Centrist Pundits

I am going to try to write here regularly again.  Probably weekly, probably posted on Sundays.  Just an FYI for our readers.

Now, as to the issue of the day: A year or so ago, Vice President Biden predicted Obama would be tested on foreign policy in his first year in office.  A few months ago, there was the Somali Pirate incident which Obama ordered our special forces to handle, and they did so, beautifully.  That wasn’t the test Biden referred to.

I think today’s news is it.  Iraq is reporting Iran has seized an Iraqi oil rig.  Either Iran has done so, or Iraq is making false accusations, or this is all a set up.  In any case, the whole area is a powder keg and this is a dangerous, dangerous thing that is happening.

I don’t know what the outcome will be, but we can only hope Obama handles it well.  To make matters more difficult, I don’t even have a prediction of what “well” would be at this time.

Good luck, Mr. President.

JC Foreign Relations iran, Iraq, obama

I’ll try to take the time to look over Obama’s speech more closely, to examine the good and the bad, and what works for Centrists, when I have a little more time.  For now, let me just say, no matter what party the President is, no matter how much you disagree with him… you don’t heckle him at a joint session of Congress.

To be fair, I think Representative Joe Wilson has realized that.  His apology actually did sound sincere.

I wonder if John Boehner even knew he was on camera when he let out a heavy sigh when Obama referred to the fact that the last administration and the Congress is had didn’t try to pay for programs as they went.

In a perfect world, no one would interrupt non-Presidents outside of joint sessions, either – like the town hall problem.  Unfortunately, the extremes of both parties seem to have decided that being the noisiest is equal to being the winner.

Huh.  I wonder.  Maybe the reason the Center is never taken seriously is because its hard to be “extreme” as a centrist.  What would we yell?  ”MAKE FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE BUT SOCIALLY CONSCIONABLE CHOICES NOW!”

JC Congress, Health care, Personalities centrism, Health care, obama

Obama is preparing for a major speech on health care, bringing the debate back to Washington after a month in the town halls across the nation.  While I’m still busy in a job transition, it is Labor day and I have time to write something.

I’m all for single payer, Canadian style.  That’s never really been on the table.  Failing that, I’m all for a public option, and while Obama is supposedly going to make a case for it tomorrow, it probably doesn’t have the popularity to become law.  But my main concern is this: I’m all for other reform, as well.  And I don’t know if other reforms will come when what is considered the main reforms by the party in power fall short.

Because while I may consider the public option needed, I still want and think we need torte reform.  I still want and think we need to fix the problems with pre-existing conditions and with insurance companies dropping some people when they get sick.  We need to fix the fact that medical decisions aren’t made by doctors, and that medication is too expensive.

I don’t know what will happen, and any pundit who tells you they do is a liar.  The situation is complex and ever evolving.  Where we go from here is up to the people in Washington, but send your letters anyway.  It can’t hurt and it could conceivably help.

JC Health care Health care, obama

The White House has launched a website called “reality check” which is specifically designed to fight the more outrageous nonsense in the health care debate.  (Insert partisan politics here)

You can see the site here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/

That said, ignoring the politics, I have to agree with a pundit I was reading this morning.  I’m not sure this debate is in the realm of facts any more.  I’m not sure it can be won by proving what is true or by being correct.

I suppose we shall see.

JC Health care Health care, obama

When Representative Castle was asked about Obama’s birth certificate at a town hall, and rightly said Obama is a citizen, and was booed, it lifted the birth certificate controversy I’ve talked about before to the national media.  Now these “birthers” are making national news.  Once upon a time, we locked crazies up, but no more.

But you know, here’s what Castle should have done.  That lady was holding up a birth certificate in a bag.  He should have asked her if he could see it for a moment.  When she handed it over, he should then have put it in his briefcase and demanded she prove she’s a citizen.

It wouldn’t have been very effective, rhetorically, but it would have made for better TV.

JC Media, Personalities birthers, obama

One of the more amusing aspects of the 24 hour news networks and the fact that we essentially always have the news at our fingertips is that there is that polling gets a lot more play, while at the same time the reporting on it has become somewhat meaningless.

What I mean by that is simply this:  Obama’s poll numbers are dropping.  They are now in the mid to upper 50s, if I recall correctly.  And yet, this is reported in almost the exact same tone as Bush’s numbers being in the low 30s during parts of his Presidency.

