The 10 Worst Media Moments Of 2008

OK, now that we’ve celebrated all the good things that media professionals managed to grace our world with this year, let’s skip ahead to a listicle of lowlights, which is probably what you all really want anyway, since everyone runs on schadenfreude these days and is filled with impotent rage!

Anyway, as before, many of you will agree and many will disagree, and that’s cool! Please do! Especially if you want to comment or send an email about it! But note that I’ve left off a lot of examples that many of you will no doubt feel are obligatory inclusions. For instance, I can already predict an email complaining that Bill O’Reilly doesn’t make this list. It seems to me that some examples of stupidity are far too ubiquitous to be remarkable. Nevertheless, the comments are there for all of you to cherish the moments I missed.

TEN THINGS THAT SUCKED OUT LOUD IN 2008, MEDIA EDITION

1. The Economy Kills Everyone
Some greet the effects of the down economy on the media with mockery, some with mournfulness, some with a combination of the two I shall call mournckery. Eventually though, a writer you admire gets laid off, or a reporter you’ve depended on has to take a buyout, or RADAR Magazine folds and their fantastic web operation comes under the rule of a bunch of gibbering twits with birdcrap for brains and it all hits home. And look, everyone knows that the web is going to solve all of the world’s problems, but tell me: how does the imminent failure of, say, New Jersey’s Star-Ledger grab you? Worried about that at all? Of course not! Everyone knows that the State of New Jersey is filled with affluent laptop/iPhone owners and their politicians are the most honest people in the ever-loving world!

2. ABC’s Terrible Debate
Political debates are all alike; every terrible debate is terrible in its own way. And yet the ridiculous attempt by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson nevertheless ranks as the supreme example of incompetence. It didn’t matter that every single one of their gotcha questions, save Gibson’s high-toned bitchery over his investment portfolio, had already been asked 4,751 times: George and Charlie were bound and determined to be the 4,752nd to do so! As such, the entire debate played like something ABC News took all of fifteen minutes to prepare for, right down to the tatty production values and asinine, utterly tone-deaf references to the Constitution. The resulting debate wasn’t fair to either candidate and was an insult to every viewer who tuned in. “The crowd’s turning on me,” Gibson quipped, after it was over. Would they had done so earlier!

Oh, and did Stephanopoulos hypocritically engage in the sort of behavior that he once decried as a political operative? OF COURSE HE DID.

On the bright side, this happened.

3. The Day of Lipstick On A Pig
I don’t think a single event managed to sum up the media’s inability to distinguish activity from achievement, their willingness to delve deeply into irrelevant minutiae, or their tendency to obsess themselves with transparently stupid meta-narratives any better than they day we all woke up to discover that the commonly used phrase “lipstick on a pig” had become transformed into some sort of sexist insult. It was a sickening and foul display - media professionals on all networks and platforms hurling this loafer of high-toned nonsense at our heads. Naturally, the very premise of their argument was unremittingly false, and the resulting blockstop coverage and commentary was nothing more than widespread platform abuse. Then, as soon as this zombie contagion struck the media, it was gone, and no one ever talked about it again. NEVER FORGET THAT ADULTS - ACTUAL GROWN-UPS! - PERPETRATED THIS NONSENSE.

4. NYT’s Vicki Iseman story
Speaking of platform abuse, how is it that we all know that the New York Times knew full well that their John McCain-Vicki Iseman story was a stinkfest on arrival? For me, it was the way the shuffled it out online during evening rush-hour, as if they wanted viewers to be moving in the opposite direction of their journalistic turd when it fell to earth. The story may have had some viability, but whatever truth there was in McCain’s interactions with Washington lobbyists came sandwiched between sensationalistic and salacious intimations of sexual infidelities between John McCain and a lobbyist named Vicki Iseman. You had to love the way the Times worked their drizzle of sizzle up into the lede and then spent three pages avoiding the matter before veering back to it. The Iseman part of the saga is supported by precisely one on-the-record source, former McCain confidant and adviser John Weaver. In my opinion, Weaver’s quotes are, uhm…woven to make it look like he is confirming the Iseman-McCain relationship. Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt faulted the paper as well, saying, “The newspaper found itself in the uncomfortable position of being the story as much as publishing the story, in large part because, although it raised one of the most toxic subjects in politics — sex — it offered readers no proof that McCain and Iseman had a romance.”

5. Endless Talk of the “Gender Card”
Everyone talked about how sexist the media was this year, and everyone had their own idea as to where this sexism was most glaringly revealed. I’ll tell you what set my teeth on edge: every time someone made mention of Hillary Clinton playing the “gender card.”

Let me get this straight. It’s okay for Barack Obama to put his racial background to advantageous use. It’s okay for John McCain to put his war-hero past to advantageous use. It’s okay for John Edwards to put his Son-of-a-mill-worker-hood to advantageous use. It’s okay for Rudy Guiliani to put his proximity to the September 11th attacks to advantageous use. But if Hillary Clinton attempts to leverage her femininity to her advantage, suddenly everyone has to debate the relative fairness of it? Is American politics a milieu in which the participants often forego their natural advantages in competition, out of a spirit of fairness? No? Then suggesting Hillary Clinton be tied to a different set of standards is horseshit, the end.

6. Thrill Up The Leg
The sad curse of immortality is that it is often our moments of folly that end up outliving us. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews will come to understand this in time. While covering the 2008 “Potomac Primary,” Matthews enthused that Barack Obama’s oratory caused a physiological reaction, specifically:

I have to tell you, you know, it’s part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama’s speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often.

Matthews thus became a symbol for everyone who has ever complained, or will complain, about “Obama adulation” in the media. In all likelihood, Matthews will never live this down. Not ever.

7. 32 Important Words The Media Missed
Back when Henry Paulson wrote up the proposed $700 billion bailout package, it contained this part called “Section 8,” whose thirty-two words basically precluded any or all efforts to hold anyone involved in the disbursement of these monies accountable:

“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

The mainstream media totally missed this. Today, they are all yelling at banks, wondering what happened to all the money. It’s quite pathetic, really.

8. Message Force Multipliers
On April 20th, David Barstow of the New York Times told the incredibly true story of how the Pentagon unleashed a platoon of administration shills with extensive conflicts of interest upon the television media, presented as neutral “miltary analysts,” to serve as a “Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.” The complacent/complicit networks did little to shoulder the responsibility of their failure to vet and/or disclose to the public the true affiliations of these P.R. agents. But hey, were it not for Barstow himself, following up on the matter months later, it’s not like the New York Times took all that active an interest in their own story. So, yes, America: you are entitled to your cynicism!

9. NYT Mission Accomplished Panel
In May, the New York Times commemorated the anniversary of the “Mission Accomplished” banner by hosting a symposium from celebrated thinkers, most of whom were well-known as people who got the Iraq War wrong. They were allowed, in that symposium, to continue to get the Iraq War wrong. Mission accomplished!

10 (tie). Charlotte Allen/Bill Kristol
How do you prefer your op-ed idiocy America? Rendered in a thousand cuts from Bill Kristol, phoning in his obligation to the New York Times? Or delivered in one sharp, shock-and-awesome example of stupidity, a la Charlotte Allen in the Washington Post?

