US Politics

On Thursday, President Obama held a health summit with Republican and Democrat Congressional leaders to try to resolve differences between bills passed by the House and Senate. Before national television, a roundtable debate took place for six hours that was not only good theatre, but highlighted major philosophical differences on health care reform as well as between the parties in general.

On the health care issues, the President tried to find common ground while Republicans insisted that the reform process should start all over again. Differences were evident concerning covering the uninsured, guaranteeing coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, and having a public option beyond private companies. The object of keeping costs down was constantly juxtaposed with improved, efficient coverage.

While there were no major breakthroughs at the meeting, with Democrats threatening to move ahead without Republicans through a complicated, technical process called reconciliation, there were clearly stated differences between the two parties.

And with more and more voters declaring themselves independent, it is worthwhile to remember that Democrats do believe in bigger government as a safety net and that Republicans are the party of deregulation and individual choice. The President tried to find common ground, but there was no evident sign of conciliation.

President Obama has made reform of the health care system a major part of his domestic agenda. Ignoring the difficulties of previous presidents, he thought that with his election victory and majorities in both chambers he could move forward with a more efficient, more just, and less costly reform. That has not happened.

The Republicans have sensed that big government is an issue they can run on, and the Democrats have been divided on what exactly they want. The fact that Scott Brown won the Senate election in Massachusetts on a platform against health care reform has sent shivers up the spines of Democrats before the November 2010 elections.

President Obama wants to reform the health care system in the United States. For the moment, the Republicans do not. The summit showed the differences on this issue and the profound philosophical differences between the two parties. Positively, it also showed a vibrant democratic process with leadership on both sides fully engaged in the details of health care.

Unfortunately, the process will not help the millions of Americans who are uninsured or those who cannot afford decent coverage as well as limit the explosive costs of an inefficient system.

National interest and domain reservé have been at the center of international relations since the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648. Since then, state sovereignty has been based on the right of each country to determine its internal affairs and the obligation of all states not to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.

The Westphalian doctrine of absolute state sovereignty has been eroded by many factors since 1648. New actors such as the United Nations, multinational corporations and powerful individuals like Bill Gates as well as new subjects such as human rights, migration and the climate have changed the nature of rigid state walls.

In a world of complex interdependence and advanced technology, the distinction between domestic and foreign affairs has been blurred, if not eliminated. Dealing with outside pressures, such as by China in forcing the cancellation of the visit of the Dalai Lama to the White House, are part of the daily lives of all political leaders today. A country’s image is no longer a domestic creation; state walls are more and more permeable.

The recent attacks on Switzerland’s banking secrecy by France, Germany and Italy follow on the UBS case and the United States demands for the names of Americans with suspect accounts in Switzerland.

With the United States, the question was whether there was undue pressure to humiliate Switzerland by its powerful Sister Republic. In the case of France, Germany and Italy, we are talking about immediate neighbours, and one cannot argue that this is merely an Anglo-Saxon attack on Switzerland for national interests. The question is larger than that.

Two recent articles in the major press in English are illuminating concerning how others see Switzerland. The first, by Dennis MacShane, appeared in Newsweek on Feb. 5 and is entitled “The End of Switzerland”.

Mr. MacShane is not a jealous City banker from London. He is a Labour M.P. and former U.K. Minister for Europe who has lived and worked in Geneva. He begins by extolling Switzerland’s history as a refuge for those fleeing persecution, its openness represented by International Geneva, and as a neutral venue for multilateral discussions.

That history, according to him, has ended. He describes Switzerland today as physically unkempt, governed by provincial politicians, with a population that has turned xenophobic.

He argues that Swiss exceptionalism is fading, and that it looks more and more like other small, struggling European countries. Worse, he proposes that Swiss myths, especially the original, altruistic reasons for banking secrecy, are no longer valid, just as its role as a moral authority in international diplomacy has disappeared.

Granted that the economic situation in Switzerland is not as bad as other countries in Europe, he says, but he concludes with a singular lament about Switzerland’s demise caused by structural paralysis and lack of dynamic political leadership.

