The Wrecking Crew

We need more journalists like Frank Rich. We need Glass-Steagall to be reinstated. Too big to fail is a myth.

From The Other Plot to Wreck America by Frank Rich:

The reckless Citi executives of our day may not have given themselves interest-free loans, but they often walked away with the short-term, illusionary profits while their employees were left with shredded jobs and 401(k)’s. Among those Citi executives was Robert Rubin, who, as the Clinton Treasury secretary, helped repeal the last vestiges of Glass-Steagall after years of Wall Street assault.

Rubin has never apologized, let alone been held accountable. But he’s hardly alone. Even after all the country has gone through, the titans who fueled the bubble are heedless. In last Sunday’s Times, Sandy Weill, the former chief executive who built Citigroup (and recruited Rubin to its ranks), gave a remarkable interview to Katrina Brooker blaming his own hand-picked successor, Charles Prince, for his bank’s implosion. Weill said he preferred to be remembered for his philanthropy. Good luck with that.

Among his causes is Carnegie Hall, where he is chairman of the board. To see how far American capitalism has fallen, contrast Weill with the giant who built Carnegie Hall. Not only is Andrew Carnegie remembered for far more epic and generous philanthropy than Weill’s — some 1,600 public libraries, just for starters — but also for creating a steel empire that actually helped build America’s industrial infrastructure in the late 19th century. At Citi, Weill built little more than a bloated gambling casino. As Paul Volcker, the regrettably powerless chairman of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said recently, there is not “one shred of neutral evidence” that any financial innovation of the past 20 years has led to economic growth. Citi, that “innovative” banking supermarket, destroyed far more wealth than Weill can or will ever give away.

Read more here.

The Big Disconnect

From Hollywood’s Brilliant Coda to America’s Dark Year by Frank Rich:

Those at the top are separated from the consequences of their actions. They are exemplified by Robert Rubin, formerly of Citigroup and a mentor to both Obama’s Treasury secretary and chief economic adviser. He looked the other way when his bank made ruinous high-risk bets, and then cashed out and split, leaving taxpayers to pay for the wreckage while he escaped any accountability. Such economic wise men peer down at the country from a hermetically sealed bubble of privilege and self-interest, much as Ryan does from the plane flying him to his next mass firing. And they tend to think, as Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs notoriously put it, that they are doing “God’s work” to sustain our free-market system.

From Comment Number 10 by Dim:

First of all, let me say thank you for such an insightful description of our current state of affairs, Mr. Rich, for pointing out so beautifully the disconnect between Wall Street and the rest of the country. President Obama also mentioned this in his weekly address today, but what bothers me is that, unlike you, he could actually do something about it! He keeps saying the right things but why doesn't he lead more forcefully? Why doesn't he keep up the pressure on Wall Street and on the Congress? Why doesn't he keep politicians of both parties accountable when they look after the interests of Wall Street and not the people? I know he has a lot on his plate, but I hope he is listening to people like you and taking these warnings a little bit more seriously. And I think that journalists like yourself should keep pressure on the President, keep him accountable for his actions instead of giving him a pass for simply saying the right things.

Meanwhile, most of the pundits effectively divide us so that the super rich and powerful can conquer us. As Bill Moyers frequently says, it’s not a question of left and right, it’s a question of top and bottom. (“…populism isn't really- and people's power, isn't really a left or right issue, is it? It's more us versus them, bottom versus top?”)

The Era Of “personal responsibility”

From Two Cheers for Rod Blagojevich by Frank Rich:

Blagojevich’s alleged crimes pale next to the larger scandals of Washington and Wall Street. Yet those who promoted and condoned the twin national catastrophes of reckless war in Iraq and reckless gambling in our markets have largely escaped the accountability that now seems to await the Chicago punk nabbed by the United States attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald.

Bush had arrived in Washington vowing to inaugurate a new, post-Clinton era of “personal responsibility” in which “people are accountable for their actions.” Eight years later he holds himself accountable for nothing. In his recent exit interview with Charles Gibson, he presented himself as a passive witness to disastrous events, the Forrest Gump of his own White House.