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As for (dis)honorable mentions, where do begin and end? CNN capped off their year of election overkill with their infinitely mockable “holograms,” which will now stand in for the human talent they’ve been shedding. Portfolio inexplicably put American Apparel’s Dov Charney on their cover at a time when everyone else was chronicling the economic catastrophe. Amy Chozick wrote an idiotic piece for the Wall Street Journal about whether Obama was “too fit” to be President - some of her “sources” were anonymous message-board denizens who she prodded into participating. Barbara West went after Joe Biden with every GOP talking point she could stuff into her head, and later claimed that zeroed the balance. And MSNBC’s The Race For The White House was the dumbest political show ever conceived by sentient beings.

Read more: Video, 2008, Media Criticism, Media News

Jim Schumacher and Debbie Bookchin: Our Oil Reserves Are Depleted; It’s Time for Utopia

Last week at a Christmas party in the hills of Umbria, we were part of a captive audience listening to an American businessman holding forth on an ever-popular expat subject - the dismal exchange rate of dollars to euros. He informed his listeners that they needn’t worry: In just a couple of years, he said, America will have pulled out of the recession and the economy will be growing strong; Europe, on the other hand will still be facing the ripple effects of the global meltdown - and will be suffering.

“You’ll see,” he said blithely, “the dollar and the euro will be at par.”

Although the conversation took place in Italy, it could have as easily occurred in a Wall Street boardroom. Despite the ongoing economic meltdown, the dominant, “business as usual” wisdom is that the ascendancy of the American model of global capitalism can only continue. It’s just a matter of time before the good ship USS Free Enterprise rights itself and we have smooth sailing ahead.

But exactly what resources will the U.S. call upon to fuel the economic recovery that our American businessman and millions of others like him continue to believe in? Our longtime economic paradigm - growth fueled by cheap oil - has no future. Even when it did, it was a flawed concept because the constant growth required under the “grow or die” capitalist paradigm demands that we relentlessly exploit natural resources - how else to increase profit margins and pay investors their ever-greater dividends?

This paradigm has brought us to the brink of ecological disaster, with a planet so over-heated that even the most optimistic climate experts are doubtful whether we will be able to prevent cataclysmic disruptions unless worldwide carbon emissions are drastically reduced in the coming years - an unlikely scenario given the unwillingness of most governments to enact tough standards and regulations.

Not only has the planet been brought to its knees as a result of this capitalist ethos, but we humans haven’t fared so well either. Can we really say we’re succeeding as a human race when half of the world’s population is starving, or lacks adequate access to potable water, or is suffering from preventable diseases? Even in the U.S., our “high standard of living” leaves much to be desired, not only for the 45 million people who have no health insurance but for the tens of millions who work 40-80 hours a week and find themselves with little time to socialize, go for a walk, prepare and enjoy a meal with friends, or read a book - in short, have less free time and a lower standard of living than their parents did.

With oil virtually at an end, what better time to re-examine the economic paradigm that allowed us to think we could use up finite resources and just “grow” forever? Isn’t it time to rethink our blind embrace of the “grow or die” philosophy that led us down this self-destructive path?

In her recent post, “Laissez-Faire Capitalism Should Be as Dead as Soviet Communism,” Arianna Huffington suggests that the collapse of our financial system as a result of deregulation proves that this form of deregulated capitalism should be relegated to the dust bin of history. But is it just deregulation, or is it capitalism itself that needs to be junked? Inherent in the capitalist ethos is the endless exploitation of natural resources. Indeed, not only the exploitation of nature, but the exploitation of individuals by individuals is a guiding principle of modern capitalist society. You needn’t travel to 19th century England to understand this; it’s not just the exploitation of workers in factories anymore. As capitalism colonizes the realm of interpersonal relations, we’ve ceased to become human to each other and instead become “resources” (think “networking”) to be exploited for one type of gain or another.

Considering the tremendous advances in labor-saving technology in the last century, isn’t it time for a new form of social organization? One that prizes mutual aid over competition, collective stewardship of nature over its rapacious exploitation, and recognition that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” must include the provision of basic necessities for all, regardless of status: shelter, food, free healthcare. Even better, imagine if we could recognize that ultimately human beings are capable of much more than just earning money? It’s time to use our immense powers of reason to ask ourselves: What does it mean to build a truly civilized world? History has shown us that Leninist Communism - itself a form of state-sanctioned exploitation of nature and human beings - wasn’t the answer. But neither has capitalism allowed us to fully realize our potential as free, creative beings.

We stand on a threshold. Will we use our extraordinary technology, science and rationality to create a just, humane and truly free society? Or will we continue down the path of domination - of each other and of the natural world - destroying our environment and ourselves?

The great utopian, Murray Bookchin, said: “If we do not do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable.” When he said those words, more than a quarter of a century ago, the notion that capitalism could bring the world to the brink of destruction was ridiculed by almost every mainstream intellectual. Yet here we are on the precipice, confronted with the unthinkable. The only course left to us, is to do the impossible - to abandon the paradigm of capitalism that has defined our cultural, political and economic life for the past 250 years, and whose supremacy has led inexorably to the despoilation of our planet and demeaning of human existence.

Let us choose to end the domination of each other and the unthinking exploitation of nature, and find a more human, decent form of social organization, one that prizes true, decentralized democracy, basic decency and the common good.

The oil is almost gone. The hourglass is about to run out. It’s time to create a utopia.

Logan Nakyanzi Pollard: Bush orders. Spitzer says, I’ll have what he’s having

Perhaps it was the sexual nature of Eliot Spitzer’s offenses that made the shame stick. That and the fact that the former NY governor admitted he did wrong. Bush by contrast is today’s teflon man. He has been able to unstick himself from accusations of murder, lies, torture, corruption connected to his presidency not only because he didn’t himself do it, but also because these crimes, by their very nature, are more complex and hard to believe. We can understand a cheating husband for example, we cannot so easily understand waterboarding. What’s more, we have not escaped our love for a kind of brutality which we’ve convinced ourselves protects us: there has been no correction for a certain kind of rough treatment (i.e. waterboarding) tolerated by the public implicitly in the name of self-protection.

But is that it? Have you ever wondered why some folks never seem to be held accountable for their actions? That’s because when someone behaves badly, resolving what to do with them can be a tricky problem. What do we do with bad people? Is it even reasonable to label someone ‘good’ or ‘bad’? Are we each degrees of both? Does punishing a wrongdoer lower the punisher and elevate the offender? In secular terms, when/how does society get satisfaction?

For the sake of argument, let’s say an offender could make amends by showing an understanding of what s/he has done and communicating that s/he would try not to do it again.

Bush has been unsatisfactory on both these points. There has been no ground given on the losses his policies have caused Americans and Iraqis or the chaos the poorly conducted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has caused in the world. He has escaped a reasonable accounting for the economic implosion of the markets on his watch and the devastating costs his policies will have on the American taxpayer.

