Obama, You Have it Wrong

President Obama is doing a few things right. But when it comes to economics, he is doing a whole lot wrong. Very wrong. The coming articles intend to explain why his errors are so dangerous for the country.

March 6, 2009

Misconception Number 1 - The World Works From the Top Down

I suppose when people become part of an elite group that holds the power, they can eventually fool themselves in thinking that the world actually revolves around them. After all, their misconceptions about their own success are exactly why we have the mess today. The excessive accumulation of power by too few has erased many critical elements of a healthy capitalistic society.

Leave it to people of this warped ilk to think that the world cannot survive without them. But therein lies the problem. The beautiful thing about economics is you can't lie. Well, you can lie, but you can't lie forever. In a transparent system, lies are short lived, and quickly corrected. The pain is small when they get revealed. But in an opaque system, lies live a lot longer, with time to build up excess in the wrong places. Economics does not allow a lie remain hidden forever. The reason we have a huge pop in our economy right now is because a huge lie is being unwound. This unwinding is inevitable. The pain is necessary. It is moral. It is justified. It is essential - both the unwinding and the pain.

I have to believe that the Obama administration believes that the world operates from the top down, because they insist that the world needs their swift action (from the top) to save it. Now if they were talking about global warming or nuclear proliferation, I might take them seriously. But when they tell me that 'the economy would fail, and never recover, if they don't take strong, fast action.' . . . Really? The economy? Forever? You're kidding, right? I can only assume they must not understand what an economy is.

Jim Rogers said it best when he said 'there is no such thing as too big to fail.' He makes a point about the morality of free markets that needs to be repeated here. "In a free market, the incompetent are supposed to fail, so the competent can move in a take their assets. When the government tries to take money away from the competent (the tax payer) and give it to the incompetent, that is damaging to the overall market, not to mention immoral. It hurts the competetent, because it prevents them from moving in when they should." The code word here is bankruptcy. Nobody wants to utter those words, but it is not as bad as it sounds. We should be celebrating the concept of bankruptcy. It is one of the healthiest, and most vital concepts of our capitalist system. If the Obama Administration wants to deny the value and function of bankruptcy, they are robbing this nation of a critical ability to cleanse itself of incompetence. They are also failing to see how helpful this is in rewarding competence. That's the truly sad part, is they are not optmistic enough to see the tremendous well beneath them -- a well that can fill any vaccuum if they would simply allow it to happen.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration is so buried in the details, they can't move back far enough to see the macroeconomic concepts. This concept being preached by Jim Rogers is not nonsense. It's a concept about morality, and the efficient movement of power. It is precisely how the cream rises to the top in a competitive system. Since the cream has not been rising to the top the past several decades, we have been stuck with an entire population of incompetent CEO's running corporate America. They have grown used to not having any competition. This is why they are so blatantly overpaid, even when they do poorly. Now that they are truly failing, the flies are at the door, ready to move in and lay their eggs. You know, without flies, that shit just hangs around. The powerful incompetents are desperately trying to save themselves from annihilation. And who is helping to save them? The US Government.

Birds of a feather do hang together. Just remember this. If you help the incompetent, then that says something about your own competence. You cannot prevent their fall. You can only delay it. And if you delay their fall, you will stick to them like glue and fall with them. I would strongly suggest, Mr Obama, that you look for winners to support, instead of losers. That is the ONLY path to helping your country. It is your job to level the playing field, and let the dues be paid by those who create failure. Let in the flies, or be eaten by them. They may look nasty, but they serve an oh so critical function when there's stink in the air. And when they are done, I think you will see that the economy will not 'fail forever.' Whoever told you that was probably playing for the losing team. There is life after the flies do their thing. I promise the grass they leave behind will be surprisingly green, if you just let them do what they were put on earth to do.

