Huffpolitics on The Huffington Post

McConnell: GOP Will Delay Health Care At Least Six More Weeks

2009-11-15T10:44:58Z

If there was any doubt that Senate Republicans are eager to drag their heels when it comes to health care reform, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) removed it on Sunday.

The Kentucky Republican, during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," demanded that the Senate take, at the very least, six weeks to deliberate legislation once it is sent to the floor for amendments.

"There will be a lot of amendments over a lot of weeks. The Senate is not the House, you saw in the House there was three votes and it was over in one day," McConnell warned. "This will be on the floor for quite a long time."

Warning that health care reform "cuts Medicare rates, raises taxes and raises insurance premiums," McConnell also insisted (in the same breath) that Majority Leader Harry Reid had kept the legislation secret from his colleagues.

"We know it's been in Harry Reid's office for six weeks and the other 99 senators haven't seen it," he said. "I think we ought to at least have as much time for other 99 senators and all of the American people to take a look at this bill as Majority Leader Reid has had."

The strategy for Republicans, McConnell outlined, would be to "delay the process so we fully understand what's in the bill." That means a reform debate that's gone on for roughly nine months could extend to a tenth; if Republicans throw up enough parliamentary hurdles, reform could be delayed into 2010.

"I think it ought to be on the floor as least as long as it was in Harry Reid's office," said McConnell.

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TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

2009-11-15T08:41:56Z

Hello. My name is Jason and welcome to your liveblog of this weeks' Sunday Morning blather latherings. Our emanations today? The likely key topic of discussion will be the recent decision of the Obama administration to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- hereafter to be referred to by his media-ready short-hand handle, KSM -- in New York City, in one of our fine courts. This decision overjoys me! At last, the terrorism discussion is being passed into the hands of some citizens who may prove to be adults!

Of course, today, you should expect no end of mau-mauing of thise decision, from people who've screwed on their oh-so-serious faces and who speak with the distinct dialect of one who hails from a region where people routinely get the issues of the day all wrong. They'll talk about KSM as if he were some hypnotic criminal mastermind, sure to win converts from the city that's been triumphantly nodding their heads for the past few months to Jay Z's "Empire State Of Mind." And they'll say that a trial brings security risks, as if terrorist madmen have quashed their beef with us, for just existing. Mostly, you'll hear about how a trial in open court opens up the possibility we might lose the case, as if the only justice worth having is the kind they dole out in Iran.

They'll be so super serious about it, too! So much so, that next week, when they're all talking about Sarah Palin (a lady from Alaska who's apparently had it SUPER-HARD, and that someone really should give a fair shake to, maybe), you're going to wonder to yourself, "Self? Was last weeks outpouring of serious concern just a lot of grandstanding from vapid jerks who just wanted to vampirically politicize the issue? The answer will be yes.

For a long time, now, I've been itching for this nation to have the opportunity to place our raison d'etre in an open hearing alongside the nihilism of terrorism just to expose the latter's hollowness and remind the world that the American argument contains multitudes and is truly worthy of emulation. I was trying to categorize and codify the way in which having this trial is a virtue for our nation last night, when I came across this, from Spencer Ackerman, which puts the matter precisely the way I was going to, anyway:

What's an actual insult to the victims of 9/11 is the idea that America is not strong enough to withstand the blatherings of a mass murderer. For me, the prospect of KSM grandstanding at his trial falls into I-wish-a-motherfucker-would territory. I want to hear how KSM builds a case against America, because everyone will hear how laughably conspiratorial and clownish it is. Think of what a cathartic moment it will be when America sees the face of the man considered to be UBL's most efficient henchman and he delivers a pitiful harangue to a bank of cameras. No one will be emboldened to do anything but laugh. The only downside will be his inevitable discussion of how CIA operatives tortured him.

My hope for the KSM trial is that it does more than all this. It should forever shatter the pernicious myth that al-Qaeda is composed of supermen -- supermen against whom America has no choice but to alter its character and most precious laws in order to confront. I suspect we'll have an Eichmann-in-Jerusalem moment -- and sorry for the unfortunate Nazi/al-Qaeda analogy; al-Qaeda are not the Nazis; but I couldn't really think of any other parallel -- except instead of the banality of evil, we'll see the lunacy and vanity and self-absorption of it. That's because al-Qaeda's weltanshauung depends on a myth that holds America to be implacably determined to snuff out the glory of Islam. In reality, most Americans couldn't give a fuck about Islam and only started to know the first thing about it because of 9/11. But that America -- an America bearing no resemblance to the actual America -- will be what KSM seeks to counter-indict. It's farcical, and farcical in ways that can only benefit the real America.

Yeah, what he said. Anyway, you know the drill, feel free to send an email or leave a comment or join me on Twitter. And now, for this:

Fox News Sunday

Rudy Giuliani, who became some sort of terror expert after bumbling around lower Manhattan in a daze on September 11, 2001, is on today, to tell us all about how we're going to die as a result of our justice system. Rudy seems to think that it's unusual for criminals to be tried in the district where their crimes are committed, and that it's a tacit admission on the Obama administration's that the war on terror is over. What message is sending more troops to Afghanistan going to send? WHO KNOWS.

Rudy doesn't agree with Mayor Bloomberg either, except for the part about NYC being great and the police being awesome. Why can't these guys be tried in military tribunals, like other terrorists. The better question is why can't those terrorists be tried in open court, like KSM. The answer is the bad news side of this equation: KSM and his cohorts are not being tried in a tribunal because it's extremely likely they'll lose the case anyway. In the other terror cases, we apparently need to stack the deck to get convictions. Rudy basically thinks that having held trials before was a terrible mistake and that everything would have been fine if we hadn't done so, 9/11 wouldn't have happened? I guess?

Chris Wallace reminds Rudy of some things he said, years ago, some of which Amanda Terkel compiled:

In fact, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani praised the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers:

-- "'It should show that our legal system is the most mature legal system in the history of the world,' he [Giuliani] said, 'that it works well, that that is the place to seek vindication if you feel your rights have been violated.'" [The New York Times, 3/5/94]

-- "[M]any who were bruised by the traumatic event were certain that no verdict by a jury or punishment by a judge will exorcise the pain and terror that remain. ... Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani declared that the verdict 'demonstrates that New Yorkers won't meet violence with violence, but with a far greater weapon -- the law.'" [The New York Times, 3/5/94]

-- "I think it shows you put terrorism on one side, you put our legal system on the other, and our legal system comes out ahead," said Giuliani. [CBS Evening News, 3/5/94]

Even in the weeks after Sept. 11, Giuliani "framed the attacks in the language of crime, describing the hijackers as 'insane murderers' and calling for restoration of the 'rule of law.'"

What's happened since then? Well, Giuliani's become a weasel-faced git, for one thing, and a demagoguery-by-request fountain of blither for the GOP. But seriously, y'all? Terrorists done came to these shores and de-swaggered him, but good. No wonder he spent the whole 2008 campaign hiding in Florida. So, now, instead of his past principles, we get this coward-marm slurping out of his mouth.

"This choice is a better choice for the terrorists...we were wrong in 1993." Giuliani is prattling with a distinct whine of desperation, and even Chris Wallace is jumping at the taste of blood. "This seems to be an over concern with the rights of terrorists!" Yes! SO CONCERNED THAT THEY'LL SHOVE THEM IN FRONT OF NEW YORK JURY AND ASK: "Okay, please tell the court why they all should die, and why, exactly?"

Giuliani goes on to call the Nidal Hasan shootings a "terrorist attack" because of Hasan's business cards, which read "Son of Allah." WHAT A CONSIDERATE TERRORIST.

Anyway, Jack Reed is here to restore calm. Wallace asks him if this decision is just an attempt on the Obama administration to stick it to the Bush administration. Reed says, no, if anything, it follows upon the Bush administration's decision to try Moussavi in civilian court. Reed says, "What was a statesmans-like decision on the part of the Bush administration can't be a political decision from the Obama administration."

Reed counters Giuliani's contention that we are "granting KSM's wish" to be tried in NYC by pointing out that a military tribunal will reinforce the image that KSM has attempted to carve out for himself as a "holy warrior" -- the preference being to try him as a common thug. Reed doesn't think Giuliani's contention is correct. "When the foreman of that jury stands up and delivers the verdict, not empowered by religious fanaticism but by the Constitution, [KSM] will know he's lost, and I can't think of a better group of people to judge the guilt or innocence than the people who saw the Towers fall."

What's the upside to having it in New York? Reed says, "This is an opportunity to show we're better than they are." Reed points out that the risks that critics have brought up did not come into play in Alexandria, during the Moussavi trial.

Chris Blakely writes:

After watching his performance on FOX News Sunday this morning, one would be hard pressed to believe that Rudy Guiliani first rose to prominence as a federal prosecutor. For a man with an extensive legal background, Rudy is sure quick to trade the "rule of law" for personal aggrandizement. Let the campaign for governor of New York state begin!

Oh, right. It's an election year, isn't it?

Mitch McConnell is here now. Will he try to block the trials? He can't. Can he stop the administration from putting terrorists in a prison in Illinois? McConnell says it will be a huge issue in the Senate election, and he'll try to block funding for it. Best we continue to pretend that these dime-a-dozen detainees have MAGICAL TERROR POWERS. Keep them in AZKABAN!

He'll try to stop or delay or ruin health care reform, too. He's under the impression that the "American people" don't want it passed, when what the America people want is something like the House bill passed, as quickly as possible please! But most health care reform supporters don't come from the "good" parts of America, I guess.

McConnell does go to lengths to explain how legislation works, to Chris Wallace, who doesn't seem to understand that the "Stupak Amendment" is in the House bill, and McConnell sits in this body called "the Senate" and they have their own bill.

Anyway, more lies about the government "taking over one-sixth of the economy."

And then, Afghanistan. McConnell will be happy to support a LOLSURGEOMGZ, so why won't Obama make with the LOLSURGING? Is it because General Stanley McChrystal said, "OH HAI WE NEED A WHOLE NEW STRATEGY HERE, AND YEAH, MAYBE MORE TROOPS, BUT A NEW STRATEGY IS MUCH MORE IMPORTANT, PLEASE GET IT RIGHT AND THEN WE'LL RESOURCE IT" but all the members of the GOP and the media didn't hear any of that stuff about a new strategy and instead started squawking "SURGESURGESURGE" like a passel of idiot seagulls?

