4.29.12: Criticism of the Criticism

Despite having to cut through some respective twisting of facts, we always find having campaign representatives, and specifically Ed Gillespie (R) and Robert Gibbs (D), highly informative because their answers provide insights to what political tact each campaign will take on a particular political issue.

Before getting into other issues, it was a good first tackle by Mr. Gregory to discuss whether or not the assassination of Osama Bin Laden is being politicized and whether it should be. [Let's take a time out by saying that this subject is and was tied into NBC's Brian Williams' special program on the one-year anniversary of the operation.]  To answer the first part, it is certainly being used for political gain as evidenced by what Vice President Joe Biden has been saying on the campaign trail. "Bin Laden is dead, and GM is alive." The key part what he follows it up with, "Could Mitt Romney use that as a slogan," and then he goes on to explain why.  It's a bit of a stretch to say that Mitt Romney, if President, wouldn't have taken steps to get him given actionable intelligence, even though he did say it wouldn't have been a priority to get Bin Laden.  Mr. GIbbs stopped short saying that it is not clear as to whether he would have or not.  For President Obama, on the other hand, it was a priority and the success of the mission proved to be significant, especially in the psyches of a younger generation who spent most of their informative years living under the shadow of a post-9/11 world.

It was an vital get.  The killing or capturing of Osama Bin Laden should have always been a priority. That President Bush didn't put a priority on it, and in fact didn't get him in the ensuing 7 years of his Presidency was a error in judgement, and given that, it's fair game for Mr. Obama to tout the fact that his administration conducted the successful mission.  However, prominent Republicans, Senator John McCain as Mr. Gregory noted, said that the ad in question had gone over the line.  Mr. Gillespie said that the President turned a national triumph into a divisive partisan political attack against Mr. Romney, the 'sign of a desperate campaign.'

For Mr. Gillespie, here's where his argument falls down.  When Mr. Gregory asked him if the country was safer now, Mr. Gillespie said that the United States isn't as strong as it should be, and he repeated the phrase again for lack of a credible counter because he certainly can not say that the United States is not safe, without causing a stir, but on the other hand, he can not say that we're safer because that would be giving credit to President Obama.

[As for the second part of Biden's slogan, Mr. Romney is on record saying that he would have not helped General Motors with a bailout, and where he didn't level with the American people when saying that the government should not bail out private companies, he's not addressing the big picture that no saving G.M. would have been the killing of an industry - that's how key General Motors is to the entire equation.]

Going further on foreign policy, there were conflicting opinions on our relationship with Russia.  Mr. Gillespie said the 'reset button' diplomacy is not working.  Conversely, Mr. Gibbs said that the United States, under President Obama, was able to get them to go along with sanctions against Iran.  Well, neither the 'reset button' or the 'I saw into his soul' approaches have been effective.  It's difficult to say from what we've heard today who has done better, but should we keep Russia in a subordinate role to China (a role reversal from the height of the Cold War)?  Absolutely.

What was definitive and insightful came with the discussion of how women are being and would be treated under Republican leadership versus Democratic leadership.  Mr. Gillespie, countering the presumed charge that Republicans have a 'war on women,' explained the women are economically worse off under President Obama since he took office, citing a few statistics.  Mr. Gibbs, for his effort, noted women's health care restrictions Republicans are proposing.  The argument is on two different plains. But it distills down to this, and Republican strategist Alex Castellanos explained the strategy inadvertently during the panel when verbally jousting with Rachel Maddow saying that the subject wasn't the states but the federal government.  To deflect the conversation away from the unprecedented amount of legislation Republicans have introduced limiting women's reproductive rights on a state level, Mr. Romney will try and keep the focus on the economy and how that has effected women.  It's not quite saying one thing and doing another.  It's more of a matter of saying one thing while others do another thing that we won't talk about.

One has to realize that the economy has been difficult on women because of what has been done on the state level by Republicans in their cutting of education budgets, a move that disproportionately negatively effectives women.  Mr. Gillespie stated that the work place has become hostile toward women under President Obama.  This is simply a political platitude, for which the President's record doesn't reflect, starting with his signing of the Fair Pay For Women Act aka Lilly Ledbetter.  Then there is the clip of Speaker John Boehner from the floor of the House saying the so-called 'war on women' is something that the Democrats are simply using for political gain.  Yes, that is correct, but why?  Because Republicans have tried to institute policies not favorable to women so what does he expect?  Mr. Boehner's pompous indignation that Democrats would challenge these policies, making a political issue, given what's on record, shows some pretty thin skin.