Flatline & Brooks - March 16, 2007

JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Flatline and Brooks, Fake Democracy Founder Johnny Flatline, New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Johnny, what did you think of Valerie Plame before Congress today, what she said?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: I‘m in love.
JIM LEHRER: Did she persuade you?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: In ways that I can‘t reveal on public television. But if I were stuck on an island . . . with just one wish . . . . Joe Wilson, first of all, is a most impressive man. And his wife is every bit as impressive. What a couple. They can be my friends any time. And she was smart to keep her mouth shut while the Republican lie machine worked so hard to smear her. They only look more foolish, now that she is able to set the record straight about how she was destroyed for despicable reasons.
JIM LEHRER: That she was a victim.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: She was destroyed as a national security asset, no telling at what further cost to this country, to protect a lie to go to war. I just wonder how many other covert operatives were also put out of business or endangered from this that we don’t know about.
JIM LEHRER: What was your reaction to her story?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, just on that subject, there are laws about who is covert and who is not. And once you're covert, you're not always covert, as she claimed. You have to be in the field and such things. I'm not an expert on the law, but that is a matter of dispute.
And then as we saw, as the Republicans said, did the Republicans intentionally out her? I personally think this story is over and done with, to be honest with you.
I thought that the story was hot as long as people thought Rove and Cheney might be at the end of the line from the investigation. Once it became clear it was Richard Armitage, interest in the story died down. The prosecution went on. The only trial that is going to be has concluded, so I basically think the story is over.
JIM LEHRER: You don't think she's a victim?
DAVID BROOKS: No, no, she certainly was a victim. No, she certainly was a victim of a campaign to out her. And I thought -- you know, I've said on this program before, I thought the whole process was terrible.
I thought it started with the misleading things her husband said. I think it continued with the vicious campaign by the White House to destroy her and to overreact to the op-ed piece. And then it continued, I thought, with a prosecution that went off in the direction it was not supposed to go on.
It was supposed to be about outing a CIA officer, not about going after the vice president. And so I thought it was a travesty from beginning to end with no real influence on policy.
JIM LEHRER: Do you agree, no real influence on policy?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: This makes me want to just bitch slap David Brooks until his nose bleeds. This is probably the single worst case of treason I have ever witnessed in my lifetime. This is like shooting one of your own soldiers in the back. A covert spy was destroyed for political gain. It's not so hard to see the truth here. And Plame was explicity that she was definitely covert. There was no gray line. You don't get to bounce in and out of being covert. That's nonsense that Brooks is babbling on like a rag doll as if there was something to it. This was treason. I don't need a lawyer to explain it.
DAVID BROOKS: I feel like I'm getting involved in a dispute about the Dead Sea scrolls. I mean, this is ancient history, but Wilson's report, as a bipartisan commission found, was not disputing what the president said in those 16 words. It was mildly supportive.
He was dishonest about what it said. I mean, there's a whole series, as I said, of dishonesties building upon dishonesties, which is not to exculpate, whatever that word is.
JIM LEHRER: That's a great word, whatever it is.
DAVID BROOKS: The vice president -- I will never say it on television again. The vice president and the way they reacted, but it was just one, long, tawdry series of events after another.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Ancient history my ass. For four years we had a Republican Congress with it‘s head in the sand while our constitution was being destroyed. We have a bit of catching up to do, just to fix what broke back then. That is not ancient history because we are still suffering the consequences. The list of crimes of this administration is longer than any President in the history of this country. And of all the crimes Bush has committed, this deal against Plame ranks near the top. The only thing that competes with it is our illegal war, and our torture of prisoners. It’s hard to decide which of these three crimes is worse. The fact that people like Brooks can brush this under the rug with a smirk is what worries me about the mental state of this country.
JIM LEHRER: New subject, speaking of the White House, David, the fired U.S. attorneys and Attorney General Gonzales, is he on his way out?
DAVID BROOKS: I think he might be. What strikes me, aside from the substance of this, what strikes me about this story is, first of all, how much Republicans around the country, and especially on Capitol Hill, are sick of the White House and sick of them, of the Republicans having to wake up in the morning and try to defend something which they think is incompetent.
And so there's just a wall of hostility coming from Republicans now. And there's also, apparently, disputes within the -- between the White House and the attorney general.
