Is ‘Purposefully Crisp’ the new metaphor for No Comment?
Posted: November 8, 2008 Filed under: Human Rights, president teleprompter jesus, U.S. Economy | Tags: again, Media bias, Obamanomics, the NEW York Times, Under the bus 3 CommentsAs always, I spend my morning cup of coffee with the NY Times, my favorite blogs, and links that others offer up like the latest on line issue of Newsweek. My end of the day reads include the WSJ and Market Watch and anything new that has popped up on The Economist. I read the NYT’s coverage of the Obama presser with more than passing interest. They lured me over with this description: “answers were purposefully crisp — and, at times, laced with humor”. I had to read through the first dog conversation and the Nancy Reagan gaffe and apology before getting to the supposed purpose of the entire event: What Will an Obama Administration do with the current economic situation? Let me just highlight a few more of those ‘purposefully crisp’ answers which appears to be the Times new metaphor for no comment.
- No NEW specifics, stagecraft
Mr. Obama, who stood a few feet in front of an array of economic advisers as well as Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Representative Rahm Emanuel, the new White House chief of staff, offered no new specifics about what he intended to do to curb the economic crisis. But the stagecraft of the news conference, held after a closed-door meeting of Mr. Obama’s economic advisers, was intended to show that he was hard at work in search of solutions.
- Little Guidance, Saying only, narrow window of room to adjust
Mr. Obama offered little guidance on how he wanted the Treasury Department to carry out the $700 billion government plan to stabilize the financial markets, saying only that he would review any decisions made by the Bush administration.He suggested that he intended to move ahead with his campaign pledge to take away tax cuts for upper-income Americans, but seemed to leave a narrow window of room to adjust his proposal.
- imprecise campaign pledges have caused some confusion
Mr. Obama’s imprecise campaign pledges have caused some confusion about when he would repeal the Bush tax cuts on Americans making more than $250,000 a year.
- left unclear
He left unclear whether a tax bill signed into law next year would make the repeal effective retroactively for all of 2009 as well as 2010.
- did not claify
Mr. Obama did not clarify his intentions Friday.
One thing was clear. President Elect Obama just loves those Possum Seals.
The session carried the trappings of an official event, with eight American flags lined against blue drapes, and a freshly made seal on the lectern: “The Office of the President Elect.”
The Office of the President Elect is still considering Larry Summers. Let me highlight from that article.
CHICAGO — Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, a member of the new economic advisory board that met with President-elect Barack Obama here on Friday, is also a leading candidate to be the next Treasury chief.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesFormer Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers’s policies and his tenure as Harvard president have surfaced as issues.
Reaching back farther, other Web sites have resurrected a 1991 memorandum that Mr. Summers signed as an economist at the World Bank that suggested parts of Africa could be repositories for toxic waste.
Mr. Summers, 53, left the meeting on Friday with Mr. Obama without answering a question about the controversies, and Obama advisers declined to discuss them.
That prospect has critics of Mr. Summers, particularly on the Democratic Party’s left, reviving old controversies in hopes of dooming his chances. In the days since Mr. Obama was elected, liberal bloggers have sought to ignite an online opposition by recalling the rocky five years Mr. Summers spent as president of Harvard, where he angered many women and blacks before resigning in 2006.
If any of your Obot friends are suggesting you start celebrating with them, just remind them that there appears to still be a huge bus fleet around the country with a large entourage under the bus. If Prop 8, continual misogyny, FISA reversals, the Easter lecture to black men, or being told you need a committee to decide if you’re just having one of those third term abortions because you’re “blue” didn’t put you there, perhaps the latest set of okie dokes just did. Be sure to check for tire tracks on your back. That’s a purposefully crisp sign. Oh, and I’ve decided to let Former First Lady Nancy Reagan pick out our under the bus China.
O-Doodoo Economics
Posted: November 7, 2008 Filed under: Equity Markets, U.S. Economy | Tags: Hope Economics, Obamanomics 6 Comments
After spending four lectures today explaining fiscal policy and why it was important for the President-elect to come up with some specifics to calm the market, I’m not looking forward to Monday. I told them how the last two days have set a record for the few post election slumps and some sense of direction and detailed actions were necessary. A bold move would be to name a Treasury Secretary. At the very least, we could hear some of the components he supports of the democratic stimulus plan and which he feels are give aways or symbolic only.
