Anne Richards, the late Governor of Texas, once said that the man who succeeded her — George W. Bush — was born “with a silver foot in his mouth.” Mitt Romney suffers from the same disease. Over the weekend, he told the Conservative Political Action Conference that he was a “severely conservative governor.” It was an interesting choice of words. And as awkward as the phrase might be, it surely describes today’s Republican Party.

Jeffrey Simpson reminds his readers that the people who now populate Republican ranks have been around for a long time:

Anyone with a passing acquaintance with U.S. history understands the power of the appeal that less government is the best defence of liberty. They will also know that, in such a diverse country, with so many regional, religious and ethnic cleavages, social and political movements of all sorts have always sprouted.

That evangelicals are so powerful today harkens back to the Pilgrims and the Quakers, the Great Revivals, William Jennings Bryan, spiritualists, Social Gospellers, Billy Graham, the Elmer Gantry types and all the television evangelists of past and present.

That Mr. Paul’s supporters are isolationists to the core recalls Washington’s “no foreign entanglements,” Charles Lindberg, William McCormick and the many other Midwestern isolationists of yesteryear. That rank-and-file Republicans see conspiracies against their liberties from within and without reminds us of witch hunts from Salem to Joe McCarthy.

That Fox News roasts the President echoes Father Charles Coughlin’s radio programs blasting Franklin D. Roosevelt. That the two parties are so divided on almost everything is nothing new, since, in the early decades of the new country, Federalists and Republicans fought over everything. Even such an idealized persona as Thomas Jefferson paid newspaper hacks to write scurrilous articles about his principal rival, John Adams. That race underpins voting patterns and social attitudes is nothing new at all.

What is new is that all of what used to be fringe elements have taken centre stage in the 21st Century Republican Party. That is no accident of history. Paul Krugman writes that it is the result of a strategy which has gone horribly wrong:

For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy — a process that reached its epitome when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America’s defender against gay married terrorists, then announced that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security.

Over time, however, this strategy created a base that really believed in all the hokum — and now the party elite has lost control.

The patients have taken over the asylum. It’s no wonder that the GOP is so severely misguided.

However, Obama did previously take a strong stand in opposition to the SuperPACs. This position apparently changed when he became convinced that his unwillingness to seek financing for his own SuperPACs would place him at a competitive disadvantage in his current campaign for re-election. While the SuperPACs of the Republican candidates are engaged mainly in internecine warfare at the moment, they are still managing to fire regular broadsides at the president.

The organization tied to Mitt Romney, Restore Our Future, raised $18 million from two hundred donors in the second half of last year, with 10% of the billionaires in America contributing. Newt Gingrich’s campaign is being kept alive by one man, Sheldon Adelson, the hotel and gambling magnate, with him and his wife having donated $10 million to the Gingrich SuperPAC, Win Our Future. The SuperPAC of Rick Santorum, the Red, White and Blue Fund, is being supported by Foster Freiss, a wealthy backer of conservative causes. Though the Republican candidates and SuperPACs are fighting each other now, their antipathy for Obama will drive them to unite around the ultimate nominee, which means that all of their financing and vitriol will be directed at the president. In fact, Adelson has apparently already communicated his intention to donate money to support Romney if he is the nominee. And Karl Rove’s Republican SuperPAC, American Crossroads, collected $51 million last year, with an objective of an additional $200 million to be used in this year’s elections.

Did Obama have any alternative to trying to generate funds for his own Democratic SuperPAC? Obviously, there is some heavy financial artillery arrayed against him. But one of Obama’s strengths in the 2008 campaign resided in his ability to attract multiple donors to contribute small amounts for him over the Internet and through other channels. This time around, he already collected over $224 million for his campaign and the Democratic Party in 2011, with the efforts continuing this year. So he will not exactly be facing his Republican opponent “unilaterally disarmed” as Jim Messina, his campaign manager, claimed. However, direct donations to the presidential campaigns by any individual are capped at $2500 for this election cycle and $30,800 to party committees. There are no limits on donations to the SuperPACs, allowing huge sums to be harvested from a small number of contributors. This includes individuals, corporations, unions and other entities, making fundraising a lot simpler.

The SuperPACs are an invitation to corruption, with special interests able to buy support for their favored candidates with enormous sums. If President Obama had stuck to his guns in denouncing the SuperPACs and refused to use them in his current campaign, he would have held the moral high ground against his Republican opponent. Obama’s position would have elicited sympathy and backing from much of the electorate, fed up with the way special interests use money to dominate the political conversation. What’s more, it would have bolstered Obama’s standing with independent voters who strongly favor restrictions on campaign financing. And perhaps his viewpoint would have generated even more donations from an angry public to counter the SuperPACs. Now, Obama is just another candidate trying to raise as much money as possible to enhance his presidential race.

Obama’s current reversal mirrors a similar occurrence during the 2008 election cycle. Though John McCain and Obama had previously agreed on public financing for the presidential campaign, Obama reneged on the agreement when he realized that his fundraising would far surpass his opponent’s. It appears that whatever ideals Obama espouses when not under pressure, in the heat of an election battle he’s willing to do whatever he thinks is necessary to help him get elected. That’s what politicians do.

