The myth of Obama's "blunders" and "weakness" (no, not satire but should be)

The myth of Obama's "blunders" and "weakness"

BY GLENN GREENWALD

AP Photo/Ron Edmonds, File

(updated below - Update II [Tues.])

With the details of the pending debt deal now emerging (and for a very good explanation of the key terms, see this post by former Biden economic adviser Jared Bernstein), a consensus is solidifying that (1) this is a virtually full-scale victory for the GOP and defeat for the President (who all along insisted on a "balanced" approach that included tax increases), but (2) the President, as usual, was too weak in standing up to right-wing intransigence -- or simply had no options given their willingness to allow default -- and was thus forced into this deal against his will.  This depiction of Obama as occupying a largely powerless, toothless office incapable of standing up to Congress -- or, at best, that the bad outcome happened because he's just a weak negotiator who "blundered" -- is the one that is invariably trotted out to explain away most of the bad things he does.

It appears to be true that the President wanted tax revenues to be part of this deal.  But it is absolutely false that he did not want these brutal budget cuts and was simply forced -- either by his own strategic "blunders" or the "weakness" of his office -- into accepting them.  The evidence is overwhelming that Obama has long wanted exactly what he got: these severe domestic budget cuts and even ones well beyond these, including Social Security and Medicare, which he is likely to get with the Super-Committee created by this bill (as Robert Reich described the bill:  "No tax increases on rich yet almost certain cuts in Med[icare] and Social Security . . . . Ds can no longer campaign on R's desire to Medicare and Soc Security, now that O has agreed it").

Last night, John Cole -- along with several others -- promoted this weak-helpless-President narrative by asking what Obama could possibly have done to secure a better outcome.  Early this morning, I answered him by email, but as I see that this is the claim being pervasively used to explain Obama's acceptance of this deal -- he was forced into it by the Tea Party hostage-takers -- I'm reprinting that email I wrote here.  For those who believe this narrative, please confront the evidence there; how anyone can claim in the face of all that evidence that the President was "forced" into making these cuts -- as opposed to having eagerly sought them -- is mystifying indeed.  And, as I set forth there, there were ample steps he could have taken had he actually wanted leverage against the GOP; the very idea that negotiating steps so obvious to every progressive pundit somehow eluded the President and his vast army of advisers is absurd on its face.   

Here's The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn -- who, as he says, with some understatement, is usually "among [Obama's] staunchest defenders in situations like these" -- on what these guaranteed cuts mean (never mind the future cuts likely to come from the Super Committee):

As Robert Greenstein, of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, pointed out in a recent statement about a different proposal, there’s just no way to enact spending reductions of this magnitude without imposing a lot of pain. And contrary to the common understanding in the Washington cocktail party circuit, “pain” does not simply mean offending certain political sensibilities. Pain means more people eating tainted food, more people breathing polluted air, more people pulling their kids out of college, and more people losing their homes -- in other words, the hardships people suffer when government can't do an adequate job of looking out for their interests.

As I wrote back in April when progressive pundits in D.C. were so deeply baffled by Obama's supposed "tactical mistake" in not insisting on a clean debt ceiling increase, Obama's so-called "bad negotiating" or "weakness" is actually "shrewd negotiation" because he's getting what he actually wants (which, shockingly, is not always the same as what he publicly says he wants).  In this case, what he wants -- and has long wanted, as he's said repeatedly in public -- are drastic spending cuts.  In other words, he's willing -- eager -- to impose the "pain" Cohn describes on those who can least afford to bear it so that he can run for re-election as a compromise-brokering, trans-partisan deficit cutter willing to "take considerable heat from his own party." 

UPDATE:  Scott Lemieux writes to partially disagree with my argument here, but -- except for his description of Obama as a "moderate Democrat" (I think Krugman's "moderate Conservative" is more accurate) -- I don't really disagree with anything Lemieux wrote.  Of course the fact that Obama wanted spending cuts does not preclude his having also made negotiation mistakes along the way.  But my point is a more general one: for a long time, the standard progressive narrative was that Obama wanted a clean debt-ceiling hike but was being forced (by the Tea Party and bad negotiating) into unwanted budget cuts.  The evidence -- beginning with Obama's own repeated statements -- is that that's just not true: he affirmatively wanted these cuts and more as part of the debt ceiling hike.