This past weekend in Iraq when a journalist threw both his shoes at Bush, we might have felt some satisfaction. Finally, someone communicated what few have been able to get across to Mr. Bush: you hurt this country and you let us down.

He ducked once and then holding his hand up in the air to block the second shoe, in that moment, we might have seen our answer. I had no idea! But I guess I could see that shoe coming!

Later, he didn’t offer much on the incident:

“it’s a size ten shoe that he threw at me.”

Consider a different case, former NY governor, Eliot Spitzer, brought down this year by his charmfree personality and penchant for prostitutes.

And what about his home life? Maybe this morning, his wife Silda watched her husband across from her at breakfast. He used to rush off to work, briefcase and paper in hand, barely drinking his OJ and coffee. Now she sees him lounging around the house, working out paragraphs in the bathroom, running over ideas at the kitchen table, wearing the same shirt and drawers day after day (these are my thinking clothes!). He’s posting for an online magazine now; she reportedly edits his columns.

We could use a Spitzer now, with the financial industry in such turmoil. We are instead left in New York State with Senator Schumer, who’s received great support from Wall Street:

“AP - A member of the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., was the top congressional recipient; his campaign received $32,000 (from Bernard Madoff) during that period (2001-present). Schumer has turned over all campaign donations from Madoff to charity. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is the top Madoff recipient overall, receiving $25,000 from Madoff each year since Schumer became its chairman in 2005.”

Could Schumer use some help? I think so, especially since Wall Street money is everywhere; Obama has gotten his fair share too.

I like the writer Kafka on a topic like this one. He always seems to exact a punishment inappropriate for the crime, and in doing so, shows what a tough spot we’re in. (And, he has a crooked sense of humor.) Here’s a line from a story about an ape who’s convinced the world he is a man:

“Recently, I read an article by one of the ten thousand windbags who vent their views about me in the newspapers: they say that my ape nature has not yet been entirely repressed; the proof is supposed to be that whenever I have company, I am inclined to lower my pants to show the bullet’s path of entry. Every tiny finger of that guy’s writing hand ought to blown off, one by one. I, I have the right to lower my pants in front of anyone I like . . .”

As a student, I had a harder time reading Kafka after I learned his biography. His family is decimated by the Nazis; he suffers from tuberculosis and (by some accounts) dies from starvation. It was upsetting to me to read his work and see how prescient it was: he was attuned to the track he was on, to what could happen to anyone unjustly, and to what his community was capable of. Here Kafka writes about a fictional penal colony:

“Now justice is being done. In the silence you heard only the condemned man’s moans, muted by the felt plug. Today the machine no longer manages to squeeze a moan out of the condemned man louder than the felt can stifle, but in those days the writing needles dripped an acid fluid that we are no longer allowed to use. Well, and then the sixth hour would come around! It was impossible to grant everyone’s request to watch from up close…”

And without pushing this too far, it is possible to see how not so far we’ve come. Here, Dick Cheney’s most recent comments on the merits of Gitmo prison:

“Guantanamo has been very well run. I think, if you look at it from the perspective of the requirements we had.”

Cheney probably has a teflon coat too.

ThinkFast: December 15, 2008

“Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets Monday to demand the release of a reporter who threw his shoes” at President Bush during a press conference yesterday, praising the journalist as a “hero.” The television station that employs the journalist has also demanded his immediate release, saying it “fear[ed] for his safety.”

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich “has no plans of resigning today or tomorrow,” a spokesperson said yesterday. “He still signs bills as governor, and he wants to see details.”

A loophole in the bailout legislation may allow executives at Wall Street companies to continue to earn large compensation packages. Due to a last-minute change in legislative language sought by the Bush administration, Congress’ efforts to limit pay may prove toothless. “The flimsy executive-compensation restrictions in the original bill are now all but gone,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said.

President-elect Obama will announce his energy and environment team — led by Dr. Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy — Monday afternoon at a press conference in Chicago, “continuing a steady roll-out of his Cabinet, which is now nearly complete.” Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) is the leading contender to be named Interior Secretary.

“The number of reported attacks against LGBT people increased 24 percent in 2007 over 2006″ and is expected to rise again this year after a “rash of attacks” in recent months, according to the New York City Anti-Violence Project. More »

Conservative Pundit Attacks Patrick Fitzgerald

Former Bush Justice Department official Victoria Toensing rips U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald in a Wall Street Journal piece, writing that he should “keep his opinions to himself.” By characterizing Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s conduct as “appalling” and as a “political corruption crime spree,” Fitzgerald “violated the ethical requirement of the Justice Department guidelines,” Toensing argues.

But what really upsets her is that Fitzgerald has had a prior history of calling it like he sees it:

What’s more, Mr. Fitzgerald is a repeat offender. In his news conference in October 2005 announcing the indictment of Scooter Libby for obstruction of justice, he compared himself to an umpire who “gets sand thrown in his eyes.” The umpire is “trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked” his view. […]

In the Libby case, rather than suffer criticism, Mr. Fitzgerald became a media darling. And so in the Blagojevich case he returned to the microphone.

Toensing has had it out for Fitzgerald ever since he had the gall to prosecute Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff. In Sept. 2006, she blasted Fitzgerald in the Wall Street Journal, saying he should “apologize” for prosecuting Libby. In Feb. 2007, writing in the Washington Post, Toensing attacked Fitzgerald again for pursuing a “trial in error.” Speaking with Wolf Blitzer on CNN in March 2007, Toensing said she “absolutely” questioned Fitzgerald’s integrity.

Toensing complained to Fox News recently that she believes Fitzgerald is “overzealous” because “he doesn’t know the color gray, he’s only black or white, and just about everyone but him does wrong.” Toensing would apparently prefer prosecutors who have more sympathy for crimes and illegal conduct.

TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

Good morning and welcome to your Sunday morning liveblog of the political shows you’ll be sleeping through this morning. And what a special morning it may end up being for us! See, last night I rekindled something that had been lost during the election year. Namely, a social life! That thing where you have friends and you do things like talk in person and drink things together, and you are PEOPLE standing in the SAME ROOM and it’s DIFFERENT from maintaining all of your relationships over IM and Facebook. That thing! And it was great! Here’s what makes today interesting: I realize that whilst out enjoying myself, I forgot to buy coffee filters. So I have no coffee for the first part of this live blog. So, yeah. Facing Fox News Sunday in a raw state of of semi-sleepiness, innocent dreams from the night before still half-remembered? This is going to hurt.

Anyway, NEW MEET THE PRESS TODAY! Can you feel the excitement? If you can, why? It’s not that exciting! Consult WebMD why not? You MAY actually be having a stroke! As always, leave a comment, send an email, peace on earth, goodwill toward men.

FOX NEWS SUNDAY

Once again, we’ll have Dixie versus Detroit auto bailout “debate,” lots of Blago, and a special panel time where these twerps wonder whether OBAMA IS TAINTED BY CHICAGO MACHINE STYLE BLAGOJEVICHERY!

Also! President Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq! He still does those things?

