America, I'm Sorry

Recently I commented on a blog and pointed out that the President has said that his vote against raising the debt ceiling when he was a Senator during the Bush Administration was "political." This was after the White House admitted it was "a mistake."

I have to admit that I was fairly impressed with the President being able to admit that he was wrong. I had only seen one other politician do the same thing, and it wasn't even a major one. On Larry King Live November 11, 2009 former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura said "Its time to bring back the draft." He went on to explain "I used to be an advocate for a professional military. I'm not anymore because its too easy for these people to take our young men and women and go to war."

I have to admit, I find the candor to be particularly refreshing because the Congressman representing my home of record has been Representative John Shimkus who, along with denying Climate Change because it does not supported by the Bible, voted for the Bush tax cuts, the drug entitlement program, and both the Afghan and Iraqi war authorizations, but has never voted for any offsetting measures to negate their budgetary effects. When pressured about these votes Congressman Shimkus makes no statement of personal responsibility, even though he claims that personal responsibility is the cornerstone of his "social conservative" message. Congressman Shimkus will instead make an innocuous claim of faults on "both sides." This blog is not going to get into his sheer stupidity at not believing something is a problem because it does not appear in the Bible. Hitler, nuclear weapons, Osama Bin Laden, etc. never appear in the Bible, but that does not mean the United States was any less right to take them on through policy and war alike. This blog is about taking personal responsibility.

I think it takes a lot to admit you're wrong. When I'm wrong about something I generally state it and move on. When someone working for me messes up if they just say "Yeah, I tried to do... but I was wrong" I generally just drop the issue of why and move straight on to how we're going to fix it. Being wrong is like being an alcoholic. You can't get fixed if you don't admit you have a problem. I know it takes a lot of courage to say you're wrong, and I'm not sure anyone who isn't strong enough to admit mistake is strong enough to lead.

In the spirit of taking personal responsibility the Ragin' Man is going to apologize to you, my reader, for the worst thing I've ever done. America, I supported George W. Bush in 2000. I know, I know, you're saying "Not you Ragin' Man! There is no way that you voted for that bum!"

Well, I didn't. At the time I was going to school in and was registered to vote in Missouri. I'll be quite honest with you by the time the Clinton Administration had ended, and after a couple years in academia, I was convinced that the political class had realized a few truths. We had all become Keynesians who understood that balanced budgets were key in times of economic expansion, and payouts were necessary in a draw down. We all knew the social safety net should be small but effective, and regulation was a necessary evil. Sure the party base talked a good game, but it was essentially the same team wearing different jerseys to keep people coming to the game. My thoughts on the case can best be summed up by this Rage Against the Machine video:



I will admit that I'm a little less communist because I know that every person alive is secretly a selfish bastard, but you get the idea.

In truth, I voted for Nader to try and show the political class that I was willing to vote for a third party so they should have gotten more choices on my local ballot, but when George W. Bush won I was secretly happy. At one point I argued that George W. Bush losing the popular vote and still winning the election was "the reason the Electoral College was made. Its so a state like California can't throw the whole election."

The truth was that I, like James Baker in the movie "Recount", believed that honor had been restored to the White House. Everything else would remain the same. And for that, I am sorry.

Weighing In On Newt

As many of you know one of the Ragin' Man's favorite politicians, Newt Gingrich, has decided to run for the presidency. "Wow, Ragin' Man, you're a huge lib, there's no way you would actually like a Republican" you'd say if you were someone at The Billy Blog. "Not so fast" I'd say to the random Billy Blogger. "My biggest reason for liking Newt is he actually is an idea guy who pioneered media usage on a local level to be extremely successful as a Congressional leader. Also, being more liberal than you means I'm part of a dying breed, the moderate Republican." Newt, after all, was one of the first people to endorse the idea that became the basis for the Affordable Healthcare Act or "Obamacare", along with such right wing organizations as the Heritage Foundation. He somehow managed to quietly work with President Clinton and Senator Dole to start paying down the deficit.

All that being said, one of my favorite shows to watch is Meet the Press on NBC. I have a ritual of getting it on podcast and listening to it on my iPod when I bicycle to and from work on Monday morning. I love the show so much that when I sat next to a United States Senator on a plane ride from Washington DC to Atlanta, Georgia on the 13th of May I asked how much preparation goes into an appearance on Meet the Press. The answer was, to paraphrase, "You generally know what they're going to talk about. Sometimes they blindside you with a question, so you have to be ready to answer anything, but it's not that difficult." After I asked a follow up I was told that you can generally gauge what the majority of the conversation is going to be based on what the news is reporting on. Based on the fact that the Senator read every single newspaper from his home state while we were in the air along with the Washington Post I can imagine he would understand what the issues of the day were.

