TUESDAY,  SEPTEMBER 15,  2009

NETWORK SNOBS AT PLAY - AT 9:45 P.M. ET:  Another outrageous example of press bias has come to light.  The culprit, no shock here, is Charlie Gibson of ABC, whose glasses-down-over-his-nose interview with Sarah Palin during the presidential campaign was a classic of slanted journalism.  Now Mr. Gibson informs us that certain stories are, well, beneath him:

Is the ACORN scandal worthy of national broadcast news coverage? ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson suggested Tuesday that the answer is no.

The story has escalated in the past week as hidden-camera videos have been released showing workers at separate offices of ACORN — a nation community outreach group that receives millions in federal funding — appearing to advise a couple dressed as a pimp and prostitute how to skirt the law and set up a brothel.

But Gibson told a radio show Tuesday morning that he wasn't even familiar with the story — and it might be "just one you leave to the cables."

Now you see why the guy had the glasses down over his nose with Sarah.  He's a certified snob.

ABC reporter Jake Tapper has filed some reports on the scandal, and Gibson was asked on WLS Radio's "Don & Roma Show" what he thought of the story.

"I don't even know about it," Gibson said, laughing. "So you've got me at a loss. ... But my goodness, if it's got everything, including sleaziness in it, we should talk about it in the morning."

When one of the radio show's hosts described it as a "huge issue," Gibson said ABC had "done some stories about ACORN before, but this one I don't know about."

COMMENT:  The eyes and ears of the public.  The protector of the First Amendment. 

And these guys wonder why every survey shows they're losing the confidence of the public.

September 15, 2009   Permalink

WE'RE BACK - AT 9:24 P.M. ET:  Just returned from a fascinating briefing by Liam Fox, the shadow secretary of state for defence, in Great Britain.  He will become the equivalent of our secretary of defense when (!!) the conservatives win the British elections next spring.

Fox is a medical doctor by training, a great guy, and intensely pro-American.  But what he said about the way Britain runs its defenses was upsetting.  For example, get this:  Military personnel working for the Ministry of Defence don't wear uniforms because some of the civilian employees find it upsetting.  I'm not making this up.  When Fox takes over, military personnel will be in uniform.

Also, there are almost as many procurement people in the Ministry of Defence as there are fighting troops in the British armed forces.

Also, there are more civilian employees in the Ministry of Defence than the size of the Royal Navy and RAF put together.

Also, Britain can only afford six of its new class of destroyers because they made it so expensive that any other nation that can afford to buy copies, and thus produce revenue, have already bought other destroyers or produced their own.

Clearly the British defence establishment is due for an overhaul, and Fox intends to do just that once he gets in office.

He also told this story about some of the absurdity involving NATO troops in Afghanistan.  It turns out that Germany is the only country whose troops are permitted alcohol.  Also, Germany has announced publicly that its troops are not permitted to fight at night.  Think about those two facts for a moment.  As Fox remarked, "When you tell your enemy that if they attack, we'll be drinking..." 

Maybe some seriousness is required.

Also, I asked Fox whether the impression we have here that Obama doesn't put much stock in the special relationship between Britain and America is felt in Britain.  He replied that it is, that there's a feeling in Britain that the Obama administration has been aloof.  However, he also pointed out that we've been there before, that both Bill Clinton and Bush 43 tended to downplay the special relationship when they entered office, but came around to the traditional view as time went on.  They came to realize, Fox said, that Britain would always be there, standing with America.  Others, with whom we might temporarily flirt, would not be.

Fascinating guy.  He's on our side.  You'll be hearing much from him.

September 15, 2009   Permalink

FROM LITTLE ACORNS GROW - AT 3:21 P.M. ET:  The GOP is going after ACORN.  It's about time.  From Fox:

A growing number of Republican lawmakers are calling for congressional hearings and IRS audits of ACORN following the release of three videotapes that show the group's employees offering advice to a "pimp" and a "prostitute" on how to skirt the law.

Rep. Steve King, R-IA, said a video released Monday that shows filmmaker James O'Keefe, 25, and Hannah Giles, 20, getting advice from ACORN employees in Brooklyn, N.Y., on how to launder their earnings and avoid detection while running a prostitution business is "another reason to turn it up" on ACORN.

