Barack Obama’s up to his audaciously hopeful tricks again. First, he has the unmitigated gaul to seek affordable health care for all Americans. And now–get this–the guy wants to give a televised pep talk to America’s schoolchildren. His plan to urge kids to stay in school, study hard and do their homework has gotten some right wing politicians and commentators to cry foul while some parents vow to keep their kids home on Tuesday to avoid being subjected to the speech.

Sanctioning hooky playing, obviously, undermines the purpose of such a speech. And the hysteria surrounding it is just that–hysterical. A Republican friend (admittedly a moderate) reminded me that the first President Bush made a similar speech in 1991 encouraging science education. At the time, some Democrats decried it as political maneuvering, but there was little brouhaha from parents and the speech went off without much fanfare.

President Obama is under greater scrutiny, it seems, and greater suspicion. Fright wing commentators like Glenn Beck have been warning people for days, “He’s out to grab your kids!” This whole notion that Obama, as Cult Leader-in-Chief is out to indoctrinate America’s youth, claiming them for his socialist agenda is outrageous. One of my favorite explanations for the widespread panic came from former Gingrich staffer turned commentator/PR maven Tony Blankley, who said on CNN last Friday night, “Obama has to fight his image as ‘The One,’ ‘The Chosen.’”

This stuff would be laughable if a lot of sacred, ignorant people didn’t believe it. What are they afraid of exactly? Maybe Obama will use that old movie theatre technique of running subliminal messages. Instead of prompting people to buy popcorn and candy, perhaps messages urging kids to “support health care,” ” cash your social security checks” and “send letters through the U.S. postal service” can run while he speaks of the practical and intrinsic values of academic rigor.

I have no problem, by the way, with educators and parents reading transcripts or screening the actual speech before airing it to classrooms. Some of the controversy has stemmed from the teaching materials that were to coincide with the speech. The original curricular aides included an activity in which students would write ways they could help the President reach his goals for the nation. Here’s where those looking through socialist tinted glasses got all clammy and bombastic and turned to Fox News for comfort. So the revised plan supposedly asks kids to write down their own academic and personal goals. This does seem safer. However, there is nothing wrong, nothing socialistic about the President asking students to become civic minded; there is nothing sinister about our top elected official nurturing national pride.  Remember the famous Kennedy quote, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country?”

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Maybe it’s the diet pills that have Rush Limbaugh dishing out a combustible stew of red meat propaganda, fear mongering and Nazi name calling. The blow hard radio host, who claims to have dropped eighty plus pounds in mere months, can’t stop making ludicrous comparisons between President Obama and Adolph Hitler. To be fair, Rush also likes to call Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi a Nazi, too. Just last week he said of his critics, “Why can’t we NOT use Hitler?”

Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because it’s irresponsible and incendiary. Media Matters the watchdog website that tracks all media  has archived all of Limbaugh’s defamatory dirges, as well as those of other bloviators like Michael Savage and Glenn Beck (who has been hemorrhaging sponsors from his Fox News Channel show since his incredulous comment, “I think the President is a racist. He has a deep hatred of white people”). But besides MSNBC–where Keith Olbermann stands guard nightly as liberal pit bull–the mainstream media has largely ignored all the rampant racist rabble rousing.

My advice to friends who bemoan such shows is usually to ignore them, too. Change the station, read a newspaper, pick up a book. I’m a big proponent of the First Amendment. I don’t condone censorship; though I try to use and encourage others to engage in self-censorship every once in a while. I’m a radio talker myself. I know the drill. No matter what you say, you’ll never make everyone happy. That’s not the gig. And I know fans will say these guys are just entertainers, provocateurs; they’d say I’d be more successful if I were more outrageous, more obnoxious, more conservative.

That’s probably a fair assessment.  But along with the power, afforded by all that wattage behind the microphone, comes some responsibility. To facts, verbiage, society. And when radio hosts–particularly syndicated stars who captivate millions every day–cook up undeniably racist rancor, they must be publicly chastised for it. By those of us in the media.

