John McQuaid

Obama has already failed. Or at least, a not-insignificant Democratic constituency believes he has begun to let us down by taking less-than-principled positions on FISA telecom immunity, campaign finance, and the death penalty.

This cuts two or three ways. Obviously, Obama is doing what he believes is necessary to win, and that involves some compromises around the margins of his agenda. Is this OK? Probably. Also, he’s getting some awkward reversals out of the way early, when few voters are paying attention. But the real problem here may not be opportunism and/or a Clinton-type strategy to move to the center, but caution. Obama seems to be planning for a landslide; he is allocating resources for a 50-state strategy, planning a trip to the Middle East – and Europe, where he will greeted as a rock star - playing around with redesigning the presidential seal, and not advertising much in swing states. The imagery is of a man who has, in some sense, feels he already has the job. This is dangerous – nobody likes presumptuousness in a presidential candidate who remains mostly an unknown. But the real problem is that Obama’s current round of maneuvers seems so generic, and disengaged from the issue landscape – basically, he has not been addressing the palpable sense out there that everything is going to hell.

Every minute that Obama is above the fray, cleverly insulating himself against GOP attacks, is a minute he is not in the trenches, addressing the big issues of the day and what he’s going to do about them. Or at least, so it seems. It ought to be possible to do both.  

Internet searches for “fuck” and “God” consistently occur at about the same volume. H/T Buzzmachine, a post on George Carlin.

Newspapers are like the Top 40, Alex Massie argues, because they are both mass-culture products in a time when mass culture no longer exists. We all have our own interests, best satisfied elsewhere:

The problem newspapers have (or, rather, one of the problems they face) these days is that the nature of the beast has traditionally encouraged them to have as broad an appeal as possible*. Hence a single product wants to attract people who love crossword puzzles and those with a passion for gardening; political junkies and corporate executives; cricket fans and teachers…

But as we all know by know, the rise of cheap distribution and the niche opportunities afforded by the internet, threaten all that.

This helps explain why so many newspapers are so awful, and becoming more so as they respond to the collapse of their business model and the rising competition for people’s attention. Like any mass-market product, the traditional newspaper is inherently bland. But with enough intelligence behind it, that blandness could sparkle; it was an expression of shared taste, an engine of bourgeois social consensus. Leveraging this authority, the best papers could employ journalism to nudge government and society in new directions.

But the line between blandness and mediocrity is exceedingly fine. It didn’t take much to push many papers over it.

Amid the bluster about Iran and Islamic extremism, it’s useful to recall that the nation has faced some genuine existential crises, and our leaders had the common sense and maturity to deal with them. And we’ve been very lucky that the current administration has not been put in a situation like the Cuban missile crisis, a quickly escalating confrontation with unthinkable consequences. From Richard Holbrooke’s review of Michael Dobbs’ One Minute to Midnight (by all accounts, an excellent book):

It is hard to read this book without thinking about what would have happened if the current administration had faced such a situation — real weapons of mass destruction only 90 miles from Florida; the Pentagon urging “surgical” air attacks followed by an invasion; threatening letters from the leader of a real superpower and senators calling the president “weak” just weeks before a midterm Congressional election.

Life does not offer us a chance to play out alternative history, but it is not unreasonable to assume that the team that invaded Iraq would have attacked Cuba. And if Dobbs is right, Cuba and the Soviet Union would have fought back, perhaps launching some of the missiles already in place. One can only conclude that our nation was extremely fortunate to have had John F. Kennedy as president in October 1962. Like all presidents, he made his share of mistakes, but when the stakes were the highest imaginable, he rose to the occasion like no other president in the last 60 years — defining his goal clearly and then, against the demands of hawks within his administration, searching skillfully for a peaceful way to achieve it.

You have to assume, though, that most other presidents in history would have had the same general strategy as Kennedy: defusing the atmosphere of crisis so that the parties could back off, with the ultimate aim of getting the missiles out of Cuba. Bush/Cheney would of course have the latter goal. But they have made confrontation their default foreign policy tool, which presents a problem when a crisis arises that could result in a world war with millions dying. Even if the Bush White House was facing armageddon and (one hopes) suddenly realized cool-headed diplomacy was required at the highest levels, it would have a very hard time creating the circumstances for a resolution. It would quickly run into trouble trying to rein in its own hotheads in neocon circles, the military and Congress. Then the guy who said “bring ‘em on” would have to do the sensitive negotiating required. So even if Bush pursued a sensible course of action, he’d be much more likely to fail.