Celestine Bohlen, daughter of the famous U.S. diplomat Chip Bohlen, wrote in Bloomberg News an article that was reprinted in the New York Times and later the International Herald Tribune on February 10. Her article, entitled “New Inroads on Swiss Bank Secrecy,” focuses on the German decision to pay for the list of potential tax evaders.

She begins by criticizing the Swiss for impugning the Germans since she says Switzerland is a country that has for centuries “relied on banking-secrecy laws to benefit from the dishonesty of others”. Her argument, quite simply, is that governments, in one form or another, do pay for information, and that once the names are available, there is no reason to argue about how the information was obtained.

In her conclusion, Bohlen points to Switzerland’s neighbours and friends, including the United States and Canada, who have joined in attacking the laws of banking secrecy and finishes by asking, isn’t it time for the Swiss to get the message?

(I will not include this brief press review with a tongue in cheek editorial by Linda Greenhouse in the February 11 New York Times entitled “Saved by the Swiss” which begins by asking if President Obama promised to outfit the Swiss navy in return for taking the two Uighur detainees from Guantanamo Bay.)

An image is a projection; it is something that can be worked on and polished. One hires public relations firms to be better presented. A reputation is not the same. It is developed over time and cannot be polished, although public relations firms may have some influence on how it is presented. An image can be created, a reputation is earned. Both of the articles presented above go the heart of Switzerland’s reputation. Mr. MacShane has lived in Switzerland; Ms. Bohlen has lived for many years in Europe. They are neither irresponsible journalists nor self-interested aggressors. For those who are concerned only with domestic problems in Switzerland and think that Switzerland’s image is a question of domestic rearranging and domain reservé, I call their attention to these comments. We are, after all, as others see us, and the others live beyond our borders in this post-Westphalian era.

Charlie Wilson died earlier this week. The former Texas Congressman was a larger than life figure, well known more for his partying and womanizing than for his contributions to the general welfare of Texas or the United States.

Charlie Wilson will be remembered internationally for one particular thing, and it behooves those in power to well remember the lesson. Wilson used his power in Washington as the head of an important Congressional military appropriations subcommittee to get money for forces in Afghanistan to push the Soviet army out of the country.

Many say it was the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan that caused the eventual demise of the Soviet Union. Driven by a combination of patriotic zeal and exotic adventure, he was able get funding to the tune of $750 million at the end to supply the mujahedeen with weapons, including Stingers, to liberate Afghanistan from Soviet occupation.

The life of “Good Time Charlie” was written about in a wonderful book by George Crile and immortalized in the Hollywood movie Charlie Wilson’s War starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. The film shows all the wheeling and dealing of Charlie and his thrill of victory when the Soviet tanks finally left. Charlie and his allies won the war.

But, there is a wonderful scene at the end of the movie that undercuts all the glamour and celebrations. Just as the ending of the film The Candidate has Robert Redford asking what to do now that he has won, someone comes up to Charlie Wilson at the end to say that they have a problem. A problem!

The problem turns out to be that the mujahedeen are uncontrollable, Stingers and all, and that the weapons given to the rebel forces to use against the Soviets are now being used against the Americans and their allies. Thirty years later, “the problem” is still there.

The Charlie Wilson Principle is quite simple: Never get into a war you do not know how to get out of. The corollary is: Never give weapons to those you can’t control. Good Time Charlie got his victory; we are all living with the collateral damage.

The Tea Party movement just held its inaugural national convention with Sarah Palin as the keynote speaker. Throughout the United States, a grassroots surge of anger against President Obama has been gaining ground.

Separated from the formal Republican Party for the moment, the Tea Party movement appears to be a real political force to be reckoned with in America.

Part of the anger of the movement is against the intellectualism of the President. “We don’t need a university lecturer as our leader,” is one of their popular appeals. Populism in this sense is not just anti-socialism or thinly veiled racism; it is an appeal to anti-intellectual forces.

