The View from Right Field

Lame-Duck "democrats" Versus Lame-Duck "Democrats"

According to this report, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is planning a two-part lame-duck session after the election in November. While I don’t think we know when the House will be meeting, they will obviously be back in session, too.

Based on prior reports, it appears that one of the purposes of the lame-duck session(s) is to get things passed that the Democrats couldn’t get passed before the election.* The theory is, I assume, that Democrats who wouldn’t vote for things before the election, for fear of losing, will vote for them after they have lost – or been safely re-elected.

This may work in the House, especially for representatives who have lost. Some representatives might be happy to vote for something that they secretly supported but were afraid to tell their constituents about for fear of losing. Once they lose, they don’t need to care about their constituents anymore.

In cases of representatives who were undecided or who actually leaned against something, I am sure the Administration can come up with various "inducements" to convince these people to vote yes. Maybe an appointment to some board or agency. (There will certainly be enough of them with the new health care bill and the financial reform bill.) Alternatively, if they want to become a lobbyist, one would assume that they would have more success with Nancy Pelosi, et al., if they "cooperated" in the lame-duck session.

The Senate may be different, however. First, unless Senator Reid is going to try to dance around the filibuster rule, he will have to pick up at least one Republican vote. (He may actually need to pick up even more than one vote. In both Illinois and Delaware, the winners in November will take office as soon as they are certified. In Delaware Vice President Biden’s term goes until 2015, so the election is for the remaining 4+ years of his term. In Illinois, in addition to the regular election on November 2, we are having a special election to fill the remainder of President Obama’s term. If Mark Kirk wins this special election, he gets seated right away. Losing both of those seats would reduce the number of Democrats from 59 to 57. That may be why Mr. Reid wants to get started so quickly after the election: to get things passed before any new Republicans are seated.)

Whether Senator Reid is successful in picking up a couple of Republican votes will depend on how he goes about it. If he does things right, looks at the real issues, follows proper rules, there are Republican votes to be gained. But if he tries to sneak things through or focuses on partisan advantage, it won’t get done. For example, both Senators Snowe and Collins from Maine voted for the bill sending $26 billion of aid to states yesterday. But when it came to the last-minute attempt to change the rules for who could say what during the upcoming election campaign, a change that had the appearance of being done from bare partisan purposes, Senators Snowe and Collins voted no.

Also, given that the Senate is a continuing body, I wonder whether some of the senators who will be up for election in 2012 and 2014 would take to this kind of "slick" move. Senator Reid will either be re-elected or defeated, so he might not care, but other senators might.

Finally, a sense of fair play and proper procedure does actually matter to some senators. Getting defeated members of Congress to pass things that they wouldn’t vote for before the election might be a little too much for some people.

It will be interesting. And it might be a good question to ask your local Democratic candidates what they think about this. It might tell you whether they are a "democrat" or just a Democrat.

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* See here, here, and here.

DISCLOSE Act Discloses Mostly Democrats

Sometimes when I am feeling especially naïve, I think how nice it would be if we could trust our representatives in Congress to play reasonably fair and not use the system for partisan advantage. But we can’t, of course. Here is the most recent example.

President Obama made his displeasure with the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case clear earlier this year. The Citizens United decision invalidated a law which had prohibited corporations from making certain types of political speech in the 30 days before a primary election and in the 60 days before a general election.

Now the first thing to note here is that the word "corporation" does not just mean businesses. "Corporation" as used here refers to a form of organization. Businesses are usually corporations, but so are labor unions and public interest groups. So the Supreme Court decision did not just free up businesses, it allowed unions and public interest groups to talk, too. (President Obama didn’t mention this point when he complained about the decision in his State of the Union address.)

Along with President Obama, the Democrats in Congress did not like this decision. So they have come up with something called the DISCLOSE Act. "DISCLOSE" is short for "Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections". (Truth in labeling laws do not apply to Congress.)

Of course, the real purpose of the Disclose Act is to help Democrats in the fall elections by limiting the right of businesses and others to say what they think about various candidates. The initial bill, which was sponsored by the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (you can’t make this stuff up; nobody would believe it), didn’t apply to unions – for some unknown reason. That wasn’t going to fly in the Senate so the limits now apply to businesses and unions, except for practical reasons, the effect will be more on businesses than unions.