Four ACORN employees -- two in Baltimore and two in Washington -- were fired late last week after videos showed the "pimp" and "prostitute" getting similar advice in those cities. In those videos, O'Keefe and Giles told the ACORN workers that they intended to bring underage girls into the country to work as prostitutes.

COMMENT:  The idea is not to limit this to ACORN, but to link that group to the Obama White House and the Democratic Party.  ACORN has received millions of federal dollars because of Democratic efforts.  Show the American people the extent of the corruption, the collusion.  And name names.

September 15, 2009   Permalink

SHAMEFUL, SHAMEFUL, SHAMEFUL - AT 3:03 P.M. ET:  Is there something seriously wrong with this president?  Does he have any idea what office he holds?  It's bad enough that he's engaged in a perpetual political campaign, but appearing on entertainment talk shows is beneath the dignity of the office.  Obama has done Leno, and it was a low moment.  It appears he hasn't learned:

While Jay Leno had a fake presidential interview on his first show Monday night, David Letterman will have the real thing September 21.

President Barack Obama will make the first appearance ever by a sitting U.S. President on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman on next Monday’s show.

He will be the sole guest on the broadcast.

COMMENT:  This man is in trouble.  He apparently likes running for president, but doesn't like being president.  An hour on Letterman?  Doesn't the president have something better to do with his time, like dealing with the Iranian nuclear program? 

I am embarrassed, as an American, at this vulgar display.

September 15, 2009   Permalink

BOUNCE FADING? - AT 9:35 A.M. ET:  Too early to tell, but this morning's Rasmussen survey shows the president losing ground, and important ground in his overall approval rating.  This follows the bounce he received following his speech to Congress last week. 

We stress that a poll is a snapshot in time, and trends must be examined over a number of days.  However, Rasmussen has been pretty accurate this year in predicting what other polls would eventually show.

This morning Ras reports the president's approval and disapproval ratings as even, at 50%-50%.  Yesterday the president led, 52% to 48%.

The presidential approval index, measuring the gap between those who strongly approve and those who strongly disapprove, stands at minus four, 34% to 38%.  It was minus three yesterday.

We'll follow this to see where the trend goes in the next week. 

September 15, 2009   Permalink

AH YES, I REMEMBER IT WELL - AT 9:18 A.M. ET:  Superlative historian Victor Davis Hanson reminds us of a bit of history, as Democrats express anguish, pain and horror at the thought of anyone criticizing The One:

Maureen Dowd wrote another unfortunate, poorly argued, and thinly researched column yesterday. She alleges that racism is behind the growing suspicion of the Obama administration and its initiatives. But almost everything we've seen so far has a parallel with liberal attacks on George W. Bush. By 2005, Democrats were booing him openly during his State of the Union address. Rep. Pete Stark called him a liar on the House floor. In fact, the response so far to Obama is mild in comparison to what Bush endured. That does not excuse the boorishness of Joe Wilson, but his tirade is symbolic of our loss of decorum since 2002/2003.

As we all remember, novels were published outlining dreams of killing Bush; a film on that theme won an award. Al Gore, John Glenn (of all people!), and Robert Byrd compared Bush to a brownshirt or Nazi, and they were echoed in the popular culture by the likes of Linda Rondstadt and Garrison Keiler ("brownshirts in pinstripes"). There was no liberal outcry in response.

No, and there never will be.  Today's liberal (not really) mindset is illiberal and bigoted.  It begins with the premise that liberals are 1) superior, and 2) aggrieved, and therefore must be given some leeway in expressing themselves.  Opponents, in the liberal view, are bigoted, narrow, and dangerous, and therefore must be kept on a leash.

...so far, we have seen in the opposition to Obama none of the hatred and sickness that characterized a wide swath of opinion on the left during the Bush years — hatred and sickness that were mainstreamed by the likes of Alfred Knopf, the Guardian, and the Democratic party.

And please remember that the mainstream media usually will not report the most extreme vulgarity in leftist rallies, including the obscenity, while playing up the fringes at conservative gatherings. 

