As you no doubt have heard by now, President Obama is expected to announce a non-defense discretionary spending freeze in tomorrow’s State of the Union address. Given that we’re only kinda, sorta on the way to recovery — and that spending freezes are not typical Democratic Party policy — this is obviously a terrible, awful idea that proves the firebaggers right and Barack Obama hates the left and Rahm Emanuel delenda est, right?

It depends on what the meaning of “freeze” is. Indeed, under certain conditions, this could be a great idea.

Before you try me for heresy, read this bit of reporting by Jonathan Chait:

Within the administration, White House budget director Peter Orszag appears to have settled on another solution. Last month, Orszag raised eyebrows when word leaked that he’d asked most cabinet agencies to prepare two budgets: one that freezes spending, the other that cuts it by 5 percent. Many congressional liberals were livid, and, according to multiple sources, Larry Summers’s National Economic Council reacted negatively to the emphasis on the deficit. (“The economic team has a healthy debate about most major issues,” says an administration official. “Getting people back to work is central to addressing the deficit. Similarly, putting the country back on a fiscally sustainable path is vital to confidence in the economy.”) The concern among wonks outside the administration is that clamping down on domestic discretionary spending without touching entitlements would take money out of the economy in the short term while doing nothing to close the long-term deficit.

These same liberals and wonks rejoiced when Obama backed job creation. But there is a logic to Orszag’s gambit, which runs roughly as follows: It’s almost certain that Congress will pass, and the president will sign, a jobs bill early next year, probably in the neighborhood of $100 billion to $200 billion. Given that, and given the difficulty of doing anything about the long-term deficit next year, the administration needs some signal to U.S. bondholders that it takes the deficit seriously. Just not so seriously that it undercuts the extra stimulus.

My guess is that this is the plan — announce, with great fanfare, a “spending freeze” that covers basic departmental budgets and not much else. A freeze that doesn’t come within a furlong of covering the cost of a jobs bill. It’s brilliant politics — you get all the benefits of posing as deficit hawks without any of the actual deep spending cuts (including, it can not be stressed enough, defense) and/or tax increases that a real attack on the deficit would require. Actually, since this is how deficit hawks really behave (when’s the last time Joe Lieberman suggested actually cutting defense? Or Evan Bayh floated a tax hike?), you simply become deficit hawks. And as we all know, deficit hawkishness is A Very Good Thing In Official Washington. Obama’s bound to get great press out of this.

What’s more, eventually, cuts are going to be necessary, as will tax increases. Not now — actually taking on the deficit in the midst of a deep recession would be catastrophic. That said, at some point, some day, we will have to take the deficit on. And that will require dealing with the budget like responsible adults, not Americans. A relatively small, symbolic cut this year to offset a jobs bill and a health care expansion isn’t a bad idea, politically and policywise.

But that’s the key — the Obama Administration can and should find ways to reach out to the center. But they also have to find a way to energize the left. Failing to pass a health care bill would be catastrophic; it guarantees a GOP takeover of at least the House come fall. Passing a health care bill, a jobs bill, and a repeal of DADT while simultaneously limiting other spending growth? That’s a trade that liberals can and should be willing to make.

Of course, if there’s no quid pro quo — if this is a spending freeze just for the sake of freezing spending, and if no jobs bill or health care bill is forthcoming — then it should be rejected out of hand. There’s making a play for the middle, and then there’s rank stupidity. I’m going to bet that the Obama Administration isn’t stupid. But we’ll see.

As you all most certainly know, an embarrassing quote from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., surfaced over the weekend. Reid apparently stated during the 2008 election that then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., would be an electable African-American candidate because he was lighter-skinned, and because he had the ability not to speak in a “Negro dialect.”

The quote was cringeworthy, and full of what Josh Marshall once described as “racial grandpaism,” the sort of archaic, muddled statement made by a guy who is generally well-meaning, but also generally possessed by some racist baggage left over from their upbringing.

Was the quote racist? Well, yes. But racism is not a capital offense; I have said racist things and so have you. One can’t grow up in America and not be suffused with some of the racist legacy our culture carries. The best any of us can do is recognize this and strive to overcome it, and apologize and learn when we fail to live up to our responsibility to overcome it.

