Month: May 2015

The Lessons Roger Ebert’s Life Has for the GOP (April 7, 2013)

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roger-ebert

It’s been a busy news week inside Washington and out. In the sports world, we have the coaching abuse scandal presently rocking the Rutgers University campus and reverberating across the State of New Jersey. In the national political realm, we await two important decisions from the Supreme Court related to marriage equality and its application toward our LGBTQ citizenry, even as Obama’s opponents continue grasping for novel ways to attack the POTUS. Did you hear the one about the President calling California litigator Kamala Harris “the best-looking attorney general” as part of laudatory remarks about her skills and professionalism? Were you offended? Me neither.

But for lovers of film, and most especially, residents of Chicago, the dominant narrative of the week was the retreat of celebrated film critic Roger Ebert. It was only Tuesday that the icon took to his blog to announce a “leave of presence,” a step away from the weekly demands of his column for the Chicago Sun-Times. The theory was that the decision would allow Ebert to focus on battling a resurgent cancer. Before we had time to adjust to his reduced presence, Ebert died just two days later, leaving a legion of admirers bereft.

Although the Pulitzer Prize winner was not a political figure, that didn’t stop him from sharing his civic views early and often, most recently in the active Twitter feed that offered Ebert his tenth act on the pop cultural stage. Many of these tweets contained solid  advice for elected officials on both sides of the political aisle. On March 10, 2012, concerned about he President’s debate performance against opponent Mitt Romney, he volunteered, “Obama needs to use the ‘Bush’ word. #debate.” Cycling back to the previous Presidential contest, Ebert sent this piece of wit across the Internet: “Facebook’s 420-character limit proves doable with @SarahPalinUSA’s policy statements.”

But beyond this clear and incisive commentary, there are many ways in which Ebert’s philosophies serve as a blueprint for course correction that the hopelessly adrift GOP so badly requires. I’m serious. Hear me out.

Let’s take Ebert’s imprint on the World Wide Web as just one example. In a very real way, blogging and social media restored the critic’s voice after he had lost it, and much of his jaw, to a battle with thyroid and salivary gland cancer. It is important to remember that the man was 70 years old and began his career when “status updates” meant pulling out the electric typewriter and mailing the finished product via USPS. Ebert, rather than running scared from New Media, used it to share his topical musings and promote his brand. This sort of nimble adaptability separated Ebert from the Caucasian, graying male peers that still represent the bulk of the GOP’s membership. Consider RNC Chairman Reince Preibus’ recent post-election “autopsy” report, which indicts the party for its failure to connect with youth voters and other demographics, on the ground as well as on the Web. The GOP’s stiff fear of change continues to be an albatross around the neck that never weighed down Ebert, as diversely popular at the time of his death as he had ever been.

Another lesson from Ebert’s life to which today’s Republican Party would be wise to attend is perhaps the toughest one of all or today’s Grand Old Party to grasp. Collaborating with rivals can produce epic greatness. You hear me, John Boehner? Ebert famously said that when he was originally asked to co-anchor the popular show that eventually became At the Movies with his contemporary, Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel, he had little inclination to team up with “the most hated guy in my life.” Imagine all we would have missed had Ebert not reconsidered. Taking a page from Abraham Lincoln’s formula for greatness, Ebert was self-aware and gracious enough to comprehend that butting heads with adversaries produces the need to consider and articulate one’s viewpoint in ways that surrounding oneself with sycophants cannot.

And when you find yourself backed into a corner, overcome by the growing awareness that your position is no longer tenable, it’s even ok to change it! Imagine that! Check out this excerpt from the critic’s Wikipedia page:

“Ebert revisited and sometimes revised his opinions. After ranking E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial third on his 1982 list, it was the only movie from that year to appear on his later ‘Best Films of the 1980s’ list (where it also ranked third). He made similar revaluations of 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, and 1985’s Ran.”

You too, Republican party members, can take your place in a thinking culture constantly re-evaluating its viewpoints, co-opting that which makes sense while discarding that which doesn’t. You just have to want it. It is not necessary to cling to discarded dogmas from yesterday out of a cowardly fear that you can’t win a primary. Who knows? People might even respect you for having a mind of your own. Consider the possibilities.

As a nation, we will miss Roger Ebert for many reasons. But not insignificant among them are the dedication to learning and growth, the lack of arrogance and the genuine humility that allowed us to feel as though we knew him personally. An increasingly tone deaf and detached GOP could learn much from his example.