Lastly, we like the succinct description Mr. Gibbs put on the Republicans' criticism of the Administration's handling of the economic - that we didn't clean up your mess fast enough.  One reason why we like it is because it plays into Mitt Romney's criticism that the recovery hasn't been fast enough.  The reason for that is political gridlock. [Quick Aside: For good or ill, depending on what political side you're on, simple Senate majority needs to be put back in place as a rule.]  It's an effective criticism of the criticism because by all indications Republicans want to repeal all the economic policies put into place by the Democrats under President Obama, returning us to the policies of the Bush Administration which created the Great Recession, essentially trying to clean up the mess by making more of a mess.

[On a program note, during today's program, there were two extended promotions for other programing on the network and as we touch on earlier in the column, they were woven into the topics discussed.  There was a promotion for Brian Williams' special on the killing of Osama Bin Laden and an interview promotion for Saturday Night Live.  This has been somewhat of a trend on the program, and it's inappropriate for the 'program of record' as we like to refer to Meet The Press.  There is too much to discuss and Meet The Press is a serious program which required every minute to be focused on the topics at hand.  There is plenty of other airtime on the network to promote programming.]


Round Table:  Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen is back to weigh in on the campaign.  Also joining us: Vice Chair of the House Republican Conference Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, and Republican strategist Alex Castellanos.

4.15.12: How Will History Judge?

Representative Michele Bachmann stated during her debate segment with Senator Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) that health insurance costs have risen 9% in the past year under 'Obamacare,' and that families (women) pay $2,000 dollars more in gas per year under President Obama, and that these are the real issues that women should be concerned about.

What you can appreciate about this debate is that the two representatives from their respective sides elevated it beyond the misplaced comments by the CNN contributor Hilary Rosen. However, the two spoke on different planes. When asked about women, Mrs. Bachmann, as previously mentioned talked about the economic impact on women whereas Mrs. Gillibrand spoke about womens' freedom to make health care choices. When Mrs. Bachmann finally weighed in on the points that the Senator was making, her argument completely fell down. Congresswoman Bachmann said that HR1 was a law designed to have women make their own health care choices, but that's simply not the case - it was an abortion restriction bill, which has been followed by 90 state bills that have been passed restricting a woman's choices with her doctor. As we've said before, legislating womens' bodies is the ultimate in big government control over an individual, more so than a health care mandate ever would be. And speaking of the mandate, the reason why health care costs have gone up 9% is not because of 'Obamacare,' which hasn't been fully implemented yet, but instead it is because that private insurance companies are trying to reap as much profit as possible before it kicks in when they won't be able to charge what ever they want, taking advantage of people.

So when Mr. Gregory challenges Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the strength of the economy and the recovery that is still underway, of course he's going to say is still pretty tough. And the reason that it's still tough right now, as it applies to this country, separating out for a moment Europe's financial situation and the effect it has on the stock market, is that President Obama and the Democrats put in place rules such as Dowd-Frank and the Affordable Health Care Act to rein corporate excess. Of course one person's excess is another person's extra profit.

In between the lines you can distill the different strategies. The Obama Administration is looking more long term, while Republicans are looking for the politically and economically expedient. This bears out with regard to the debt and deficit. Mrs. Bachmann stated that in 15 years our economy will collapse under the weight of our debt if we stay on the trajectory we're on, to which Mr. Geithner disagreed. But even if this collapse were inevitable, the Republican answer in the form of the Paul Ryan budget plan doesn't head this off. His budget, if enacted, would not balance the budget until 2040 - 28 years from now.

Despite the anemic job growth numbers, Secretary Geithner stated that by all indications, the policies the administration has put in place are having a positive effect. He cited the growth in business and manufacturing and an increase in consumer confidence. With a weak dollar, manufacturing will pick up hence businesses will grow which is all good, but a weak dollar doesn't help consumers so why the increase in confidence? It's a false label, it's not that consumers have more confidence, it's just that they've had to figure out how to buy things with less money and that took some time to figure out - get out of your house, take the second job, sell a few things, and only now are people starting to buy things again, specifically, for example, women and moms.

