As I have said several times, to date, as we get closer to November 2nd, the hurdles that the Tea Party Movement must surmount just keep getting higher and more arduous. Since my last post on the topic two reports have come to the fore that support what I have been saying for the past month.
First, the popular business periodical, "Business Week"; just came out with an article entitled:"Why Business Doesn't Trust the Tea Party"; To wit: "The Tea Party's small-government slogans may be appealing, but its policies could throw the U.S. economy into chaos". This article has detailed the extent of discomfort and dismay within the business community that has resulted from the rise of the Tea Party Movement within the American body politic. In general the business community's uneasiness with the Tea Party Movement can be summed up as follows: "It may sound like a corporate dream come true-as long as the corporation in question doesn't have international operations, rely on immigrant labor, see the value of national monetary policy, or find itself in need of a subsidy to boost exports or an emergency loan from the Fed to survive the worst recession in seven decades. Business leaders who favor education reform, immigration reform, or investment in infrastructure can likely say goodbye to those ideas for the short term as well; they won't be possible in the willfully gridlocked world of the coming 112th Congress." Focusing on South Carolina in particular, where a Tea Party backed candidate has a good chance of winning and it's Senator, Jim DeMint (R-SC) is a leading force in the movement, the local Chamber of Commerce had this to say:"For business leaders who prize pragmatism and stability, it was all too much... Chamber members, he says, tend to be more realistic and moderate in their thought processes. We prefer candidates who are not extreme. If you look at the Tea Party, I think most of them would say they hate Big Business." To amplify the concerns of the business community in this key conservative state, consider the following: "As the South Carolina Chamber realized, the Tea Party's seductive small-government principles are hitched to a train full of explosive cargo-from Alaska's U.S. Senate candidate, Joe Miller, who suggested Social Security is unconstitutional, to Delaware's U.S. Senate candidate, Christine O'Donnell, who has no relevant job experience...The Tea Party's brand of political nitroglycerin, in short, is too unstable for businesses that look to government for predictability, moderation, and the creation of a stable economic environment. A lot of the agenda is being driven by the extremes...This kind of extremism makes it much harder to plan from a business perspective."
Thus, from the perspective of the practical businessman or woman, the Tea Party Movement may espouse pro-business ideas in theory, but in practice, the movement may be as much an obstacle to economic expansion and rejuvenation as anything that might emanate from the left side of the political spectrum. That is to say, that in the minds of today's business professionals the ideas currently espoused by the Tea Party Movement are most likely to be of little use now. That said, these business professionals find little to rejoice over when they actually get down to the nuts and bolts of the Tea Party's ideology and how it relates to the practical aspects of running an economic enterprise. The bottom line for these business people is that the Tea Party Movement is a losing proposition, a bum deal no matter how you slice it. The leading luminaries of the Tea Party Movement either don't understand the business environment or if they do, they have jettisoned that knowledge for the sake of a political purity that has little practical application in the economic realities of today's America.
The next potential blockbuster, as reported on today's Meet the Press which will hit this coming week, is a report by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights and the NAACP that again, raises questions about the degree to which the Tea Party Movement can be considered an engine of racial discord in the American body politic. This report, entitled: "Tea Party Nationalism", lays out the following conclusions: "The result of this study contravenes many of the Tea Parties' self-invented myths, particularly their sole concentration on budget deficits, taxes, and the power of the federal government. Instead, this report found Tea Party ranks to be permeated with concerns about race and national identity and other so-called social issues...Tea Party organization have given platforms to anti-Semites, racists and bigots, Further, hard-core white nationalists have been attracted to these protests, looking for potential recruits and hoping to push these (white) protestors toward a more self-conscious and ideological white supremacy." In fairness to the amorphous Tea Party Movement, many of it's subset organizations have been quick to distance themselves from any and all forms of blatant racism and bigotry, but the labels associated with these now discredited and antiquated forms of social behavior have regrettably continued to dog the movement.
Thus as we get closer to the mid-term elections of 2010, the more the questions surrounding the Tea Party movement come to the surface and they seem to be coming with increased velocity. The politically astute can only ask one question: "As the questions surrounding the viability of the Tea Party Movement continue to mount, to what extent can the average citizen feel comfortable throwing his lot in with this, as yet, undefined and controversial movement?" A corollary question also comes to the fore: "In an age of globalization and increased economic competition, are the interests of the American people best served by a movement that is characterized and identified with an such a poorly defined political ideology that contains such a large element of political amateurs in it's electoral slate?
