The Debates End

Note: Car accidents and hurricanes have a way of disrupting life.  Better late than never on the post.

We had the third and final presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney recently.  I’ve previously dedicated partial posts to the first and second debates, as well as the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.  This last debate, however, will receive a whole post.  There were multiple important things to take away from this debate. 

Bob Schieffer did a good job moderating.  He was much better than Candy Crowley.  Schieffer has known biases in his beliefs, but you wouldn’t know it based on his job as moderator.  My main issue wasn’t so much with the questions he was asking and the answers the candidates were giving, but what wasn’t addressed.  Often, what is not present is more instructive than what is present.  This falls on Schieffer since these were his questions.

First, there was no mention of the US’s immediate neighbors, Canada to the north and Mexico to the south.  The Keystone pipeline should have been discussed with regards to Canada.  Mexico needed to be discussed in both the context of Operation Fast and Furious as well as the bigger picture because Mexico is the failing state next door. 

Second, there was no mention of the European economic crisis.  That truly blew my mind.  Despite what the Nobel Committee would have you believe, Europe is imploding away from the news spotlight.  This is a huge global problem and had to be addressed.  We need to know Obama and Romney’s thoughts on the matter, especially since this is an economic as well as foreign policy matter.

Third, the moderator didn’t even get to China until over an hour into the debate.  The relationship between the US and China is the most important two-country relationship on Earth today and will be for decades to come.  It is thoroughly absurd to wait that long to get into China.

Fourth, there were all kinds of other matters that weren’t mentioned, such as the NDAA and Guantanomo Bay, or did not get the attention I felt they deserved, like drones (only overseas use, no mention of domestic use, of course).  The intersection between foreign policy and civil liberties was virtually ignored. 

Last is my grab-bag.  I would have liked to have seen more discussion on trade agreements and nuclear arms.  Libya wasn’t discussed enough for my liking, but they did at least spend some time on it.

So, what did we actually hear from what was asked and answered?  Romney is not really all that different from Obama on foreign policy.  We saw variations in details and such, but the general course was more or less identical.  For example, both favored the crippling sanctions imposed on Iran and both favored a change in leadership in Syria, though they differed slightly in the details.  The sparks flew a bit on Libya early, but that’s about it.  Because there was little contrast between the candidates, this was actually a rather boring debate.  I had long suspected that Romney would not have meaningful difference in foreign policy from Obama and I was proven correct.  Effectively, this means that, outside of the Libya attack (which is starting to look like a major blunder by Team Obama that I may have to do more about on my blog here), foreign policy should not be a material factor in voting. 

Ask yourself this.  Why would they ignore Canada, Mexico, and Europe while placing less emphasis on China than they should and focusing almost entirely on the Middle East?  I have my theories, but just keep it in the back of your head. 

Because of the lack of contrast, it is once again difficult to score the debate.  I would call it a draw in the bigger picture sense in that both candidates had success doing what they needed to do, but if I had to pick a winner of this debate itself, I would definitely give it to Obama because he was clearly the stronger debater. 

Romney had very low expectations, so all he really had to do was not blow it and present himself as a viable diplomat and commander-in-chief.  He succeeded at not blowing it by offering limited contrast and generally carrying himself in stable manner.  Romney did well at portraying himself as tough when necessary, but diplomatic otherwise and certainly did not portray himself as a warmonger (in a sense relative to neoconservatives, not libertarians).  Romney had a few really great moments, such as his statement about the Middle East that, “We can’t kill our way out of this mess.”  Romney also did well at trying to pivot back to the domestic economy and the belief that peace and prosperity need each other.  That said, I do feel like Romney really missed an opportunity to really pound Obama on the Libya attack.

