Author Archive: Bill Black
I'm a baby boomer, lefty Democrat, Boston Irish Catholic, born in 1953. I work as a public affairs consultant in Washington.
Here, The People Rule
Disapproval of Obama’s job as president has now reached a majority. As a Democrat, that disappoints me. But I also find myself frustrated with the American public. Through my admitted Koolaid-tinted lens, I see in Obama a president who has fulfilled his campaign promised to a degree unprecedented in my lifetime. The stimulus legislation, healthcare reform, financial services reform, etc., etc. were all policies he promised to enact in the campaign and he did it. In today’s Washington post Eugene Robinson outlines some recent accomplished that have gone all but unnoticed. During the campaign, he was considered a great communicator, the second coming of Ronald Reagan. But he doesn’t seem to be able to communicate effectively as president, as evidenced by the chart above.
Of course, the real reason he’s suffering in the polls is the economy, pure and simple. One enormous blunder his administration committed at the outset was to dramatically underestemate the depths of the recession. He gave his opponents a powerful talking point when his people promised that the stimulus would bring unemployment under 8%, a goal that some suggest will not beached in his entire first term. Even without that blunder, however, people’s opinions are formed by the reality they confront. It is clear, that no accomplishment by a president can overcome a persistent 9% unemployment rate. So, it’s not about communication and its not about legislative accomplishments, it’s about results. I guess that’s the way it should be.
I took some comfort from a biography that I’m reading about Lyndon Johnson by Charles Peters. It describes the election of 1946, the one right after a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress presided over victory in World War II. In that election, Republicans took majorities in both Houses. It was around that time that the British voters ousted Winston Churchill.
In the end, frustrated as I might be, if the people rule, the people rule, for better or for worse. To cite an overused quote from the aforementioned Winston Churchill (probably uttered after his defeat), “Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried.”
Classic Sports Commercial
I still love it. Check it out. It even has some value in terms of nostalgia. All those old Celtics and Lakers.
A Schmuck Defined
In one of my most embarrassing professional experiences, I got into a public food fight with network newswoman Diane Sawyer, which was played out in the Washington Post and then picked up by other media outlets. It was pretty ugly and, if I had been working for a less tolerant boss than Congressman Jim Olin at the time, I might very well have been fired. It’s a long story and I don’t have time to go into all the gory details.
But aside from the large public embarrassment of having her accuse me of being an overpaid congressional hack who is insensitive to the poor and needy in our society, there was a mini-embarrassment over my use of the word “schmuck.” I was quoted in the Post saying something like, “where does she get off portraying me as some schmuck….”
In the middle of the firestorm that the larger argument caused, there was a letter from a Jewish woman. I honestly don’t remember whether she wrote it directly to the Congressman or it was published in the Post. I think the former. But she enlightened me on the true definition of the word schmuck. It means flaccid penis and she found my use of it deeply offensive and not fit for family reading in a newspaper. Who knew?
So, it was with amusement that I read today’s Huffington Post piece by Marty Kaplan entitled Springtime for Schmucks about this very issue and the extent to which the word schmuck has evolved in common usage. He writes:
It is arguable that its original meaning – a Yiddish profanity for penis, often part of an insult beginning with “You are such a – ” and ending with an exclamation point – has been so diluted by widespread usage that nowadays it’s no more offensive than any other common synonym for “jerk.” This would explain why, at High Holy Day services at my synagogue last year, the associate rabbi, a lovely mother of three young children, could innocently say the word from the pulpit without imagining for a moment that it would cause the shocked sharp intake of breath among half the congregants that followed.
What’s interesting about Kaplan article is his belief that schmuck has only recently become acceptable in polite conversation. When I used the word I had no idea it had any sexual connotation whatsoever. I thought then, in 1987, what Kaplan bemoans as only recently having come to pass, that the word has become the moral equivalent of jerk.
But what’s most interesting from reading his piece is learning that Mel Brooks has launched a campaign to save the word schmuck. Again, who knew? He has a Facebook page dedicated to this cause, Schmucks for Schmuck. Of course, I quickly joined.
Growing up enjoying the vast numbers of Jewish comics who entertained me in my youth helped me appreciate Yiddish. The language is tailor made for humor. But it may also desensitized me to its scatological elements. Are there a lot of scatological elements? Are there other words like schmuck, which sound harmless, but offend true Yiddish speaker?
As a goy, I’ll probably never know. But, if Yiddish didn’t exist, we’d certainly need to invent it.
Have Your Cake…
In fairness, many of us are guilty of wanting the benefits of something — whether it’s board certification or full campaign coffers — without paying the price.
Like the Gulf Coast residents who want government off their backs, until a hurricane or oil spill comes along.
Or the Farm Bureau that wants government off the farm, except for the mailbox which is always open to subsidy checks.
Or politicians who rail against out-of-control spending but show up to take credit when a ribbon is cut or oversized check presented.
Or all the rest of us, who resent the chunk of change that government extracts from our pockets but want smooth roads, good schools, police and fire protection, national security, personal security in old age, free markets governed by laws, student loans, flood walls, lakes and parks and the list goes on.
The Tea Party movement, of which Paul is both a leader and beneficiary, feeds the comforting illusion that we can have all we’ve come to expect from government without paying for it. We buy into this illusion at our own peril.
Friedman and False Equivalency
We cannot fix what ails America unless we look honestly at our own roles
in creating our own problems. We — both parties — created an awful
set of incentives that encouraged our best students to go to Wall Street
to create crazy financial instruments instead of to Silicon Valley to
create new products that improve people’s lives. We — both parties —
created massive tax incentives and cheap money to make home mortgages
available to people who really didn’t have the means to sustain them.
And we — both parties — sent BP out in the gulf to get us as much
oil as possible at the cheapest price.