There is also an exception for some interest groups, though not many. The original exception was tailored to exclude just the National Rifle Association. This was done in the House because otherwise Blue Dog Democrats would have voted against the bill. (As I said, you can’t make this stuff up.) That was so outrageous that a few other interest groups are now also excluded, but not many.

The bill is scheduled for a cloture vote in the Senate this week. There haven’t been any hearings, but Senator Reid doesn’t have time for that. He has elections to win (both personal and for his party).

The pure partisanship in all of this can be seen in the number of Republicans who voted for the bill in the House (two) and the number Senator Reid is hoping to pick up in the Senate (also about two). Whatever you think of McCain-Feingold (and I didn’t like it), it was bipartisan. This thing is about as bipartisan as the annual Cubs Convention.

The First Amendment should ultimately stop this. But that won’t happen immediately, and all the Democrats care about is getting past November. They can worry about the next election later.

Of course, the Democrats in Congress have the perfect role model for what they are doing here in President Obama. When he was just another candidate for the Democratic nomination for President, he agreed that, if John McCain was the Republican nominee and Senator McCain agreed to accept public financing for the presidential election, he would, too. After then-Senator Obama won the nomination and he realized he could raise more money than Senator McCain, he backed out, claiming that what he was doing was the equivalent of public financing because the public was giving him contributions.* (One more time: You can’t make this stuff up.)

All in all, about the only thing the DISCLOSE Act discloses is how far the Democrats will go to win in November.

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Sources re DISCLOSE Act: Debra Saunders, "In Washington, ‘Disclose’ Means Stifle," June 29, 2010; Russell Berman, "House approves campaign finance measure by 219-206," The Hill, June 24, 2010; "The Schumer for Majority Leader Act," The Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2010;

* See here, here and here.

Update (7/28/10 8:45/8:55 am):  While I was writing this yesterday and before I posted it this morning, the Senate defeated Senator Reid's cloture vote 57-41.  All Senate Republicans voted no (except John Ensign who was absent).  All Democrats voted yes.  Once again:  If you can't get Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, it says something about the bill.

Are Those Deficits Really George W. Bush's Fault?

As we head into the fall elections, and as Republicans complain about the deficits and the level of federal spending, many Democrats will be repeating what David Leonhardt of The New York Times said back in June (I am sorry if I seem to be picking on Mr. Leonhardt lately, but sometimes it is hard not to):

"Any new [stimulus] bill will … give Republicans another chance to blame Mr. Obama for the deficit, even though the current deficit is more of their own party’s making. …

Of course, it [i.e., any additional stimulus] would have a much smaller impact on the deficit than the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, the bipartisan Medicare prescription drug program or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan did."

This view, i.e., that the deficit is mostly President Bush’s fault, has been, and will continue to be, a standard Democratic talking point. But Mr. Leonhardt does us a favor by identifying those actions/policies of President Bush that are supposedly the cause of most of today’s deficit. Let’s look at each of these items individually.

First, as always in Democratic responses to Republican criticism of the deficit are the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts. The 2003 tax cuts may have increased past deficits, but they won’t increase future deficits because they expire at the end of 2010 – except that the Democrats want to extend the 2003 cuts for low and middle income taxpayers. Which means you can’t blame President Bush and the Republicans for the part of the deficit caused by tax cuts the Democrats want to extend.

The 2001 tax cuts won’t automatically expire, but the Democrats clearly didn’t oppose those parts of the 2001 tax cuts that helped low and middle income taxpayers. Once again, you can’t blame those on the Republicans unless the Democrats try to repeal them.