The United States witnessed the Know Nothing Party in the 1840’s and 1850’s, and Dwight Eisenhower’s campaigns of 1952 and 1956 against Adlai Stevenson certainly had a touch of this brand of populism.

The frustration of the Tea Party followers points to a disconnect between the President and certain citizens. Barack the Yuppie and Editor of the Harvard Law Review is vilified, not Obama the community organizer in the streets of Chicago.

What is President Obama to do? Is he to play down his intellectual capacities and change his vocabulary as did President George W. Bush, a graduate of Yale and Harvard Business School? I would suggest the advisors around President Obama screen the movie “Bobby”.

In it, there is a wonderful scene of Robert Kennedy listening to a poor coal miner in West Virginia. Bobby Kennedy, graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, son of a multimillionaire and former Ambassador to the court of St. James, is totally connected to the miner.

One knows that the miner feels he is talking to someone empathetic with his plight.

The Tea Party movement feeds on the frustration of those who feel they are not being listened to. The same can be said of similar movements throughout Europe and in Switzerland.

Politicians in democratic countries must be able to connect to the population. Anti-intellectualism is a manifestation of this disconnect and shows serious polarization not just between the right and left, but between government leaders and the population.

Lawrence Summers may have been the brightest economist at Harvard, but he has never been unemployed or elected to an office. His debacle as President of Harvard confirms the problem

Those around President Obama would also do well to read David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest, the chilling condemnation of the intellectuals around John F. Kennedy who led the U.S. into the disastrous war in Vietnam.

For those who have forgotten or not read the book, Halberstam’s description of those around Kennedy was a searing indictment of arrogance and hubris. The Tea Party movement’s success is partially a reaction to the best and the brightest around Obama and his professorial style.

Wednesday evening President Obama gave a measured State of the Union that tried to appeal to Americans suffering from the economic downturn. He was honest in pointing to employment problems, but optimistic about the future, as any President must be.

As Republicans watched grimly during the 71 minute presentation, he devoted only nine minutes to foreign policy, mostly through the prism of national security.

Most interestingly, he said: …”China is not waiting to revamp its economy. Germany is not waiting.  India is not waiting.  These nations - they’re not standing still. These nations aren’t playing for second place. They’re putting more emphasis on math and science. They’re rebuilding their infrastructure. They’re making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs. Well, I do not accept second place for the United States of America.”

At the same time he was speaking, Serena Williams was playing Li Na of China in one of the semi-finals of the Australian Open tennis tournament, the first time a Chinese player had reached that stage of a Grand Slam tournament.

Li Na had beaten Serena’s sister Venus in the quarter finals. Her compatriot, Jie Zheng, also reached the semis for the first time, setting a record for Chinese players.
What is the relation between President Obama’s reference to America’s remaining number one and the tennis results? The great American historian Henry Steele Commager taught me that sports can often be an indicator of political transformations.

Specifically, in 1968, he was referring to baseball and the rise of Latin American stars in the major leagues as an indicator of upward mobility in the U.S. following the Irish, Italians and African Americans.

The Chinese breakthrough in tennis could be an indicator of an upward mobility of Asia in general and China in particular. Fareed Zakaria recently wrote about the rise of the Brics – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa without assuming U.S. decline. He said these countries were merely going upward in terms of the United States.

Serena Williams barely won the match in two tie breakers and went on to win the tournament. The United States is still hanging on.

Gonzo journalism began with Hunter Thompson and his ability to report on events while being part of them, if not creating them. By definition, it tends to favor style over accuracy and often uses personal experiences and emotions to provide context for the topic or event being covered.

The news coverage of the earthquake in Haiti has many of these elements. While the coverage has focused world attention on the catastrophe and hopefully will lead to massive assistance and eventually reconstruction, there are sequences wherein the reporters themselves have become the story.

For example, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the CNN medical correspondent who is also a neurosurgeon, found himself operating on a patient while in Haiti, involving his news team in helping victims while at the same time reporting his news team’s helping the victims. Reporters interviewing reporters is the zenith of Gonzo journalism.