I’ve decided to put my resume out to the Cayman Islands, the Channel Islands, Bermuda, Luxembourg or perhaps Qatar. I lived in a banana republic here in New Orleans for the last 10 years and I might as well get out before it goes nationwide.
The one industry that might be slightly happier tonight is the auto industry. Maybe that was because of the presence of the governor of Michigan in the room and the newly minted blue states containing auto workers that need to be kept in the fold for the midterm elections. If you’re part of the automobile industry it does look like you might get a bailout. It looks like we might nationalize the big three. So, I guess what’s good for GM really is good for America in Obama’s eyes. The auto industry was the ONLY industry singled out for about two paragraphs worth of speech. Since when did the auto industry get a special place ahead of retail, banking, the energy industry and agriculture?
The speech gave a laundry list of the very bad labor market statistics that came out this week first. I knew those already. Largest jobless claims in 25 years. Looks like we’re in for the largest jump in the unemployment rate since World War 2 ended. The Dallas Fed’s projections include no positive movements in GDP for the entire year of 2009 and unemployment of 8% by the end of the year and 10%+ within six months. That was the interesting part of the speech. The rest of the speech was a blur of talking points straight off the Obama election site. Obama may have just been overwhelmed by a day spent with folks that know what they’re talking about. (Can we say ONE TERM PRESIDENCY?? YES, WE CAN!!!)
One answer to a Candy Crowley question really grabbed me. Our President-elect said bravely “I think I’ll pass on that.”
The news is awash with speculation that Larry “Women don’t have the brain capacity to do math and science” Summers is going to be Treasury Secretary Redux. He has written some seminal papers in finance and economics. (Believe me, the math wasn’t that tough in any of them.) He was once the Secretary of Treasury under Clinton. Let me ask you, if you inserted ‘African Americans’ where the word ‘WOMEN’ is in that sentence, do you think ANYONE would want to be seen in public with this man, let alone appoint him to a cabinet position?
So Obama is studying Economics 101 and 102 now when he should be saying what points need to be pushed as part of a stimulus package. We got some nebulous discussion about extending unemployment compensation and possibly bailing out cash strapped states. But the bottom line is that he spent almost an hour giving no more information than he did during his election. That is probably why he extended the press conference long enough to see the close of the stock market. Maybe the entire set of investors in the US will have very nice weekends and forget the Obama fog-of-war on reality.
As for the press, it seems that the BIG question was the decision over the first dog. Well, at least they can fluff something other than Obama for a change.
Like I said, Cayman Islands, Channel Islands, Bermuda … Qatar? Any one coming with me? If Reagonomics was Voodoo Economics, Obamanomics seems to be O-doodoo Economics and we’re going to be deep in it.
Please Read this Link! (and be sure to SIT DOWN FIRST)
Posted: November 6, 2008 Filed under: president teleprompter jesus, The Media SUCKS | Tags: Media bias, things that make you go WTF, Tom Brokaw and Charlie Rose are idiots 2 Comments
Imagine you’re two HUGELY successful journalists. Imagine ONE of you has been hosting MEET THE PRESS since AUGUST, then quit imagining and read this exchange between Tom Brokaw and Charlie Rose from last Friday night’s “The Charlie Rose Show”.
ROSE: I don’t know what Barack Obama’s worldview is.
BROKAW: No, I don’t either.
ROSE: I don’t know how he really sees where China is.
BROKAW: We don’t know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy.
ROSE: I don’t really know. And do we know anything about the people who are advising him?
BROKAW: You know that’s an interesting question.
ROSE: He is principally known through his autobiography and through very aspirational (sic) speeches, two of them.
BROKAW: I don’t know what books he’s read.
ROSE: What do we know about the heroes of Barack Obama?
BROKAW: There’s a lot about him we don’t know.
I could go on and on about this, but since Shtuey brought this to my attention and his blog already does, I’ll just ask you all to go CHECK IT OUT. Then come back here with a big ol’ shot of something with a HUGE alcohol content and tell me what you think. I’ll be the one with the Patron and the limes in the corner.
And to think just a thread ago I thought that the equity markets and the Russians and ME were the only ones that thought he was a cipher.
