I have to admit to lacking the "outrage" gene over the latest flavor of the month "scandal" -- AIG. I find this whole episode strangely orchestrated and inauthentic. It feels manufactured and it feels very, very WHITE.
I have spoken to several friends and family members (all people of color) over the past two days who have expressed NO OUTRAGE about this matter. They are concerned with other issues. The only people of color losing their minds over AIG are in Congress and on cable.
Jay Newton Small of Time Magazine picks up on the same sentiment (without reference to race).
There's something about this scandal that feels spun. I don't know if it's being driven by the cable nets or political paranoia about how this could affect public opinion – and therefore the Democratic mandate -- down the road, but public outrage is strangely... lacking. During past Washington tempests, such as TARP1 or the stimulus or even the Dubai ports scandal and Terry Schiavo, I'd often hear from friends across the country. This time it has been dead silence. Maybe there's just been so much outrage – junkets, bonuses, jets, etc – that they'd become imbued to the antics of greed? Curious, I checked with the Congressional switchboard. The Senate Sergeant–at-Arms, which runs the switchboard, reports that they have seen just the slightest uptick in the normal call volume. "It's not like TARP1," concedes Rep. Elijah Cummings, a senior member of the House Oversight Committee who has been looking into AIG for months. "It may be a bit personal. There's a frustration – when you see a company doing exactly what you hoped they wouldn't, even thought you'd legislated to prevent them from doing."
Gail Collins wrote a column called the "grievance committee" that I absolutely LOVED today. She captures this over the top performance art taking place on cable news and on so many "liberal" blogs. My favorite part is here:
Let’s complain about Barack Obama. Why doesn’t he sound angrier? Doesn’t he understand that his job right now is to be the Great Venter?
Sure he keeps saying he’s mad. But you can tell that he secretly thinks it’s crazy to obsess about $165 million in bonuses in a company that’s still got $1.6 trillion in toxic assets to unravel. "I don’t want to quell that anger. I want to channel our anger in a constructive way," he said on Wednesday. Everybody knows constructively channeled anger doesn’t really count. It’s like diet pizza.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Let's complain about Barack Obama... Dems on the Hill are slamming the administration. TV pundits have joined the fun. The triumverate of Tina Brown, Arianna Huffington, and Robert Reich are carping in print and on the airwaves. Hamsher, Sirota, and Greenwald (or as Al Giordano calls them members of the Poutrage club) also have their pitchforks out and are calling for Geithner's head. Having known Barack Obama for over 10 years now, one thing is for sure: "He will ignore the madness and press forward."
It was with great relief that I read Al Giordano's post today. http://narcosphere.narconews.com/...
He hits the nail on the head in my opinion. The administration's LOUDEST critics on the "left" right now were also Barack Obama's LOUDEST critics throughout the entire election cycle. I also find it particularly disturbing that these "loud" voices on the left are OVERWHELMINGLY MIDDLE-CLASS and WHITE. What's the deal with this?
Al Giordano breaks it down and speaks truth to power:
And there’s a constituency for this type of garbage (which is not really that different than or morally superior to the Glen Beck or Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh inverse poutrages on the right): primarily some folks that supported Senators Clinton or Edwards in the primaries against Obama and, like Limbaugh, they "hope he fails."
And what faster hope could they have to make him fail than to seek to remove Obama’s Treasury Secretary at exactly the moment when he’s begun to implement the economic recovery plan.
The presumption that it matters that much who is Treasury Secretary – given that the President meets daily with that person and the rest of the economic team as the first order of business every single morning – is pretty silly, too. (I’ve been the first to admit that whereas I thought Hillary Clinton would be a terrible choice for Secretary of State, she’s actually turned out to be very good at it, because like the rest of the cabinet she’s faithfully executing Obama’s openly stated agenda from the campaign even on cases like the Cuba embargo and direct diplomacy with US-shunned nations that she had vociferously opposed just last year).
Any different Treasury Secretary would be following the exact same instructions as the current one. The suggestion that President Obama is somehow hands off on the economic recovery or the kind of weak mind subject to Svengali-like hypnotism by his cabinet members is the real "magical thinking" going on here. More "magical thinking" (they like that term over there in the Poutrage Club, so let's make them eat it) comes in their delusional ignorance of what the consequences would be for the economic recovery and the 2010 midterm Congressional elections if the Republicans in the US Senate were to be given a second shot at derailing a Treasury nominee. They clearly haven't thought it through, or, if they have, then why can't they just admit they secretly hope, like Limbaugh, for failure?
So to recap, Obama is the one calling the shots. If you don't like what he is doing, call for HIS impeachment or removal from office. Not Geithner's.
I think that Joe Klein best sums up what President Obama is trying to do:
What Barack Obama pledged to do during the campaign--what he is trying to do now--is to change course on every one of these Reaganite assumptions. He believes that government must be part of the solution in areas like health insurance, education and energy policy. He will, eventually, restore Clinton-era levels of taxation on the wealthy. He will re-regulate the financial markets. Overseas, he has restored the primacy of diplomacy over the use or threat of military force.
Klein appeals for patience and for a tempering of irrational anger. I agree with him.
Actually, Obama's foreign policy is illustrative of his overall philosophy. It is comprehensive and complicated. In the case of Pakistan, for example, it involves diplomatic suasion, economic aid, military aid and the discreet use of military force. It will not yield results overnight. It isn't as dramatic or easily judged as an invasion. It may not, in the end, prove the right course. But, as with Obama's economic policies, it will take time to assess fairly. And so, patience, please! We can feed Obama to the Limbaugh lions if he fails ... Or maybe not, should he succeed.
http://www.time.com/...
P.S. I am expecting a ton of ANGRY comments in response to this diary. So be it!