Anyway, yes. Bob Corker wants the Big Three to start paying their employees less. Because WOO CHRISTMAS TIME IN RECESSIONLAND! Let’s drop WAGES. The unions agreed to do so in 2011, but the Corkers of the world wanted it by 2009. “Had the unions just agreed to this by 2009, the bill would have passed.” ALL THEIR FAULT. Of course, the big reason Corker wants Detroit to bring their wages down by next year is because automakers in his district will get to drop theirs just as quickly anyway. Anyway, I’m not fond of the bailout. But you know what I’m even less fond of? DISINGENUOUS PEOPLE.

Oh, and really. What’s Debbie Stabenow going to say about all these things? Why can’t we talk to a lawmaker who doesn’t have a constituency with mad skin in the game, to put it into some sort of neutral perspective, if such a thing is possible.

Corker: “We had everything worked out except for one thing!” And that thing? YAHHH UNION GHOULS! But the thing is, THAT WAS WORKED OUT TOO! In advance! The unions were prepared to make those concessions as stakeholders by 2011!

Stabenow: “This is not the time for a political agenda!” This is a phrase that’s only ever said by people desperately trying to assert a political agenda, or who have been run roughshod by one and who lack anything else to say about it.

Oh well! They’re just going to give the auto companies money and they’re just going to ask for more. Corker’s wrong to suggest that we were at some sort of Historical Crossroads where this whole matter would have been solved. “We tried to get the UAW to agree to a finite date!” Translation: “And when they did agree to a finite date, we tried to get them to agree to a new one!”

Oh, well, people. Drive SmartCars, take mass transit, save your own damn money.

And now! How to Solve a Problem Like Blagojevich? Very few things rhyme with Blagojevich! If you haven’t enjoyed it yet, please to enjoy Spencer Ackerman’s effort to find everything that does:

Anyway, thanks to Blago, there may not be a Senator from Illinois to replace Obama until APRIL. And Blago will decide if it’s THAT rapid, unless they can find some way to pry him out of his seat.

Demi Moore is totally playing Lisa Madigan in the movie of this scandal, which will be titled: CAN I HAVE SOME MORE OF THAT MONEY, A%%HOLE? THE ROD BLAGOJEVICH STORY.

What did Rahm Emanuel know about and when? He totally talked up preferences for Obama’s replacement, and they were caught on tape! Isn’t that embarassing? That Emanuel may have had a conversation, or walked the streets of the same city? No one on Chris Wallace’s panel seems to think so, though he keeps prodding and prodding and using different synonyms. “So you don’t think it’s potentially damaging? Or embarrassing? A matter of much chagrin? Egg on the Obama team’s face? Caught with their pants down? In a tough spot? Where there’s smoke there’s fire? I guess what I’m trying to say is: WILLIAM AYERS.”

The panel discussion today: WILL OBAMA BE TAINTED? I wish they’f use the headline from that awesomely horrible TIME story: “Can Obama Escape Blagojevich’s Taint?” That put great images in my head! Blago transformed into a rampaging taint…like the Godzilla of taints…blasting Chicago with Taint-Rays. “OH MY GOD! The hair! It’s growing everywhere! Raw like kudzu! Thick as pubes! Can anyone stop THAT BLAGOTAINT?”

Anyway, what to the tired bored people say about it? Wallace says Obama reacted like a “traditional politician!” And he hasn’t released the sort of information to the public that would probably be better rendered unto Patrick Fitzgerald. Hume says, basically, that Obama’s in no rush to hastily bring a bunch of facts forward because the evidence suggests he’s got nothing to do with it, and that his nature is cautiousness, so he’s being cautious.

But has the BLOOM been cleft from the rose, Wallace wonders? Liasson says, maybe a little, “But if this is as bad as it gets, this is pretty good.” William Kristol says that the scandal is pleasingly old-fashioned because it has no sex - and I’m like: “WAIT. WAIT NOW. Bill Kristol. Really. Are you so lazy that you’ve got to plagiarize Kathryn Jean Lopez for your opening thoughts on this matter? THAT IS SAD. Really.”

Juan Williams apparently thought of Jesse Jackson Jr., as being apart from patronage networks, and really, a new-style black leader in the style of Obama and Deval Patrick. And that’s the highlight from thei week’s edition of “Juan Williams Is Totally Effing Kidding Himself!”

Wallace “nationalizes” this issue by pointing out that the the Democrats can be fitted with the corruption accusation now. It’s a good point, up to a point. Dollar Bill Jefferson is gone from office. Blago seemed to have been widely shunned. Rangel is comically, absurdly corrupt, but it’s going to take something more nuclear to pry him from his seat. Liasson says there isn’t the same critical mass that Republican scandals had - no wide, institutionalized participation in organized grift, salted with sex scandals. But give this new Congress a chance!

For the record: my wife did suggest I use a paper towel to brew my coffee. This sort of sounds like the kind of thing that I mess up really bad!

Bill Kristol sighs heavily and opines: “I don’t think it’s very smart for a bunch of Southern Republicans to decide that the future of the Republican party is to beat up working class union members in states like Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio.” Spoken like someone who was happy with Southern Republicans saying and doing whatever they wanted until you lost all three of those states.

“Every lobbyist in town is after that money!” Williams yells. Where were you, Juan, when the lobbyists for CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS (as opposed to, you know, CARS) were carting off billions?

So many commercials for Flomax during this show? Does Fox News Sunday give people weak streams? I thought it was just me, and I thought it was all political television shows.

Wow. Next weekend I have to wake up to DICK CHENEY? If anyone has any suggestions on how to approach that, and keep my mind and soul together, I’d like to hear about it.

Dick Cheney at 8am on Sunday. Wow. That is going to hurt!

FACE THE NATION

All right. Even though I do not trust the supremely cheap paper towels to make coffee with, I remembered something during the break: I have a coffee press! All is well.

Meanwhile, here’s Lisa Madigan, talking Blago. “We have a governor who cannot legitimately govern,” she says, explaining her decisions. Her office has been providing assistance and information to Fitzgerald, she says. Does she know about anything about Obama’s involvement? Just what she’s read in the papers, apparently.

Schieffer, bless his heart, asks straight up whether Madigan’s point here is basically: Blago is crazy. Madigan, obviously, won’t stipulate to that. But: “No one in their right mind would accept an appointment to his seat.” So, she’s on board with a special election. Madigan, by the way, is an EXTREMELY. INTENSE. WOMAN. I don’t think she blinked during that entire exchange.

Auto bailout time! Bob Corker is back, this time facing off against Carl Levin and Sherrod Brown. Schieffer relates how the White House is going to bigfoot the Senate. Corker goes into his painstaking explanation of the bankruptcy-without-bankruptcy plan. On the unions: “We did not ask for pay cuts by 2009, we asked that they become competitive.” Of course, the only way to make them “competitive” by 2009 is to make pay cuts two years earlier than everyone agreed.

Levin says that the White House is going to come through and save the auto industry. Levin praises Corker for his brave use of jargon, which I hope isn’t serious, considering Corker’s opinion isn’t structurally distinct from the votes that scuttled the deal. Levin makes a good point, though, suggesting that perhaps Congress should not be stipulating auto-industry wages by law. Aren’t higher wages the sort of thing that makes a job more competitive?

