The Political Junkies
archived: 14 - 20 Aug, 2005 Back Next
UPDATED: August 18, 2005
BEHIND THE CURTIN
Doug Thompson, the publisher of Capitol Hill Blue, a highly respected web site and a well sourced writer of inside the belt way politics, describes the current state of Bush’s White House:
Buy beleaguered, overworked White House aides enough drinks and they tell a sordid tale of an administration under siege, beset by bitter staff infighting and led by a man whose mood swings suggest paranoia bordering on schizophrenia.
They describe a President whose public persona masks an angry, obscenity-spouting man who berates staff, unleashes tirades against those who disagree with him and ends meetings in the Oval Office with “get out of here!”
In fact, George W. Bush’s mood swings have become so drastic that White House emails often contain “weather reports” to warn of the President’s demeanor. “Calm seas” means Bush is calm while “tornado alert” is a warning that he is pissed at the world.
Decreasing job approval ratings and increased criticism within his own party drives the President’s paranoia even higher. Bush, in a meeting with senior advisors, called Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist a “god-damned traitor” for opposing him on stem-cell research.
“There’s real concern in the West Wing that the President is losing it,” a high-level aide told me recently.
A year ago, this web site discovered the White House physician prescribed anti-depressants for Bush. The news came after revelations that the President’s wide mood swings led some administration staffers to doubt his sanity. – Capitol Hill Blue
Does this explain why Bush refuses to meet with Cindy?
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UPDATED: August 16, 2005
DARK CLOUDS OVER THE
REPUBLICAN HORIZON?
Authored by
Eric Cox
In a recent address carried on C-SPAN, the perceptive Hendrik Hertzberg opined that the GOP will control Congress for many years. He could be correct. Republicans are better funded than Democrats, better organized, and may have the intensity factor in their favor, with some voters taking direction directly from God.
But one can argue that a number of negative factors taken together may spell danger for the party next year and in 2008. Of these factors, maybe the most important is that the president continues to sink in the polls, thereby no longer serving as a back stop for their candidates. Much of his lost support is from an Iraq war that is not going well and which almost all Republicans supported. A recent Zogby poll was an eye-opener. It revealed that 42% of voters favor impeaching the President if it is established that he lied about the reasons for going to war, with 25% of Republicans agreeing. By contrast when Clinton faced impeachment, only l4% of Democrats favored it. And conditions in Iraq could go from bad to worse, with public opinion forcing the withdrawal of our troops. If so the signature of the Republican foreign policy would be replacing a non-threatening, secular, socialist government led by a monster with civil war, a theocratic government and an enhanced magnet for terrorists.
There is more. The unresolved charges against Delay and Rove have a downward pull, as do the huge debt, deficit and trade imbalance and for some, the increase in the scope and size of the federal government. Added to these factors is the charge that the Republicans have overreached with the Shiavo case and with privatizing Social Security. And if the housing bubble bursts, a serious recession may ensue with many lost jobs.
These factors, taken together, could spell gains next years for Democrats in Congress, even to the extent of recapturing one of the chambers. But the most dramatic change could come from the next presidential election. If the contest is between Hillary and Frist, she may well win. Frist lacks charisma and Hillary is often underrated. In two Gallup polls, she was rated as the most respected woman in the nation. Moreover, voters would get two for one with her. Never has there been a presidential candidate with a spouse who is a former popular and effective president.
An unknowable factor may loom, however. If there is another serious terrorist attack here, voters may rally to the party in power if Democrats cannot sustain the argument that the administration has neglected domestic security in favor of the lure of fighting enemies abroad.
Fasten your seat belts. We could have a rough ride ahead.
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Junkie: It is difficult to remember that just six months ago that Republicans were openly speaking in terms of making their Party the majority Party of the future. Cox correctly notes that much has changed in six months – even more will change before the 2006 mid-term elections.
From the Democratic Party perspective, some were reading the Party its last rites. One perceives that hope is springing from the gloom of the General Election.
Junkie Editor Michael Carmichael looks at the Republican Party’s current standing today. Carmichael particularly focuses on the fault lines developing in the neoconservative movement as reflected in recent press articles. Simply a must read for all Democrats.
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THE REALITY
So much has been written in the past sixty days about Bush’s intentions in Iraq. As American public sentiment on the war has fallen, various Bush administration officials started talk of a graduated reduction in forces starting next year. Other writes noted that Bush was no longer talking about a “war on terrorism,” but “world wide struggle with extremism.”
From TPJ’s perspective, Bush is attempting to “reframe” the issues surrounding Iraq. We covered the issue here: TPJ, War on Terrorism. But, a frame is only the frame; the picture in Iraq does not change. A top US military official perceptively noted that reframing the politics does not change the reality in Iraq:
Iraq's leaders and military will be unable to lead the fight against insurgents until next summer at the earliest, a top U.S. military official said Wednesday, trying to temper any hopes that a full-scale American troop withdrawal was imminent as Iraq moves toward elections scheduled for December.
Both Americans and Iraqis need "to start thinking about and talking about what it's really going to be like in Iraq after elections," said the military official, who spoke in an interview on the condition he not be named. "I think the important point is there's not going to be a fundamental change."