McConnell seems to think the National Senatorial Campaign Committee "does not make endorsements." And that Sarah Palin doesn't need his advice. Does anyone? Anyway. Panel time. With Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney!

Also Mara Liasson and Juan Williams are there.

Bill Kristol says that the decision to send KSM to NYC is crazy. And he seems to be not clued in to the fact that the Attorney General acts independently of the White House...but then why would he know that! Basically, WHAT IF KSM GETS OFF AND OPENS A BODEGA ON YOUR BLOCK. IT COULD HAPPEN.

Liasson points out that 100% of terror suspects that have been tried in New York have been convicted, and will showcase our awesome justice system.

What worries Liz Cheney the most? OH LET ME WHINE FOR A MINUTE, CHRIS WALLACE, ABOUT THE DITHERINGS! WHERE IS THE LOL SURGE. Know what worries Liz Cheney the most? Her father's incompetence being exposed. Anyway, there's this insanity: She says KSM asked to be executed for Allah months ago, and that we should have accomodated him. YES! LET'S BE SURE TO ACCORD KSM PRECISELY THE MYSTIC MARTYR STATUS HE CRAVES. Good idea, Liz.

Anyway: FEARMONGERING. The defendants will "mock" people, and "preach jihad" and find out what happened to JFK and the Roswell aliens. Liz Cheney is Paranoia In A Red Pantsuit.

Now she and Bill Kristol are fighting over who can demagogue this matter the hardest. The saddest thing is that they get to pretend that these concerns are sincere. Anyway, that was absurd. Coming up after the break, let's promote Sarah Palin's book! See how quickly we shed all that faux concern?

The topic of Palin reminds by the way that Bill Kristol is wrong about everything and everyone. Today, Kristol says "she had to address her problems with the McCain campaign." By the way, if you are interested in the "agenda" she lays out in the book, it's in the last Chapter, which I've read, and it's bleak, deterministic hooey about man being "fallen" and not perfectable, so public policy intended to ameliorate social problems are complete bunk, in her opinion, and the government exists solely as some dire father figure. If you are poor, you should know your place, accept your burdens gladly and take solace in the wonder and beauty of God's creation, which is better than, say, affordable health care. IT IS SOME GRIM AND HOPELESS SHIT, PEOPLE.

OH FOR REAL, WE ARE MAKING SOMETHING OUT OF OBAMA BOWING TO SOMEONE OUT OF POLITENESS? American presidents vomit in Japanese people's shoes, I guess. Anyway, Obama truly pissed away our cultural hegemony this weekend!

I was saying the other day that the guy who delivers Chinese food to me is a sweet old man who always bows, like, FIVE TIMES while I am signing the check. And believe me, like Bill Kristol likes, I always shout, "THAT'S RIGHT! YOU TAKE IT, OLD MAN! AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM LIVES HERE, IN THIS WALK UP!"

But I always tip twenty percent, so I guess it's a wash!

THIS WEEK

McCain Campaign Emails Contradict Palin's "Going Rogue"

2009-11-14T20:46:22Z

Sarah Palin's much-discussed book, "Going Rogue," hasn't even been officially released yet and already its accuracy is in question.

The Huffington Post has obtained internal McCain campaign emails -- addressed to and by the former vice presidential candidate -- that directly contradict or cast serious doubt on several of Palin's assertions. The emails were passed along by a mid-level staffer who called early excerpts of "Going Rogue", a serious mixing of truth and imagination."

In one email thread, dated October 14, 2008, Palin says she is "not thrilled" with the idea of going on Saturday Night Live as a way of marginalizing the show's unflattering impersonations of her.

"Not after seeing clips of what they've been playing re: my family," Palin writes to campaign manager Steve Schmidt, as well as top strategists Rick Davis; and Nicolle Wallace. "I had no idea how gross 'celebrities' on that show and in other celebrity venues could get when it comes to family and other aspects of my life that have nothing to do with seeking the vp slot. These folks are whack - didn't know it was as bad as it is... what's the upside in giving them any celebrity venue a ratings boost? That's Todd's input also," she concludes, in reference to her husband.

Schmidt would respond minutes later, telling Palin that, "if you don't want to do it you should not," while adding that a guest appearance would "get an enormous amount of" attention and help her "to fly above all this."

"The american people will see someone who can laugh at themselves which has alwauys [sic] been a trait they admire," he adds.

CLICK TO READ EMAIL

Palin would ultimately make a guest appearance on Saturday Night Live days later. But in her upcoming book she describes the deliberations about whether or not to go on the show much differently than the emails suggest. In "Going Rogue", the vice presidential candidate writes that "from the beginning, I liked the idea that John and I might appear on the show."

"Let's do this," I said. "Let's go on and neutralize some of this, and have some fun!"

Of course, the idea was met with massive back-and-forth haggling. Had we done it back in September, I think we might have had a shot at evening the odds with the SNL crew. As it stood, though, Tina's impression of me became so omnipresent--and so unchallenged--that some people blurred SNL/skit dialogue with what I had actually said."

The SNL episode isn't the only instance where "Going Rogue" seems to venture away from documented campaign material. On the condition that it could be quoted but not re-published, the McCain staffer also provided the email that Schmidt sent to Palin and her staff after she was prank called by someone pretending to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy

"Who set this up? Are you kidding me? Did it occur to anyone that the french president wouldn't be looking to have a conversation with the vicepresidential candidate 3 days before the election," Schmidt writes. "From this moment forward, no interview occurs without my direct signoff. Nothing. I want to know the exact details of this. I want to know who is responsible."

In "Going Rogue", the anecdote is painted in a drastically different setting and context. For starters, Palin writes that Schmidt called her, something that two McCain aides (including the one who provided the email) insist never happened. "He never called screaming at her," said one of the aides, who was traveling with Palin at the time. "There was no phone call."

Moreover, in Going Rogue, Palin recalls Schmidt screaming directly at her, so much so that it "blew my hair back." In actuality, the irritation was directed at the staffers, the aide said. "He was expressing his anger to staff. And did it over email."

Finally, the McCain aide sends over a third email that shows a late-in-the-campaign Palin grateful for the work done by Schmidt and others and cognizant of her "blundered-up" media appearances. The occasion was a sit-down interview that the vice presidential candidate had done with ABC's Elizabeth Vargas on October 29, in which it was reported (widely out of context) that Palin was already thinking about running for president in 2012.

"I am very sorry," Palin writes to Nicolle Wallace, Steve Schmidt, and Rick Davis, with her husband, Todd, cc:ed. "u guys are working double-triple time on this blundered-up stuff that they spin bc of my visits w press - while I apologize I say I love you guys!!!"

CLICK TO READ EMAIL

All told, the three emails provided to the Huffington Post are the clearest contradictions yet of the account of the campaign that Palin painted in her book. Far from being eager to go on SNL, Palin - according to the emails - showed trepidation. Meanwhile, Schmidt, in the aftermath of the Sarkozy gaffe, doesn't direct his anger to Palin over the phone. But rather, according to two aides, at staffers via email. And while Palin goes to great lengths in "Going Rogue" to paint the McCain campaign manager as tempermental and constantly opposed to allowing her to play a bigger role on the trail; just days before the election she was expressing her "love" for the help he had done covering up her blunders.

Reflecting on it all, the campaign aide who provided the emails said the following of the book: "There are elements of truth underlying a narrative that is completely false."

Palin's Enemies List: Lashes Out At The Media, Bloggers, And SNL Writers

2009-11-14T15:34:58Z

During the months that she served as the Republican Party's vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin had what could best be described as an acrimonious relationship with the press. Thrust into the national spotlight from relative political obscurity, the former Alaska Governor saw her professional record and personal story come under a powerful microscope. And as controversy was exposed and questions were raised, the animosity that Palin felt for the fourth estate became nearly all-consuming.

In her upcoming book, "Going Rogue," the former governor spends ample time airing her grievances with the way she was and continues to be treated by the media. The cast of characters she disparages range from the famous to the obscure, the national to the local - all of whom are accused of either peddling scandal or playing out political vendettas.

At one point in the book, Palin recalls ridiculing Hillary Clinton for complaining about her treatment in the press. "I wasn't really accusing her of whining," Palin writes. "Still, before criticizing her on this point, I should have walked a mile in her shoes. I can see now that she had every right to call the media on biased treatment that ended up affecting her candidacy. In fact, I should have applauded her because she was right..."

The animosity wasn't always there, as Palin writes. As governor of Alaska she had what she described as a "fine relationship" with the media - even offering up her personal cell phone number to local reporters. But a move from the statehouse to the campaign trail brought with it more critical coverage and a much larger pool or reporters. From the onset, things were rocky.

Palin writes with disgust that the "tone some reporters (and many bloggers) seemed to want to set was one of 'hypocrisy.'" Calling those who questioned the circumstances of her daughter's pregnancy "Trig truthers," she scoffs at the bloggers who, if they "weren't busy pushing fairy tales, would post threatening stories about any number of looming scandals that would drive me out of office."

Mostly, she recoils at the fourth estate's supposed sanctimoniousness. "I was amazed at how many liberal pundits seemed floored by a pregnant teenager," she writes, "as if overnight they'd all snuck out and had traditional-values transplants."

From there, Palin accuses various outlets, including the Huffington Post, of mischaracterizing her appearance at the Wasilla Assembly of God church, in which she called the war in Iraq "a task from God."

She even bemoans the writers at Saturday Night Live for having bad taste.

"I looked at the script," she writes of the preparation for her appearance on the show. "It wasn't all that funny. SNL writers had taken the campaign's 'Drill, baby, drill' mantra and turned it into a risqué double entendre about Todd and me. I thought, Nah. C'mon, New York talent, we can do better than that."

The toughest words, in the end, are saved for Katie Couric, the CBS anchor whose interviews with Palin became a major embarrassment for the McCain campaign. As Palin writes:

"Though Katie edited out substantive answers, she dutifully kept in the moments where I wore my annoyance on my sleeve.... There was much Katie appeared not to know, or care to hear about."