The present poisoned atmosphere began in the 1980s and 1990s with virulent partisan attacks on Reagan and Clinton. But it was between 2004 and 2008 that the Left introduced a particularly sick sort of hatred to the political give-and-take, reminiscent of the lunatic right during the mid-1950s.

I personally believe that the decline in our popular culture - songs, movies, TV - contributed enormously to that poison.  When young people get the feeling that anyone goes, anything starts to go.

One of the most surreal developments of the last nine months has been to see Times columnists who were particularly unfair and vicious in their 24/7 attacks on the prior administration now call for more civil discourse and impugn the motives of Obama critics, apparently in bewilderment that anyone would question the president's competence or sincerity. This is all quite amazing, really.

And Times readership continues to sink.  It isn't all because of the internet.

September 15, 2009   Permalink

A DAY LIKE ALL OBAMA DAYS - AT 8:40 A.M. ET:  Andrew Malcolm, at the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket, courteously presents us with the president's schedule today.  It reads like the president's schedule most days, which is part of Mr. Obama's problem:

Now that he's called Kanye West a "jackass" -- unofficially, of course -- President Obama forsakes the sedentary business of governing again today to head back out on the campaign trail, which is more fun anyway in his profession...

...Today he's on the road again. He'll make three stops -- one in Ohio and two in Pennsylvania, including his newly-adopted favorite city of Pittsburgh. In Ohio, the president will talk economy with auto workers and, as he did Monday in New York, likely profess that he sees more signs the hard times are truly ending.

Not an easy argument for anyone to make, even if they are eloquent, with unemployment still above 9%. And the anxiety and fears almost palpable among many.

Malcolm quotes a new Washington Post- ABC News poll that cannot be bringing joy to the lonesome traveler on Air Force One:

The results show only 51% approve of the....

...freshman president's handling of the economy while an even worse 39% approve of his job addressing -- or not addressing -- the gargantuan federal deficits projected way out past Obama's two terms and into Sarah Palin's first.

Ah, just the sound of that. 

Nearly 60% of Americans, according to the poll, are worried over job losses and pay cuts in coming months. This is not usually fertile ground for acceptance of the kind of major, ill-defined, costly changes that Obama seeks to impose in so many areas.

Someone tell the White House.  Their e-mail must be down because they're not getting the message.

But the president will see some nice scenery today, like every day.   I wonder if he's put pictures on the Oval Office desk yet.

September 15, 2009   Permalink

SO FAR, AN F - FOR FAILURE - AT 7:53 A.M. ET:   Jeremy Lott, writing in The Politico, believes the Obama presidency is heading for failure:

So far, he’s failing miserably. Consider the following:

• Cap-and-trade legislation had to limp over the finish line in the House of Representatives with the help of a few moderate Republicans, who then caught holy unshirted hell from their constituents.

And it has almost no chance in the Senate.

• The Employee Free Choice Act may be stripped of its “card check” provision in the Senate, which would effectively do away with secret ballots for unionization elections. Even in its watered-down form — which still includes highly objectionable, mandatory, binding so-called gunpoint arbitration and makes no concessions to employers who don’t want to have to prop up teetering union pensions — it might not pass the Senate. And the leadership of the House has refused to touch it until the other chamber has made up its mind.

We should be grateful to the Founders for providing us with a United States Senate, the more deliberative body, where nutty ideas often go to die.

• On health care...right now, even after Obama’s address to the joint session of Congress last week, it’s possible Democrats don’t even have the votes in the House — where they currently enjoy a 77-seat majority.

And...

The question that most political handicappers are considering right now is not “Will Republicans make gains at the midterm elections?” but “How large will those gains be?”

What all this means is, barring some unforeseeable world event, Obama’s will probably not be a historic presidency. He will have some successes and a lot of failures. His opposition won’t roll over, and his party will refuse to go along with his more costly, and thus risky, schemes. He won’t coast to reelection.

COMMENT:  But don't get overconfident.  President Dewey also thought he could defeat the incumbent, Harry Truman.  The press will most likely still be in the tank for Obama in 2012, if the president runs again.  And the economy could revive.

