The Bobo Blog

After the 2010 elections, most political junkies assumed that the Tea Party would tear the Republican Party apart. It was thought that John Boehner wouldn’t be able to control the far-right elements of his caucus, who would settle only for fierce battles over social issues and massive budget cuts, despite the fact that Democrats control the Senate and the Presidency. And, if Democrats played their cards right, they could turn Boehner against the Tea Party and force him and more mainstream Republicans to move to the center. That was the conventional wisdom, and John Boehner proved us all wrong.

Boehner was masterful. Instead of being dragged to the far right by the Tea Party, he used them to pull even more cuts from the Democrats. When the Republicans threatened to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood funding, Democrats fell for it and gave them more than $5 billion in additional cuts for the rest of this fiscal year.

Here’s a question that nobody has asked: Why in the world are we talking about cutting spending? The last time I checked, we’re getting a measly 3% in economic growth, unemployment is at 8.8% and real unemployment is almost twice that much. If anything this economy needs more economic stimulus. This sounds insane, I know. Everybody in government and the media is talking about the need to cut spending, and this has been the great success of the Tea Party. Instead of talking about how we can create jobs, we’re talking about cutting spending. The two are NOT one and the same, no matter how much the Republicans rail about their “cut-and-grow” agenda. They’ll talk about the crippling national debt and all the uncertainty it brings on business owners. Do you really think that the guy who’s trying to open a small pizzeria is biting his nails over the $14 trillion national debt? News Flash: $14 trillion is such an abstract number that it’s impossible for any normal person to really relate to. That business owner is probably a lot more worried about things like consumer confidence and escalating prices than with the national debt.

Republicans also like to talk about the huge fiscal crises in Europe. Allow me to point to the economic crisis in England, where David Cameron and the Tories have enacted steep austerity measures. The results? Business optimism is at its lowest level in about a year and their economy is shrinking.

There’s no question that our debt is enormous and it needs to be addressed. But we have to do so in a serious and responsible way. Limiting the debate to only non-defense discretionary spending (12% of the budget) is not serious. And doing so in the middle of a jobless economic “recovery” is not responsible. It’s best to come up with a long-term 10 or 20 year plan, one that includes the entire budget, and includes corporate tax reform, the end of the Bush tax cuts, and entitlement reforms.

But this position has been lost in this debate, because once again, Democrats have caved. This is the disappointment we liberals have become used to. From Clinton’s triangulation to Obama’s idealistic compromising, Democratic presidents have constantly buckled to the more forceful voices on the right, and they move to the center, even if the center is really the right. Democratic messaging can’t stand up to the consistency and discipline of the Republican communication machine. Consider the Bush tax cut debate, or even the health care debate, in which the right was able to spin an absurd position and still win. That commie-socialist-radical health care package? Yeah, that’s the Republican plan from the 1990s and it’s RomneyCare, and if anything, it’s a big write-off to the private insurance industry. Tax cuts for the wealthy added several hundred billion dollars to this year’s deficit, but gosh, those Republicans are serious about cutting spending.

And yet, amidst this disappointment, liberals will be expected to run back to the Democratic party in 2012, because, after all, it is at least marginally better than the conservative alternative. Who knows—maybe liberals will stand up, as the Tea Party did, and decide to reconstruct the Democratic party as a truly progressive movement. But I kinda doubt it.

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Tonight, in a rhetorically underwhelming speech, President Obama, flanked by Joe Biden and the eternally orange John Boehner, made a decisive shift to the center of the left-right spectrum.  And it wasn’t enough.

The Tucson tragedy clearly rocked the government, and the House chamber reflected that. Republicans and Democrats sat together—Coburn (R-OK) with Schumer (D-NY) and Gillibrand (D-NY) and Thune (R-SD), among others—in an effort to reset the political tone. The result was a more mature State of the Union address. Instead of the President’s party blindly cheering for their leader in a partisan showdown, the applause was more measured tonight, more bipartisan, and more appropriate.

And the President came out of the closet as a raging moderate, setting the parameters for common ground on issues like tax reform, pro-business economic policy, deficit reduction, and regulatory reform. At the same time, he identified a “Sputnik moment” in America, calling for education, infrastructure, technology and research. He talked about a more active and innovative America—an America fully engaged with its competitors. He spoke to that part of all of us that believes in American exceptionalism.

Too bad the GOP has no interest in doing exceptional things.