Dan Hamburg, LeAlan Jones, and Jill Stein are running three races that are very important to the Green Party this year. In California, Hamburg is a former Democratic Congressman hoping to be elected as a Green to Mendocino County Supervisor. In Illinois, Jones is the only African American in the Senate race and has polled as high as 14%, in a state where the Green candidate for governor got over 10% in 2006. In Massachusetts, Stein is less than $1,000 away from qualifying for the rest of the debates, and about $38,000 away from qualifying for matching funds.
I'll make this as simple as possible. Here's what each one needs from you:
I just got back from a Sunday jog around the White House and monuments. For those who aren't here in DC, it's sunny but windy/chilly.
Listened to the Sunday show podcasts along the way. Some things that caught my ear...
TIM GEITHNER: "You know, I'm -- I'm not an economist, David." Reminds me of Cenk Uygur's typical riff on Star Trek's, "Jim, I'm a doctor, not a [fill in the blank]." Except unlike Dr. McCoy being called on to be a bricklayer, Tim Geithner's "Dammit, I'm a Treasury Secretary -- Not An Economist" when asked about unemployment is a little more unnerving.
BILL CLINTON was asked about Obama pushing "opposite policies of Treasury Secretary Rubin and Summers at that time, do you think in retrospect they gave you bad advice on these issues?" He said, "on derivatives, yeah I think they were wrong and I think I was wrong to take it." Wow. That strikes me as rather big news.
TIM GEITHNER: Previewed the White House talking point if unemployment goes up: "If you see that happen it'll be because you have more people come back into the workforce now because there's hope again." Yay! Hope is on the way!
REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN: Reacting to Gov. Ed Rendell calling Republicans the party of no, she previewed a new 2010 Republican talking point, "We're the party of K-N-O-W." Really? If Frank Luntz wrote that one, he's kinda losing his touch...
DAVID GREGORY asks Blackburn a great question: "What did [the free market] get the American People during...the financial collapse? Is that not a fair question about the limits of -- of the free, capitalist system?" WHOA. When was the last time a Sunday show host for a network owned by a giant corporation questioned an unbridled market? wow...
POLITICO does an amazing job giving Meet The Press an exclusive on a new poll showing that 76% of teabaggers think Obama is a socialist. After that statistic, David Gregory adds, "I -- I should say that that poll from Politico will be available in its entirety on Monday at Politico.com. Speak to that." Ha. PR person's dream...
DAVID GREGORY, on a roll, quotes Michele Bachmann at a teabagger rally saying, "We're on to them. We're on to this gangster government," and then does an unusually good job asking 5 tough questions and follow-up questions to Marsha Blackburn, including "April 19th is coming up...the anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing, where an antigovernment person who was arguably a sociopath attacked the federal government. When you describe a gangster government, do you think that's over the line and inappropriate in our political discourse?" He got Blackburn to disown Backmann's words on the 5th try, "It would not have been a choice in words that I made." (Programming note: Rachel Maddows "The McVeigh Tapes" about anti-government militias airs this Monday at 9pm EST on MSNBNC...)
JAKE TAPPER: Was he aware of the irony when asking Bill Clinton, "Explain what a commitment is?"
Did anything else catch your attention on the Sunday shows today?
MR. GREGORY: It was reported this week that when you met with the president you said, "I will be a loyal Democrat. I support your agenda." Let me test that on probably one of the most important areas of his agenda, and that's health care. Would you support health care reform that puts up a government-run public plan to complete with a private plan issued by a private insurance company?
SEN. SPECTER: No. And you misquote me, David. I did not say I would be a loyal Democrat. I did not say that. And last week, after I said I was changing parties, I voted against the budget because the budget has a way to pass health care with a 51 votes, which undermines a basic Senate institution to require 60 votes to impose cloture on, on key issues. But I...
MR. GREGORY: All right, just to be clear, Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal Jonathan Weisman and Greg Hitt reported that when you met with the president you said, "I'm a loyal Democrat," and, according to people familiar with the White House, "I support your agenda." So that's wrong? You didn't say those things?
SEN. SPECTER: I did not say I'm a loyal Democrat.
It was a pretty horrible Meet the Press appearance in a vacuum. It was downright atrocious if Arlen Specter's goal was to gain the support of Pennsylvania Democrats across the grassroots. Some quotes that could be plucked out and used against him in an ad:
I don't expect people to agree with all my votes. I don't agree with all of them at this time.
