pockets and into our economy while rebuilding and repairing our deteriorating infrastructure? Was such an idea even debated in the Congress or among the candidates in the primaries and caucuses? If so, I missed it.

Both Democratic presidential campaigns have staffs of extraordinary smarts. That’s why I can’t imagine how they missed the boat on an issue that so energizes the Democratic base: rebuilding our economy while rebuilding America.

All across the country, our infrastructure is collapsing due to insufficient funding. Our bridges, roads, tunnels and waste treatment systems are old and in disrepair. Crumbling infrastructure jeopardizes our prosperity and the quality of our daily lives.

I’m particularly surprised that the Clinton people have been remiss in recognizing this is a campaign-turning issue. She chairs a National Commission on Infrastructure aimed at finding comprehensive answers to our nation’s current and future infrastructure needs.

Hillary’s new slogan is “Solutions for America” and what better solution for America’s economic woes than a federal program that helps relieve our infrastructure crisis at the same time it re-enforces our middle class?

Hillary has based her campaign on the importance of experience over rhetoric. But for this one, she needs to go beyond husband Bill, beyond JFK, for a tested solution to today’s problem. She has to go all the way back to FDR.

I recommend to Hillary and her staff a new book on FDR’s Works Progress Administration. Author Nick Taylor opines that a jobs program would give more bang for the buck than a tax rebate.

Taylor observes that the WPA was created “both to repair a broken infrastructure and to relieve the suffering that came with widespread joblessness.” He noted that from an economic standpoint, the WPA was a model of Keynesian thought. “The people who had these jobs put their money back into the economy immediately, buying food and badly needed clothing.”

Taylor suggests that the already-enacted tax rebates is “found money” for most people. “It may go back into the economy, but it is just as likely to be used to pay off back debts, since the whole reason for the economy sinking is that people are over-extended.”
Not only may the tax rebate fail to revive the economy, but what are the consequences of ignoring our infrastructure crisis? We know the answer to that: falling bridges, exploding steam pipes, crumbling levees, traffic jams and power outages.

If not an “amen” can I at least have a “yes, we can”?

Right (far right) on the Issues

2008-02-06T12:02:00.000-05:00

The Presidential debates have served us well, I think. Voters know pretty much where the candidates and parties stand on issues important to them. Democrats, their impressive field now winnowed to two, aren’t that far apart but have argued vociferously on the two biggest domestic and foreign policy issues that worry the American people: how to provide affordable health care for all, and how to end the Iraq war.

By contrast, the Republican presidential debates have given short-shrift to voter concern over how to survive the world’s most costly and dysfunctional health care system. The response has been “let the market work” which translates: “you’re on your own—don’t expect any help from us”. As for the misguided, unnecessary, unwanted war in Iraq, leading candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney quarrel endlessly over who would keep our troops there longer. (Mike Huckabee chimes in that he still believes if we stay there long enough we may find those weapons of mass destruction).

While it is true that presidential candidates in both parties appeal to their base in primary elections, it is obvious to almost everyone that the Democrats can take their primary fight straight to the general election and not change a note. Over at the RNC, they know it’s a far different story. Almost every week there is a Republican incumbent in Congress who gauges public reaction to the debates and opts not to run for re-election.

Leave it up to Karl Rove to get it all wrong. He says Republicans are carrying out a “serious debate about serious ideas” and chides Democrats for “running a nasty race that has as its subtext race and gender.”

Hey Karl—what you call a “race and gender” subtext is the Democratic party making history. Either an African-American or a woman will be their Presidential nominee and the prospect has voters bubbling with anticipation. (Even the Republican Weekly Standard concedes: “Democratic primary turnout has doubled from 2004, reflecting a level of enthusiasm among Democrats that hasn’t been seen for decades.”)

Just for the heck of it, let’s examine those issues GOP candidates have been wrangling about and see how they might make sense to the majority of voters this fall. The two “biggies” have been supporters of the war in Iraq and making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

Every poll tells us where most voters are on the Iraq war—they want it over. As for the treasury-draining Bush tax cuts, the idea of making them permanent is almost as big a loser as being pro-war. McCain voted against it twice because it “unduly benefits the wealthy.” Now that he’s a Republican presidential candidate, he’s for it
While McCain and Romney squabble over who supports the war more and the tax cuts not to pay for the war, they do agree on how to pick up the $15 billion monthly tab the war is costing us: cut spending for entitlements. That’s the fraying safety net for the sick, retired and disabled: make tax cuts permanent for the rich while forcing grandma out of her nursing home. Sure, that will play well in November.

