NYCweboy

... And Because, Really, Everything Looks Good In Black

Personally, I was a little surprised that the Republican National Committee picked Michael Steele, the former Lt. Governor of Maryland, as its Chair. Not because I thought they were prejudiced or anything... but because I didn't think they could show enough good sense to try and think outside of the usual white male box.

To be honest, they didn't think that far. Steele is every bit the sort of choice that reminds one of the inherent contradictions in being a black Republican - not quite a fit in either world.

In some ways, Steele is a brilliant choice, smarter than I think many Democrats understand. For one thing, at a time when images matter, having Steele as a face of color to speak for things will make a difference, and undercut efforts to demonize the GOP as thoroughly racist (and "he's not black enough" or "not really black" will seem churlish at best).  Steele also presents very well - he's not angry, he's only somewhat sarcastic, and he's got the political skills to sound reasonable and willing to negotiate. All of which brings the question back to especially partisan Democrats - are we serious about finding compromise and common ground? Or do we want war and scorched earth?

The thing is, Steele can only be somewhat effective, at least for now - the party is deeply divided, and Steele himself doesn't necessarily seem an expert in how to bridge the gaps. He's got work to do with conservatives, and too much hewing to what southern conservative populists want (like Rush Limbaugh, who speaks for that wing), will just further alienate the northeastern remnants of the Country Club set. And none of this really relates to the more pragmatic notions of Republicans from the West (the more Reagan, McCain tradition of gutsy individualism).

Steele's not an idea guy - he doesn't seem to think too deeply about issues, and his politician's gift for seeming moderate reflects no real commitment to a hardcore philosophy. As such, he's unlikely to provide direction to the GOP to get its positions on issues in order... does Steele have any thoughts on healthcare? It's a mystery, and the GOP needs to gt some, fast. The old issues - the boilerplate of tax cuts, small government and social issues won't solve the party's problems. Especially when other issues - about dealing with the new poverty, how to use government wisely, and deal with problems that are new, like health coverage - are really more central to the debate.

Whether Steele can reverse GOP declines is debatable, then. I'll be impressed if he can reset the terms of debate between right and left, change the conversation, take some of the old, out of date stuff off the table. If he can't - if all he has to offer is negative, hold the line, no change is good change - then not only is he not the answer... he may just add to their problems. More pointedly, if he can't lewarn to say no, and draw some lines - lines that would include really out there elements of the conservative right... really crazy antigay, actually racist, and the like - then the likelihood over further polarization is probably all the party has.

I tend to think the Republican Party's problems are so deeply entrenched that no cosmetic change - no colorizing facelift at the top - can reverse the hemmorhage.  Without some fresh ideas, and some rejection of something from the old ways, the Republicans are too busy trying to make good on policies that no longer fit our times, our world, or even their own membership. That Steele will force some progress, by his presence, on the racial dividing line between the GOP and the rest of America, is certainly welcome. That won't be nearly enough, and how the GOP addresses the rest... or whether it settles for cosmetic alteration without real change... is the real test of how long they'll be in the wilderness. And there's a lot of wilderness out there.

Back In Black

A while back, I predicted a fashion bloodbath - at least casually to my friend Jennifer - when the fashion shows resumed in January: loss of labels, scaled back shows... and, I said, "I bet people start to haul out the black."

Well, call me prescient.

The men's fashion shows have just ended in Paris and Milan, and to an extent even I didn't anticipate, it was a lot of black. A lot of black.

And then Jean-Paul Gaultier did an show about... black people.

Friday Evening Frosting

  

jinb

Time, Well Spent

My "day off" plan seems to be a continually evolving target... which I think will have to give way to the realities of my other commitments; so in any case, this week I took Wednesday off... and there won't be any writing today.

At least not here.

For my friends who track my Oscar progress, I have been putting up those thoughts over at New Critics: including my post-nominations reaction... and a review of Slumdog Millionaire (and in case you missed it, reviews of Valkyrie, Australia, and Frost/Nixon as well)...

More tomorrow.

Take Me To The Other Side

One momentous occasion this week passed with only a mild flutter... Bill Kristol was formally removed from the Op-Ed page of the New York Times. The Times, in it's traditional (though not so common lately) understated way made a one line note of it: "This is William Kristol's last column."