I’m not saying polling numbers, and the movement of polling numbers, aren’t news.  In fact, in the poor signal-to-noise ratio of the 24 hour news cycle, polling numbers are actually signal.  But this is one of the places commentary needs to be more active.  The difference between a President dropping to the 50s – which is still amazingly high – and a President stagnating in the 30s – which is fairly low – are significant.

Often times, the complaint about the news is bias.  Fox is conservative, MSNBC is liberal, etc.  And that is a problem, when commentary runs amok and disguises itself as news.  But commentary in and of itself isn’t bad.  News can need context sometimes, especially on subjects where the average person isn’t an expert.  A company is selling off a division: is that good or bad?  You can’t know without context.  In its proper place, commentary is very useful.

All or nothing solutions are rarely the right solution.  The world is complex.  We need more commentary in some regards, and less in others.  Maybe someday a news network will get it right.  All evidence is to the contrary at the moment, however.

JC Media Media, obama, polling

Recently, President Obama has been taking a lot of hits from the left, and perhaps the biggest hits are coming from gay rights groups who have taken great umbrage to his Department of Justice performing such a vigorous defense of the Defense of Marriage act.  I suppose this should not surprise anyone.  While Obama is easily the most pro-gay rights President ever (barring, maybe, rumors about one or two specific Presidents) he’s never been a great friend to homosexual rights groups.  He came out – if you pardon the expression – against gay marriage as far back as the campaign.  And while this is certainly painting with a broad brush, with many groups that are against gay marriage being of a religious background, the idea that this very religious President isn’t the best friend of the gay community doesn’t really strike me as surprising.

I buy that the government has to defend the laws that are on the books.  I also buy that they don’t have to do so with quite the vigor that occurred in this case.  On the other hand, if I expected the government to help me on something, I would hope they would do so to the best of their ability regardless of any individual bureaucrat’s feelings.  Perhaps that is naïve.

I think the problem here is not that Obama is particularly anti-gay; I don’t think he is.  I just think its remarkably low on his list of priorities.  Obama has been saying since his election, if not before – “economy, health care, and education” as his domestic agenda.  He has made it plain that anything that’s not one of those 3 issues has to take a back seat to those 3 issues.

By that same logic, I have a friend up here in New York who’s pretty sure gun laws are going to be changing for the worse shortly.  He’s not alone, gun and ammo sales are up up up since Obama’s election out of worries about gun restrictions.  I’m fairly sure guns are somewhere on Obama’s agenda.  I don’t know if it is before or after gay rights.  But since guns are not economic, health care, or education, I just don’t think he’s going to do much with them this term.  If he gets a second term, maybe then.  Maybe not.

Gay rights groups have every right to be disappointed with Obama on this matter and perhaps other, similar issues.  Obama will never have more political capital then he has right now, if he hopes to get things passed he needs to do it now.  By not putting these issues at the top of his agenda, he is making them less likely to pass during his term in office.  That is no doubt the true implication of his lack of concern about gay rights, and so of course activists should be worried.

On the other hand, to every idea there is a season, and given the polling on the acceptance of gay marriage indicates that the younger a person is, the more accepted the idea is, it is likely that as time goes on gay rights will happen almost inevitably.  Of course, “almost” is a tricky word, and no one feels they should have to wait for their inevitable rights.  I sympathize. 

The most cynical argument would be, of course, “where else will the gay rights community go if not the Democrats”?  A third party?  Please.  The Republicans?  Log Cabin aside, unlikely.  Stay home come election time?  That’s like giving up.  Of course, that’s a dangerous philosophy; some say the Republicans lost because they didn’t excite the traditional base enough this last election.

In some ways, a mountain is being made of a molehill here.  Still, there are enough people out there for whom this is the single issue that most importantly defines their support for a candidate – I’m looking at you, Doc – that the mountain still needs climbing.

Photo by rt69 on flickr.com and is shared under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.  Thank you and let us know if you would like attribution noted differently.

JC Society culture, gay rights, obama

Today, the US Supreme Court put Chrysler’s sale to Fiat on hold, slamming the brakes on a fast-paced bankruptcy process that’s raised more than a few eyebrows due to its White House-endorsed elimination of long-standing creditors rights.

In an order issued this afternoon, Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg granted a delay that had been requested by several creditors, most notably the Indiana state pension fund. No reason was given in the order, but the bankruptcy judge’s decision not to protect the secured creditors of the company, just like, well, every other bankruptcy that he and all other bankruptcy judges have done.

