Like Father, Like Son: Another Bush's Parting Shots

A quote from BusinessWeek:

Stoking the controversy is the sudden activism of the Bush Administration, which U.S. manufacturing lobbyists often accused of being soft on China. The Bush White House filed lots of dumping cases but tried to head off bigger trade disputes with quiet diplomacy. But on Dec. 19, in one of her last acts as U.S. Trade Representative, Susan C. Schwab filed a sweeping petition with the World Trade Organization alleging that China illegally aids local exporters of Chinese-branded products.

Good partisan move: burden the new Democratic president's first days in office with a no-win controversy that, oh by the way, also burdens the nation. I can't remember if Dick Cheney was also directly involved in the last-minute decision, by Bush Sr., to immure the U.S. in the Somalian imbroglio:

In December 1992 (in other words, after he had lost the election to Bill Clinton), President George H.W. Bush committed US troops to Somalia. With weeks left in his one-term presidency "Bush assures the American people and troops involved that this is not an open ended commitment .... He assures the public that he plans for the troops to be home by Clinton's inauguration in January." .... Less than a year later (the troops were not, of course, sent home before the new president took office), the situation is anything but funny, and after the "Blackhawk Down" episode, President Clinton starts the draw down of American troops.

Not to mention that the current Bush Administration has also taken a sudden interest in putting troops ashore in Somalia again, this time to hunt for pirates.

The Bailout Sounds Bad

Last December, I observed that it seemed like Henry Paulson had a special ability to say things that were just the opposite of what was actually happening. So I haven't been too excited about the idea that Congress would approve a plan to give him three-quarters of a trillion dollars to spend as he sees fit, in hopes that he knows how to use it to save the U.S. financial system. I was, in fact, aghast at the idea that the Democratic majority in Congress would be remotely willing to do any such thing. I guess the idea is that they don't want to be called the do-nothing Congress. They're going to take action, by God, even if the selected action is to plant explosives under the nation's economy. They're wanting to be re-elected, and then they'll deal with the fallout to the economy after November 4. In saving themselves, it seems they are torpedoing Obama. The economic meltdown is a Republican creation. Now I guess they want to grab some of the blame for themselves. In the process, they will reduce the pressure on McCain, who admits being weak on economics and who has embarrassed himself repeatedly in that sphere. If voters believe that the problem has been solved, McCain's odds improve. There definitely should be a plan to resolve the financial crisis. And there definitely is some time pressure. But this does not logically require that Congress rush to approve a bad plan. Better a slow plan than the wrong plan, for the simple reason that we can't go around spending $700 billion every week or two. It's an unprecedented sum. I don't know of anything that has ever been proposed, in the history of the American economy, that was expected to cost that much. Maybe World War II. The core of American well-being is a healthy and growing middle class, with fewer people at the income extremes. Unfortunately, it seems we've been losing that middle class. That is, the plan should preserve and enhance the financial status of typical Americans. So, for example, in a choice between taxpayers and stockholders, my impression is that the former does include the vast bulk of middle-class Americans, while the latter does not. So I would favor the interests of taxpayers over those of stockholders. And certainly I would favor taxpayers over foreign stockholders, whose financial institutions will also supposedly be able to partake of the bailout in some sense. In short, I would not favor putting taxpayers on the hook. It is the stockholders who wanted more and more profits, the public be damned; it is the investors who brought us fictive finance. It's their problem. It was hard to imagine, but it was possible to swallow, the bailout of AIG. That was enormous. This is ten times that, and much more vague. Before a dollar is voted, the structure of the plan needs to be presented in detail, with justified and specific dollar requirements. I favor the Democratic party, but economic common sense is even more important to me. I liked Bill Clinton, despite his sometimes ridiculous mistakes, because he had his head on straight about the economy; and irresponsible spending is one of my principal problems with George W. Bush. This bailout plan is not common sense. It deserves to die. Democrats who vote for this thing are, in my opinion, not qualified to manage public funds.