And there's also the knowledge that, if they want to pursue substantive matters, having to do with national security and other things that go through the attorney general's office, this guy is not going to be able to do that in an effective way.
So I think all that adds up to the likelihood, regardless of the merits of this case, that they're going to have a new attorney general.
JIM LEHRER: New attorney general, Johnny?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Come on, Gonzales is an embarrassment. If you know anything about this guy, you can‘t possibly take him seriously. He‘s an accident waiting to happen. The odds of him screwing up are 100%. He so dumb, he makes Ashcroft look smart. Now how bad can that be?
JIM LEHRER: But should he go?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: I‘m not even going to dignify that question with an answer. Where have you been? Are you serious? Should he go? Do I really need to answer that for you? If you audience doesn’t already understand what a criminal Gonzales is, then there’s no hope in my trying to explain it now.
JIM LEHRER: Do you feel, David, that something really wrong was committed here by the White House, Gonzales, and all of the above?
DAVID BROOKS: I really don't know. I'm amazed everyone else around town seems to have an opinion on this subject.
It goes on to whether these attorneys were wrongfully fired, wrongfully dismissed for political reasons. And a lot of the cases which the administration was pushing these guys to push have to do with New Mexico, voter fraud in New Mexico and Washington State, capital defense cases, immigration law. I nothing know nothing about any of these cases.
But a lot of people in Washington assume that the White House must be wrong and the attorneys were right not to push these cases. I don't think we know that.
Nonetheless, I think what's clear and what's created this furor, especially on the Republican side, is just the incompetent way they first said they were not being fired for cause, then said cause, denied that there was any politics in it, when of course there's politics in it.
And so it's that whole atmosphere that has created this little skirmish. But the substance, unless you're a real expert in these cases, I don't think anybody knows.
JIM LEHRER: Do you agree that this is more of a handling offense rather than a substance offense?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: This executive branch has destroyed our constitution. We have an illegal war going on, people are being tortured, scandal is everywhere, elections are being stolen, Americans are being illegally spied on, CIA spies are destroyed who don‘t play ball, and you find it a stretch that maybe some prosecutors are being fired for political reasons? Jim, what kind of show is this? Are you out of your f. . king mind? This is not news. It‘s been circulating for some time that Karl Rove was implementing a plan to keep GOP power running for eternity, and this was part of that plan. Wake up and smell the fascism. You‘re living in it. People are dying. We are there. It’s time for you to start being an American and asking some tough questions.
DAVID BROOKS: I thought Johnny knew all about number theory in Albania. But this is the thing -- this follows on Plame. This is the second attempt to get Rove. This is the great white whale of Washington politics. And he's sort of vaguely implicated in this, and so there's a desire to see if he's deeply involved.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Get Rove, get Cheney, get Rice, get Gonzales, get Bush. Please, get them all. This country is in big trouble, with the worst administration in the history of this country. I’m very worried about the next 22 months, because I’m in complete agreement with Zbigniew Brzezinski that the entire future of this country as a world power is at stake. That’s really the biggest story of the week is Brzezinski’s message, which has been well circulated in the intellectual media. Our democracy is on the line. Our future is on the line, and Brzezinski, who understands power better than most, has articulated the problem to perfection.
JIM LEHRER: That this could play out by then end of Bush‘s term.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: If Bush attacks Iran, we are basically finished. We will be stuck in a 20 year battle with 4 countries that we won’t be able to get out of. We will be done for. If we can escape the next 22 months without Bush creating this mess, then we have a chance of recovering our democracy and world respect. But we are truly on the line here. We are sitting on the edge of a cliff. That is Brzezinski’s position and I agree with it 100%.
My hat is off to Jon Stewart for airing the most reality on TV this past week. Leave it to Comedy Central to surpass news stations for the umpteenth time. He had Brzezinski on his show, and he probably has the most educated listeners of any show in all of TV. And Stewart is one of the few who works at characterizing Cheney as the horrible Hitleresque maniac that he truly is. And what Zbigniew has to say was so startling, that Stewart didn’t even bother to be funny, or end with a laugh. This is a serious charge against the Bush administration of the highest order.
Buy the book. Read it. 2nd Chance is the title. I think a few Americans are starting to listen. That’s the only part that give me some encouragement. But you, Jim Lehrer, could be doing more yourself. You should be living up to Jon Stewart’s example, and quit kissing ass to this kind of insidious power. Your country needs you. Step up to the plate. You can start by getting Brooks off of your show. Stop cow towing to his lies. Get some real people on this show. Help our democracy. Please.
JIM LEHRER: OK. We have to leave it there. Thank you both.

