Shots in the Dark

Hold your nose and vote for Coakley on Tuesday. The message is already clear to Obama about the need to pivot quickly to debt and spending…. But losing health insurance reform now, and crippling the Obama presidency as the far right wants, would be to throw away the last chance for a decade of any meaningful change.

—Andrew Sullivan, from his blog.

This last sentence is right on target. Recent polls now show a majority of Americans dissatisfied with Obama’s leadership. His approval rating is the lowest for any president at this point in his term since Eisenhower.

This is lunacy—and a terrible sign for the country.

Yes, Obama has made mistakes. But what were our expectations? That after a year of his presidency, the economy would be booming, there’d be another housing bubble, unemployment would be at 5%, a health care bill that made everyone happy, and we’d be gone from Iraq and Afghanistan?

Apparently.

If Americans can not realize that these problems, which took years to make, will require years to solve—less if both political parties were interested in solving them—then we can write off, as Andrew says above, any prospects for progress for years to come.

We already have a lost decade thanks to the Bush years. The United States can’t afford another such dead zone. Our problems are too serious. The challenges this country faces require maturity and patience and gravitas.

So after a year of imperfect solutions and incremental progress, we think Obama’s a bum?

This is not a commentary on Obama, it is a failure of the American public.

Even if you’re not a huge Obama fan, consider the alternatives. The GOP has no leadership, no agenda other than opposition; if seriousness is defined by substance, the Republican party is not a serious political party.

And then there’s this:

His rightwing dissenters may be eccentric and racially exclusive but they have also proved highly effective. They have a populist message that excoriates Bush and the bank bailouts as well as Obama and a TV channel – Fox News – to which they are devoted and which is happy to promote their work. A recent poll showed that if the Tea party – a protest movement set up earlier this year to rally opposition to the stimulus bill and “big government” – were a party it would beat the Republican party.

Who’s the favored candidate of the Tea Party [sic]?

Probably Sarah Palin. That she is considered a credible candidate to run for president in 2012 should scare people—including the people on this blog who are talking up Scott Brown. You may not want to affiliate yourselves with the Tea Party—but if you vote for Brown and the irresponsible lunatic fringe grows stronger, you will.

According to an analysis of New York Times and CBS News polls, Obama has the lowest approval rating among whites at the end of his first year in office than any president in the 30 years that The Times and CBS News have collected such data. And the gap between Obama and the others is significant, ranging from 10 to 36 percentage points.

Furthermore, a Quinnipiac University poll, released on Wednesday, found that most whites think that Obama’s first year as president has been mainly a failure. A plurality of whites even said that Obama has been a worse president than George W. Bush.

Worse than Bush? The mind reels. Can our nation have been Twittified into an amnesiac condition where history has no meaning and events that happened only months ago are forgotten?

And what of Mr. Brown, should he get elected? Those who voted for him will feel good about it for a fleeting moment, like teenagers who smash a mailbox on Halloween. The crunch is satisfying.

And then he will go to Washington and fall into line with the leaders of his band of pedants, and the voters of Massachusetts will (maybe) realize that in their frustration over the complexities of the world they have only made things worse.

This president is not perfect. But he is serious and has already helped this country get back on its feet and regain its standing in the world. He has taken necessary measures—a stimulus—to restore the economy. He has pushed major legislation for one of our country’s most serious problems. He has acted responsibly and credibly on issues of foreign policy.

He deserves our support, and our constructive criticism.

If we reject him—which, let’s be clear, is what Tuesday’s vote is about—we will have only ourselves to blame for the years of gridlock and waste that will inevitably follow, and the United States will continue its slide, launched so forcefully by eight years of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, into the ranks of great powers on the decline.

Not living in Massachusetts, I find it hard to say. But she must be pretty ghastly if she’s really in danger of losing Ted Kennedy’s seat, as by all accounts she is.

What strikes me as amazing about this is that Scott Brown, Coakley’s opponent, is such a nothing, and the gist of his campaign is opposition to the health care bill. What’s he proposing (as one should) in its place? Back to the drawing board. Or, in other words, nothing.

And what’s really remarkable is, this campaign of nothing is working in Massachusetts and around the country.

National polls have shown dismal support for the House and Senate health care bills, which Democratic leaders are racing to merge in talks this week. A CNN poll conducted Jan. 8-10 found 57 percent of respondents opposed to the proposals and 40 percent in favor.

