MSNBC's (and Chris Matthews's) crotch and Mountie fixation

Over at Hullabaloo, Digby makes the important observation that the Donner Party over at MSNBC is circling the wagons. They think the, uh, hullabaloo about David Shuster's "pimped out" comment is politically motivated -- just a way for the Clinton campaign to get positive, feel-good, noncontroversial mileage out of a stupid comment, I guess.

The towel-snapping boys in the MSNBC locker room, so eager to deny and deflect attention from their homoeroticism, have convinced themselves that they are the victims of That Harridan Hillary. How do we change their behavior? Simple. The Clinton campaign can throw the MSNBC crew's words right back at them.

The obvious place to start is to ask Chris Matthews why he was staring at the president's crotch as Bush minced across the deck of an aircraft carrier. But I'd like the Clinton campaign to ask Matthews, and press him repeatedly with follow-up questions, about this quote from Matthews: "He has the perfect chin, the perfect hair, he looks right. He looks like a Mountie. He looks like from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. ... Can that guy capture the hearts of the American people?"

What's with Matthews's fixation on men's crotches and perfect chins and guys dressed like Mounties?

Do tell, Chris.

There's this comment in the comments section: "I think the inference is why is she making those calls? It does seem perverse when you consider she is not a politician or a political operative. There seems to me to be a feeling that if they put her up to the calls, the superdelegates will be put on the spot in a way that they wouldn't when speaking to a political operative."

I don't recall the press making an issue out of another instance of a presidential offspring delving deeply into the political process. During the presidential term of the first George Bush, his son George W. took up an office in the White House and became, in essence, his father's enforcer. I never knew about this little bit of history until 2000. What W. was doing in his father's White House was more substantial than anything Chelsea Clinton has done. But he got a pass from the press and she isn't getting one. Why the double standard?

Wife-beater-in-chief

At his news conference today, the president was asked: "Do you have to support the war to support the troops here? I mean, if you're one of those Americans that thinks you've made a terrible mistake, that it's destined to end badly, what do you do? If they speak out, are they by definition undermining the troops?"

The president replied, in part: "I think you can be against my decision and support the troops, absolutely. But the proof will be whether or not you provide them the money necessary to do the mission."

Let's get this straight.

It is possible to be against the escalation and to support the troops.

But to prove that you support the troops, you have to pay for the escalation.

The president added: "Your question is valid. Can somebody say, we disagree with your tactics or strategy, but we support the military -- absolutely, sure. But what's going to be interesting is if they don't provide the flexibility and support for our troops that are there to enforce the strategy that David Petraeus, the general on the ground, thinks is necessary to accomplish the mission."

It's certainly comforting to know that the president considers the reporter's question valid. What will happen to the reporter who asks an invalid question?

Then the president says it's possible to disagree with his tactics and support the military. On the other hand, he says, if you don't support those tactics, you don't support the military.

This is the rhetoric of the wife beater, of the child abuser: "If you don't do as I say, I will hurt you, because I love you." Bush is pushing a cruel form of cognitive dissonance that is designed to force listeners to give up thinking for themselves, and surrender to his will.

"Daddy loves you and that's why he rapes you."

"I'm sorry I hit you, honey. You know I love you."

He's a mean, dry drunk who learned during his drinking days how to manipulate people cruelly. The press and the people let him get away with it.

He's a big bully

Here's the transcript of a minute in the middle of the president's news conference today:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Sir, we've now learned through sworn testimony that at least three members of your administration, other than Scooter Libby, leaked Valerie Plame's identity to the media. None of these three is known to be under investigation. Without commenting on the Libby trial, then, can you tell us whether you authorized any of these three to do that, or were they authorized without your permission?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, thanks, Pete. I'm not going to talk about any of it.

Q They're not under investigation, though?

THE PRESIDENT: Peter, I'm not going to talk about any of it.

Q How about pardons, sir? Many people are asking whether you might pardon --

THE PRESIDENT: Not going to talk about it, Peter. (Laughter.) Would you like to think of another question? Being the kind man that I am, I will recycle you. (Laughter.) John.

Q Thank you --

THE PRESIDENT: You like that one? "Recycling" him. (Laughter.)

Q That took care of one of my questions, as well, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: If that's the case, sit down. Next question. (Laughter.)

"Being the kind man that I am, I will recycle you." Hi-larious!

"Sit down. Next question." Har de har har!