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Tags: Birthers, Glenn Beck, Health Care, Michael Savage, Obama, Rush Limbaugh.

Reaching out to the American people at www.whitehouse.gov

For the past two weeks the Obama administration and congressional Democrats have been saturating YouTube, town halls and news shows in an attempt to gain lost ground in the battle of public perception of health reform. The Obama team and liberal Democrats are attempting to avoid the failures of 1992 when closed-door negotiations allowed congressional Republicans to gain the upper hand in the framing of the public health care debate. Yet despite the Obama administration’s large popularity and direct-to-the-public YouTube and town-hall-style meetings, many of those same 1990’s terms, attitudes and general fear of change are beginning to weigh down any possibility of meaningful reform.

Watching Neil Cavuto on Fox News this Saturday, I heard the words “You should be fearful,” over four times in reference to the health reform package in just a twenty-minute span. Meanwhile, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said this weekend of the public plan, “This public plan, this public government plan, don’t think for a minute that that will not destroy the current insurance system.” And Sarah Palin somehow remains relevant by making her “Death Panels” remark about a section of the bill that would have provided government funding for optional counseling on end-of-life care issues such as hospice.

The climate of fear is beginning to drown out the administration’s message of hope. Over the weekend, comments by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that the public option was “not the essential element” of comprehensive reform, and those by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs that Obama “will be satisfied” if the private insurance market has “choice and competition” show that the administration is largely losing ground.

To be fair, President Obama has long said that the public plan was not a mandate, and that it was more important to get a meaningful plan out of Congress than a public option. But (and I think I speak for many here) we all hoped it was a bluff! We hoped that Obama was going to coax this public plan through by not being dictatorial. None of us thought that he actually meant it!

Whether or not a public plan was a priority of the administration or not, the public concessions by the White House show an administration that is back on its heels in public perception, at least in terms of health care. The President is also fast losing a core base in the health care debate. Although many liberal Democrats will support health care reform even without a public option, they may lose their will to support the White House so passionately in the future.

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Tags: Canadian, Democrats, Fox News, grassroots, health care reform, Obama, press, Sarah Palin, town hall, YouTube.

Bill Clinton, the political Elvis

Hollywood couldn’t have scripted it any better. Former President Clinton, our undisputed political Elvis, swoops in and rescues two American damsels in distress from twelve treacherous years in a North Korean prison. He flies them home aboard Hollywood mogul Steve Bing’s luxury jet, landing in–of all places–Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, California.

The unofficial rescue mission/photo op with Kim Jung Il, North Korea’s erratic, ailing mad man, was clearly orchestrated by the Obama administration’s chief diplomat, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is married to the charismatic former Commander-in-Chief. For reasons–both pragmatic and romantic–Big Bill garnered all of the attention and all of the accolades. Meanwhile Hill and Obama took hits from conservatives for caving to a crazy man. Among the bitter bunch doling out the sour grapes, you have to love John Bolten, the former (sort of) U.N. Ambassador–a hard line liar who pushed Bush’s phony Iraq agenda with aplomb–fretting over the ”dangerous precedent” Clinton’s mission sent to adversaries.

First of all, there really isn’t a new precedent here. Former President Carter, former Ambassador Bill Richardson and Jesse Jackson have all made such trips in the past. And nothing was promised. Whether Clinton even apologized is still up for grabs. But what if he did? Big whoop. Hillary offered a tepid “sorry if they trespassed” weeks earlier. North Korea got their silly little picture; we got our two innocent journalists back. Sounds like a good deal to me. I say, fit Bubba for a cape and let him roam around the world in his new Super Hero gig. He can start by fetching the three backpackers in Iran. The naysayers can’t stomach a feel-good story without a right wing avenger. If John McCain–or their mavericky cover girl Sarahcuda–made the same mission, they’d be singing a different patriotic tune.