Granted, the White House hasn’t done much of a job of selling this bill to the public. It’s not easy to do that when the legislation keeps evolving (thanks, Joe Lieberman). But the majority opposition to it raises real concerns about an electorate that is so mindnumbed by American Idol and Jon and Kate and Twitter that it can’t see what an overall positive this health care legislation is. How can a president, any president, solve any complicated problem if the public is so easily misinformed and misled?

Rick Hertzberg had a terrific “Talk of the Town” on this theme in this week’s New Yorker. In the piece, he took on the fact that the Democratic left has grown disenchanted with Obama and many of its avatars have come out against the health care bill. Forgive me for quoting it at length:

When Congress reconvenes a few days from now, it will be on the cusp of enacting a sweeping reform of American health insurance and health care that could be, as the President put it on Christmas Eve, just after the Senate passed its version of the bill, “the most important piece of social legislation since the Social Security Act passed in the nineteen-thirties and the most important reform of our health-care system since Medicare passed in the nineteen-sixties.” Perhaps he was exaggerating, but not by much. Jonathan Cohn, the New Republic’s health-care correspondent, calls the bill “the most ambitious piece of domestic legislation in a generation—a bill that will extend insurance coverage to tens of millions of Americans, strengthen insurance for many more, and start refashioning American medicine so that it is more efficient.” Paul Krugman, the Times’ resident Nobel laureate (and a frequent Obama critic), calls the bill “a great achievement” that “establishes the principle—even if it falls somewhat short in practice—that all Americans are entitled to essential health care.” Princeton’s Paul Starr, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning history “The Social Transformation of American Medicine,” calls it “the single biggest measure on behalf of low-income Americans in more than forty years.” How big? The University of Chicago’s Harold Pollack has done the sums. By the time the reforms are fully implemented, “the Senate bill would provide about $196 billion per year down the income scale in subsidies to low-income and working Americans.” That’s more, Pollack notes, than the federal government spends on the earned-income tax credit, Head Start, assistance to single mothers and their children, nutrition programs like food stamps, and the National Institutes of Health combined.

None of these people, from Obama on down the wonk scale, deceive themselves that the Senate bill, which now must be merged with its (marginally stronger) House equivalent, comes within hailing distance of perfection. All of them recognize that the final bill, in the now overwhelmingly likely event that it surmounts the remaining hurdles, will be flawed and messy. All of them also understand that, compared with the status quo—and the status quo, not perfection or anything like it, is the alternative—it will constitute a moral and material advance of historic proportions.

Yes, the bill is imperfect. Yes, the process is imperfect. Yes, no one will get everything they want.

Welcome to democracy.

For all of this bill’s flaws, we have health care legislation that extends insurance to 30 million Americans, prohibits insurance companies from turning people away because of preexisting conditions, and is reportedly budget-neutral. It addresses a huge national problem that is costing the country unnecessary billions and hurting our productivity that presidents have been trying and failing to address for the last century.

And 57% of Americans are opposed to this?

The question here is whether Americans can grow up—whether they can act maturely to focus and solve problems in an entertainment age. Obama has been president for about a year. The changes in our government and our public life since he took office are profound—greater transparency in government, a stabilized economy, a more coherent and less militaristic foreign policy, environmental sanity, a more balanced Supreme Court. And I’m not even paying that close attention. Someone who is could probably rattle off more. For all our woes, we are vastly better off than we were under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

And yet Americans—even, especially liberals—are disenchanted with the president. Forgetting, apparently, that the problems he inherited are complex and take time to resolve; that those who voted for George Bush must hold themselves responsible for the mess the country has found itself in; that a recession does not turn around in a year; that the Republican party has chosen a stance of utter antagonism to whatever the president proposes, not because it’s in the country’s best interest, but because the GOP believes that knee-jerk opposition is its re-path to power. And it is, of course, much easier in our political system to keep things from getting done than to get them done.

These are not easy circumstances in which to lead.

Of course there are things that Obama can do better; in my opinion, he made some crucial mistakes in picking his economic team. But on the whole, he is doing many things well. The country needs him to succeed. But the public’s petulance, its refusal to grow up, makes it less likely that he—and we–will.

I just got a press release announcing the date on which Texas Stadium—the Cowboys’ old stadium—is going to be blown up.

