Political Theatre category archive

Among the things that have driven me away from television news, in addition to the inherent inanity of selecting “reporters” because they have good “anchor hair,” is the relentless emphasis on now, with no thought of yesterday (how we got here) or tomorrow (where we are headed). This perspective has also seeped into political coverage and political partisanship, which cares more for today’s poll results than for tomorrow’s solutions.

One can see it in the daily agonizing over a stuff that makes a Trivial Pursuit question seem like the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Ian Leslie in the Guardian.

If we tear ourselves away from the talkshows and the RSS feeds and look at what the administration has actually been doing in response to the economic crisis, we discover a series of initiatives that are designed to work together and push in one direction. Alongside the banking rescue plan, there’s the stimulus package, a housing plan, credit relief for small businesses and a budget proposal that addresses long-term problems for which solutions are vital to the nation’s future prosperity.

Obama seems to have retained at least some of his ability to keep his eye on the ball even when everyone in the crowd is screaming their lungs out. Not all of his plans will work, and the whole thing may yet end in disaster. It’s impossible to say. We can’t predict the future with any confidence at the moment. But we can – if we try – see beyond the present.

No, not out there in Andromeda.

Right there in Potomac River City. Read the whole thing:

The story behind why the DEA sought out the (three new surveillance planes–ed.) planes, only to become the second federal agency to give them up, illustrates the pitfalls of “black,” or classified, budgeting in which Congress approves tens of billions of dollars for intelligence agencies outside the public’s view.

(snip)

Black earmarks, however, receive almost no scrutiny. Even worse, there’s little accountability when the technology doesn’t work.

The lack of transparency has led to some staggering boondoggles. In 1991, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney canceled the troubled A-12 Avenger II after the secret aircraft program consumed nearly $3 billion of taxpayers’ money.

I have discussed mountaintop removal before. Mountaintop removal kills. It kils streams, towns, forests, and lives.

So this is good news.

The EPA announced on Tuesday that they were putting a hold on dozens of mountantop mining projects until the “projects’ impacts on streams and wetlands can be reviewed.”

I don’t normally watch press conferences. I read about them the next day.

I’m beginning to regret missing this one.

Read more »

You should know better anyway.

American workers — whose taxes pay for massive government health programs — are getting squeezed like no other group by private health insurance premiums that are rising much faster than their wages. Today — even as most retirees have health insurance and nearly 90 percent of children are covered — workers now are at significantly higher risk of being uninsured than in the 1990s, the last time lawmakers attempted a health care overhaul.

That’s according to a study released Tuesday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which found that nearly 1 in 5 workers is uninsured, a significant increase from fewer than 1 in 7 during the mid-1990s.

John Cole:

Sucking up to George W. Bush—and maybe even getting your own nickname—elevated a reporter’s status in 2003. Trying to knock Obama off his game now elevates a reporter’s status. It really is that simple.

Over at Mudflats.

Mad Kane:

Fuming About Hume (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The blogs are a threat to the news
Cuz they’re slanted, says Hume, in their views.
A fellow from Fox
Casting “partisan” knocks?
To Hume I must say, “Brit, j’accuse.”

Via Skippy.

. . . that has the capacity to outrage. Rosemary and Walter Brasch take a look at what does and doesn’t have the power to spark outrage amongst Americans:

And why are we outraged? Because it’s money.

As homeless children sleep beneath bridges, as millions desperate for work are told to go home and collect a pittance in unemployment, as innocent Iraqis die, as young soldiers return without limbs, as our earth is being destroyed, we sit and yawn through the news, desensitized to the horror. But, sadly, the one thing we react to, the driving impetus to contact our legislators, and the one thing that moves us to outrage is money.

Matthew Paris is on the BBC on Marconi’s Magic Box telling me that it is demeaning for a Head of State to go on a television “chat” show.

I don’t care one way or the other whether Mr. Obama went on Jay Leno’s show, but I do think one of the problems in our society is the tendency to act as if leaders, whether in business, politics, or other realms, are gods.

Via Delaware Liberal.

With the GOP Problem Solver.

Just type in your problem and click “Solve.”

Via Delaware Liberal.

Skippy analyzes the Villagers, whom he defines as

the coterie of Washington insider journalists and pundidiots who support and protect one another and support and protect the politicians and personalities they cover, often to the detriment of the people who go to them for news and information.