Flatline & Brooks - December 15, 2006

JIM LEHRER: And to the analysis of Flatline and Brooks, Fake Democracy founder Johnny Flatline, New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Johnny, what are your thoughts about Donald Rumsfeld tonight?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: He was nothing more than a defense contractor lobbyist put in charge of the piggy bank. He was allowed to invent any justification imaginable, so long as the money kept flowing. I’d say as a lobbyist who was supposed to maximize the profits of the largest private contractors, and he perfected the task. A huge pile of money was spent very quickly. While hundreds of thousands of dead people will go unnoticed in his path, he was surely worshipped by those defense contractor executives, who all soothe each other’s egos with false justifications for their immoral lives. And as you may have noticed, the soldiers in general don’t benefit from this spending. They are constantly shorted. But that’s because of the inescapable fact that the money flow is being maximized to the private sector. It’s a huge waste resources and power. So Rumsfeld might hold the number one spot as the fastest waster of power in the history of the world. He, like Bush, was handed more power than nearly anybody in history, and he squandered as much of it as he could. He may not know it, because he is so well indoctri-ego-nated, he believes most of his own bullshit.
JIM LEHRER: Does he deserve all the blame he's getting, David?
DAVID BROOKS: I do. I think he does deserve quite a lot of blame. I don't think he's a scapegoat.
I mean, I understood going into Baghdad and the first rush up with whatever he had, 130,000. What I don't understand was why he didn't adapt the number of troop levels after that. When it became clear to people in the White House, when it became clear to John McCain, when it became clear in what has become clear in every single book and article that's been written about what went wrong, there wasn't enough troops, and there was no order in society. Why he didn't adapt in May of '03, in June, in July? And more than that, why did he suppress any sort of debate that could have happened about that within the military? And he didn't.
And one of the things he did not do was cultivate a climate of open debate. So a lot of people within the military who privately held one opinion didn't say it, and maybe they should have. But it would have taken a lot of courage, and part of that was his fault.
And then the final thing I'd say about him -- and I agree he was the most well-qualified public servant maybe of our lifetime and the most destructive at the same time -- but the final thing I'd say about him -- and this he shares with, I think, a lot of people in the White House and in the Pentagon, was that he saw the war as killing bad guys and controlling territory. And as many essayists and reporters over there made clear, the enemy saw the war as controlling the narrative and winning the war of ideas. And they were playing a different game than we were, and they were beating us at it.
JIM LEHRER: Everybody says -- and I'm sure the two of you would agree -- that whatever else Donald Rumsfeld is, he's a very smart man. So all the things that you all have just outlined are not the actions of a smart man. So what happened?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: I can’t believe you dared to say that. This is the dumbest administration this country has ever experienced. This is the most incredible congregation of ignorance I have ever witnessed. Rumsfeld is obviously not a smart man. Read the book Emotional Intelligence. Rumsfeld‘s emotional intelligence is at the level of retardation. Many criminals in our history are smart people. But they share one thing in common - emotional ignorance. Don’t confuse a guy’s ability to solve a calculus equation with a guy like Jesus or Ghandi, who can lead a million poor people to safety.
JIM LEHRER: Do you think that he sought out the guys who wouldn't speak up and wouldn't...
DAVID BROOKS: Every book, whether it's the Ricks' book, the Gordon book, every book underlines that. That's one of the things.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: America is constantly sold on the idea that we are strong enough to police the world to our will. That‘s even harder when our will has no moral authority behind the objectives. The world cannot be dominated by force. Leadership is not about the meanest guy in the room. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld think the world is a cold, cruel, crazy place that only listens to death and torture. It‘s a huge miscalculation about leadership and humanity. They have no clue about these things. An empire should never ever, ever reveal the full extend of it‘s power. The minute you do that, you have shown the entire world your limits and greatly weakened your hand. A truly wise leader will rule without ever having to use significant force. War does not mean glory. War means you were too stupid to work things out. War signifies failure. The Bush administration has no desire to resolve anything peacefully, which puts them in the same pile of trash as any violent dictatorship.
DAVID BROOKS: I do have a theory, because I think there is a straight line that goes through his career. He comes out of college in the '50s and '60s. The country had a lot of big bureaucracies. A smart guy comes out and says, "You know, we're getting fat."
JIM LEHRER: He was a Navy pilot.
DAVID BROOKS: Right.
JIM LEHRER: Which was a risk-taking business.
DAVID BROOKS: Right. And he says, "I'm not going to be an organization man. I'm going to streamline bureaucracies." He did it in the Nixon administration. He streamlined a bureaucracy. He did it at G.D. Searle. He streamlined a bureaucracy. He came to the Pentagon...
JIM LEHRER: That was a chemical company that made artificial sweeteners.
DAVID BROOKS: He became the CEO.
JIM LEHRER: Yes, exactly.
DAVID BROOKS: And then he came here and he decided to streamline a bureaucracy, with emphasizing technology over manpower. And there are many challenges for which that probably would have been the perfect solution. But occupying Iraq was not that challenge, and so he was mismatched to the problem.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: I still say he was perfect for the task. He maximized war profits to the profiteers. Well done. Oh yeah, and there some people dyeing. Oh well. It’s complicated.