It’s worth noting here that the White House has finally worked out a nuclear deal with North Korea, something Bush deserves credit for. But this is an example of the grown-ups gradually gaining the diplomatic/bureaucratic upper hand with the White House – something that wouldn’t hurt, but might not make much difference in a fast-moving crisis.

Even Santa Claus is Twittering.

Say what you will about the chattering classes’ inane regard for the alleged genius of Karl Rove – it’s obvious now he was a disaster for the nation and for not one but two political parties. But the one thing he did know how to do was forge devastating political takedowns, attacks that were so audacious that they often worked, in spite of – and because of – their absurdity and unfairness. Josh Marshall dubbed this the bitch-slap theory of electoral politics: if your opponent is strong, you attack his strength even though it might look ridiculous, betting he’ll be too stunned to fight back. That way you look strong, he looks weak.

Now, however, Rove’s best shots against Obama appear to be Maureen Dowd-esque riffs on the candidate’s personality, which seem either made up and remote from ordinary experience – Obama with a beautiful date, smoking, at a country club? – or so unremarkable it’s surprising he managed to get them published at all: Obama, a guy running for president, is self-centered.

What happens when political journalists find themselves running low on ideas? Like the WPost’s Dan Balz, they start complaining about politics-as-usual:

A campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain once offered enormous possibilities for something new. Instead, the two presumptive nominees have opened their campaigns for the White House with what looks and sounds like a repeat of the kind of politics both have promised to leave behind.

Since Obama wrapped up the Democratic nomination a few weeks ago, he and McCain have served up a series of indignant exchanges over foreign policy, terrorism, the economy, energy policy and campaign money. Their aides have gone farther, with snarling conference call putdowns and taunting e-mails flowing constantly out of the Chicago and Crystal City headquarters.

McCain has given a series of policy speeches and Obama is beginning to do the same. Whatever substance they may contain has been buried in negative counterattacks from the opposing camp, designed to turn ideas into stereotypes and candidates into caricatures. In the hands of Obama’s advisers, McCain is nothing more than the third coming of President Bush. To McCain’s staff, Obama is merely a liberal, naive, arrogant extension of what Democrats have been offering for years.

The thing about politics as usual is that it sometimes disguises real changes underway. One difference between what’s going on now and the primaries is that the candidates are discussing real issues – energy, the environment, the economy, Iraq – and various policy fixes for them. And we’re finding out there are both some overlaps (on the environment) and sharp disagreements (on most everything else). It’s not tea time here – the fact that there is a lot of dumb rhetoric out there overlaying the substance is not even really noteworthy; it’s just part of politics – always has been, probably always will be.

Moreover, it’s not even aimed at voters. The snide attack-and-parry Balz complains about is an attempt to manage the news cycle – in other words, to win the attention of journalists such as Balz himself by creating the perception of aggression and domination. Sadly, stupid, snide attacks – the more over-the-top the better – are a proven way to win media respect. And most of the time, except when they’re complaining about a lack of high-mindedness, the media buy into the idea that a candidate on the attack is a winner. If Balz really wants that to go away, he ought to look to his own house first.

Historically, America = Mobility. Now, apparently, no longer. America’s built landscape is ill-suited for $5 or $12 gasoline, plus all the other costs associated with scarce, expensive petroleum:

Decision by decision, dear petrol is having a transformative effect on the American household.

But the full extent of the changes underway may not become clear for years, or decades. The structures of America’s cities and towns, its economy and way of life were formed during a long era of cheap petroleum. But for the oil scares of the 1970s and early 1980s, the price and availability of petroleum have never been issues we’ve needed to think much about. But now we must, and we will likely be shocked by the pervasiveness of petroleum in our society.

Among other things, we’re likely to see a reversal of the Sunbelt migration patterns of the past generation, while compact Northeastern cities with robust public transportation systems make a comeback. And the global supply chains and just-in-time production techniques that bring stuff from China to your door may become financially unsustainable. (In other words, the Wal-Mart retailing model is likely doomed.) At least in its physical configuration, 21st century America is starting to sound something like 1950s America.

