How Are the Pollitt Fallen

Oh, dear; this is very sad. And painful to watch.

Katha Pollitt's latest column in The Nation is one more painful exhibit of the damage that the Obama administration, following hard on eight years of Bush-Cheney, has done to liberal brain cells. Could it get much worse? I fear it will.

During the Clinton years, Pollitt delivered a series of attacks on the man's policies, especially where women's issues were concerned, while most mainstream feminists were still fawning on him, hoping for access, invitations to the White House, recognition and respect. (A lot of those columns can be found in Subject to Debate [The Modern Library, 2001].) Not all were fooled -- I still treasure this ringing denunciation of Clinton and Gore and Leiberman by Barbara Ehrenreich, for example -- but Pollitt was one of those who most steadfastly resisted the Clinton allure.

Still, Pollitt was one who took Bush's accession really hard; I remember how dispirited, even despairing, her columns from early 2001 were. She recovered, though, and was doing all right until Barack Obama came along, causing an embarrassing relapse as she tried to persuade herself and others that this guy was different, and that "An Obama victory could have big positive repercussions for progressive politics." (Ehrenreich also fell for the Obama shuck.) Pollitt even sank to dissing Cindy McCain's looks, a sexist move she'd properly have savaged anyone else for doing. She rallied briefly, criticizing Obama's support for "faith-based" initiatives, which suggests that anti-religion had come to trump even feminism for her. But before long she was flailing desperately away at a Naomi Klein column that once would have been easy meat for her, trying to defend Obama but bereft of anything to defend him with. Except Hilda Solis, who's looking lonelier and lonelier these days in that hornet's nest of DLCers we call the White House.

But today, ah, today, she declared her support for the Senate "health reform" bill in terms of political and even moral exhaustion. We feminists caved in and let you Democrats turn the bill into "a major blow against abortion rights." So don't accuse us of political purity! (That's what Pollitt accuses others of, we who sit in our cabins on Mount Disdain and sneer cruelly at the true believers.) We are team players! It's those Republicans who are the purists! And they don't play fair! So now, "The way I see it, the Democratic Party and the Obama administration owe supporters of women's rights a huge payback for cooperating on its signature issue." She provides a wish list. Item: "Full funding for Title X. ..." Item: "Full speed ahead on the Paycheck Fairness Act. ..." Item: "Confront maternal mortality. ..." Item: Ratify "the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women." Item: "Fully fund the Violence Against Women Act ..." Finally, she gets so het up she lets loose a dainty semi-expletive: "Speaking of violence against women, Dems, would you look in the effing mirror?" Whoa there, little lady! Don't let your emotions get the better of you. Better sit down. Would you like a glass of water?

I am not saying this to derogate Pollitt's concerns; I agree with her priorities and demands completely. I'm simply unable to believe that she thinks anyone in the Democrat Party is going to listen to her. This is not the first time that writers at The Nation have issued fatwas to the Democrats, or to Obama himself (Pollitt signed her name to that one too, as did Ehrenreich). You can see how much they've achieved. They don't seem to have noticed that not only is the rest of the left laughing at them, so are the Democrats and particularly the White House.

It's not for me to say what Pollitt should do. This is not an open letter from a formerly devoted reader, begging her to listen to the voices of the people who lifted her to an editorship at The Nation and urging her to return to the core values that made her one of the reasons I kept my subscription going longer than I should have. Nor is it a long-distance poultice, telling her that I feel her pain. I really don't know what it is, except maybe my own cry of pain at seeing a very intelligent woman stuck in an abusive relationship with a rotten politician. Only she can extricate herself from it, though.

How Are the Pollitt Fallen

Oh, dear; this is very sad. And painful to watch.

Katha Pollitt's latest column in The Nation is one more painful exhibit of the damage that the Obama administration, following hard on eight years of Bush-Cheney, has done to liberal brain cells. Could it get much worse? I fear it will.

During the Clinton years, Pollitt delivered a series of attacks on the man's policies, especially where women's issues were concerned, while most mainstream feminists were still fawning on him, hoping for access, invitations to the White House, recognition and respect. (A lot of those columns can be found in Subject to Debate [The Modern Library, 2001].) Not all were fooled -- I still treasure this ringing denunciation of Clinton and Gore and Leiberman by Barbara Ehrenreich, for example -- but Pollitt was one of those who most steadfastly resisted the Clinton allure.

