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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (83399)	9/22/2010 1:55:23 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Warren was the architect and lobbyist for the Wall street regulations that just passed congress. How can you say she is ineffective? She may have been the architect which is the easier part of job but it was Obama and company who got it through Congress. Besides, I never said she wasn't smart. That's not where she is deficient.

To: koan who wrote (83399)	9/22/2010 5:14:06 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

Barack Obama's bitter divisions with generals revealed in new book Ferocious infighting was punctuated by snide and bitter remarks during Afghan policy review according to author Barack Obama was forced into a major damage-limitation exercise today after a new book by veteran investigative reporter Bob Woodward painted a startling portrait of the strained relations between the White House and top US generals. Divisions within the US administration during an Afghanistan policy review last year – that led to 30,000 more personnel being sent to the war zone and the setting of a July 2011 deadline for a withdrawal – have been well reported. What is new is the level of personal acrimony that apparently accompanied that debate. In Obama's War, published on Monday but leaked early to the New York Times, Woodward claims that the infighting was ferocious, and punctuated by remarkably snide and bitter remarks. On one occasion General David Petraeus, the US commander in Afghanistan, is quoted as saying, in reference to Obama's administration: "You fucked with the wrong guy." Another damaging section of the book reveals that Obama needed the withdrawal deadline for domestic political reasons, to keep the Democratic party happy. The revelations leave the president vulnerable to fresh attacks by Republicans just as Obama and the Democrats are struggling in the polls ahead of congressional mid-term elections in November. The Republicans immediately seized on the president's remark about the need for a deadline, and said party politics should not be dictating national security policy. "That's what it's all about folks, politics, pure politics," a Republican National Committee spokesman, Doug Heye, said. The book also threatens to damage already strained relations between Washington and the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, as well as with Pakistan. Today the White House did not dispute Woodward's account, other than to correct a few minor points. But it stressed the extracts were selective and claimed that, when the book is read as a whole, Obama emerges as a president who is "analytical, strategic and decisive". Among the other revelations are: • Obama's special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, is quoted saying the Afghan policy "can't work". The vice-president, Joe Biden, describes Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, as "the most egotistical bastard I've ever met". • Karzai is alleged to be suffering from manic depression and taking medication. Woodward quotes Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador, as saying: "He's on his meds, he's off his meds." • The CIA has set up a 3,000-man Afghan paramilitary unit for covert cross-border operations, including assassinations, against al-Qaida and Taliban havens, not only in Afghanistan but in Pakistan. • US intelligence told Obama that Pakistan is not a reliable partner in the Afghan conflict. The president is quoted as saying: "We need to make clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan." There was angry reaction to the book from Afghanistan, where the palace in Kabul denied Karzai has mental health problems. A close Karzai aide said the revelations would undermine a much improved relationship between Karzai and the Americans. "It adds fuel to the fire of our enemies. Can you imagine the laughter of Mullah Omar [the Taliban leader] over there, reading this?" the aide said. But Abdullah Abdullah, foreign minister in Karzai's first cabinet turned opponent in last year's presidential election, said Karzai's alleged mental problems had caused problems for the country. "It has affected the situation because it affects his decision-making." In Pakistan, senior officials said Woodword's claims were out of date. "That was 2009 and this is 2010. Things have come a long way since then," said Pakistan foreign office official, Abdul Basit. Steve Clemons, director of the American Strategy Programme at the New American Fundation, which this month published a detailed report on Afghanistan, said the administration was due to review its policy in December and the revelations ensure "this will become a politial issue and re-open the convulsive process (last year's debate on strategy). The political problem for the administration is they have to look as if not a pawn of the Pentagon." Blake Hounshell, managing editor of the Washington-based Foreign Affairs website, said the book would create enormous headaches for the White House. "If you thought the Rolling Stone article that got General Stanley McChrystal fired was damning, you ain't seen nothin' yet," he said. guardian.co.uk