Obama didn’t deliver the knockout punch, but he clearly outperformed Romney here.  One of the biggest benefits for Obama was being largely able to dodge questions about Libya…again.  Obama continued the aggression from the last debate, which may not have been the most prudent thing to do in a foreign policy debate.  It helped him win the debate and kept Romney on the defensive most of the show, but it made Obama actually look more hawkish than Romney, believe it or not.  The lack of contrast between Romney and Obama helps Obama because it’s an implicit admission by Romney that he agrees with much of Obama’s foreign policy.  Obama also put a strong focus on snark, sarcasm, and zingers, which was probably intended to make him look more likeable and show a funny side.  I don’t think it worked at the former, but it did work for the latter. 

Here’s the bottom line.  What we didn’t hear was arguably more revealing than what we did hear and, even though Obama clearly outperformed Romney to actually win the debate itself, the bigger picture view is that it was a draw because both candidates did what they had to do.

Links:

1^st Debate Review http://timsopinionblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-libertarian-argument-for-voting-for.html

2^nd Debate Review http://timsopinionblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/gay-marriage-update-before-2012.html

VP Debate Review http://timsopinionblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-vice-presidential-and-senate-debate.html

Eurozone Nobel Prize http://timsopinionblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-nobel-peace-prize-goes-tothe.html

3^rd Debate Transcript http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/22/transcript-presidential-debate-on-foreign-policy-at-lynn-university/

Occupy Wall Street versus Other Movements

I laid out a bunch of similarities between Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and the Tea Party (TP) in a previous post about OWS when I said, “Also, both movements were leaderless grassroots movements in their beginnings that were formed over the interwebs and stemmed from anger over America’s current condition and trajectory, and both appear to have the same goal of getting America back firing on all cylinders, though they clearly disagree on how to do that.” 

In that same post, I also asked, “Riddle me this.  How is OWS any different than the TP?”  None of those similarities have broken down, but I think I have some answers to my riddle, which I’ll detail here.  I don’t want to limit this to just OWS and the TP, so you’ll see some other comparisons crop up.

The first I see is lawlessness.  I don’t remember any TP incidents in which 700 people got arrested like this Brooklyn Bridge ordeal.  I don’t remember hearing about over 100 arrests like what happened in Boston.  I don’t even remember hearing about double-digit numbers of arrests at TP events, and I’ve heard a lot of those in the past few weeks regarding OWS.  This holds up even when we back out the Brooklyn Bridge incident and even when we consider the fact that the TP is a few years old while OWS is a few weeks old.  Admittedly, this is hard to track because defining an OWS/TP arrest isn’t exactly black and white, but I find this difference revealing.  Try doing quick searches of OWS and TP arrests and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

This lawlessness undercuts my original theory comparing OWS and the TP.  A more viable comparison in this sense thus may be the protests in London this year, as suggested to me by a lady on Twitter.  London’s were protesting youth unemployment and moved beyond protests into riots.  Youth unemployment, though still a major issue, isn’t as big of a problem in America, and OWS hasn’t yet crossed the line from protests to riots, so in those senses, it’s smaller on both scales than the incidents in London.  I hope OWS doesn’t cross that line, and I don’t think they will.

Next, the TP always had clear goals, even if their goals evolved with time.  Obamacare has always been in the TP’s crosshairs as one of their targets, for example.  The goal was originally to stop its passage, but now that it’s passed, the goal is to weaken and/or repeal it.  That’s focus.  It’s not their only focus because the TP also wants to oust Obama, among other things.  I’ve consistently asked what OWS’ goals are with regards to specific policies.  OWS has no shortage of things they’re protesting about, such as income inequality, corporate money in politics, and bailouts (common ground with the TP there), but they say they don’t really have any actual specific policy goals or haven’t really thought about it yet.  I also hear that it’s not their job to come up with those.  I’m not going to yet again go into how anger alone isn’t enough and you need to actually have a plan to improve things before you propose replacing the current system (yes, in the future, I will continue unapologetically pounding on this until I get answers because I can’t support or oppose a movement if I don’t understand not just what it wants to do, but how it wants to do it).  For now, all I’ll do is highlight that as a difference between the two and leave it at that.  This lack of clear goals again lends to the London rioters being the better comparison than the TP. 