I’ll buy that the UAW probably had an ace in the hole where TARP and a legacy-obsessed lame duck president was concerned - this is why you don’t give huge handouts to people like AIG.

Michael Eric Dyson is on now, saying that (I guess an upside to?) the Blago scandal will help to contrast Obama’s style of governance to the way the Blagos of the world work. That wasn’t the Obama-Blago answer Schieffer wanted, depressingly, who then asks, “WHAT IF…” it turns out Obama or Emanuel had done all this wrongdoing? It raises questions: “What if it turns out that Bob Schieffer killed and ate Caylee Anthony’s baby?” Would that be bad? What if it turns out that Bob Schieffer’s legendary acuity comes to him though the still warm-and-beating hearts of his neighbors’ pets? What if he filters his morning coffee through a skein of orphan babies?

MEET THE PRESS

“Our issues this Sunday…” OMG, David Gregory. David. Listen. I’m going to need you to calm down, okay? I had no idea your voice GOT so thin, and reedy. Okay: yes. It’s your first show. And it’s really exciting because OH NOES BLAGOES! But I need you to chill, baby, because Mitt Romney, fraud spitting robot-ninny is going to be on and YOU SIMPLY MUST PWN HIM TO WIN YOUR FIRST MEET THE PRESS.

Okay, David Gregory? Anyway, Lisa Madigan, Pat Quinn, and Obama Taint today! Plus Granholm versus Romney. And dorky CEOs! Menaces all!

Lisa Madigan, our Avenging Angel of Justice Meted Out with Brisk Intensity and an Unblinking Eye, Who Tina Fey Shall Also Play, on Saturday Night Live, holds out the hope that Blago will Do The Right Thing (as per Mike Huckabee/Spike Lee) and resign of his own accord on Monday, to spend more time with his foul-mouthed wife, their indictments and their constant and unreasonable demands that other people GIVE THEM THEIR MONEY GIVE IT TO THEM NOW.

By the way, my press coffee turned out quite nicely!

Is there an option for him to resign and continue to get paid, Gregory wonders? Really? We’re concerned about alleviating this guy’s financial worries? Apparently, there is such an option. Madigan says, “I had heard that one of his main concerns was his financial situation.” I had heard the same thing! It was all over these transcripts released my the U.S. Attorney’s office. Apparently, another one of Blago’s chief concerns is the word “motherfucker.” I share that concern, actually! I guess we are not so different, Blago and I. We both swear, we both need more money, we’re not too happy about the Cubs…at the same time, there are differences. My wife is not a potty-mouthed harridan and I have hair that people respect.

Why is Blago incapable of serving? Madigan says there’s just too much alleged in the Fitz releases to give anyone any confidence that any of his decisions aren’t governed by his rapacious need for scrilla, all of the scrilla, right now and evermore in perpetuity. “From here on out, he’s going to be tainted.”

Does she know more than what we’ve been told, evidencew-wise? Madigan can’t answer that in any way other than to say that her office has been working with PFitz.

What about Madigan’s own political ambitions? She insists that she is not conflicted, saying that she has to uphold the duties of her office. She insists that she has not thought about taking any office herself.

Meanwhile, Pat Quinn, Lieutenant Governor, was at one point telling everyone what an honest and forthright man Blago was. So, what say you, Pat Quinn? Well, apparently after 2006, “things got worse and worse,” as Blago got deep into pay-to-play and kicking Quinn out of his administration (in spirit, I guess). Today, I imagine Quinn is happy about the alienation. Quinn hasn’t talked to Blago since August of 2007! Can you imagine?

Quinn seemed to be in favor of special election for the vacant Senate seat. He now thinks an interim person can fill in between now and that election. Obviously, though! Blago could not appoint this interim Senator!

Madigan is in favor of the special election, because of the taint. THE TAINT!

Woah! Is it just me, or was it weird to learn that Madigan and Quinn had been sitting next to each other all that time? Was there a shot that established that? (REWINDING.) Okay. Yes, there was. Still, that was awfully strange direction!

Some reaction to David Gregory. Emailer Gary Kirk says:

Loved the pregnant pause after Gregory introduced his first guests and they waited for him to actually ask them something. It was sort of a “holy fuck - what do I do now?” moment that made him seem a bit more human that the “Thunderbirds” puppet I usually take him for…

Thunderbirds references are always welcome here.

SickOfTheCrap comments:

Speaking of being disingenous, Jason, the automakers are not fiscally able to keep paying the current rates through 2011. That’s what the whole debate was about. By bringing their wages into line with those of foreign automakers in the US by the end of 2009, it was thought that there was a chance that this could keep the automakers afloat. The UAW appears too short-sighted to see this. At this rate, their employers won’t even be around in 2011.

I’m not averse to what you’re saying, but really, if this comes down to a matter of whether these companies have a few more months of being able to afford a workforce versus several more months of having a workforce…well, the point is that IS NOT REALLY the problem with the automotive industry! The Big Three have deep, endemic problems with virtually every facet of their existence, and they refuse to address them.

Inigo-Jones says:

You own a coffee press but you normally opt for crappy machine brewed coffee? I no longer trust you.

I can understand. But in my defense, it’s a very old and very cheap press. You probably wouldn’t use it, if you had your druthers. (It’s still pretty great, brewing coffee this way. I just need a better press, with a higher yield.)

And now, Mary Mitchell and Chuck Todd - who YES many people think should have gotten the hosting gig - are here to answer questions. The first question he answers is to say that the communication between Rahm and Blago were “perfectly normal” and the only thing the Obama camp has to worry about is if anyone did any dealbrokering. But why the delay from Obama in fully disclosing the contacts? Mitchell thinks it’s a perception problem? She also thinks it’s mindblowing that Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s name not being on Rahm’s list. You’ll forgive me if my mind remains UNBLOWN by that fact. Todd notes that Jackson would have had a hard time holding the seat in 2010, which is why he wasn’t on the list.

What is wrong with politics in Illinois? Hey! Maybe lots of things! But a lot of political machines are happy to not be in the spotlight. Mitchell is maybe onto something when she says that Blago’s greatest sin was getting caught, and in such vulgar fashion. Todd talks about how important it is to follow the connections between Wall Street contributions and connect the dots to lawmakers who allowed things like exotic, nutlog derivatives and who backed bailout giveaways. It’s almost as if Todd is saying, “Well, if I can’t host this show, at least listen to my suggestions!”

David Gregory really appreciates it!

Panel time! Here’s your panel of experts: Mitt Romney, Jennifer Granholm, Carly Fiorina, Erik Schmidt, and Lee Scott. Just what America needs! Inspiring words from CEOs! Just like in the Gospel of John!

Anyway, Granholm says that we didn’t do a good enough job explaining what failure of the Big Three would mean. Which is perhaps true! I think that just so many things are failing right now. She goes on to suggest that the importance of an American domestic auto industry is the lost innovation in the areas of energy independence. “We’ll be replacing a dependence on foreign oil with a dependence on foreign batteries.”

