Obama’s faux left turn

Since the White House has figured out that any bipartisan legislative attack on working people will fail, largely because the Republicans would oppose any proposal put forward by Democrats even if involved replacing FDR’s face on the dime with Ronald Reagan’s, it has submitted one that is calculated to win liberal support. With Obama’s re-election hopes riding on wooing them back, it costs little to make “populist” sounding noises that will never be realized. A round-up of the liberal punditry reveals a mood of rejuvenation:

On the Huffington Post Robert Reich writes:

So the really big fight — perhaps the defining battle of 2012 — won’t be over Medicare. It won’t even be over Obama’s jobs program.

It will be over whether the rich should pay more taxes.

The president has vowed to veto any plan to tame the debt that doesn’t increase taxes on the rich. The Republicans have vowed to oppose any tax increases on the rich.

It’s a good fight to have.

William Greider, like Reich a frequently tough critic of Obama, told Nation Magazine readers: “The word is out in Washington. When the president announces his deficit-reduction proposals next week, he will definitely not suggest any hit on Social Security nor any increase in the eligibility age for Medicare. That’s a small victory for reason and social equity.”

Markos Moulitsas, a key player in the “Netroots” support for Obama in 2008, blogged on Daily Kos:

Now, finally, he’s taking a hardline approach to a negotiation. He’s making a forceful defense of a truly progressive approach to deficit reduction. He has drawn lines in the sand with veto threats. My initial and usual skepticism was (finally!) unwarranted. This is good stuff. Is it too little, too late? Nope. It’s never too late. We’ve still got over a year until the next election. In politics, that’s a lifetime and then some.

But if you really want to get a feel for the liberal cheering squad that will be assembled for the 2012 Obama election campaign, you really need to read this exchange between Rachel Maddow and Michael Moore (this comes from Lexis-Nexis; the MSNBC transcript will be available in a day or two at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32390088/):

MADDOW: You have been saying President Obama does not fight hard enough for what he believes in. You have been making this case for a long time — I think since earlier than a lot of other people were making it. When I heard the speech today, I was really happy I was having you on the show. I wanted to know if you feel better about his tone these days.

MOORE: I felt instantly better. So, it doesn`t take much for me.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: That`s another good thing about liberals. That`s just how easy we are. Just a little — you referenced us as being treated sometimes by the mainstream media as extraterrestrials. Well, you put a few of those Reece`s Pieces out in front of us and we got a whole bag of Reece`s Pieces today.

By the way, the American public loves E.T. So, as beloved as E.T. is, I think the American public is actually, as you`ve pointed out many times on this show, much more liberal than the Beltway pundits give America credit for being. When you look at the actual issues, the American public takes the liberal position on the majority of them, whether being against the war, whether it`s equal rights for women, whether it`s a strong environmental laws.

In last month`s poll, for the first time ever, 54 percent of Americans saying that they believe gay marriage should be the law of the land.

So, Americans are actually quite liberal even though they may not call themselves that. And I think what happened today was exactly what we`ve been wanting President Obama to do. And he has to do more of it.

He`s — the problem with the base, with you mentioned Move On not knowing what to do next year. In the end, the people who are members of Move On, the Michael Moores out there, are going to, you know, vote for Barack Obama.

That really — his problem isn`t me or Move On so much as it is all the people who voted for him in `08 who may vote for him again. They probably won`t vote for the Republican. But they`re not going to go out and bring 10 people to the polls with them. They`re not going to be excited about voting again. And that`s where it could really hurt him.

So, this thing that happened today is very exciting and to have him just repeat over and over again, I will refuse to let these Bush tax cuts for the rich continue, I will refuse to rebuild this country on the backs of the poor and the middle class, that is music to my ears. We should have heard this from day one. I`ll take it on day 900 if that`s when I get it.

When I read this sort of thing, I can’t help but think of the battered wife syndrome. Here you have 3 years of abuse—including what a new book by Ron Suskind describes as a hostile environment for women like Christine Romer at the White House—and the batterer is ready to be forgiven after he brings home a box of chocolates.