On a different note, I am quite certain that VastLeft has captured, in cartoon form, exactly what the rhetorical strategy will be for dealing with liberal anger over this deal (click on image to enlarge):

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Or, as Charles Davis put it in a different context: "Remember when Michele Bachmann killed all those innocent people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq and Libya? Ugh. Hate her."

UPDATE II: Matt Taibbi writes on whether Obama is actually a "weak negotiator":

Now, Barack Obama has surrendered control of the budget to the Tea Party. . . . Commentators everywhere are killing the president for his seemingly astonishing level of ball-less-ness. . . . The Democrats aren't failing to stand up to Republicans and failing to enact sensible reforms that benefit the middle class because they genuinely believe there's political hay to be made moving to the right. They're doing it because they do not represent any actual voters. I know I've said this before, but they are not a progressive political party, not even secretly, deep inside. They just play one on television. . . .

The Democrats, despite sitting in the White House, the most awesome repository of political power on the planet, didn't fight at all. . . . We probably need to start wondering why this keeps happening. Also, this: if the Democrats suck so bad at political combat, then how come they continue to be rewarded with such massive quantities of campaign contributions? When the final tally comes in for the 2012 presidential race, who among us wouldn't bet that Barack Obama is going to beat his Republican opponent in the fundraising column very handily? At the very least, he won't be out-funded, I can almost guarantee that.

And what does that mean? Who spends hundreds of millions of dollars for what looks, on the outside, like rank incompetence?

It strains the imagination to think that the country's smartest businessmen keep paying top dollar for such lousy performance. Is it possible that by "surrendering" at the 11th hour and signing off on a deal that presages deep cuts in spending for the middle class, but avoids tax increases for the rich, Obama is doing exactly what was expected of him?

A mere three years ago, huge numbers of people invested substantial time, attention, energy, emotion and "hope" in fighting to put Barack Obama in the White House.  The very human incentives not to reach this conclusion are both obvious and overwhelming.

It Starts with an 'F' But It Ain't 'Freedom'

by Charles Davis

In economics, like in war, the best propagandists prefer the language of euphemism to straightforward, ignoble fact, the latest in obfuscatory jargon to the jarring reality of truth. Why, that's not a dead mother whose children are uncontrollably weeping over her corpse as we speak, that'scollateral damage; that's not a fraudulent investment that turned out bad for some rich banker who may, god forbid, have to cancel his daughter's private tennis lessons with Anna Kournikova, that's a toxic asset.  "Larry Summers, former top economic adviser to Barack Obama, is a master when it comes to making theft and exploitation sound banal and almost respectable. Summers predictably urges policymakers in Europe to follow the American lead and guarantee one thing and one thing only: Keep the rich, well, rich. And make 'em richer if you can."


Like any other illusionist, the better practitioners of the art of literal and economic warfare cloak their actions in mystery – things are never quite as simple as they seem. No, that box doesn't contain two women, just one who I cut in half! No, we're not just stealing your money to give it to rich people, we're restoring systemic confidence! And they do it for the same reason: to deceive.

Larry Summers, former top economic adviser to Barack Obama [and former Treasurey Secretary to Bill CLinton---responsible for REPEALING GLASS-STEGALL  which had protected us from banks acting like casinos since the 1930s Great Depression], is a master when it comes to making theft and exploitation sound banal and almost respectable.

 In an Op-Ed this week in the Financial Times, “How to save the eurozone,” Summers predictably urges policymakers in Europe to follow the American lead and guarantee one thing and one thing only: Keep the rich, well, rich. And make 'em richer if you can.

To just come out and say that anybody making above a certain six-figure threshold gets to play by different rules than the unwashed masses would be uncouth, albeit true. Summers, faults aside, knows this. But when the purported economic genius speaks of the need for “a clear commitment that, whatever else happens, no big financial institution in any country will be allowed to fail,” there's no getting past the meaning.