Resurrecting Democracy

A VietNam vet and a Columbia history major who became a medical doctor, Bob Levine has watched the evolution of American politics over the past 40 years with increasing alarm. He knows he’s not alone. Partisan grid-lock, massive cash contributions and even more massive expenditures on lobbyists have undermined real democracy, and there is more than just a whiff of corruption emanating from Washington. If the nation is to overcome lockstep partisanship, restore growth to the economy and bring its debt under control, Levine argues that it will require a strong centrist third party to bring about the necessary reforms. Levine’s previous book, Shock Therapy For the American Health Care System took a realist approach to health care from a physician’s informed point of view; Resurrecting Democracy takes a similar pragmatic approach, putting aside ideology and taking a hard look at facts on the ground. In his latest book, Levine shines a light that cuts through the miasma of party propaganda and reactionary thinking, and reveals a new path for American politics. This post is cross posted from his blog.

Such statements were doubtless well-meant, but they never resonated with most Americans. There are few historical, cultural, political or economic links between Americans and Georgians in the south Caucuses, or Uighurs (pronounced Weegers), an ethnic minority in China.

Things are very different when it comes to the current agony of Greece. There are millions of Greek-Americans who play an important part in our national life, and often still have close ties with Greece. Many millions more Americans have visited Greece and come to love the country. This is one reason why it might be said, watching the news about its present agonies, that we are all Greeks today.

The economic aspect of the ongoing Greek tragedy is also felt here by many. Our country, like many others in the world, is feeling the effects of a creeping austerity. Thankfully, its extent and dimensions on these shores pales compared to the massive wage, benefit and employment cuts in Greece. Yet the lesson of spending that is totally out of sync with benefit growth or tax collections is clear. Another reason why we might identify with Greece and its people today.

For me, however, the most personally felt tragedy of this Greek agony, what makes it so viscerally upsetting, is the way it is playing out politically. Put simply: Greek democracy is dying.

The iconic democracy of the world, the country that not only gave us this system of government but lent us its name, is in very important ways a democracy no more. Moneyed foreign interests and their representatives, a consortium of markets, banks and Germans, run the place, call the shots, determine Greek policies, determine its future, merely using domestically elected officials to put a formal face on their rule.

Is this the future of democracy generally? In this flagrant, blatant and unashamed form, is this what is creeping into place everywhere, including in these United States? Money that doesn’t even bother hiding its rule but shoves it in your ace and dares you to do something about it?

If so, we truly are all Greeks today. Something that should make us all very, very afraid.

More from this writer at blog.wallstreet.com

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza (10 February 2012)

WASHINGTON – It was done ugly. But let’s not miss this moment.

Let’s also not be seduced into believing Pres. Obama did something he did not. He didn’t force anything on religious institutions or on “all Americans”, as has been claimed on cable, as well as the Wall Street Journal.

Let’s also not forget that the 1st Amendment swings both ways and that individuals are as protected from religion as institutions are from the government, something that is getting lost in all this. Considering one of the primary reasons the New Americans fled England, this is rather stunning. As an Episcopalian who now practices daily meditation as my primary mode of spiritual connection, the dishonesty being used when citing the 1st Amendment during this discussion has been as telling as the purposeful misinformation.

The furor forced the White House to make a final move Friday, with Pres. Obama starring.

It was insanity, except that Pres. Obama walked into battle with the majority of Americans behind him, including 99% of adult women who rely on birth control in their lives, including for serious medicinal purposes. It was a moment of promise reminiscent of how Obama came into the White House, except this time the media was tearing him apart instead of propping him up. A moment when Obama’s die hard supporters could say, this is the guy I voted for; when people could believe again, if only for a moment.

I’m not one of those people, never have been.

I’ve written innumerable columns about Pres. Obama’s continual inability to find a purpose or policy compass, while channeling Bush on foreign policy decisions and terror policy, over which progressives give him a pass. And one can only imagine if Pres. Obama would have understood the amount of energy and people power behind him when the health care debate began. These issues are real and troubling, with the cumulative compromise and capitulation to the right, including economically, remaining an irreconcilable situation.

That, however, doesn’t negate that the cosmos shifted on Friday.

Let’s skip over the flaws in the strong moral position position. Such as the fact that many states already require employers’ health care plans to cover contraception and that all over the United States there are Catholic universities and hospitals that comply.

Or that the bishops have totally failed to convince their own faithful that birth control is a moral evil and now appear to be trying to get the federal government to do the job for them. We’re rising above all that.

The Battle Behind the Fight, by Gail Collins

While everyone talked about the Catholic Church, religion and the 1st Amendment, women inside the Administration, dare I say including Michelle Obama, knew that the women employees of Catholic and other religious institutions needed to have their own 1st Amendment rights protected. If not, it would mean the female employees wouldn’t have the same rights or coverage as other women working at a non-religious institution.

Pres. Obama, the constitutional lawyer, knows the 1st Amendment goes both ways and decided to use a scalpel to manifest policy and an implementation that gave everyone what they wanted. A unicorn materialized, wrote Markos Moulitsas.

Except… If anyone heard Sean Hannity on Friday you were in for the laugh of your life, while seeing this will become the fight of the election, at least until they read the polls or turn to make it all about government intrusion, their only hope. There are consequences for adult behavior, Hannity railed, harping against free, free, free birth control. He was actually parroting the Catholic bishop line, which was rooted in being against, though I can’t believe it’s the 21st century and I’m writing this, women having sex for pleasure. Flashback:

“I don’t want to overstate or understate our level of concern,” said McQuade, the Catholic bishops’ spokesperson. “We consider [birth control] an elective drug. Married women can practice periodic abstinence. Other women can abstain altogether. Not having sex doesn’t make you sick.” – Dana Goldstein (h/t Alternet and Amanda Marcotte)

Not having sex doesn’t make you sick.