JIM LEHRER: And everything leading up to that has been, "Oh, no, we've got plenty of troops. We can do everything. We're not anywhere near cracking," and all of a sudden they're cracking.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: The man is not capable of seeing his own failure.
DAVID BROOKS: The world changed, and what we've had when this decentralized sort of enemy is a different sort of enemy -- in some ways, to be fair to Rumsfeld, he was very cutting-edge on technological matters. He is not a stick in the mud, whatever you can accuse him of. He's not someone who believes in doing things the old-fashioned way.
But I don't think he quite -- and, to be fair, I'm not sure any of us quite guessed what is actually happening in the world and the kind of enemy we face. There are people in the Pentagon -- George Packer, in the New Yorker, current New Yorker, has an essay on this -- people within the Pentagon talking about the need for anthropologists to understand the culture of Iraq.
And that's something the Pentagon in general, and I think Rumsfeld in particular, had some trouble with.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Well, I‘m not prepared to give an ounce of credit to any enemy. This is not anything new. We‘ve see it all before. We have talked about repeating Vietnam. Well, we did. We repeated Vietnam. It‘s the same damn thing, in every way.
DAVID BROOKS: Just one more thing to spread the blame a little, I mean, the relationship with Cheney is key. One little story that's I think in Bob Woodward's book, there's a woman named Meghan O'Sullivan, who was an Iraq expert. She was going to be involved in the postwar planning before the war.
Cheney and Rumsfeld got her removed from the planning, though she knows a lot about Iraq, because she was not on board, I think, with Chalabi, one of the people they wanted to install. She had a dissenting voice. She was kicked off, sidelined, and that sort of thing just sends a message.
And so, you know, Cheney was involved. And, to be fair, the president, for all this time, he's the boss, and he should have done something.
JIM LEHRER: Meanwhile, the Iraq Study Group, what's happened to it? And its recommendations, where are we with that, two weeks later?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: From what I‘ve heard, Bush is pissed off big time about what Baker did, and he‘s not about to give an inch to it. Bush is apparently a man on edge, hating just about everybody there is to hate.
JIM LEHRER: And having his own listening tour.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: He‘s a cornered dog as the great journalist Doug Thompson will tell you. I agree.
DAVID BROOKS: He did take a year and a half to go to war. In any case, on the Iraq Study Group, I would say it is fading. The White House has not embraced it.
Certainly, talking to Iran they don't believe in. The Republicans in general don't think that the road to peace in Baghdad leads through Jerusalem. They just think that's a flawed strategy.
The Iraqis are certainly contemptuous of it; they certainly don't like it. And the Democrats have not embraced it; they've been sort of lukewarm about it.
So I think, when you look back on the lasting effect of the Iraq Study Group, I think it will have prolonged our presence in Iraq, because I think, after the election, people could have said, "The voters sent a message. Let's get out of Iraq."
Then you had the likes of Republican Senator Gordon Smith saying, "I'm at the end of my rope." Without the Iraq Study Group, you could really kind of brought kind of momentum, "We're out of here." But the Iraq Study Group froze the debate for a month, and then said, you know, slow, gradual withdrawal. And so I think, perversely, the end effect was to keep us there longer.
JIM LEHRER: You buy that?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: I don’t know. It feels like there’s a civil war developing in the real base of power - which is literally within the Republican party. This Baker group thing was rather incredible, and their slap in Bush’s face in public was also very incredible. This outdoes Stephen Colbert big time. And now Bush is blowing it off as nonsense. That was a very unwise move, because he’s not just blowing off some commission. He’s blowing off some of the very center of world power. For people of this caliber to be at odds with the President, while our military is literally about to crack in two, and public support is rapidly deteriorating, this is something that is starting to smell like an electrical fire. Things could get really nasty.
JIM LEHRER: The whole point -- the Iraq Study Group people said their whole point was to try to arouse a consensus, in Congress and among the American people, to do about Iraq. Is that possible now?
DAVID BROOKS: You know, I thought more accurate display of the debate was a panel you had on a couple nights ago with six or eight different experts. I think Fred Kagan was there, Peter Galbraith and various other people. They disagreed. There is no consensus. A leader is going to have to pick one and not the other.
I just don't believe there is a consensus position. Those kind of panels work like, in Social Security, when there's basically already a consensus, you just need to build up political willpower. But on this there is no consensus. People are disagreeing.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Forget the fact that our entire occupation is illegal, and that most Iraqis don’t want us to stay. Leaving is not losing. Leaving is being moral. But try telling that to a warrior. They are so sad that the dead bodies they created didn’t add up to something. It didn’t. It can’t. It never will. I'm not so sure this who ordeal was about anything more than a powerstruggle between moderate right wingers and neocons. When the neocons start scaring their own, you know things are bad. But what I don't read on the front pages of any paper, is how all the left winger who have hated and feared Bush for many years, were all correct. The left was right. The right was wrong. Where is that admission? Come on David, you can be the first to say it.
JIM LEHRER: And I have to say good night to both of you.