Conservatives Are Still in Post-Iraq Invasion Spin Mode (March 28, 2013)

Becky Sarwate1 Comment

Last week the nation acknowledged an important historical milestone. On March 19, 2003, the United States, under the leadership of then-President George W. Bush, formally launched its second invasion of Iraq in 23 years. But whereas Operation Desert Storm was widely interpreted as a justified venture in defense of democratic liberty, a warranted response to Saddam Hussein’s offensive against the sovereign nation of Kuwait, Iraq 2.0 will be forever remembered as war of choice. For the price of a deficit bloating trillion dollars and counting, the USA purchased the perception of its intelligence apparatus as inept at best, diabolical at worst. W.’s “Cowboy Diplomacy” proved an arrogant, ally alienating failure and the pristinely admirable career of Secretary of State Colin Powell (ironically, a celebrated hero during Iraq 1.0) was forever tarnished. Meanwhile on this 10th anniversary, the now Saddam-free Iraqis struggle with self-government consistently punctuated by sectarian violence.

Happy anniversary indeed. Finally we have an issue upon which most liberals and Tea Party crackpots can agree: the 21st Century Iraq war was a dismal fiscal and foreign policy failure that helped public support of post-9/11 national security measures that did nothing to address root concerns (the growing influence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda), jump the shark.

As time marches on, conversations surrounding the merits and demerits of the Iraq War will continue to impact future military efforts and the legacy of the Dubya regime. At the same time, political pundits utilized the occasion of the war’s 10th anniversary to speculate on the conflict’s domino effect upon various elements of our political culture. One of the boldest and most infuriating theses on the topic was presented by conservative New York Times Op-Ed columnist, Ross Douthat.

In a piece entitled “The Obama Era, Brought to You by the Iraq War” Douthat makes a broad argument that the ascent of President Obama to the White House would not have been possible without the misguided war hawkery of the Bush team, and the voting majority’s ultimate rejection of Cowboy Diplomacy. That postulation is fair enough.

I’ll go along with Douthat on this: “But Obama didn’t just benefit from the zeal that entered the Democratic Party through the antiwar movement; he also benefited from the domestic policy vacuum left by Bush’s Iraq-ruined second term. The Bush White House’s ‘compassionate conservatism’ was the last major Republican attempt to claim the political center — to balance traditional conservative goals on taxes and entitlement reform with more bipartisan appeals on education, health care, immigration and poverty.” Ok, sure.

The problem begins when Douthat essentially attempts to credit W. and the failed Iraqi initiative for just about everything that the current President has struggled to accomplish. Referring once again to Bush’s lame duck second term, the columnist writes, “This collapse, and the Republican Party’s failure to recover from it, enabled the Democrats to not only seize the center but push it leftward, and advance far bolder proposals than either Al Gore or John Kerry had dared to offer. The Iraq war didn’t just make Obama possible — it made Obamacare possible as well.”

Say what? Is there any limit to this party’s arrogance and the spokespeople who support it? Although the right almost unilaterally loathes Obamacare and has vowed to do all it can to neuter its clauses, if not repeal it entirely, that does not stop certain talking heads from taking an immature and sour grapes schoolyard approach to the debate. Does anyone on either side of the political aisle to find the pouty argument “Our incompetence made you,” compelling?

Douthat goes on to award ownership for the left’s rapid and recent gains in the nation’s culture wars (women’s issues, LGBT marriage equality, gun rights) to the failings of the Iraq conflict. I’m serious. Yes Ross, that’s correct. It’s not your party’s washed up, corporate-serving, faux religious, regressive platform or the rapidly changing socioethnic demographics of the country that have driven folks away from the GOP. It’s the failure to locate WMD in the desert a decade ago.

Thankfully just before I reached for the blood pressure medication, Douthat’s argument cannibalizes itself. He writes, “True, there’s no necessary connection between the Bush administration’s Iraq floundering and, say, the right’s setbacks in the gay-marriage debate. But cultural change is a complicated thing, built on narratives and symbols and intuitive leaps.”

Douthat’s entire column epitomizes the failings of the intuitive leap. Linking the current Republican leadership’s inability to connect with today’s voters, to egregiously terrible foreign policy decisions that took place 10 years ago, accomplishes only two things. In the first place, it provides cover against internal reflection upon popular distaste for the GOP’s whitewashed, greedy agenda. And perhaps most aggravatingly, it deprives the twice-elected POTUS from the hard-won credit he deserves for standing against the tide of deficit scolds, religious extremists and well-fed lobbyists to achieve landmark reforms.

For delusional shame.