[snip]

"But Katie wasn't interested in discussing these issues. And when I did, she didn't air them. Instead, when I tried to describe frequent Russian incursions by figuratively referring to Vladimir Putin entering our airspace, CBS researched the Russian leader's actual flight over the United States and called my statement inaccurate. And when I referenced Alaska's narrow maritime border to describe our close proximity to other nations, CBS reported that the Coast Guard monitored the border and not the governor."

[snip]

"But Katie's purpose - shared by most media types - seemed to be to frame a 'gotcha' moment. And it worked. Instead of my scoring points for John McCain, I knew that I had let the team down."

[snip]

"I don't think she really wanted to hear my answer because she interrupted me five times as I tried to give it. The badgering had begun. This is really annoying me, I thought. Then she asked me about abortion and the morning-after pill twelve times. Twelve different times."

[snip]

"I answered as graciously and as patiently as I could. Each time, I reiterated my pro-life, pro-woman, pro-adoption position. But no matter how many ways I tried to say it, Katie responded by asking her question again in a slightly different way. I began to feel like I was in the movie Groundhog Day."

Palin's anger towards Couric became so consuming that even when recounting a wholly different campaign controversy -- the $150,000 in clothes purchased for her by the RNC -- she felt compelled to go back and take a swipe at the CBS anchor.

Katie Couric even weighed in on the trumped-up 'controversy,' writing: 'There aren't a lot of Joe Six-packs out there who can drop six figures on a new wardrobe, so Gov. Sarah Palin's $150,000 shopping spree seems excessive to some people."

This is especially ironic coming from Katie, whose own stylists, the B Team was told, was part of the team the campaign hired to do the convention shopping before I even arrived.

The end of the campaign did not bring with it an end to the frosty relationship between Palin and the press. There was, for example, the interview she did with the local television station KTUU for a routine Thanksgiving Day story

The station, Palin writes in her book, "set up an odd camera angle to capture turkeys being decapitated behind me... The photographer couldn't post it to the Web fast enough. The video became an instant YouTube hit."

"Now, I'd be the first person to tell you where your Thanksgiving meal comes from," Palin adds. But this was a deliberate move to make some noise."

Then there was the coverage of the various ethics complaints filed against her. Palin writes of reporters from the "lower 48" essentially stalking her daughter Piper on her walk home from Harborview Elementary School. She claims journalists were camping out "at the end of our driveway in Wasilla and on the ice in front of our home," and "incessantly call[ing] and stop[ping] by my parents' and siblings' and in-laws' homes and businesses."

The relationship, of course, is a two-way street. And to this day, the former Alaska Governor has not given a public news conference since being tapped as the vice presidential candidate. Palin, in "Going Rogue," proclaims that it was McCain campaign operatives who restricted her availability. "It got so bad," she writes, "that a couple of times I had a friend in Anchorage track down phone numbers for me, and then I snuck in calls to folks like Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and someone I thought was Larry Kudlow but turned out to be Neil Cavuto's producer."

But, even then, the disdain she felt for the media -- whose coverage she described as "pathetic and chilling" -- was entirely obsessive.

"Perhaps the national press outlets just don't have the resources anymore to devote to balanced coverage," she writes at one point. "Perhaps they've all just given up on themselves, so we've given up on them, too, except to treat their shoddy reporting like a car crash -- sometimes you just have to look."

Sarah Palin "Going Rogue": Takes Aim At McCain Campaign, Steve Schmidt

2009-11-13T18:17:54Z

Last month at a conference in Washington D.C., former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt was asked how he expected to be portrayed in Sarah Palin's upcoming book.

Not well, he replied. He wasn't wrong.

In an advance copy of her new book, which was obtained by the Huffington Post on Friday, the vice presidential candidate who took the political world by storm only to abruptly resign as governor of Alaska, airs plenty of dirty laundry. Clocking in at over 400 pages, "Going Rogue" is, at its heart, one giant complaint about the conduct of John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. At the nexus of Palin's grievances lies Schmidt, a character cast as out of touch, overly cautious, and vindictive.

The relationship between vice presidential candidate and the campaign manager doesn't start off on the rocks -- but it ends there. And though she claims they were "very comfortable with each other right off the bat," she also describes Schmidt as "business to the bone." During her vetting Schmidt plays it cool. When Palin admits "the one skeleton [she'd] kept hidden in [her] closet for the past twenty-two years," Schmidt "didn't bat an eye" -- though he does "wince" when she mentions God. That oh-so-dark secret, incidentally, is a D-grade Palin received in a college course.

Palin complains of being "told to sit down and shut up" when she "spoke on the trail about Obama's associations with questionable characters." She bemoans the campaign's unwillingness to tackle "Obama's pastor of twenty years, Jeremiah 'God Damn America' Wright."

"I will forever question the campaign for prohibiting discussion of such association," she writes. "All the more since these telltale signs of Obama's views, carefully concealed with centrist campaign-speak have now been brought into the light by his appointments and actions in office."

She even remarks about how Schmidt's penchant for vulgarity offended her. Writing about the preparation the campaign was conducting for the vice-presidential debates, she recounts the campaign manager declaring that moderator Gwen Ifill is "going to f*** with you?"

"I'm thinking," writes Palin, "Why are you telling me this? Last minute... what's the point? And no more f-bombs around Piper, please?"

Peppered throughout are a stream of insulting descriptions of Schmidt and others of the "professional political caste." Schmidt is "grim-faced" and "cool." The campaign handlers had a "jaded aura" about them. Palin writes: "But I did notice... funny things [about the handlers] that even Piper commented on -- such as tumbling out of the bus in a pack, lighting cigarettes as they went so it looked like a walking smoke cloud with legs."

Eventually the animosity grew quite personal. At one point during the campaign, Schmidt discusses his hopes of getting a nutritionist on the bus. Palin, first assuming that it's for the entire staff, compliments the idea. Only then, does Schmidt tell her, "No, it's for you... You gotta get off that Atkins Diet." Palin, writing up the incident months later, couldn't help but comment on Schmidt's "rotund physique."

I had to do a mental double take.

The Atkins bars -- that must be it. They were everywhere, in every hotel room and on every snack table along the trail. They were great, when I didn't have time to slow down and eat, but I didn't know why they were all over the place.

"I'm not on the Atkins Diet, Steve."

"Don't you know what a high-protein diet does?" he asked, ignoring what I had just said.

He then launched into a discussion of nutrition physiology, holding forth on the importance of carbohydrates to cognitive connections and blah-blah-blah. As he lectured, I took in his rotund physique and noted that he used nicotine to keep his own cognitive connections humming along.

I interrupted his lecture. "Steve, you know what I really need? Half an hour to go for a run in these beautiful cities we're visiting. Also, seeing my kids does wonders for my soul."

He barreled on as if I hadn't spoken. "Headquarters is flying in a nutritionist, and for three days you're going to be on a diet balanced in carbohydrates and nitrates and --"

I'm a forty-four year old, healthy, athletic woman raising five kids and governing a large state, I thought as his words faded into a background buzz. Sir, I really don't know you yet. But you've told me how to dress, what to say, who to talk to, a lot of people not to talk to, who my heroes are supposed to be and we're still losing. Now you're going to tell me what to eat?

Regrets, indeed, are everywhere in "Going Rogue". And blame always seems to fall on someone else. Palin laments the indecisiveness about how to deal with Saturday Night Live's parodies of her, writing that the campaign simply should have taken her advice and gone on the show earlier.

Her soured relationship with the local press -- originally "fine" and even helpful -- was also the campaign's fault. The McCain campaign, complained Palin, wouldn't allow her to "speak her heart and mind."

"Just stick with the script," Schmidt would say. "Ultimately," she writes, "this hurt the campaign to a degree the 'experts' could never grasp." She gives anecdotes detailing incidents where the McCain campaign directly -- sometimes physically -- stopped her from reaching out to reporters.

I moved to go speak with him [a reporter from Anchorage], but a campaign handler grabbed my elbow and said, "No, no, no ... this way." A few minutes later on my way out of the building I saw the same reporter and photographer back behind a rope line.

He yelled out "Alaska!" But as I tried to holler back, different pairs of hands hustled me into the campaign's Suburban. It was not a respectful thing to do. I had turned my back on our own local press. Right then and there, I knew it wasn't going to be good.

It wasn't. In a televised report about the campaign, that reporter wrapped it up this way: "And the Sarah Palin we once knew, is gone."

I wasn't. But I couldn't blame him for thinking so.

Palin makes clear it was the "packaging" the campaign managers wrapped her in -- never the package inside -- that led to her failed candidacy.

Now I was in the hands of "campaign professionals", and it was my first encounter with the unique way of thinking that characterizes this elite and highly specialized guild. In Alaska, we don't really have these kinds of people -- they are a feature of national politics. Naturally enough, as the experts, they are used to being in charge. But no matter how "expert" any of them was, nothing had apparently prepared them for the unprecedented onslaught of rumors, lies, and innuendo that "packaging" would have on my candidacy.

The decision to purchase designer clothes for the trail -- a major embarrassment for the campaign -- is, likewise, ascribed to aide Nicolle Wallace.

"I had a humbling experience while we were back in Wasilla for the Charlie Gibson interview in September," she writes. "While the crews turned my kitchen into a television studio, I took Nicolle into my bedroom and showed her what I thought I should pack for the trail. She flipped through my wardrobe with a raised eyebrow."

"No... no... no...," she said as she slid each garment aside on its hanger," Palin recalls.

She gasps over the expensive price of the nylons they provide for her. When describing her speech at the RNC, she snidely adds, "The kids looked great -- even in a bunch of borrowed clothes."

And the equally humiliating prank phone call Palin took from someone pretending to be French president Nicolas Sarkozy also ends with anger towards Schmidt.

By that time I'd received calls from presidents of other countries and our own, and had met elder statesmen and other dignitaries, so it didn't surprise us too much that we'd be speaking with the French leader.

He's got to be drunk, I thought.

I didn't want to offend the president of France, but this was getting stupid. I kept thinking, surely, someone will pop up and say something like, "Okay, the five minutes are up," but the call just went on and on and on. By now, I was thinking exit strategy. And I kept trying to laugh, even though it was increasingly unfunny.