Third, I’ve previously talked about OWS policy goals, but I haven’t yet touched on the movement’s overall goals.  This one flies counter to both the TP and London riots and introduces new comparisons.  With the TP, it was apparent to me pretty much even from the beginning that the TP, grassroots as it was at the start, was an insurrection or rebellion or even civil war within the GOP.  I never viewed the TP as seriously wanting to become its own political party.  The TP, in essence, aimed to reclaim (or hijack, depending on your perspective) the GOP.  The TP did not seriously want to form their own party when they could get their message out through an existing party.

OWS is different.  I don’t get the vibe that OWS is trying to reclaim/hijack the Democratic party.  After all, if we’re operating under the assumption that OWS formed on the left, then Obama is their guy and history shows that a schism within a party usually gives victory to the other party.  Look at the 1992 and 1996 elections involving Bill Clinton, Ross Perot, George Bush Sr., and Bob Dole for some recent examples.  Rather, I think OWS is more likely to try to form their own third party.  My theory stems from the history of the left wing in America.  Outside of a couple select times in American history, such as the early 1900’s with Eugene Debs’ Socialist party and the schism of the Democratic party during the 1968 presidential election, there really hasn’t been a powerful and overt far left-wing presence in American politics.  We can quibble about exactly how left-wing the modern Democratic party is, but it’s hard to argue that they’re further to the left than the Socialist party or 1968 Democrat party.  I’ve seen calls online for this and I’ve heard this in second-hand discussion with people participating in the protests and general assemblies.  It’s definitely something to watch.

In general, I’ve shied away from comparing OWS to the Arab Spring (AS), despite the fact that both formed heavily through social media.  There are monumental and insurmountable differences between the two.  For one, the AS protesters were attempting to establish a more democratic and less oppressive government with a more open economy, while the OWS protesters are railing against a democratic republic and capitalist economy that they feel has failed them.  Realistically speaking, the AS is starting from far more dire straits than OWS is.  Two, AS protesters were in far greater danger than OWS protesters are.  AS protesters knew that if they failed, they would probably be rounded up, imprisoned, tortured, and eventually killed (very much like America’s Founding Fathers).  By contrast, an OWS protester would merely get arrested or sprayed, maybe whacked a couple times by a baton or brought down by a police dog or tazed or something like that.  Three, the AS had a clear goal.  In Egypt, it ended up demanding regime change, for instance.  As I’ve mentioned previously, OWS lacks a clear goal.

I also disagree with comparing OWS to other movements throughout US history, such as the civil rights movement and feminist movement of the mid to late 1900’s and the gay rights movement of today.  This is mainly because of the clear vision those movements had for goals.  They all knew they wanted equal rights for themselves, but they also knew specifically what rights they wanted and specifically what policies to target.  For example, the gay rights movement knows they want to be able to serve openly in the military and they know they want to be able to get legally married, thus they have already successfully had Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) repealed.  They can marry in several states and have civil unions or domestic partnerships in others.  They are even working to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which may come to a vote soon in Congress.  OWS doesn’t have this clarity and, though they may eventually, they do not presently.  

While I’m on the topic of OWS, I want to take this opportunity to voice my condemnation for some of the blatantly anti-American stuff going on in their crowds.  It’s not the whole crowd, or even a majority of the crowd, and it’s probably not even a big portion of the crowd.  It’s a minority of the crowd, but it is still troubling.  It’s an example of a couple of fools ruining it for the rest.  The worst I’ve seen is a picture of a protester defecating on a burning American flag.  I will not be posting links to that image here, but you can easily find it on Google if you don’t believe me.  I’m not demonizing all of the OWS protesters because I do believe the overwhelming majority of them care about America, love it, and want to strengthen it (clearly, they differ with me regarding how to go about strengthening America), but such conduct is wholly unacceptable.  Everyone has their 1^st Amendment rights, as I’m exercising here and they’re exercising there, but conduct like the picture mentioned above is deplorable.  Really, the situation is a case of, “Can you?  Should you?”  Regarding these anti-American displays, they can do them from a 1^st Amendment perspective, but they should not.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say public defecation is probably illegal, so in that sense, they cannot do what they did.  Can anybody tell me how that kind of conduct adds value to the cause?  I didn’t think so.