If this seems too harsh, I would like to follow through with several questions: Given the devastation of the infrastructure in Haiti, where are all the journalists staying? Given the lack of water and food in Haiti, what are the journalists eating? Given problems with landing at the airport, how was the journalists’ material delivered?

The arrival of the journalists in Haiti reminds me of the pictures of the American soldiers landing in Kuwait. From the time of the landing to the American flags being waved by children on shore, all was prepared and packaged.

In Haiti, are we witnessing not only Gonzo journalism, but information warriors working not for a government – embedded as it were – but working for their version of humanity?

Covering catastrophes is certainly big business for the news media. But decisions about where to go and whom to interview may be decided by the emotions of the reporters.

I question Jonathan Mann of CNN standing vigil while workers try to remove someone from under rubble while thousands are roaming the streets hungry. The newscasters are following their own emotional script.

There is no question that the reporters in Haiti have become part of the story. Gonzo journalism has found a new forum.

By electing Scott Brown to be Ted Kennedy’s replacement as U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, the voters have given President Obama a wake up call on the one year anniversary of his inauguration. Pundits may write their perception of what is going on in the political sphere, and pollsters may help us to understand and predict where the voters stand, but the election of Scott Brown is a crystal clear statement that the people of Massachusetts are frustrated and angry with the current administration.

There is no margin for error here; the Republicans had not had a Senator from Massachusetts since 1978. After having lost the Governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, the Democrats stand 0-3 in important campaigns since Obama’s taking office and have lost their filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate.

Explanations abound for the Boston Massacre. The Democratic candidate was wooden and ran a lacklustre campaign; Obama waited until the last minute to help; the issues were mostly local and the election was not a referendum on national health care; the party in power always suffers when the economy is bad and the Democrats inherited the errors of the Bush policies…

Three things are obvious: 1) Health reform is in trouble. Brown ran against health reform and the loss of the magic 60th seat places any bill in trouble. 2) Democrats are properly worried that the November 2010 elections will be catastrophic. The President is already weakened, and the Democrats chances of keeping control of both houses have diminished. 3) President Obama will have to focus on domestic issues between now and November.

Afghanistan, Haiti, Yemen, nuclear disarmament and anything dealing with foreign policy will have to take a back seat since he must consolidate his base while overcoming a serious enthusiasm gap. If he doesn’t, he will be a lame duck President after only one year.

The people of Massachusetts have spoken. I am sure President Obama’s political advisors are working overtime on new strategies. I wonder how political advisors in Moscow, Beijing and around the world are calculating their strategies based on the Massachusetts results.

As I am sure you have noticed, citizens and several government leaders have been upset, to put it mildly, at the recent proposals for large bonuses to be paid to executives in the financial sector. President Obama has now joined Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy in calling for some form of taxation on windfall checks to banking heads. Besides obvious populist appeals, what is the problem here? I thought that in a free market system merit should be rewarded. If the banks are making huge profits, those responsible for the profits should also profit.

Actually, there are three different reasons for the outcry. First, the very banks which are now making huge profits recently benefitted from taxpayer bailouts. Although most of the banks have already paid back their debts, there is something downright uncomfortable about the banks being bailed out by taxpayers, and then hauling in gross fortunes or even enormous stock options because we allowed them to stay in business.

Second, and this somewhat follows from the previous comment, there is the populist feeling that the bankers have made considerable money in spite of the fact that they made mistakes. In other words, we bailed them out when they failed on big risks. Now that they are making money, they will be encouraged to take risks in the future knowing they are too big to fail. The new head of the Swiss National Bank, Philippe Hildebrand, has made this point several times, but the bankers seem to be in another world.

Finally, what I think fundamentally galls the public is the growing disparity between the superrich and the average citizen. Statistics only confirm that the growing disparity between the top 1 per cent earnings and the middle class continues. With 10 per cent of the U.S. workforce officially unemployed, it is outrageous to see top executives receiving billions of dollars in bonuses.