Congressman Paul Ryan delivered a deeply partisan response to the SOTU. He drew a sharp contrast to Obama’s vision of an actively engaged America, calling instead for minimal government action. We all recognize that government should not be unnecessarily involved, but we also live with crumbling infrastructure, high income inequality, and miserable educational outcomes. How does more limited government solve any of those problems? How can we expect to compete with China and India?

The Republican and Tea Party responses were filled with hypocrisy and misinformation. Ryan said that the free enterprise system has done wonders for the poor. Yeah—let’s go back to the early 20^th Century, when children were forced to work in horrifying conditions to support their families, senior citizens were homeless and dying on the streets, and millions lived in impoverished urban slums. And THEN came the Great Depression.

Ryan also called our social safety net a “hammock,” a metaphor to attempt to say that we have become too dependent on luxurious entitlement programs. Last time I checked, Social Security payments were about $14K a year—right at the poverty level, and at least a few dollars short of Manhattan penthouses and yachts. He also complained about excessive taxation on the American people, despite the fact that the Democrats cut taxes for 95% of Americans AND Ryan’s “Roadmap” plan eliminates middle class tax credits while cutting taxes even more for families above the $250,000 mark.

Bachmann used a graph of the unemployment rate to “prove” that Obama caused the economy to lose jobs.  Sigh…http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/10/08/its-official-more-private-sector-jobs-created-in-2010-than-during-entire-bush-years/

So where do we go from here? President Obama probably did well among moderates and independents. He was clear and calm, emitting the image of maturity we like in our leaders. His move to the center probably helped him a great deal. If the Republicans choose to recognize the President’s ideological shift and decide to work with him on issues outlined in his speech, Obama will have a good shot at being re-elected in 2012.

Therein lies the problem—will Republicans work with the President on behalf of the country if it means his re-election?

And, more importantly, how will we respond to our Sputnik moment?

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A couple of days ago, Senators Jim DeMint and Jon Kyl expressed regret at the busy Senate schedule up ahead, which includes New START and a 2,000 page omnibus spending bill, and all before Christmas.

DeMint had this to say:

“What’s going on here is just wrong. This is the most sacred holiday for Christians. They did the same thing last year - they kept everybody here until (Christmas Eve) to force something down everybody’s throat. I think Americans are sick of this.”

And Kyl:

“It is impossible to do all of the things that the majority leader laid out without doing — frankly, without disrespecting the institution and without disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians and the families of all of the Senate, not just the senators themselves but all of the staff.”

Cry me a river.

Do DeMint and Kyl know about the tens of thousands of troops that won’t be home with their families this Christmas? Do they know about the millions of Americans who will work all the way up until Christmas? Many work ON Christmas—staffing hospitals, hotels, gas stations, and movie theaters. Not to mention the millions of unemployed Americans who’ll be feasting on white bread and orange soda or getting their food from a soup kitchen this Christmas.

Guess what, Kyl and DeMint—you’re senators. Some of the most powerful people in this country, and you have a responsibility to follow through on. Americans are sick of the vanity, idiocy and irresponsibility of politicians like you, who cite Jesus as an excuse to stop working.

Want to talk about who’s really disrespecting the institution? Want to talk about who’s really disrespecting the American people? I’d love to have that conversation.

DeMint mentioned that Americans were “sick” of this. We are sick of this, Mr. DeMint. But it’s not the “this” you think it is.

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Opening posts are really intimidating. I mean, what exactly do I do here? Am I supposed to introduce myself somehow? Or, am I allowed to immediately launch into a mean-spirited diatribe about the Republican party and James Cameron movies?

This is called the Bobo blog in reference to a genius book by David Brooks, a New York Times columnist and cultural commentator. Brooks, in seeking to explain societies “New Elite,” coined the term “Bobos,” short for Bourgeois Bohemian. The Bobo is one of those high culture, liberal elites that Sarah Palin whines about so much—one of those bleeding hearts who bemoans the state of the poor and diseased while drinking $5 coffees from Starbucks. The “godless unpatriotic pierced-nose Volvo-driving France-loving left-wing communist latte-sucking tofu-chomping holistic-wacko neurotic vegan weenie perverts,” as Dave Barry once put it.

But I mean this all in the most endearing way, because I consider myself a Bobo. And if you kept reading past the snide jabs at Sarah Palin and the Republican Party, you just might be a Bobo too.

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