It will be a constant struggle, no matter what the polls show at the moment.

September 15, 2009   Permalink

THE SEVEN - AT 7:28 A.M. ET:  Reader Bret Hoover alerts us to Michelle Malkin's report, naming the seven U.S. senators who actually voted against an amendment yesterday barring funds for ACORN, the scandal-ridden promoter of leftist causes.  They are:

Burris (D-IL)
Casey (D-PA)
Durbin (D-IL)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Leahy (D-VT)
Sanders (I-VT)
Whitehouse (D-RI)

COMMENT:  Note that both Illinois senators are on the list.   Look, it's Illinois.  What's a little scandal, right? 

Also note that both Vermont senators are on the list.  It's in the water up there.  Vermont used to be a reliably Republican state, but the neighborhood got ruined.  Karl Marx could get elected governor.  I hear there's a write-in campaign.

I see that my own senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, made the cut.  Of course, she was appointed to the Senate when Hillary resigned, and her appointment came from super-corrupt Governor David Paterson.  So I guess she thought she was just voting for family.

As for Casey and Whitehouse, they have no excuse. 

September 15,  2009   Permalink

MONDAY,  SEPTEMBER 14,  2009

A VICTORY - AT 9:32 P.M. ET:  Sometimes there are sweet moments:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate voted Monday to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN, a community organization under fire in several voter-registration fraud cases.

The 83-7 vote would deny housing and community grant funding to ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

The action came as the group is suffering from bad publicity after a duo of conservative activists posing as a prostitute and her pimp released hidden-camera videos in which ACORN employees in Baltimore gave advice on house-buying and how to account on tax forms for the woman's income. Two other videos, aired frequently on media outlets such as the Fox News Channel, depict similar situations in ACORN offices in Brooklyn and Washington, D.C.

COMMENT:  Translated into plain English, the two "conservative activists" did the work that so-called "journalists" should have done.  It is a good guide to the future.  More and more, the best journalism may well be done outside the old-time media. 

Note that 83-7 vote.  I'll check out who the unlucky seven are.  I have my suspicions. 

September 14, 2009   Permalink

THE OBAMA DECEPTION - AT 7:17 P.M. ET:   Charles Krauthammer, speaking on Fox tonight, was right when he said that President Obama doesn't lie, he deceives.  Last night on "60 Minutes," a proud division of the Obama White House, he showed just how that deception works, when he discussed tort reform, which most sane people would regard as a critical component of overall health-care reform:

Mr. Obama on Sunday clarified that he is so far not willing to consider capping malpractice judgments, a reform proposal consistently put forward by Republicans.

It is the size of judgments, many outlandish by any standard, that drives the cost of malpractice insurance for physicians through the roof.  But those judgments also fuel the trial bar, which is one of the main financial supporters of the Democratic Party.  The president says he wants to bring the cost of health care down, but will not support one of the changes that will surely help. 

Obviously, trial lawyers perform critical and often noble work in this society.  But medical malpractice is an area that has been outrageously manipulated by the likes of John Edwards and his crowd. 

"Many in this chamber -- particularly on the Republican side of the aisle -- have long insisted that reforming our medical malpractice laws can help bring down the cost of health care," the president said last Wednesday to a joint session of Congress. "Now, I don't believe malpractice reform is a silver bullet, but I've talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs."

COMMENT:  Did he really have to talk to "enough doctors" to know that?  Every patient knows it.

And the president leaves out one of the most scandalous aspects of the medical malpractice industry - the use of junk science to win cases.  Of course, this administration has embraced a bit of junk science in the global warming issue, so maybe Mr. Obama doesn't see it as a big problem.  But it is. 

More change we can't believe in.

September 14, 2009   Permalink

TRAGEDY IN YEMEN - AT 6:06 P.M. ET:  This is a stark example of why "multiculturalism," as it's current practiced on the left wing of our universities and intellectual elites, is such a fraud:

AMMAN, Jordan (CNN) -- A 12-year-old Yemeni girl, who was forced into marriage, died during a painful childbirth that also killed her baby, a children's rights group said Monday.

