Obama Should Follow Spirit, Not Letter

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New York-based VC Fred Wilson makes an excellet point about the details of Obama's economic fix-it plan versus the stated purpose of Obama's candidacy.

He argues that Obama's leadership is more important than the fine print of the stimulus program, especially given that the economic models that everyone is using are likely to be anachronistic.

I had dinner last night with some friends, all of whom were big supporters of Obama and his vision of change. All of us were at least a little (and in some cases a lot) concerned that in the transition from candidate to President, Obama was getting sucked into conventional thinking. Spending a trillion dollars may work, but helping change the DNA of america and the world would help a lot more. And he doesn't need economists to tell him how to do that.

Stimulate, Don't Imitate

Here is the text of a comment I left on Change.gov. President Obama needs to pass the stimulus package as he thinks it should be constructed, and not with a view to placating the GOP by imitating their failed policies.

Please stop meeting the GOP halfway before they demonstrate a willingness to meet you halfway as well. We won the election by being faithful to our progressive beliefs, and the country voted for those principles. We as a people have rejected laissez-faire and tax-cutting economics and we want a real stimulus package. It seems like you are bending over backwards to negotiate when you should be dealing from a position of strength. The GOP is not going to play nice. They would rather see you fail, even if it means more pain for the American people.
If the GOP attempts to filibuster your plan, call on the American people to email their reps; that will give you all the political capital you need.
I agree that you should try to build consensus around long-range programs so that they have a chance to stick around past your Administration, but this stimulus package is short-term and should be the best proposal you think you can put forward, not a compromised version you hope will please the GOP.
We elected a progressive government on purpose, and we deserve the government we worked to get. Please remember that you owe your election to the people, and we need you to fulfill the mandate you were elected to enact, not earn brownie points with Mitch McConnell.

Pre-Inauguration Hysteria

Bob Gates.

Lawrence Summers.

Rick Warren.

Obama's picks for various positions within his administration have created much to-do among the politically active, especially online, much of it of the hand-wringing variety. The most sympathetic summary of these Jeremiads that I can dredge up is that, given the size of Obama's victory, it's all well and good to meet the other guys half-way--but where is the proof that the other guys have any intention of meeting us half-way?

In principle, I agree that these picks (and a few others--these are just three that stand out) are disappointing in some way. Gates looks like an admission that only Republicans can handle national defense; Summers hasn't given any indication that he understands how the policies he heped craft are part of the problem; Rick Warren is a bigot.

But to cavil about these things--and yes, I'm intentionally demeaning the complainers here--is to be not only short-sighted, but to miss the whole point of Obama's campaign and subsequent election.

He's not going to do stuff we all agree with. Philosophically, he's not nearly as liberal as most progressives wish him to be, he's a bit moralistic, and above all, a shrewd and pragmatic politician.

There are 18 days left until Obama's Inauguration, followed by at least four years of sane governance by competent people. Regardless of what you think or fear about his appointments, you can take comfort that at the very least, a culture of competence will be returned to government, as well as a belief in the benefits of government activity.

Paterson's Predilections

Sometime in the next 45 days, New York State will have a new Senator, and it says here that Andrew Cuomo will be the one holding an Acela ticket to Washington.

There are a lot of good reasons, most of them inside-baseball political, for Paterson to name Caroline Kennedy. She's got ties to Obama, which is good. And she's a pick that will anger everyone, and thus no one.

See, Paterson's first goal has to be to name someone who will be able to keep it in Democratic hands in 2010.

Given the utter paucity of GOP talent in the state, it would be ludicrous for New York to elect a Republican to the Senate in 2010, but a misstep by Paterson could well bring about this result. And you can bet that the national GOP will spend heavily if they sniff the chance of embarassing the Democrats by picking off a seat in a blue state.

(New York is fairly reliably blue in presidential elections, but has been unpredictable at the state level. The GOP and Democratic parties have alternated occupancy of the governor's mansion and have seen GOPers like Alphonse D'amato, Christopher Buckley and Jacob Javitz elected to the U.S. Senate.)

Paterson's choices include:

• Kennedy, who has name recognition and fundraising prowess, and, as a female, will at least please one constituent bloc, but whose nomination will stoke anti-entitlement passions;
  
• Congresswoman Nydia Vazquez, also a female, whose nomination would satisfy Latinos angry at being underrepresented in the higher levels of state government;
• Jerrold Nadler, a staunchly liberal congressman from the Upper West Side;
• Byron Brown, the first African-Ameircan to be elected mayor of Buffalo; and
• Carolyn Maloney, a long-time representative from Queens.
  