Send a Check

2008-01-24T09:41:00.000-05:00

It should be scary that Freedom Watch, a conservative political advocacy group formed by Bush aides, has more than $200 million to attack Democrats in the fall election. But then you read how these wing nuts plan to spend their money and you want to send them a check.

Freedom Watch spent $15 million last summer for an ad campaign defending the Iraq war. Last fall it took out full-page newspaper ads attacking Democrats in Congress for their anti-war votes.

With all that money, don’t these guys have a few bucks for a poll or focus group that might tell them where voters are on this issue?

I have written a book on negative advertising and I can tell you there are worse things than voter backlash. What’s worse is spending money to dig deeper the hole you’re in. That’s where the Republican fringe is and why John McCain as the “pro war” candidate is their presidential frontrunner.

Ari Fleischer, former White House mouthpiece for President Bush, is a Freedom Watch founder. I really thought Ari was smarter than that. Turns out he wasn’t just doing what he was paid to do when he peddled all those lies about the war—he was a believer. (A recent study by two non-profit journalism organizations counted 935 false statements by Bush and administration officials that “led the nation to war under false pretenses.”)

And at what a cost! Nearly 4,000 American troops have been killed, 20,000 more have been maimed. A new congressional study finds that total Iraq costs may approach $3 trillion. We’re fighting the war on borrowed money – Bush not only refused to raise taxes to pay for it but cut taxes on the richest Americans. Costs of the war go beyond the budget numbers. If the president’s 2008 funding request is approved, the full economic cost of the war—including the economic impact of deficit financing, the future care of our wounded veterans, and disruption in oil markets—will total $1.3 trillion by the end of this year.

New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney said the numbers are too huge to grasp. “The burden of war handed down to our children is real. The lost opportunities to invest here at home in jobs, productivity, roads, health care and education are real. This year alone, the president asked Congress to spend more on the Iraq war than the nation does annually on the entire American road and highway system.”

Meanwhile, all those folks at the Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute prattle on about democracy’s “success” in Iraq. And Freedom Watch raises more money to tell voters about it this fall.

Like I say, send a check.

2008-01-11T14:54:00.000-05:00

Vic Kamber sizes up how the Pelosi Congress did in its first year with CNBC’s Melissa Francis
Victor Kamber on CNBC

What it all means...

2008-01-09T09:05:00.000-05:00

Voters in two tiny, non-representative states have had their say about who the presidential nominees should be for the two major parties. What a waste.

Think of those millions of voters in big states like California and New York who really liked Joe Biden and Chris Dodd for their foreign policy and legislative experience but won’t have the opportunity to cast a ballot for them because they were eliminated at this early stage by voters in Iowa and New Hampshire who care only about God and taxes.

Don’t get me wrong: for the Democrats I believe either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would be stronger candidates for the Presidency than Biden or Dodd. I just don’t think a handful of single-message voters in two small states—with an assist from the media-- should winnow the field this early of respected leaders and their fan base around the country.

One thing is clear: the Bush Administration has been such a disaster that the campaign mantra of all candidates in both parties is change.

If either party wanted real change, they would have gotten in line behind Republican Ron Paul and Democrat Dennis Kucinich. That became difficult after the media eliminated both from recent televised national debates.

Can you imagine the chagrin in the Romney camp, losing out to a guitar-strumming Baptist preacher? Law and Order’s Thompson is probably the first political victim of the writer’s strike—he no longer has L&O’s Dick Wolf writing for him.

I always thought John McCain would be the toughest Republican for Democrats to beat in 2008, but not after his recent appearance on Meet the Press.

Asked THE question about Iraq (“if you knew then, what you know now--no weapons of mass destruction-- would you have invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/ll?”), McCain answered “yes.”

He insisted the war in Iraq was not a mistake—only the handling of it, and said he sees nothing wrong with US troops staying there as many as 100 years.

Well, let’s see how that plays with American voters in November.

Despite concern over the economy and health care, I still believe the overriding issue in this election will be voter anger over an Iraq war that has turned the world against us while costing American lives and treasure beyond comprehension.