Right away, the phones started ringing. One of the first calls was Schmidt, and the force of his screaming blew my hair back. "How can anyone be so stupid?! Why would the president of France call a vice presidential candidate a few days out?!"

Good question, I thought. Weren't you the ones who set this up?"

The anger between Palin and Schmidt eventually crests right as the prospects for the campaign begin their precipitous decline. In an incident that has been reported previously, Randy Scheuenemann -- a McCain foreign policy adviser and Palin loyalist -- charges into Schmidt's office after a series of articles surfaced with anonymous campaign aides whacking the vice presidential candidate

To this day, Randy - ever the gentleman - won't tell me everything that was said about the B Team. But a couple of examples tell the story. "They're screwing up,' Schmidt told Randy one day in Schmidt's office. "And the governor's not doing serious homework." Schmidt told Randy he thought I might be suffering from postpartum depression...

Randy laid out a very simply case: "Picking a running mate was John's most important decision, and being loyal to John means being loyal to his pick. That makes what's going on absolutely atrocious!"

Schmidt started in again, telling Randy what an awful pick I was -- the "postpartum" problems, the wardrobe "scandal," "legal exposure" for Todd on Troopergate, whatever he meant by that.

Somehow, Palin ends the story, "the Palins were responsible for all of the campaign's problems."

Why Did Sen. Landrieu's Campaign Donate $25,300 To The Government?

2009-11-13T18:15:20Z

When a political campaign returns dirty donations, it usually releases a statement of some kind praising the integrity of the candidate. So why didn't the campaign of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) say anything when it donated $25,300 in campaign funds to the U.S. Treasury Department in August 2008?

Progressive watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington noticed the donation and wondered if it had something to do with an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee. In January 2008, CREW had asked the committee whether Landrieu violated Senate rules in 2001 by requesting a $2 million earmark for the Voyager Expanded Learning literacy program for D.C. public schools -- "a mere four days after receiving $30,000 in campaign contributions from company executives and their relatives."

The committee announced it had cleared Landrieu of wrongdoing on Thursday, two years after the complaint. To CREW, it seemed odd that $25,300 had been returned during the investigation.

Landrieu's campaign said CREW is barking up the wrong tree.

"It has absolutely nothing at all, whatsoever, in any way shape or form to do with the CREW ethics complaint, or Voyager, or anything like that," said Marc Elias, a lawyer for the campaign, in an interview with the Huffington Post.

So why did the campaign return that money? Elias wouldn't say.

CREW executive director Melanie Sloan said she believed Elias' statement that it had nothing to do with Voyager. But she has become even more curious about the donation.

"Now there's something else out there and we don't know what it is!" she told HuffPost. "It may not be Voyager, but I believe something bad happened, and I'd sure like to know what it is... Somehow the money is tainted in some way, and when a senator has a contribution that's tainted in some way the public has a right to know what happened."

Elias said the campaign was protecting the identities of its donors.

"The concern is that these are private citizens who in most instances may not have done anything wrong," he said. "So to throw them in an article that scratches an itch that CREW has isn't fair."

Sloan's response: "Too bad. Life isn't fair."

Incidentally, D.C. public school officials did not even want the literacy program. It didn't even rank among the top three when they searched for a new system-wide program in 2005, according to the December 2007 story by the Washington Post's James Grimaldi that prompted CREW's complaint.

Grimaldi described how Congress' predilection for meddling with D.C. public schools has hurt the system:

"The Voyager story...highlights the haphazard way that curricula end up in the District's classrooms," he wrote. "For many years, educators have said that the patchwork of instructional material is one reason the city's students hover near the bottom of rankings in national test scores."

'Spokesjerk' Revolution Fails To Materialize: FreeCreditReport.com Front Man Sticks To His Guns

2009-11-13T16:18:45Z

Andy Cobb starred in TV commercials pitching health insurance for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida -- until he had a crisis of conscience.

"In some gigs, in rare cases, you're forced to come to terms with the moral content of your commercial," he told the Huffington Post. To disassociate himself from what he now calls "the worst product in American history," Cobb wrote and starred in a short video renouncing his former employer (see below).

He also asked other pitchmen to do the same.

"It's time for change," says Cobb in the video. "That's why I'm calling on leaders of the spokesjerk industry: the FreeCreditReport.com guy, the ShamWow dude, and Senator [Ben] Nelson, recipient of big money from insurance companies, to lead us, to walk away from their cash cows and tell the American people the truth."

The Huffington Post reached out to credit-report peddler Eric Violette, star of the famous commercials airing non-stop on cable television. Violette refused to comment on Cobb's call for a spokesjerk revolution. But in an email, he had this to say:

"Does this guy really equate health insurance with cleaning cloths and credit ratings? When making the decision about health care in the US, I hope the public will see that having access to health care is much more important than cloths and credit scores."

Yes, but what about the epic dishonesty of Violette's vids, whose makers have been repeatedly sanctioned by the government for false advertising? The free credit report offered simply isn't free -- you get the report after signing up for a $14.95 monthly service. Experian, the credit bureau that owns freecreditreport.com, profits in hard times from people worried about identity theft and their credit score.

The New York Times reported last week that 9 million people are spending a total of $650 million to $700 million a year for credit reporting services, with Experian making more than twice its three biggest competitors combined.

The Federal Trade Commission, whose more than $1 million in sanctions have utterly failed to stop the ads, has been so exasperated that it even made its own parody video.

The credit card reform bill signed into law by the president will curb the ads by requiring them to include the following statement: "This is not the free credit report provided for by Federal law."

The truly free credit report is available at www.annualcreditreport.com.

ShamWow huckster Vince Shlomi could not be reached. Didn't seem to be much point in calling Sen. Ben Nelson's office. The Nebraska Democrat made the list because Cobb sees him obstructing health reform.

Cobb said he had his change of heart this year after participating in fundraisers for friends who went bankrupt and broke because they got sick -- even though they had insurance from Blue Cross.

Violette, for his part, is from Canada, where health insurance and credit reports are less of a problem.

Check out Cobb's video, which was produced by Robert Greenwald's BraveNewFilms as part of its Sick for Profit series:

Here are some of those catchy credit spots -- you've got to give Violette credit for being an appealing pitchman:

Here's the FTC's parody:

Anita Dunn Takes Parting Shot At Fox, Hannity And Beck

2009-11-13T14:42:45Z

In a parting shot at Fox News, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn mocked the conservative-leaning network on Friday and laughed off its controversial host Glenn Beck for calling her a Mao enthusiast.

The outgoing administration spokeswoman took a clear and enjoyable dig, first at Sean Hannity for recently airing spliced footage designed to make a crowd of anti-health care protesters seem bigger than reality.

"A fun fact from this week is that an opinion show on a certain news network was using edited footage to make it appear that a rally last week, and political opposition to the president, was much larger than it appeared," said Dunn, during her appearance at the Bloomberg News Washington Summit. "Some of you may have heard about it. The people who went in and did fact checking on that, and actually exposed the spliced edited was... Jon Stewart of the 'Daily Show' on Comedy Central. Well that is where you are getting fact-checking and investigative journalism these days folks. It is a different media environment."

Showing an even greater appreciation for the "Daily Show"'s Fox News fact-checking abilities, Dunn referenced another Stewart triumph later in her question-and-answer session.

"Jon Stewart actually did one of the most amazing pieces of journalism last week or a couple of weeks ago," she said, "in which he looked at the way Fox, on their opinion shows, raises some issue that then gets reported on by their news division as 'a controversy.' ... Now, that's a point of view. That's fine. That's entertainment. It helps their ratings. But I think if you go downstairs and walk through the Newseum that's not traditionally what you think of as traditional news -- to some extent inventing the story."

Approached in the halls outside the forum, the Huffington Post asked Dunn to put Glenn Beck's recent theatrics into the context of her critiques of Fox News's coverage. She chuckled. For the past few weeks, Beck has insisted that the outgoing communications director considers Mao Zedong a political hero and has put a red telephone on his set begging for her to call and explain her political dispositions.

"I think it was news to everybody who knows me," she replied. "You know, most media consultants usually are accused of other things, but that's not one of them."

Last month, Dunn got caught up in a war of words between the White House and Fox News when she made the rather bland observation that the network carries a Republican agenda. On Friday, she was asked whether she considered MSNBC to have a counter-balancing bias -- a common retort offered by Fox's defenders. Dunn replied by noting that for three hours every morning that network handed over its programming to "a former Republican congressman who was a member of Newt Gingrich's revolution": Joe Scarborough.

Elsewhere in her remarks, Dunn acknowledged that her decision to go after Fox News was not an example of her "going rogue." White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and perhaps even the president himself gave her the green light. She also mocked Fox for proclaiming that it had secured an exclusive sit-down interview with President Obama during his trip to Asia when, in actuality, it was simply part of a rotating pool of reporters.

"We have on past foreign trips done what are called round-robins where there are short interviews with all of the networks that travel with us," she said. "We have not made a decision network on whether or not we are going to do those. There are no confirmed television interviews in china. And if, oh, some network sent out a press release announcing that was going to happen you'd have to ask about that network and whether or not they really had their facts confirmed before they leaked that."

Spencer Ackerman's Self-Correction: This Is How Stories Should Be Retracted

2009-11-13T14:21:35Z

Spencer Ackerman is a friend of mine and a reporter whose expertise and ecumenical fairness are resources I've come to trust. He's also demonstrated a hardcore willingness to get his body to where the news is happening -- whether its simply trooping out to an obscure but important Congressional hearing, or strapping on the body armor to head to FOB Salerno in Afghanistan.

Yesterday, Ackerman reported out a story about a teleconference between U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry and the National Security Council, an account predicated on the word of a single source, which subsequently came undone as new facts came to the fore.

The reason Ackerman will continue to be a trusted reporter, in my view, is because when you have to retract a story, you should do it like this:

My original source for the post stands by the account provided. The individual, a National Security Council staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity, has provided truthful and verified information on past stories, and so I trusted the source for this one. Elements of the account have been subsequently borne out: yesterday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that President Obama will ask his Afghanistan-Pakistan advisers to provide him with an exit strategy for the eight-year war, which is congruent with but not identical to my source's information that Obama has asked the team to derive timetables for troop withdrawal.