Palin, Scandal, and Moral Superiority

I don't get it. Republicans spent eight years dragging the U.S. through the mud, in the name of getting to the bottom of whatever Bill Clinton had done and whoever he had done it with. Parents were furious that they had to answer their little children's questions about what a blow job was, and all the other stuff they were seeing on TV. The president, and the presidency, took virtually the entire rap for that goofy binge of prurient curiosity. Nobody was excusing Clinton's marital infidelity. But the Republican Party spent years on that and on every other mud-dredging scandal they could find, in the Clintons' personal and professional matters, going back years before they came to Washington, or even before Bill became Arkansas governor. Has anyone forgotten the huge flap over whether Bill had smoked marijuana, and his bizarre claim that he had not inhaled? Throughout recent decades, a huge chunk of America has smoked dope. Who in the world cared about that, other than the moral police of the right wing? So now we have suddenly come into a new age in Washington politics. It did not arrive in time to prevent the right from harping on Obama's fist-bump or his choice of church or his alleged connections with student protesters in the 1960s, when he was eight years old. But suddenly, lo and behold, we have what could be a trashy woman on the right, in the form of Sarah Palin and family, and all at once people are thinking that it's really not right to invade the private life of a candidate for public office. And I agree with that, with a caveat. The caveat is, don't lecture other people about proper morality or the superiority of your religious faith. Don't cover up the bare-breasted statue of Justice, John Ashcroft, when meanwhile your party's future vice-presidential nominee is baring hers premaritally. Don't suddenly discover that it is OK and wonderful for a child to have her own child, after all these years of complaining about single black mothers. Yes, definitely, let us do focus on the real issues in American governance. Let us, indeed, go back and reconsider the 1990s, give Bill and Hillary Clinton a clean slate, and properly excoriate those who made such political hay out of their self-destructive failings, so that our nation will learn something at last, and will not repeat the same mistakes a few years hence. Let's all finally recognize, for God's sake, that those moralistic conceits gave us George W. Bush; let us have a national retrospective soul-searching for the silliness that brought him instead of Al Gore into the White House. Let us hear people on the right -- especially those of the religious right who have long flaunted a most un-Christlike pride in their godliness -- finally confess their sin and seek to make amends for the terrible wrongs they have perpetrated throughout this country and abroad, in the name of a morality that they, themselves, do not necessarily observe. Let us take, together, kindly but seriously, that step toward a new and long-overdue age of rational politics. Until that happens, I say it's smoke. It's the same political fraud in a new guise: morality as defense, rather than morality as offense -- still used, that is, in a fighting mode, not humbly and self-critically. Yes, let us look carefully at the issues. Let us take a running start at them, beginning with 1992. When we see that kind of soul-searching among the so-called godly folk, then I will believe that enough has been said about the contrasts between Sarah Palin's alleged faith and her actual circumstances.