I should also mention that I also watch or podcast all 4 major networks' Sunday shows and the McLaughlin group, so I have some context to view it. It was certainly fortuitous that I had this conversation only DAYS before Newt Gingrich appeared on MTP. You can imagine my surprise at the fallout from this interview:

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Did you watch it? Good. It seemed pretty straight forward, and if anything a major coup for the former Speaker of the House because he got 20 plus minutes of unadulterated face time on the number one Sunday show. The only question I could remotely see as "gotcha" would be the question about calling President Obama a food stamp President, which Gingrich used to explain in a way that made it a very good talking point for his campaign. I don't think David Gregory was explicitly calling Newt a racist when he asked the question, but I understand that any mention of racist language is a pretty severe question. I will also say that Meet the Press is on NBC, so, much like FOX News Sunday, they are forced to ask questions that are based on the rants and raves of their "opinion guys", in this case Ed Schultz. The question was not followed up by any other question than "Well what did you mean?" and then they moved on.

The fallout from this interview shows something I haven't heard anyone talking about intelligently, except for the Daily Show. I know, a comedy show is the best commentary you can get. The real issue was not the racist question, but has been Gingrich's depiction of Paul Ryan's revamp of Medicare as "right wing social engineering" and Newt equated the Ryan Plan with the Affordable Healthcare Act. Newt even came out in support of the most controversial part of the Affordable Healthcare Act, mandatory coverage.

Newt responded on Greta Van Susteren's program days later:



That's right! Nothing Newt said on arguably the most prestigious news show can be used in a campaign ad! "Any ad which quotes what I said Sunday is a falsehood." This could start a whole new era of editing! You can go back and retroactively declare that your verifiable quotes are not your own!

My thoughts on all this:
Newt comes from a different time. In a 1991 interview on Meet the Press Newt talked about a break between pre-Reagan and post-Reagan Republicans in describing a fight he was having with Senator Bob Dole (R-KS) over tax cuts. I think this shows there is definitely a pre-W. Bush and post-W. Bush Republican party.

The pre-W. Bush Republicans had things like ideas and positions. The post-W. Bush Republican party has turned into an "issue du jour" party. Whatever issue the party takes up at that moment is your stance as well! Newt did what pre-W. Bush Republicans had often done, he broke with the party based on ideas and took questionable positions based on those ideas and his understanding of the facts. Need I remind anyone that in 1996 Colin Powell, the most popular man in politics, gave the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention in which he voiced his support for both Bob Dole and Affirmative Action. In early 2001 Senator John McCain (R-AZ) voted against the Bush tax cuts and stated "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle class Americans who most need tax relief." I can already hear right wingers talking about class warfare and socialism.

Clearly these Republicans would not fare well in the face of the Tea Party's targeting of Republicans who don't toe the line. John McCain was even forced to drastically reinvent himself only 2 years after being the Republican nominee for President, for which he was forced to slightly alter his stances. The once ardent supporter of amnesty as a part of immigration reform faced a challenge stiff enough to get the Straight Talk Express's bus to hook up it's tow cables to the Tea Party Express's bus. "Complete the dang fence" was the new campaign slogan, and McCain barely escaped a challenge from the far right. To complete his turn to the dark side Senator McCain voted to reauthorize all the Bush tax cuts he originally opposed.

Colin Powell endorsed then Senator Obama in 2008, and went the way of Pat Buchanan. He is not a Republican, but definitely not a Democrat. Now Newt is finding that the politics of the Republican Party require a hard right look at the world to win the primary, even if the rhetoric of the primary assures a victory for the Democrats, as in Delaware.

I guess to find out what is really going on we can go back to the subject of this blog. Newt was very astute when he pointed out to David Gregory in that very same interview that Reagan ruled from the center right. Sure the guy talked a good game about lowering taxes, and he did, but he also raised them 11 times too! His rhetoric talked about the evils of government, but it only grew under his watch. Essentially Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of the current Republican Party, talked a good game but walked a middle path all while running up a deficit so large Vice President Cheney would state that the lesson of Reagan's presidency was that "deficits don't matter." Try telling that to anyone at a Tea Party Express Rally!

What is going on now in the Republican Party is they don't want a Reagan. Someone to talk the narrative talk and walk the centrist walk won't do. They want a guy who is a living breathing right wing narrative. No taxes + No spending= Utopia. No questions asked.

Newt is just now learning this, but he's already started his campaign so he's got a pretty big learning curve. I'm not sure I will be able to listen to the new Newt. The old one was far more interesting. He seemed like his own person, not just one face telling me the same old thing with his latest wife by his side.