Will OWS turn into a political force?  Will it burn out or fade away?  The answers to these questions depend on whether OWS can break away from similarity to the London riots and coalesce like the other movements I mentioned. 

Groundhog Day and Presidents

America looked to Punxsutawney Phil today. No shadow means spring’s near. If he sees his shadow, then we get six more weeks of winter. That’s an absolutely dreadful thought considering how much snow I already have. It’s about three feet deep in my yard, with snowbanks of six feet or higher near the driveway and roads. Historically, the groundhog’s accuracy is over 50%. Groundhog Day is also my dad’s favorite holiday. I’ll share his enthusiasm if the little guy proves right that spring’s coming soon.

“Groundhog Day” was also a movie starring Bill Murray. He relived Groundhog Day over and over again, repeating the same basic series of events over and over, as though it was on an endless loop. Not exactly Bill Murray’s finest movie, but it sets the stages perfectly for the transition from Punxsutawney Phil to Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, and FDR.

What do Phil and Groundhog Day have to do with three democrat presidents? I’ve long held the belief that history repeats itself and, as Pearl Jam sang in “Nothingman”, “He who forgets is destined to remember.”

Barack Obama’s presidency feels like a replay of a bad blend of Carter’s foreign policy debacles and FDR’s economic missteps. I’ve had that feeling before. However, because of the recent flare-ups in the Middle East and Africa and because Carter had his own economic issues, a comparison of Carter and Obama now has more legitimacy. I wasn’t alive during Carter’s presidency from 1977-1981, so I’m going off accounts from history books and people who lived it.

The mainstream media has beaten to death the comparison of Carter’s Iran versus Obama’s Egypt. I mentioned that if America mishandles Hosni Mubarak’s (expected) departure from power in Egypt and events don’t go favorably for us, Obama could have his own Iran debacle like Carter had with the Shah and Ayatollah Khomeini. In general, beyond Egypt and Iran (and especially with Russia), I also view the foreign policy of both Obama and Carter as weak and timid. I remarked in my State of the Union review that, for some reason, I can’t take Obama seriously when he tries to sound tough on foreign policy. FDR’s foreign policy wasn’t exactly perfect, but his shortcomings were different, due to tariffs rather than revolutions.

Second, each president had less than ideal economic conditions to work with and neither deserves credit for properly addressing them. Also, though I’d argue that the economic climate Obama inherited from Junior Bush is more like what FDR inherited from Herbert Hoover rather than what Carter inherited from Gerald Ford, all three inherited weak/deteriorating economies. I’d add that it was strong Federal Reserve leadership, not White House leadership, that saved the day for both Carter and Obama. In FDR’s case, I’d credit World War 2 and Truman’s post-war leadership for ending the Great Depression, rather than FDR’s New Deal. Hopefully, I won’t be crediting World War 3 and someone else’s leadership for snapping us out of the Great Recession.

Back to Carter, who had stagflation in his time. This combination of stagnant growth and powerful inflation is an economic killer. Prior to Paul Volcker becoming chairman of the Federal Reserve in 1979, the government let inflation spiral out of control, and it was Volcker who broke the back of inflation by jacking the Fed rates to nearly 20% over the next couple years, setting the stage for a new wave of prosperity for America.

We were in dire straits when Obama took over, as the financial crisis was pretty much full speed ahead. As with Carter, it was the chairman of the Federal Reserve, this time Ben Bernanke, who was the mastermind behind pulling America out of the economic death spiral. Bernanke was slow to react to the crisis, something I was critical of him for at the time and in reflection, but once he woke up, he pulled out all the stops and deserves the credit. Ironically enough, Obama pulled Volcker out of retirement to act as an economic advisor.