The wealth of the wealthy has not trickled down to Main Street. And the hubris of the captains of industry before the Financial Inquiry Commission in their eternal denial of responsibility for the crisis further maddens the average citizen. President Obama knows that something must be done here, if only for political reasons. 

The people of the United States continually reject discussions of any form of socialism. But, their sense of social justice is clearly behind some form of taxation to equalize pay in the private sector. Let the bankers beware, this could get nasty.

2010 is a year of mid-term elections in the United States. During the mid-term of President Obama’s four year mandate, 2009-2013, all 435 members of the House of Representatives will be selected as well as 1/3 of the 100 Senators and several state governors.

Traditionally the party in power, in this case the Democrats, have lost seats in the Congress in a mid-year election. The 2010 campaign should be no exception, with particular attention to two factors this November.

First, the stock market has climbed over 10,000 from a low of 6,000 during the crash, but well below its high of 14,000. Wall Street seems to have bounced back, bonuses and all. If the stock market continues to rise, the financial sector will be more than stabilized and brokers and bankers can thank the interventions by Summers and Geithner by voting Democratic in the fall.

However, and this is the last of our three 10’s, the official unemployment rate continues to hover at around 10 per cent. Thus, even though the stock market has climbed, money has not trickled down from Wall Street to Main Street. And, there are more voters on Main Street than Wall Street. The unemployed, non-officially estimated at 17 per cent, as well as those afraid of losing their jobs will certainly not vote for the party in power.

The Democratic Party has traditionally been the party of the unions and workers with the Republicans looking after the financial sector. As of now, the Democrats risk losing much of their base if the 10 per cent unemployment rate does not significantly drop before the summer.

President Obama has said that unemployment and fiscal responsibility are high on his agenda for 2010. If he becomes distracted by security issues following the Christmas bombing attempt as he has been distracted by Afghanistan, then he and the Democratic Party will lose more than the usual mid-term losses in November.

And, that will mean a very rough last two years of the mandate and perhaps even a one-term President.

January 13, 2010

As the New Year begins and President Obama prepares for his State of the Union address, this is an appropriate moment to make some observations about his first twelve months in office.

1) The euphoria of the election and inauguration of the first African-American President has not been sustained. That level of energy and euphoria is inherently limited. Nevertheless, the brilliance of candidate Obama and the enthusiasm of his supporters were far from the performance of the President and his followers as well as the Democratic Party. Candidate Obama was far superior to President Obama.

2) The strategy of moving on many fronts – climate change, health care, finances, Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan – was difficult if not impossible to fulfil. The drawn out decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan seems a simple continuation of George Bush’s War on Terror, while the health reform bill in whatever form it passes will be an important step forward for millions of Americans, although less than many expected.

3) More credit should be given the Administration for stabilizing the economic crisis, but the high unemployment rate, long-term debt problems and greed of the financial community have taken the gloss away from a considerable success. While the President would like to focus on unemployment and fiscal responsibility in the second year, the security problem arising out of the Christmas bombing attempt might keep the attention of the Administration away from domestic considerations. Fierce Republican opposition in Congress has shown that the Administration has not been able to be inclusive. Continuing politicization could be fatal for future legislation.

4) The standing of the United States in the world has certainly improved post George Bush, but the decision to send troops to Afghanistan, the Chinese refusal to cooperate on climate change, and the lack of forceful leadership from President Obama domestically and internationally - such as in the Middle East - has seen the continued fragmentation of global authority and diminishing U.S. power. Obama may be the world’s biggest rock star, but he is far from the world’s leader, and we are far from the excitement of the Cairo speech.

President Obama gave himself a B+ rating for his overall performance in the first year. His popularity numbers are down, with progressives and conservatives alike expressing disappointment. Too much was promised, too much was expected. Barack Obama must accept that he represents and became the representative of a generation of hope. If he cannot live up to those expectations, if he doesn’t give himself a straight A, then he has only himself to blame. As many expected, he did not ace his first-year exam.