More to the point, Reid’s statement, while clumsy and racist, was not malicious. He wasn’t saying that Obama shouldn’t be president because he was a charlatan, or that it was reasonable and proper that darker-skinned African-Americans should be less electable. A more artful phrasing of what he was trying to say might have gone something like this: Because of the legacy of racism in this country, a candidate like Barack Obama, who is biracial and who is able to speak to audiences in a manner that is less connected with stereotypically African-American speech patterns, will be more electable than a candidate like, say, Al Sharpton, who is darker-skinned and whose speaking style is more stereotypically African-American.

That doesn’t mean that this is right; it’s a value-neutral statement of fact. And what’s more, it’s true. Just as it’s true to say that being white makes one more “electable,” historically, than not being white, or that men are more likely to be elected president than women. It’s not right. It’s not fair. It’s something we should work to change. But it’s true, and saying so doesn’t make one a racist or sexist. Saying so makes one observant.

Which brings us to former Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.

As you may recall, Trent Lott used to be Senate Majority Leader until, in 2002, he was forced out in a scandal involving a statement he made that included racist language. The then-Majority Leader’s statement that got him in trouble came in a tribute to retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond, KKK-S.C. Lott said of Thurmond:

I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years either.

Strom Thurmond ran for president in 1948, at a time when he was a Democrat of the traditional Southern variety — i.e., a flaming racist douchebag who nevertheless had an illegitimate biracial daughter conceived, quite probably, in rape.

Southern Democrats were furious at efforts by President Truman to ameliorate the damage caused by the apartheid system of segregation. The breaking point came at the 1948 Democratic National Convention, at which a young Minneapolis mayor by the name of Hubert Humphrey urged the party to “get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.” The speech prompted a walkout of Southern Democrats, who left to form their own party, the Dixiecrats. The Dixiecrats nominated Thurmond, at the time the Governor of South Carolina, as their standard-bearer.

The party’s platform was simple: States’ Rights. Anti-Miscegenation. Pro-Segregation. Pro-Lynching. They were a party whose raison d’être was the full-throated defense of Jim Crow. Perhaps their platform was summed up best by Thurmond, who during the campaign said, “I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there’s not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigra [sic] race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.”

Again, when he said those words, he had a 23-year-old African-American daughter.

Flash-forward back to today. Many on the right, apparently wowed by their ability to connect that both Trent Lott and Harry Reid were or are Senate Majority Leaders, and that both were accused of racism, are now calling on Reid to step down as Majority Leader, because the situation is totally the same. Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., said flatly, “If he [Lott] should resign, then Harry Reid should.”

This is, in a word, bonkers.

Again, what Reid said was inartful and cringe-inducing and yes, racist. But it was not malicious. A different phrasing could save it from racism, and the core idea — that America in 2010 will treat candidates of varying racial backgrounds in different ways — is absolutely true.

Compare to what Lott said. Lott said that if America had followed Mississippi’s lead in 1948 and voted for the Dixiecrats, that America today would have avoided a lot of problems.

And yet the Dixiecrats stood for the worst sorts of barbarism committed in this country. They were the spiritual heirs to the slaveholders, the men and women who were absolutely and completely committed to keeping a boot of the throats of all non-white Americans. They expressly supported lynching, for God’s sake.

There is no way to save that quote, no way to phrase it that does not make it offensive and malicious. Lott was saying, flatly, that if only we’d maintained a system of segregation and racial apartheid in the South, that America today would be better off.

To compare the two situations is ludicrous.

As Ta-Nehisi Coates puts it:

Claiming that Harry Reid’s comments are the same, is like claiming that referring to Jews as “Hebrews” is the same as endorsing Nazism. Whereas a reputable portion of black people still use the term Negro without a hint of irony, no black person thinks the guy yelling “Segregation Forever!” would have cured us of “all these problems.”

Leaving aside political cynicism, this entire affair proves that the GOP is not simply still infected with the vestiges of white supremacy and racism, but is neither aware of the infection, nor understands the disease. Listening to Liz Cheney explain why Harry Reid’s comments were racist, was like listening to me give lessons on the finer points of the comma splice. This a party, rightly or wrongly, regarded by significant portions of the country as a haven for racists. They aren’t simply having a hard time re-branding, they don’t actually understand how and why they got the tag.

Exactly right. Harry Reid said something stupid while arguing that a specific African-American man could get himself elected to the presidency. Trent Lott endorsed the worst part of America’s racial legacy, and held it up as our nation’s salvation. That Republicans can take these two situations and not see a difference between them says far more about the Republican Party than about Harry Reid.

Bruce Jenner is terribly, terribly upset at Barack Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. And for some reason, the Politico cares.

