reflectivepundit

The AWOL President: Debt Ceiling Drama Unfolds Without Obama in Lead Role

By Brigitte L. Nacos

As the deadline nears in the debt ceiling saga with fault lines along the ideological more than traditional partisan mores, the only game in town is now unfolding in the halls of Congress. House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid play the lead roles with some of their colleagues in the supporting cast.  President Obama and the White House are at best bit players whose few words are crowded out by those on center stage. I have no idea why the president has left the stage to the legislative branch but whatever the reason, his non-role in the final act of this theater of the absurd will not enhance the short-term and long-term evaluation of his presidential performance during this rather serious crisis.  

It seems that leaders in both congressional chambers try to find some way to lift the debt ceiling and prevent the unknown consequences of default. Boehner has to content with the uncompromising extremists of his Republican Party’s Tea Party wing and is in an even more difficult situation than Reid who tries to win over progressive Democrats. But even if both were to win enough support in their respective chambers, the would be little hope for reconciling the two positions.

One of the unanswered questions is whether the insurgent Tea Partiers can be appeased by deep pocket interest groups. Just like Faust made a pact with the devil that came to haunt him, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups made last year a pact with radical Republican candidates allied with the Tea Party that has come to haunt them. Although the business groups poured millions of dollars into the campaigns of anti-government candidates, they are trying in vain to convince the now Tea Partiers in Congress to vote in favor of a higher debt ceiling—at this point Boehner’s plan.  At the moment, the flawed proposals by Boehner and Reid have not enough support for adoption.  

When major problems arise, it is up to presidents to take the lead in coming up with solutions and selling those to the public. Yes, the president has utilized his unique bully pulpit several times in efforts to enlist support for bi-partisan cooperation and compromise in order to solve the debt ceiling mess. But when the various sides are as polarized as they are in Washington and in the nation for years, the president cannot abandon his role as the only leader in Washington who has been elected by a nation-wide electorate. Nobody in the congress has such a mandate. Leaving the stage to others in this situation is contrary to the president’s obligation to lead.  

An AWOL president will not do.Unless Obama is prepared to invoke the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution when push comes to shove (his press secretary insists that he is not), his no-role may well come to haunt us—and his presidency as well. 

Glenn Beck’s Out of Control Bigotry: If the Labor Party’s Political Youth Camp in Norway “Sounds a Little Like the Hitler Youth,” What about the Political Kids Camps of his Own 9-12 Tea Party Project?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Most of the bodies of the terrorism victims in Oslo were not yet identified, when right-extremist hate monger Glenn Beck shot his mouth off in an unbelievable insult of those victims and their families, friends, and all of Norway.  This is what he told his radio audience:

“Saturday I was following the news of the shooting in Norway and the explosion in Norway, which happened what on Friday…When we heard the explosion everybody was willing to say, it’s Muslim extremists, it’s Muslim extremists. I don’t think we made a comment on it because we didn’t know other than a bombing had happened, and as the thing started to unfold and there was a shooting a political camp, which sounds a little like the Hitler Youth or you know whatever. Who does a camp for kids that’s all about politics? Disturbing.”

Well, Mr. Beck, if you would know more about the world than your narrow but so lucrative niche of divisive demagoguery and hate mongering, you would not insult the long Western European tradition of all kinds of organizations--right, left, and in the middle--, including political parties, to get young people interested in public affairs. This is one reason why the average Europeans tends to be far better informed about public affairs than the average American and would be less likely to be fooled by your tirades.

By comparing the Labor Party’s youth division that organized the camp on the island of Utoya for its members to the Third Reich’s Hitler Youth, Beck wittingly or unwittingly seems to imply a motive for the massacre.

Just as stunning is Beck’s condemnation of camps for kids that are political in nature. He conveniently “forgot” that the 9-12 Project, his own prominent Tea Party initiative, organizes political camps in various state sections for children actually much younger than those participating in the Utoya camp in Norway.

Here is an excerpt from one on-line invitation for such a 9-12 Tea Party camp:

Norway’s Terrorism Nightmare Reminiscent of the Oklahoma City Bombing

By Brigitte L. Nacos

What unfolded yesterday in Oslo and on the nearby island of Utoya was eerily reminiscent of the catastrophic Oklahoma City Bombing. Sixteen years ago, when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was destroyed, the mainstream media and terrorism experts immediately blamed Arabs, Middle Easterners, or Muslims for the attack. Yesterday, media and experts were just as hasty in pointing their fingers at Islamic terrorists, most likely associated with Al Qaeda or like-minded groups they said. In both cases, it did not take long for the police to arrest the perpetrators: in Oklahoma City Timothy McVeigh, a right-wing extremist with ties to a Christian Identity group; in Norway Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing, self-described conservative Christian and admirer of Geert Wilders, whose Dutch Party fights multiculturalism and the “Islamisation” of the Netherlands and the West.  