“Liberal” New York Times Serves as GOP House Budget Plan Accomplice (March 21, 2013)

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NYT-Ryan

An increasingly rare event since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 2010, the party of “no” is generating headlines for doing something other than antagonizing the President of the United States at every opportunity. It’s easy to forget with this bunch that they were ostensibly hired by the American people to legislate and keep our great democracy functioning.

In fact it has become such a novelty to see the House doing any business as usual, that when we encounter a headline such as “House Passes Plan to Avert Federal Shutdown,” it is found on the front page of The New York Times as breaking news. Apparently learning a small lesson from New Gingrinch’s hubris and folly circa 1995, Speaker John Boehner and his ilk passed a measure that will keep the government afloat through September. Well done, ladies and gentlemen.

But before we host a national ticker tape parade in honor of the House’s decision to do one of its’ most fundamental jobs, theTimes piece by writer Jonathan Weisman informs readers that allowing the government to continue operating was not all the busy GOP did today. They also, “passed a Republican budget blueprint that enshrined the party’s vision of a balanced budget that would substantially shrink government, privatize Medicare and rewrite the tax code to make it simpler and flatter.” Am I alone in my cynical view that the GOP is quite content with this example of lead burying?

Will we as a voting republic ever be free of the Ryan budget plans? Did we not reject this fraud masquerading as “responsible” government in November of 2012? Most vexingly it appears that the GOP is rather proud of its pass-and-run trickery. According to Weisman, “With a final flurry, Republican leaders sent the House home before noon Thursday for a two-week recess, confident that they had outmaneuvered President Obama and the Democrats in the running fiscal fight from the last redoubt of Republican control in Washington.”

Yes, they certainly deserve a rest after this latest example of disingenuous legislation. Another time-wasting maneuver from a group who seems last to understand that the majority of Americans are disinterested in its fiscal platform. That the revised Ryan plan has zero shot of being signed into law appears not to perturb this gang of thieves. Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, called the plan “an uncompromising, ideological approach to our budget issues,” and went on to observe, “The American people voted, and they resoundingly rejected the direction this budget has taken for the third year in a row.”

Tell that to the increasingly insulated and hearing-impaired Republican leadership. However in this instance, my anger is better directed at Weisman himself, as well as his superiors at the Times. We have all been subjected to GOP complaints of a “liberal media bias” that favors President Obama. We have collectively audited this whining ad nauseum. Yet the supposedly liberal-leaning Grey Lady has bestowed the gift of cover for House charlatans who would like you to forget they continue to serve the same warmed over plate.

When the story becomes “This just in! The House is kind enough not to hold the country hostage while offering the same old sh*t,” there is something very wrong with our nation’s investigative journalism apparatus.

The GOP’s Mercenary Evolution on Same-Sex Marriage (March 18, 2013)

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gay-gop

I want to clarify upfront that I am in favor of equality for all, almost regardless of how we get there. It wasn’t so long ago (I’m thinking of the 2004 George W. Bush vs. John Kerry Presidential election) that my young liberal heart feared that discrimination against the LGBTQ community would be written into our nation’s venerable Constitution.

The Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) was conceived by Republican leaders in the runup to the 2004 election as a social wedge issue. A disingenuous diversion from the real conversation many Americans wanted to have – how to resolve the Iraq quagmire, the expensive war of choice – the opportunity to use the marginalization of gay citizens as a method of uniting the right wing base ultimately proved irresistible to the era’s “compassionate” conservatives.

The story wasn’t much different by the time we came around to President Obama’s successful 2012 reelection bid. Just under two years after the historical repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy toward the enlistment of gay and lesbian soldiers, the Republican party continued to offer a platform offensive to any and all supporters of equal rights for every American. An August 29, 2012 Associated Press report directly quoted the GOP’s official stance: “The platform affirms the rights of states and the federal government not to recognize same-sex marriage. It backs a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”

Well it’s a new year and the Republican Party would now like you to believe that its’ stance on this key issue is “evolving,” – yes, the very same sort of transition for which the party once mocked the POTUS. Christian Science Monitor published an article last week purporting to take a closer look at the discourse surrounding LGBTQ issues at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The sub-header of this piece framed the debate as an internal struggle between emerging conservative candidates who might actually like to win an election someday and the stubborn old guard committed to critically slow suicide. Brad Knickerbocker writes, “Some Republicans worry that the GOP may be alienating the next generation of young conservatives if the party continues to oppose gay marriage.”