I think it’s only fair to run this trailer for the 1980 film Can’t Stop the Music, starring Bruce Jenner and The Village People.

There’s absolutely no racial component to the criticism of Barack Obama, and I think all you liberals are the real racists for suggesting there is:

When you walk into the Georgia Peach Oyster Bar in Paulding County, you feel like you’ve walked into a different era.

Behind the pool tables stands a mannequin in a Klu Klux Klan costume, but it’s what’s outside of the Patrick Lanzo’s restaurant that has some people angry.

Lanzo put up a sign that reads “Obama’s plan for health-care: N*&%*r rig it.”

Only he didn’t say “N*&%*r” (to paraphrase Ralphie). He used the racial epithet, the big one, the queen-mother of racial epithets, the “N-dash-dash-dash-dash-dash” word. Spelled out for all to see.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. The guy is willing to use that word on a sign advertising his restaurant. He also has hosted a neo-Nazi rally, and his restaurant’s interior features “a number of racist images in his Georgia Peach Museum bar such as cartoons of Klan members lounging on lynched black men and items disparaging Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” It also features a mannequin of a Klan member in full regalia. So you’re probably thinking this guy’s a racist. Right?

Wrong! We know he isn’t a racist, because he says so:

Despite the sign, Lanzo said he’s not a racist.

He said he’s just against what he calls a “sub standard healthcare plan,” which he said President Obama is trying to push through.

Well, of course! I mean, obviously, he’s just making a reasoned point on health care reform that just happens to use the ugliest word in the English language to refer to the President of the United States who just happens to be of the ethnic background said word defames. How could you think he was a racist?

Now, vile as Lanzo is, I actually would defend his right to display his racist utterances. It makes him easy to identify as a racist, for one thing. But that’s beside the point. The point is that even this guy claims he isn’t a racist, just like every other teabagger out there. Because opposition to Obama has no racial element. The right keeps saying so, and maybe, if they keep saying it, eventually they’ll even start to believe it.

As for me, I’ll trust my lying eyes.

I don’t know if Barack Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize quite yet, and I’m actually serious when I say he won it in no small part for simply not being George W. Bush — for seeking to reengage with the world in the sort of way that decent, non-rogue countries do. That said, who cares? What’s fun is that this sets up the sort of massive, overwhelming, out-of-control right-wing freakout that money can’t buy. I mean, what’s the over/under on the first wingnut claiming that the selection of the sitting American president is proof that the Nobel committee hates America? Or the first one to claim that Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize proves he’s a communist? 7 AM? 6? They certainly won’t wait ’til 8, will they? Who will complain that Dubya should have won, for his success in invading foreign countries? Who will congratulate Kenya on their second winner in six years? And how will they tie this to ACORN?

It should be glorious. Even better than when Paul Krugman won the Economics Prize. Start popping the popcorn. Phone the neighbors, wake the kids. This is going to be a good day.

Like most Americans, I don’t have much time for Bill Ayers. Yes, I know he’s central to the vast left-wing conspiracy to elect Muslim Black Socialist Black Communist Black Muslim Blackity Black Black Black President Barack Hussein Super-Allah Obama, but he’s also a former terrorist — and no mincing words, that’s what he was. If you use violence against civilian targets to further political aims, you’re a terrorist, and while Ayers was ultimately not convicted of any crime, that doesn’t make him innocent. I have little time for the man.

That said, because Ayers and Obama — both professors at the University of Chicago — crossed paths a few times, Bill Ayers has become a Svengali figure in the right-wing mythology of Barack Obama, secret Kenyan. For bizarre, half-assed reasons, conservatives have convinced themselves that Ayers secretly wrote Barack Obama’s first book, Dreams from My Father, because everyone knows African-Americans can’t write — I mean, Barack Obama just isn’t that good a writer. No, really.

This is, of course, incandescently offensive, but pretty much par for the course from the right, so one tends to ignore it, because the alternative is caring whether Bill Ayers lives or dies, and I don’t.

That said, my disdain for Ayers does not inculcate me from the ability to be amused by massive conservative fail, and that’s when one has to note that something wonderful has happened:

Anne Leary creates traffic and attention to her previously obscure blog with a picture of Bill Ayers and a “conversation” that sounds like suspiciously like a letter to WorldNetDaily’s forum:

Dear WND - I am a blogger from the midwest and  I never thought this would happen to me…

Leary (and you should be) claims that she said “Hey you’re Bill Ayers…” and a guilt-ridden Ayers immediately broke down and admitted that he wrote Barack Obama’s book.