(SIGH)
Not Good …
Posted: November 6, 2008 Filed under: A My Pet Goat Moment, Equity Markets, president teleprompter jesus | Tags: No confidence in Obama, Russians Challenge Obama, Stock Markets Plunge 15 CommentsThere were two news items that caught my eye yesterday as the media coverage continued its fluffing for Obama. Expectations for this guy are sure way above anything he’s even actually accomplished in the past. We continue to be more caught up in the so-called symbolism of our election results rather than the truth behind what we did: elect a virtual cipher with an ability to deliver speeches with teleprompters well. Meanwhile, over in the real world there were two huge votes of NO CONFIDENCE.
First this:
Stocks Plunge as Investors Ponder Obama Presidency
NEW YORK (AP) — A case of post-election nerves has sent stocks plunging as investors, again anxious about a recession, are wondering what impact a Barack Obama presidency will have on business and the overall economy. Volatility has returned on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones industrials falling 486 points to the 9,139 level, and all the major indexes tumbling more than 5 percent.
The market was expected to give back some gains after a six-day runup that lifted the Standard & Poor’s 500 index more than 18 percent. But investors lost some of their confidence about the economy and began dumping stocks again; light volume helped exaggerate the price swings, and there was more late-day selling by hedge funds.
Analysts said the market is also growing anxious about whom Obama selects as the next Treasury Secretary, as well as whom he picks for other Cabinet positions.
You’ll remember that I said that I was detecting some momentum shifts in the market when polls were released prior to election day. Averages went up when McCain was up and down when Obama went up. This puts one more piece of evidence into my eyeball economics. There have been a few post-election day drops, but they have been far outnumbered by post-election day rallies. The drop yesterday was the most extreme (nearly 500 points) and was preceded by US stock futures trading way down in Europe in Asia. Usually, the market will rally after an election day because the level of uncertainty has gone done among investors. This plunge signals just the opposite. This is a complete vote of no confidence by the folks that would be most responsible for a ‘normal path to recovery’ saying we don’t think he’s up to it, but let’s hope he points some good proxies. This is also an international signal. Not good.
Then, later in the evening, this popped up from the foreign desks.
Russia to deploy short-range missiles near Poland
MOSCOW – Russia will deploy short-range missiles near Poland to counter U.S. military plans in Eastern Europe, President Dmitry Medvedev warned Wednesday, setting a combative tone that clashed with global goodwill over Barack Obama’s election.
In his first state of the nation speech, Medvedev blamed Washington for the war in Georgia and the world financial crisis and suggested it was up to Washington to mend badly damaged ties.
This was a blatant shot-across-the-bow. Mother Russia has been exercising her muscle ever since Putin took the helm. This was a direct question from Russia on the future direction of our foreign policy and of our position in NATO decision-making. It appears that VP Elect Biden was prescient on this one. Do we have a “Poland Missile Crisis” in the making? This is a direct test of the Obama doctrine of hopey-changey talk to every one and let’s all get along.
Obama needs to stop measuring drapes for the oval office and white house long enough to deal firmly with these things today. If not, I’ll consider this day to mark his first “The Pet Goat” moment. Soon, we will all know that its likely to be like another four years of a President and Commander in Chief in need of training wheels. We all learned how well that worked the last eight years, didn’t we?
Lowered Expectations
Posted: November 5, 2008 Filed under: president teleprompter jesus, Uncategorized | Tags: low expectations, My pet goat, Obama speech, president teleprompter jesus 6 Comments
Well, it’s the morning after and it feels like it. I keep hoping I’ll be wrong about what just happened and will happen, but I have a feeling I may not. Let’s just say I’m expecting quite a few “The Pet Goat” moments during the next few years. I didn’t watch the acceptance speech because the wine and the cold medicine had me pretty wiped out by then, but I did hear some excerpts this morning. I’m not sure if you would call it low-key, but I certainly did. I heard a lot of words meant to lower expectations. It’s the politics of usual. Promise the moon and the stars until you actually think you will have to deliver them.
There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we faceThe road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America – I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you – we as a people will get there
What has Obama wrought? In the euphoria, can reality reclaim its rightful place? The parameters of rhetorical change are boundless, propelled into the nether-reaches of nonsensicality by hyper-speak and super-wishfullness that can never supplant the real world of entrenched class and race rule. Celebrate good times…COME ON! But at some soon point in time, we must return to the ground. And the need for struggle. Better start as soon as the cold breeze hits you. Like now.
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