Romney says everyone agrees that they don’t want the auto industry to go away. But there’s a $2000 competitive disadvantage that Detroit faces. So let’s remove that disadvantage by unionizing the Dixie plants, right? Let’s have national health care? Such things makes Mitt cry! Granholm objects! Romney recites thoroughly debunked claims about labor costs.

Eric Schmidt says a bunch of nice stuff about America that he probably pulled from Google’s annual report. David Gregory asks Lee Scott if he’d take over a Big Three company, drawing a lot of dark laughter. Carly Fiorina refuses to talk about any of the things that happened to her when John McCain locked away in the closet, where she could not talk about McCain’s incompetence with the press.

“Credit is unavailable!” Fiorina says, bobbing her head wildly! “Banks are not lending!” Uhm…DUH.

David Gregory: “Governor Romney, you understand the capital markets pretty well…” Wow. I’m going to have to ask for evidence of that claim. Romney says that Americans’ net worth has dropped, somehow. “In the last couple years,” he makes sure to point out. Of course, he suggests that what we need are tax cuts and spending stimulus - but he probably won’t be happy about infrastructural spending, and he’s probably in denial about Obama’s tax cuts. But, hey! He doesn’t say anything like that today! I’m just extrapolating from his days on the stump.

Actually, part of me wonders if Fiorina and Romney maybe want to hurt each other a little.

Eric Schmidt, who advises the transition team, thinks that stimulus could provide a “two-fer,” improve infrastructure AND grow a new energy industry.

I sort of hope Fiorina runs her bull about the Irish corporate tax rates again, for auld lang syne!

Fiorina says she thinks the consumer is important and that job creation is important to consumers, and YEAH, HERE WE GO!!! High U.S. corporate tax rates!

AMERICA! Would you like to have the 12.5% corporate tax rate that the Republic of Ireland has? OF COURSE YOU WOULD! Trust me! You REALLY, REALLY would. Want to know why? As a percentage of GDP, IRELAND RAISES MUCH MORE REVENUE FROM CORPORATE TAX THAN AMERICA DOES. How do the Irish do that? Are they just drunk, all the damn time? Yes, but that’s not the reason! The reason is that despite our nominally high corporate tax rate, there are so many loopholes for corporations to wriggle out of paying, it’s pathetic! In August of 2008, the GAO released a report that noted that two-thirds of corporations operating in the United States did not pay any tax at all.

So, yes. Let us do exactly as the Irish do, please please please! But just note that when you suggest to Carly Fiorina that the drop in tax rate comes with a concomitant closure of these loopholes, she stamps her tiny feet, “No, no. no!”

For more on what a complete bullshit artists Carly Fiorina is, ENJOY.

Romney is now wondering why the President doesn’t do more the frack up the economy in the time he has left.. And now Eric Schmidt is back to just happily talking about how America is awesome, and there’s no other place on earth where he’d rather experience a painful financial crisis, except that he won’t experience any such thing because HE IS THE PRESIDENT OF GOOGLE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

What is everyone watching as far as indicators go? Granholm says consumer confidence and access to credit, so “leaders” should tell sweet little lies about how everything will be fine. Fiorina says there should be conditions attached to bailout monies that require lending. Schmidt says Obama’s stimulus package will bring confidence back to the market. Romney doesn’t want to predict something, because he will be wrong. Lee Scott just wants “Wal-Mart Mom” to be confident. Dave Gregory wants Mitt’s wife to be well, which we all want.

I think the highlight of David Gregory’s first day was when he said President Bush could “tap the TARP,” because that sounded pretty damn dirty.

That will do it for another Sunday. Thanks to everyone who helped to caffeinate me this morning. I hope that this liveblog somehow contributes to your restfulness as well, and everyone here at HuffPo hopes your holiday season is in full, happy swing. See you next week!

Read more: Sunday Morning Talk Shows, Video, Media News

Jay Mandle: The Future of Progressive Reform

Barack Obama’s victory shows that the United States has changed profoundly. But the way our first Black president-elect paid for his electoral success suggests that it is unlikely that his administration’s policies will be sufficiently progressive to meet the needs of the people of the country.

Obama was the first major presidential candidate since Watergate to choose not to pay for his campaign with public funds. Private donations fueled his effort. He could have defended his decision to opt out of the public funding system as an undesirable necessity. The fact is that the funds available from the government have not kept pace with the amount of money that candidates can raise from private sources. What Obama could have promised, but did not, was that once in office he would move to rectify the public funding shortfall so that in the future the temptation to depend on special interest donors would be less compelling.

Instead he and his staff attempted to make a virtue of their choice. The argument was that Obama’s run for office was largely financed with small donations and that this, in his words, represented “a parallel public financing system.” With it, Obama maintained, the American people “will have as much access and influence over the course and direction of our campaign” as that “traditionally reserved for the wealthy and the powerful.”

The facts speak otherwise. A careful study prepared by the Campaign Finance Institute indicates that only 24% of Obama’s presidential funds came from donors who contributed $200 or less. That percentage was only slightly higher than the 21% John McCain received from small contributors in his presidential primary races and was almost identical to the 25% contributed by small donors to George Bush during the 2004 nominating process.

Indeed, the financial base upon which Obama’s campaign depended was quite narrow. As of October 27 only about 322,000 people had contributed $200 or more to Obama’s campaign. That means that only about 0.14 percent of the country’s adult population contributed 74% of the funds the Obama campaign accumulated.

Furthermore, the sources of Obama’s funds were highly skewed. Leading the pack were lawyers as well as the professionals who work in the Finance, Real Estate and Insurance Sector. In comparison to the $37.1 million contributed by members of the legal profession and $33.1 million donated by Wall Street, the contributions made by members of unions pale to insignificance.

None of this is good news for progressives. Of course, the Obama Administration will have to address the economic crisis and it is very likely that the neo-Keynesianism of the late Bush Administration will be continued after January 20. But over and beyond the need to stimulate the economy, this country urgently requires reform and renewal. Unhappily the way Obama’s campaign was funded means that it is unlikely to get it.

Most urgently, the United States needs a new system of financial market regulation and an extension of health care insurance to the growing millions who cannot gain access to that necessity. But those are precisely the kinds of innovations that the principle Obama funders will fight against. Finance sector donors possess a vested interest in minimizing market regulation and contributors attached to the insurance industry can be expected to resist extending insurance coverage to people who cannot afford expensive premiums. Nothing can be more certain than that these political patrons will use the influence their contributions have accorded them to put a brake on regulatory and health insurance reform.

The problem is that no criticism of the influence of the major donors emerged during the campaign. Driven by the serial debacles of the Bush Administration and attracted by the profundity of the country’s racial redemption, progressives refrained from commenting on or concerning themselves with the implications of Obama’s funding. Too much seemed to be at stake. It was thought that nothing should be said that might put Obama’s possible victory at risk.

But this act of self-censorship was almost certainly a mistake. It means that the incoming Obama Administration is not under pressure from its left to clearly identify how it would go about engaging its funders so as to be able to reform Wall Street and the health insurance industry. As a result of this absence, it is very likely that the Obama Administration will choose the path of least resistance in these areas and will be cautious in pushing for progressive change.