Advice to GOP Candidates: Rove, Rove, Rove your boat to oblivion

2007-12-03T11:22:00.000-05:00

What was Newsweek thinking of when it added Karl Rove to its stable of columnists? This is the political consultant who gave President Bush a domestic policy every bit as catastrophic as his Cheney-driven foreign policy disasters-- no easy task. Angry voters had their say in the 2006 mid-term elections – restoring control of Congress to the Democrats-- and the outlook is even grimmer for the GOP in 2008.

So maybe it was subtle satire that simply escaped me when I read Karl’s current Newsweek column advising Republicans, “How to Beat Hillary Next November.” It is a real hoot!

First, Rove tells them to “tackle issues families care about” --jobs, health care, taxes. Voters know the GOP has not only “tackled” these issues, but pursuing the Rove doctrine threw them for huge losses: outsourcing jobs, rejecting health care for children, cutting taxes for the rich.

Rove somehow failed to mention his golden-oldie, “privatizing Social Security.” Now there was a real winner for the GOP. Voters reacted so strongly to the notion of turning their retirement over to Wall Street that overnight red states turned blue.

Karl’s cincher in beating Hillary: “Be strong on Iraq.” The mind boggles. This neo-con myth still wins the hearts of the top tier of Republican presidential candidates. How can they be so out of touch? The American people hate this war. They want it over. It was the most horrible mistake in our history and an absolute loser at the polls.

If GOP candidates weren’t already retching at this stage of the Rove column, his next bit of advice should have them reaching for the Advil: “Campaign for the votes of American’s minorities. Go to their communities, listen and learn, demonstrate your engagement and emphasize how your message can provide hope and access to the American Dream for all.”

Now if that isn’t satire it must be right out of a skit for Saturday Night Live. Rove domestic policies that guided this administration have not only derailed our middle-class but destroyed the “American Dream,” with minorities bearing the brunt. One-third of Americans today are “downwardly mobile” making less than their parents and African Americans are particularly vulnerable to tumbling down the economic ladder. A new report from the Pew Charitable Trust noted that a shocking 45 percent of African Americans from solidly middle-class families have fallen into the bottom 20 percent of income distribution.

As for GOP Presidential candidates demonstrating their “engagement” with minorities, that ship has sailed already. At every viable minority audience, they have been no-shows. They couldn’t be found at presidential debates staged by historically black Morgan State University, of the NAACP, the National Urban League and the National Council of La Raza. Even J.C. Watts, a former GOP leader in the House, called their decision ignoring minority audiences “stupid” and Newt Gingrich termed their so-called ‘scheduling conflicts’ as “baloney.” Former GOP Vice Presidential candidate Jack Kemp asked: “What are we going to do—meet in a country club in the suburbs one day?”

Never mind. Karl Rove assures GOP candidates that Hillary is “eminently beatable.”

Sure. Anyone is beatable. But not if the Republican candidate follows Rove’s advice.

Hitting the Laffer Curve

2007-11-19T14:05:00.000-05:00

The very thought of Democrats rewriting the nation’s tax laws is driving Republicans bonkers. For two days in a row, Bloomberg’s financial reporters and pundits have lost their editorial cool in stories forecasting how Charlie Rangel’s proposed tax reforms that zing the rich and help the poor “may derail his fellow Democrats’ pre-election momentum.”

Say what?

The House Ways and Means Committee chairman is offering a sweeping tax overhaul he calls “the mother of all reforms.” Rangel’s proposal would raise taxes on the rich while cutting bills for the working poor.

Somehow, Bloomberg thinks that proposition is a loser with American voters in 2008. Perhaps it is in that peculiar little world that gets most of its information from the Weekly Standard and Fox News. To them, Charlie’s proposal provides “chilling glimpse of the abyss.” Those were the exact words of Bloomberg columnist, Kevin Hassett.

This surreal view is enjoyed by Republicans in Congress who don’t understand why they are becoming an endangered species. Here is House Minority Whip Roy Blunt’s assessment of Rangel’s plan: “Very seldom in politics do your opponents give you this kind of gift.”

