Well, the verdict is in.

Please make no mistake about it, this marketing push isn’t really about obstruction, but about the upcoming elections.  Just as President Clinton did brilliantly prior the 1996 elections when he cast all Republicans as following Newt Gingrich and obstructing spending laws, the Obama administration is moving forward in much the same pattern.

This is possible because the White House, regardless of occupant, has historically been able to control the news cycle.  In my opinion, this should be an indictment on journalism as a whole when alternatives which exist aren’t being reported, but simply put:  when the President talks, news happens.  When your normal representative talks, you’re lucky if you even hear about it.

It worked during the Clinton Administration on spending, it worked during the Bush (43) Administration on the Patriot Act, & it certainly might work again this time. Irregardless, the campaign is back and in high gear (here via USA Today):

…”Too often, the Republican leadership in the United States Senate chooses to filibuster our recovery and obstruct our progress,” Obama said. “And that has very real consequences.”…

Or here via NY Times blog, here via WaPo, & on and on and on…

From a critical point of view however, obstructionist should not automatically be a pejorative.   Without analyzing what exactly is being obstructed, this is little more than name calling.

As an example, if say in the 1940s Congress was actively trying to “obstruct” the intermittent of thousands of innocent Japanese-Americans, this would not only be a moral good, but any thoughts to compromise solely to be seen as a non-obstructionist would be wrong.  What would be a compromised alternative?  House arrest?

Additionally, we have to be on the lookout for the differences between the marketing of bills and their actual language.  Think of the new health care legislation.  President Obama’s promises of more health care for all at cheaper prices, simply don’t seem to be fulfilled by the 2500 page law passed… or maybe they are being fulfilled, but like the Patriot Act, no one really knows what the new legislation actually means (here via Cato):

…The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act represents the most significant transformation of the American health care system since Medicare and Medicaid. It will fundamentally change nearly every aspect of health care, from insurance to the final delivery of care.

The length and complexity of the legislation, combined with a debate that often generated more heat than light, has led to massive confusion about the law’s likely impact….

Or on yesterday’s Meet The Press Rep. Van Hollen stated (transcripts here via MSNBC):

…The frustration is there are lots of important bills to push for jobs that are sitting over in the Senate.  But it’s not the fault of the Democratic leadership in the Senate.  I mean, frankly, you know, John Cornyn and his allies have been trying to block a whole lot of very important jobs measures.  We in fact sent a piece of legislation over very recently that would remove these perverse tax incentives to ship American jobs overseas, that give American corporations a bonus if they ship American jobs overseas….

Just like health care, the basic idea that our representatives are working on private job creation incentives is a good one.  But just like the Obama Administration’s promises on health care, Rep. Van Hollen is selling us a job creation bill which has little chance of actually creating jobs.

To translate – what they mean by “removing incentives” is to increase taxes on businesses who outsource.  Now, some may want this to happen for various reasons, but the economics are pretty straight forward.  Tax increases have never increased jobs & forcing a tax such as this could actually result in companies simply moving their head quarters as well.

To be fair, there are bills I don’t believe the Republicans should block, for instance the extension on unemployment benefits (though it seems likely to pass soon: here via The Hill).

Yes, the point isn’t that the Republicans are doing the right thing and the Democrats are failing at every single step, the point is only intended to remind us of the old saying about representative governance:

The people will get the government they deserve.

& so long as we allow marketing campaigns to have more force in elections than critical analysis does, we will likely continue to be disappointed.

• Proving once again that fascism isn’t just a word, Italy (here via Economist) gave three Google executives six-month suspended sentences for “allowing a clip of an autistic boy being bullied to be viewed on Google Video, which the judge said broke Italy’s privacy laws. “

Just to clarify, I’m not pro-autistic-bullying and would think a civil trial isn’t out of the question, but jail?

• Fannie Mae needs more cash, but just 15 billion… from the taxpayer of course (here via RTTN News).   Seems like people might not agree with this (here via WSJ):

The Obama administration’s decision to cover an unlimited amount of losses at the mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the next three years stirred controversy over the holiday….

Probably why the decision was made over the holidays.

• Crazy fundamentalists blame the Golden Girls for homosexuality (here via ChristWire).

• Democrats & President Obama, all firmly against the Patriot Act after signing it, vote to  prevent all measures from lapsing (here via Wired) for the next full year.

• Harvard intellectual tells us why allowing corporations to spend money on politics is bad (here):

…To understand why, it is important to focus on the individuals who make decisions for companies. When corporations decide which politicians to support, what kind of messages to send, and which political outcomes to seek, their general investors are not consulted. Rather, such decisions are likely to reflect the preferences and objectives of the insiders who manage the companies, ostensibly on shareholders’ behalf….

A little interlude for a thought experiment.  Change which politicians to support and which political outcomes to seek to which charities to support and which cultural outcomes to seek.  Or try reality and change it to, which lobbyists to support and which regulatory outcomes to seek.  But of course, he defines the problem for us:

…And politicians that benefit from corporate spending and access to corporate resources will have an interest in serving the insiders’ preferences and objectives….

Which presupposes politicians already don’t have this interest, presumes it will get much worse, and last, but not least; for spending to have any affect at all, voters have to be swayed to vote against their interests.

It seems the default assumption of every perceived risk these days is simply this:  there can never be too many laws when trying to protect people from themselves.

• CalTech researchers say the brain is wired for equality (here):

…Specifically, the team found that the reward centers in the human brain respond more strongly when a poor person receives a financial reward than when a rich person does. The surprising thing? This activity pattern holds true even if the brain being looked at is in the rich person’s head, rather than the poor person’s….

Oddly enough, the Freakanomics blog posted this with little comment (here) proving environmental factors such as working for the NY Times can affect even innovative economists.  I’ll admit there might be more, but from what they’ve shown, the results do not necessarily say anything about equality at all.  A perfectly reasonable answer is one of need: a rich person doesn’t need a windfall as much as a poor person.

CalTech’s reasoning:

…It’s long been known that we humans don’t like inequality, especially when it comes to money. Tell two people working the same job that their salaries are different, and there’s going to be trouble…

Conflating the thinking that comes with social status and worth when compared to colleagues and equality of results.  It could be in a lot of cases, the person making less might think they work harder and deserve more, not equal.

• & finally, via the Hill.  Did Nanci Pelosi really say that

…”They’ve had plenty of opportunity to make their voices heard,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning. “Bipartisanship is a two-way street. A bill can be bipartisan without bipartisan votes. Republicans have left their imprint.”…

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