Category Archives: Contemporary Life

     What is outrageous about President Obama’s pledge to “kick” the posteriors of the BP officials who have offended him is not its crassness but its utter senselessness. America has long suffered from a decline of elementary decency in public discourse, and Obama’s vulgarity shatters another barrier. But it was as contrived to feign anger and seriousness as was the elder President Bush’s heeding his advisors’ plea to show that he “cares” about the economic hardship endured by those during the early 1990’s recession by actually stating, in a speech, that the point of his speech was: “Message: I Care.” Obama’s remark was just as hollow.

    But what does it actually mean that an American president will assault someone’s backside ? Will he strike them physically ? Will he take away their money ? He has already ordered BP not to pay dividends to their shareholders, presumably based on some constitutional provision that only he, adjunct professor of Con Law that he was, knows. Will he have them arrested – and for what ? BP has lost billions, and surely would rather earn money selling oil than waste money cleaning up spills, and watching millions of barrels of oil literally washed away. Will Obama invite BP executives to the White House – or other officials – and chase them around, extending his foot at their derrieres as they race around the Oval Office ? If they kick back in self-defense, can they be prosecuted for assaulting the president ? And once they have had their rear ends spanked, has the president solved the problem ?  And is the message that the president wants to send to the public and impressionable youngsters not the choice use of barnyard expressions but the efficacy of settling disputes through violence ?

      Actually, no. The message the president wants to send is one that has become increasingly grating and difficult to stomach: whatever happens, anywhere, anytime, is not his fault. His faux fury briefly changes the subject, engenders discussions of propriety and classiness (or the lack thereof), so there is a respite of several days until the question re-surfaces: what exactly has President Obama – keen environmentalist that he is – done to prevent or repair the greatest environmental catastrophe ever to strike American shores ? And the answer is: nothing.

    One can fairly ask: what can he do ? What should he have done ? But no such consideration was given to  President Bush after the New Orleans levees broke in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and inundated that city. He was held to be a heartless incompetent, and led by the shrill liberal media chorus, saw his administration effectively ruined. Bu what could Bush have done ? Primary responsibility initially was in the hands of Louisiana’s Democratic governor and New Orleans’ Democratic Mayor, who at first refused Bush’s offer of the National Guard and then could not deal with the crisis. (The Mayor, in classic political form, was later re-elected despite his ineptitude.) By coincidence, I visited New Orleans less than two months before Katrina, as another hurricane was about to strike that city (it missed), causing a mass exodus that frustrated the population and led many to stay put rather than leave again when Katrina blew in. The levees themselves were long in need of refurbishing but –politics, politics – the local politicians always preferred to spend money on other projects (likely to gain them more votes) than on reinforcing infrastructure. And that is still true today, across the country. People would rather have a new park or community center built than repair an old bridge – until the bridge collapses and they rail against the politicos for their lack of foresight.

     What is most disturbing is that, yet again, Obama obsesses on deflecting fault from himself on everything, especially the economy. It is unseemly that the administration – 18 months into its term – still blames today’s economy on President Bush when, by now, Obama’s own policies – the mad spending spree that has added trillions to the national debt – have prolonged the downturn and might be thwarting the recovery. The unpopularity of the health care reform is, similarly, the fault of others – usually the evil Republicans.

     It is not only the economy. Others are at fault for Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran’s nukes, the price of oil, the environment, the Democratic losses in Congress, and Obama’s shrinking poll numbers. I don’t recall Reagan blaming Carter for the economic disaster he inherited – he changed course and implemented policies that lowered interest rates and inflation. I don’t recall Eisenhower blaming Truman for the mess he inherited in Korea (of course, I wasn’t born yet). I don’t recall Bush blaming Clinton for letting Osama bin Laden escape, and leaving the country ill-prepared for the Arab terror of 9/11. Worse than unseemly, it evinces the exact opposite of leadership. The blame game is a flight from personal responsibility that is unbecoming and un-presidential, and that – at a certain point long past – even supporters must see through.

    People always seek scapegoats, and Jews are certainly and painfully familiar with that sad dynamic. But sometimes things just happen; accidents that could not be anticipated occur and wreak great havoc. The criminal investigation is a diversion and waste of time and energy, another play in the blame game. Sure, they may find some statute predicated on recklessness (“should have known…”) for which the government can prosecute and look like heroes when they collect fines. But if “they” should have known, should the President also have known ? Oil spills are exceedingly rare. But the devastation caused is not eased by a woeful attempt to castigate others, as if the country’s Chief Executive has little influence. He has influence, but this is a good reminder that even the president is not all-powerful.

    The president does have a bully pulpit. A president takes responsibility – the country’s leading adult. The buck stops with him. If Obama has a better idea than the BP engineers, then offer it. To date, Obama’s response to the oil rig disaster has been shrill talk, firing the head (some poor Jewish woman) of the Minerals Management Agency, making speeches, holding photo ops, looking engaged – but not doing anything. If his economic policies are prolonging unemployment, then change them. If his foreign policy has left America weaker – and less popular across the globe – than under President Bush, then re-evaluate. Shift gears. Forget Bush, Mr. President. You own these problems now. Do something, or step aside. Don’t play the race card that your acolytes keep at the top of their deck, and don’t run against Bush this November or in 2012. It won’t work, and the country cannot wait.

      Based on past experience, that plea is likely to go unmet. But, even so, Obama would do well to leave people’s posteriors where they belong, and unkicked.

    When I was a trial lawyer and needed to impress upon the jury the lack of credibility of a witness due to his inconsistent statements, I would often cite one of Mark Twain’s famous aphorisms: “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”  A truth teller has only one story to relate, period.