Our country is in a disastrous financial fix not only because of an unwanted trillion-dollar Iraq war but because earlier GOP elected leaders and their tax gurus gave us “the Laffer Curve” and voodoo economics. Republican “supply side” ideology claims tax cuts pay for themselves. That notion was roundly condemned in a recent New Yorker magazine article by James Surowiecki. “Myriad studies have demonstrated that both the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s and the tax cuts put through under the current administration shrank government revenues and led to bigger budget deficits.”

Somehow, these documented facts elude Republican politicians and most of the news media. President Bush told Fox News that his tax cuts had “yielded more tax revenues, which allow us to shrink the deficit.” You can imagine why there was no rebuttal on that network. All the top dogs running for the GOP Presidential nomination believe tax cuts are the answer to all things economic.

In Jonathan Chait’s new book, The Big Con, he reminds us that from the end of World War II to 1973 the top income tax rate was between 70 percent and 91 percent. Yet during this same period, the country experienced massive economic growth. When Reagan came into office he cut the top rate from 70 percent to 50 percent, resulting in budget deficits up to $200 billion. When Clinton took office, he increased the top rate from 31 percent to 39 percent and the U.S. economy in the 1990s boomed.

Chait makes a convincing case that supply side economics is really about class, not the economy. Right on cue, here’s what Virginia Republican Congressman Eric Cantor has to say about Rangel’s proposed tax reform: “This is all about class warfare.” Right, Eric, only this time Democrats and ordinary folks could be winning.

Even Bloomberg made this concession: “The Republican strategy of portraying Democrats as tax-and-spend liberals may not work as well with voters as it has in the past. In a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll this week, a majority of voters of both parties said they hadn’t benefited from Bush’s tax reductions, and 60 percent said they were willing to see those cuts repealed to pay for universal health care.”

If Rangel is right, and I’m sure he is, Democrats will Laffer all the way to the White House.

If We Can’t Pay Our Medical Bills, Have the Terrorists Won?

2007-10-15T13:23:00.000-05:00

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” was a proud moment in American history. Standing alongside the Berlin wall that divided east and west Germans, President Ronald Reagan demanded it be removed.

Eventually it was. America won the old-fashioned way — by spending the Soviet Union into bankruptcy in the decades-long Cold War arms race.

Now Osama bin Laden is doing the same to us. America is spending $15 billion a month in Iraq to wage a mistaken war that is a recruiting bazaar for Al Queda terrorists. Somewhere in a well-stocked cave in ally Pakistan, bin Laden must be laughing his turban off.

Our national debt is exploding. Today it stands at more than $9 trillion, a 56 percent increase under President Bush. That’s $29,728 for every man, woman and child in our nation. As Comptroller General David Walker has warned: “Continuing on the unsustainable fiscal path will gradually erode, if not suddenly damage, our economy, our standard of living and ultimately our national security.”

I don’t know whether Gorbachev had a comptroller general to provide advance notice of imminent bankruptcy that overspending brings, but President Bush has had a number of warning signs thrust in his path and he continues to put the pedal to the metal.

If spending in Iraq means America can’t afford health care for our children or infrastructure maintenance to keep our bridges from falling down, then the terrorists have won.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer recently described for the National Press Club the fiscal record of the Republican Party. He termed it a “decades-long train wreck.” He said that “for 18 of the 26 years I have served in Congress, a Republican has occupied the White House. And in every single year of those Republican Administrations, the federal government ran a budget deficit.”

The Maryland Democrat said the cumulative deficits under Presidents Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush and George W. Bush total more than $4.1 trillion. In contrast, the Clinton Administration had a cumulative surplus of nearly $63 billion over eight years. Under President Clinton, the federal government reduced the deficits he inherited and recorded four consecutive surpluses, the first time that had happened in 70 years.

The interest payments on the national debt in 2007 are a projected $235 billion. That’s more than Congress appropriates for any government department or agency other than Defense. It’s four times more than we spend on education, and seven times more than we spend on Homeland Security.

“This administration has pursued the most fiscally irresponsible policies in American history,” said Hoyer. Although Democrats get hammered as “tax-and-spend,” he told his press club audience that “the Democratic Party is the party of fiscal responsibility today — which is a very under-reported story.”

Sure is. So is the fact that the Russian government still had a few rubles left in the treasury when they allowed that wall to come tumbling down.

Lowering the Bar

2007-09-27T11:29:00.000-05:00

Does it really matter who the Democrats run for president in 2008? Not when the GOP finds itself on the wrong side of the two biggest issues facing the country: the Iraq war and health care.