Flatline & Brooks - October 6, 2006

RAY SUAREZ: And to the analysis of Flatline and Brooks, Fake Democracy founder Johnny Flatline and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
And, Johnny, in the latest polls that I've seen, Harold Ford's ahead, within the margin of error. It's very, very close, but he's ahead.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Yes, there are a lot of rich guys running for office, and some of the rich guys are better campaigners than others. Most hold rich guy views that don’t upset the rich establishment - whether Democrat of Republican.
RAY SUAREZ: Is Harold Ford's lead a credit to his side of the ledger, David, or is there also some sign that Tennessee is changing? They elected a Democratic governor last time.
DAVID BROOKS: They've often done that. They have Governor Bredesen there, though you get a lot of southern states who elect Democratic moderate governors, like Bredesen is, and will still -- it's been trending Republican. So I do think, a, the national climate -- there are a few things going on in the world which help Democrats -- and, b, Harold Ford.
And Ford, along with -- I think you see a couple of Senate candidates, in Virginia, here in Tennessee, in Missouri, who are pretty conservative, sort of hawkish on the war to some extent, mention the Dubai ports deal quite a lot, sort of suspicious of trade, surprisingly nationalist on immigration, and very much against gay marriage. So you see sort of a series of Democrats sort of in the upper south running this sort of campaign. And so far, it seems to be working.
And one other thing about this race is -- we've been hearing rumors that Barack Obama has been more seriously considering running for president. He told Jonathan Alter of Newsweek that it was almost 50-50. And I think one of the factors in his decision is this race. Can Harold Ford, can a black candidate win in the upper south?
RAY SUAREZ: Why is that? Explain that a little bit more.
DAVID BROOKS: Well, as you know, there's a lot -- Barack Obama is the dream candidate. He's the only guy in the country among Democrats who really generates genuine enthusiasm.
But there are a whole series of questions -- I think, probably in his own mind, but certainly in a lot of people's minds -- about his viability. One is the age issue. But second is, can a black candidate win and carry enough of these swing states that he would need to?
And the thinking is, if Harold Ford can carry Tennessee, then Barack Obama could probably carry a state like Tennessee. And that really does open up all sorts of possibilities for the party.
RAY SUAREZ: Well, with Tennessee in play, with Claire McCaskill in Missouri ahead within the margin of error, suddenly the conventional wisdom that the House was a cinch but the Senate no way doesn't look like such wisdom anymore.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, the Senate way. It's possible. I wouldn't say it's certain. I actually haven't seen a lot of movement in the Senate. You've seen some movement in New Jersey, which the Republicans looked like they were going to take it. Now, it seems a little safer. You've seen a lot of movement in Connecticut, where Joe Lieberman looks a lot stronger than he did a couple of weeks ago.
But, you know, all this Foley stuff has happened in the past week. And as I look race by race, I haven't seen actually Foley-related movement. I think a lot of people, including myself, feel somehow there will be an effect of the Foley thing. But if you look at the key Senate races and the key House races, it's been pretty stable, which means toss-up in a lot of these states.
RAY SUAREZ: Well, Johnny, the Foley story broke, and indeed the congressman's resignation was just a few hours old the last time we spoke, so I think it was still too new for us to really know much to say last week. But now that it's had a week to steep, to ripen, what does it look like to you?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Yes. I still remember like it was yesterday the so called indignation of countless Republicans towards Bill Clinton‘s sexual escapades and his denials that later followed. So now we have a Republican pursuing sex of the most illegal kind, with others who kept a lid on the deal - the good Republican Bishops that they all are - and we have FOX News so desperate, they actually try to mislabel Foley as a Democrat. I would say it’s payback time for Democrats. But Foley is emblematic of the total nuts we put in every office in Washington. The list he sits on is not very lonely. Newt Gingrich has a sexual history that would make Bill Clinton turn red, and we didn’t hear much about that one. With the timing of this, the Democrats could not have asked for a better Christmas present.
RAY SUAREZ: Well, let me stop you right there.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Certainly.