Yep. A conservative blogger sits down next to Bill Ayers, and tell him that she’s a conservative blogger, and Ayers immediately tells her that he wrote Dreams from My Father, and she reported that as fact. Was Ayers serious? Of course not. Criminy, even Jonah Frickin’ Goldberg can see through this. But that didn’t stop much of the wingnutosphere from jumping on this as proof — proof! — that Bill Ayers is actually president.

You don’t have to like Bill Ayers to find that highly amusing.

Glenn Beck doesn’t really seem to know, despite saying Barack Obama has a “deep-seated hatred” of it:

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

Remarks in debate (which may include references to the Senate or its Members) shall be confined to the question under debate, avoiding personality.

–Rules of the House of Representatives, One Hundred Eleventh Congress
Rule XVII, Section b

If you want to see the decline of American political civility, it exists in the person of Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C. Wilson, unwilling to deal with the President of the United States stating the fact that the current health care proposals will not aid undocumented aliens,¹² Wilson shouted out, “You lie!” on the floor of the House of Representatives, interrupting the speech in the fashion of a Code Pink protester or teabagger.

This is, to be blunt, completely outrageous, and unbecoming of a U.S. Representatives. And I would have said the exact same thing if a Democrat had done this to George W. Bush, even as Bush did lie, repeatedly. The simple fact is that there are rules of decorum, ways you are supposed to comport yourself on the floor of the United States Congress. These rules are in place to smooth out the partisan rancor, to force representatives to disagree without being disagreeable. You can think someone’s an ass; that’s fine. But you don’t say it on the floor, because that’s not the way you conduct yourself.

I doubt Wilson will face a penalty for this, but he should. Indeed, the Rules of the House allow him to be censured for making a personal remark in debate; calling someone a liar would certainly rise to that level. Calling someone a liar when they’re telling the truth, however, remains standard operating procedure for the GOP.

UPDATE: This is the least he should do, but at least he did it:

“This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the President’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies [sic] to the President for this lack of civility.”

1. As for me, I’d be fine if it did. I don’t see how being in America illegally should earn you the death penalty. But what do I know? I’m just a crazy liberal. (back)
2. Fixed. (back)

You know, I’m a free speech absolutist, and a staunch civil libertarian. But quite honestly, if you’re going to bring a gun to a town hall meeting held by the President of the United States, you probably should, at the very least, get a visit from the Secret Service:

A man carried a handgun strapped to his leg to a town hall meeting being held by President Obama in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on Tuesday.

It’s legal for him to have the gun as long as it is unconcealed, the police told MSNBC. The man was on private property — church ground on the roadway leading to the high school where Obama would speak. The church gave the man permission to be there. However, according to police officers, he is under constant surveillance and is not anywhere near where the president will speak.

You know what? I don’t care if it’s legal for you to carry a gun in New Hampshire — you don’t carry a gun to a protest against the President of the United States. You especially don’t carry a gun while holding a sign that says “It is Time To Water the Tree of Liberty!” For those of you who’ve forgotten your Revolutionary War-era Thomas Jefferson quotes beloved by libertarian types, the full quote is, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Quite simply, carrying a firearm to a protest against the president, while holding a sign threatening violence against tyrants, is, if not illegal, than deeply immoral to the point of pure anti-Americanism. Had our country never lost a leader to gun violence, one might feel differently, but we’ve lost four; when one out of every eleven presidents has been shot and killed, and more than twenty percent of presidents have had shots fired at them, it’s impossible to view this as anything other than a direct threat on the president’s life.

Of course, the man carrying the gun, William Kostric, is unrepentant. He sees nothing wrong with implied threats on a president’s life, nothing wrong with the direct implication that our government leaders should be killed. He just wants, in his words, “an informed society, an armed society, a polite society.” Which is why he was carrying a sign calling for the death of tyrants.

We are steering down a dangerous course. While the health care proposal is modest by world standards, people are decrying this as some kind of Trojan horse for communism, Nazism, the theft of our nation’s vital bodily fluids, and the end of life on Earth. With the stakes raised so ludicrously high, and with the anger being fed at such a fever pitch, I fear that threats of violence will not be where this ends. After all, if Barack Obama was planning on herding our parents into death camps, seizing everyone’s bank account, and creating a panel that would decide who lives and who dies, I would be the first one on the line in the ensuing revolution. He isn’t, of course, doing any of those things. But a huge subset of the right, fed by people who should know better, thinks he may be. This does not end well, I fear. I hope I’m wrong.