In the wake of the Midwest floods, we’re about to embark on another long and fitful recovery and rebuilding effort. Given that and the post-Katrina mess in New Orleans – a morass of programs that either half-work, work too slowly or don’t work at all – should the federal government simply pull back and focus on the fundamentals, such as infrastructure, while letting private entities do the heavy lifting in restoring the fabric of the community? That’s a recurrent theme these days in conservative and libertarian circles. Here is another take on it from Daniel Rothschild of GMU’s Mercatus Center:

Government has a critical but constrained role to play in rebuilding, beginning with quickly setting and enforcing clear rules for redevelopment. That means that government-paid compensation should emphasize speed and simplicity. Don’t do means-testing for disaster relief. Don’t subtract out insurance payments that homeowners receive for their damaged home. And, by all means, don’t use disaster-relief programs to conduct social engineering or “replanning.”

Officials need to focus on the fundamentals. Allow communities to fix sewer lines, restore electricity, resume trash collection and make sure emergency services are able to handle the workload confronting them. Announce which infrastructure projects will be undertaken first and establish timelines for completion. And by all means, make these commitments credible and realistic. Revelations of sloppy work or promises made in haste only to be reneged upon do immense damage to rebuilding.

…

Unfortunately, the scale of major disasters leads many people to conclude that only governments have the resources to deal with the aftermath. This could not be further from the truth. What makes sustainable rebound possible is the rebuilding of communities and the organizations that support them: businesses, civic groups, religious communities and nonprofits. Governments that can’t even write checks to those whose homes were destroyed can’t be trusted to re-establish day-care centers, religious services or grocery stores.

I agree wholeheartedly with some of this – certainly people should get their aid money faster, without having to jump through dozens of bureaucratic hoops. Government can only do so much, and politicians and agency heads overpromise. But the notion that most ambitious government recovery efforts a) cannot work, and b) are inimical to the restoration of civil society, doesn’t make sense. Obviously, the failure of government recovery programs can result in a kind of secondary disaster. But the lesson of New Orleans is essentially a lesson of failed leadership, not generic government dysfunction. The solution to this is not to throw up our hands and pull back, but better leadership and programs that actually work.

This notion that we can return to an early 20th-century model of disaster recovery, in which the government builds roads and private organizations focus on the community, is appealing but fundamentally unrealistic.

The federal government’s increasing involvement in disaster relief over the past 50 years wasn’t just random, or the result of Great Society overreaching or the efforts of pork-crazed politicians. It came about because there was a need for it. Urban-suburban footprints became ever bigger and more complex, and infrastructure and development themselves increasingly influenced both the shape and scale of disasters.

That is, a 21st-century catastrophe is not something that “just happens” to a place. There is a real, and ever-growing, element of blowback from decades or centuries of decisions on where stuff was built and how. New Orleans, for example, is sinking because of the long-ago leveeing of the Mississippi; many neighborhoods were built far below sea level in a filled swamp when nobody thought much about hurricane floods, et al. The current Midwest floods are part of the same man-made phenomenon.

This means we need to be more intelligent in how we rebuild, and view this system as a whole – how development and nature influence one another. Private entities trying to maximize their short-term interests are just not well-equipped to recognize these problems or respond to them by retrenching after a disaster. Not that government agencies are much better – they’re not. But they at least theoretically represent the broader interests that can take this into account and devise policies to address these problems. Just watch – as disasters get bigger and more complicated, the role of government in disaster recovery and urban planning will have to grow. Let’s try to actually improve it as well.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is apparently not all that strategic, according to this Foreign Affairs piece, which notes that many of the world’s Western democracies stockpile oil as a hedge against an energy crisis, but then cannot decide what actually constitutes such a crisis. As a result, the SPR and other reserves are used quite sparingly, sometimes randomly, sometimes for political gain, and almost never effectively.

Oil supplies are so tight than any disruption in production can cause a huge economic shock. Yet we handle our strategic oil reserves like we’re socking cash away in a mattress, occasionally pulling out handfuls of it as needed, and usually after the bills fall due.

The piece argues that the nations with strategic reserves depoliticize and coordinate the management of them – that is, attempt to respond to dramatic, potentially catastrophic shifts in the oil markets as they happen. As the world economy has become more integrated, oil prices are no longer determined by the whims of a few sheiks but actual market conditions. You can’t anticipate every market emergency, obviously. But we ought to treat them as we aspire to treat other kinds of disasters – something we actively prepare for, manage proactively and avert if possible.

Markets process information. Is it too much to ask that our government at least attempt to do the same? Unfortunately, the answer is probably yes – as oil prices rise, it’s doubtful that either Barack Obama or John McCain will want to hand their discretionary power over the SPR off to a board of technocrats insulated from politics.