“There will be little specs of Texas Stadium all around here,” states Irving Mayor Herbert Gears.

The “implosion,” as they call it, is sponsored by Kraft.

Part of me is appalled. Part of me thinks we live in a great country. And part of me wants to see the implosion.

TEXAS STADIUM IMPLOSION SET FOR APRIL 11, 2024

Plans Underway for Spectator Viewing;

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese to Sponsor Event with Essay Contest

IRVING, Texas (Jan. 13, 2010) – The City of Irving announced today that Texas Stadium, the iconic facility that served as home of the Dallas Cowboys for 37 years, will be imploded at daybreak on Sunday, APRIL 11, 2024.

Interest is building and outlets are being developed so the public can be involved in the demolition progression from start-to-finish. Six cameras have been installed to capture the process leading up to the historic event, as well as the implosion itself. Four cameras will be located outside the stadium and two cameras on the inside will go down with the stadium when it is imploded. Live Internet feeds are accessible throughout the demolition at www.cityofirving.org/texas-stadium.

“There is great interest among sports fans, tourists and residents to watch the implosion in person,” said Maura Gast, executive director, Irving Convention and Visitors Bureau. “City officials are currently determining logistics such as staging and viewing areas, parking, and how to manage traffic around the stadium.”

Last week, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese announced their sponsorship of the stadium’s implosion with a national contest to win the chance to detonate Texas Stadium. Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Cheddar Explosion is searching for one kid (ages 9-12) to tell a story about a positive impact they have made to better their community by sending in a 300 words or less essay and a picture illustrating his or her story. The contest entry period is fromJanuary 7, 2024 until February 5, 2024, when all entries must be received. To enter, please visit: www.projectcheddarexplosion.com

Green Efforts Take Center Stage

In March 2009, the Irving City Council hired Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. to determine the best way to bring down Texas Stadium. The council later awarded Weir Brothers a $5.8 million contract to carry out the implosion plan outlined by Jacobs Engineering.

Through environmentally green efforts, the stadium is currently being readied for implosion. Reuse and recycling has been a major initiative in the dismantling of Texas Stadium. Currently, asbestos is being removed from the stadium per state and federal regulations, while explosives experts are making their final preparations.

What remains now is steel and concrete, and a full 95 percent of these materials will be recycled. The steel will be sold as scrap metal. Trusses from the top of the stadium will be set aside to be incorporated in future pieces of public art. The stadium’s cement is being crushed on site, and used in the reconstruction of surrounding freeways. “There will be little specs of Texas Stadium all around here,” states Irving Mayor Herbert Gears.

…A Look Back

For decades, Texas Stadium was seen on Monday Night Football and flashed on television screens around the world during the opening credits of the famous TV series Dallas. It was the location of major motion pictures, iconic television commercials, concerts, special events and some of the greatest moments in sports history. The hole in its roof even made it convenient for God to watch his favorite team play. In the end, Texas Stadium became one of the most recognized – and beloved – structures in the state of Texas, the United States – and even the world, as the home of “America’s Team.”

For more information on the implosion of Texas Stadium, visit the City of Irving’s Web site at www.cityofirving.org/texas-stadium orwww.crossroadsdfw.com.

Congrats to Harvard prof Werner Sollors, whose “A New Literary History of America“—coedited with rock critic Greil Marcus—was named by Entertainment Weekly one of 2009’s best books.

Said EW,

A daring work of alternative scholarship disguised as a collection of essays. This thousand-plus-page history—with a roll call of contributors ranging from Ishmael Reed writing about Mark Twain to Mary Gaitskill on Norman Mailer—is, in a word, awesome….

Writing for the Huffington Post, Harry Lewis continues to speak out about the Secret Seven, a.k.a. the Harvard Corporation.

His piece is titled: “Larry Summers, Robert Rubin: Will the Harvard Shadow Elite Bankrupt the University and the Country?

After Harvard’s near-bankruptcy, Lewis writes,

In this era of heightened corporate accountability, one might have expected instead a shake-up of Harvard’s board. But Harvard’s directors are invulnerable.

…[But] the Corporation is stunningly secretive. The members are listed on a Harvard web page-but with no contact information. Their meetings and agendas are unannounced, their decisions unreported. The Fellows, scattered across the country, are isolated from the institution they govern. Even the university’s statutes-the closest thing to a constitution limiting the Corporation’s discretionary power-are almost impossible to locate. The colonial-era board structure is failing the modern university.