By any measure, Dr. Regina Benjamin has had an enormous positive impact on our nation. The first African-American woman and first physician under 40 to serve on the AMA’s board of trustees, Benjamin is the CEO of Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in the small gulf coast shrimping village of Bayou La Batre, Alabama, a practice that she had to rebuild after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. She’s a recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights, was listed as one of Time magazine’s “Nation’s 50 Future Leaders Age 40 and Under,” and has been awarded the papal cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice from Pope Benedict XVI. She served on the Florida A&M University Board of Trustees as an appointee of then-Gov. Jeb Bush, and was appointed to multiple committees of the Department of Health and Human Services the Clinton administration.

In short, it’s hard to see anything on Regina Benjamin’s resumé that indicates anything other than a strong work ethic, a keen intellect, a pure soul, and overwhelming qualifications to serve as America’s 18th Surgeon General. Yes, as a Democratic appointee, there are a few things that will cause her to run afoul of the usual suspects on the right, such as her commitment to abortion rights and her support for a radical overhaul of America’s broken health care system. But as a Democratic president is unlikely to appoint an anti-choice, pro-insurance surgeon general, there’s really nothing to suggest that Benjamin would receive anything other than overwhelming support for her confirmation.

Except for one thing.

She’s a bit overweight.

Now, you may think that it’s bizarre to suggest that a MacArthur Genius Grant-winning, papal award-receiving, universally respected physician should be denied the position of Surgeon General because she, like many Americans, is somewhat overweight. You might think it beggars belief that we could even be discussing the idea that someone should be denied a position because of her weight. But if you’ve been paying attention to the overwhelming fat phobia in our society, you can’t be surprised.

The balanced, mainstream concern-troll look at the story comes from ABC News, which is just wondering, you see, whether this could be a problem:

Dr. Regina M. Benjamin, Obama’s pick for the next surgeon general, was hailed as a MacArthur Grant genius who had championed the poor at a medical clinic she set up in Katrina-ravaged Alabama.

But the full-figured African-American nominee is also under fire for being overweight in a nation where 34 percent of all Americans aged 20 and over are obese.

Critics and supporters across the blogsphere have commented on photos of Benjamin’s round cheeks, saying she sends the wrong message as the public face of America’s health initiatives.

Indeed. If Americans see a healthy, hard-working — but overweight — surgeon general, we might get the idea that being fat isn’t horrible, and then we might actually wonder whether fatness is actually equal to health. We might have a discussion about fatness that is honest. Horrors! We can’t have that!

My favorite part of the story, though, is contained in a sub-header:

40 Pounds Over, Size 18, Blogs Speculate

Yes! Blogs speculate! It’s pretty much exactly like truth, especially since, last I checked, sizes weren’t specifically tied to weight!

Yes, there are a few voices of reason. Joanne Ikeda, a nutritionist at Cal-Berkeley, says, “Maybe now we will stop making the assumption that all fat people are unhealthy particularly in light of new data coming from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.” And Steven Blair, a professor of exercise science at the University of South Carolina, quite reasonably adds, “The focus should be on Dr. Benjamin’s credentials and accomplishments. What difference does her size make?”

But of course, these questions are buried between people concern-trolling that Benjamin is a bad example to African-Americans, just like Oprah. Because for heaven’s sake, who would want their daughter to grow up to be a multi-billionaire talk show host or a world-renowned physician if she might be a little bit overweight? It boggles the mind!

Still, while ABC’s story is obnoxious, to really do completely unfair character assassination, you need the professionals at Fox News, who brought in Michael Karolchyk to discuss the issue.

Remember Michael Karolchyk? Sure you do! He’s the jerkface owner of The Anti-Gym in Denver, which, if you recall, featured such innovations as cupcake-throwing at people on treadmills, a “ravish room” for the men and women who had acceptably low BMIs, and “live DJs [and] cage dancers,” because, you know, that’s what the gym needs. If you want to feel worse about humanity, go ahead and check out his commercials.

Of course — funny story — in a rare example of divine retribution, Karolchyk is actually now the former owner of The Anti-Gym, because he lost it in January after failing to pay over $180,000 in tax bills. He then subsequently put his clients’ personal info, including credit card numbers and abusive comments about them, in an open dumpster.

