The Commentariat -- 10-10-10

In a debate on Fox "News" this morning, when challenged by Democrat Debbie, Wasserman-Schultz, Republican House Whip Eric Cantor "repudiated" Republican House candidate Rich Iott for his participation in a Nazi SS re-enactment organization. Here's the video:

Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "In an interview this week, a senior administration official confirmed that the White House and Treasury Department had received warnings that the mortgage industry employed inexperienced staffers to oversee foreclosures, had problems handling documents and communicating with borrowers, and often failed to comply with regulations.... The only immediate response to warnings was a letter to servicers urging them to behave better. But in June, the administration enacted a policy requiring that servicers try to modify a loan before beginning the foreclosure process." CW: does HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan ever do anything?

Power to the Luddites! Frank Rich doesn't think the Internet has had much of a positive effect on politics: "Nowhere, perhaps, is the gap between the romance and the reality of the Internet more evident than in our politics." Rich concurs with Malcolm Gladwell that "social media increase the efficiency of the existing order rather than empowering dissidents." As a bit of anecdotal evidence, Rich cites the case of South Carolina's Alvin Greene, who got more than three times the number of primary votes as did Delaware's Christine O'Donnell. And Greene doesn't even own a computer! ...

... Maureen Dowd compares elements of David Fincher-Aaron Sorkin's "The Social Network" to Richard Wagner's "Das Rheingold." Dowd concludes, "the passions that drive humans stay remarkably constant, whether it’s a magic ring being forged or a magic code being written." ...

... CW: since both Rich & Dowd comment on "The Social Network," let's let Zuck speak for himself:

In a Washington Post op-ed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner defends the TARP by "tackling five myths" about it.

Making New York City a World Class City:

... BUT Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times writes that the rollout today of a couple of new, speedier bus routes was a bit of a bumpy ride; passengers couldn't figure out the new rules.

New York Times graphic.The Car that Drives Itself. John Markoff of the New York Times: Google "has been working in secret but in plain view on vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver.... Seven test cars have driven 1,000 miles without human intervention and more than 140,000 miles with only occasional human control. One even drove itself down Lombard Street in San Francisco, one of the steepest and curviest streets in the nation. The only accident, engineers said, was when one Google car was rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light." Look Ma, No Hands:

Faiz Shakir of Thing Progress: "After consulting with the Chamber of Commerce’s chief lobbyist Bruce Josten, the New York Times and the Washington Post publish articles today largely dismissing concerns about the Chamber’s foreign sources of funding as a means to raise money to air political attack ads." Both reports concentrated on "AmChams," but "'AmChams' are only a small piece of the puzzle. Most of the Chamber’s foreign sources of funds come from large multi-national corporations which are headquartered abroad, like BP and Siemens. Direct contributions from foreign firms also are accepted under the auspices of the Chamber’s 'Business Councils' located in various foreign countries." With graph.

In a humorous post, Alex Pareene of Salon discovers where Bob Woodward got the crazy idea the White House was contemplating a Biden-Clinton job exchange in 2012. "'It's on the table,' Woodward said. Wow! Except, as the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder succinctly tweeted: 'No, it's not.' CW: I won't give away the answer." Here's Ambinder's as-written-by-Woodward post.

... Some people are just born to be slaves.... It's just probably a matter of intelligent design. -- Rush Limbaugh

And God Created Slaves. Media Matters catches Rush explaining human nature:

We conservatives believe government is bad and we’ve got the candidates to prove it. -- P.J. O’Rourke

Stupid Candidate Tricks. Jeff Simon of CNN: "Nevada GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle told a crowd of Tea Party rally-goers last week that two cities — Dearborn, Michigan and Frankford, Texas — are under Sharia law, the sacred law of Islam.... Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly told the Associated Press that Angle’s comments were 'shameful' and 'totally irresponsible.'" Another problem? "Well, Frankford, Texas doesn’t really exist."

John Schwartz of the New York Times: "Sunday is the big day for saying 'I do.' More than 39,000 couples chose 10/10/10 as their wedding day — a nearly tenfold increase over the number of nuptials on Oct. 11, 2009, the comparable Sunday last year...."

