Look back in anger

I know I probably don't have to point this out to most of the dearly beloved readers of this humble blog, but if you find yourself feeling less than fired up about the upcoming midterm elections, then ponder this for awhile.

Except for a climate change bill, the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats have followed through on the agenda laid out at the beginning of the 111th Congress in January 2009 despite concerted Republican opposition. The victories were wrenching, partisan and procedurally ugly, but they were victories.

“He said what he was going to do, and he did it,” the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said about the president.

While Republicans consider much of the legislation flawed and even harmful, they grudgingly concede that Democrats compiled a record perhaps unrivaled since the Great Society programs of President Lyndon B. Johnson were passed during the 89th Congress or the New Deal programs were pushed through the 73rd Congress by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. And though they had large majorities, Democrats did not have substantial opposition help or the cushion that Roosevelt had with 313 Democrats in the House from 1933 to 1935, or the 68 Senate seats that Democrats controlled during Johnson’s tenure in 1965.

Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, said Democrats pushed through legislation that was breathtaking in size and scope, even though approval typically came on very thin margins and party-line votes in the Senate.

“This is big stuff,” Mr. Sessions said. “They would probably say it was great for America. I would say it was bad for America.”

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, is often assailed by Democrats for blocking the Democratic agenda. He said the results absolved him of that charge.

“I am amused with their comments about obstructionism,” Mr. McConnell said in an interview. “I wish we had been able to obstruct more. They were able to get the health care bill through. They were able to get the stimulus through. They were able to get the financial reform through. These were all major pieces of legislation, and if I would have had enough votes to stop them, I would have.”

Emphasis, of course, mine.

This should "fire up the base," if the base can be fired up for a midterm as they were four years ago. Translating it for those outside of that base but not part of the Republicans is proving to be very hard.

The GOP keeps digging on finreg

I love this headline:

GOP poised to abandon stall of banking bill

"Poised." Makes it sound so action-y.

The fact that the GOP has been so politically tone deaf and inept looking when it comes to opposing the financial reform bill shows just how deeply they really are in Wall St.'s pocket these days, not to mention how ideologically incapable they are of supporting any kind of regulation on moneyed interests.

Democrats tried three times to begin debate on the bill only to be thwarted by Republican opposition. Democrats branded the Republicans as Wall Street allies. But Republicans said they were merely trying to secure changes to make the bill more bipartisan.

Republicans had already begun to drop their complaints that the Democrats' legislation would perpetuate bailouts, and had shifted their criticism to a consumer protection provision that they say goes too far.

The Senate Democrats' bill would create a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau within the Federal Reserve that would have power to police transactions between institutions that provide financial services and their customers.

Republicans say the bill would have unintended circumstances that could ensnare small business people for merely extending credit to their customers.

Note to the GOP, consumers like being protected. And, yes, it could ensnare small business people if their business is predatory lending.

The GOP is acting like a college basketball team that is 15 points behind with 15 seconds to go, but keeps fouling anyway. It won't work. It's annoying. It only lengthens the Fail.

Successful two years may not help

I rarely read Mark Halperin, but I have to admit that I was intrigued when I noticed he was actually being un-Broderishly positive about the administration's first two years.

Over the past 16 months, both Biden and Emanuel have expressed concern internally that Obama has been too bold, risking his presidency on big bets. But those disagreements with the President have been fleeting and mostly futile - and, as it happens, unwarranted. So far, most of Obama's big bets have paid off.

The health care bill's passage is, of course, the White House's signal achievement, and was accomplished without revealing the Administration's cognizance (thanks to internal polling and focus groups) of the legislation's stark unpopularity among the public. But beyond health care, Obama acted decisively to stop the world from going into economic depression, after inheriting a mess from his predecessor. Quibble all you wish about the dimensions of the stimulus law or the administration of TARP or the Detroit bailout, but the actions taken were professionally handled, apparently necessary and, so far, constructive. Strikingly underrated by the Washington press corps are Obama's gains on education policy, including a willingness to confront the education establishment on standards for both teachers and students. Overseas, Obama has snagged an arms-reduction deal with Russia, managed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq exactly as promised, eliminated numerous terrorist leaders through an aggressive targeting operation and laid the groundwork for dealing with Iran and, perhaps, North Korea. (See the five immediate benefits of health reform.)

How all that translates to the mid-terms is anyone's guess, though it is likely now a matter of how much the Dem losses can be mitigated, but everything Obama has done has been in stark contrast with how he is portrayed by his political opponents.

The Death Panel

Republicans like Mitch McConnell finally have a "Death Panel" to rail against, but this time they're calling it a "taxpayer bailout."

Here's the chain of events: A bank is judged failing. The FDIC submits a plan for the bank's liquidation -- which includes firing management, wiping out shareholders, handing losses to creditors, and selling off the firm -- and gets it approved by the Treasury secretary. Then the FDIC takes over the banks. The $50 billion fund is used to keep the lights on while all this happens. It's there to prevent taxpayers from having to foot the bill for the chaos that will occur between when we recognize a bank is failing and when we shut it down.

Whatever you want to call this, it isn't a bailout. It's the death of the company. And the fund is way of forcing too-big-to-fail banks to pay for the execution. But stung by Republican criticisms, the administration is telling Democrats to let the fund go. And they're not all that unhappy to see it die. "The fund isn’t a priority for the Obama administration," reported Business Week, "which instead proposed having the financial industry repay the government for the cost of disassembling a failed firm, an approach preferred by the industry."

So let's just be clear: The alternative to the liquidation fund is Wall Street's preference. That should tell you pretty much all you need to know about whether the industry really views this as a bailout.

On the Senate floor yesterday, Bob Corker, who's been unfailingly respectful of his colleagues' criticisms of the bill, had enough. "This fund that’s been set up is anything but a bailout," he said. "It’s been set up to provide upfront funding by the industry so that when these companies are seized, there’s money available to make payroll and to wind it down while the pieces are being sold off." The only question, Corker said, was whether you pre-fund by taxing the banks, which is what the Republican head of the FDIC wants and the bill does, or whether you post-fund by recouping taxpayer losses after the fact, which the Treasury Department and the industry prefer.

That -- and not bailouts -- is the debate. And by demonizing it, Republicans will force Democrats to retreat to the post-funding structure that was the original preference of both the Obama administration and the financial industry. That's not really a strike against future bailouts, though it might be something you promised a roomful of bankers you'd do on their behalf.

But, of course, I'm sure that Susan Collins can be persuaded...

Nothing escapes Peter King

Van Jones, Kevin Jennings, Thomas Shannon, Harold Koh, Cass Sunstein...the list of minor Obama administration officials who've been attacked by the GOP or its proxies for innocuous quotes, forced to reply to "troubling questions" (welcome to the party, Arlen!), or been called a racist, goes on and on.

So, of course, the next targeted scalp: that of the powerful Desiree Roberts for her (non-) role in the vast Narcissistgate conspiracy.

Opposing the New Deal

You can see the Giant Wurlitzer revving up with a coordinated effort to, if not destroy Obama's stimulus program, then at least severely weaken it. First it was, "everybody agrees, I think, on both sides of the spectrum now, that the New Deal failed." Which would be true if Hume added, "..because he changed course and tried to bring down the deficit in '37." But of course, Hume is dishonest.

Now it's I.O.U.S.A.

As Digby notes, the pressure on Obama to reduce Social Security benefits, as opposed to doing what he should to increase them right now, will be enormous.

The key to GOP survival

They have seen the enemy and it is universal health care coverage.