Of course in Hollywood you got to keep ‘em busy at the concession stand, and that means you need enough back stories and B stories to keep the popcorn popping. And with Bill Clinton in the picture the stories are endless. One presumably bitter supporting player has to be Al Gore, Bubba’s Veep who many still believe was cheated out of the top spot in 2000 courtesy of a Supreme mistake. Others contend the election never would have been so close had Gore not suffered from voter backlash for his boss’ bad behavior. Gore, who is now the head of Current TV which employs the rescued journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, wasn’t glamorous enough to get the emissary nod. He had to stand tall with a polite second banana smile affixed to his face while the journalists praised their liberator, their hero: Bill Clinton.

Everyone withers in the shadow of Bubba, the global rock star. Even his wife, the Secretary of State. A week after Bill’s international heroics, Hillary Clinton, a formidable figure in her own right–former First Lady, former New York senator, former presidential contender (some say she was robbed of her shot by another charismatic fellow)–erupted into a jealous snit during a Q&A in the Congo. Through a translator, a student asked, ”What does Mr. Clinton think through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton,” about a Chinese loan proffer to the Congolese government? Hillary snapped and barked back, “You want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband’s not the Secretary of State. I am. I’m not channeling my husband.”

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Tags: Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Euna Lee, Hillary Clinton, Kim Jung Il, Laura Ling.

In 1989, the world stopped to watch throngs of courageous Chinese students make a stand against their own tyrannical government. A live televised image of one student standing in front of tank became a real-life metaphor of doomed defiance against the machine of tyranny. Every reporter on the ground knew that as long as the cameras were rolling the revolution and the students would survive. Thus, the Chinese student revolution died when the lights were put out and the cameras were forced off.

Twenty years later, we are struck by the similarities between those student demonstrations in Beijing and the now week long demonstration in Iran. Both show us a people who are yelling for their voices to be heard and their needs for more freedom to be met. Both show us a government that is terrified of the slightest change in status quo for fear of losing its last shred of legitimacy.

However, the roles the media has had to play in these two revolutions could not be more different. In China, although the student protests had begun nearly a month earlier, the true escalation happened when the world media came to Beijing for the historic trip of Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev. As soon as the first international cameras appeared, the protest became a symbiotic relationship between the students and the international media. As tanks moved into the square, the Chinese government demanded that the cameras be turned off and full media blackout ensued. That blackout continues in China to some degree even to this day as international news broadcasts are blocked each year on June 4th.

Two decades later, the Iranian government has learned its lesson from the Chinese. Their full media blackout began as soon as the hint of election protests began. Unfortunately the western media has been cowed by many recent events (kidnappings, imprisonments and death) and appear all too ready to be compliant. We have come a long way from the days of Bernard Shaw continuing his broadcast from a bombed out Baghdad hotel while hiding from the Republican Guard. Now news anchors in an Atlanta, Georgia studio introduce YouTube clips and provide context by repeating 140 character tweets.

The protesters no longer need the reporters on the ground. They have become their own reporters. Videos stream in of each new confrontation with the security forces. Tweets update every second telling the world where the protesters are, where they will be going and why they continue to protest. The Iranian government seems to be hobbled by its own blackout. On Saturday, the government released news of a bombing at the Khomeini shrine. However, even several hours later there was no video or details, leading many to believe that the story and/or the bomb was government placed.

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Tags: Bernard Shaw, China, democratic revolution, Facebook, government, Iran, News, protesters, revolution, Rwanda, Sudan, Twitter, YouTube.

As the Stimulus and Recovery Package makes its way through the Senate this week, the President has renewed his commitment to reaching bi-partisan support. Despite trying for such support in the House last week, not a single Republican voted for the bill even after a section calling for some funds to family planning was dropped in a symbolic gesture. No doubt now that the bill is in the Senate more gestures will be made to garnish the support from conservative members. However, although bi-partisanship is important to President Obama, our Countdown lists the top five provisions that the democratic members of Senate should not give up in the quest for a united Congress. There is a time for bipartisanship and a time to remember that a majority of Americans voted for change not only in their government but more importantly in their own lives.