You can bet that between now and election day in November 2012 there will be a rising crescendo of the need to “stop Perry” (or Romney) that will draw in not only professional liberals like Rachel Maddow but segments of the “radical” movement like those who joined up with Progressives for Obama in 2008. The pressure will be insurmountable as the Republicans will mount an aggressive campaign incorporating “tea party” demands and rhetoric. If Obama is re-elected, he will continue governing from the right just as he has been doing since 2009. The only hope for American workers is continued gridlock in Washington that will undermine any attempts at a “grand compromise” that will lead to the elimination of Social Security and other provisions of the New Deal.

Perhaps the most stupefying defense of Obama as class struggle fighter comes from David Corn who told Mother Jones readers that the president was daring the Republicans to knock the chip off his shoulder:

Which brings me to the one sentence in the White House fact sheet that is in boldface: “The President will veto any bill that takes one dime from the Medicare benefits seniors rely on without asking the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share.”

This is known as a message. Obama is saying that he won’t take anything away from Medicare beneficiaries—and he’ll continue to point out that the Republicans are on record as supporting ending the Medicare guarantee for seniors.

This is quite a state of affairs when a leading liberal views Medicare cuts as permissible as long as they are accompanied by a bunch of scumbag hedge fund managers paying the same tax they paid before George W. Bush’s cuts. How is it a “fair share” when someone making 500 million dollars a year is asked to pay an extra five percent in taxes while Medicare patients are being asked to pay higher premiums as the NY Times reported today:

President Obama’s budget director said Monday that the president’s new deficit-reduction plan would impose “a lot of pain,” and that is clearly true of White House proposals to cut $320 billion from projected spending on Medicare and Medicaid in the coming decade.

Mr. Obama proposed higher premiums and deductibles for many Medicare beneficiaries and lower Medicare payments to teaching hospitals and rural hospitals. He would start charging co-payments to frail homebound older people who receive home health services. And he would reduce the growth of federal payments to states for treating low-income people under Medicaid.

The White House said Mr. Obama’s proposals would cut $248 billion from the projected growth of Medicare in the next 10 years, while shaving $72 billion from Medicaid and other health programs. A large share of the Medicare savings would, in effect, be used to pay doctors, who would otherwise face deep cuts in the fees they receive for treating Medicare patients.

While I am obviously in better shape financially than most people on Medicare (I signed up early this year but am still on my employee health plan at Columbia), the idea of paying more for an increasingly inadequate health plan really galls me.

On Saturday night I was on the phone with my old friend Richard Greener, the author of the Locator novels that are being turned into a Fox TV series starting in January. As a heart transplant recipient, Richard is pretty familiar with health and insurance issues.

Besides his heart issues, Richard has had some serious eye problems as well. Like his heart condition, one of them was congenital: he was born blind in one eye. More recently he began to have problems with blurred vision in his good eye. After learning that he had a cataract, he scheduled surgery—one of the most common procedures in the medical field. As it turned out, it got a bit complicated because the medication he takes to allow the heart to operate in what amounts to a foreign body will also act against the anti-inflammatory drugs taken routinely after cataract surgery.

Given his rather frail state, Richard has a lot to be thankful for. He left for a vacation in Europe yesterday and will be coming up to NYC in December to publicize the TV show. He told me that he will be making an appearance on the Letterman show. Given Letterman’s quadruple bypass a few years ago, I expect plenty of graveyard humor. On the ocular front, Richard told me that he is seeing better than ever.

When I mentioned to him that I would be needing surgery for cataracts in both eyes at some point, he warned me what to expect as a Medicare patient. Apparently they will not permit surgery under Medicare unless the cataracts exceed a certain size. It doesn’t matter how blurry your vision is as long as the cataracts are within their defined acceptable limit. I imagine that with the direction things are going in this plutocracy we are living under, I’d better start shopping around for a seeing-eye dog before the year is up.