When it comes to the senior drug program (i.e., Medicare Part D), to the extent the Democrats opposed it, it was for two reasons. One, it wasn’t big enough, and two, the Democrats didn’t like the way the program involved private companies. Of course, the very involvement of private companies has meant that the program has actually cost less than what was estimated, just about the only government medical program you can say that about. And the Democrats wanted a program that provided more coverage, i.e., cost more, not one that cost less. So, when the Democrats blame today’s deficit on Medicare Part D, what they don’t mention is that they wanted a bigger, different, ultimately more expensive program.*

The war in Iraq, after it started going bad, is President Bush’s responsibility. At the beginning both parties voted for it. Maybe some Democrats didn’t really mean it when they voted yes, but a vote is a vote, so they are stuck with it for the first couple of years. Once they wanted to bug out, I suppose you can put the blame for that part of the deficit on President Bush.

And Afghanistan? That is a "war of necessity," according to President Obama, so I don’t see how that can be charged to President Bush.

In other words, out of five items Mr. Leonhardt listed, President Bush (and the Republicans) can be blamed at most for parts of three of them, and they get credit for what the fact that what they did on another item actually cost less than what the Democrats wanted to do.

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* David Wessel, "The Lessons of Medicare Part D," The Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2010; "Health Costs and History," The Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2009; Michael Barone, "Medicare Part D," November 27, 2006.

Update (7/15/10 8:30 am): Fixed a typo.

Why Won't President Obama Call BP CEO Tony Hayward?

Last Thursday Tom Bevan at RealClearPolitics.com noted that, in the eight weeks since the Gulf oil spill started, President Obama has not talked to BP CEO Tony Hayward even once. When the President told this to Matt Lauer on the Today show on Tuesday, Mr. Lauer seemed surprised. Mr. Bevin was more than surprised:

"How can someone who says they are seriously engaged in leading the country through an ongoing crisis go more than seven weeks [now eight weeks] without speaking directly with the person whose company is tasked with a critical part of bringing the crisis to an end? Why would someone who claims to be focused night and day on doing whatever is needed to put an end to the catastrophe not want to have a direct line of communication with Hayward? In fact, instead of not speaking at all with Hayward, wouldn’t a President who was serious about taking charge of the situation and being as well informed as possible do the opposite and demand that the BP CEO provide him with constant direct updates of BP’s efforts in the Gulf, perhaps even on a daily basis? [emphasis in original]

While Mr. Bevan went on to say that President Obama’s failure to talk to Mr. Hayward is "an abdication of leadership," he didn’t try to figure out why President Obama hasn’t talked to Mr. Hayward.

Let me give one possibility: I think the President may be scared to call Mr. Hayward. President Obama doesn’t always do well in one-on-one confrontations. Remember that time when the President went to talk to the House Republican Conference last January and he got in a disagreement with Representative Paul Ryan about how much spending was going up. The President tried to blow Representative Ryan off, but Representative Ryan knows his facts, and he held his ground. Instead of continuing the argument (or discussion) with Representative Ryan, the President just said, "We’ll have a longer debate on the budget numbers, all right" and switched subjects.

I wonder if the President is worried that Mr. Hayward would know what he was talking about and that when the President tried to demagogue the subject, Mr. Hayward would hold the President’s feet to the fire – on the facts. The President might be worried he would come out on short end of it.

It is one thing to "kick ass" in a speech on national TV, like the President tried to do to the Supreme Court in his State of the Union address. It is another thing to do it when the other person can kick back. President Obama may not be sure he would win a fight with BP CEO Tony Hayward. Maybe that is why he is avoiding him. But that is what bullies do. If they can’t be sure of winning, usually because the other person can’t fight back, they won’t take the risk of fighting. The chance of losing – and being embarrassed – is too big.

Apparently, the White House has now asked (demanded-?) Mr. Hayward to come to Washington for a meeting, but even this meeting is just with some of the President’s aides, though The Los Angeles Times did report that the President "would stop by". It may be that the President figures he won’t get bested by Mr. Hayward if he just drops in, as opposed being there for the whole meeting.

If Obama Can't Get Olympia Snowe ...

President Obama went to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to meet with Senate Republicans. The President was seeking Republican support for legislation on energy, immigration and other issues. Reports in the Los Angeles Times and Politico indicated that the meeting did not go well.

While some Republicans said that the meeting was, at times, tense and testy, a White House spokesman said the meeting was "civil in tone".