You might think that a failed gym owner wouldn’t be the first person you’d turn to for a discussion of whether someone is qualified to serve as surgeon general, but alas, you’d be wrong:

Yes, he is wearing a “No Chubbies” shirt.

Doubtless, there is no shortage of racism and sexism feeding into this discussion. A similarly overweight white male wouldn’t be getting quite this level of opprobrium, and we wouldn’t be talking about what his waist size was. But more than that, it’s a sign of just how hateful attitudes remain about people who weigh more than the “ideal.” The idea that Benjamin could be accomplished, brilliant, and of superlative character is nothing compared to the fact that she’s overweight. It’s damn dispiriting.

The appointment of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is, I think, a strong one — and a positive sign that at least on some fronts, the Obama Administration gets it. Sotomayor has an exemplary record, and a great life story. And the early sliming of her by the usual suspects on the left has convinced me that she will be the sort of nominee that progressives can be proud of.

The fact that Obama was willing to appoint Sotomayor despite the whispered smear campaign that Sotomayor was hot-tempered and stupid — despite the accolades she received in her academic career, despite her ability to rise to the penultimate rank of judges in the American judicial system — tells us that Obama is willing to stand up, at least sometimes, to the more reactionary forces on the left side of the aisle. (If you don’t think there are reactionary forces on the left as well as the right, you haven’t been paying attention.)

Ultimately, Sotomayor is an historic nominee. If confirmed — and she will be confirmed — she will be the third woman and first Latina to serve on the court. But more than that, she is a judge with a strong record and a fascinating life story, the type of person that is the personification of the American Dream, the idea that anyone can make it here. I am impressed with the choice, and if the Republican Party wants to fight against a woman who rose from public housing in the Bronx to the precipice of the most important court in the country, I say bring it on. Sotomayor has proven her mettle; those of us who count ourselves her allies need to prove as tough.

Mark Halpern identifies the biggest concern about Souter’s replacement:

Aw, poor white guys! We only make up seven of the nine Supreme Court Justices. Why, one of them’s a woman! And there’s even a black guy! What more do you people want?

(Via Josh)

I knew Fox News was bad and wasn’t even really an actual journalistic television station, but this? Damn!

You know, maybe it’s just me being a fuzzy-headed liburul, but I simply don’t understand the right-wing freakout over Barack Obama (gasp!)shaking Hugo Chávez’s hand! (Dun dun DUNNNNNNNN).

Don’t get me wrong — Hugo Chávez is a Fidel Castro wannabe, and he’s rapidly moving from barely-democratic leader to authoritarian despot. Of course, that doesn’t distinguish him much from, say, Vladimir Putin.¹ And it makes him quite superior to our frienemies in China, not to mention everyone’s buddies in Saudi Arabia. (Indeed, while Chávez is autocratic and anti-liberty, I haven’t heard that Venezuela is engaged in torture; in that respect, at least, he’s a more ethical leader than George W. Bush.)

But…so what? Was Obama supposed to greet him with a roundhouse kick to the head? Should he have reached out his hand, but ostentatiously pulled it back and run it through his hair? Should he have given Chávez the stinkpalm?

Well, sure, he could have done that. If he was a bully.

America is far more powerful than any other country on Earth, and arguably more powerful than every other country on Earth combined. And we could leverage that power in each and every meeting with each and every leader we run into. We could try to manipulate the world like an eighth grade classroom, with us at the apex, our friends forming a ring around us, and the outcasts beaten and bloodied. That was the Bush fils approach to foreign policy, and it might make you feel better, just as a bully feels better when he’s on top.

But glory for a bully is transitory; eventually, the rest of the class moves on from eighth grade, into a more adult world. And the bully can either grow up, and deal with others like an adult does, or he can flail about as others work together and leave him behind.

Barack Obama dealt with Hugo Chávez like an adult. He shook his hand, was polite, listened respectfully despite disagreements, and generally behaved like we expect people older than 22 to behave. We expect customer service workers to greet angry customers politely; why would we expect less out of the leader of the free world?

Will Obama’s adult approach empower Chávez? I doubt it sincerely. And frankly, so what if it does? America has nothing to fear from Venezuela. Besides, the bully approach hasn’t worked so far — Chávez has built his power base in no small part because he was able to rally domestic constituencies against the evil of the United States. If the U.S. is a bit less overtly evil, it undermines Chávez’s raison d’être.