5. Accountability: Hopefully the start to a trend, the bill calls for unprecedented access. How funds are spent, all announcements of contract and grant competitions and awards, and formula grant allocations must be posted on www.recovery.gov. Most importantly, there are no earmarks in this package.
4. Energy: Probably the most import part of the infrastructure rebuilding is the attention the bill pays to rebuilding the electric grid. The bill as it stands now also guarantees loans for renewable energy projects, funding to make federal buildings energy efficient and programs for making low income housing energy efficient.
3. Science: Understanding that the infrastructure of a nation is not simply buildings, roads and wires, the bill as put forth by the House of Representatives provides funding for increased research at the National Science Foundation and American universities. The bill also calls for more money to NASA for projects related to understanding and predicting global warming.
2. Small Business Development: As the credit crunch threatens daily to choke off an increasing number of mom and pop companies, the current bill provides increased funding for guaranteed loans to small businesses and increased long term development focusing on job creation and private investments in rural and industrial core urban areas.
1. Education: The only way to ensure that Americans can continue to compete for 21st century jobs is if we send America’s children to 21st century schools. The bill calls for $20 billion for renovation and modernization of K-12 schools. Also in education, and on the list most likely to be attacked by the right is the increase in federal work study, Pell Grants and student loan limits for college education. This is being attacked as “not relating to job creation” and “liberals using the stimulus to push their agenda.” However, as the economy tanks, parents find themselves less and less able to send their children to college. Without a continuing financial push to get our high school grads through college, we will have no qualified workers for our new 21st century economy.

Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, Senate, Stimulus.

For this Monday’s Countdown, we look at the top five executive orders issued by new President Barack Obama. As I commented previously, executive orders are the President’s way of making policy without all of the hassle of creating actual laws (congressional approval, constitutional checks, etc.). The focus of this first week in the Obama White House seems to be “De-Bushing,” as the orders roll back some of the central policies of the Bush adminstration:

5. ‘Unwarranted’ Restrictions on Abortion - President Obama on Friday cancelled the restrictions on US funding to family planning groups abroad that counseled abortions. Also known as the Mexico City Policy, the gag rule originally signed by President Reagan prohibited funding to overseas family planning clinics that provided any services connected with abortion, even counseling. The policy has been a continual ping-pong ball between Republican and Democratic administrations (lifted by Clinton and re-ordered by Bush II).

 

4. Detaining Policy - Creates a special task force, headed by the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense, to review all future detainee policies. Other members of the task force include the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The task force will consider policy options for apprehension, detention, trial, transfer or release of detainees. The group is to submit a report to President Obama within 180 days.
   
   
   While detractors will say that the creation of a task force is just a way of using bureaucracy to buy time, just the fact the the task force is co-chaired by the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General represents a seismic shift from the Bush years. Also with some of the other big players in the administration, i.e. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, in on the task force, we could see some major changes and disclosure on formerly very hidden arms of the war on terror.

 

3. Interrogation Policy - revokes an executive order by Bush that interpreted Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The Obama order requires that all interrogation of detainees in an armed conflict, by any government agency, is to follow the Army Field Manual interrogation guidelines and to allow the Internation Red Cross access to detainees. The order forbids reliance on any Justice Department or other legal advice on interrogation policies that was issued between September 11, 2001 and last week’s inauguration. The order also creates a task force to review the existing Army Field Manual.
   
   
   Some from Obama’s side of the aisle are critical of the order, saying that the review of the field manual and what they are calling the “Jack Bauer exception” (a possible exception that might allow for harsher techniques in extreme situations) still allows for too much wiggle room in interrogation practices. However, the scope of the order (and in combination with #1 below) brings a close to one of the biggest black marks on American foreign policy.