It is hard to know exactly what happened; were the Republican too negative, was the President too partisan? According to Politico, "South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Obama is replicating the mistakes of George W. Bush, who had little regard for Senate Democrats’ complaints and routinely steamrolled them legislatively." Politico quoted Senator Graham:

"The pattern is they’re pretty good at reaching out when they need you, and when they don’t, they don’t mind running over you."

Perhaps most significant, however, is this from the Los Angeles Times:

"Evenmoderate GOP Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, one of the few Republicans who has been willing to work with the administration, emerged from the meeting with Obama with a sour attitude towardhis administration's record of outreach to Republicans like herself.

‘Their bipartisanship generally consists of "Can we have your vote for our bill,"’ said Snowe, one of the few Republicans to support Obama's economic stimulus bill last year.

If the President can’t even get Olympia Snowe, then there’s something wrong with his definition of "bipartisanship." And not much is going to get done before November – unless the Democrats can do it by themselves.

Obama Doesn't Do Immigration Reform and Hispanics Think It's Rahm's Fault

Candidate Barack Obama said that immigration reform would be one of his top priorities, but an article in today’s Chicago Tribune says that the prospects for immigration reform happening this year are fading and that "some Democratic lawmakers are focusing blame on the pugnacious Democratic operative who works just down the hall from President Obama", i.e., Rahm Emanuel.

The article goes on to quote numerous Hispanic leaders, including members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, as saying the administration’s failure to push immigration reform is because of Rahm Emanuel.

Which shows that Mr. Emanuel is doing his job very well. He is making sure that he gets the blame for President Obama’s failure to follow through on what then-Senator Obama said he would do. Very impressive.

Mark Souder. Richard Blumenthal. Cheating and Lying In Politics Today.

Two stories hit earlier this week, and it is interesting to compare them. On Tuesday, Representative Mark Souder of Indiana, a Republican, and "an evangelical Christian who promoted abstinence education and was known for his outspoken views on religion," announced that he would be resigning from Congress because he had had an affair with a part-time member of his staff. Mr. Souder said, in part:

"It is with great regret I announce that I am resigning from the U.S. House of Representatives ….

I can never fully thank all those who have worked so hard, given so much and supported me through eight contested primaries and eight general elections. Only when you have been the recipient can you really feel the humbling power of such generosity. …

It has been all consuming for me to do this job well, especially in a district with costly, competitive elections every two years. I do not have any sort of ‘normal’ life –for family, for friends, for church, for community.

To serve has been a blessing and a responsibility given from God. I wish I could have been a better example."

On Monday, The New York Times reported that Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who is running for Chris Dodd’s Senate seat, has on more than one occasion stated that he served in Vietnam when he did not. In response, Mr. Blumenthal said, in part:

"On a few occasions I have misspoken about my service, and I regret that and I take full responsibility. But I will not allow anyone to take a few misplaced words and impugn my record of service to our country. … Unlike many of my peers, I chose to join the military and serve my country. I am proud of my service in the United States Marine Corps Reserve."

The New York Times reported that Mr. Blumenthal "said that the errors were ‘totally unintentional’ and that he had made them only a few times in hundreds of public appearances."

While Abraham Lincoln said, in his Second Inaugural, "let us judge not, that we be not judged," it is fascinating to compare these two situations and to consider: Who do you feel sorrier for? Or, alternatively, which one of these situations bothers you more?

Some may feel that my views are tainted because I am a Republican, and they may be right, but let me have a go at it.

First, consider Representative Souder’s situation. Some Democrats, and some political junkies, are gleeful. Politico wrote about it as yet another scandal involving the Republican class of 1994.

Of course, in their glee at Representative Souder’s situation, Democrats are not remembering their defense of Bill Clinton. Back then, it was just sex. It was personal; it had nothing to do with his job.

Also, Democrats tell Republicans that, if they criticized President Clinton, they have to do the same with Representative Souder. Of course, the Democrats are forgetting that at least part of former President Clinton’s problem was that he lied under oath, something that Representative Souder has not been accused of. Also, Representative Souder resigned.

But probably the biggest criticism of Representative Souder is that it was hypocritical for him to talk about abstinence, etc., when he was shacking up with a staffer.

