OK, this really pisses me off. It's one thing to raise issues about Elizabeth Warren's qualifications on things other than banking and law in a thoughtful manner. It's another to go on wild hyperbole and claim that Warren's jobs plan is "war with Iran".
As much as your humble blogger still regards Elizabeth Warren as preferable to Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race, the evidence from her campaign is that she is no progressive, unless you define “progressive” to mean “centrist/Hamilton Project Democrat willing to throw a few extra bones to the average Joe.”
We’ve warned repeatedly that Warren not being all that left leaning was a real possibility. Her views on anything other than consumer banking regulation were unknown; she was a Republican prior to her conversion experience through extensive research into bankruptcies, which revealed that the overwhelming majority were responsible people who hit a stretch of serious bad luck. ... The bigger frame, which Warren ignored, was stagnant worker wages and rising income disparity. Including those issues would have led Warren to consider issues like taxation (how income taxes have become less progressive and have also become more favorable to income from capital) and our multinational-favoring trade deals, and our lobbying-driven industrial policy.
Yeah, who knew that someone who was born and raised in Oklahoma would start off as a Republican? That sentence there about tax policy would make a good point, were it not for all the other hyperventilating that just crowds it out.
So how did we get from having hesitation about Warren's credentials in areas that aren't in her area of expertise to a fevered headline claiming she wants war with Iran?
A fuller critique below the fold.
A particularly ugly revelation came in the Boston Herald. On the one hand, the Herald is far from in the Warren camp, so it is possible that her remarks were taken out of context. But on the other, the Herald would see saber rattling as a plus, which perversely means they’d be less likely to exaggerate her views:
“Our number one responsibility is to protect Americans from terrorism, that’s our job, so being tough on terrorism is enormously important,” said Warren yesterday at a campaign stop in Gloucester.
“We should take nothing off the table, but the facts are still emerging,” the Senate candidate said when asked if she would support military action against Iran.
Huh? Protecting Americans against terrorism is number one? That means it ranks ahead of the rule of law, among other things. And this from a law professor. Glad we got that clear.
Here's a dirty little secret. People running for office will use the phrase "the facts are still emerging" to dodge commenting on a recent development or story that they're not that familiar with. But the author twists it to mean that Warren must obviously want to go to war with Iran.
I don’t take Warren’s “facts are emerging” caveat seriously when facts like this are already on the table. And in case you managed to miss it, “We should take nothing off the table” includes nuclear options.
Yep, obviously this means Warren wants not only war, but nuclear war. She accuses Warren later of having a "belligerent tone" as well in that simple response.
But you know how Republicans were attacking Warren over her stated support for #OccupyWallStreet? Yeah, this person has a negative view of that exchange as well.
I’ve had a number of readers ping me, concerned and perplexed to Warren’s response to a question in the Democratic primary debates about Occupy Wall Street ... Warren, by contrast, pointedly avoids giving a straight response and goes a bit off the rails. Her first statement is about obeying the law, and several readers took it to mean she was accusing OWS of being a bunch of lawbreakers. She gave the impression that she’s more concerned about whether they play by the rules or not than whether they have real concerns (and those concerns are broader than just bad behavior by banks). Then she talks about how the banks broke the country mortgage by bad mortgage. She may have meant that as part of her “obey the law” message, but it comes off like an effort to save a flubbed opener. Then she says that’s why she wants to run for Senate. In other words, her message, at best, is she doesn’t agree with how OWS is seeking to effect change. They should vote for people like her instead.
I'll leave it to you guys to comment on just how Warren went "off the rails" in her response. Was it not the most smooth and polished statement ever? OK, fine. But let's remember this is a woman who is running her very first campaign for public office.
And our earlier post tonight citing the work of Tom Ferguson tells us that Congresscritters fall in line with what the leadership wants, and the leadership is bought and paid for by special interest groups. The health care lobby outspends the banks. If she thinks she can dent the influence of Big Pharma on legislation, she is smoking something very strong.
Is there a triple facepalm picture anywhere? She won't come right out and say it, but she's definitely implying that Warren will simply become a tool of the leadership, which in turn means at the end of the day, she'll simply be a tool of the special interests.
(And at first I freaked out a little bit, thinking the Tom Ferguson she cited was one of my statistics professors here, perhaps better known as the father of Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, one of the top poker players in the world. But no, the Tom Ferguson she cites is a political science professor at UMass.)
She wraps up with a subtle dig at Harvard at the end of the post as well.