That, of course, set up cries of joy on the lefty blogs, which had been gunning for Kristol since his hiring. Indeed, in recent weeks, many had speculated that Kristol was getting dropped, as there had been no inidcation that his one year contract was renewed. Some of the mutterings suggested that Kristol's hiring was basically a sop to the Bush Administration and others on the right to seem "fair and balanced" in the contentous election season. But now, with the election settled and the, er, forces of all that is right and good in control... who needs a conservative columnist?

Well, in the face of what will surely be howls, let me say: I think the Times needs a conservative columnist. And they need to get a replacement soon.

...And Because They Did It

My new favorite highlight from the passage of the Lily Ledbetter Act:

Republicans said the bill was unfair to employers. They will be exposed to “decades-old discrimination claims that they have no ability to defend,” said Representative John Kline, Republican of Minnesota.

Over at Pandagon, Jesse Taylor points out that's why companies have lawyers, but I'd like to point out the obvious - companies face sex discrimination lawsuits they can't defend against... because they did it.... and they're guilty.

Just mentioning this to my Mom revived her own anger over the Supreme Court's decision, and I agree with her that it was one of the more amazing miscarriages of justice I've ever seen, built on near perfect Catch-22 logic (file a case for discrimination you didn't even know was happening, and prove it contemporaneously, or lose out). This, when we don' even disagree. That's how angering the Lily Ledbetter case was, and is. And really, just ask a working woman in my Mom's generation and you get all the stories of "they said he got the raise because he had a family... as if we didn't."

So yes, I too love the idea that President Obama's (I just like saying that, over and over... President Obama, President Obama...) first signature will be for gender equity. It's nice to see us do the right thing, finally, after so long of doing the perfectly wrong one for the perfectly wrong reasons... like, hey, sex discrimination suits about decades old practices are unfair to employers who, like, used them. Just because you can prove a historic injustice... doesn't make it, you know, wrong or anything.

And here maybe is a good moment to put the word in for the House Republicans, who  seem to have settled on the perfect strategy for a decade of failure: oppose everything for the perfectly wrong reasons, in perfectly unified fashion. Clearly, what they're betting on is that when the honeymoon with Obama ends, Americans will blame Democrats for a bad economy, all sorts of social problems, and bad foreign policy... and there they'll be, having been Right All Along.

Well, it's a theory... but I suspect they can already see it's backfiring, hugely. Sure, people have issues with TARP and the bailouts... but Republicans, especially in the House, more or less took up opposition with no alternative. That's not helpful or challenging... it's simply obstruction. And sure, there's reason to question the Stimulus Bill... but their tax cut alternatives (which, really, are little more than attempts to bribe ordinary folks into shopping some more as a way out of recession) are simply lousy: they remove yet more revenue from government at a time when we need fiscal responsibility, and they ask Americans to resume the behavior that caused this crisis to begin with.

But more to the point, the problem for the House Republicans is the sort of thing one used to say about Democrats - wishing for the failure of policies is to wish for the worst: suggesting that Americans will turn to you when the economy gets worse... means you're looking for bad events to occur. That's just poor strategy. And my bet is, not only will they pay for it... but it's already becoming clear that no one can take them seriously in negotiating compromise.

And one more thing... this Honeymoon for Obama does not show signs of ending anytime soon. Opposing the guy who's being seen as a go-to, get-it-done kind of executive, betting on his imminent failures... may just help him extend the romance (bro-mance?) that much more. If the choice is him... or the House Republican way... I'd pick Obama. And like the employers facing "Lily Ledbetter" type suits, House Republicans will get what they deserve... because they did it. To themselves.

The Right Temperature To Shelter Us From A Storm?

As the first week has unfolded, I think one dilemma has become more stark: the idea that we can have "serious, comprehensive healthcare reform" anytime soon seems more and more dubious to me.

That may not, necessarily be a bad thing; one of the tensions working against all the progressive energy for reform is that, I still think, many people don't understand the health care crisis we're in, why it matters, and why any solution is, at best, something of a stopgap, and not the final answer.

In another sense, starting the discussion now would be genius: as the campaign showed, Republicans have little to offer in the healthcare debate except naysaying and obstruction, and lack a coherent position on most of the problems we face. One of the key reasons McCain lost, I think, is that his health care proposal - one of his only real policy proposal offers - was such a hash. And that proposal tended to reflect the most thinking many conservative minds had done on anything like those issues.