Lewis goes on to inform/remind the HuffPo audience that some of Harvard’s shadow elite were involved in the massive corruption scandal that showed Russia that, when it comes to democracy and transparency, Americans don’t always practice what we preach.

Engaged by the U.S. to show the Russians how the West controls corruption, the [Harvard] advisers became models of what to avoid.

Lewis’ full piece is well worth reading, but here is his conclusion:

The modern power elites thrive by forgetting any regrettable past. This amnesia is easy at Harvard, where the legal fiduciaries operate in secret and need not answer for their acts. They are the antipodes of the selfless institutional servants who built Harvard and other great American enterprises, and they bear close watching.

This amnesia is a massive problem at Harvard, where people are busy and pressuring the Corporation is largely a thankless task. Lewis has done so on multiple occasions—on this blog, in the Globe, on HuffPo now, making himself available for media interviews when other professors are reluctant to do so. Kudos to him, but he can’t do it alone; the Secret Seven will do everything it can to marginalize a single voice, no matter how lucid that voice may be. Whether it’s at Harvard or in, say, the former East Germany, this is the nature of secretive power.

Harry Lewis is right, but being right isn’t always enough, especially in a battle against secret power; some other folks need to start stepping up to the plate.

…I find New York a very easy place to be famous because there’s a lot of self-esteem, probably more than in any other city. Whether they’re taxi drivers or cops or firemen or driving a refuse truck, the people all have their own TV series and they are the star of it. “Oh, Sting is on my show this week!”

…Your parents name you, but they haven’t a clue who you are. Your friends nickname you because they know exactly who you are.

…I used to go to confession. You’re asked to ask for forgiveness at the age of seven. But people don’t commit sins at that age. So they give you this whole list of sins so you can walk in and say, “Oh, I’ve got this confession.” This allows you to make some shit up, which is a lie in itself.

—Sting

“People who raise their hands deserve to be ahead of people who don’t.”

—50 Cent

In its January issue, writers from Esquire magazine interviewed a number of accomplished men and women in search of “wisdom and damn good advice.”

Inevitably, the interviews don’t always hit that high mark. But—and this probably says something about the skills of the writers and editors involved—surprisingly often, they do.

I thought I’d post a few of the more insightful and thought-provoking quotes here and there.

Here’s Robert Caro—certainly one of my heroes—on power.

There’s an old saying: All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The more I’ve learned, the less I believe it. Power doesn’t always corrupt. WHat power always does is reveal. WHen a guy gets into a position where he doesn’t have to worry anymore, then you see what he wanted to do all along.

…Power can be like a sword, a very unusual sword. Not only does it have a sharp blade but a sharp handle. So it cuts into not only the people it’s being used against but also into the people who are using it.

Great stuff. Especially when considered in the context of LBJ, Caro’s second great subject.

Or, alternatively, why we should (sometimes) appreciate the CIA.

I’ve been fascinated/horrified/saddened by the story of the Jordanian suicide bomber who blew himself up in Afghanistan, killing seven people, including several CIA agents.

Reading a long and well-reported (it seems so, anyway) Washington Post story about the bombing, I came across this material [emphasis added]:

An intelligence official who agreed to speak on background about Balawi’s suicide bombing called it “an important base, and [being] chief there is an important assignment. You don’t get that one unless you know your stuff — and the CIA had a world-class expert on al-Qaeda and counterterrorism operations running the place.”

The official was referring to a nearly 20-year agency veteran killed in the attack, a 45-year-old woman with three children. At the CIA’s request, The Washington Post has agreed not to use her name in this article.

A former reports officer in the agency’s directorate of intelligence, she started tracking al-Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. She spent nearly 10 years in the agency’s counterterrorism center and had several brief tours in Afghanistan before landing in Khost six months ago.

The press devotes a lot of time to reporting on the misdeeds of the CIA, as it should. Meanwhile, we in the public tend to think of CIA agents as faceless, nameless sleuths who are fundamentally different from us. Obviously, that’s not so. People like this woman—this wife and mother—are heroes whose work will never get the recognition it deserves.

More proof that, for the vast majority of Twitter users, the only thing Twitter does for them is make them sound like idiots.

Or maybe that the vast majority of Twitter users are idiots?

(And Twitter doesn’t help?)