Still, Pollitt was one who took Bush's accession really hard; I remember how dispirited, even despairing, her columns from early 2001 were. She recovered, though, and was doing all right until Barack Obama came along, causing an embarrassing relapse as she tried to persuade herself and others that this guy was different, and that "An Obama victory could have big positive repercussions for progressive politics." (Ehrenreich also fell for the Obama shuck.) Pollitt even sank to dissing Cindy McCain's looks, a sexist move she'd properly have savaged anyone else for doing. She rallied briefly, criticizing Obama's support for "faith-based" initiatives, which suggests that anti-religion had come to trump even feminism for her. But before long she was flailing desperately away at a Naomi Klein column that once would have been easy meat for her, trying to defend Obama but bereft of anything to defend him with. Except Hilda Solis, who's looking lonelier and lonelier these days in that hornet's nest of DLCers we call the White House.

But today, ah, today, she declared her support for the Senate "health reform" bill in terms of political and even moral exhaustion. We feminists caved in and let you Democrats turn the bill into "a major blow against abortion rights." So don't accuse us of political purity! (That's what Pollitt accuses others of, we who sit in our cabins on Mount Disdain and sneer cruelly at the true believers.) We are team players! It's those Republicans who are the purists! And they don't play fair! So now, "The way I see it, the Democratic Party and the Obama administration owe supporters of women's rights a huge payback for cooperating on its signature issue." She provides a wish list. Item: "Full funding for Title X. ..." Item: "Full speed ahead on the Paycheck Fairness Act. ..." Item: "Confront maternal mortality. ..." Item: Ratify "the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women." Item: "Fully fund the Violence Against Women Act ..." Finally, she gets so het up she lets loose a dainty semi-expletive: "Speaking of violence against women, Dems, would you look in the effing mirror?" Whoa there, little lady! Don't let your emotions get the better of you. Better sit down. Would you like a glass of water?

I am not saying this to derogate Pollitt's concerns; I agree with her priorities and demands completely. I'm simply unable to believe that she thinks anyone in the Democrat Party is going to listen to her. This is not the first time that writers at The Nation have issued fatwas to the Democrats, or to Obama himself (Pollitt signed her name to that one too, as did Ehrenreich). You can see how much they've achieved. They don't seem to have noticed that not only is the rest of the left laughing at them, so are the Democrats and particularly the White House.

It's not for me to say what Pollitt should do. This is not an open letter from a formerly devoted reader, begging her to listen to the voices of the people who lifted her to an editorship at The Nation and urging her to return to the core values that made her one of the reasons I kept my subscription going longer than I should have. Nor is it a long-distance poultice, telling her that I feel her pain. I really don't know what it is, except maybe my own cry of pain at seeing a very intelligent woman stuck in an abusive relationship with a rotten politician. Only she can extricate herself from it, though.

As Obama Sinks Slowly on the Right

Sorry, I know I'm mixing my metaphors there.

Anyway, credit where credit's due: the Obama administration has moved to cut off non-humanitarian aid to the coup regime in Honduras. This right-wing site claims simply that "aid" will be cut off, leaving out the "non-humanitarian" part. What surprises me is that the writer, Hans Bader, mentions that Honduras is "one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere." Maybe this is meant to imply that Obama is being hypocritical in hurting the poor, since the American right has never cared about the well-being of the poor anywhere. Bader also reports that "Earlier, the Obama Administration blocked travel to the United States by the people of Honduras." That is not likely to hurt the Honduran poor, which indicates where Bader's sympathy really lies. As Vicki Gass of the Washington Office on Latin America told NPR, "if they start cancelling the visas, the student visas of children of the elite who come to colleges in the United States and their wives who go shopping on the weekends in Miami, then that might have a real impact."

However:

KELEMEN: But Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations is not so sure the U.S. can really push the de facto rulers to bend.

Ms. JULIA SWEIG (Council on Foreign Relations): What the last couple of months have demonstrated is something broader in American foreign policy, which is that the tools in the toolbox are a lot duller than they used to be, and actors - whether they're Micheletti and his supporters in Honduras or forces in Afghanistan that we want to be working with - can't necessarily be easily controlled or coerced even when they very, very much depend upon the United States.

That, I think, will have to be seen. It will also have to be seen whether Obama is really prepared to push Micheletti very hard; the usual pattern in these matters is to announce aid cut-offs, and then rechannel the money through other sources. From the Democracy Now! report:

JUAN GONZALEZ: What do you make of the decision of the International Monetary Fund recently to give Honduras about $160 million in aid?

GREG GRANDIN: Yeah. Well, one hand takes away; the other one gives. The United States controls, largely controls, the IMF and the fact that the IMF—pretty much concurrently with the State Department’s much heralded decision to cut off $30 million, the IMF announced that it was granting $150 million. I mean, even the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Fund, all of these institutions have declared that they’re cutting off loans and aid to Honduras, but the IMF went forward. This also is largely symbolic.