But I am not sure it was hypocrisy. It may have been, but I don’t know. If Representative Souder really did not mean what he said about abstinence, etc., if he just said it to get elected, but he didn’t believe it, then it is hypocrisy. But if Representative Souder does believe that adultery is wrong, if he really does believe in abstinence, then maybe he isn’t a hypocrite; maybe he is just human. Nobody is perfect. We all do things that we know we shouldn’t do; we all commit sins. Just because we don’t live up to our principles does not mean we are hypocrites. It just means we aren’t perfect. In fact, if we set our principles only at the level we know we can meet, then our standards wouldn’t be very high. The fact is that real achievement comes from setting high goals and high standards and then trying to live up to them, even though you fail now and then.

If we claim we believe in principles and then don’t try to live up to them and don’t care if we live up to them, that is hypocrisy. But if we try and fail and feel remorse for our failure, that is not hypocrisy. That is just being human.

As I said above, I don’t know which category Representative Souder fits into. He seems to be genuinely remorseful. He has resigned. For now I will give him the benefit of the doubt and say he is a human and not a hypocrite.

Which brings us to Attorney General Blumenthal. I do not know if it is because he is a Democrat or what, but I am having a harder time understanding what Attorney General Blumenthal did.

Attorney General Blumenthal is definitely responding differently that Representative Souder did. Of course, maybe that is because what Attorney General Blumenthal did isn’t as bad as what Representative Souder did. Attorney General Blumenthal is saying that it was just slip of the tongue, that it was a mistake, that it only happened a few times. It does seem that an entire political career should not be thrown overboard for a couple of mistakes. On the other hand, the argument that it was a slip of the tongue would be more convincing if it hadn’t happened more than once. Slips of the tongue happen, but one might think that after the first time, Attorney General Blumenthal would have tried harder to make sure it didn’t happen again.

Attorney General Blumenthal has been a big supporter of veterans. He goes to soldiers’ funerals, talks to veterans groups, supports veterans’ issues. It could be that, in some way, he now feels bad that he received all those deferments and that he was just in the Marine Corps Reserve.

But perhaps the most interesting comment on this situation was not made by either those who attacked Attorney General Blumenthal or those who defended him. Instead, it may have been what former U.S. Representative Chris Shays said, according to The New York Times:

"Former Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, a Republican who says he is a good friend of Richard Blumenthal’s, said in an interview Tuesday that he had watched with worry as Mr. Blumenthal gradually embellished his military record over the years.

As prominent Democrats in the state rallied to Mr. Blumenthal’s side on Tuesday, saying they had never seen him describe himself as a Vietnam veteran or chalking such misstatements up to a momentary lapse, Mr. Shays’s comments appeared to bolster the idea that Mr. Blumenthal’s descriptions of his military record had been somewhat embroidered, bit by bit, with the passage of time. …

Mr. Shays, a 10-term incumbent who lost a re-election bid in November 2008, was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. He said he and Mr. Blumenthal began their careers in politics at roughly the same time and frequently addressed the same groups. He recalled that early on, Mr. Blumenthal spoke humbly about his military record, rarely discussing it and always making clear that he had held only desk jobs and had not been in the line of fire, though he remained proud of having been a Marine.

‘But as time went on, he would mention it more often, and Vietnam would show up,’ even when Mr. Blumenthal was not speaking to veterans, Mr. Shays said. …

‘If he’d stuck with what he said 30 or 20 years ago, he wouldn’t be in the trouble he’s in now,’ Mr. Shays said. ‘He was a Marine. Nobody can take that away from him, but he never tried to play it up other than to say that he was a Marine.’"

So what about Attorney General Blumenthal? I don’t know yet. The answer may be less in what he said, or over-said, in the past and more in how he reacts now and what he says in the future. Will he sincerely apologize? Or will he treat it as just another political attack, to be refuted and defended against? In this year of the anti-politician, one wonders if admission and apology might work better than aggressive defense. But then, I am a Republican, so I may not be the best person to give advice to Attorney General Blumenthal.

Are Voters Shifting to the GOP – Or Against the Democrats?