    Which brings us to the faintly amusing tale of Congressman Joe Sestak, Democrat of Pennsylvania, now running for Senate, who revealed in February that he had been “offered a job” by the White House in order to induce him to remain in the House of Representatives and not challenge Arlen Spector, since defeated in the PA primary. Sestak spurned the offer, but from February through May, refused to elaborate and referred all questions to the White House which claimed to be fully investigating what might well be a federal crime. In May, the White House revealed without explanation that its lawyers (!) had reviewed the events and found them to be perfectly legal, a most puzzling bit of news to those who are accustomed to having the legality of any matter determined by independent prosecutors and judges rather than by one’s own attorney.

     Late Friday before the Memorial Day weekend – a perfect time to bury news – the White House, and Sestak, related the story that was three months in the making: that Bill Clinton (!) had been asked by Rahm Emanuel to offer to Sestak an unpaid position on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board if he chose not to run against Spector. It didn’t take even 30 minutes after this “three month investigation” ended to recognize that, as a sitting Congressman, Sestak was ineligible to serve in that “unpaid” capacity. Nor was it revealed how, had Sestak accepted the offer, he would have been able to support himself. Nor was it revealed – and most tellingly – why in Twain’s name did it take three months to relate the contents of a conversation that Sestak claimed took about 30 seconds ?

      It doesn’t take either a stupendous genius or a sinister conspiracy buff to comprehend that this tale, “remembered” over the course of 90 days, was a load of baloney sandwiched between nonsense and claptrap. The administration is desperately trying to (a) straddle the fence between blatant illegality and reprehensible impropriety, and (b) change the topic, and quickly. It came on the heels of a similar offer being made to Andrew Romanoff (D-Co) not to run for Senate against the incumbent there, and against the backdrop of the impending (this week) trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevitch for trying to sell Barack Obama’s old Senate seat not for a government sinecure and taxpayer money but for cold, hard cash in his own pocket. It’s the Chicago way, and if anything, Blagojevitch seems more upfront and honest about the process than all the others involved.

    Granted there is a fine line between an allusion and a specific offer, and Rod – not Rahm – was caught on tape, but everyone knows the game that is being played. The shamelessness with which the White House touts its own virtuous conduct and then flaunts the alleged imperfections of others is breathtaking. That itself is not new in politics, nor was their promise to be the most “transparent” administration ever – that is also politics as usual and let the buyer (voter) beware. What is new is the brazenness with which federal crimes are allegedly being committed, and the overt lack of interest on the part of the media and Congress in these scandals – usually natural and compelling fodder. Anyone who watches the White House daily briefing even occasionally must be struck by the number of times Press Secretary Robert Gibbs will duck tough questions by answering “I don’t know” or “I’ll get back to you” (he never does) or “read the statement” (this case) or “all that has been answered already” (this case, also). Where are the media ? And where is Congress ?

      Obama dominates the media because he dangles before them very limited access to himself. He engages reporters far less frequently than any president in modern times. He is very glib reading off a teleprompter, but he is mostly uneven, sometimes inarticulate, occasionally unintelligible and always exceptionally verbose when speaking extemporaneously. He parries questions he does not wish to answer, and when he does meet the media, he chooses for questions obscure journalists grateful for the exposure and does not allow follow-up questions to his non-answers. Case in point is this matter: he batted away a tough question about his involvement in the Sestak offer by saying an official statement will be forthcoming “shortly.” But he is the President – he can make the statement when he wishes to make it. Instead, he quickly went to the next question and the matter died. It is hard to escape the conclusion – in this and many other areas – that the White House press corps, predominantly liberals, gives him a pass, thereby neglecting their own jobs in the process.

     Every president skirts the law on occasion, but why are some persecuted and others celebrated ? For example, it is clear that Richard Nixon conducted his White House and violated laws in ways that were quite similar to John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson – special ops, enemies’ lists, using the IRS to harass opponents, etc. So why was Nixon made out to be the scoundrel and hounded from office ?

     Here’s the theory: when one party controls the White House and the Congress, the President will enjoy – more or less – a free ride. So, the Democrats controlled Congress during the Kennedy-Johnson administrations – smooth sailing. The Democrats controlled Congress during the Nixon era – near impeachment and then resignation. Democrats controlled Congress during the Carter years – he is unscathed. Reagan benefitted from Republican control of the Senate during his first six years in office – great. The Democrats took back the Senate in 1986 – the Iran-Contra investigation ensued.

     Fast forward almost a decade. The Republicans won control of the Congress in 1994 – four years later Bill Clinton was impeached. Republicans lost the House in 2006 – Bush had huge problems thereafter, with the constant threat of impeachment (never acted upon) hanging over his head. Obama, according to this, benefits from a Democrat-controlled Congress. No wonder he is cajoling people to run – or not run – based on his projections as to who can best guarantee a Democrat majority in Congress.  Now he can stonewall any investigation of this or any other matter; if Republicans take power, expect a wave of subpoenas and investigations. Sad, but that is politics.

    But how did Bill Clinton get involved in all this ? His relations with Obama have always been chilly. Now we know that he visited the White House for several hours the day before this story was hatched – what gives ? I don’t know. What I suspect is that Clinton, too, is fairly immune from subpoena, does not allow easy access to the media and therefore cannot be questioned by inquisitive reporters, and is cagey enough to extract a quid pro quo from the administration, if they successfully pull off this cover-up.

    What ? Speculation:  Joe Biden will be respectfully bounced from the ticket in 2012, and replaced by Hillary Clinton. You read it here first. Until then, and unless Blagojevitch ruffles too many feathers (including but not limited to forcing Rahm Emanuel to testify at his trial), this Sestak/Romanoff story is not likely to have much traction – until election time, when the voters might recall that the good thing about the truth is that you should only have one story to remember.