This coming from a man representing celibate Catholic bishops who are part of a worldwide organization that was guilty of ignoring, protecting and hiding pedophile priests who sexually preyed on young boys for decades and decades; we’ll leave the nuns for next time.

All of this with a backdrop that featured a Super Bowl ad with Clint Eastwood praising the American car company comeback, which was orchestrated by the Obama administration, causing a furor for days. Karl Rove’s reaction precipitating Eastwood making a statement he wasn’t Obama’s guy. Heaven forbid. Even though bailing out the U.S. auto industry, part of our American heritage, ingenuity and genius, is saving part our national soul.

This isn’t working out like the Republicans expected. Not for Mitt Romney either, who is now stuck with one-upping Rick Santorum who is railing about the guillotine.

Now Sen. Roy Blunt, from my home state of Missouri, the same far right religious pack who brought Rick Santorum a win, has announced legislation to deny women the physical, emotional and economic freedoms Pres. Obama just gave them, to appease what ails the right. Republicans are evidently getting ready to fight 99% of the women in this country, including suburban Republicans and independents who use birth control and want their daughters to grow up with that safety net, too.

They’ve obviously snapped. Who wouldn’t? Beaten by Barack Obama. It’s got to be a bummer.

I’m elated.

Obama’s not down, he’s up and he’s just scored the biggest win for American women in a hundred years, ballpark.

Think about it. There’s serious and important history being made here.

For modern women, the stress level is about to be lowered, as are their monthly bills. Think of all the energy and potential to be unleashed. This freedom is personal, emotional and economical, unless Mitt and Rick get the opportunity to repeal free birth control.

Free contraceptive coverage for modern women, regardless of means or status, is what Social Security and other entitlements are for seniors and the poor.

Wait until that sinks in.

Taylor Marsh is the author of the new book, The Hillary Effect – Politics, Sexism and the Destiny of Loss, which is now available in print on Amazon. Marsh is a veteran political analyst and commentator. She has been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her new media blog.

. But it shows why Palin is such an effective Republican political celebrity — one who will be able to help work to get a big chunk of the GOP out to the polls. The key here is her spirited call for party unity, no matter who the party nominee is. She could play an important role for Republicans in 2012.

The Hill:

If Sarah Palin had been on the ballot for the straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference, there is little doubt she would have won.

The former Alaska governor received far-and-away the most spirited and enthusiastic reception at this convention of about 10,000 conservative activists.

She drew the audience to its feet more than a dozen times during her keynote address on Saturday.

Palin made it clear that she felt a brokered convention would not be that bad an idea since it would maximize the chances for a serious party debate. And that she feels former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney needs to do more. Here is a video of her complete speech, which of course also mentions “a biased media”. Palin articulates and channels resentments but also shows her own at her 2008 experience in dealing with Republican Party bigwigs and the press.

UPDATE: The Christian Science Monitor asks whether the race has now moved beyond her:

In the years since she and 2008 Republican ticket front-runner John McCain went their separate ways, Palin became a small industry – public speaker, author, reality TV star, Fox News commentator, and potential presidential candidate who made tons of money while tantalizing millions of tea party supporters around the country with suggestions that she might run this year.

But polls show most Americans (including most Republicans) don’t think she’s qualified to be president, and through 2011 until the present, her approval ratings continued to drop – down to 38 percent favorable and 56 percent unfavorable, according to one CNN survey.

Donations to her political action committee dropped sharply during the second half of 2011. “Palin’s relatively meager second half haul came despite heavy spending on fundraising and a bus tour that fanned speculation that she might seek the GOP presidential nomination,” Politico reported recently.

And that slide from favor may eventually hurt her financially, particularly in her pitch for another “reality” TV show.

Hollywood Reporter put it this way recently:

“So far, networks have balked at the steep asking price…. Another obstacle is Palin’s waning status as a cultural lightning rod. The former Alaska governor burst onto the scene as the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate with a compelling personal storyline and outspoken conservatism that made her the darling of the right and a target of the left, helping her land a $1 million annual contract with Fox News.…. Says one network insider, ‘I think it’s safe to say her time has passed.’”

As part of her interview she discussed the fact that she was the first member of Congress to give birth to a child and the first to be granted maternity leave. It struck me that today that would hardly be a big deal, indeed outside of the human nature part of the story I doubt many would report it.

But for the era, it was a big deal. Indeed in 1964 there was a movie, Kisses For My President, in which the first female President (Polly Bergen) decides to resign after learning she is pregnant.

This brings up both the idea that we have made progress and that it entirely possible that at some point in the future we might face a pregnant President.

And I suspect we will deal with it as we now do with pregnant members of Congress.

UPDATE:

A wave of unusually severe cold is gripping Europe. But the weather is not the only thing that is chilling over there. Under the headline “A Chilling Verdict in Spain,” the New York Times reports that “The enemies of Judge Baltasar Garzón have finally gotten their way” as Spain’s Supreme Court has found Judge Garzón guilty of misapplying the country’s wiretap law and suspended him from the courts for 11 years.

The 7-0 ruling flowed out of a 2008 corruption case in which the judge ordered wiretaps of conversations between lawyers and their clients.

According to the Times:

Judge Garzón was not alone in ordering those wiretaps, but he alone was prosecuted, even while the public prosecutor argued that there were no grounds for a criminal proceeding. Convicting a jurist over a court ruling is an appalling attack on judicial independence. Two other cases against him are pending — one involving his inquiry into mass killings during the civil war and the Franco dictatorship, and another concerning allegations of conflict of interest in a tax fraud case.