The Commentariat -- October 9

Dana Milbank: "why [Glenn] Beck is dangerous: because his is the one voice in the mass media that validates conspiracy theories held by the unstable.... It's not that Beck is directly advocating violence but he's giving voice and legitimacy to the violent fringe." ....

Rich Iott, third from left, in a Nazi SS uniform. Iott in the Republican nominee for Congress in Ohio's 9th District.... GOP Congressional Nominee: I'm Not a Real Nazi, but I Play One on Weekends. Joshua Green of The Atlantic: "Rich Iott, the Republican nominee for Congress from Ohio's 9th District, and a Tea Party favorite..., for years donned a German Waffen SS uniform and participated in Nazi re-enactments. Iott, whose district lies in Northwest Ohio, was involved with a group that calls itself Wiking, whose members are devoted to re-enacting the exploits of an actual Nazi division, the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, which fought mainly on the Eastern Front during World War II. Iott's participation in the Wiking group is not mentioned on his campaign's website, and his name and photographs were removed from the Wiking website.... Historians of Nazi Germany vehemently dispute" the Iott organization's "sanitized, romantisized view" of the SS Wikings . Historian Charles W.Sydnor, Jr. says, "re-enactments like the Wiking group's are illegal in Germany and Austria." Iott said he joined the Wikings "as a father-son bonding thing." ...

... CW: this is jaw-dropping & stomach-turning. Will the GOP demand Iott withdraw his candidacy? Minority Leader John Boehner is an Ohio Congressman. He had to know about this guy. Here's a recruitment video Iott's SS re-enactment group produced that is beyond shocking:

... Steve Benin: despite "a disclaimer noting that they 'do not embrace the philosophies and actions' of the Nazis..., Iott's little troupe also said it exists in part to 'salute' the 'idealists' and 'front-line soldiers of the Waffen-SS' and their 'basic desire to be free.' It also characterizes Wiking volunteers as 'valiant men...." Benin notes that Iott is a Republican "party favorite," not a fringe candidate. ...

     ... Update. Young Mausers. Stephen Webster of the Raw Story: "Iott was a member of the National Republican Congressional Committee's so-called 'Young Guns' program, but a GOP-owned domain dedicated to America's 'future leaders' appears to have scrubbed his name from a list of 'contenders'. ...

... It sends a chilling message to all Americans, especially to veterans and to those of the Jewish faith that John Boehner and the Republican leadership in Washington would actively seek out candidates like this and embrace them. -- Ryan Rudominer, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

     ... ** Update: Mediaite has video of Joshua Green telling the Rich Iott story on Bill Maher's "Real Time."

Peter Yost of the AP: "Before President Barack Obama picked him to be his next national security adviser, Tom Donilon was a lobbyist for mortgage giant Fannie Mae and fought off congressional attempts to impose new regulations. As Fannie Mae's legal counsel and top strategic thinker in the late 1990s to the middle of this decade, Donilon left his sizable imprint on the company long before its takeover by the government amid the wreckage of the housing market." ...

... Josh Gerstein & Abby Phillip of Politico have more on Donilon's tenure at Fannie Mae. Yost implies Donilon left before Fannie Mae got in big trouble; Gerstein & Phillip give you a picture of how close Donilon was to Fannie Mae's problems -- one of their sources calls Donilon "an enabler." They also note that he doesn't have much foreign policy experience. ...

... BUT Fred Kaplan of Slate writes that "Donilon has been de facto national security adviser for many months now, while [former advisor Jim] Jones has been, to a startling degree, a West Wing wallflower."

Peter Bacon of the Washington Post: "... in what could be a preview of Washington in 2011, two men are engaged in an almost daily debate about the [Republican Pledge to America] and what it means: President Obama and House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).... Many Republican candidates haven't even read" it.

Dan Eggen of the Washington Post: "The long-simmering feud between Democrats and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has erupted into a full-scale war. The chamber, one of Washington's most influential lobbying groups, emerged from the background of the midterm elections this week, spending millions of dollars on ads to help Republicans and fending off Democratic allegations that the effort may include money collected from foreign firms." You can play through some of the Chamber's anti-Democratic ads here.