And when he condescends that "Teaching investors a lesson is a wish not a policy”? He's being a bit of a dick, yes. But he isn't wrong.

Who, after all, besides those engaged in direct action, is going to hold the likes of Goldman Sachs accountable when the entire ruling establishment is beholden to them? Those with the most power and money in America have long since succeeded in buying the support of that criminal class famous for its fidelity to little more than power and money: politicians. Barack Obama, the much-vaunted community organizer of change, raked in more money from Goldman than John McCain in 2008, and he's gone on to serve the financial elite well since in office, occasional grumbles notwithstanding. Embarrassing perp walks for those who raped the global economy with fraudulent investment schemes financed with cheap government cash is a nice fantasy, but barring an incident with a live girl or a dead boy, it'll remain just that.

Summers, however, expresses some concern over the threat of populism, which has manifested itself in popular protests from Greece to America but not so much in actual policy. The pitchforks are starting to appear, though, and some timid lawmakers could be unserious enough to listen to those wielding them.

For that sort Summers has a stern message: “punishing creditors for the sake of teaching lessons or building political support” – there's the allusion to that annoying will of the people again – “is reckless in a system that depends on confidence.”

As a rich man whose own wealth and power has only grown in the face of failure, advocating and helping draft the policies that led to the Internet and housing bubbles chief among them, it's no surprise Summers, who makes tens of thousands of dollars an appearance to make wealthy bankers feel important, believes actual performance should be no obstacle to obscene wealth. And it comes as no shock that he's smugly defensive about it, ridiculing as myopic and driven by emotion attempts to hold the investor class accountable. A lack of personal responsibility and rugged individuality is to be denounced in the lower class, the lazy welfare cheats, not expected from the ruling one.

As other defenders of the bailouts and the accountability-free culture that rules the financial sector, Summers doesn't blame the ongoing economic woes around the world on bankers and the politicians that, listening to folks like him,diverted trillions of dollars in taxpayer money to the very financial interests that helped sink the global economy. No, even as small banks and businesses that were actually [have acted in a] responsible [way] are being denied loans because all the money has been redirected to the big boys, Summers maintains the global economic depression is due to the fact that not enough of the lower and middle classes' wealth has been siphoned off by the ultra-wealthy.

Indeed, the problem according to Summers' telling of it is that short-sighted policymakers allowed Lehman Brothers to fail like it were – imagine! – some poor janitor laid-off by his Fortune 500 employer. “The adverse consequences of the shattering effect that had on” – you know what's coming – “confidence are still being felt now,” he says. Employed no less than six times, “confidence” is code-word for “theft,” surpassed in euphemistic quackery only by Summers' appeal to the need for “restoring arithmetic credibility.”

Tom Friedman, hand over your crown.

Thoroughly deserved and unapologetic mockery aside, let's be clear about what Summers is advocating –  and the policy his protégé, Barack Obama, is implementing from the White House: the rich, “whatever else happens,” must stay rich, even (nay, especially) at the expense of the poor. If you are deemed rich enough, “big” enough, you and your company will continue to be big and rich for eternity. Financial institutions like Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs – they are all too big to fail, unlike you or I. The financial status quo is perfection, bequeathed to us by a loving, day-trading god.Change is a campaign slogan, not an economic policy.

Unless the change in question is the poor getting poorer. That's cool.

Far from radical reform, the Obama/Summers goal is maintaining things exactly as they were before the economic crash of 2008, with a small but increasingly wealthy class calling the shots and free to make mistakes, often criminal in nature, with impunity. At the same time, an increasingly large impoverished class is asked to go further in debt to the same class it bailed out – someone needs to keep buying the cheap crap our economy runs on – with the gap between the politically connected haves and the politically exploited have-nots ever-expanding.

“Systemic confidence,” in this context, is a nothing but an academic-sounding deception, a fanciful way of conning the masses into believing the theft taking place is something other than just a standard stick-'em-up robbery. In the pursuit of “confidence,” the profits of big business are privatized – we aren't communists! – while their losses are socialized. When it comes to the trials and tribulations of the rich, we're all in this together. When it comes to the perks? Get off my lawn, I'm calling security.