Ultimately, America only needs to shun other nations if it fears engaging them. But there’s not a country on the planet we really need to fear right now. A confident America doesn’t treat other nations like dirt; it treats them like equals. That doesn’t mean capitulating to their every whim — but it does mean that when another leader reaches out his or her hand, you take it.

1. Not that Vladimir Putin is pulling the strings in Russia now. I mean, clearly Dmitri Medvedev is his own man. Also, I hear Siberia is balmy in mid-January. (back)

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has a problem. He doesn’t like to pay taxes like the little people do:

ABC News has learned that the nomination of former Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., to be President Obama’s secretary of health and human services has hit a traffic snarl on its way through the Senate Finance Committee.

The controversy deals with a car and driver lent to Daschle by a wealthy Democratic friend — a chauffeur service the former senator used for years without declaring it on his taxes.

It remains an open question as to whether this is a “speed bump,” as a Democratic Senate ally of Daschle put it, or something more damaging.

[...]

The Cadillac and driver were never part of Daschle’s official compensation package at InterMedia, but Mr. Daschle — who as Senate majority leader enjoyed the use of a car and driver at taxpayer expense — didn’t declare their services on his income taxes, as tax laws require.

During the vetting process to become HHS secretary, Daschle corrected the tax violation, voluntarily paying $101,943 in back taxes plus interest, working with his accountant to amend his tax returns for 2005 through 2007.

That’s mighty nice of him to do that; it would have been better had he done it in the first place. But I think the most telling thing of all is the reason he never thought to pay taxes on a car and driver provided to him:

“Mr. Daschle told committee staff that he had grown used to having a car and driver as Senate majority leader and didn’t think to report the perquisite on his taxes, according to staff members.”

That right there is simply mind-boggling, and really points out just how disconnected from the real world even center-left politicians like Daschle are.

Look, not only do 99.9 percent of Americans not have a car and driver provided to them by their work, 99.9 percent of us don’t even get the car.  Heck, about 20 percent of us don’t have health insurance, something that Daschle is supposed to be tasked with rectifying.

No wonder Congress is so tilted toward Wall Street — too many of even our progressive allies have no idea how the world works, or why it would be considered unusual for your company to give you a car — and why that would count as income.

Will Daschle go down in flames? No, of course not. He was a former caucus leader in the Senate, a Poobah Emeritus of the Loyal Order of Water Buffalo. A few senators will make some partisan hay, but in the end, they’ll confirm him, because he’s one of them. If Daschle was some schmoe, he’d be doomed. But he knows the secret handshakes and everything. Plus, the GOP owes him for curling up in the fetal position during the AUMF debate. And I’m sure they’re hoping he will remain an invertebrate through the health care debate, when that comes along.

No, Daschle will go through. But let’s be honest, he probably doesn’t deserve to. At a time when Americans are suffering real financial pain from their health coverage, it’s ridiculous that the man who is supposed to fix that is as disconnected from that pain as can be.

Rush Limbaugh is awfully concerned about what having a black man as president means to his anus:

You know, racism in this country is the exclusive problems of the left. We’re witnessing racism all this week that led up to the inauguration. We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds; that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever; because his father was black, because this is the first black president. We’ve got to accept this. The racism that everybody thinks exists on our side of the aisle has been on full display throughout their primary campaign. So I think they’ve done a great job, the media has, of covering up his deficiencies. He’s too big to fail, and so whatever goes wrong, blame it on Bush, blame it on… I mean, MSNBC’s new life will be criticizing you and me, because they can’t criticize him.

I love it — wanting our president to succeed is racist, because he’s black! Only truly racially blind people are able to hope that our president will be incompetent, and drag our nation into the toilet!

I’m not that worried about the first black president; heck, he can’t possibly be worse than the last white president.

Rush isn’t just worried about healing our long national history of white people being oppressed by African-Americans, though. He’s also worried about our nation becoming a repressive dictatorship. Okay, it’s a few years late, but still:

What I’m afraid of is that what Obama did with this executive order [expanding the Freedom of Information Act] is actually make it easier for the media to go get Bush documents. Because you know Pelosi and some of the guys over in congress are talking about war crimes trials and charges and so forth. […]

What I’m afraid of is what Obama’s done here is made the gathering of the information for this kind of stuff– This is not American. This is not America. This is not what America does. We don’t– This is Banana Republic kind of stuff.

Right, because having easy access to government information is the hallmark of a banana republic.