But there are greater problems with the post. For one, the source was not actually present for the video teleconference that is the post's central scene, and passed information to me second-hand. Furthermore, not only has the White House's Tommy Vietor denied, on the record, that Ambassador Karl Eikenberry participated in a video teleconference yesterday morning, but the other two individuals I named as being present for the meeting -- the inspector generals for Iraq and Afghanistan -- have, through representatives, denied being present. I cannot subsequently stand by this account.

From the start, the post should have a) more clearly indicated that my source wasn't present at the meeting; b) more clearly indicated that the account provided was single-sourced; and c) verified the information provided before publication. My enthusiasm for a hot story outpaced my professional judgment. For that I take full responsibility, retract the story and issue a full apology for its publication.

It's a pretty rare thing for a reporter to offer a thorough itemization of all the errors of a story and how they came about, let alone an admission that "enthusiasm for a hot story outpaced my professional judgment." Yet, this should be the standard.

Additionally, as far as I can tell, Ackerman returned to all of the venues where he distributed his original, and distributed the retraction, ensuring that it would have equal dissemination.

I'd also note that over at the Washington Independent, the original story remains, reformatted to appear with the original text struck through. This is a unique feature of online journalism. Rather than allowing a factual mistake to drop into the memory hole, it remains available for readers. More importantly, it remains a part of the writer's body of work. I've always admired this tradition. It breeds a certain amount of humility, and it reminds us that the richness of our experience is often most strongly derived from our mistakes.

RELATED:
A Retraction of My Eikenberry Post [The Washington Independent]

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Holder: Unfair To Blame Greg Craig For Gitmo Failures

2009-11-13T13:12:51Z

Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday that he was surprised by the resignation of White House Counsel Greg Craig and believes Craig has been unfairly blamed for the administration's difficulties in closing the prison base at Guantanamo Bay.

Briefing reporters at the Department of Justice, Holder called Craig a "great lawyer" who had "contributed in a significant way to the success of this administration." On the issue of shutting down Gitmo -- a project that Craig spearheaded within the administration, but which has stalled in Congress -- the AG insisted that it was wrong to scapegoat one person.

"Greg is a friend of mine," he said, "and those who have tried to place on him, I think, an unfair proportion of the blame as to why things have not proceeded, perhaps as we've wanted, with respect to Guantanamo, that is simply unfair."

Craig's departure from the White House on Friday was long anticipated. Inside the administration, there was a growing frustration over what aides considered a botched political process, which was Craig's responsibility. Those who know Craig personally, meanwhile, say he felt increasingly frustrated with his role within the administration. He had, initially, wanted to be part of the White House's foreign policy apparatus.

The push to close Guantanamo has met various pitfalls since it became a stated administrative objective, with Congress balking at the prospect of bringing detainees to domestic prison facilities. And now, it is widely assumed that the one-year deadline for shutting the detention center will be missed.

"I think it is going to be difficult to close that facility by January the 22nd," Holder told reporters on Friday. "There are a number of things that I think are most problematic."

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Jon Stewart Discusses Lou Dobbs's Decision To 'Go Palin'

2009-11-13T12:43:07Z

At some point in the future, Jon Stewart may again have to endure the hour-long waterboarding of the soul that is the Sean Hannity show. But he'll never have to watch Lou Dobbs on CNN again, so upside! Thursday night, the Daily Show host brought his audience up to speed on Dobbs's decision to depart, saying, "Nothing says honest and straightforward better than a surprise announcement that you're quitting for reasons you can't explain to do something you can't discuss."

So true! The only thing that differentiates Dobbs's "I quit" announcement from Sarah Palin's was that there were no woodland creatures squawking in the background. At least none that you could hear. Stewart would go on to make this obvious link.

Dobbs, of course, has some vague plans to wander the earth, kickin' mad science and "contributing positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day."

Stewart responded: "So, in order to contribute positively to a better understanding of the issues of our day, you must leave your nightly television show, devoted to understanding the issues of our day. I actually agree with you on that one."

[WATCH]

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Va. Rep. Tom Perriello, On Health Care Vote: 'He Didn't Come To Congress To Get Re-Elected' [UPDATE]

2009-11-13T11:39:24Z

OH NOES! What is Representative Tom Perriello (D-Va.) doing, allowing his spokesperson to say stuff like this, in the wake of his vote for the House health care reform bill:

Perriello spokeswoman Jessica Barba said Perriello met with and respected those who oppose the health care bill but ultimately made the decision he deemed best for his district. Perriello's 5th District stretches from Charlottesville to Danville.

"A lot of the political pundits and all the conventional wisdom is saying that this is going to cost him the election next year," she said. "He didn't come to Congress to get re-elected."

Perriello won his seat in the House after defeating the incumbent Republican Virgil Goode by a razor-thin, 727-vote margin. He's generally seen as one of the most -- if not the most -- vulnerable Democratic incumbents. Sam Stein reported on Monday that the National Republican Congressional Committee immediately went to work on Perriello, sending out 16 separate emails about his vote for the health care bill, the first of which came with the subject heading, "BREAKING: The end of Tom Perriello's political career." And his spokesperson's comment came amid an AstroTurf outpouring of protest from Americans for Prosperity.

It's almost as if Perriello has "convictions" that are more important to him than doing whatever he can to preserve his Congressional career. Inside the Beltway, this behavior is generally regarded as insane. If Perriello was a fighter pilot, he'd be grounded, according to Catch-22.

UPDATE: Apparently believing that it is a sufficient substitute for cogent political thought or maturity, the Danville TEA Party will "will close their "Fired Up for Freedom" rally by burning Rep. Tom Perriello and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in effigy in response to the passage of landmark healthcare legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.

That's all going down this Saturday at 5:30pm in Blairs, VA, and will obviously solve our health care problems forever.

RELATED:
Principle over politics [Politico]

PREVIOUSLY, on the HUFFINGTON POST:
Dems Challenge Theme That Health Care Vote Makes Members Vulnerable

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White House Official Feels 'Nervousness' About Dodd's Regulatory Plan

2009-11-13T11:37:04Z

(Updated with response from Dodd's office; see below.)

One of the president's top economic advisers expressed concerns Friday that financial regulatory reforms proposed by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) would take too long to become operational and would in some respects be ineffective.

Austan Goolsbee, who sits on the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, said he felt some "nervousness" about Dodd's proposal to create a committee independent of the Federal Reserve to oversee risks in the financial system and police potential threats to the economy.

"The administration's view is that systemic institutions ought to be governed by the Fed," Goolsbee said. A different group could be charged with looking at problems on the horizon, "The Dodd version is 'let's combine both of those and create some new agency,'" he said. "I am a little worried that to create that new agency would take a long time and by the time you got to that we are back into this world."

Speaking at Bloomberg News's Washington Summit, Goolsbee compared Dodd's blueprint for financial regulation to the type of system seen in England, then noted that "they have a lot of problems in the U.K. as well." The chief concern, Goolsbee stressed, was to have strong coordination within a regulatory body. Splitting up functions -- as the Dodd bill proposes -- could, he predicted, lead to missed warning signs or bureaucratic mishaps.

"There has always been an issue that in a moment of crisis, where the Fed is out there trying to figure out what to do, if they are not integrally involved with the actual regulation and oversight of the institutions, you can, if you do it wrong, get into a left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing crisis," Goolsbee said.

Dodd, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, has put forward what is regarded as the most aggressive of the three official proposals for re-regulating the markets. The senator has called for overhauling the existing regulatory establishment -- in part by removing powers from the Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and creating three new agencies to oversee the financial system, protect consumers, and anticipate future crises. Dodd's proposals have, however, come under attack from industry groups, and House leaders have, as The Washington Post put it, found parts of the proposal "untenable." One of the concerns from the administration is that the Dodd plan is simply too sweeping and ambitious to make it through Congress.

UPDATE:

Kirstin Brost, a spokesman for Dodd on the Senate Banking Committee, emailed the Huffington Post taking umbrage with various of Goolsbee's assertions.

Where Goolsbee suggested that regulatory functions would best be housed under one roof -- the Federal Reserve's -- Brost notes that, "giving the Federal Reserve too many responsibilities led to missed warning signs" in the first place.

In regards to his comparison of the regulatory framework under Dodd's plan to that in the U.K., Brost writes: "The last thing we would want would be to set up a UK style regulator. The FSA in the UK merges regulations for banks, securities, insurance, and consumer protections into one agency. Dodd's proposal does the opposite. The crisis taught us that when an agency has too many responsibilities it won't do any of them well. Dodd's bill creates a single bank regulator, a consumer financial protection agency, and a systemic risk regulator and also preserves the SEC, FDIC, CFTC, NCUA, 50 state bank regulators, and 50 state insurance commissioners."

Finally, Brost pushes back on Goolsbee's suggestion that if you remove responsibilities from the Fed, you could create a system where information is not shared between agencies and crises are missed.

"We keep the Federal Reserve integrally involved with a seat on the boards of the FDIC, the single prudential bank regulator, and the systemic risk regulator," she writes. "Dodd's proposal will ensure that the Fed has the ability to get whatever information they need from banks and other regulators in order to do their job on monetary policy and as lender of last resort.

"Dodd wants to focus and strengthen the Federal Reserve's ability to do their core functions - monetary policy, lender of last resort, and payment systems supervision."

Washington Times Turmoil Continues Amid Resignations, Uncertainty, And Panic

2009-11-13T10:53:39Z

So, here's what's going on at your Washington Times. Confusion! Panic! Resignations! Clampdowns! This week, The Politico is not the most terrifying and sad place to work in Washington, DC. That's actually impressive!

-- Executive editor John Solomon is definitely gone! I guess it was a pretty clear sign when the Times took his parking space away, right? Well, yesterday, the paper, communicating through Don Meyer at Rubin Meyer Communications, said that Solomon's resignation was effective, uhm... six days ago. Naturally, this touched off newsroom panic.

Via Fishbowl DC:

One senior member of the newsroom suggested that it was time to look for a new job while a younger reporter told us, "we're in trouble without John. Solomon had the vision, heart and had begun to make the Times a real force in Washington news media."