Barack, Hillary, Bill, and Biden: I Was Wrong Once

My prediction was wrong. I figured that the only way Hillary Clinton would be playing along so well and willingly with Barack Obama's victory in the primary election contest -- pledging her support and all that -- was if it was somehow in her interest to do so. That part was surely correct. What was wrong was that I thought her interest must have been some sort of deal for her and, later, perhaps, for Bill Clinton. Barack has now chosen Joe Biden as his vice presidential candidate. So there was apparently no promise for Hillary. I can only guess that she saw it as being in her interest to be a good sport and keep her powder dry for the next presidential election, in 2012. Conceivably she also thinks she can still put on a challenge of some sort at the Democratic convention, but I don't think she would seriously bank on that. We'll see what happens at the convention, with her speech and all, but it seems she is increasingly out of the picture. On to the choice of Biden. Will I be right on this one? I find the pick problematic. Biden is definitely a Washington insider. He is also an old white guy. This cannot be highly reassuring to those who see the Obama candidacy as a call for change. Not female. Nothing exciting about him. He's knowledgeable in foreign affairs, which might make him a good secretary of state. He's something of a loose cannon, verbally speaking, which could make him a liability in the election contest. He may help in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, but he's not at all a household word, and I'm not sure how much people care about the vice president's resume. Unlike JFK's choice of Lyndon Johnson, he won't deliver a key state like LBJ delivered Texas. I'm glad that he takes stands opposing Obama sometimes -- glad that Obama wants something of an opposite number to challenge him -- but that's not really a meaningful criterion for a vice president as distinct from, say, a political advisor. Obama seems to have wanted someone who would provide a weight of experience, but that cuts both ways: it could seem, to some people, like the elder statesman is the one who should be running for president, while the relatively inexperienced kid should be his understudy. Certainly the choice of Biden seems unlikely to deliver a bounce in the polls, a wave of excitement, or anything that will get anyone very much fired up. My take on the matter is that Obama is becoming cautious, worried about his weak spots rather than concentrating on his strengths, and that he is therefore making himself weaker in the process. I don't know if Obama should have chosen Hillary, necessarily, but I do think he has suffered from a failure of imagination and courage here, and has diluted his message and appeal as a result. I'm not reading every last word about the election contest, so I may be missing something, but it seems like he's responding gently to McCain's jabs. If, as some say, the role of a vice president is to be the attack dog during the contest, I don't know why Biden (who is McCain's self-styled friend) would be a better choice than Clinton. I would think he needed a seasoned, demonstrably successful fighter. I guess he just didn't want to be dragged down by the Clinton baggage, which is understandable, but he could have gotten beyond that with time; he would have reasonably expected to make his own mark on the presidency and the world. Anyway, some dust is now settling. Bill Richardson didn't get the nod, despite betraying Hillary. John Edwards was evidently not the type that Obama was looking for, so his affair apparently didn't knock him out of the running. I would actually think that the ideal running mate for Obama would have been someone who would make him look conservative and/or thoughtful by comparison -- someone whom he could portray as a foil, a proponent of views he found too extreme -- but maybe I'd be wrong in that. What we're going to get, instead, is a campaign of politics as usual, and that's too bad. This wasn't the year for that.

Here's the Deal: Barack, Hillary, and Bill

My speculation for the week: 1. Barack and Hillary are campaigning together. Hillary would not be doing this unless she already had a deal she couldn't refuse. When they sat themselves in easy chairs in Dianne Feinstein's living room, they got right to the point. Hillary would not be this happy with anything less than the vice presidential slot. Barack's promise is that, at the appropriate time, selected for maximum political advantage, he will announce her as his VP candidate. 2. Hillary is motivated to do everything in her power for her and Barack to win. That means bringing every last one of her supporters on board for Barack, if possible. That also means muzzling Bill. He has been very unhelpful for her in this campaign, especially when compared to what he could have done if he had been more focused. The deal is, Hillary is the VP candidate; she takes the spotlight off Michelle Obama; the Clintons' 1990s baggage is history; and Bill Clinton is not a significant part of the package. 3. Bill is motivated to mind his tongue and do what Barack and Hillary need. His motivation is that he will be Barack's first nominee to a Supreme Court position, or possibly some ambassadorship (to e.g., the United Nations). He probably got his pick, and he probably does want to be back in the game in some regard. He lies low now; he gets rewarded later.

Another Cynical Bush Foreign Entanglement?

In December 1992, after he had lost the election to Bill Clinton, the internationally knowledgeable outgoing president George H. W. Bush sent U.S. troops to Somalia. In effect, he saddled Clinton with a foreign entanglement that he had known would likely be a failure and a mess. It was a cynical political move, done at the expense of American lives and prestige. So now I see reports that his son, George W. Bush, is contemplating an attack on Iran shortly before he leaves office. Would anyone care to bet that the odds of such an attack rise if a Democrat wins the White House in November?