Judge Garzón is far from perfect, but the decision by the Spanish Supreme Court to remove him from the bench is enormously damaging to the prospects of fair and impartial justice. What investigating magistrate would not now hesitate before pursuing politically sensitive cases? Will the Franco-era crimes that scarred Spain for two generations remain forever uninvestigated?

Apparently, Judge Garzón cannot appeal this decision in the Spanish court system, but he could challenge it in Spain’s Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

Mr. Garzón has already accepted a consulting position at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Perhaps he can continue his pursuit of justice from there.

Read more here.

====

Back in March 2009, a Spanish court took the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former high-level Bush administration officials violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The case was sent to the prosecutor’s office for review by none other than Judge Baltasar Garzón, Europe’s best-known counter-terrorism magistrate, renowned for his determination and his abilities to bring suspects to justice, no matter how powerful or where they may be—and especially for terrorism and human rights abuses.

His targets have included the al-Qaeda 9/11 and Madrid bombings perpetrators, the infamous Chilean General Pinochet, ETA and related Basque terrorist organizations, Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organizations operating in the Maghreb region, including Spanish enclaves in Morocco, Argentine ex-naval officer Adolfo Scilingo who was convicted of crimes against humanity and others.

I don’t know where the case against Bush administration officials stands right now and, for the sake of letting bygones be bygones, I will not pursue that at the moment — especially since mine would be the proverbial voice in the wilderness.

However, the present government in Spain, by no means a voice in the wilderness, apparently does believe in letting bygones be bygones or, as they say in Spain “lo pasado, pasado está” as, according to the New York Times:

… Judge Garzón is now himself under legal attack for confronting Spain’s own dark history. He is on trial this week before the Spanish Supreme Court for daring to investigate crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War and the nearly four-decade dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco. The case against him is fueled by domestic political vendettas rather than substantive legal arguments and it could dramatically set back international efforts to hold human-rights violators accountable for their crimes.

The case stems from Judge Garzón’s edict, in October 2008, ordering the exhumation of 19 mass graves and charging Franco and his accomplices posthumously with the murder and disappearance of more than 114,000 people.

The edict, however, was challenged by Spain’s chief prosecutor, Javier Zaragoza, and ruled against by an appellate court — “and the case appeared to be resolved. But several months after the ruling, two tiny far-right groups sued Judge Garzón for ‘prevarication’ — knowingly overstepping his authority — in violating the amnesty law.”

The Times continues:

Criminally charging judges for prevarication is extremely rare in Spain, and a conviction would disbar Judge Garzón for 20 years — effectively ending his career. The Supreme Court’s zeal to try him has little legal basis; rather, it reflects Spanish elites’ widespread unease with applying international legal principles to Spain’s conflicted history and a deep-seated animosity toward Judge Garzón that is as much personal as political.

The prosecution of Judge Garzón is having a “chilling effect” on other international efforts to hold human-rights violators accountable, and a conviction would be interpreted as an even stronger warning sign, the Times says, and “[M]ore disturbingly, due to Judge Garzón’s legal woes, the case brought by Franco’s victims and their families is now languishing. (The only exception is in Argentina, where a prominent human-rights lawyer, using universal jurisdiction, recently filed suit charging Franco with crimes against humanity.)”

The Times concludes:

In his 2005 memoir, Judge Garzón wrote, “A system built on the corpses of those who are still awaiting justice so they can rest in peace is an illegitimate system and one that is condemned to eventually suffer the same fate.”

It would send a tragic and telling message to those victims — and others like them around the world — if the one person convicted for Franco’s crimes is the judge who dared to investigate them.

There are some bygones that just cannot be forgotten or swept under the rug of political expedience. Lo pasado, no siempre está pasado.

Read more of the Times’ article here

Image: Shutterstock.com

In the 5th Avenue’s production of Oklahoma!, Jud Fry becomes more than a foil for the protagonist; he actually becomes a representation of the American narrative’s deepest fear. Jud Fry is a symbol of everything and everyone who will not submit to the dominant narrative. He is chaos lurking in the shadow, he is instability refusing to bow to the logic of the room, he is otherness unable or unwilling to assimilate. Jud Fry is the irritant, perpetually challenging the validity of our American dream. Whether it’s a wedding, a community dance, or just simple daily living, Jud Fry lurks in the corners of the room, challenging the united chorus of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Kyle Scatliffe’s magnificently tormented portrayal of Jud Fry keeps Oklahoma! from being the feel good musical of the year. His existence is woven into almost every ecstatic moment and heartfelt resolution. All joy is tempered by the simple truth that not everyone has joined the narrative of hope and love. No matter how loud and passionately the cast sings “Oh what a beautiful morning,” we are reminded that there are some who will never enter into the beauty of that song. This is the magic of Oklahoma!. No matter how hard we try to define society with one overarching agreed upon song, there is always someone refusing to sing that song. Consequently, when Oklahoma! ends, the audience is left both with a beautiful song in their head and a tinge of sadness in their heart. “That would have been a lovely wedding, if only Jud Fry hadn’t showed up.” How dare he ruin our happy ending.

Although I’m focusing the majority of this review on Oklahoma’s well crafted tension, it is important to note that the story is far more than Jud Fry.