-- Employees have been told to stop talking to the press. Which is too bad, because the drama is exquisite. Managing editor David Jones has been weeping over the loss of Solomon. Employees at the paper's field offices are "feeling isolated." White House bureau chief Matt Mosk is currently following the president on his trip to Asia. Are his colleagues lending comfort, during this time? Will there be a paper to return to, when the trip concludes? Will Matt Mosk, inspired by the majesty and the people of Asia, venture off on a voyage of personal discovery, seeking romance and adventure?

-- Where is the paper going from here? Days ago, published Jonathan Slevin told TPM, "We expect The Washington Times to continue to serve its readers and viewers for years to come." But, in the same report, anonymous sources gave TPM's Ben Frumin some worrisome news:

A former Times staffer also tells TPM that the newspaper may have lost immediate access to the stream of money that helps fund the Times. According to the source, the newspaper used a stream of additional investments from the parent company that owns the Times to keep its operation going. But one of the three executives fired on Sunday -- chairman Dong Moon Joo -- was apparently the one responsible for securing those additonal investments. It was his main function, our source says. Without additional cash infusions from the parent company run by Preston Moon, it's possible that the Times will have serious short-term cash problems, we're told.

So, maybe the Times staff spent the day yesterday playing murder mystery games, who knows?

-- Is Friend to Eat The Press and Washington Times society reporter Liz Glover going to just walk up into the office and seize control of the operations using only her boundless personal charisma? Let's hope so! In the meantime, however, Glover is hard at work, getting stood up by Carrie Prejean.

-- Another casualty: perennial anger-management candidate Lanny Davis has told the paper that he will no longer contribute his "Purple Nation" column.

In Davis' e-mail to Times editors, he thanked the staff of the paper, but said "In light of the announcement of John Solomon's resignation, I am no longer comfortable writing a column for the Washington Times. I began writing because John asked me to. And now with him gone, I cannot continue."

And that's the state of your Moonie newspaper! More news as circumstances develop.

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Pharma CEO: We Will Fight House Health Care Bill

2009-11-13T10:05:53Z

The CEO of one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the country said on Friday that he and others in the industry would switch their support for health care reform to opposition if Congress settles on legislation passed by the House of Representatives.

David Brennan, head of pharma giant AstraZeneca, told the Huffington Post that he was pleased with the White House and the Senate Finance Committee for standing by "the principles which we said are really important." The three parties entered into an agreement, before the health care debate heated up, that saw the pharmaceutical industry committing $80 billion to reform in exchange for various assurances -- the primary one being that the government would not use its purchasing power to negotiate cheaper prescription drug prices.

The House, however, hasn't played by those rules. And in an appearance at Bloomberg News's Washington Summitt, Brennan warned that the industry's ample resources could be turned against the broader reform effort if Speaker Nancy Pelosi's legislation were to emerge from the Congress.

"Right now the answer to that is yes," Brennan said, when asked if the support would change to opposition. "We said there were principles we didn't want to see violated. And if those principles -- price controls, Medicare rebates, moving dual eligibles back from Medicare and back into the Medicaid discount program -- if those things happen, I can't see how we could be supportive of the program."

Asked after the conference by the Huffington Post what kind of opposition he was discussing, Brennan refused to reveal his cards.

"We said we are not in favor of the House bill but we haven't seen what they are going to try to reconcile," he said. "We are going to do what we are going to do. Right now we are in support [of the process] because there are certain things we are trying to get into the system which we think make it a better outcome."

Part of that "better outcome" entails the potential for major profits for the pharmaceutical industry. According to an analysis put together by the pharmaceutical research firm, IMS, the industry stands to gain an estimated $137 billion from an improved economy, new market innovations, as well as the deal struck by with the White House and Senate Finance Committee.

And yet, when Brennan was asked whether Big Pharma stood to make profits going forward, he said no.

"Until we really see the elements of a health care bill come through... it is difficult to project," he said. "But right now it is not obvious to me that there is an upside to this."

Asked to reconcile his dour outlook with the IMS data, Brennan replied: "I talk to the IMS. They, I think, have gone from projecting the market would be flat to roughly two or three percent. I think you have to go back and look at their record of prospectively being able to project that out. And right now the market is softer than we probably expected it to be a few years ago."

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Castellanos Whacks Crist, Questions Palin's Appeal

2009-11-13T08:59:55Z

One of the Republican Party's most respected and relied-upon consultants has serious reservations about two the party's biggest names.

Alex Castellanos, a conservative media strategist and regular presence on CNN, raised questions of Sarah Palin's viability for office and took major swipes at Florida Senate candidate Charlie Crist during an appearance at Bloomberg News' Washington Summit Thursday.

The harshest lines were saved for Crist, who Castellanos said was not really a Republican.

"Nobody is running out the Charlie Crists of the world," Castellanos said, when asked about the shrinking GOP tent. "Look, if Barack Obama stood up tomorrow in the Democratic Party and said: 'I got a great idea. George Bush's tax cuts. They are terrific. They are the best thing ever. I'm for that.' What do you think would happen to him in the Democratic Party? He would have stepped out of the mainstream of the Democratic Party at that point. Charlie Crist happens to be the guy who stepped out of the mainstream of the Republican Party."

"The Republicans are actually very unified at this point," Castellanos added. "You see it, recently, in Florida, where the fella who is out of the mainstream is one guy. It happens to be the governor, unfortunately for him. But Marco Rubio [Crist's challenger for the Senate seat] and every Republican in the state doesn't quite understand why... the governor there voted to support this huge stimulus."

Crist, of course, never voted for the stimulus bill. He merely expressed appreciation for the help the president was providing his state. For that acknowledgment, he has been branded a heretic within the GOP. As for the Bush tax cuts, despite Castellanos' assertion, a dozen Senate Democrats did support the measure and none were seriously punished for it.

But Castellanos wasn't done throwing haymakers at fellow Republicans. Asked if former Gov. Sarah Palin, about to embark on a book tour, was she the future of the GOP, Castellanos was skeptical.

"[She's a] fascinating character and that is what the news loves to play," Castellanos observed. "I think [Obama] is stopping by Alaska as he begins this week-long trip to Asia. I don't think he is going to announce that he is resigning from politics," he said, in reference to Palin's abrupt resignation from office.

"I think it is going to be very tough for Sarah Palin, who has stepped back from the governorship under the explanation that her state would be better off without her, to now explain why the other 49 states would somehow be better off with her," he concluded.

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Goldman To Private Insurers: No Health Care Reform At All Is Best

2009-11-12T17:12:56Z

A Goldman Sachs analysis of health care legislation has concluded that, as far as the bottom line for insurance companies is concerned, the best thing to do is nothing. A close second would be passing a watered-down version of the Senate Finance Committee's bill.

A study put together by Goldman in mid-October looks at the estimated stock performance of the private insurance industry under four variations of reform legislation. The study focused on the five biggest insurers whose shares are traded on Wall Street: Aetna, UnitedHealth, WellPoint, CIGNA and Humana.

The Senate Finance Committee bill, which Goldman's analysts conclude is the version most likely to survive the legislative process, is described as the "base" scenario. Under that legislation (which did not include a public plan) the earnings per share for the top five insurers would grow an estimated five percent from 2010 through 2019. And yet, the "variance with current valuation" -- essentially, what the value of the stock is on the market -- is projected to drop four percent.

Things are much worse, Goldman estimates, for legislation that resembles what was considered and (to a certain extent) passed by the House of Representatives. This is, the firm deems, the "bear case" scenario -- in which earnings per share for the top five insurers would decline an estimated one percent from 2010 through 2019 and the variance with current valuation is projected to be negative 36 percent.

What the firm sees as the best path forward for the private insurance industry's bottom line is, to be blunt, inaction.

The study's authors advise that if no reform is passed, earnings per share would grow an estimated ten percent from 2010 through 2019, and the value of the stock would rise an estimated 59 percent during that time period.

The next best thing for the insurance industry would be if the legislation passed by the Senate Finance Committee is watered down significantly. Described as a "bull case" scenario -- in which there is "moderation of provisions in the current SFC plan" or "changes prior to the major implementation in 2013" -- earnings per share for the five biggest insurers would grow an estimated ten percent and the variance with current valuation would rise an estimated 47 percent.

The report, a Goldman official stressed, was analytic not advocacy-based. Their job was to provide a sober assessment of the market realities facing private insurers under various versions of health care reform.

"If no reform at all happens you would see the largest rise in EPS," a Goldman official acknowledged. "But what we are doing is just analyzing what the stocks would do under different scenarios."

The study does note on the front page that the firm "does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports." Those companies include Aetna, Wells Point and United Health.

goldman -

In the context of the current health care debate, the findings provide a small window into the concerns that have driven the private insurance industry's opposition to reform legislation. Simply put: health care reform is going to hurt their bottom line. No less a prestigious voice than Goldman Sachs is telling them so.

Some insurers, in the end, will be hit harder than others. CIGNA is the lowest of the big five, for instance, because it does little business providing insurance plans to Medicare patients, individuals and families buying health plans directly, or small employers that offer health plans to their workers.

In addition, some reforms are going to hurt the industry more than others. Regulatory changes -- such as prohibiting the prejudice against consumers with pre-existing conditions -- will have an impact across the board, as will the funding cuts to Medicare Advantage.

Overall, Goldman calculates the probability of reform passing Congress at 75 percent. Though the limitations of Goldman's political prognostications were on full display earlier in the document:

By mid-late October, we expect a cloture vote (60 votes) to bypass a potential filibuster followed by several weeks of debate over proposed amendments on the Senate floor (with a similar process under way in the House). If both the Senate and House are able to pass legislation (perhaps before the Thanksgiving recess), a House-Senate conference negotiation should produce combined legislation for final approval (perhaps by mid-December).

Insane Deficit Commission Idea Gathers Momentum

2009-11-12T15:51:32Z

The deficits! Your Beltway media is sore afraid of them! But like a family who goes to live in a haunted house only to refuse to move out once the ancient demons that reside in the tool shed reveal themselves and announce their intention to eat their children in allegiance to Satan, they don't do much to account for the grandiose failures in judgment they have made that have sped the way to wrack and ruin.