The problem with all of these choices, other than Brown, is that they are downstaters with little chance of carrying the entire state, particularly if faced with a potent Republican like Peter King. Moreover, Nadler is far too liberal and Vazquez an unknown minority with little pull outside NYC.

And as I mentioned above, there will be a populist backlash against Kennedy, maybe even from within her own party, with factions forcing her into a nomination fight on the grounds that she should have to face friendly fire before confronting an actual adversary in the general election.

Conversely, Brown is unknown outside Buffalo.

Andrew Cuomo, on the other hand, is well-known both upstate and down. He doesn't satisfy any particular constituency, but neither does he satisfy one at the expense of the others. And he's the member of a political family.

And while Kennedy's dynastic connection is as much a liability as it is a boost to her career, Cuomo's family name only burnishes a career and public personna he has built up on his own. Best of all for Paterson, it removes the only serious competition he might have had for his own job in 2010.

And lest we forget, Paterson doesn't come out of nowhere either. His father was Basil Paterson, a highly regarded politician who came close to being the first African-American mayor of New York City.

So Paterson knows first-hand that being the scion of a political family has built-in advantages, and a Cuomo has less baggage to tote around than a Kennedy.

Free Market Delusions

It's not surprising, but nonetheless infuriating, to see self-serving columnists flogging capitalist mythology while the economy slowly sinks millions of Americans--and that's before the current meltdown, and all we had was rising income disparity and millions of uninsured Americans going broke because of growing health costs.

Forbes columnists Brian Wesbury and Robert Stein, who are also investment advisers, today try to make the case that history proves that economies inevitably recover from recessions (and even depressions) without government intervention--what they term "catalysts."

After making unsubstantiated claims about the nature of the business cycle and bloodless remarks about corporate efficiency and new "skill sets" learned by labor, they conclude by lauding the invisible (and heretofore unseen and unproven) hand of the market:

As long as human beings attempt to better themselves and improve standards of living, and as long as policymakers don't compound problems, the natural course of growth will return in its magical and mysterious way.

In other words, Trust us, growth will return. Just don't raise our taxes or increase our regulatory requirements, because that would be intolerable.

Never mind that new regulations are shown to stimulate innovation because they force companies to adopt new technologies and processes rather than simply trying to guard their hoard.

Covering War or Glorifying It?

A new piece on CNN correspondent Michael Ware in Men's Journal makes the journalist seem compelling--and there's no doubting his bravery or his commitment to his profession.

The piece, CNN's Prisoner of War, shows how hard it is for Ware to get the war out of his head--or even for Ware to drag himself out of the zone of conflict.

It's easy to sympathize with Ware, and Greg Veis, who wrote this piece, tells us a lot about our foreign policy blunders--including the nugget that we may be essentially giving Iraq over to the Iranians.

But Veis also lets Ware get away with a common conceit, which is that war experience is somehow more valuable or "real" than other types of experience.

“Do you want to get to the nub of life?” Ware asked me. “To strip away the bullshit? Life is so distilled down in war — that’s an obvious statement — but to be able to see it with your own eyes and be able to discover that which lies within yourself, I don’t know, it’s more than life changing.

But the real bullshit is when we let ourselves believe that our experience is the only true and unvarnished one. I've had similar experiences and suffered similar delusions--"man, you don't understand life the way I do because you haven't seen..." name it.

Every experience is a real experience, every life is a real life. Ware might argue that the daily confrontation with death is what makes war real, but we all confront death every day.

What is worth saying is that our lives afford us the opportunity to ignore the fact that we confront death on a daily basis, and that we have committed a great injustice by forcing the Iraqi people to confront death whether they want to or not.

Do Democrats Know They're in the Majority?

It's all well and good for Arlen Spector to rattle his saber and threaten to hold up Eric Holder's confirmation as Attorney General.

And if Republican senators want to block legislation supporting the bail-out of the auto industry, and if they can get away with it, well that's their prerogative.

But what's puzzling me is that the Democrats don't seem to realize that they hold all the power in Washington, D.C.

Let me say that again.

Democrats hold all the power in Washington, D.C.

Now they just have to act like they know it.

I voted for Barack Obama because, among other reasons, I want a change in tone in American politics, and I want someone who can convince Americans that progressive politics is good for them.

But I vote Democratic because I believe in progressive policies. I want Congressional Democrats to push for those policies, and I want them to use their committee chairmanships and other powers to enact those policies and programs.

Republicans know how to work the system so well, they behave like don't have to face the consequences of massive electoral defeats over the past two cycles.

It's time for Democratic lawmakers to show them where they really stand.