Urban Planning. The United States of the twenty-first century should start to look more like an archipelago of cities in a sea of open landscapes. -- Bruce Babbitt, former Secretary of the Interior

CW: Thursday I questioned the legality of the President's pocket veto of a bill that would facilitate foreclosures since the Senate was technically in session & the House had "agents" in place to "receive messages." Later, other bloggers raised the same issue. The President (or his legal staff) got the message:

To leave no doubt that the bill is being vetoed, in addition to withholding my signature, I am returning H.R. 3808 to the Clerk of the House of Representatives, along with this Memorandum of Disapproval. -- Barack Obama

Good political commentary from Bill Maher during an appearance on CNN:

Paul Krugman recommends Mike Konczal's post on foreclosure fraud. With charts!

We have all the junk in the world.... I mean, you can gain 15 pounds in a hurry. -- a Bloomberg employee ...

... Fun Hypocrite of the Day (it's early -- there may be more). Anemona Hartcollis of the New York Times reports that "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wants to prohibit poor New Yorkers from using food stamps to buy sugary sodas like the ones that are available free to his business’s employees.... He is known for negotiating voluntary reductions in salt by food companies, and putting salt on his own saltine crackers; for fighting rising obesity among his constituents, and for serving comfort food like grilled hot dogs and ice cream sundaes at his town house."

When I speak to God, it is called prayer. When God speaks to me, it is called paranoia. Mental illness is not absent when it is covered with religious words. -- Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong on Christine O'Donnell's assertion that it was "God's plan" for her to campaign & win the Delaware Senate seat

Commentary from RepublicanLand:

Paul Craig Roberts, a Reagan Treasury appointee & a former Wall Street Journal editor, on "America's Third World Economy" & yesterday's jobs report:

Part of [last month's] loss of 159,000 government jobs was offset by 64,000 new private sector jobs. Where are the new jobs? They are in nontradable lowly paid domestic services: 32,000 were in health care and social services, and 33,900 were in food services and drinking places. There you have it. That is America’s 'New Economy.'

Jack Goldsmith, who as head of the Office of Legal Counsel under George W. Bush, withdrew the infamous Torture Memoes (& shortly thereafter resigned), writes an op-ed in the New York Times arguing for military detention of terrorists instead of trials. CW: I'm not saying I agree with Goldsmith, but his POV is worthy of a hearing.

Former First Lady Laura Bush writes an op-ed in the Washington Post urging that peace negotiators in Afghanistan embrace women's rights: "Offenses against women erode security for all Afghans -- men and women. And a culture that tolerates injustice against one group of its people ultimately fails to respect and value all its citizens."

The Media v. Qualified Candidates

Gail Collins continues her rundown of outlandish candidates for high office.

The Constant Weader responds:

It's great fun to laugh at these losers, but haven't we done that enough? You & the rest of the media have made Joe Miller & Christine O'Donnell households names. If they don't wind up in Washington, they've got a sure shot at becoming Fox "News" "analysts," thanks to the name recognition you've bestowed upon them.

So why not mention some of the candidates who are worthy of the people's trust? I'll bet most Americans -- even those who pay attention to the news -- don't know who Scott McAdams is (in fairness, you did tell us last week). He's the Democratic nominee for Senate in Alaska, & among his bona fides, he's the mayor of a town even bigger than Wasilla. Before that, he served on the local school board & was president of the state association of school boards. He seems like a guy whose heart is in the right place. And as far as I know, his father didn't appoint him to his best job ever (think Murkowski). Here's McAdams' Website.

Does the name Chris Coons ring a bell? No? He's the Democratic nominee for Senate in Delaware. He has been a very effective County Executive, which in a state that has only two counties is, as former Delaware Senator Joe Biden would say, "a Big Fuckin' Deal." Like Joe a-Noun-a-Verb-and-Unconstitutional Miller, Coons is a Yale Law alum, & he had an extensive & exemplary career working for charitable & non-profit organizations. You can read more about Coons on his Website.

Even in South Carolina, where the media have made the spectacularly unqualified Democrat Alvin Greene a star & given the odious Sen. Jim DeMint a free ticket back to Washington, there is an alternative: Green Party candidate Tom Clements seems downright normal and has worked for civic causes for a long time. Here's an introduction to Clements:

Clements' Website is here.

Instead of concentrating on the worst choices, give the better candidates some space. They might not be as funny, but it won't be funny if you in the media make these losers the winners in November.