Oklahoma’s set design, lighting, and staging are mesmerizing. The opening scene’s use of framing and perspective clearly articulates that the audience is about to be drawn into an experience. I am repeatedly awed by how 5th Avenue productions succeed in both spectacle and simplicity. Instead of competing with the actors, the scenery fuels the mood and motion of the story. Oklahoma! is full of scene transitions that figuratively and literally frame the story’s arc. This is most evident when the audience is ushered into the claustrophobic confines of the smokehouse. The elevated staging evokes a sense that one is watching the drama unfold from beneath the floorboards. This magical, oppressive scene underscores the darkness that is lurking just below the surface.

The acting, singing, and dancing is exemplary. Particular note should obviously be given to the rich choreography and elaborate ballet dream sequence. It is a true treat to see modern and traditional forms of dance integrated into each number. Although the choreography has a passionate and distinctive voice, it does not compete with Oklahoma’s historical context. It is a true joy to engage a musical that includes the best music, lyrics, and dance theater has to offer.

To be honest, I simply don’t have time to articulate all that is right with the 5th Avenue’s production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! I enjoyed the humor, the love story, and the nuanced subtleties expressed by a cast and crew who clearly trust the power of one of America’s preeminent musicals. If you haven’t yet discovered the magic of the 5th Avenue, then let me welcome you to Oklahoma!

Doug Blogs and Tweets Fairlyspiritual

Bill Day, Cagle Cartoons

This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

WASHINGTON – The White House compromise on the contraceptive mandate is set for 12:15 pm EST, sandwiched in between the CPAC speeches of Santorum, Romney and Gingrich.

But if you want to know what this debate is about, see Joe Scarborough from yesterday.

“… I think women should be deacons as well as men. …But if the federal government, if the Justice Department offers a mandate ordering Southern Baptists to make women deacons, I would be the first to say get the hell out of our business.” – Joe Scarborough (9 February)

This is a subject that is front and center in my new book, The Hillary Effect. The chapter “Is Freedom Just for Men?” captures the current debate, all the way down to the religious element that has erupted this week.

Scarborough’s quote above is a good example of the disingenuous nature of the argument being made by religious conservatives. It is one of the most preposterous falsehoods said yet. That Joe Scarborough chose to say it and then defend it reveals how low Republicans will go to make a religious point even if it’s false.

If the feds tried to tell the Episcopal Church they couldn’t be spiritually feminist, standing up against the misogyny in other churches that bothers no one, I’d be the first to say get the hell out of our business.

The Obama administration has let this play out all week and it will conclude tomorrow with the backdrop of the CPAC conference, when Santorum, Romney and Gingrich give their speeches.

“It’s becoming a thorny problem for the White House and it appears to only be getting worse,” said one Democratic strategist. “The politically astute move would be to modify this thing, and quick.” Asked if the administration should shift course, a former senior administration official said, “I don’t see how they couldn’t. It’s pretty bad.” – The Hill

Pretty bad? Anyone supporting the decision was put in the position of having not only to do White House education on the issue and the constitutionality of it, but damage control on male “60-something pundits” blowing a gasket across cable.

Nicely played, team Obama. It’s political malpractice of the first order. Somewhere Rahm Emanuel is shaking his head.

Pres. Obama also was warned what was coming, which has been reported by Bloomberg, who broke the tick tock, then Jake Tapper and others following.

This is also no longer about contraception, abortion or even a wider rule on religious exclusion. It’s also become about the Affordable Care Act and the allies Pres. Obama had by his side who now feel betrayed. That’s the thumb on the scale as we count down to the compromise.

TPM has a classic headline, with a picture of Pres. Obama that’s unintentionally priceless: Will Dems Shoot Themselves In The Foot On Contraception? I can only assume they’re being ironic or rhetorical.

V.P. Joe Biden and Bill Daley were among the concerned Catholics inside the White House that warned Pres. Obama about what has come to pass this week. I’ve not written about the roll-out, because anyone who thinks this was going to be easy any way the Administration did it hasn’t been paying attention to Republicans lately. Chuck Todd and Mark Halperin opined today that Pres. Obama needs to make the case, which shows you how little the elite news media knows about him. The fact that we haven’t seen Pres. Obama, which I never expected we would on something this electric, is that he has no intention of putting his personal capital behind Administration policy that is in the works of being reversed.

Therein lies the entire issue with Pres. Obama’s presidency. Not shoring up allies in Congress, then using pins and tape at the end of a process to get a second or third version of the legislation you want over the finished line. He’s got no allies, except women in Congress who remain a minority. I have no idea how Obama and his team, especially Valeria Jarrett, concluded he could announce something so sweeping, politically important, as well as a boon to to women, especially hourly wage employees, without knowing who had his back, but also a political strategy to lay it out.

This policy required great theater. Women ready to announce it, religious groups among them, Democratic senators and representatives standing ready to hit the airwaves for a policy they supported.

The stories are ricocheting now, as Sunday shows approach, which will certainly feature a cavalcade of criticism, even as something is frantically being cobbled together. A conclusion needs to be announced so on Sunday everyone can nod their heads, criticize the initial decision, then smile approvingly that Pres. Obama’s compromise isn’t caving to pressures from the right. It never is, right?

That the Susan G. Komen foundation figured out how to right a PR disaster faster than the Obama White House is embarrassing.

[update 2] Pres. Obama has spoken and the compromise maintains free contraceptive coverage, protecting the 1st Amendment rights of women, regardless of where they work.  He also is broadening the religious exclusion, with insurance companies mandated to reach out to women in Catholic and other religious institutions, while maintaining free coverage for all birth control and contraception, though with all things implementation the key. Diligence will be required. My full take here.