You don't hear anyone ever talking about "bending the cost curve" of the Afghanistan War. And the idea that the taxpayers, having invested billions propping up a coven of incompetent banks, should receive the same sort of return on investment as a Warren Buffet is treated as if it sprang from the skull of an alien being. In this way, they enable members of Congress, who never take responsibility for the decisions they make that pave the way to potential deficit crises, to go right on making the same sorts of decisions.

And now, via The Hill, comes this:

Senators from both parties on Tuesday put new pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to turn the power to trim entitlement benefits over to an independent commission.

Seven members of the Senate Budget Committee threatened during a Tuesday hearing to withhold their support for critical legislation to raise the debt ceiling if the bill calling for the creation of a bipartisan fiscal reform commission were not attached. Six others had previously made such threats, bringing the total to 13 senators drawing a hard line on the committee legislation.

And here's what the commission would do:

Among its chief responsibilities would be closing the gap between tax revenue coming in and the larger cost of paying for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. The Government Accountability Office recently reported the gap is on pace to reach an "unsustainable" $63 trillion in 2083.

The panel would also have the power to craft legislation that would change the tax code and set limits on government spending.

The legislation would then be subject to an up-or-down vote; it could not be amended.

In other words, a group of senators have ginned up an idea to outsource their responsibility to some wondrous and new deficit-hawk commission in order to steal entitlement money to pay for their own foolish and profligate spending.

By doing so, they limit their exposure to bad or unpopular legislative decisions, preserving their career longevity while vesting enormous power in a body over whom the American people have no oversight. And to get their way, they'll threaten to basically blow up the government.

Oh, and why are "Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits" in this commission's crosshairs? Well, why try to get our money back from Citigroup when the elderly and the poor have so much more they can give?

The supporters of this crapulence are, not surprisingly, serial crapulence supporters: Senators Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). They've gotten their talking points together, and are happy to repeat them robotically, for reporters:

You rarely do have the leverage to make a fundamental change," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.).

[...]

"There are rare moments in this institution when you can implement fundamental change," Bayh said during Tuesday's hearing. "This is one of them."

So does this make Nancy Pelosi, who has "scoffed" at the idea, some sort of debt-hugging monster who wants to destroy the future, for the children? No. She just understands that there's this thing called the legislative process that shouldn't be thrown in the dustbin for the sake of allowing a group of unelected idiots with blue ribbons pinned to their chests to decide funding priorities without any means of holding them accountable for their decisions.

Back in February, The Nation's William Greider warned about the Coming Of The Deficit Commission:

Governing elites in Washington and Wall Street have devised a fiendishly clever "grand bargain" they want President Obama to embrace in the name of "fiscal responsibility." The government, they argue, having spent billions on bailing out the banks, can recover its costs by looting the Social Security system. They are also targeting Medicare and Medicaid. The pitch sounds preposterous to millions of ordinary working people anxious about their economic security and worried about their retirement years. But an impressive armada is lined up to push the idea--Washington's leading think tanks, the prestige media, tax-exempt foundations, skillful propagandists posing as economic experts and a self-righteous billionaire spending his fortune to save the nation from the elderly.

These players are promoting a tricky way to whack Social Security benefits, but to do it behind closed doors so the public cannot see what's happening or figure out which politicians to blame. The essential transaction would amount to misappropriating the trillions in Social Security taxes that workers have paid to finance their retirement benefits. This swindle is portrayed as "fiscal reform." In fact, it's the political equivalent of bait-and-switch fraud.

It's easy to see why lawmakers would cotton to this idea. They made a bunch of stupid decisions, which ran up the deficit. At some point, they're going to have to do something that's potentially difficult or unpopular to fix their mistakes. This puts their precious seats and the flow of sweet, sweet special interest money at risk. So if someone could provide them with a behind-closed-doors cabal that would solve their problems at the expense of the poor and the old, these senators could simply shrug and say, "Sorry, y'all! This is all beyond my control!" And they'll get what they want by throwing a tantrum, and threatening to do something stupid: forcing the Federal government to default on its debt.

Matt Yglesias rightly calls out these lawmakers for their "egomania, self-righteousness, irresponsibility, and cowardice":

Why not throw it back at this crew? Tell the Irresponsible Threat Caucus that instead of asking for a commission, they should just start calling themselves a "budget commission" and then they can specify their own proposed set of tax hikes and Medicare cuts.

Note that Senators Gregg, Bayh, Voinovich, and Sessions didn't have these concerns about the budget when voting to give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts to the children of multi-millionaires. And I continue to await congressional support for making the war in Afghanistan deficit neutral.

And by the way, this craven crew isn't above putting the health and welfare of the American people at risk, to get their way:

Conrad signaled that he may likewise have run out of patience with the status quo, suggesting that if Democratic leaders refuse to couple a vote on a bipartisan fiscal task force of some kind with the debt limit increase, he would seek to attach a commission proposal to other crucial legislation.

"There are other vehicles," Conrad said Tuesday, "including healthcare."

It gets harder, with each passing day, to continue to pretend that adults are running this country. But you'd never know this from reading about them in the traditional media!

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Rep. Blackburn Won't Pledge To Stop Calling Obama A Socialist

2009-11-12T15:32:37Z

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, one of the most prominent flamethrowers in the House of Representatives, simply could not commit herself on Thursday to no longer call President Obama a socialist or a tyrant.

Appearing at the Bloomberg Washington Summit, the Tennessee Republican was asked whether she disapproved of some of the more vitriolic rhetoric heard at conservative town-hall or tea-party protests.

"I think many of us would appreciate having a more civil tone here in Washington," Blackburn responded. "And what we would love to see is less partisanship; and individuals coming to the table and sitting down and working in a bipartisan manner. That is one of the items that has been so frustrating in dealing with the health care bill."

Nice dodge. Gary Flake, an employee of Microsoft and the person who posed the question, kept at it. Will you, he asked, "no longer endorse the words and language of socialism and evil and tyranny and things like that."

"What I will tell you --" Blackburn replied, carefully choosing her words.

"-- Is a crisp answer?" chimed in Flake.

"What I will be happy to tell you is that the American people are very frustrated," replied Blackburn, getting a big flummoxed. "And what I can speak to is for me. And what I think to do is to represent my constituents in ways that are going to honor the fact that they have elected me and that they have sent me here. They want to see action... They are frustrated with Washington D.C. as a whole. And what we need to do is make certain that we as representatives coming here are able to sit down and work on these issues and work these problems out."

With that, the interview ended. Unbeknown to both parties at the time was that a local official from Blackburn's home state had just thrown another rhetorical haymaker at the White House. Rep. Richard Floyd, a Republican member of the Tennessee House of Representatives, blasted out an email on Thursday afternoon warning about "what socialist leader Obama and his gang of thugs are trying to do to this country." Floyd was worried, for some odd reason, that Obama was trying to take away people's firearms.

Few Earmarks For Bridge Repairs After Minnesota Collapse

2009-11-12T14:45:42Z

Amid the national hand-wringing after the Minnesota bridge collapse of 2007, members of Congress earmarked 10 times more money for new transportation projects than for bridge repair, according to a new report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

In the transportation appropriations bill for fiscal 2008, approved just months after the I-35 bridge collapse killed 13 people, members of Congress included more than 700 earmarks worth $574 million in Federal Highway Administration spending. Seventy-four of those earmarks sent just under $60 million to bridge repair -- even though one out of every four bridges in the United States needs work, according to a 2009 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The total amount earmarked for the federal highway program "could have been used to bring approximately 20 structurally deficient bridges per state or two bridges per Congressional district into a state of good repair," says PIRG's report. The good-government group attributes the lack of earmark funds for deficient bridges entirely to elected representatives' insatiable hunger for campaign cash.

"In a political system in which elected officials must raise huge sums of campaign contributions from major donors to win reelection, spending may be skewed toward road widening and new highway projects favored by developers, road builders and other interests," says the report, co-authored by PIRG's Lisa Gilbert and John Krieger.

"Deferring maintenance to build new capacity may seem senseless -- much like a family with a leaky roof who instead builds a new addition -- but it makes sense in Congress if money and politics favor those choices."

Using data from the Center for Responsive Politics, PIRG reports that "highway interests from the construction and transportation industry" contributed $80 million to federal campaigns during the 2008 election cycle.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is one senator who doesn't seem to have put his money where his mouth was after the I-35 collapse, at least according to a review of earmarks in the transportation bill by the Huffington Post.

''For too long, the federal government has focused on building new bridges at the expense of fixing old ones, and now we are living with the consequences,'' Schumer said in August 2007, according to the New York Times. ''Robbing Peter to pay Paul is no way to keep America's drivers safe.''

Schumer's name appears on a dozen earmarks worth $10 million for various transportation projects in New York, only one of which involved fixing up an old bridge. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Huffington Post.

State legislators in Albany joined a rally on Tuesday to draw attention to the state's aging bridges after the Crown Point Bridge was deemed unsafe and shut down. The New York Department of Transportation has estimated that 1,526 bridges will be deficient within the next five years.

Schumer's remark about the federal government's spending priorities did not refer to earmarks, but U.S. PIRG's report calls them a "clear demonstration of the influence and prioritization of members of Congress, because their project requests circumvent agency review."

"Earmarking is kind of the one place where members of Congress actually choose" where money goes, said transportation policy expert Mark Stout in an interview with HuffPost. Stout, who lent his expertise to the report, spent 25 years working for the New Jersey Department of Transportation. "I've spent a lot of time in the weeds and in the mechanics of the funding of the industry."

In their report, U.S. PIRG did not call out any specific members of Congress but they did have some sharp words for the entire Mississippi delegation, one of several to designate zero earmarks to old bridges:

"The delegation from Mississippi," the report says, "secured funding for 19 earmarked projects at a cost of $29,414,000, and despite having a backlog of over 3,000 structurally-deficient bridges in the state, none of their earmarks went to bridge repair."

U.S. PIRG's report, titled "Greasing the Wheels," is available here.

Byron Dorgan's Financial Plan: Common Sense From The Senator Who Saw This Coming

2009-11-12T14:02:09Z

He got it right last time.

Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, was one of eight senators who stood up to oppose the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act in 1999. That repeal, which was signed into law by President Clinton exactly 10 years ago today, broke down the barriers between commercial banking and investment banking, and led to the growth of behemoth financial firms that were able to take enormous risks with impunity, because they were "too big to fail."