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll reports good news for Republicans:

"Republicans have solidified support among voters who had drifted from the party in recent elections, putting the GOP in position for a strong comeback in November's mid-term campaign …. …

Republicans have reassembled their coalition by reconnecting with independents, seniors, blue-collar voters, suburban women and small town and rural voters—all of whom had moved away from the party in the 2006 elections, in which Republicans lost control of the House. Those voter groups now favor GOP control of Congress. …

A big shift is evident among independents, who at this point in the 2006 campaign favored Democratic control of Congress rather than Republican control, 40% to 24%. In this poll, independents favored the GOP, 38% to 30%."*

While this is good news for Republican candidates in November, Republicans need to realize that this is not a vote for them. This is a vote against the Democrats. People are not switching to the Republicans because of what we have done – or even what we have proposed. They are turning against the Democrats because of what they have done – and the Republicans are the best way to vote against the Democrats.

In other words, Republicans, especially the Republicans in Congress, need to understand that if the Republicans do well in November, the victories are not a mandate. They are a chance. We are getting another chance, and we need to not blow it.

We don’t need another K Street project or earmarks from here to Nowhere (as in the Bridge to Nowhere). Or deficit spending that funds what we want as opposed to what the Democrats want.

If Republicans do well in November, we are going to have to earn that victory by doing good in the two years that follow. Or November of 2012 will see us out once again.

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* "Voters Shifting to GOP, Poll Finds," The Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2010.

Update (5/14/10 11:25 pm): Corrected a typo in the title and deleted a couple of "categories".

Barack Obama's "Holier Than Thou" Attitude

I’m getting tired of Barack Obama. No, not him personally. I’m getting tired of the condescending, holier-than-thou attitude that seems to permeate so many of his presidential statements, at least those relating to domestic matters.* (Actually, it is interesting that this attitude does not come across in statements about other countries – or at least other countries that are not our allies.)

Let me give a couple of examples. In his graduation speech at the University of Michigan on May 1, 2010, President Obama said:

"What troubles me is when I hear people say that all of government is inherently bad. … When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy government is us."

Those are very nice sentiments, and the Associated Press was duly impressed. But they are also phony. Who has actually said "all of government is inherently bad"? President Obama doesn’t say. Some blogger somewhere may have said it or maybe even a commentator on talk radio. But what Republican leader has said it? John Boehner? Mitch McConnell? Paul Ryan? Eric Cantor? Or how about Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty or Mike Huckabee? No, none of them has ever said it. Sarah Palin has never said "all of government is inherently bad." And President Obama knows it. But that doesn’t stop him from implying they said it because it’s easier to argue against extreme statements like that than it is to engage in reasoned discourse with people who actually know what they are talking about.**

President Obama went on to say that "this kind of vilification and over-the-top rhetoric closes the door to the possibility of compromise. It undermines democratic deliberation." That is true, but it is also true that misrepresenting the positions of those who disagree with you closes the door to compromise and undermines deliberation. Back in April, President Obama said this about Senator Chris Dodd’s proposals for financial regulatory reform and those who had concerns about Senator Dodd’s bill:

"Now, there's a legitimate debate taking place about how best to ensure taxpayers are held harmless in this process. And that's a legitimate debate, and I encourage that debate. But what's not legitimate is to suggest that somehow the legislation being proposed is going to encourage future taxpayer bailouts, as some have claimed.… [A] vote for reform is a vote to put a stop to taxpayer-funded bailouts. That's the truth. End of story. And nobody should be fooled in this debate."

But while President Obama was, in effect, accusing those who opposed the Dodd legislation of lying about what the bill provided, Adam Davidson of National Public Radio, not what you would call a charter member of the vast right wing conspiracy, was saying he could not find an expert of either party who agreed with the President. Similarly, Gretchen Morgenson of The New York Times said this about the Dodd proposal at that point:

"Unfortunately, the leading proposal would do little to cure the epidemic unleashed on American taxpayers by the lords of finance and their bailout partners. … The bills also don’t eliminate the prospect of future bailouts of interconnected and powerful companies. … Too big to fail is alive and well, alas."