Mind you, if you are in Massachusetts, I am not telling you not to vote for Warren. I am simply warning you that she is not the Great Progressive Hope. She came to a strongly liberal view on a comparatively narrow set of issues, on how banks have looted customers, based on intensive research. She does not have that depth of expertise on many, if any, of the other topics she opines on. She has surrounded herself with mainstream Democratic advisors, the bulk of them with links to Harvard.
Like kos himself has pointed out repeatedly, having Harvard connections is not necessarily a bad thing for someone running... in the state of Massachusetts. So she has advisors with ties to Harvard helping her campaign, probably in the areas she lacks "expertise" in. And how is that a bad thing, again?
And if you thought that was bad, you haven't seen the comments to that piece. Here's just the second comment that appears when you scroll down.
Try this: http://www.counterpunch.org/...
IMO, from the counterpunch piece and elsewhere, Bernie Sander (sic) is a poseur, a Senate house pet run out to create a plausible distraction.
And it gets worse. Much worse. Scroll about halfway down the comments, and this is basically what you're seeing in comment after comment, with only a paltry number of comments somewhat coming to Warren's defense.
Re: Elizabeth Warren – Yves, right on. She’s still entrenched in the Old Corrupt System. Obvious to me when she put the “D” behind her name and started “campaigning”…in the same old same old ways.
Read something that McCain has claimed that Liz Warren has a sweetheart deal with special interests. I wonder what would make him say that? Is it true, or is he delusional? In light of her comments in this recent debate, maybe she’s following the money and it’s something that has some merit to it?
A vote for Warren is a vote for the status quo and is a wasted vote from a liberal perspective. Liberals would be better off voting for a third party instead of giving support to a criminal party.
is there anyone out there that would make a reasonable alternative, should they be willing to primary Obummer? I so do not want to vote for another 4 with the current chump, but the repugnantins are floating nothing but clowns.
Warren’s statements on Iran, considered in this light, can be severely discounted; and most likely to reflect her need for campaign funding and her need for right-wing Zionist votes.
Nice strawman. Only purity trolls refuse to support Warren.
Bullshit. This may fly at Daily Kos or Digby’s joint, but it’s not fair. (BruinKid: Hi there!)
....
Warren just threatened the people of Iran with genocide.
....
The main good thing about Warren was her economic policies. But that’ obviously bullshit. She is a mole for the enemies and not sincere about reform. The record is clear. She chose to serve a corporate party run by the top 1% instead of fighting for the middle class.
Brown is also pro war, so there’s no difference there.
In August, I commented to Warren, “Why do you want to board a sinking ship? You’ve got iconic status and a national stage to speak from. Being a senator can only reduce the efficacy of your voice.” Her reply (paraphrased), “When TSHTF I’ll be on the inside to guide the national policy debate. We’re that close (barely opening her thumb and index finger) to losing the American Dream.”
I left thinking it much more likely that she’d be compromised by a campaign: $, party line, placating villains and fools for votes. Her heroic status is now on the wane. As a thought experiment, we could imagine her running against Obama and embracing OWS as an authentic “green shoot of democracy’s revival.” Finally, being at Harvard is disadvantageous; she is ensconced in ivory tower cultural lag.
Harvard is part of culture creation, with aid from the CIA and think tanks like RAND. The fact that Warren is at Harvard relieves her of any credibility other than with the CFR crowd.
This kind of bullshit coming from people supposedly on the "left" is really getting me pissed off at these people. They remind me of Ron Paul fans somewhat. They've diagnosed that there is a problem with the system... and then they go completely off the rails in thinking of what the solution to that problem should be. Not the same, but similar.
Oh, and lest we forget, WTF happened to Zero Hedge and Tyler Durden? I'd seen them linked over here approvingly many, many times in economic diaries. But it seems they despise Paul Krugman to the point of making threats of violence against him.
Whether this is written by Krugman or not, that fetid pile of human waste should be dragged out into the streets of NYC and gang-raped by one hundred desperate sex offenders who have been cooped up in solitary for a year. Perhaps the damage done to Krugman's anus will stimulate a plastic surgery reconstruction mini-boom. He might want to have those man-tits lipoed at the same time.
Note that nobody called out that person for that disgusting piece of shit comment. The Zero Hedge folks can all go fuck themselves heartily as far as I'm concerned. And they seem to be a bunch of Ron Paul fanboys as well.
I think the next time I see a Kossack link to their work approvingly to read their views about the economy, I won't be as kind to that Kossack for linking that kind of Ron-Paul-disguised-as-progressive-economics bullshit. He's definitely on my shit list, and now Yves Smith has made my "On Notice" list.