That's what I've worked for for a long time, trying to bring back the Republican Party in the city of Philadelphia, trying to bring back the Republican Party nationally.
MR. GREGORY: All right, let me ask you about this switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party. Back in April of this year on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" you said this: "So I'm trying to bring back those voters to the Republican Party. We need balance and I'm trying to get people to register Republican. We need a second party. Look here, our country is built on checks and balances. The only check and balance in America today are the 41 Republican Senators who can talk and filibuster, otherwise, the White House, the House of Representatives will be a steamroller." Well, Senator, you've now decided to join that steamroller. What changed?
SEN. SPECTER: Well, well, since that time I undertook a very thorough survey of Republicans in Pennsylvania with polling and a lot of personal contacts, and it became apparent to me that my chances to be elected on the Republican ticket were, were bleak.
You get the idea. Not only were Snarlin' Arlen's "chances to be elected on the Republican ticket" "bleak," but his chances of being confused for a person who puts principles above polls are also "bleak." MyDD's Todd Beeton has further thoughtful analysis of Specter's horrendous appearance.
It's incredible. Just as 20,000 viewers signed an open letter to CNBC telling them to listen to Jon Stewart and hold Wall Street accountable instead of mindlessly repeating Wall Street talking points, NBC doubled down.
This morning, Meet The Press host David Gregory repeated what CNBC's Erin Burnett has been saying all along: The public is ignorant. If only the simpleton public understood what the Wall Street "experts" understand, we wouldn't be so populist and angry. See for yourself:
In these economic times, NBC needs to stop blaming the public and instead focus like a laser on holding Wall Street accountable. David Gregory, instead of calling the public stupid, how about saying on the air that there are, in fact, no "best and brightest" at AIG worth giving bonuses to if they threaten to leave?
That being said, CNBC is still the center of the fight to get the media to do their job. If we can get CNBC to truly start holding Wall Street's feet to the fire, that will have ripple effects throughout NBC and the entire financial news industry.
You can join leading economists, journalists, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and over 20,000 members of the public in signing the open letter to CNBC here.
One of the big journalistic lessons of the Iraq War was that "embedded" reporters who get one side of the story are not well suited to give accurate information to the public.
Americans now depend on the media for accurate information about the financial crisis. This Sunday's Meet The Press made something absolutely clear: Journalists who are "embedded" on Wall Street and depend on Wall Street execs for access on a day-to-day basis are ridiculously unqualified to give the public good information about the economic crisis.
Indeed, NBC has an Erin Burnett problem. Watch and see for yourself how Burnett consistently serves an an apologist for Wall Street's worst practices:
NBC even (accidentally?) admitted Burnett's pro-Wall Street bias. Just look at the headline they put up after the show, summarizing her main message: "Erin Burnett: We must help banks." Really?
At the end of this post, I'm going to ask you to email Erin Burnett (erin.burnett@nbcuni.com) and ask her to reform her ways.
Some of my fellow Kossacks got their knickers in a twist the other day over the news that David Gregory's set to become the new host of NBC's Meet The Press. Why the outrage? Well for one thing, they can never forgive Gregory for dancing with the devil, aka "MC" Rove. Plus, as one unkind Kossack noted, "I think he looks like he's from Planet Of The Apes" (admittedly, the photos offered as evidence made a compelling case).
As I mentioned earlier, I'm obsessed with gas prices and energy politics on the Democratic side. I have a mixed view of Al Gore's politics, but it is undeniable that his important vision on how to solve the energy crisis is workable and something we should all get behind. T. Boone Pickens acknowledges that this is a crisis we can't drill our way out of, but the DC media villagers and Bush Dog Democrats and corrupt Republican are intent on making sure that progressive ideas about a new energy economy die in their crib. You don't have to look any further than this week's Meet the Press, where new host Tom Brokaw went after Al Gore with the same subtle smears we've seen for years.
Not everyone agrees; Digby quotes this Todd Gitlin piece on how Tom Brokwaw on Meet the Press is more willing to deal with substantive discourse than Tim Russert. But when I read over the transcript of this last Meet the Press, it certainly did seem filled with the same subtle denialist instincts and petty character smears that characterizes most media coverage of climate change. But anyway, I've excerpted this with examples that I think show Brokaw rehashing the Villager party line on both Al Gore, sustainable energy, and climate change.
First of all, Brokaw of course misrepresented the science and pretended there's a debate on climate change.
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