There's an admittedly over-used but entirely appropriate word, starting with an “f,” that describes the form of economic system advocated by the likes of Summers and being imposed by the ruling elite. It isn't “freedom.”

Charles Davis has covered Congress for NPR and Pacifica stations across the country, and freelanced for the international news wire Inter Press Service, primarily covering U.S. policy toward Latin America and the war on drugs in particular. He has also worked as a researcher for Michael Moore on his movieCapitalism: A Love Story.  Also, he's currently looking for a job. He may be contacted at davis.charles84 (at) gmail.com

The Fix Is In: Washington's Planned Social Contract Destruction - Stephen Lendman

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Fix-Is-In-Washington-by-Stephen-Lendman-110723-98.html
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July 23, 2011 The Fix Is In: Washington's Planned Social Contract Destruction By Stephen Lendman The criminal class in Washington is bipartisan, united against working household interests. In fact, lawmakers yield on virtually everything big money wants, notably when banks and other corporate favorites are affected. Last December, Obama capitulated to Republicans, rigging a deal for up to $1 trillion dollars in handouts, mostly to corporate giants and America's wealthy with working households almost entirely left out.  They still are, enduring a protracted Main Street depression, stiff-armed by Obama-led bipartisan crooks. In fact, he's more crime boss than president - stealing from the many for the few. More on his dirty scheme below. As a result, America and other "(e)conomies are being turned into rentier ('tollbooths') to pay debts that ('real' ones) can't sustain," according to Michael Hudson. "It's a losing game," but goes on, criminally defrauding millions of people to assure creditors are paid, sucking massive amounts of wealth to their coffers, unreported by major media scoundrels, suppressing what people most need to know. In fact, new audit figures show that Bernanke's Fed gave Wall Street and European banksters at least $16.1 trillion (called emergency loans) from December 1, 2007 - July 21, 2010, besides unknown amounts earlier and in the past year. Moreover, it's well known that trillions of dollars are stolen, handed to corporate interests and never returned, as well as gotten in other illegal ways. As a result, taxpayers get stuck with the bill, the nation with unsustainable mounting debt, heading it eventually for ruin. About $13 trillion in Fed bailouts went to US financial institutions, the rest to their counterparts in Britain, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Belgium, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) analysis. In addition, asset swaps (good ones for toxic corporate junk) were arranged with banks in Britain, Switzerland, Canada, South Korea, Norway, Mexico, and Singapore. Moreover, the Wall Street controlled Fed mostly outsourced its lending operations to the same institutions responsible for engineering the financial crisis, letting them profit hugely at the public's expense. Though unsustainable, the dirty game goes on, a take the money and run scam, leaving hollowed out economies and impoverished millions on their own sink or swim.  In dirty back room deals, Obama's out in front arranging it, doing what no Republican leader would dare. No wonder Hudson accused him of governing to the right of George Bush, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann - America's right-wing lunatic fringe. Notably, only Republican Nixon could go to China when America had no diplomatic relations. Only Democrat Obama dares ending America's decades-long social contract, especially Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and publicly funded pensions.  Hudson agrees, saying "(o)nly a Democrat posing as a left-winger could really pull off what (he's) proposing," pretending it's to sustain programs otherwise heading for insolvency.  In fact, pay-as-you-go payroll tax deductions sustain Social Security and Medicare, and will keep doing it if properly administered, needing only occasional modest adjustments.  Most workers, in part, fund public pensions, and Medicaid provides mandated safety net care for poor beneficiaries, jointly funded by the states and Washington, managed at the state level. Moreover, Social Security and Medicare are insurance programs - contractual federal obligations to eligible recipients who qualify. In fact, they're no different from other legal arrangements between willing parties. However, unilaterally abrogating them will strip all Americans of fundamental safety net protections without which millions will become impoverished and desperate.  America's aristocracy chose Obama to do it, and who better than the first Black president, masquerading as a populist, still fooling half the country to think he represents them.  