Fawziya Ammodi struggled for three days in labor, before dying of severe bleeding at a hospital on Friday, said the Seyaj Organization for the Protection of Children.

"Although the cause of her death was lack of medical care, the real case was the lack of education in Yemen and the fact that child marriages keep happening," said Seyaj President Ahmed al-Qureshi.

Born into an impoverished family in Hodeidah, Fawziya was forced to drop out of school and married off to a 24-year-old man last year, al-Qureshi said.

Child brides are commonplace in Yemen, especially in the Red Sea Coast where tribal customs hold sway. Hodeidah is the fourth largest city in Yemen and an important port.

COMMENT:  Where are the international "women's" groups?  Where are the trendy "feminist" organizations?  They are silent because, in the precincts of the left, there is a definite pecking order.  Women's rights, and certainly children's rights, are pretty far down the list.  At the top are anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and race.  Sadly, many "feminist" organizations are, today, simply satellites of the political left, and follow the rules.

When a woman murdered by police on the streets of Tehran became a symbol of Iranian resistance recently, there was a similar silence by organizations claiming to speak for women.  It is a disgrace.  Many women's rights advocates are probably too intimidated to speak out.  But one exception is distinguished feminist writer Phyllis Chesler, who has essentially been expelled from the feminist movement.

September 14, 2009   Permalink

MIRACLE IN NORWAY? - AT 5:35 P.M. ET:  We can dream, can't we?  From AP:

OSLO | Siv Jensen has an unusual ambition for a nation famous for its cradle-to-grave welfare system: She wants to go down in history as Norway's Margaret Thatcher.

And polls leading up to Monday's national election in this oil-rich Nordic state of 4.8 million people show the leader of the right-wing Progress Party may have a shot at pursuing her dream of applying a free-market overhaul to a society often called a socialist paradise.

The Progress Party is locked in a tight duel with Prime Minster Jens Stoltenberg's left-leaning Labor Party, Norway's dominant political force since World War II.

COMMENT:  As Sinatra liked to put it, leave us we should pray.  One of the keys to breaking the power of the left in Western nations is to have changes of government in Norway and Sweden, who are looked to as the models.  If the models decide to change their models, it would be a great boost to free-market forces.

September 14, 2009   Permalink

TERROR RAID - AT 4:14 P.M. ET:  Something is brewing in the terror business in New York.  From AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Law enforcement agents raided residences in New York City on Monday as part of a terrorism investigation, and began briefing Congress about the probe.

New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne confirmed that searches were conducted in the borough of Queens by agents of a joint terrorism task force. He would not discuss the matter further.

Separately, federal authorities started briefing a series of senior lawmakers in Congress about the case.

Two U.S. intelligence officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly, said the target of any purported attack, or who would carry it out, remained unclear.

Authorities have not found any weapons ready for use, such as a bomb, that would indicate an attack was imminent, they said. Nevertheless, one of the officials called the threat very real and emphasized the urgency of the threat.

COMMENT:  The fact that Congress is being briefed immediately would suggest that this is a serious situation. 

Let us hope that the first instinct of the Justice Department will not be to indict the law enforcement agents because one of them looked at a suspect in a culturally insensitive manner.

That may be a faint hope.

September 14, 2009   Permalink

THE USUAL SUSPECT - AT 11:47 A.M. ET:  The Politico reports this morning that some of President Obama's allies are starting to suggest that race is the motivating force behind much of his political opposition:

AUSTIN – Eight months into Barack Obama’s presidency, as criticism of his administration seems to reach new levels of volume and intensity each week, the whispers among some of his allies are growing louder: That those who loathe the nation’s first African-American president, and especially those who would deny his citizenship, are driven at least in part by racism.

Look, there are no doubt some racists out there.  But the whole premise is wrong.  By definition, as you look at the poll numbers, Obama is losing support among those who previously supported him.  Are they racists?  If they're racists, why did they support him in the first place? 

True, the mass demonstrations consist mostly of those who have always opposed Obama, but what's remarkable is how little racism we see.  Opposition, except among a fringe, seems based on the president's policies, and policies similar to these were rejected by Mr. Obama's opponents long before he was on the scene. 