The Times calls its chilling investigative series on the financial failures “The Reckoning,” but the reckoning is largely for the rest of us — taxpayers, shareholders, the countless laid-off employees — not the corporate and political leaders who led us into the quagmire. It’s a replay of the Iraq equation: the troops, the Iraqi people and American taxpayers have borne the harshest costs while Bush and company retire to their McMansions.

Great Whore Glory

From The All-White Elephant in the Room by Frank Rich:

Bored by those endless replays of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? If so, go directly to YouTube, search for “John Hagee Roman Church Hitler,” and be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.

What you’ll find is a white televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish people.” That’s because the Great Whore represents “the Roman Church,” which, in his view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.

Doyennes And Knuckleheads

From Shoddy! Tawdry! A Televised Train Wreck! by Frank Rich:

However out of touch Mr. Obama is with “ordinary Americans,” many Americans, ordinary and not, have concluded that the talking heads blathering about blue-collar men, religion, guns and those incomprehensible “YouTube young people” are even more condescending and out of touch. When a Washington doyenne like Mary Matalin, freighted with jewelry, starts railing about elitists on “Meet the Press,” as she did last Sunday, it’s pure farce. It’s typical of the syndrome that the man who plays a raging populist on CNN, Lou Dobbs, dismissed Mr. Obama last week by saying “we don’t need another Ivy League-educated knucklehead.” Mr. Dobbs must know whereof he speaks, since he’s Harvard ’67.

Why Doesn't Sub-Zero Work For Hillary?

In the past it seems that negative political campaigns were a positive way to get elected. Why has Hillary Clinton’s negative campaign not been working? I don’t really know, since I never understood why negative campaigns have worked so well in the past. The Bush campaign smears against John Kerry, John McCain, and Max Cleland made me despise Bush even more than I did previously. These smears certainly did not make me want to vote for him. By the way, look at those three names again. All three are Vietnam War vets. How did Bush, the King of Chickenhawks, pull this off? Why did anyone vote for this despicable man? It still amazes me! So, has America changed, or is it all Hillary’s fault that her negativity isn’t pulling her through.

My guess is that it’s both. Barack Obama’s success is a sign that American’s are fed up with the status quo and want change. Some of us do want to live in a nicer world. It’s that simple. Can Barack Obama make the world a better place? No one knows the answer to that. He may, however, be able to inspire the rest of us to make it better. Hillary Clinton doesn’t see this because she is too full of herself, and that is part of her problem. It’s part of Bush’s problem too. America isn’t about a select few, it’s about all of us. It's about us working together, not about us working against one another. Hillary Clinton may have just picked the wrong time in our history to run a negative campaign. However, she also doesn’t do negative very well. Running a negative campaign against Barack Obama and not George W. Bush seems like a huge tactical error on her part. America hates George W. Bush and loves Barack Obama. So who does she choose to attack? Seems really dumb to me. Hillary going negative comes across as Hillary going ballistic. It emphasizes all the negative stereotypes that her detractors have been criticizing her about for years. I never used to believe all those stereotypes, but now, thanks to Hillary herself, I’m having second thoughts. To add to all of this, now she seems to truly be schizophrenic. One day praising Obama, the next criticizing him, the next mocking him… What the hell?

Frank Rich in his New York Times op-ed entitled The Audacity of Hopelessness seems to be trying too hard to look clever, but I did like this paragraph:

As for countering what she sees as the empty Obama brand of hope, she offers only a chilly void: Abandon hope all ye who enter here. This must be the first presidential candidate in history to devote so much energy to preaching against optimism, against inspiring language and — talk about bizarre — against democracy itself. No sooner does Mrs. Clinton lose a state than her campaign belittles its voters as unrepresentative of the country.

All of this may be bad for Hillary Clinton, but if it signifies an end to all future negative campaigning by all politicians, then it is a great thing for our country. One can only hope. And vote. For something positive. For a change.