This caution however will not be a necessity associated with its governing a center-right electorate, as the mass media put it. Rather it will be a response to the interests of its major funders, in a political context in which the political left has been mute.

Mark Penn Given Column By Wall Street Journal , For Some Reason

“Microtrend”-enthusiast and Devourer Of Hilary Clinton’s Hopes Mark Penn had a column in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, for some reason, about how the economic downturn has bred a new cohort of “people who have lost their trust in the financial world, and are preparing for the next meltdown.” Penn calls these people “the New Mattress Stuffers.”

Anyway, Penn believes the recession will bring about a boom in the area of “personal financial security” in the same way September 11 brought about “a vast industry in building security.” “As a result,” Penn says, “firms which can offer ironclad guarantees of safety will appeal to this new group.” But ha ha! What is an “ironclad guarantee of financial safety,” anyway? Anyone got a favorite post-9/11 security firm they want to cite that fills your heart with confidence? Will the financial security agents of the future make sure all our nickels take their shoes off before they’re allowed in our mattresses? Who knows?

Penn cites many ways that the New Mattress Stuffers can “calm themselves” during these bleak financial times. Buy gold coins, for instance! Purchases of guns, safes, and home vaults are in the increase, so get in on some of that action, Laid-Off Middle Class America! Oh, and listen to your jeweler, Joe Sixpack, because Penn reckons they “may start to tell you to ‘don’t forget to stash away a diamond or two.’” Personally, the solutions all look like the sorts of things that are only within the reach of those for whom the times won’t be so bleak, but Penn broadly compares the New Mattress Stuffers to people who, in times past, hid “tin cans of cash in [their] walls.”

Penn asserts that New Mattress Stuffers “don’t care about the 10% interest rate on GE preferred stock that Warren Buffett snapped up; they care about making it through if hard times get even worse.” That’s too bad! You know, in time’s past the Wall Street Journal might have run a column to help people understand why Warren Buffet loads up on preferred stock in General Electric, and, more importantly, Goldman Sachs. It might be the sort of news a Mattress Stuffer could use, to ensure they’re asking their elected representatives the right questions before their Mattress Stuffing is offset by any fanciful government bailout programs.

Anyway, I guess a few enterprising Americans can bail themselves out during Inauguration weekend by going to Mark Penn’s home and excavating his front lawn to find where he’s stashed all of his gold doubloons and blood diamonds.

Read more: Mark Penn, Wall Street Journal, Media News

Bob Burnett: Obama’s Crisis Presidency

As the presidency of George Bush was defined by the 9/11 crisis, Barack Obama’s first term will be shaped by a battered economy. Bush launched his “war” on terror and Obama will have to wage war on recession. To be successful, Obama must learn from five critical mistakes Bush made mismanaging his crisis.

Involve the American People: In the days after 9/11, George Bush made a critical error by not involving Americans in his war on terror. At the time, critics noted Bush had failed to learn from the actions of Franklin Delano Roosevelt after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. As World War II unfolded, FDR ensured that all Americans had a role to play: some served in the military while others were part of the domestic security system; many women shed their traditional roles and became factory workers; and children were asked to collect scrap metal, newspapers, and miscellaneous refuse such as bacon fat. FDR understood an engaged citizenry is a mighty resource and harnessed our energy to galvanize the U.S. economy.

Although Americans initially supported the war on terror, Bush never involved us in his struggle to make the U.S. safe and rid the world of terrorists. Americans were dismissed - told to “go shopping” - while the fight against Al Qaeda was designed as an exclusively military campaign guided by Bush’s lieutenants. Among the many mistakes resulting from this narrow vision was the failure to cut off funds to the terrorists, who were bankrolled by Middle Eastern oil wealth fueled by America’s addiction to imported fossil fuel. As a consequence of Bush’s shortsighted policy, the war on terror has failed; while there have been no further attacks on American soil, terrorist have regrouped in Pakistan, attracted new recruits, and launched attacks on our allies.

As a former community organizer, Barack Obama understands the importance of building a broad coalition to tackle a difficult national problem. As he struggles to turnaround a damaged economy, he will enlist support from all facets of American society: Capital Hill to Wall Street to Main Street. During his successful Presidential campaign, Obama built an impressive organization that involved ten million Americans as donors or volunteers. Since November 4th, many of these activists continue to meet, eager to help the President-elect have a successful first term. These volunteers can be enlisted not only for political action - nudging wayward Congress people to support Obama initiatives - but also for service within their communities: volunteering at soup kitchens, finding housing for those who have lost their homes due to the recession, weatherproofing public facilities, and so forth. One of the lessons of The Great Depression was that it touched every American and a unified effort was required to turn the economy around.

Ask for Sacrifice: Because George Bush never conceived of the war on terror as a campaign involving the American people, he never asked us for sacrifice. This was a stark contrast to FDR’s position at the onset of World War II, when he issued a call for sacrifice. Early in 1942, Roosevelt promoted a seven-point program that touched every American: regulation of “personal and corporate profits” through tax policy; controls on prices and rents; stabilization of wages; regulation of farm prices; investment in government bonds; rationing of scarce commodities - such as oil; and encouragement of personal savings. Barack Obama would do well to study FDR’s program.

Focus on Key Objectives: One of the many problems with Bush’s ill-conceived war on terror was that it wasn’t possible to measure progress. For example, in March of 2003, at the onset of the invasion of Iraq, most Americans couldn’t tell whether the US was winning or losing the war on terror. The metrics of success were ill defined and this contributed to the public’s confusion in the days leading up to the invasion.

President Obama’s war on the recession should begin with a small number of understandable objectives, common-sense metrics that go beyond positive growth of GDP. These might come from alternatives to the GDP such as the “green” GDP or the triple bottom line. It’s clear that some goals have to reflect conditions on Main Street, such as the number of Americans earning a living wage or the CEO-Minimum Wage Ratio — at last report, 821 to 1. Others objectives might measure energy usage, such as our consumption of carbon-based fuel.

Communicate Progress: Finally, Bush didn’t follow FDR’s example and talk to the American people; he was content to scare rather than reassure. Roosevelt famously communicated by means of a series of radio addresses - the fireside chats. Since being elected President, Barack Obama has used radio and the Internet, YouTube, for weekly communication about his plans to deal with the economic crisis.

Since November 4th, Barack Obama has focused on the financial crisis gripping America and taken action to reassure Americans. Obama appears to have learned from George Bush’s crisis management mistakes.

William Fisher: Hope For Homeowners? Not So Much.

Amid the Bush Administration’s so-far faltering response to the current financial meltdown, the cause of this catastrophe has been all but forgotten.

In case you’ve lost it in the clouds of smoke and the avalanche of opaque financial jargon emanating from President Bush’s Treasury Department, the root cause was mortgages. Home loans marketed by deception by unregulated cowboy lenders. Loans to people who were encouraged not to understand what they were getting into. Bait-and-switch loans with low introductory interest rates set to balloon into the ionosphere a couple of years later. Loans many should never have had received and predictably were unable to repay.