As Karen Armstrong has noted, “every culture has extremists and fundamentalists who in no way represent the mainstream.” To be sure, in our time, extremists in the Muslim world and the Western diaspora have been responsible for the by far largest number of terrorist attacks. But as the Norwegian case demonstrates anew, it is at Western countries’ own peril if they ignore the threat of violence from extremists in their midst who are not and have nothing in common with Muslims.

But that's a fact that conservatives in Washington and elsewhere do not want to acknowledge. Soon after Barack Obama became president, the Department of Homeland Security released a report about a potential threat of terrorism from right-wing extremists inside the U.S., including some soldiers and veterans. There was a storm of protests against the analysis (which was mostly compiled during the Bush administration) because, as conservatives claimed, it was an insult to all patriotic members of the military and veterans. The report was no such thing but raised justified questions about the make-up and recruiting grounds of the right-extremist milieu. A number of foiled terror plots by right-wing extremists in the last two years or so have shown that the report's warnings were justified. Yet, while Republicans in Congress are very interested in staging hearings on radicalization in Muslim American communities, they show no interest in right-wing extremism.

To return to the similarities between the 27-year old Oklahoma City bomber McVeigh and the 32-year old Norwegian terrorist Breivik, both masterminded and executed the attacks. It is possible that Breivik, like McVeigh, had an accomplice or accomplices.  Like McVeigh, the Norwegian acquired tons of fertilizer to build a devastating car bomb. I would not be surprised to learn that Breivik took a page or two from McVeigh’s widely reported terror script. Unlike the typical perpetrators of school shootings and similar massacres who tend to kill themselves after their killing sprees, Breivik followed McVeigh’s example and seemed content with being arrested by police. This way, he has a chance to talk about his motives—just as Timothy did at great length during his time in prison.

What Ever Happened to Obama’s “Yes, We Can” Promise?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Remember those days and weeks of the 2008 election campaign, when candidate Barack Obama inspired many Americans, especially the young, with his yes-we-can optimism? Although his predecessor left behind an economic and fiscal wreck, there was an invigorating essence in the 44^th president’s message of change for the better--not just for the upper crust but for all Americans. Nearly three years later, there is little or nothing left of the yes-we-can spirit. And although the recession is technically over for a while, an unemployment rate of more than 9 percent signals that there has not been a change for the better for the mass of Americans. Never mind that the profits of corporations and the wealth of bigwigs have grown significantly.

So, what went wrong with Obama’s promise of yesteryear?

The current political maneuvers surrounding the debt ceiling melodrama may provide some answers. This morning, under the headline “White House thinks it has debt debate high ground,” POLITICO writes that “Obama, vilified by opponents for ducking the debt debate earlier this year, has seized the opportunity to portray himself as the champion of a $4 trillion ‘grand bargain’ on tax and entitlement reform. A senior aide is quoted as saying, “He’s got the high ground. He’s the adult in the room. He’s looking good right now.”

Looking good to whom? Certainly not to the large number of Americans who struggle to make ends meet whether they are employed or unable to find a job. Certainly not to the men and women in uniform who risk their lived to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban and who wouldn’t have neutralized Osama bin Laden and scores of other terrorist leaders without cooperating in their dangerous missions.

Nobody is a champion in the political and partisan infighting in Washington. There is a lack of courageous leadership and the will to do what is right and fair and just regardless of the political consequences.

Just as the pitiful bunch of the Republican “leaders” in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate is held hostage by a tiny number of so-called grass root Tea Party activists, the president is held hostage by reelection consideration and the assumption that Independents and moderate Democrats want him to cooperate and compromise with the opposition regardless of the price. That’s precisely what he did months ago, when he agreed to the continuation of the Bush tax cuts, even for the highest income group, and their devastating effects on the budget deficit. That’s what he did, when he decided on the 30,000 number of the Afghanistan surge, giving the generals not all they wanted and throwing Vice President Joe Biden and other opponents a little bone as well.

To be sure, governing is different from campaigning. But although cynics may not believe this, research has found that literally all presidents make great efforts to translate their campaign promises into actual policies. In most agenda points, not all, presidents are quite successful.