This kind of doublespeak would make the Ministry of Truth blush. Because Obama is making it easier for citizens to gain access to federal documents, we are less free. Truly, Rush, you have a dizzying intellect. It should be hilarious to watch it in action for the next eight years.

I understand finding something to get excited about in the idea of Barack Obama being president (I don’t share it, but I can see where it comes from). I cannot understand anyone with any progressive tendancies not being appalled by his speech. The first commentary I read on the speech which made sense was Louis Proyect’s:

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

[Yes, they wrote books about that. They are called Horatio Alger stories and they are bullshit. Bill Gates got where he is by being born into one of Seattle's richest families and by exploiting technology that had hitherto been common property.]

The Daily Show also did pretty well

I don’t have time (or interest) to pick apart the whole speech, but there was one section that really stuck out to me¹:

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West, endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died in places Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life.

I’m going to ignore the reference to Vietnam because that’s a whole nother rant, which I’m going to assume that the reader can supply themselves. I will quickly draw attention to the fact that this narrative of US history ignores anyone who was living there before European colonisation.

But my point is something quite different. People did toil in sweatshops, endure the lash of the whip and plow the hard earth. But they didn’t do these things because they wanted to create the world that exists now, they did it because the alternative was starvation or death.

Millions of people worked in sweatshops, were held as slave and farmed in difficult conditions. They did so with varying degrees of control and consent. To say they did these things to bring about the world that currently exists is obscene. Millions of people have millions of different dreams, struggles and views of the purposes of their lives. Maybe some people were aiming to create the world that currently exists. But I know that some slaves, workers and farmers had a different idea of the worlds that they wanted to create. I know, because I’ve read about them, that some dreamed of worlds much like the world I fight for.

To claim generations of people were struggled and were exploited because so they could help create the world that we live in now is both ignorant and arrogant

1. although can I just say his view of the unselfish worker who gives up his hours so his friend will keep his job made was despicable boss pandering. How about both those workers go on strike to keep everyone’s job and reclaim some profits from the bosses. I’m not saying I expect anything else from the president of the united states. I’m just saying that I don’t see how anyone could have seen Barack Obama’s inauguration address as doing anything but choosing sides with the rich and powerful (back)

According to the New York Times, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., is going to be Barack Obama’s Secretary of State:

Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to give up her Senate seat and accept the position of secretary of state, making her the public face around the world for the administration of the man who beat her for the Democratic presidential nomination, two confidants said Friday.

The apparent accord between perhaps the two leading figures in the Democratic Party climaxed a week-long drama that riveted the nation’s capital.

Mrs. Clinton came to her decision after additional discussion with President-elect Barack Obama about the nature of her role and his plans for foreign policy, said one of the confidants, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the situation.

Mr. Obama’s office told reporters on Thursday that the nomination is “on track” but this is the first word from the Clinton camp that she has decided.

“She’s ready,” the confidant said, adding that Mrs. Clinton was reassured after talking again with Mr. Obama because their first meeting in Chicago last week “was so general.” The purpose of the follow-up talk, he noted, was not to extract particular concessions but “just getting comfortable” with the idea of working together.

A second Clinton associate confirmed that her camp believes they have a done deal. Senior Obama advisers said Friday morning that the offer had not been formally accepted and no announcement would be made until after Thanksgiving. But they said they were convinced that the nascent alliance was ready to be sealed.

As I said before, I think Clinton’s a savvy pick by Obama; Clinton is certainly qualified for the job, and would be perhaps the highest-profile appointment to the position since Woodrow Wilson tapped William Jennings Bryan for the job.

The potential for “drama” has been far overplayed by the media, which desires nothing more than a return to the good ol’ days of the 1990s, when they could have fun attacking the Clintons and pretending that there were no actual issues worth worrying about. Clinton is a smart politician, and she knows that the quickest way out of the Obama administration is to start freelancing. Will Clinton challenge Obama when it comes to foreign policy? I certainly hope so. Obama needs to get differing perspectives from his foreign policy team. Joe Biden will have one position, Hillary Clinton another, and Gen. Jim Jones (ret.), who’s expected to become Obama’s National Security Advisor, will stake out still a different position. Good! We got in trouble over the past eight years because we had a president who surrounded himself with sycophants and yes-women who enabled a disastrous and dangerous war. The one obstacle to it left after the end of Bush’s first term.

Having a group of heterogeneous advisors is good for the country. And kudos to Obama for realizing that. I feel quite positive about the direction our country will be heading, precisely because Obama does not appear to be so insecure as to need people to support his ego.