These folks are so out of touch. Talk about an “inside the Beltway” issue: to Democrats and Republicans in Congress, how and when to end the Iraq war is a subject of heated debate that goes nowhere. Which is why Congress polls even lower than President Bush.

Just get the war over with, bring our troops home, do something about health care. That’s the sentiment outside the Beltway. There’s no debate. Just do it.

The biggest domestic concern for voters is soaring health care costs that have left 47 million Americans uninsured and millions more worried they will lose their coverage as premiums have increased 78% since 2001. We have the most expensive and least efficient health care system in the world. That’s why the three leading Democratic candidates for President have detailed plans for universal health care.

When the GOP looks at the health care crisis, they don’t see families bankrupted by medical bills. No, in “Medicare for All” or any of its government-based options, they see a far greater threat: socialized medicine. As The Weekly Standard reported recently, the Democrats’ approach to health care “would essentially dismantle our existing insurance system and replace it with a new one with the government at its center, a grossly excessive response…”

Republicans have put forward “serious yet modest proposals” that will keep in place “a private insurance system that works quite well,” opines The Standard.

Sure it does. Profits for Wellpoint, the largest health insurer in the country, increased by 11% in the most recent quarter to $835 million. Profits for United Health, the nation’s second largest insurer, increased 22% to $18.9 billion.

Of course, these firms do have expenses. Last year the health care industry spent $350 million lobbying Congress.

Republicans are also concerned about the loss of jobs – those two million people who work hard every day rejecting claims.

Here is the best part, according to The Weekly Standard: “In recent months, without fanfare, a Republican health care consensus has emerged—reform the way health insurance is taxed.”

No surprise there. With conservatives, taxes are the root of all evils. Cutting taxes is the GOP miracle elixir that solves every problem, foreign or domestic.

Lots of GOP Texans are pushing FairTax, a proposal that Bill Buckley’s National Review calls “the biggest success story of the 2008 Republican primary season”. (Can you imagine the competition?) It would not only eliminate income taxes completely but abolish the IRS.

The Church of Scientology first came up with the plan for replacing federal taxes on personal and corporate income with a national sales tax, a scheme that would allow Fortune 500 CEOs and Joe Six Pack to share the cost of government. Perhaps actor Tom Cruise could be the Movement’s Alan Greenspan.

Backers of the FairTax modestly suggest it has the potential “to heal a divided nation.”

Like I say, with issues like these, does it really matter who wins the Democratic nomination for President in 2008?

Organized Labor--the political opponent Karl Rove feared most

2007-09-10T13:40:00.000-05:00

Pennsylvania is a blue state that divisive GOP campaigns of God, guns and gays occasionally turn red. When Al Gore ran for President against George W. Bush in 2000, Pennsylvania was pivotal. Labor operatives in the Keystone State assured their members: “Al Gore won’t take away your guns, but George Bush will take away your unions.”

Gore won Pennsylvania but as we all now know, the Supreme Court gave the election to George Bush who has done everything in his power to do to working people just what Labor in Pennsylvania said he would: take away their unions.

In recent weeks, national attention has been focused on the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys who weren’t “Bushie” enough. But long before the politicizing of the Justice Department, White House political strategist Karl Rove set his sights on the real threat to a GOP “permanent majority”-- organized labor.

From the day the Bush Administration took office, government agencies created to help working people have been under attack. It began with the appointment of Elaine Chao as Labor Secretary, something akin to naming Typhoid Mary to the Board of Health. A department created “to foster, promote and develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States” became a haven for unfair employers. Chao’s first move was to deprive six million workers of the right to overtime pay (she even advised employers how to exploit the new rules). Next, her department slashed funds and staff for workplace safety and repealed regulations to protect workers from repetitive motion injuries. The department continues to strongly oppose any increase in the minimum wage.

But it wasn’t enough just to keep workers down. Even more important to Bush and Rove was the need to stifle union organizing. That was accomplished by Bush appointees to the National Labor Relations Board who have manipulated the rules so that the NLRB has become a tool to penalize rather than protect workers seeking union membership. When Democrats sponsored legislation to allow workers to skip the NLRB and organize by “card check”, who was it in the Senate who stopped it in its tracks? Elaine Chao’s husband, GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell.