So Hans Bader shouldn't lose sleep over the Honduran people. We wouldn't want the Honduran military to run out of ammo, especially considering the threat they face from (as Sweig put it) "Zelaya, a leftist leader close to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez".

Then there's the Obama administration's decision (via) to make public the log of most visitors to the White House. As Glenn Greenwald says, Obama does deserve some credit for the decision, but it should not be forgotten that it was made not freely, in fulfillment of Obama's campaign pledges to improve government transparency, but under pressure of lawsuits by watchdog groups -- much like the torture memos that were released under similar pressure in April. From the ABC News story Greenwald linked:

The new policy is the result of the Justice Department settling lawsuits brought by the good government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which had sought visitors logs from both the Obama and Bush White Houses. In a letter from Justice Department attorney Brad Rosenberg, the administration outlined details of its settlement with CREW, which included the new policy.

So far only Bush-era logs have been released, which was the easy part -- well, kind of easy, since Obama has made it clear that he wants to protect Bush and Cheney no less than himself. Now let's see the visits to Obama from representatives of the health insurance industry. There's nothing wrong in itself with his listening to such people; what is wrong is that he has shut out alternatives. As Bruce A. Dixon wrote in a blistering piece at Black Agenda Report,

The only obstacle to passage of the president's health care --- or health insurance --- legislation is the White House itself. Barack Obama knows better than any of us the difference between what he promised and what is about to be delivered. The undeniable difference is dawning on much of the public too, and is reflected in sagging poll numbers for Democrats and the president. The dozens of Democrats who have declared they will vote against any health care --- or health insurance --- bill that does not contain what they call a “public option,” are only trying to insulate themselves and protect President Obama from the worst consequences of his own treachery in selling out the vision of universal health care to big pharma and the insurance companies. They aren't blocking the president's bill. They're trying to ensure that there is something in the bill they can defend to the outraged public who elected them to pass health care reform.

From the beginning the president hamstrung his own grassroots supporters. He made much of his vaunted email and phone list of 13 million volunteers useless by coming down hard against Medicare For All and any forms of single payer, which were among the prime motivations for their energy and devotion. So the people whose boundless enthusiasm swept Obama into the White House were not available to pack many of the town meetings or pressure the reluctant. Some Democrats, like Dick Durbin of Illinois canceled their public meetings for fear of left leaning hostile, and likely pro-single payer crowds which even corporate media would find it hard to ignore.

Speaking of which, Avedon at The Sideshow links to this article which offers evidence that the corporate media are giving visibility, and therefore credibility, to the right-wing shock troops disrupting the town hall meetings: if the teabaggers aren't stirring up shit, then it isn't news and needn't be reported. So Avedon suggests,

But that's on the assumption that the "unsympathetic" will always be right-wingers who are blowing the insurance companies' horn for the Republican Party. What if liberals came and made a ruckus because "a public plan" that doesn't cover everyone isn't good enough? What if people came and interrupted "reasoned" arguments in favor of "the public option" that pointed out that a flat single-payer program that covered all Americans fully and equally would actually be cheaper than an "option" open only to a small segment of the population and full of administrative money-wasting? What if angry liberals demanded to know why single-payer is off the table?

Well, of course, that wouldn't be news either. A tiny turnout of pro-Republican protesters is always news, while protesters from the left will be ignored, minimized, and caricatured.

Finally, there's the hullaballoo over President Obama's planned speech to the nation's schoolchildren, apparently on the theme of community service and hard work. The Right, suddenly, is concerned that the speech might have a political agenda; Roy Edroso's liberal commenters are all, like, JFK and "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!" (Some, rather creepily, drew a connection between Kennedy's call for service and his assassination, with dire implications for Obama. That's like the Jesus fans who say that Jesus was crucified for preaching love ... but I digress.) Speaking from the perspective of someone who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, when overt political propaganda was part of the air we breathed in school, I have mixed feelings about this. Sure, the speech will be innocuous: who could object to the President's urging kids to work hard, stay in school, and care about their communities? Not even me. And it's entertaining to watch the Right frothing about the Obama cult of personality, so soon after their fawning adulation of George W. Bush, and their ongoing cult of Ronald Reagan. Glenn Greenwald quotes Jay Nordlinger, a blogger at The National Review, who complained:

When I read about that celebrity video where they say, “I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama,” I thought that the people do not deserve to be American citizens, because they have no idea what America or a liberal republic is. . . . Also, it strikes me that "I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama" is the product of a thoroughly secular mind, which is another marker of contemporary America. . . . Did conservatives ever say “I pledge to be of service to Ronald Reagan”? I never heard it -- and the notion is preposterous.