[update] What is being reported and what I’m hearing is that the contraceptive mandate remains in place. Planned Parenthood has released a statement that sound supportive, for those of you interested, though I believe women’s organizations have failed miserably and aren’t worth much today. For Catholic institutions, the compromise will include a system set up for insurance companies to reach out to the women employed at these institutions, protecting their religious freedoms against Catholic Church overreach.

Taylor Marsh is the author of the new book, The Hillary Effect – Politics, Sexism and the Destiny of Loss, which is now available in print on Amazon. Marsh is a veteran political analyst and commentator. She has been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her new media blog.

In the current bill, Republican Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia and the House Republican leadership eliminated a provision that would have regulated the collection of intelligence gleaned from political insiders; ie members of Congress, senators and other federal officials. This valuable knowledge can be passed on to hedge funds, mutual funds and other financial industry personnel who use it to determine investment strategies. The Senate had previously approved the bill with a provision that required “political intelligence consultants” to register as lobbyists and divulge their activities. Republican Senator Grassley of Iowa, who had crafted the amendment on political intelligence, was quite angry over the House Republicans’ actions, saying- “It’s astonishing and extremely disappointing that the House would fulfill Wall Street’s wishes by killing this provision.” But Congressman Cantor wanted further study of the issue by the Government Accountability Office which could delay action for up to a year.

According to Democratic Representative Louise Slaughter of New York, one of the originators of the STOCK Act, Wall Street and those involved in the political intelligence industry had been lobbying against the Grassley measure. They were concerned that the required registration would have compelled transparency from investment advisors regarding clients to whom they transmitted political intelligence. And Wall Street and their lobbyists were successful in their efforts to gut the bill of the troublesome provision.

Once again, ethics has taken a back seat to Wall Street’s needs and political expediency. What’s new?

Resurrecting Democracy

A VietNam vet and a Columbia history major who became a medical doctor, Bob Levine has watched the evolution of American politics over the past 40 years with increasing alarm. He knows he’s not alone. Partisan grid-lock, massive cash contributions and even more massive expenditures on lobbyists have undermined real democracy, and there is more than just a whiff of corruption emanating from Washington. If the nation is to overcome lockstep partisanship, restore growth to the economy and bring its debt under control, Levine argues that it will require a strong centrist third party to bring about the necessary reforms. Levine’s previous book, Shock Therapy For the American Health Care System took a realist approach to health care from a physician’s informed point of view; Resurrecting Democracy takes a similar pragmatic approach, putting aside ideology and taking a hard look at facts on the ground. In his latest book, Levine shines a light that cuts through the miasma of party propaganda and reactionary thinking, and reveals a new path for American politics. This post is cross posted from his blog.

It’s nice to see a corporation doing the right thing. Even if they are doing it because they realize the new demographics make it a plus it’s still a plus. It’s a sign of the times. The old order is dying – that’s what scares old white people and the election of Obama was a severe weather warning flag. This is rewarding:

“She shares the same values that we do,” he said. “Our company was founded 110 years ago on the golden rule, as about treating people fair and square, just like you’d be treated yourself. We think that Ellen represents the values of our company and the values that we share.”

Now I am not going to say that a 26 billion dollar plan is nothing but let’s do a little math here.

To begin with the reports I am hearing say it will take 1-3 years before anyone starts getting money or modifications, not a big help to those in trouble today.

Second, let’s run the numbers.

Now a portion of the money will go to people who have already been foreclosed on. Nice for them but not much help to those in trouble now.

Second, let’s assume that say 25 billion goes to modifications and principle reduction.

If you take 25 billion and divide it by 25,000 that works out to a million homeowners.

Right now betwen 10 and 15 million are underwater, so the plan is going to help, at most, 10% of them.

And in many places, 25,000 is a drop in the bucket. If you have a house that is worth 150,000 and you owe 300,000 then reducing things to 275,000 is not exactly a big deal.

And this of course ignores all of the issues relating to the benefits the banks are getting from this and the fact that responsible homeowners who are struggling to stay current will not be helped.

Nor is this plan good for retirees who have their pensions partly invested in mortgages.

I am not suggesting that this isn’t a nice step, or for that matter that there is really any reasonable plan that would help resolve the problem, I’m just tired of people in the media or the government trying to act like it will.

WASHINGTON – CPAC is in Washington this weekend. As you can see from the video above, Cal Thomas decided to get even for his friends. It all began when Rachel Maddow said the following this week on her show:

“I realize a lot of 60-something male pundits look at this issue & think hmmm… bad politics for Democrats on the Catholic side. There’s another way to look at it.” – Rachel Maddow

Who are those “60-something male pundits?” More importantly why do we care what they think?

Mark Shields, E.J. Dionne and Chris Matthews, as I see it, are three of them, but there are many more.

What’s the other way to look at the issue of Pres. Obama’s contraception decision, beyond what the “60-something male pundits” view?

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Americans of all faiths, including Catholics, but also those unaffiliated, agree with Pres. Obama. Then there are the all important independents, which Obama has lost over the last couple of years:

Numerous pundits have predicted that the requirement —and its narrow exemption for churches — will be a political liability for Obama. But where Shields sees “cataclysmic” fallout, the White House sees something quite different: a chance to widen the reproductive health debate beyond abortion to issues like contraceptives, winning over key demographics of independent voters in the process. – Why White House sees political opportunity in the contraception battle

It’s a catastrophe say the male pundit class!