“As far as African-Americans are concerned, we think most of it is,” said Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), when asked in an interview in between sessions how much of the more extreme anger at Obama is based upon his race. “And we think it’s very unfortunate. We as African-American people of course are very sensitive to it.”

Johnson is a somewhat-reserved, nine-term member of Congress, more gracious southern lady than racial bomb-thrower.

Wrong.  Johnson is very much a bomb thrower.  When she was head of the Congressional Black Caucus, and major-league whack job Cynthia McKinney was defeated for reelection to Congress, it was Johnson who suggested that McKinney's opponents had no legitimate right to campaign against her.  She is a racialist.

“It’s hurting the spirit of this country,” Johnson said, citing concerns about what the rest of the world may think about a powerful nation where a significant segment of the population does not accept their elected leader as legitimate.

I wonder if Johnson thought this way when a major segment of her party refused to accept the legitimacy of George Bush's election.  I wonder why the reporter didn't ask.

Said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) about the race factor: “There are some issues that have been swept under the rug and we’re not witnessing them come out.”

This reporter certainly gets interviews with impartial observers.  Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against military action after 9-11, is an outspoken supporter of Fidel Castro. 

Of course we should be sensitive to legitimate concerns about racism, and we should also be understanding about the apprehensions of African-Americans.  But these charges just don't hold water.  The president has made mistakes.  He's pursued policies that don't have wide popular backing.  He often appears detached, and at times aloof.  His campaign style doesn't play well in the White House.  Those are the reasons he's lost support.  The racists have always opposed him.  He hasn't lost support among them because he never had any.

September 14, 2009   Permalink

THE BOUNCE CONTINUES - AT 9:33 A.M. ET:  The president continues to gain in the polls following his speech to Congress last week and his all-out campaign on health care.  While bounces generally dissipate over time - which is why they're called bounces - the fact that Obama could turn things around quickly indicates that he is still a potent political force.  That political skill could be turned on at election time, and it can have its impact.  The presidency is still the center of action.

Rasmussen reports this morning that overall approval for Obama stands at 52%, with disapproval at 48%.  Contrast this to the Rasmussen report of September 1st, showing approval at 45% and disapproval at 53%.  The president has gone up seven points in approval and down five points in disapproval.  That is a dramatic change in his favor.

Just as important, passions against the president have receded, at least according to Rasmussen.  Ras's presidential approval index, measuring the gap between those who strongly approve and those who strongly disapprove, stands at minus three this morning, 34% to 37%.  That number was minus 14 on August 23rd.

If the president makes reasonable compromises on health care, and keeps the left wing of his party in line, he can retain some of this momentum, and maybe even expand on it.  His improving numbers could also help quell some of the small, but noticeable skepticism he's faced on the part of the more professional parts of the media.

For those on our side, the battle against the Age of Obama is far from won. 

September 14, 2009   Permalink

MORE FRUITS OF OBAMA'S "RESET" WITH RUSSIA - AT 9:09 A.M. ET:  We are amazed, constantly amazed, at the breathtaking success of the Obama foreign policy.  Why, just to watch how nations fall before The One's charm, his power of persuasion.  Chalk up another one today:

Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela President Hugo Chavez said the South American country plans to develop a nuclear energy program with Russia and doesn’t want to build an atomic bomb.

Chavez said that the country’s oil and gas reserves won’t last forever and the government will seek alternative energy sources. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin agreed to help Venezuela’s nuclear energy program during a meeting in Moscow last week, Chavez said.

“We’re not going to make an atomic bomb, so don’t bother us like with Iran,” he said on state television. “We’re going to develop nuclear energy with peaceful purposes.”

COMMENT:  Yeah, right.  No interest in nuclear weapons.  Could I interest you in a bridge in Brooklyn? 

The key story here is Russia and its recklessness.  Putin is clearly still in charge, no matter what the title on his business card says.  He's former KGB, and acts the part.  Selling nuclear material to Chavez is like selling matches to an arsonist. 