Nordlinger obviously wasn't paying attention. (And how often I've heard liberals say analogous things.) Greenwald provides a lengthy selection of the cult of service to George W. Bush, which ought to be read not only by conservatives (who won't read it, and wouldn't remember it if they did) but by liberals, especially Obama fans who might (but won't) recognize their own reflections in that mirror. Do I need to link to examples of the ecstatic gushing of liberals and even leftists after Obama won the election, or the exaltation at his inauguration? (If so, this will do for a start.)

As for Kennedy's "Ask what you can do for your country," I was 10 years old when he was inaugurated, and probably thought his words were inspiring then. But eventually I learned that for JFK, what I could do for my country included not only the Peace Corps (a good but sometimes problematic program) but the CIA, killing and torturing people in Vietnam, committing terrorism in Cuba, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war, and running a damned Murder Incorporated in the Caribbean. Americans who took Kennedy's exhortation seriously in less exalted areas, like the Civil Rights Movement, found that their efforts weren't it at all, not what he meant at all. Given Obama's own conduct so far, I think he may be more like Kennedy than his fans care to recognize.

As Obama Sinks Slowly on the Right

Sorry, I know I'm mixing my metaphors there.

Anyway, credit where credit's due: the Obama administration has moved to cut off non-humanitarian aid to the coup regime in Honduras. This right-wing site claims simply that "aid" will be cut off, leaving out the "non-humanitarian" part. What surprises me is that the writer, Hans Bader, mentions that Honduras is "one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere." Maybe this is meant to imply that Obama is being hypocritical in hurting the poor, since the American right has never cared about the well-being of the poor anywhere. Bader also reports that "Earlier, the Obama Administration blocked travel to the United States by the people of Honduras." That is not likely to hurt the Honduran poor, which indicates where Bader's sympathy really lies. As Vicki Gass of the Washington Office on Latin America told NPR, "if they start cancelling the visas, the student visas of children of the elite who come to colleges in the United States and their wives who go shopping on the weekends in Miami, then that might have a real impact."

However:

KELEMEN: But Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations is not so sure the U.S. can really push the de facto rulers to bend.

Ms. JULIA SWEIG (Council on Foreign Relations): What the last couple of months have demonstrated is something broader in American foreign policy, which is that the tools in the toolbox are a lot duller than they used to be, and actors - whether they're Micheletti and his supporters in Honduras or forces in Afghanistan that we want to be working with - can't necessarily be easily controlled or coerced even when they very, very much depend upon the United States.

That, I think, will have to be seen. It will also have to be seen whether Obama is really prepared to push Micheletti very hard; the usual pattern in these matters is to announce aid cut-offs, and then rechannel the money through other sources. From the Democracy Now! report:

JUAN GONZALEZ: What do you make of the decision of the International Monetary Fund recently to give Honduras about $160 million in aid?

GREG GRANDIN: Yeah. Well, one hand takes away; the other one gives. The United States controls, largely controls, the IMF and the fact that the IMF—pretty much concurrently with the State Department’s much heralded decision to cut off $30 million, the IMF announced that it was granting $150 million. I mean, even the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Fund, all of these institutions have declared that they’re cutting off loans and aid to Honduras, but the IMF went forward. This also is largely symbolic.

So Hans Bader shouldn't lose sleep over the Honduran people. We wouldn't want the Honduran military to run out of ammo, especially considering the threat they face from (as Sweig put it) "Zelaya, a leftist leader close to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez".

Then there's the Obama administration's decision (via) to make public the log of most visitors to the White House. As Glenn Greenwald says, Obama does deserve some credit for the decision, but it should not be forgotten that it was made not freely, in fulfillment of Obama's campaign pledges to improve government transparency, but under pressure of lawsuits by watchdog groups -- much like the torture memos that were released under similar pressure in April. From the ABC News story Greenwald linked:

The new policy is the result of the Justice Department settling lawsuits brought by the good government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which had sought visitors logs from both the Obama and Bush White Houses. In a letter from Justice Department attorney Brad Rosenberg, the administration outlined details of its settlement with CREW, which included the new policy.