Matthews says, it’s not about the number of Catholics who use birth control.

But but but, Mathews say, or the number of non-Catholics who attend Catholic colleges or universities or receive help from Catholic charities.

Matthews say it’s about what the church itself teaches. Mark Shields and E.J. Dionne agree. I’m sure the Catholic bishops are pleased, but all represent a contingent bent on controlling women.

I wonder if any of these men find it ironic that they’re defending dogma that American Catholics by a wide majority completely ignore. All of these men, mind you, don’t have ovaries or the job of planning their life in an environment that is economically challenging.

According to the Matthews-Shields-Dionne contingent, it’s not about the hundreds of thousands of women employees who work in Catholic institutions who would be denied affordable contraception, which is an economic issue for any modern woman, as well as a means to plan her future.

There is another way to look at this issue, but you’d have to look beyond a myopic vision that doesn’t include what’s good for all women, regardless of religion.

We’ve seen throughout our media during this debate why the story on women’s rights and our freedoms is so often left in the dark. They ignore the issue at hand and jump to the fantasy political impact, while screaming about the 20th century traditional views that don’t represent the 21st generation.

Yesterday on “Daily Rundown,” Chuck Todd had E.J. Dionne and another middle-aged man on to talk about this issue. Today he had a terrific panel of women (video below), including the formidable Neera Tanden, making a lot more sense than the 60-something male pundits yesterday. Shira Toeplitz from Roll Call said not even in Pennsylvania, which she covers a lot, will this issue impact over other issues and for the very reason I stated in the previous paragraph. It’s a new generation era. Sara Taylor Fagan, a former Bush administration official, also brought up relevant points.

I’ve done the rundown on what happened on “Morning Joe,” where guests and Scarborough stated Obama would lose the election over this issue, which David Gregory parroted today. Mika Brzezinski did a terrific job this morning herding squirrels, while Tina Brown emphasized that most Catholics agree with Obama.

In this discussion we also see yet another chapter in why we still do not have a female president, but also why we still see so few women leaders in our public life. The criteria for what it takes to pass the test is steep. A newcomer first has to kiss all the local establishment men’s rings on religion and women’s right to prove you won’t be too shrill. But we all saw what Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as Rep. DeGette and other so-called members of the “pro choice caucus” were willing to do when push come to shove. The first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history caved to the men in her church to get health care passed.

No matter the religion, that women choose to be dictated spiritually through the inherent misogyny embedded in organized religion, wherever it occurs, and the politics that props up this philosophy remains a real issue for modern women and the relevancy of the church today.

Our traditional media, cable networks and even new media sites are replete with hostility for the basic instruments women need to maintain their financial health and plan their lives. They are led by men and network executives, producers and others who are cowardly and some even unethical, putting profits above women’s health and economic security, or pretending there’s a religious freedom issue to boost ratings and the political pie fight.

It happens every day on cable.

Taylor Marsh is the author of the new book, The Hillary Effect – Politics, Sexism and the Destiny of Loss, which is now available in print on Amazon. Marsh is a veteran political analyst and commentator. She has been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her new media blog.

Tom Walkom writes that, as things stand, not much could have been done to keep the doomed Electro-Motive plant in London. He points out that Bombardier no longer manufactures locomotives in Canada. It buys them from a Catapillar plant in Mexico. The problem lies not so much with Caterpillar or Bombardier, but with the rules of the game. “The real villain,” he writes, “is unrestrained globalization.

As long as goods and capital are free to move unimpeded across national borders, companies — even nice ones — will locate where wages are cheap.

All of this could be changed. But to do so would require the fundamental rethinking of belief in the unalloyed virtue of free trade, a belief that the country’s political and business classes accept on faith.

A good place to start is with the now defunct Canada-United States Automotive Product Agreement. That agreement

removed tariffs on cars, trucks, buses, tires, and automotive parts between the two countries, greatly benefiting the large American car makers. In exchange the big three car makers (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) and later Volvo agreed that automobile production in Canada would not fall below 1964 levels and that they would ensure the same production-sales ratio in Canada.

American manufacturers unloaded health care costs onto the Canadian government; and they manufactured product in Canadian dollars. Those advantages went to the bottom line. In return, Canadians got thousands of manufacturing jobs and lower cost automobiles. It’s true that most of the jobs went to southern Ontario and were not evenly distributed — just as resource extraction jobs are now going to the prairies.

The point is that the Autopact was a win-win for both countries. What has occurred over the last thirty years is a race to the bottom. Without new rules, capital will always flow to the lowest cost locations. In the new economy, the winner takes all. And that new paradigm now figures in our politics. Stephen Harper only got 25% of all Canadian votes. But he’s now in the catbird seat.

Generally speaking, it’s not a good idea to go backwards. But, if we’re looking for a road map to the future, we could begin to look to what we used to have. The Autopact is dead. But the model isn’t. The rules have to change.

But this is a free estate planning tip to all the TMV readers.

While many of us plan for our loved ones by setting up a will or trust and leaving them with information about bank accounts and credit cards, one thing we tend to forget is our internet presence.

It’s not a pleasant topic, but we’re all gonna go sometime (unless someone knows something I don’t) and your loved ones need to, among other things, wrap up things on the net.

So make sure to let someone know how to access your email/Facebook/etc to take care of those things as well.

Were his comments a bit tactless, sure. I can even see how some people could initially find them offensive.