 

2. Fuel Efficiency Standards - the New York Times is reporting that on Monday President Obama will issue orders directing federal regulators to move on the applications by California and over a dozen other states to tighten fuel efficiency and emissions standards beyond the federal requirements. The order will require the EPA to reconsider the applications that were previously denied during the Bush years. Once the new standards are approved, the auto industry will have to act quickly to bring fuel mileage and emission standards higher to continue selling in those fourteen states, a move that has been long fought by the automakers.

 

1. Guantanamo Bay - Perhaps the most celebrated of the initial barage of excutive orders is the order closing the Guantanamo Bay detainee facility. The order provides that the facility be closed at a date no later than one year from the signing. The order starts with a review process for each of the current detainees with the goal of disposing of all the detainees before the closure of the facility. The process is as follows: (1) immediate review to see if detainees can be approved for a transfer to a third country in accordance with national security (the order directs the Secretary of State to solicit and coordinate international cooperation); (2) if the transfer is not possible, then review for prosecution, preferrably in an Art. III court (a federal court), but does not preclude possiblity of a military tribunal; (3) for detainees who cannot be transferred or prosecuted, the Attorney General will conduct a review to determine how to deal with them according to law.
   
   
   Along with the executive order on interrogation, this order should go a long way to repair much of the ill-will directed to the US from abroad and closes the book on the post-9/11 foreign policy coup by the Neo-cons. Critics like Republican Congressman Ted Poe and former Vice President Dick Cheney contend that the closure of Guantanamo Bay will bring “the worst of the worst” to our backyards in American prisons.

Tags: abortion, Barack Obama, Bush, Dick Cheney, Emissions, Executive Order, Family Planing, Guantanamo Bay, Justice Department.

Today at the State Department, newly confirmed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, flanked on each side by President Obama and Vice President Biden, announced the appointment of George Mitchell as the Special Envoy to the Middle East and the appointment of Richard Holbrooke as a Special Ambassador to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

George Mitchell, former Senator from Maine, acted as the Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for the Clinton Administration. His participation was considered crucial to the non-violence agreements and the eventual Good Friday Agreement in Belfast in 1998. Mitchell was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Liberty Medal for his efforts. Mitchell’s comments at the press conference suggest a strong breakaway ideologically from the Bush administration and more politically conservative approaches to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mitchell referred to the conflict as man-made and stated that therefore it could also be fixed by men.

Richard Holbrooke’s appointment as Special Ambassador to both Pakistan and Afghanistan also suggests a strong change in US foreign policy in the region, with a new diplomatic effort on the mountainous border region between the two nations. This is a significant change in the military only solution on the Afghan side of the border and perhaps more involved cooperation on the Pakistan side than the “carrot and stick” approach of the Bush years.

It is interesting that these announcements are being made before any significant Iraq policy has been discussed or acted on. Perhaps as the new administration drastically shifts the focus of Middle East foreign policy away from the Iraq conflict, President Obama will be given more time to improve the necessary conditions in order to make good on his campaign promises for military withdrawal.

Tags: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, George Mitchell, Hillary Clinton, Israel, Joe Biden, Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke.

(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

During yesterday’s Inauguration events’ center stage was the exclusive jurisdiction of the new First couple. The Clintons seemed but a footnote. The Inauguration is over and reality comes fast to our new President. As the Obamas and Bidens arrived at the National Prayer Service this morning, they were directed to thier front row seats, right next to the Clintons. The picture of that incredibly recognizable front row brings to mind all of the promise and built-in possibility of self destruction of America’s new foreign policy team.

The new President, his Vice President and both Clintons offer the country all that could be wanted in a foreign policy team, but will there prove to be too many cooks in the kitchen? With the domestic front in an economic quagmire, perhaps President Obama will be glad to have strong leaders on the foreign front, giving him time to focus on the turmoil at home; for example, using his clout to get Tim Geithner through the confirmation process and getting the stimulus package unscathed through Congress.