The official stressed that it was "important to calibrate expectations post-elections. I've been saying to folks: You're still going to have an insurgency, you're still going to have a dilapidated infrastructure, you're still going to have decades of developmental problems both on the economic and the political side." -- MSNBC
Then Sec. of State Colin Powell told Bush prior to the war that if he invaded that he would “own it.” It is the only frame that fits.
Democrats simply need to stay on message. The United States is stuck in Iraq and Bush and the Republican neoconservatives; who would not listen, even to some of those in their own administration, put us there. For those who follow the Bush “frame” that Iraq is better today, remind them that July was the deadliest month for US troops in Iraq since the war concluded.
On the record, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey reported to Bush:
"It's a race against time because by the end of this coming summer we can no longer sustain the presence we have now," said retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who visited Iraq most recently in June and briefed Cheney, Rice and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "This thing, the wheels are coming off it." – Washington Post
PUTTING OUT THE FIRE WITH GASOLINE?
The price of crude oil topped another nominal record Friday; $67.00. Americans are starting to see the effects of higher prices.
First, the Federal Reserve imposed another ¼% increase in its interest rate and appears ready to increase interest rates through the rest of the year. – Market Watch
Second, mortgage interest rates are moving higher as the Federal Reserve increases lending rates. The average of 30-year rates paid this week is up from last week's 5.82% and tops last year's 5.85%, according to the survey issued Thursday. Not since hitting 5.91% in the week ended April 14 have long-term mortgage financing costs been this high recently. – Market Watch Individuals with adjustable rate mortgages will begin experiencing payment increases.
Third, the U.S. trade deficit in June was the third highest in history, $58.8 billion for the month. The trade deficit was up chiefly because of (a) soaring oil prices and (b) a surge of textiles and apparel from China. The United States bought nearly $20 billion of foreign oil in June, the highest monthly total ever. Chinese textile imports have surged since the end of quotas on January 1 by 57.8%. – SF Gate
Bottom line, Bush’s “free trade” policy has not resulted in fair trade. Americans are paying the price. China is keeping its currency artificially low, making the cost of Chinese textiles artificially low. American manufacturers cannot compete, and it is costing Americans jobs.
"The trade data released by the U.S. government today demonstrates that the job-killing import surge from China continues unabated,'' said Auggie Tantillo, executive director of the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, in a statement Friday.”The U.S. government needs to negotiate an effective, comprehensive agreement to limit U.S. textile and apparel imports from China to stop the job losses.'' – SF Gate
China had a record $162 billion surplus with the United States in 2004, and a $17.6 billion surplus just in June, 2005.
Fourth, gasoline at the pump increased again this week, the national average price for regular grade gasoline rose 1.6 cents Friday to a record $2.413 a gallon according to AAA, 30 percent higher than a year earlier. – Newsday
JOBS
Bush has been touting job growth in the United States of recent, claiming that his tax cuts have spurred the increase.
Paul Craig Roberts has authored an analysis of the recent numbers that belies Bush’s claims. Roberts served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.
The public heard that 207,000 jobs were created in July. If not a reassuring figure, at least it is not a disturbing one. On the surface things look to be pretty much OK. It is when you look into the composition of these jobs that the concern arises.
Of the new jobs, 26,000 (about 13%) are tax-supported government jobs. That leaves 181,000 private sector jobs. Of these private sector jobs, 177,000, or 98%, are in the domestic service sector.
Here is the breakdown of the major categories:
• 30,000 food servers and bar tenders;
• 28,000 health care and social assistance:
• 12,000 real estate;
• 6,000 credit intermediation;
• 8,000 transit and ground passenger transportation;
• 50,000 retail trade; and
• 8,000 wholesale trade.
(There were 7,000 construction jobs, most of which were filled by Mexicans immigrants.)
Not a single one of these jobs produces a tradable good or service that can be exported or serve as an import substitute to help reduce the massive and growing US trade deficit. The US economy is employing people to sell things, to move people around, and to serve them fast food and alcoholic beverages. The items may have an American brand name, but they are mainly made off shore. For example, 70% of Wal-Mart’s goods are made in China.
Where are the jobs for the 65,000 engineers the US graduates each year? Where are the jobs for the physics, chemistry, and math majors? Who needs a university degree to wait tables and serve drinks, to build houses, to work as hospital orderlies, bus drivers, and sales clerks?
In the 21st century job growth in the US economy has consistently reflected that of a Third World country--low productivity domestic services jobs. This goes on month after month and no one catches on--least of all the economists and the policymakers.
Economists assume that every high productivity, high paying job that is shipped out of the country is a net gain for America. We are getting things cheaper, they say. Perhaps, for a while, until the dollar goes. What the cheaper goods argument overlooks are the reductions in the productivity and pay of employed Americans and in the manufacturing, technical, and scientific capability of the US economy.
What is the point of higher education when the job opportunities in the economy do not require it? – Counter Punch
From a political perspective, the message for Democrats may be as simple as this analysis found at Daily Kos:
On average, Bush's economy has created 393,000 new jobs per year.
On average, Clinton created 2.75 million per year.
Last Update: 04/23/2006