So far only Bush-era logs have been released, which was the easy part -- well, kind of easy, since Obama has made it clear that he wants to protect Bush and Cheney no less than himself. Now let's see the visits to Obama from representatives of the health insurance industry. There's nothing wrong in itself with his listening to such people; what is wrong is that he has shut out alternatives. As Bruce A. Dixon wrote in a blistering piece at Black Agenda Report,

The only obstacle to passage of the president's health care --- or health insurance --- legislation is the White House itself. Barack Obama knows better than any of us the difference between what he promised and what is about to be delivered. The undeniable difference is dawning on much of the public too, and is reflected in sagging poll numbers for Democrats and the president. The dozens of Democrats who have declared they will vote against any health care --- or health insurance --- bill that does not contain what they call a “public option,” are only trying to insulate themselves and protect President Obama from the worst consequences of his own treachery in selling out the vision of universal health care to big pharma and the insurance companies. They aren't blocking the president's bill. They're trying to ensure that there is something in the bill they can defend to the outraged public who elected them to pass health care reform.

From the beginning the president hamstrung his own grassroots supporters. He made much of his vaunted email and phone list of 13 million volunteers useless by coming down hard against Medicare For All and any forms of single payer, which were among the prime motivations for their energy and devotion. So the people whose boundless enthusiasm swept Obama into the White House were not available to pack many of the town meetings or pressure the reluctant. Some Democrats, like Dick Durbin of Illinois canceled their public meetings for fear of left leaning hostile, and likely pro-single payer crowds which even corporate media would find it hard to ignore.

Speaking of which, Avedon at The Sideshow links to this article which offers evidence that the corporate media are giving visibility, and therefore credibility, to the right-wing shock troops disrupting the town hall meetings: if the teabaggers aren't stirring up shit, then it isn't news and needn't be reported. So Avedon suggests,

But that's on the assumption that the "unsympathetic" will always be right-wingers who are blowing the insurance companies' horn for the Republican Party. What if liberals came and made a ruckus because "a public plan" that doesn't cover everyone isn't good enough? What if people came and interrupted "reasoned" arguments in favor of "the public option" that pointed out that a flat single-payer program that covered all Americans fully and equally would actually be cheaper than an "option" open only to a small segment of the population and full of administrative money-wasting? What if angry liberals demanded to know why single-payer is off the table?

Well, of course, that wouldn't be news either. A tiny turnout of pro-Republican protesters is always news, while protesters from the left will be ignored, minimized, and caricatured.

Finally, there's the hullaballoo over President Obama's planned speech to the nation's schoolchildren, apparently on the theme of community service and hard work. The Right, suddenly, is concerned that the speech might have a political agenda; Roy Edroso's liberal commenters are all, like, JFK and "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!" (Some, rather creepily, drew a connection between Kennedy's call for service and his assassination, with dire implications for Obama. That's like the Jesus fans who say that Jesus was crucified for preaching love ... but I digress.) Speaking from the perspective of someone who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, when overt political propaganda was part of the air we breathed in school, I have mixed feelings about this. Sure, the speech will be innocuous: who could object to the President's urging kids to work hard, stay in school, and care about their communities? Not even me. And it's entertaining to watch the Right frothing about the Obama cult of personality, so soon after their fawning adulation of George W. Bush, and their ongoing cult of Ronald Reagan. Glenn Greenwald quotes Jay Nordlinger, a blogger at The National Review, who complained:

When I read about that celebrity video where they say, “I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama,” I thought that the people do not deserve to be American citizens, because they have no idea what America or a liberal republic is. . . . Also, it strikes me that "I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama" is the product of a thoroughly secular mind, which is another marker of contemporary America. . . . Did conservatives ever say “I pledge to be of service to Ronald Reagan”? I never heard it -- and the notion is preposterous.

Nordlinger obviously wasn't paying attention. (And how often I've heard liberals say analogous things.) Greenwald provides a lengthy selection of the cult of service to George W. Bush, which ought to be read not only by conservatives (who won't read it, and wouldn't remember it if they did) but by liberals, especially Obama fans who might (but won't) recognize their own reflections in that mirror. Do I need to link to examples of the ecstatic gushing of liberals and even leftists after Obama won the election, or the exaltation at his inauguration? (If so, this will do for a start.)

As for Kennedy's "Ask what you can do for your country," I was 10 years old when he was inaugurated, and probably thought his words were inspiring then. But eventually I learned that for JFK, what I could do for my country included not only the Peace Corps (a good but sometimes problematic program) but the CIA, killing and torturing people in Vietnam, committing terrorism in Cuba, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war, and running a damned Murder Incorporated in the Caribbean. Americans who took Kennedy's exhortation seriously in less exalted areas, like the Civil Rights Movement, found that their efforts weren't it at all, not what he meant at all. Given Obama's own conduct so far, I think he may be more like Kennedy than his fans care to recognize.