Carter Country
If you’re president, the last thing you want to hear is yourself being compared to Jimmy Carter. Most of what we remember from the Carter years are bad: double-digit inflation and interest rates, an embassy held hostage, high energy prices and more. Bad news for President Barack Obama: He’s looking up at Carter in a USA Today/Gallup Poll that tracks approval ratings for the last 12 presidents. At this point in his presidency, Carter had a 60 percent favorability rating. Obama’s is 55 percent, down nine points since inauguration day. At the six-month point Obama ranks 10th among the 12 presidents who’ve served since World War II. The good news: a high rating after six months doesn’t necessarily predict a successful presidency — Carter and President George H.W. Bush both had high marks at this point but failed to win re-election.
Health-care monkey wrench
President Barack Obama regularly tells Americans his health-care reforms will play a major role in reducing federal deficits and strengthening the U.S. economy. He may have to stop that — or get a new Congressional Budget Office director. CBO’s current head, Douglas Elmendorf, told the Senate Budget Committee this week reform measures being drafted by Democrats would worsen the federal budget outlook and increase deficits. Asked if current legislation would “bend the long-term cost curve,” which is Washington-speak for gradually erasing red ink, Elemendorf said, simply, “No.”
It’s a devastating assessment, given the CBO’s non-partisan status (although the party in control of Congress selects the director). The analysis likely will weaken support for the 1,018-page bill unveiled by House Democrat leaders last week while emboldening moderate Democrats and Republicans to demand new approaches to reform — or, at a minimum, a deceleration in the process. Obama wants Congress to finish up health care before the August recess in a few weeks. But Elmendorf’s negative assessment almost certainly helps those who want to slow the process down.
In English, please
U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn gave it a whirl: When his turn came to quiz Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Wednesday, the Muskogee Republican suggested they have a conversation most Americans could understand. An obstetrician, Coburn suggested the only thing as eye-glazing as a bunch of lawyers talking legalese would be a bunch of doctors immersed in medical lingo. The judge didn’t take the hint. Her responses to Coburn’s questions were dotted with lawyer talk — “precedents,” “reaffirming,” “core holding,” “claimant.” And when Sotomayor explained the word “fundamental” is defined differently in legal circles, eyeballs all over America frosted over. Nice try anyway, senator.
McNamara’s torment
Probably no American is more identified with the Vietnam War and its failures than former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, who was 93 when he died this week in Washington, D.C. Though McNamara had significant achievements before and after his Pentagon tour (1961-68) — he was president of Ford Motor Co. at one point and of the World Bank at another — he’ll forever be remembered as the architect of war policy in Southeast Asia that ultimately cost 58,000 American lives, strained the country’s social fabric and caused the U.S. to doubt its abilities and motives in a foreign policy sense for the better part of a decade.
Finding positives in such a negative chapter of history is hard. But the errors of Vietnam, propounded by McNamara and his boss, President Lyndon Johnson, helped erect important tests for committing American troops to battle. That is, don’t do it without clear policy objectives and unless you plan to win. Unfortunately, and despite the many accomplishments of a fully engaged life, Robert McNamara’s page in history mostly will be spent discussing the miscalculations of the Vietnam War, about which McNamara later wrote he his aides were “wrong, terribly wrong.”
Can’t draw flies?
Want to know why Vice President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to Iraq last week? Because administration officials figured he’d draw a bigger crowd that way. Rim shot, please. We jest because the Veep’s announced trip to Wattsburg, Pa., near Erie, also last week, attracted only about 100, according to local reports. Biden was there to talk about using federal stimulus money to expand Internet access to rural areas. Obviously, folks in Wattsburg didn’t find the topic all that stimulating. Certainly, Biden isn’t the first vice president to struggle for attention, and he won’t be the last.
Sending a rat to jail
Bernie Madoff got 150 years in prison Monday, but it’s not what he deserved. Federal sentencing guidelines wouldn’t allow any more prison time for Madoff’s crime, and it’s against the law to simply turn someone over to those he has victimized.
Even so, there were cheers from some of Madoff’s former clients when a federal judge sentenced him to 150 years in the slammer for bilking thousands out of $50 billion over a 20-year period — slightly more than the 12 years his lawyer requested in a hopeless bid for leniency.
Certainly, Madoff is the poster example of criminal greed on Wall Street. That he wasn’t caught until last year has prompted calls for greater regulation. That’s understandable, but it’s impossible to devise a fool-proof regulatory system to trap rats like Bernard Madoff. Blind spots in the system should be fixed, but ultimately one of the biggest deterrents to another Madoff is Madoff: his punishment, his shame, his wrecked life. Swindlers and con men will always be around the money. Every now and then they get caught.
Blame someone else
New polling suggests the shelf life of the Obama administration’s “Blame Bush” strategy might be nearly up. Over his first five months in office, President Barack Obama has found traction in blaming the Bush administration for the economy. But a Rasmussen Reports survey finds 39 percent of voters say current economic problems result from Obama’s policies, a 12-point jump from last month. While 54 percent say current conditions result from the recession Obama inherited from Bush, that’s down eight points from early June. According to Rasmussen, twice as many respondents (60 percent to 30 percent) trust their own economic judgment more than Obama’s. In February 49 percent trusted themselves while 39 trusted the president.
Rare repeal
It’s said taxes are eternal. Maybe not all of them. In an about-face the Obama administration has decided to back repeal of a mostly-ignored 1989 tax on the personal use of company cell phones. Just last week the IRS put out feelers on ways the law might be enforced. Instead, what the agency got was heat from businesses and individuals. Now it’s backing off. Good move. The tax is hard for people to calculate given today’s varied cell phone usages and even harder to enforce. It’s a relic of a time when cell phones were a perk for upwardly mobile Americans. That era obviously has passed, and so should the tax.
Bully treatment
The New York Times’ standing ovation for President Barack Obama’s speech to Muslims in Cairo, Egypt, praised Obama for departing from “eight years of arrogance and bullying that has turned even close friends against the United States,” an obvious shot at the Bush administration. Interesting. You’ve got to wonder how Israel feels after the pummeling — bullying? — it has taken from the Obama team the past several weeks over its settlements — which syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer argues is a phony issue. Of all the Middle East parties, the only one singled out by Obama for specific action was Israel: stop building the settlements. Not a specific word in Obama’s speech about Egypt’s closed political system or Saudi Arabia’s top-heavy monarchy. Just Israel, commanded by its democratic ally to cease and desist. Talk about turning your friends against you.
Honoring ‘Ronnie’
They unveiled President Ronald Reagan’s statute in the U.S. Capitol rotunda this week in a ceremony that also honored his widow, former first lady Nancy Reagan. Mrs. Reagan, 87, was obviously moved when a curtain fell away to reveal the seven-foot-tall likeness of her beloved “Ronnie.” The Washington Post said she reached out and touched the statue’s knee. It was her second public appearance in Washington in connection with her husband, who died in 2004. Earlier she was present as President Barack Obama signed legislation creating the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission, which will plan activities to commemorate the 40th president’s 100th birthday in 2011. Back to the statue. The Post reports it bore the “trademark twinkle of a movie star who understood the power of humor in politics.” A Republican congressman’s assessment was simpler: Reagan’s statue is smiling — unlike so many in his party these days — reflecting the optimism that endeared him to Americans.