Why are Bush, Rove and the GOP Congress so willing to pull out all stops to deny unions the right to organize? Because unions have what the GOP can’t buy: committed grassroots political activists who leaflet, phone bank, and educate their members better than any other organization in America. It helps explain why union households vote in record numbers.

It had to send a shiver through Republican ranks when AFL-CIO President John Sweeney promised Democratic Presidential candidates at a recent debate last month that 2008 “will be our biggest election effort ever.” (Just a week later, Rove announced he was retiring.)

Fox News and other right-wing political pundits try to have it both ways: they belittle organized labor as weak and passé, and then they rail against the threat of “Big Labor”. What “threat” does Labor pose? What they ask of candidates they endorse is that they fight for universal health care, affordable housing, safer workplaces, lower college tuitions and other issues that ordinary people care about. By contrast, GOP candidates have some heavy-lifting to do on the campaign trail, justifying to voters the priorities of their corporate backers.

The grassroots election fervor created by organized labor--all those enthusiastic, placard-waving union members, a sea of brightly colored T-shirts—drives Rove crazy. Somehow he never can muster shouting hordes of manufacturers or Jaycees at his rallies where attendance is pre-screened. Bankers and realtors and corporate executives aren’t much for leafleting or phone banking either, and you can’t expect those Jags and stretch limos to car pool voters to the polls on election day.

After nearly seven years of taking the best shots the Bush administration can give them, resilient and resourceful unions and their members are upbeat and optimistic. Rove is packing up and leaving town, but workers have their rally caps on and can hardly wait for 2008.

"Let the Iraqis Decide" Oh yeah...

2007-09-04T11:17:00.000-05:00

If embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wonders why his poll numbers are reaching the depths of his benefactor, President Bush, the answer is simple: both have the same Republican PR firm. Though it’s obvious Barbour, Griffiths and Rogers is having more success knocking Maliki down than propping Bush up.

Hardly a day goes by without the White House “Decider” pointing a finger at the Maliki’s leadership as the reason the surge isn’t surging. But he insists Maliki still has his full support. “If any change is made, it will be made by the Iraqis—it’s their democracy.”

There was a time when American presidents sent in covert CIA agents to undermine a foreign government we didn’t like. But what should we do when the government we put in place isn’t working out? Give their elected leader a taste of American-style hardball politics.

Maliki should be flattered to know that Hayley Barbour’s well-connected Republican PR firm is treating him just like it would any other party pol who falls into disfavor with the Bush White House. BG&R is being paid $300,000 to trash Maliki while writing op-eds and lobbying Congress on behalf of his political rival Ayad Allawi.

Maliki shouldn’t take it personally. There is just a nagging feeling at the White House that the surge won’t surge without new leadership in Baghdad. Bush will never admit he was wrong in Iraq, but will concede the Iraqi parliament made a bad choice in Maliki.

Other bad stuff is happening as we wait for the September Surge report. Newsweek magazine documents corruption in Iraq that is “out of control”. Contractors have defrauded American taxpayers of billions of dollars but the Bush Administration declines to take part in a lawsuit go get the money back. Little wonder that Bush appointees at the Veterans Administration are forced to cut back on funds needed by our military hospitals.

A new book Blackwater exposes the existence of a sinister mercenary force contracted to work for the U.S. not only in Iraq but on the streets of New Orleans. According to Joe Honick of GMA International, “these auxiliary armies are doing things our military would go to jail for.”

It is really getting ugly. The Iraqi parliament vacations while U.S. troops remain embroiled in a civil war. GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s five healthy, prosperous military-age sons stay out of harm’s way while their father campaigns in support of a war others must fight. First Daughter Jenna announces her engagement as a mother in northern Virginia mourns the death in Iraq of her daughter, an Army nurse. The anguished mother summed it up eloquently when she told the Washington Post: “I’m preparing for a funeral, he’s preparing for a wedding.”

If Force and Politics Don't Succeed in Iraq, Bring on the PR Surge

2007-08-20T12:49:00.001-05:00

First it was “shock and awe”. Saddam was toppled-- but rampaging insurgents denied Iraqis the stable democratic government promised them. After months of furious fighting, experts agreed a military victory was unlikely, that there had to be a political solution.

With much fanfare, Iraqis voted until their thumbs turned blue, and in a triumph of democracy elected a truly representative government of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. They, of course, hate each other, intensifying a raging civil war and ruling out a political solution.