And, of course, the other story is America's weakness.  No American president - well, except possibly the current one - could want to see Venezuela as a nuclear power.  But we have no leverage over Russia, and the Russians do not fear us.  They see Obama's lack of spine, his willingness to negotiate over everything, even with people who announce in advance that they have no intention of negotiating seriously.

And what is our main concern in Latin America today?  Why, it's restoring to the presidency of Honduras a Chavez and Castro ally who was removed by Constitutional means. 

This country may start yearning for the return of George Bush.

September 14,  2009   Permalink

THE ANNIVERSARY - AT 8:15 A.M. ET:  Today marks the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, known as "the day the bonuses stopped...for five minutes."  The collapse set off last year's financial panic, and essentially guaranteed the election of financial wizard and deeply experienced economic planner Barack Obama.

A year later the real economy, where people work honest jobs, is still in serious trouble, with unemployment expected to rise even further.  But Wall Street is doing just fine, with the Dow at exactly the same place it was the day before the Lehman fiasco.  Multimillion-dollar bonuses for work no one understands are back in style. 

Some had hoped that last year's bloodletting would lead to caution, reform and wisdom.  We don't make predictions here, but we do offer some assessments.  Throughout this last year we've been cautioning that hope for reform was absurd.  The culture of Wall Street, and the psychology of the personalities involved, all but preclude caution and responsibility.  Wall Street is not about the "free enterprise system," or building great companies.  Wall Street is about fast money.  As Felix Rohatyn, once of the Street's true statesmen, once said, the stock market is a casino.

Now, one year after the collapse, there are warnings all over the place that we can have another one.  CNBC's Charles Gasparino holds views that are being echoed elsewhere:

After each market implosion (in 1986-7 and 1994 and on through the 1998 LTCM crisis), Wall Street returned to risk on a larger scale — until the mother of all meltdowns swept the financial system this time last year. That crisis forced the feds to enact the mother of all bailouts — billions pumped into the banking system, with Uncle Sam becoming the largest shareholder of Citigroup, one of the world’s largest financial institutions — and declaring for the first time that the banking system officially is off limits to failure.

It is that declaration — made by then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and followed through by his successor Tim Geithner, about protecting “systemically important” institutions — that will guarantee future excessive risk taking and yet another financial implosion. In fact, the seeds of the next meltdown are already being sown.

And, from the New York Post:

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said the US has failed to fix the underlying problems of its banking system a year after the credit crunch and the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

"In the US and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger," Stiglitz told Bloomberg News in an interview yesterday in Paris. "The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis."

Welcome to the recovery.

September 14, 2009   Permalink

WE WONDER WHY - AT 7:47 A.M. ET:  The American press, which tends to blame its current economic woes on the internet, got a dose of reality last night when the Pew Research Center released its latest report card on public confidence in the news media:

The public’s assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades of Pew Research surveys, and Americans’ views of media bias and independence now match previous lows.

Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate. In the initial survey in this series about the news media’s performance in 1985, 55% said news stories were accurate while 34% said they were inaccurate. That percentage had fallen sharply by the late 1990s and has remained low over the last decade.

You may be sure that the reaction of the media to this finding will be to hold crisis meetings and pull out all stops to rid their organizations of bias and incompetence.

If you believe that last sentence you have serious problems, and we can recommend a list of political therapists.

More findings:

Similarly, only about a quarter (26%) now say that news organizations are careful that their reporting is not politically biased, compared with 60% who say news organizations are politically biased.

I found this fascinating:

And while just a third of Democrats (33%) say news organizations are “too critical of America,” that reflects a 10-point increase since 2007.

What?  Those are Democrats?  When the media starts to lose the Dems, you know the "journalists" are in trouble. 

And this is decisive:

The poll finds that television remains the dominant news source for the public, with 71% saying they get most of their national and international news from television. More than four-in-ten (42%) say they get most of their news on these subjects from the internet, compared with 33% who cite newspapers.

Yes, the internet is indeed "taking over," but it's taking over as Americans lose confidence in traditional media.  Newspapers aren't losing readers simply because of "technology," but because they're failing to deliver a product that people trust. 

I'd now love to see a survey on American attitudes toward Hollywood.  You remember Hollywood, don't you? 

September 14,  2009   Permalink