The Villagers are the keepers of what Duncan refers to as “Broderism.”

Further on in the post, he remembers when NBC News asked him and other bloggers to a “summit”:

First, throughout last year’s presidential election campaign, reporters fawned all over John McCain like they were in love, replaying again and again the Village script that McCain was a maverick, ignoring how McCain had voted with Bush time and again on an agenda that was disastrous for the United States, and mentioning, frequently, how McCain had thrown a barbecue for the press. The barbecue: that’s the key.

Second, though my recollection is a teensy bit fuzzy, rendering the precise quote perhaps off by a few words, the gist is accurate, so I recall for you a quote from a book I used to own. If I get the time, I’ll see if I can find someone with a copy of the book and look it up. The book in question is David Halberstam’s “The Summer of ’49”, which describes the 1949 American League pennant race between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. At one point Halberstam quotes Joe DiMaggio as he expresses his disgust with sports writers. “Look at ’em, ” DiMaggio says contemptuously, “I can buy any one of them for a five dollar steak and a bottle of wine,” meaning he could take a reporter to dinner and that’s all it would take to get that reported (sic) on his side. A five dollar steak and a bottle of wine. Feed them a meal.

That’s what the shrimp was about. That’s why NBC thought we would all be bought off and become their BFFs, because if you put a shrimp platter out for the NBC news crew, you buy them forever and they become your BFFs. When those disparate stories converged in my mind, I understood how you can own the Villagers: buy them dinner. That’s all you have to do. Buy them dinner. They are as cheaply bought as that.

I jokingly said to someone yesterday at DL that “I have always wanted to be an Authorized Personnel.”

The Villagers consider themselves “Authorized Personnel,” for the rest of us cannot be admitted through the doors they freely enter.

Now, I have been an “Authorized Personnel” allowed to walk through the door bearing the sign, “Authorized Personnel Only.”

The Villagers revel in their “Authorized” status and forget that “Authorized Personnel” is nothing more than a fancy word for “employees.”

Via Andrew Sullivan.

SteveD explains “going Galt.”

See, going Galt doesn’t mean you have to fall off the face of the earth (or the “Grid” as I believe folks more sophisticated than I like to say). That would be too easy. No, it means pretending to be a productive member of society even as you stick it to the man (and, okay, a few non-productive losers, too) by really doing the exact opposite. And above all, don’t pay your taxes.

Openings on the Alaskan State Supreme Court:

Remember just a day or two ago when Sarah Palin filled the Alaska Supreme Court vacancy, and her administration claimed “Her choice for Supreme Court judge was made in accordance with Alaska law. She chose the person most qualified from the names sent to her.” Well, apparently that attitude is checked at the door when it involves someone who is eminently qualified, but who has also been somewhat critical of the governor.

(snip)

The governor has received more than two dozen unsolicited applications so far, and apparently wants as many as she can get. She’ll be accepting applications until Friday at which time she will release the names of the applicants. Elton’s replacement must be a Juneau Democrat and be approved by a majority of Democratic State Senators. Hey, Juneau Mudflatters, any takers?

Michael Tomasky comments on the tiff between Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh:

Limbaugh is a dominant figure because the Grand Old Party is no longer a political party in the usual American sense. It is an ideological faction. In America, as you know, we’ve had basically a two-party system for most of our history. In parliamentary systems, small ideologically driven groups tend to form political parties, win a few seats, and make coalitions with larger parties.

(snip)

. . . today’s GOP consists, with those few exceptions, only of its conservative faction. Conservatives have been disciplined and strategic and have poured billions into political infrastructure-building over the years. When things were going their way, they didn’t have to worry about the lack of moderates. But now, things aren’t going their way. Unless Obama really, really blows it, the GOP is going to be the minority party for quite some time. It’s easy to see now why Limbaugh has such power, no? If the GOP had a moderate wing, he wouldn’t.

Jon Swift is swift to the defense of another embattled conservative.

SadlyNo! has the scandalous details.

Via CC.

Republican apologists (emphasis added) and their knee pads:

Then Steele apologized, which made the entire party leadership look like a bunch of wimps. However, this sort of thing happens so frequently these days that it’s possible that apologizing to Rush Limbaugh is a kind of initiation rite for the highest reaches of Republicanism, the way chugging a bottle of vodka will get you into certain fraternities.

H/T Alison for the link.