Similarly, at various times last year President Obama, while admittedly in what may have been more of a campaign mode, would tell his audiences that those who had created various problems, by which he meant Republicans, needed to stop criticizing his plans for cleaning them up. He was willing to clean up their messes, but they needed to just be quiet and get out of his way while he did so. It is hard to see how statements like that keep open "the door to the possibility of compromise" or how they support "democratic deliberation". Trying to silence those who disagree with you is bullying, not compromise or deliberation.

Finally, President Obama said this in his speech at the University of Michigan:

"The truth is, the debate we’ve had for decades now between more government and less government, it doesn’t really fit the times in which we live. We know that too much government can stifle competition and deprive us of choice and burden us with debt. But we’ve also clearly seen the dangers of too little government -– like when a lack of accountability on Wall Street nearly leads to the collapse of our entire economy."

No, it wasn’t "too little government" that nearly led to the collapse of our economy in the fall of 2008. In fact, various parts of government played important roles in helping cause the near-disaster. As I have mentioned before, the Federal Reserve kept short term interest rates too low for too long, helping to encourage the housing bubble.

Also, in spite of proposals by the Bush administration and leading Republican, Congress repeatedly failed either to exercise greater oversight and control over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or to pass reforms on how Fannie and Freddie operated. It was Democrats in Congress who led the opposition to these proposals, and now the collapse and bankruptcy of these two agencies has cost taxpayers over $130 billion with more coming.

But President Obama probably doesn’t want to mention Congress’s failure to pass these reforms, since he opposed them while he was in the Senate. And even though the President accused Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of opposing Senator Dodd’s bill after Senator McConnell went up to New York to talk with Wall Street bankers about the bill, he doesn’t mention all of the campaign contributions he received from Fannie and Freddie executives while he was opposing legislation to reform those agencies.

As Jay Cost said at RealClearPolitics, President Obama is "a polarizing leader in a polarized age." It may not be what he wanted, but it has happened, and it is partly because of the policy choices he has made. Why can’t he admit it?

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* I realize there were plenty of people who felt, and probably still feel, this way about George W. Bush. I am not arguing they were wrong, but the fact that they felt that way about President Bush does not mean I cannot criticize President Obama for the same thing.

** President Obama had this problem in January when he addressed a gathering of House Republicans. The President got into a discussion with Representative Paul Ryan about increases in federal spending, but after Representative Ryan pressed the President on his budget numbers, President Obama just said, "We’ll have a longer debate on the budget numbers, all right," and then took another question.

Update (5/13/10 9:15 pm): Added a link for the Jay Cost quote.

President Obama Softens His Language on Iran, North Korea, Etc., While Getting Nasty With Those Who Disagree Domestically

There is an interesting juxtaposition between two recent stories in Politico. This one, "Obama strategy gets personal," notes that the President "has lately been getting personal with his political adversaries – singling them out for scorn". Tom Bevan at RealClearPolitics describes President Obama, when talking about reforming the financial system, as relying

"on rhetorical tricks and demagoguery to make his case – as [he] did [last] Thursday by declaring any opposing viewpoint to his as ‘illegitimate.’ Despite his eloquence and thoughtful demeanor, Obamadoesn't try to win arguments through persuasion so much as he does by demonizing and de-legitimizing those who hold a different view."

(Dan Henninger in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal notes the same thing. This link will hopefully be good until next Wednesday.)

On the other hand, this article in Politico, "War of words over Obama’s soft tone," talks about the less confrontational language the President and the administration have been using with respect to Iran, North Korea and what used to be called "Islamic extremism":

"The administration defends the moves, saying that by needlessly antagonizing or alienating nations and groups, it can make it harder for the U.S. to build alliances against violent extremists.

That’s why Obama’s Muslim outreach speech included references to people who carry out violence but without the word ‘terrorism’ …."

Hmmm. Let’s see. With countries and groups like North Korea, Iran and Islamic terrorists, the President and the administration are toning down their language, and moderating their rhetoric, to try to work with these people.

But on this side of the proverbial waters’ edge, the President is giving it to the opposition with both barrels. Getting personal. Demonizing those who disagree.

Interesting.

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Update (5/13/10 9:00 pm): The two links to Politico articles are reversed.  I just noticed.