A transcript doesn't convey the middle-school-lunchroom feel of this exchange. You had to have heard it on radio or seen it on TV. Our president is a bully who refuses to confirm or deny that he ordered his underlings to unmask a spy. He jokes about "being the kind man that I am," which is his way of admitting to us (and maybe to himself) that he is a cruel man. He brusquely orders a reporter to sit down, like a dog.

And our press corps laughs.

Straight out of the middle-school lunchroom. You remember those days. They're the bullying years. And when a bully humiliated a kid in front of an audience -- such as in the lunchroom -- the cowardly bystanders laughed. They laughed with the bully because they didn't dare cross him. The bully might go after them next. They certainly didn't step forward and protect the victim from the bully.

That's your press corps. Subjecting themselves to a big, mean bully who gives reporters unwanted nicknames and orders them to sit down (kiddingly but not really) and tells them that he will "recycle" them.

It's so sad to hear these munchkins laugh when the big bully is beating up on a colleague.

As Digby says (links to Hullabaloo aren't working well; scroll down to the item "706 Days Left): "by far the most painful thing is watching the press corps laugh and laugh when he treats them like children and makes unfunny, puerile jokes at their expense. It's the most pathetic thing I've ever seen and that includes many decades in a business where brownnosing the boss has been raised to the level of religion."

Whose side are you on?

We are starting a debate in this country about economic inequality, and it is in danger of being hijacked by well-meaning but misguided people.

John Edwards talks about economic inequality a lot, and maybe that's what's pushing this onto the country's agenda. A couple of days ago, NPR did a piece on the pay disparity between NBA players and the men who play in the NBA Developmental League, which is the top domestic minor league. The NPR story was introduced with the observation that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke spoke this week about economic inequality.

Bernanke said that globalization, technological change and a decline in union membership are some of the factors that drive income inequality. He said: "The sources of the decline in union membership are much debated, and certainly long-run structural changes in the economy, such as the decline in manufacturing employment, have played a role."

He didn't mention that government policies have played a vital role.

Steven Pearlstein, writing in the Washington Post, is pleased that, in Ben Bernanke, we might now have "the trustworthy moderator" that we "desperately need."

This is dangerous. Bernanke is not a moderator and he shouldn't be touted as one.

If you go to a Third World country and ask a taxi driver where to dine, don't be surprised if he drives you to the restaurant that his brother-in-law owns, even if the food is bad. Bernanke is that taxi driver, and Pearlstein is the travel writer who tells you to heed the restaurant recommendations of Third World cab drivers. He's naive.

Bernanke is not a disinterested party in discussions about the widening gulf between the haves and have-nots. As chairman of the Federal Reserve, he represents the moneyed interests. If he didn't represent the interests and the values of the rich, he wouldn't have been named chairman of the Fed.

Pearlstein, other journalists, and politicians must not get away with painting Bernanke is an impartial referee. Bernanke, like his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, makes frequent visits to the White House. He is a political operator, just as any other powerful person in Washington is a political operator. That's not meant pejoratively; it's simply a fact.

There is no neutral observer when we debate who gets what. Bernanke is as impartial as Andy Stern, president of the nation's largest union, on this topic.

This debate is going to be resolved by good, old-fashioned politics. If Bernanke is appointed by the media as an impartial referee, then the haves and the have-mores will continue to win.

Everyone is on one side or another. Instead of appointing neutral referees, let's all ask the question: "Whose side are you on?"

CNN gives a sloppy wet one to the prez

Digby has a post about what she calls "the giddy reception that President Bush received on the floor of the NY stock exchange last week," with a partial transcript of the CNN coverage.

As CNN correspondent Susan Lisovicz noted in her stand-up, Bush is the second president to visit the exchange during trading hours. The first was Herbert Hoover. Just kidding. The first was Hoover's ideological heir, Ronald Reagan.

Lisovicz's report from the trading floor had this bit:

President George W. Bush, we believe, has just entered the building, and he may pass right behind me. Of course, the president of the United States using Wall Street as his stage to talk about his economic policy, and there's a lot to talk about that is quite favorable to the Bush administration.

We've had 7.2 million jobs created since 2003. The jobless rate historically low, 4.5 percent. We just got the first look at the fourth quarter GDP coming in better than expected at 3.5 percent.

It takes a little work to get employment data, but it's not that hard. You can find it at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The disappointing thing is that you can't create a chart on the BLS site and then link to it. It's all dynamically generated and unlinkable.