To: koan who wrote (83399)	9/24/2010 12:30:40 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Why Jack Welch is Wrong about Obama by Daniel Gross, Yahoo! Finance Friday, September 24, 2010 On CNBC Thursday, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch discussed the threat facing corporate America: the Obama administration's persistent "anti-business" bias. Welch cited Obama's early attacks on corporate junkets to Las Vegas, policies that have "stuck the gears" of business, the shoddy treatment of bondholders in the Chrysler and General Motors bailouts, and the vilification of BP. In the recently passed health care reform, he said, the insurance industry "gets killed." And so on. The Obama administration's perceived anti-business attitude has been a staple of critiques almost since day one. The blaring op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by former Bush adviser Michael Boskin in March 2009, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at a sickening 6,600, was headlined: "Obama's Radicalism is Killing the Dow." (Of course, the Dow (^DJI - News) is up about 60 percent since then. But don't expect to see an op-ed by Boskin asserting that Obama's radicalism has helped the Dow.) There's a sense afoot that this administration is somehow committed to the destruction of American capitalism, never mind that Obama's top economic adviser worked at a hedge fund, his Treasury Secretary ran the New York Fed, and his administration's ranks are filled by veterans of McKinsey, Wall Street and corporate law firms. This critique doesn't jibe with reality, or with the policies we've seen. Did some professional investors who waded into the morass of the Chrysler bankruptcy get a smaller return than they had hoped? Yes. Was BP "vilified" without reason or cause? Absolutely not. Does the insurance industry "get killed" in health reform? No. This line of attack ignores the fact that many large companies benefitted — and continue to benefit — hugely from policies forged in the crisis by the Bush and Obama administrations. General Electric, for example, issued tens of billions of dollars in debt that was guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, allowing it to save hundreds of millions of dollars in interest costs. (As of this summer, GE Capital had $59 billion in such debt outstanding). GE's infrastructure and alternative energy units have been enthusiastic supporters — and huge beneficiaries — of the stimulus programs. The company has been pleading for more taxpayer funding of wind farms and has petitioned Congress to enact new regulations that would require greater use of renewable energy. The "Obama is anti-capitalism" meme also ignores the fact that, time and again, when circumstances and the left wing of the Democratic party may have called for radical action, the Obama administration responded by pursuing a relatively moderate course. Consider: Banking: Instead of nationalizing failed banks, it continued the policy of offering them capital on easy terms. And given what they put the country through, big banks got off relatively easy in the financial reform bill that just passed. Health Care: On health care, instead of pursuing a public option that would have killed insurance companies, the administration signed into a law a reform that was essentially a knock-off of the plan that Republican governor and uber-businessman Mitt Romney enacted in Massachusetts. Labor: The UAW received what some observers viewed as preferential treatment during the restructurings of Chrysler and General Motors. But more broadly, the Obama administration has not pushed hard for the "card check" legislation long cherished by the labor movement, which would make it easier for unions organize. The Blame Game Some of what's going on here is a classic case of political name-calling: Republican attacks that Obama is "anti-business" echo the same critiques of FDR back in the 1930s. Similarly, Sarah Palin is subject to much of the same ridicule from Democrats today as Ronald Reagan endured in the 1980s. But there's a larger issue: a presumption that CEOs have some great insight as to which policies work best for their companies, the markets, and for the economy as a whole. Where's the evidence for that? Between 2001 and 2008, the playing field was set up almost exactly as CEOs wanted it — reduced taxes on high incomes, capital gains and dividends; a business-friendly White House and Congress that let industry write its own regulation; a "CEO president" surrounded by MBAs; no new mandates and lots of subsidies. But the result was a disaster — a lost decade in employment and the markets ended with a crash. Take a long-term look at the stock of the company Jack Welch left in 2001: GE stock (NYSE: GE - News) is basically where it was in January 1997. Between 2001 and 2008, a period of strong global growth and favorable policy that should have been a golden era for the company, the stock stagnated. Whom should we blame for that? Daniel Gross is economics editor and columnist at Yahoo! Finance. finance.yahoo.com