What to do? “Move America Forward” (MAF), formed in 2004 to support the President’s Iraqi war policy, recalled that about the only good news coming out of Iraq was PR generated by the Rendon Group, paid millions by the Pentagon to generate “feel good” stories about the American occupation. With a September deadline fast approaching for General David Petraeus to report to Congress, why not a Renton-like PR “surge” here at home?

It’s in the works. MAF has announced it will launch a nationwide caravan Sept. 3-17 to win hearts and minds. MAF says the caravan will feature pro-troop rallies that will be attended by “thousands upon thousands of patriotic Americans.”

This is what we in PR call an “Astroturf” campaign as opposed to a genuine “grassroots” effort to win public support for a cause or issue. Even the most vocal critics of the Iraq war support our troops and consider themselves “patriotic Americans” likely to attend “pro-troop” rallies. Such events attempt to distort, not reflect, public opinion about the war. They are as flawed and meaningless as “push” polls that ask when the opposition candidate quit beating his wife.

For the record, a recent NY Times/CBS survey found that two-thirds of those polled said that the war is “going badly” and that “the U.S. should reduce its forces in Iraq or remove them altogether”. A Washington Post/ABC poll reported that “by a large margin, Americans trust Democrats rather than the President to find a solution to a conflict that remains enormously unpopular.”

MAF’s key players have strong ties to GOP wing-nuts. Chairwoman Melanie Morgan gained notoriety in 2006 when she suggested that NY Times editor Bill Keller be executed for treason. His crime? Reporting on US government spying on American citizens.
The Caravan for MAF rallies will wind up in DC after stops in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso, Waco, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Wichita, Kansas City, Des Moines, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. And, of course, Crawford, TX.

The Pentagon is so pleased with PR’s contribution to the Iraqi war effort that it recently enlisted the help of Madison Avenue. A marketing study recommended “re-branding”. Instead of the “force” brand, the study argues a more effective brand might have been “We will help you.”

Think of that! At last the Iraqis will be exposed to a message familiar to generations of Americans: “I’m from the federal government and I’m here to help you.”

It should be noted that Congress is calling for a probe of the Rendon Group. Something about what the role it played in “communicating false information and shaping the news accounts justifying the war in Iraq.”

Give "Spin" a Chance

2007-07-30T11:17:00.000-05:00

These have been difficult times for Republican “spinmeisters.” How do you “spin” it when President Bush weighs an issue like insurance company profits vs. health care for little kids and comes down proudly on the side of the insurance companies? Or when Vice President Cheney declares himself a fourth branch of government, accountable to no one?

Not that Tony Snow and his Fox TV adjunct press office isn’t up to the task (though the Cheney disclaimer was so weird that Snow sent out the blonde ditz, Dana Perino, to stifle questions with a smile and a giggle). On most issues where the Administration is totally at odds with common sense or decency, the response is either to blame Bill Clinton or suggest the questioner isn’t supporting our troops.

The latest “spin” heroes for the GOP have been true believers Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, shining lights of what the right-wing calls journalism (as it is practiced at both Fox News and the Weekly Standard). Kristol recently wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he claimed the Iraq war was a great success, causing sane people to cry and the blogosphere to crash and burn.

Not to be outdone, Barnes wrote a story in the current Weekly Standard titled “An Unusually Effective Minority” in which he praised the Republican minority in Congress for bringing representative government to a halt. “Democrats are stymied, foiled and frustrated. Republicans have hindered or obstructed them at almost every turn” wrote an admiring Barnes. He concedes, almost in passing, that polls show “Democrats are more popular than Republicans, and their stand on most issues is preferred.” But the point is those issues that people want are going nowhere, thanks to the Republican opposition!

Next to blocking efforts to get our troops out of an Iraq civil war, Barnes writes that congressional Republicans have had their greatest success in killing Democratic bills that expand funding for stem cell research, making it easier for workers to join unions and allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices.

Nothing is more important to this dogged GOP minority than maintaining the Bush tax cuts for the very rich. This dedicated effort to widen the gap between rich and poor is attracting world-wide attention.