Anyway, let's look at nonfarm payrolls. In January 1993, when President Clinton took office, people had 109,725,000 nonfarm jobs in this country. In January 1999, there were 127,477,000 nonfarm jobs. The economy created a net 17,752,000 jobs in Clinton's first six years.

In January 2001, when President Bush took office, people had 132,471,000 nonfarm jobs. Last month, people had 137,258,000 nonfarm jobs. The economy created a net 4,787,000 jobs in Bush's first six years.

• Clinton: 17.8 million net new jobs in six years.
• Bush: 4.8 million net new jobs in six years.

Lisovicz is engaging in propaganda. Is she factually correct about 7.2 million jobs created since 2003? In August 2003, after the recession, employment bottomed out at 129,818,000. Payrolls have grown by 7.4 million since. In the equivalent period during Clinton's presidency, nonfarm payrolls increased by 9.9 million.

This stuff is easy to look up. I don't expect Lisovicz to go to the BLS web site while she's standing on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, shivering in ecstasy when the president is standing just five feet away. But a real journalist doesn't merely parrot an administration's talking points. A true journalist puts those talking points in perspective.

Trillions, billions, thousands -- what's the difference?

The Washington Post reports that "President Bush will ask Congress for close to three-quarters of a trillion dollars in defense spending on Monday, including $245 billion to cover the cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan…"

It would be helpful if the Post did some math for us. How much is $245 billion? How much is three-quarters of a trillion dollars? Those numbers are abstract. The article throws around more numbers that are so large as to be meaningless: $170 billion to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this fiscal year and at least $145 billion next fiscal year, and $745 billion in war costs since Sept. 11, 2001.

That $745 billion comes out to about $2,500 for every man, woman and child living in the United States. In my family of three, that's $7,500 to pay for five years of war.

In 2003-4, there were 95,726 elementary and secondary schools (kindergarten through 12th grade) in the United States, and 48.4 million students. (Census) If we hadn't shipped that money to Afghanistan and Iraq, we could have kept it here and given it to schools -- for an average of $7,782,630 per school, total, over the five-year period. Or the federal government could have handed the schools $15,392 for each student. That's a student subsidy of $3,078 a year.

In 2004, there were 3.1 million public school teachers in this country. Instead of going to war, we could have given them $240,322 each. That would be an average annual raise of $48,000, which would more than double the average teacher's salary of $45,800. If we did that, we would probably end up with better teachers.

Does that put these numbers into perspective?

Blithe Manor

The New York Times profiles twentysomethings who fancy themselves real-estate moguls . Luciana Hyman is 24 and her husband, Daniel, is 27. They just bought a co-op in Manhattan for $875,000. Judging by the photo, it needs tens of thousands of dollars of fixing up.

As owners in a building with relatively lenient policies, like 10 percent down payments and flexible sublets, the Hymans talk about their apartment as a strategic investment that they someday plan to turn into cash.

"We're more comfortable with taking on debt and paying tomorrow," Mr. Hyman said. "If the cards topple, you can rent your place out and go somewhere cheaper."

Let's unpack this to demonstrate the unreality that the Hymans display, and the odd bias that the Times consistently shows -- an assumption that most twentysomethings (she's a schoolteacher and he's a securities trader) can afford homes that cost a million or more, give or take a hundred thousand.

I'll assume that they bought their share in the co-op building for $875,000 and put down 10 percent. That means they borrowed $787,500. Let's say that got an interest-only 5/1 ARM at 6.25 percent. The monthly payment for principal and interest is $4,102. That excludes co-op fees, taxes and insurance.

What happens if, in Daniel Hyman's words, the cards topple? Let's say that means there's a recession in which the value of the co-op falls by 20 percent and Daniel's income falls precipitously. At that point, their co-op is worth $700,000. If they have an interest-only loan and haven't aggressively been paying down principal, they owe $87,500 more than the place is worth. Meanwhile, their family income is down, so they decide to move out, find a renter, and rent an apartment.

If the co-op's value has dropped 20 percent, to $700,000, and if a lot of owners join the Hymans in putting their places on the rental market, the overall rental market is probably soft. What would be a fair market monthly rent in such an environment? $3,900, tops. Probably closer to $3,500.

Meanwhile, their monthly mortgage payment is $4,102, plus co-op fee, taxes and insurance. Unless they have $87,500 in cash, they can't refinance the loan. If they don't have $87,500 in cash, plus another $42,000 or so for the real-estate commission, they can't sell the co-op. On top of that, they're renting a place and commuting into the city.

It just doesn't work, and the reporter apparently didn't confront the Hymans for their blitheness.