In fact, his disdain for ordinary people is palpable in plain sight and scandalous, once his disingenuous rhetoric is exposed as duplicitous. His policies in the past two and half years show it. Previous yearend articles (each in two parts) explained how much harm he caused in years one and two in office, accessed through the following links: click here click here click here click here Given his overall agenda, his legacy already exposes him as America's worst president. It's no easy achievement given some formidable competition, notably from his predecessor, a corporate stooge/war criminal Obama shamelessly managed to outdo, besides perhaps setting back race relations a century or more. A July 15 article discussed the current debt ceiling debate charade, accessed through the following link: click here It suggested the fix is in, the deal done to slash vital entitlements and other social spending, while leaving in place outsized military budgets and generous handouts to corporate America, including new tax cuts and loopholes letting them save billions of dollars. On July 21, New York Times writers Carl Hulse and Jackie Calmes headlined, "Boehner and Obama Nearing Deal on Cuts and Taxes," saying: A "sweeping deficit-reduction agreement" is nearly completed, "calling for as much as $3 trillion in savings from substantial (social) spending cuts and" alleged tax code changes, benefitting business and wealthy Americans at the public's expense. So far details are being withheld, and White House press secretary Jay Carney denied any deal is close. He lied. It was agreed weeks ago, leaving only final details to be worked out. Negotiated by "Gang of Six" kleptocrats (three Democrat and three Republican senators), a "grand deal" minimally cuts $4 trillion (mostly entitlements), adding tax cuts and other corporate sweeteners in return for raising the debt ceiling.  Public posturing is all theater, no substance, to conceal a deal with the devil plan to wreck social America and devastate the economy, assuring a deepening Main Street depression, including permanent impoverishment for millions of former middle class earners. Part of the subterfuge involves deceptive House/Senate theatrics. On July 19, the House passed the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011, calling for up to $6 trillion in cuts and a constitutional balanced budget amendment in return for raising the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion.  It's barely enough to sustain annual spending at current levels, meaning more cuts would be demanded to raise it further, and so on to keep slashing additional trillions from vital social programs until all of them are extinguished and ended. That's planned anyway whatever deal is announced. On July 22, the Senate rejected the House proposal, paving the way for the secretly agreed on Obama/Speaker Boehner scheme to be adopted. Besides criminally waging multiple imperial wars, that's Obama's legacy. Progressive historians and analysts one day will wonder how he and other irresponsible officials defrauded the public and got away with it. It's happening now in plain sight. In his new article, Paul Craig Roberts headlined, "An Economy Destroyed: The Enemy Is Washington," saying: "Washington's priorities and those of its presstitutes could not be clearer. President Obama, like George W. Bush before him, both parties in Congress, the print and TV media, and National Public Radio (dubbed National Pentagon or Petroleum Radio) have made it clear that (imperial) war(s are) far more important priorit(ies) than health care and old age pensions for Americans." In fact, power-hungry, greed-driven Obama-led government and corporate scoundrels want working Americans' wealth, homes, jobs, health, welfare, and futures stolen to benefit themselves at their expense.  It means $4 trillion is only for starters. Expect trillions more ahead until virtually all personal and public wealth is in elitist private hands. Moreover, whatever amount of deficit reduction is agreed on (allegedly over the next decade), America's national debt will keep growing. As a result, years from now it'll be greater than ever. It's one of many dirty secrets politicians and media liars won't explain or even touch. Instead they pretend social America is being destroyed to save it by preventing insolvency.  It's one of many Big Lies, showing government abrogated the Constitution's "general welfare" clause - Article I, Section 8, stating: "The Congress shall have power to....provide for (the) general welfare of the United States," meaning all its citizens. Moreover, the Preamble's opening words are "We the People."  They never, in fact, meant everyone, just America's special few, notably since the 1980s, now more than ever in modern times under Obama. Unless public anger derails them, Washington's criminal cabal will transform America into a wasteland, its working class into serfs.  Is it worth just watching from the sidelines, or will reality stir popular outrage to act. It's the only way constructive change ever comes. It's never from the top down, given corrupt politicians put in office to serve their elitist masters - America's aristocracy wanting it all for themselves. So far, in fact, they're well on the way to getting it. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at Email address removed.  Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/ . Author's Bio: I was born in 1934, am a retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.