In a recent issue of the London Observer Paul Harris reports that in 1985 the U.S. had just 13 billionaires--now there are more than 1,000. “America’s super-rich have returned to the days of the Roaring Twenties. As the rest of the country struggles to get by, a huge bubble of multi-millionaires live in their own world of private education, private health care and gated mansions. Their world has a name: ‘Richistan’. There, every dream, but the American Dream itself, can come true.”

That’s the world the Republican minority in Congress that Fred Barnes admires so much is working to preserve and maintain.

Surely someone in Karl Rove’s office must worry how that “success” is going to play in the 2008 elections. Blocking Democrats in Congress from passing legislation that people want is going to take a lot of spin, or as Ricky Ricardo would say to Lucy, someone’s got some ‘splaining’ to do.

Hush Rush?

2007-07-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

While much of the world lives in dread of further horrors in Iraq, Darfur and the specter of no more Harry Potter books, Bill Buckley’s National Review worries that government just might shut up right-wing talking heads that rail on radio. On a recent cover is a photo of Rush Limbaugh, his mouth pasted over by duct tape. Inside is a heart-wrenching article deploring Democratic Party attempts to bring back the hated Fairness Doctrine.

For those of you too young to remember, from the earliest years of radio, there was a Fairness Doctrine.

Then came the Reagan era and it, along with labor’s right to organize and other democratic landmarks, was repealed.

Soon the airwaves were dominated by the outraged cries of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Bill Bennett. Later, cable gave us a whole television network of such ‘fair and balanced’ nonsense.

The question is what part of ‘fairness’ do conservatives not understand? How onerous was the doctrine’s demand that listeners should hear both sides of a controversial issue?
Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said recently “it’s time to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine.” California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate rules committee, agrees. “There ought to be an opportunity to present the other side. Talk radio is overwhelmingly one-way.”

Indiana Republican Rep. Mike Pence, a former radio talk-show host himself and a real “ditto” head, is sponsoring the Broadcaster Freedom Act which would permanently take away from the FCC the authority to re-impose the Fairness Doctrine. Pence said he had a terrible vision of the future that guided his action: “The American people need to know that a future Democrat president could appoint members to the FCC and issue executive orders that could bring back the Fairness Doctrine.”

The horrors of that are too disturbing for conservatives to even contemplate.

By the way -- the National Review cover story on “fairness” (or the lack of it) was penned by Byron York, a frequent right-wing TV pundit best known for a fabulous head of lacquered hair that wouldn’t dream of allowing John Edwards’ $400 barber to touch it.

"Heidi" Joins "Days of our Lives"

2007-07-13T13:21:00.000-05:00

I and two billion of my closest friends tuned in as Al Gore presided over the Live Earth concerts on NBC.

All of us were asked to sign up by text or online for a pledge to plant trees and vote for green-minded politicians and nowhere in the fine print were any petitions nominating “Al Gore for President”.

I was struck by how all this came together. I’ve helped put together enough conventions to know that if anything can go wrong, it will. Microphones and air conditioners fail and third-tier politicians scheduled to keynote fail to show. Yet, here were satellite feeds from seven continents featuring super-rich rock stars with no sense of accountability who through some miracle showed up and performed when and where they were supposed to and between songs said all the right things about the desperate need to conserve energy and protect forests.

Political consultants had to be salivating at the stage this gave Al Gore. Had he been a serious candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008, those same consultants never would have allowed him to share a platform with out of control entertainers who at any moment may grab a crotch or shout obscenities.

What is even more remarkable is that Live Earth was telecast by NBC. This is the same network that earlier in the week cut away from an epic quarter-final tennis match at Wimbledon between Justine Henin and Serena Williams.

The two tennis icons were tied at one match apiece when NBC told viewers the network would now join the soap “Days of Our Lives.” This is the same network that in 1968 cut away from a New York Jets-Oakland Raiders game with the Jets leading 32-29 with only 65 seconds to play, so that viewers could see the TV version of the classic children’s story “Heidi”.

In those 65 seconds, the Raiders scored 14 points to win, 43-32 and the millions of fans who missed it raised such a ruckus that never again would any network make such a decision. The fact is that the NFL has clout and uses it to bludgeon networks into submission.

By contrast, professional tennis, even with its charismatic stars and enthusiastic fan following, is constantly bullied by networks and sponsors, even during its biggest grand slam events. Can you imagine a World Series or Super Bowl where the network is still in commercials when play on the field has resumed?

Happens to tennis all the time.