"Ridiculous," was the word Mr. Geithner used to describe Mr. Romney's statement that 92% of the jobs lost belonged to women. That's not even a real news maker because no one has really come to believe anything that Mitt Romney says, the core realization that the public will come to and the primary reason why he will not be elected President. Calling Mr. Romney out like that doesn't require any political courage, and where Mr. Geithner could have exercised some was when he rightly mentioned teachers losing their jobs and that a high percentage of those positions are held by women. Where he came up short was that he didn't explain that those teacher job losses were the product of Republican state houses cutting their public budgets and shifting the dollars to tax cutting. He didn't go there. Nor did he mention, as Mrs. Gillibrand correctly did, the Lily Ledbetter Equal Pay Act that President Obama signed into law. How does Mrs. Bachmann defend, for example, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's decision to repeal that law on the state level. She can't and she has to change the subject as she did today because it's not OK that an employer can just decide to pay a woman 75 cents on the dollar for an equal amount of work - simply.

Then there is the whole 'still blaming George Bush' debate and if it's still valid to do so, as Mr. Geithner did today in the context of the tax cuts, with which Mrs. Bachmann took umbrage. Well, in a way as far as continued Bush blame - no, but ultimately in a way - yes. No, because the Obama Administration has not done a good enough job of controlling government waste in medicare and medicaid and has not cut the defense budget at all. However, we're still debating the Bush tax cuts. And if we really want to get rid of the 'blame George Bush' game, then we have to eliminate the tax cuts that carry his name. If you're a Democrat that means raising the rate back up to what it was in the Clinton era. If you're a Republican, that means replacing the namesake (insert Romney or Ryan) and providing an even larger permanent cut.

That's the choice going forward now that the general is effectively on, and as Mike Murphy said during the round table, it's going to get nasty, quickly - no one seemed to disagree. How could anyone in the stratosphere disagree with that? Thirty-five million dollars was spent between Mr. Romney's campaign and his surrogates on attacking Rick Santorum, in the primary. That figure will balloon to about $300 million in the general, not to be outdone by much by Mr. Obama. Ironically, Chuck Todd said that Mr. Romney was getting tagged with Santorum rhetoric. Mr. Romney had to go too far to the right in our estimation to get the votes over his opponents and in some cases, too far from which to recover. This is why Mr. Gregory illustrated the disparity in respective support from women votes - 57% for Mr. Obama, 38% for Mr. Romney. Also, a costly factor in the election. Voter turnout, as Mr. Todd, mentioned will be negatively effective, especially on the Republican side if Mr. Romney starts walking any hard right statements back to the middle, combined with the negative advertising.

And instead of debating whether or not Mitt Romney should make an appearance on Saturday Night Live, how about we give a little thought to what Mr. Geithner said during his interview, which was that history will judge what President Obama has done, is doing, and what he will do favorably. After all, Mike Murphy said that the election would be a referendum on each individual - stick with that. Some would argue that history will not be favorable given the $5 trillion in debt that has accumulated under the Obama Administration so far. They'll be correct if Mr. Obama wins a second term and doesn't focus on deficit reduction once the health care act is in full effect. If Romney wins the election, Mr. Obama's policies will be looked upon as even more favorably because Mr. Romney will throw back the country into a deep recession and then people once again long for fiscal sanity.


Round table: former Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN), Republican strategist Mike Murphy, and NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie and Chuck Todd.


Postscript: Mr. Gregory's interview with Bill Cosby (excerpted during the program) provided nice closure to the program despite some frivolous conversation during the panel. We agree with Mr. Cosby that the Trayvon Martin shooting should be more a conversation about the gun instead of race. Sadly, there is nary a politician with the political courage to speak up about it. We would also agree that it is un-American to route for the failure of the President because in essence, hoping for that is hoping that America fails, and that just sucks.

4.1.12: We Like Broccoli

Substituting for Mr. Gregory this week were NBC's Savannah Guthrie and Joe Scarborough respectively, with Mr. Scarborough taking the round table. In the opening interview, Rick Santorum said that what's worse than a contested convention is picking the wrong candidate. With due respect, Ms. Guthrie got the wrong candidate in grilling Mr. Santorum on getting out of the race. Those questions should really go to Newt Gingrich, who at this point is being completely ignored by the media. The general Republican consensus with the small wave of endorsements this week of Mitt Romney is that Republicans should start focusing on a one on one race. However, that's all that Rick Santorum wants, his chance to have a one on one primary votes with Mr. Romney. It's Mr. Santorum's only real chance to contend, possibly beat, Mr. Romney in Wisconsin and or Pennsylvania, Mr. Santorum's home state and where it is now a dead heat.