A number of polls have confirmed that a majority of American voters now support same-sex marriage. In a normal Darwinian political climate, one might assume Republicans are coming around due to the twin influences of cultural normalization and a need for electoral survival. But that sort of logical thinking is checked when one remembers the party’s embarrassing, ongoing backslide surrounding woman’s issues. A woman’s Constitutional right to control her own body was affirmed in 1973, yet rhetoric from Republican candidates throughout the 2012 election cycle often hearkened back to 1950s water cooler talk, bemoaning hard-earned female advances in family planning autonomy.

So what is really behind the Republican party’s incremental about face on the subject of same-sex marriage? I would offer that the evolution is based on the one important resource we can always count on the GOP to covet: money. Simply put, once you remove corporate contributions and the corrosive influence of various industry lobbyists, the party of obstructionism is running out of individual donors to tap. They have successfully alienated the majority of young, female, African-American, Latino and Asian voters. Our own Jason Easley wrote a February 19 post for this site entitled, House Democrats Crush Republicans With Their Best Fundraising Month Ever. The writing is on the wall for the GOP. With an urgent need to convey the perception of populist appeal, the easiest cherry to pick is a slow warmth toward marriage parity.

As stated in the opening paragraph, whatever moves lawmakers toward the legislative codification of equality is welcome, but I stop short of lauding the Republican party for its pivot as a sign of general dogmatic progress. After all, it must be remembered that key figures like former Vice President Dick Cheney and Ohio Senator Rob Portman only threw their tenuous support behind marriage equality when it became a choice between the hard line and repudiating their own children. This is the party of unlimited greed, not human equity.

Who Needs Congress to Raise the Federal Minimum Wage? (March 6, 2013)

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poor-eat-rich

President Obama’s now legendary State of the Union address, delivered before a joint session of Congress last month, touched on several notable issues that the POTUS plans to incorporate into his second term agenda. As of midnight last Friday, we now know that one of the Presidents’ goals: the negotiation of a budgetary deal that would take the place of the unpopular sequestration maneuver, was a dismal failure. In part, the inability to secure a new plan can be blamed on an important miscalculation on the part of the POTUS. Believing (incorrectly it seems) that the GOP would place concern for the immediate cuts to defense spending above its commitment to opposing him at every turn, Obama played the waiting game – and lost.

So that’s one down from the State of the Union with many to go. The increasingly comprehensive paralysis on Capitol Hill inspires little confidence that deeply partisan issues like gun control and immigration reform will be dealt with in an expeditious and logical fashion. The majority of Americans have been placed in the same uncomfortable position as the Commander-in-Chief: gamely rooting for members of the House and Senate to do the jobs to which they’ve been elected, while suspecting a whole lot of nothing in the end. Our collective silver lining gut feeling, which is all we really have to sustain us at this point: is that somehow, someway, Congress will be divested of its ability to hold the fiscal, social and foreign policy of the nation hostage. It’s perfectly arguable that the rise of a viable third political party has never been more necessary.

We’ve grown so accustomed to our “do nothing” government as the root cause for so much of what ails our country, it’s often easy to forget that we really don’t have to depend on lawmakers to come to the rescue. Sometimes the solutions are just sitting there staring ordinary citizens and the private sector in the face.

Take, for example, President Obama’s stated intent to advocate for an increase in the Federal minimum wage. During this portion of the State of the Union address, the President framed the issue in this context: “Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour…This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families.”

The minimum wage, which currently sits at $7.25 an hour, has held steady since 2009. The President is proposing an increase to $9.00 that would take effect in 2015. This is the sort of common sense idea that one might expect could be embraced by members occupying both side of the political spectrum. Of course, that’s not true. The opposition from the business community is to be expected, and upon remembering that most of the Republican Party rests comfortably inside the corporate pocket, most of us are well prepared for yet another showdown.

But in considering the potential squashing of another effort to assist the beleaguered working and middle classes, it occurs to me that this isn’t an issue that should require Congressional intervention. In anyone else tired of reading about the record-breaking profits and hoards of cash enjoyed by American companies, even as workers struggle to hold onto jobs that pay them flat wages?

Call me naive but I’d like to see the media machine hold some freaking feet to the fire. For example, why is pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb planning to layoff nearly 500 additional workers, when 2012 fourth quarter profits were up over 22 percent? Why isn’t Anderson Cooper keeping the company and scores of other greedy operations like it, honest with these types of questions? Why is it continually viable to discuss making the economy work for business, without any concern for the people who are responsible for the flush state of a company’s bottom line?

Against the backdrop of a government “for the people, by the people” which does seem to serve all parties except individuals’ sense that revolution is inevitable grows more palpable. With regard to the increase of the Federal minimum wage, with a little partnership from the media, we shouldn’t need Congress to act. The Tea Party is supposedly all about individual initiative, right?