But he’s got a pretty good track record on gay rights issues and I think it should be sufficient for him to simply apologize and move on.

WASHINGTON – The discussion started Monday on “Morning Joe,” with Mika Brzezinski reading part of an over the top declarative Peggy Noonan op-ed and getting very exercised about it before she had the facts.

“The Peggy Noonan piece left some things out. … But I have to say, the article appears to be very misleading.” – Mika Brzezinski, “Morning Joe” (7 Feburary)

Something very obvious and important is getting lost in the current contraceptive controversy.

If religious conservatives like Noonan really wanted to stop abortions and unplanned pregnancies they’d hail the opportunity for more women to have access to birth control without charge. That they aren’t says all you need to know.

David Axelrod on “Morning Joe” teased a compromise today, which is not a surprise to anyone, I’m sure. But does the Obama team actually believe religious conservatives are going to compromise? I mean, seriously, because that theory has worked so well with congressional Republicans? It’s the epitome of Obama logic and a catastrophic suggestion, especially when a majority of Catholics (and other religious Americans, including myself) agree with the Administration. Catholics for Choice has released a statement of support from faith leaders backing Pres. Obama’s decision.

This whole argument has certainly revealed the priorities of religious conservatives, putting them at odds with women. Birth control is an economic issue for modern women, regardless of faith, as is planning pregnancy itself, a subject of my book in the chapter titled “Is Freedom Just for Men?” However, the religious institution and whipping up a crisis around religious freedom that doesn’t exist is paramount in the minds of Republicans, because they want it for a political issue, which was proven quickly because that’s the first place they went. Democrats are more concerned with getting important reproductive health care to low and middle income women, while bending over backward to keep from setting off a religious war with the right who won’t be deterred.

Rarely has an issue set up the political sides so starkly.

Again, if stopping unplanned pregnancies was the goal it’s clear who’d come out on top morally and it’s not religious conservatives or Republicans.

From a new poll by PublicReligion.org:

Majority Support Requirement that Employer Health Care Plans Include Contraception Coverage

• A majority (55%) of Americans agree that “employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost.” Four-in-ten (40%) disagree with this requirement.
• There are major religious, generational and political divisions:

• Roughly 6-in-10 Catholics (58%) believe that employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception.
• Among Catholic voters, support for this requirement is slightly lower at 52%.
• Only half (50%) of white Catholics support this requirement, compared to 47% who oppose it.
• Among other religious Americans, 61% of religiously unaffiliated Americans believe that employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception, compared to only half (50%) of white mainline Protestants and less than 4-in-10 (38%) white evangelical Protestants.

As an aside, Massachusetts Mitt Romney issued a similar ruling as Pres. Obama did on contraceptives, but presidential candidate Mitt Romney is railing against it today. Chalk it up as just another point of hypocrisy from Mr. Romney.

To Ms. Brzezinski’s credit, she changed her tune yesterday after getting the facts from the White House, which Joe Scarborough labeled as talking to a “mouthpiece.” It’s unfortunate Brzezinski wasn’t armed with the facts before she read Noonan’s piece on the air, because this is important policy for women that needs everyone’s attention, no matter your politics or religion. But this type of thing happens far too often on cable, taking a traditional journalist’s op-ed as gospel when peers revere the writer.

There is no injury to freedom of religion by what the Obama administration has done. It’s patently false to say otherwise, which is what Noonan’s column implied, Joe Scarborough has insinuated, and Mark Halperin posits will alter the 2012 election, with Scarborough agreeing, of which there is absolutely no proof. What applies is if any institution provides health care to its employees they must provide women with the same contraceptive coverage as any other woman in the country. No discrimination because she’s working for a Catholic school or hospital. That in no way precludes what Catholics can choose for themselves.

The hypocrisy of religious conservatives is fully unmasked through this discussion. As a person of faith and deep spirituality myself, the purpose religious conservatives to impede a woman’s autonomy is obviously a continual effort to control. These individuals also evidently think immaculate intervention will stop pregnancy. But instead, what the leaders of the Catholic Church and their allies are focused on is keeping control over women’s reproductive and economic reality.

If the Catholic Church and other religious political operatives really cared about stopping abortion they’d understand that’s what’s at stake here. Preventing unplanned pregnancy and putting the control of women’s lives in their own hands, which cannot happen without access to reproductive health care, starting with birth control, is what’s at issue.

As many here know, I’m not a fan of the Administration and have said so on multiple platforms, including here at TMV, as well as on Juan Cole’s blog, and U.S. News & World Report.

However, Pres. Obama’s policy on contraceptive coverage is the correct one and should be supported, whether you’re in a Catholic hospital or at Fordham.

Bridgette Dunlap, a Fordham University law student, knew that the school’s health plan had to pay for birth control pills, in keeping with New York state law. What she did not find out until she was in an examining room, “in the paper dress,” was that the student health service — in keeping with Roman Catholic tenets — would simply refuse to prescribe them.

Bridgette Dunlap organized an off-campus clinic staffed by volunteer doctors to provide prescriptions for birth control because Fordham University’s student health service does not do so.

As a result, students have had to go to Planned Parenthood or private doctors to get prescriptions . Some, unable to afford the doctor visits, gave up birth control pills entirely.

Taylor Marsh is the author of the new book, The Hillary Effect – Politics, Sexism and the Destiny of Loss, which is now available in print on Amazon. Marsh is a veteran political analyst and commentator. She has been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her new media blog.