He’s just wrong. It’s not “both parties.” For the most part, he describes the logical outcomes of the conservative policies that have held prominence since Ronald Reagan’s Administration. The fact is that one party is actively trying to address these problems and the other party either denies their existence or simply obstructs solutions for political reasons. So, here’s Friedman later in his piece:
We need to make our whole country more sustainable. So let’s pass an
energy-climate bill that really reduces our dependence on Middle East
oil. Let’s pass a financial regulatory reform bill that really reduces
the odds of another banking crisis. Let’s get our fiscal house in order,
as the economy recovers. And let’s pass an immigration bill that will
enable us to attract the world’s top talent and remain the world’s
leader in innovation.
Let’s see, now. Who is trying to enact the legislation he says we need and who’s blocking it?
Only by calling out the obstructionists (read: Republicans) can we really move the policy. But Friedman prefers his posture a an objective observer, above it all, damning both houses, and accomplishing nothing.
U.S. Wins World Cup Game 1-1!
I’m not a passionate soccer fan, but I attended a party to watch a soccer game that I won’t soon forget. Like millions of other Americans, I watched the U.S. team beat the odds and tie the UK in the first round of the World Cup. Unlike those millions of other Americans, however, I was fortunate enough to watch the game with the family of the undisputed hero of the previous time these two teams met….in 1950. In that game, the U.S. team beat the odds, as well. But those odds were astronomical and the U.S. actually won. It was and remains the biggest upset in World Cup history. And the winning goal in that 1-0 game was scored by Joe Gaetjens, a Haitian immigrant who was working his way toward an accounting degree at Columbia University by washing dishes. His achievement, which rocked the soccer world, was virtually ignored in the country on whose behalf he performed his heroic feat…..until recently.
The great tragedy of Joe Gaetjens was not that he was ignored by the country for which he played. It was vastly greater than that. Watch the video below to understand the full story. In fact, Joe Gaetjens was idolized by the people of Haiti and was recognized for his achievement by the people of Haiti. However, while he was very non-political, his brothers were active among those opposed to the ruthless, vicious and corrupt dictator, Papa Doc Duvalier. As a result of the political activities of his family, he was killed. Watch the video below for the full story:
OK, now wipe away the tears and let’s move to a happier story.Today, the Gaetjens family gathered to watch the first game played by the U.S. and the U.K. in the World Cup since that game in 1950. It was a festive occasion, hosted by my friend, Jean Gaetjens, who is Joe Gaetjens nephew. Also attending was Leslie Gaetjens, Joe’s son, who is featured in the video above. Leslie is a teacher in the DC public schools and coaches multiple sports, ironically not including soccer. He’s a very mild-mannered, articulate man who, while bearing some scars from the loss of his father, is clearly gratified by the belated recognition his father is gaining 60 years later. For me, it was deeply moving to be with the Gaetjens on this special day.
And while Joe died too young and in an egregiously unjust way, one can imagine him and the brother who joined him recently enjoying the show together.
To the right is a picture of me and Leslie wearing our commemorative t-shirts.
Best Before 9: Buying Happiness
But then they say, “But look at their GDP.” Or “Our productivity is so much higher.” And I say, “what does our higher GDP buy us?” It seems to me that wealth is a means to an end, not the end itself. Once you have a good quality of life, the marginal benefit of increased wealth diminishes.
Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times describes a very positive trend in western economic thought which says that money isn’t everything.
Research suggests that, once a certain level of comfort has been attained, there is no connection between greater wealth and greater happiness. It is also hard to think of a moral philosopher – not even Adam Smith – who argued that the pursuit of wealth should be an end in itself. Slogans such as “Poverty sucks” and “The one who dies with the most toys wins” are bumper stickers favoured by junior investment bankers, rather than quotes from the great philosophers.
Favorite Before 9
Sister Margaret made a difficult judgment in an emergency, saved a life and then was punished and humiliated by a lightning bolt from a bishop who spent 16 years living in Rome and who has devoted far less time to serving the downtrodden than Sister Margaret. Compare their two biographies, and Sister Margaret’s looks much more like Jesus’s than the bishop’s does.
In the movie, the mother is allowed to die.
Today’s Favorite Before 9
Jonathan Chait in the New Republic effectively clarifies things:
So the accusation is some kind of quid pro quo in which Sestak would receive a job in return for quitting the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. This is ridiculous. You can’t offer a Senator, or prospective Senator, a job in exchange for them abandoning the Senate, because accepting the job inherently means leaving the Senate. You can’t be both a Senator and an executive branch employee. Last year, the White House offered a cabinet job to Senator Judd Gregg. This was not “in exchange” for him leaving the Senate, because he had to leave the Senate to take the job. Moreover, Gregg briefly accepted the job in exchange for a promise that New Hampshire’s Democratic governor would appoint his Republican chief of staff, not a Democrat, to replace him. But nobody suggested that this deal was illegal or unethical.
Thank you.
Today’s Favorite Before 9
Today’s is a doozy. Congressman Rob Simmons is about to drop out of the Senate race in Connecticut, leaving the nomination to nutcase, Linda McMahon, the CEO of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation (on the left in the picture), continuing a trend in which Republican primary voters seem to be out of their minds. Maybe Obama just makes them crazy. There’s hope for November.
Daily Kos has a nice analysis.
Political pop quiz: You are the Connecticut Republican Party, the nation’s richest state and a solid Democratic stronghold. Your Democratic opponent has been busted (fairly or not) for lying or exaggerating his military service during the Vietnam War. Do you:
- Nominate a decorated Vietnam War vet, retired Colonel, and winner of two Bronze Stars, with a proven track record of winning elections in tough political terrain
- Nominate the teabagger co-founder of the WWE