However, who of the remaining players will have the stronger hand in foreign policy? As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton’s position puts her only second to the President in matters of foreign policy. Through the primary campaign, then Sen. Clinton put forth strong ideas for foreign policy (many that conflicted with the Obama campaign’s). Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy experience ranges from her years as First Lady, her years as a Senator and to her experiences with her husband’s philanthropic work. This probably gives her the widest breadth of foreign policy experience.

But Vice President Joe Biden has foreign policy depth of experience second to none, and as we have seen in the last eight years, the role of Vice President is as amorphous as the people who hold the title. The rumors released (thanks to Jill Biden and the talk show circuit) that Vice President Biden was offered either role of Sec. of State or Vice President seems to suggest that Biden thought he could do more from the role of the Vice. How Vice President Biden will act within the Obama White House and with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State is anyone’s guess, but I think we can be sure that he will not shy away from voicing his opinions whether or not they are welcome in the Clinton State Department. The Vice President’s infamous loose lips will probably give him a strong bully pulpit from which to shape foreign policy.

Former President Bill Clinton remains a wild card (and would we want it any other way?). His foreign connections as President, and even more tenuous foreign connections forged during the years since, will no doubt be a constant boon and annoyance to the Obama White House and the (Hillary) Clinton State Department. The continuing question for the Clintons in general, and more specifically for Bill, is whether they can work for the glory of the White House or will they always be working toward their own places in history.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Jill Biden, Joe Biden, Michelle Obama.

Photo by AP, Boston Herald

I have been struggling today to come to a perspective from where I could understand Joe the Plumber. It has not been an easy task.

For those who may have been living under that proverbial rock for the last four months, Joe the Plumber rose to fame for his brief, but much replayed, confrontation of the campaigning then-Senator Barack Obama, asking about Sen. Obama’s tax plan and how it would affect his new plumbing business. What proceeded was a full five minute explanation by Obama about his tax plan. The Republican campaign machine seized on to the (planted?) image of the middle-class mid-western plumber challenging the Educated Elite Obama. The fact that Joe wasn’t even a plumber, and would not have been affected adversely by the Obama plan if he actually had been wasn’t even a speed bump in their rollout of the new symbol of middle-class Republicans. He was the perfect Prom King to Sarah Palin’s Prom Queen. Never mind, that their actual candidate was John McCain. They never really liked him that much anyway.

Unfortunately for most of us (and I include mainstream Republicans), after the election, both Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber realized that they enjoyed the limelight too much to return to obscurity. Sarah tried to be the belle of the ball at the Republican Governors’ Convention, and Joe decided to drop the plunger (that he had never picked up) and start his music career. Both of those endeavors were met with about equal success. Gov. Palin realizing that despite her rise in the media, she was still just one of 20 Republican Governors (and despite the state’s relative closeness to Russia, its importance to the party still remained marginal), while Joe the Singer found out he would actually have to sing to be singer (a surprise, since he never had to plumb to be a plumber).

That brings us to now where both Sarah, the once-and-future vice-presidential candidate, and Joe, the ever-searching-for-a-new-surname, have been pushed even further to the right, into the waiting arms of the lunatic fringe. This past week video clips released from John Ziegler’s new “documentary” How Obama Got Elected have brought Gov. Palin back to the (all-too-often unflattering for her) limelight. The Alaskan governor reveals new levels of high school cattiness in her attack of Katie Couric. “Katie, you’re not the center of everyone’s universe,” she said to a video of the CBS anchor’s comment about the previously SNL-scoffed interview.

Not to be outdone, Joe the Plumber has given up his budding music career to become Joe the War Reporter for conservative blog Pajamas TV. Like Gov. Palin, Joe’s new move is once again making him a YouTube star. Also like Gov. Palin, he does it with a complete and utter lack of self-awareness or appreciation of irony. On Monday, from Israel, Joe reported: Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Barack Obama, Gaza, Israel, Joe Wurzelbacher, News, PajamasTV, tax.