Normally, the secured creditors get paid first. That kind of protection is what makes people, companies, and, more commonly, institutions want to invest in companies. So, in a normal bankruptcy, they’re the ones that get paid first.

But this is no normal bankruptcy. It involves a huge American manufacturing company. It involves many other industries that feed into it. And, as many will tell you, it involves one of the most politically influential unions in this country.

The stay was the right move. The government cannot just leave Indiana retirees holding the bag for investing responsibly. If Fiat wants to take this company, they better be prepared to take some parts they don’t want — such as the liabilities of public servants from a state that usually votes Republican, but went for Obama last year.

Greg Economy, National Politics, Political Parties, Supreme Court Chrysler, finance, obama, Supreme Court, unions

I may be late on this one, as the controversy appears to have mostly died down, but apparently, it is a big deal to some that President Obama and his wife Michelle went out on the town last weekend, which costs the taxpayers money.  From what I can tell, the arguments seem to be that either the fact that taxpayers foot the bill for this kind of thing is inherently wasteful, or that in this time of economic hardship, this particular expenditure was wasteful.

If it is inherently wasteful, then I guess that’s a legitimate debate to take up, but if that’s the case, then one has to wonder why the debate is so partisan.  I’m a bigger Barack Obama fan than I was a George Bush fan, but it never even occurred to me to question why we paid so much for George Bush to go back and forth to Crawford, Texas so often.  Perhaps it occurred to others, but I always thought getting most of your life paid for in the name of security was just part of being the President, and something we, as Americans, through our representative democracy, had agreed was a good choice of how we spend taxpayer dollars.  We want the President safe as part one of our continuity of government plans – a phrase most people think means the line of succession but really begins with NOT NEEDING the line of succession – and so we pay a ridiculous amount of money to isolate the President in a practically undestroyable car, the most advanced plane in the world, one of the most secure buildings in the world, and with a security force that makes sure the entire area around the President is safe, at any given time.  The expense is inherent in that, whether the President is in DC, New York, or Saudi Arabia.

If it is because at this particular time, wasteful spending is frowned upon, I understand the sentiment, but let’s face it folks – this is the real world.  I liken it to why we have babysitters – because having a child doesn’t mean you don’t get to have any time to yourself for 18 years.  Becoming the President is a big thing and requires big changes, but seriously, you can’t be on 24/7 for 4 or 8 years.  You need to be able to relax now and again.  The elder Bush went to Kennebunkport, the younger to Crawford.  Clinton was a workaholic and didn’t go much farther than Camp David, but the point is the same.  And it doesn’t change just because the economy is in the toilet.  In fact, I think a fair case could be made that Obama has had more stressful situations to deal with this first half-year in office than many of his predecessors, and has had a greater need to relax.

It died out quickly and I hope it stays dead, because it was a non-issue.

Credit goes to Mark for helping me straighten out my thoughts as I wrote this article.

JC Economy, Media, Personalities finance, obama

Okay, you know what?  For my last post today, I am going to FLIP OUT at the Obama administration.

Philadelphia Schools, unlike many school districts, feeds all its students, not just the ones in need.  But the USDA has decided that is unacceptable.

Really.  Read about it here:  http://mnn.com/food/markets-groceries/blogs/usda-messes-with-phillys-free-lunches

It isn’t FAIR that kids in Philly get food, while other school districts don’t?  I could trot out my definition of fairness again (it doesn’t mean treating everyone the same, it means giving everyone what they need) but you know what, it isn’t even needed.  You are right, it isn’t fair.  I’ll give you that.  SO FIX THE OTHER FRAKKIN SCHOOL DISTRICTS.

The solution here is not to add a layer of paperwork to Philly, its to figure out how Philly succeeded and apply that to every other gosh-darn school district in America.  Paperwork and bueracracy have a place, sometimes, but that place is never breaking something that works.

The only possible excuse for this is if there is some sort of systemic corruption here that is costing so much money it isn’t tenable to continue, but if that’s the case, then A: stop saying this is about fairness, its about a crime and B: fix the problems without starving the children.

Study after study after study says you can’t learn if your basic needs aren’t met.  Schools may not be able to do something about some needs, but they are equipped to handle hunger, at least for 2 meals a day.

This is a worthwhile thing.  Copy it, don’t kill it.  That’s just crazy talk.

JC Education Education, obama, school lunch, USDA