In all fairness, I can’t criticize either president for not solving those specific crises because it took central bank policy, not executive policy, to do it. Also, I can’t blame them for the troubles they inherited. I can, however, criticize them for implementing policies that were headwinds rather than tailwinds for recovery. That and the strong Federal Reserve leadership saving the day are the main parallels I see between Obama’s and Carter’s presidencies on economic matters.

Happy Groundhog Day.

Global Upheaval and Why it Matters in the USA

Egypt, along with several other nations throughout Africa and the Middle East, has plummeted into chaos. Tunisia had its president ousted, Jordan’s king sacked and replaced his cabinet, and it’s tense in Yemen. On a positive note, the citizens of the Sudan recently voted to split the nation in two, which will hopefully end the bloodshed. So, why does all of this matter to the USA? Let’s focus mainly on Egypt here.

First and foremost is the question of who will emerge with control of Egypt. If the government falls, the Muslim Brotherhood is probably the only other entity that could take over. Conservatives in America tend to portray them negatively, citing their history of violence and ties to terrorist organizations like Hamas and al Qaeda. Liberals in America tend to portray them positively, citing their lack of recent violence and ties to Egyptian colleges, unions, and social programs (those three are also strongly liberal blocks in America; possibly a coincidence). As usual, the truth likely lies somewhere in between. I think there are both peaceful, non-threatening elements and violent, threatening elements within the Muslim Brotherhood.

Will Egypt will become to Obama (and US foreign policy) what Iran was for Jimmy Carter? I don’t know, but here’s how I’m pondering the question. There are some key differences and similarities, and three assumptions factor in. First, one must make an assumption about whether the Hosni Mubarak and/or Egyptian government maintains power or whether someone else takes over, like the Muslim Brotherhood. Second, one must make an assumption about how dangerous the Muslim Brotherhood truly is. Third, one must then make assumptions about how America would react based on the first two assumptions.

Thus, worst-case scenario, if the government falls, the Muslim Brotherhood is dangerous, and America screws up, then Obama absolutely could have his own Iran debacle like Carter had with the Shah and Ayatollah Khomeini. Under this scenario, odds are our friends in Israel would be in even more danger. On the flip side, the best case scenario is stability with a peaceful Egypt and Middle East. I don’t know what happens.

Who controls Egypt matters because of the Suez Canal. This is a big deal because it connects the Gulf of Suez to the Mediterranean Sea, dramatically shortening sea travel by creating a shortcut that allows boats to avoid sailing around all of Africa to move to/from Europe (see the maps below courtesy of howstuffworks.com). Shuttering/restricting the Suez Canal would have disastrous economic implications. This would dramatically increase the costs of trade for Europe, Asia, and Africa. The sputtering Eurozone economy needs a trade bottleneck like I need more snow (record snowfalls throughout New England this year). It could even be the next stage of the ongoing European economic debacle.

For America, it would increase trade and energy costs because of how much oil we get overseas. I had a talk about this with a friend over the weekend. We both agree on the need to break dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Where we differ is the timeline and how best to implement that. I contend that developing domestic oil production is the best short-term plan while we build our infrastructure for other cars (hybrid, electric, even natural gas versus gasoline/diesel), while he contends we should skip the drilling and just go straight to other cars and renewable energy. My concerns stem primarily from technological maturity and economics, but I’ll make that a separate post.

Lastly, the protesters in Egypt were communicating primarily through the internet with sites like Facebook and Twitter. The Egyptian government killed the internet. Google has teamed with Twitter to provide Egyptians with an audio, telephone-based version of Twitter.

I worry that these actions by the Egyptian government would inspire our government to try something similar. Last June, the “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010” came before the Senate courtesy of Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins. It passed the Homeland Security Committee in December, but died with the new Congress. Collins intends to reintroduce it. Don’t forget about the FCC’s recent passage of net neutrality, and don’t forget about Congressman Bob Brady’s bill in the wake of the Arizona tragedy to outlaw the use of certain imagery to describe politicians and judges. Free speech advocates like myself have plenty to worry about, and I’ll talk more about this later, too.

The bottom line is Egypt matters a lot more than one might think. Let’s keep an eye on it.