"I think we will in 10 years' time look back and say we should not have done this," Dorgan said back then. The video of his speech has become something of a cult favorite for wonks -- ten years, a $700 billion bailout and a major financial crisis later.

Washington has an odd habit of listening to the people who consistently get such things wrong, and ignoring the ones who get them right.

So today, on this solemn anniversary, how about listening to this guy? What does he think we should do now?

"Three things," the senator told me in an interview. "One is to separate investment banks and FDIC-insured banks. Second, prohibit FDIC-insured banks from dealing in risky financial instruments on their own proprietary accounts... And third, abolish 'too big to fail.' If you're too big to fail, you're too big. Too big to fail is what I call no-fault capitalism."

All in all, it's a much more forceful agenda than his party leaders -- including his president -- are advocating.

Why isn't the administration at his side? "You'd have to address that question to the administration," Dorgan said. He did, however, express disappointment. "I would like to see them more aggressive on this issue."

But he's still hopeful. "We don't have any bill on the floor of the House or the Senate to evaluate," said Dorgan, who is not on the Senate's Finance Committee. "My hope is that we'll get a piece of legislation that will restore that separation."

Dorgan said he hasn't yet taken a position on the administration's proposed Consumer Finance Protection Agency, but "clearly there needs to be consumer protection. The question is how."

Also, he said, "I think you have to regulate hedge funds... You have to have transparency on these financial instruments."

And then there's the whole issue of accountability. "It's one of the most frustrating things," Dorgan said. "We essentially have had modern-day bank robbers -- except that they wore gray suits and not masks -- and there's been no accountability for it."

Dorgan has repeatedly called -- fruitlessly -- for a federal task force to investigate and establish accountability for the crisis. What's needed, he said, is an agreed-upon "master narrative" for the story -- and then prosecution of any criminal activity.

Dorgan, who is finishing up his third term in the Senate, is also an author. His latest book, published in May, is titled: "Reckless! How Debt, Deregulation and Dark Money Nearly Bankrupted America and How We Can Fix It".

In it, he writes about the government's obligation to right the tilted playing field of modern free-market capitalism, which currently favors the major players over regular folk. He writes:

Every day we see energy speculators, war profiteers, managed health-care providers, media propagandists, and/or financiers given some unfair advantage over the average consumers and taxpayers, and the cumulative effect of the American people watching selfishness prevail over the public interest has been an undermining of the public's trust in government.

This "anything goes" approach to capitalism has injured the very economy we have aspired to create. It is a philosophy that corporations and markets can be counted on to police themselves....

I'm a big fan of the free-market system. I don't know of any better method of allocating the goods and services. But in a free- market economy it is not unusual to see the big interests pitted against the little guy. When they are allowed to run unchecked or to rig the system, the big interests have the potential to drag down the very economy they need to remain stable and healthy. That is why it is so important we fight for a new era of reform and change to put our country back on track -- giving working people and small businesses the voice and the power to make the changes necessary.

This is not about a liberal or conservative philosophy. It is about making sure our economy and the free-market system work for everybody.

"There's no question the system is rigged against the little guy," Dorgan told me. "The bigger interests have a lot more information. They jerry-rig the system so that they always win."

"I think that has to be one of the lessons that comes out of this experience," he said, noting that it's been "one of the most expensive lessons in the history of our country."

As for what motivated him back in 1999, Dorgan said: "I just felt that merging the risks of investment banks with FDIC-insured banks was going to cause very expensive problems for the taxpayers of the country. And it turns out that's exactly what happened."

WATCH:

Here's Dylan Ratigan "celebrating" the 10th birthday of the Glass-Steagall repeal.

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Rick Morrissey, Chicago Sportswriter, Literally Eats His Own Words (VIDEO)

2009-11-12T12:42:35Z

Thanks to the Columbia Journalism Review, Eat The Press is proud to finally bring you an example of actual press being actually eaten. Oh, frabjous day!

I rather like the example set here in this video, where Chicago Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey, having been the author of an "unflattering assessment of Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah" -- an assessment that ultimately proved to be incorrect -- sits down with the vindicated Noah and proceeds to eat his own words. By which I mean, he takes his story and literally gets his mastication on, while a joyful Noah looks on. Maybe sportswriter Rick Reilly should consider what wine will best wash down his many hysterically wrong predictions about the Denver Broncos!

WATCH:

Naturally, this is all sort of a good-spirited goof, but I rather like Noah's statement, "Finally, a reporter is taking some accountability for what he's doing." Imagine if this was the standard means by which journalistic accountability was enforced. Why, so many so-called Iraq War experts would be presently choking down the reams of paper upon which they got the war wrong, that there wouldn't be anyone available to get the War in Afghanistan wrong! And, naturally, the high fiber intake would make the alimentary canals of many columnists practically frictionless for life.

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Petraeus Not Asked About, Won't Address, Afghan Strategy At News Summit

2009-11-12T12:18:39Z

Bloomberg News scored a major opportunity when news broke Wednesday evening that (1) President Obama had scrapped four proposals for operations in Afghanistan; and (2) the U.S. ambassador to that country had expressed deep reservations about a troop build-up.

The news outlet was, on Thursday, hosting a Washington summit. And its featured guest was General David Petraeus, head of the United States Central Command and, perhaps, the most highly-respected voice in the armed forces.

So which topic was the center of discussion? It was, in the end, topic (3): None of the above.

For 30 minutes, Petraeus was asked about a host of policy issues not by a reporter, but by Michael O'Hanlon, a prominent war cheerleader and fellow at the Brookings Institution. The issues covered were surely substantive -- ranging from U.S. commitments to Pakistan, the ability to sustain security achievements in Iraq and the difficulties posed by Iran. But never once was the issue of the day broached.

The closest O'Hanlon came was when, at the very beginning of the session, he asked Petraeus whether he thought the template for counterinsurgency in Iraq was transferable to Afghanistan. It was the same question Petraeus fielded the last time he appeared at a forum at the Newseum in Washington D.C.: The Atlantic's First Draft of History Conference on the first of October.

For the next half hour, the task of quizzing Petraeus was turned over to the crowd, and the questions offered ventured even further into the obscure. At one point, the general discussed the military's policy toward Somali pirate ships for roughly ten minutes. Halfway in, it seemed like a breakthrough could happen. A reporter from U.S. News and World Report was able to get her hand on a microphone. But before she could get through her own introduction she was asked to pass the mic along after it was explained that the inquiries were to be saved primarily for the audience and a trade publication reporter had asked the previous question.

Finally, the spotlight came back to O'Hanlon, who on various occasions during the forum had expressed the appreciation and friendship he felt for Petraeus. His last query, however, returned to the issue of Pakistan -- certainly a worthwhile topic but not, necessarily, THE topic. The hour ended without one question on the White House strategy sessions taking place on Afghanistan or the concerns raised by Amb. Karl Eikenberry, who in classified cables revealed the night before, had expressed misgivings about sending additional forces into war.

Leaving the stage, the Huffington Post was able to track Petraeus down. But by then he was in the clear and making a quick dash for the exit.

"Are you comfortable with the president's decision to continue deliberations on Afghanistan?" I asked.

"I'm sorry I'm not taking any questions about that," he replied.

Indeed, he wasn't.

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FLASHBACK -- Lou Dobbs's Past Bluster: "It's Killing The Left... That They Can't Force CNN To Fire Me"

2009-11-12T11:46:51Z

Here's a reminder of how now-resigned-from-CNN Lou Dobbs used to bellow on and on about his various persecution complexes, and as recently as August 14, blustered to his radio audience that "It's just killing the left... that they can't force CNN to fire me."

DOBBS: You know, it's just killing the left wing in this country that they can't force CNN to fire me. They're coming after me with everything they've got. I'm used to it. They've been doing it since...what would it be? I'm going to say 2000, 2001, 2002, when I started criticizing, in earnest, the Bush administration, and ultimately was blackballed by the Bush administration. The left wing, this time, is just as committed as the right wing used to be, coming after me for talking about free trade policies and they wanted to absolutely destroy me, and the National Association of Manufacturers dedicating entire websites to me because I was criticizing manufacturing policies -- or the lack of a manufacturing policy. This is just crazy stuff.

LISTEN:

Well, it was "just crazy stuff." But ultimately, the lion's share of "crazy stuff" -- the weird leprosy claims, the legitimizing of the "birther" movement, the weird "North American Union" conspiracy mongerings, the overheated anti-immigrant rhetoric -- was authored by Dobbs himself. And that's what brings pressure from quarters where rational thought is held in esteem.

So, while Lou Dobbs had a healthy coterie of detractors, as well as a vivid imagination that permitted him to think that enemies lurked in every shadow, it's important to remember that Dobbs himself is ultimately responsible for his own misfortunes. And CNN? Well, they aren't going to miss Lou Dobbs one little teensy bit.

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Read more: Lou Dobbs, Video, Cnn, Media Criticism, Media News

Trumka: Deeds Lost And Dems Will Lose Without Populist Focus

2009-11-12T11:28:42Z

One of the most powerful labor leaders in the country said on Thursday that Democrats were unable to hold the governor's chair in Virginia and may lose seats nationally because of a lack of truly populist principles.

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, told a summit in Washington D.C. that without improvements in the job market, elected officials -- including the Democratic majority in Congress -- would likely flounder in 2010.

"I don't think we should feel comfortable with what's going on for several reasons," Trumka said, when asked about the current status of economic growth. "One: even though you may see some green sprouts right now as far as the economy, until jobs are starting to be created it means nothing..."

The union leader saved his toughest political analysis, however, for a candidate that his institution endorsed. Former gubernatorial aspirant Creigh Deeds lost the race for Virginia governor because he declined to promote progressive policy points, said Trumka.

"Creigh Deeds said he would opt-out of the public option, which certainly depressed his base," said Trumka. "He was against giving workers greater collective bargaining rights."

"He really didn't define himself in a way that people wanted to hear. People want to hear about jobs. They want to hear about how you will create jobs."

Pressed if a winning electoral message was a populist one, Trumka replied: "If you look at the last election that's exactly what's happened. The populist message is everything."