In his campaign of inevitability, as Mr. Santorum correctly put it, Mitt Romney may be that 'wrong' candidate as his favorability rating is at 34 percent, damage done inadvertently by his Super PAC, so much negative advertising that it has turned people off. Also, there's the damage the candidate has done to himself with all of his changing on positions and the endless verbal gaffes, that Mika Brzezinski who essentially co-hosted today's round table, pointed out through a series of clips. We must admit it is fun to see how far Mitt Romney can take this vulgar display of wealth, and the house with the lobbyist and car elevator is a great way to one-up yourself.

Mr. Santorum was also making the case that the Republican nomination is not a done deal because more than half of the delegates in states where they've already had primaries have not yet committed to a candidate. But what is the end game for Mr. Santorum in taking this line of attack, a contested convention? It's at the convention where the establishment does take over, which is only a further benefit to Mr. Romney. It's a weak case on the part Rick Santorum for the nomination. But you never know, we agree with Tom Friedman who said today on the panel that the Republican Party is becoming a radical party. You could tell that the comment made his conservative colleague David Brooks cringe, as it should. In this Republican primary, the rhetoric has gone farther to the right than in the past 40 years at least.

And of course, speaking of weak cases, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) best answer in defense of two-thirds of the American people against the Affordable Healthcare Act is that once people get beyond all the horribles being touted about the bill, they'll see the benefits. What? However, he did say that the concept of the individual mandate came from the conservative Heritage Foundation back in 1993. For Democrats, this is a good nugget to be pulling out hammering home, that conservatives were for this but the Dems just haven't made the point effectively enough as Mr. Schumer did today. It wasn't as weak an argument as the case the Solicitor General Donald Verrilli made for the law before the Supreme Court this week, according to all reports, blogs, and tweets.

Mr. Schumer did say that even given the weak argument, it's difficult to say how the court will judge. However, there will be significant negative effects if the court does not uphold the law, and those will be felt on all sides. From the round table, Jon Meacham stated that it would be a permanent black eye for the President if it's not upheld. It will be - he spent a year and a half working on a Health care law that was deemed unconstitutional. If the vote comes down 5-4 against, which looks like the anticipated tally, the court will be viewed by most to be ideological and partisan, and Republicans who will be thinking victory will once again be the grand party of 'no' because they'll offer no alternative but to cut benefits for Medicare, Medicaid, and the rest. Finally, what will ultimately be lost, and rather quickly, is Americans faith in our system of government. Congress can barely get anything done, and when they finally do pass something of significance, for good or ill, a court of 9 can negate the whole thing. It leads one to ask, what's the point?

There's no doubt that the court is ideological activist, the track record is there. We contended before in this column that the court makes decisions without considering the practical nature of their conclusions. Case in point is the Citizens United decision, where the court made a conclusion and now see the result in practice and there thinking that it's pretty awful what they unleashed. Since they've seen it now and the accompanying consequences, this time around with health care the judges are trying to consider the effect of the decision more. This is what leads a smart man to ask dumb questions about mandating people to eat broccoli.

It seems that the court is short in the overarching consideration for the Interstate Commerce Clause and the effect on it for striking down the law, a point that Senator Schumer rightly brought up. By ruling against the government, the court could put Congress's ability to regulate industries that operate state to state in real jeopardy. As Mr. Schumer mentioned, food safety standards could deteriorate. This and environmental protections, air and water, are underestimated in significance of importance in this country. We don't seem to understand that the better the food, the better the air, and the better the water, the less we'll be sick and... then require less health care.


Tom Friedman and David Brooks of the New York Times, Fmr. Newsweek Executive Editor Jon Meacham, Fmr. Rep. Harold Ford (D-TN) and MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski.


Postscript: Oh yeah, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) was on the program today to endorse Mitt Romney. We guess that is what you would call 'mild news' given the upcoming Wisconsin primary. Important? Hardly, no one's listening, not even in Wisconsin.