A discussion, then where progressives set the terms, and guide the generation of ideas, may get us a lot of good work; but the challenge then will be the economic crisis we face: as much of an economic drain as our current system is, changing it will be expensive, complex, and will like face to immediate and enormous hurdles, Medicare and Medicaid. And even in the past week, it's become clearer that those two government programs may very well be the ticking time bombs of the government's own financial crisis.

Two Days Til We Say We're Sorry...

One week later, and so far, things look pretty good.

Even the people who have a hard time with Barack Obama as President are having a hard time finding coherent objections, when he did a whole lot of what almost everyone said they wanted:

• Closing Guantanamo, ending torture - yeah, he left some wiggle room "if we capture Osama Bin Laden", and yes there's the question of what to do with the prisoners at Gitmo, but you could hear the gasps as conservatives watched Obama follow through on something he said he'd do. And all the caveats - the wiggle room, the extended time frame to closure - didn't cause nearly the shudders on the left even I expected.
• Getting a Stimulus Bill - still a little up in the air, but Obama went a long way to finding common ground by bringing Republicans into the White House, and the process, while not backing down - whether it was "don't listen to Rush" or "I won", the President didn't show the usual kind of hesitation in victory that lefties fear, and Republicans expect.
• Installing Clinton and working on a foreign policy - In the end, the remarkable thing about Clinton's confirmation was that the Republicans basically had nothing - all the talk of "donor lists" fizzled, and almost everyone had given up on the notion that Mrs. Clinton lacks the strength or the expertise to do the work. Plus the return of a series of hgh level envoys - like Dennis Ross and George Mitchell - suggested a new seriousness on the most complicated topics. I have my doubts about Mitchell, but he's probably one of the most neutral choices to handle mideast conflicts, and his work in Ireland shows an ability to deal with two sides of a longstanding dispute with no middle ground.
• Ending the international abortion "gag rule" - the howls came pretty much where one expected them, and another Republican President will, probably, have to reverse back, yet again; but Obama did try to move the conversation forward, however haltingly, by suggesting that we need a common ground policy, rather than lurching back and forth on supporting family planning around the world. This underlines, I think, how extreme the right to life position is: they're not fighting abortion. They're fighting contraception. And that's the deal breaker.
• Lily Ledbetter - is anything more heartening than watching Congress reverse the "Lilly Ledbetter" decision of the Supreme Court, lifting time limits on sex discrumination lawsuits against employers? Well yes - knowing that the President will sign it, without doubt.
• Being present - but all of it, I think, seemed fresher and newer simply because Obama was so present; no more nervous press conferences with incomprehensible doublespeak by a loyal operative. Obama does his own press meetings, actually answers questions, and does it with a refreshing candor. All of which is a reminder that the best weapon Presidents have is themselves - and Obama will keep the press eating out of his hand with regular feedings. That may be problematic in one sense (someone has to ask questions, and this Whiite House press corps probably won't), but in another, what a relief: the President actually talks about his work and knows what he's talking about. How refreshing.

The Emperor's Club

Never mind about Kirsten Gillibrand - in most ways, she's a detail to this story. The problem with finding a successor to Hillary Rodham Clinton was David Paterson, and nothing - not even the Kennedy dalliance - underlined that like yesterday's final announcement of the selection of Gillibrand.

Two things quickly became apparent - she was called "unknown" and "very conservative." Neither one is especially true... and therein lies the problem. And the problem is Paterson.

From the beginning the Governor has struggled. As the Governor no one really chose for the role (if one thing is clear, it's that Elliott Spitzer wasn't thinking "succession" when choosing Paterson, part of Spitzer's overall tale of hubris), Paterson has had to establish himself in ways most politicians don't have to, and largely, it hasn't worked. Undermined from the beginning (you don't follow a prostitution scandal with tales of your own dicey affairs), Paterson has never found a comfortable niche in New York government, despite years of service and close connections to Legislators of both parties. Paterson, as well, faces the highly thankless task of reining in New York state's spending, an especially bad example of poor budget process and contradictory impulses.

And then came Caroline Kennedy.

A more experienced executive would, I think, have been more wary of Ms. Kennedy's (my typing fingers keep seeking out "Mrs. Schlossberg") ambitions. Kennedy's public, classy rep - as events made clear - was not built on political ambition, but on the imprimatur of class and wealth inherited from her mother, and her mother's family's connections to New York society (she is, in this, a Bouvier, not a Kennedy). That alone should have rung alarm bells - especially at a time when class resentments and suspicions of the upper class run silent and deep.

Friday Evening Flurries

 

jinb