But not to worry. Didn’t we all know that the credit cup would always runneth over and that the housing market could never go down, only up? Well, that’s the way we behaved and that underlying assumption finally resulted in what we now call the housing bubble.

The busted one!

Most of these toxic mortgage loans were not made by banks. They came from mortgage lenders and mortgage brokers. These entities were not regulated by any government oversight body. They were operating in the wild wild West of the housing industry. Many didn’t even require proof of the borrower’s income; in some cases, the sales pitch included lending you the down payment.

Once these guys sold a bunch of mortgages, they sold them to investors, including the big commercial and investment banks all over the world, which bundled them up and sold them again. It was the unabated greed of these big financial institutions and their advisors that ultimately made them victims as well as perpetrators of the disaster. When their investments turned out to be worthless - or of unknown value - they started worrying about the accuracy of their balance sheets, stopped lending money to anyone, and turned to the government for help.

The government obliged with the most massive bailouts in U.S. history. You still with me? The bankers were a big part of the gang that caused the housing bubble in the first place, yet were the first ones to be rescued with our tax dollars. Seven-hundred-billion of them.

All but forgotten in the Treasury Department’s frenzy to save Wall Street were those millions of homeowners who couldn’t make their mortgage payments and whose homes were being seized in foreclosure at a pace not seen since the Great Depression of 1929.

Treasury’s rationale for pouring its billions into the nation’s largest banks was to end the acute constipation in the credit markets. That bit of government largesse cost $350 billion. It came with no strings attached — and no results either, unless you count using our tax dollars to acquire other banks and pay out dividends to shareholders. Meantime, these banks are still not lending - even to one another. Many are said to be “hoarding” money while waiting for another shoe to drop, and there is no indication that the flow of credit is likely to restart any time soon.

But there is at least one person who didn’t forget where this mess started. And, for her trouble, she is being quietly dissed by the Bush Administration.

She is Sheila Bair and her job is Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The FDIC, started by Franklin Roosevelt as one of his recovery weapons after massive bank failures in the Great Depression, is the agency that provides Federal guarantees to depositors of banks that fail. When Washington woke up facing a protracted recession or worse, Bair’s outfit quickly increased that insurance from $100,000 to $250,000 for each bank account. That’s one of the very few positive and successful moves yet made.

Ironically, Sheila Bair was appointed by George W. Bush. The term of this self-described moderate Republican runs through 2011, meaning that W. can’t fire her - though it appears he would if he could. She is currently far more popular with Democrats than she is with her own party’s leaders. Or with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

The reason: Bair has focused like a laser not on propping up banks but on rescuing homeowners. Her objective is to help stem the tsunami of foreclosures now putting people out of their homes and decimating entire neighborhoods as house values continue to drop like stones.

Bair has put forward a proposal to use $24 billion of the government bailout funds to help 1.5 million borrowers avoid foreclosure by guaranteeing modified home loans through the end of next year. This move is being opposed by Paulson and the Bush administration. So now Bair finds herself locked in a so far mild-mannered but potentially ugly duel.

There are two key elements to the Bair proposal.

First, delinquent borrowers who are two months or more late can arrange to have their monthly payments reduced to 31 per cent of their gross monthly income. To achieve that result, mortgage rates could be set as low as 3 per cent for five years. The rate would increase annually by one percentage point until it reached the prevailing market rate. Loan terms could be extended for as long as 40 years.

Second, as an incentive to servicers and investors to get with the program, the government would share up to 50 per cent of losses in the case of a default by a borrower who had been helped by the program. The FDIC would also pay servicers - the people who process mortgages — $1,000 for each loan they re-worked.

Bair says her plan would initially help some 2.2 million borrowers to get new loans. The FDIC estimates that, after making allowances for re-defaults, 1.5 million borrowers would ultimately be able to keep their homes.

The plan would cost an estimated $24.4 billion, which Bair has proposed to fund with part of the $700 billion bailout fund approved by Congress.

Observers say there is already evidence that the Bair plan works. At IndyMac, a large California federal savings bank that failed last July, a total of 65,000 borrowers, or 10% of IndyMac’s loan portfolio, were delinquent when the government took over. The FDIC has already modified 5,000 of these troubled mortgages, and incomes are currently being verified for another 20,000 delinquent borrowers.

Payments on the modified IndyMac loans have been lowered an average of $380 a month, Bair told Congress. In 70 per cent of these cases, affordable payments were achieved through interest rate modifications.

Bair says she is “hopeful that the current or future administration, or perhaps some combination of both” will be able to adopt her plan in hopes of preventing additional foreclosure distress.

President-elect Obama said on Meet the Press last weekend that he would address the foreclosure issue promptly if the Bush Administration failed to act by the date of his inauguration, January 20.

The FDIC has briefed the Obama transition team, but Bair says “We continue to have discussions” with the Treasury Department on the issue. However, her frustration has been barely hidden during various recent public appearances.

Bair’s is not the only plan to address foreclosures. Another is Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd’s “Hope for Homeowners” plan, part of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. Under that plan, troubled borrowers would be able to refinance into an FHA-insured, fixed-rate loan at 90 per cent of newly appraised home values, or what the borrower can comfortably afford. The government would be compensated with three per cent of the new loan amount for taking on the added risk and borrowers would pay annual insurance premiums of up to one per cent of the loan. Lenders would have to waive all prepayment penalties and late fees.

The Dodd plan, similar to one introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, has generally been rated favorably by consumer protection groups and by lawmakers on both left and right. The Dodd-Frank approach could operate effectively alongside the Bair plan.

Then there’s the “Hope Now” program — an attempt to streamline and consolidate workout and mitigation procedures used by individual servicers. This initiative was launched last October by a private sector alliance of mortgage servicers, counselors, and investors. The alliance claims that its mortgage industry members prevented 225,000 foreclosures during last October alone, 13,000 more than the record the group says it set in September.

Hope Now claims it assisted approximately 1.7 million homeowners during the first ten months of this year and anticipates that the total by the end of the year will be 2.2 million, 45 per cent more than it says it helped during 2007.

However, considerable doubt has been expressed about the accuracy of these numbers and the overall effectiveness of the program. In a speech in San Francisco last week, the chairman of the Federal Reserve System, Ben Bernanke, characterized private sector initiatives such as Hope Now as “not very successful.”

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, some 1.2 million homes were in foreclosure during the second quarter of 2008, and that number is expected to increase, with another two million families possibly losing their homes to foreclosure in the next two years. These foreclosures hurt not only the families who lose their homes, but the national economy as well by depressing home values and consumer spending.

Sen. Dodd insists that both the government and the mortgage servicers need to do more to help distressed homeowners. “All of these measures frankly have not produced anywhere near the results we hoped they would,” says Dodd, adding it’s “terribly regrettable” that the Paulson is not behind the Bair plan.

Consumer advocates as well as most of the nation’s largest banks have also endorsed the Bair plan. Her proposal “is just an absolute no-brainer,” said Martin Eakes, head of the Center for Responsible Lending. “There’s just no reason why we shouldn’t get it done….”

But without Hank Paulson’s blessing, it’s likely that it will be an Obama Administration that does the doing.

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