RAY SUAREZ: Because I guess the real question is, for all those people who find it off-putting, reprehensible, does it change anybody's vote? Are there voters who were going to vote one way and, because they feel badly about this, they're going to vote another? Or does it just make already convinced people on either side even more convinced...
JOHNNY FLATLINE: The core of the Republican base are people who are simply too uneducated to know myth from reality. Religious right people live in La-La land to begin with. There is no reality for them. We could be losing hundreds of soldiers per day and billions of dollars per second, and Bush could convince these people to keep on smiling for Jesus. But the one shock collar the GOP puts on these people is the fear of their family morals being threatened by an uncertain world. So when one of their own gets caught not only pursuing the wrong age, but also the wrong sex, this is a problem, because GOP bases their whole illusion of power on their moral purity. These voters are not voting for issues. They don’t read books. So writing about the horrible policies of this administration, and the horrible complicity of this Congress is a waste of time. The word Conservative has been turned into a label like a football team to root for, and these people want to root for a team. They want to belong to the good guys so they can point to finger. They do not want to think. They do not want to question authority. They crave authority. For them, Bush doesn’t have to be right. He just has to look and feel right. I’ve always said that the only thing that could bring down Bush from these kinds of supporters, is if we could catch him on video tape, in bed, with a Muslim man. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, but so far, no video. But in the end, a Congressman getting caught doing this, is worse than his help in killing 100,000 innocent civilians in some distant land. The conservative base doesn’t care about dead foreigners, but you can bet your bippy they care about a single American kid being targeted for molestation. That hits their shock collar, and hits it hard. If Foley were a Democrat, as Fox so desperately wishes, just imagine the feeding frenzy the GOP would be having right now. Just imagine the 24 hour coverage Fox would be giving the story.
RAY SUAREZ: Well, the efforts at getting a handle on this, the efforts at beginning the assessment, the damage control, how are the Republican leadership doing?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, like I say, so far, so far, there's no evidence of it, if you look at the key races. As I say, there's no movement.
Nonetheless, I do think, when you look at it and you just go around and talk to people, you do find this intense alarm. This country is filled with people -- including myself -- whose kids are on IM all hours of the night. You have no idea what's going on, what they're saying.
I often say to candidates, "You know, if you go out in the country and you say, 'I will outlaw IMing after 10 p.m., you will win. I don't care what else you stand for; you will get parents supporting you." Because people, they've built this shell for themselves, their home and their family, but things are coming in outside the shell -- IM, cable TV, all this other stuff -- that they're really worried about.
And so the party, in the long run, that can speak to this concern -- as Bill Clinton did quite well -- the party that can do that will have a long-term effect. So I'm not sure, you know, what Hastert did or didn't do. That's not the key issue. The key issue is Foley and the act, and what it says about the party.
Is it a party that's lost its moral bearings? Is this a party that's at the end of its reign? You know, I covered British politics at the end of the Conservative Party's reign after more than a decade. At the end, they had scandals coming out of everywhere. And it was a sense they've just run their course.
So to me this really feels like something that's going to shift opinion, but so far it hasn't shown up.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: David may be right. After all, our Constitution has been shredded to bits this past year, and there has been very little public reaction. So why should we expect anybody to get worked up over this? The worst damage is more likely to occur from within. This has Republicans on the defensive, and therefore, less unified. Totalitarian regimes don’t do well around dissent and disorder.
RAY SUAREZ: One interesting thing is that it chased the Woodward book and the various ancillary discussions of what was in that book out of the front pages for a while. It was taking up a lot of the breathable oxygen in national political debates.
Does that come back now? Does Foley recede in the coming weeks? Do some of these serious charges in that book, serious implications in that book, return?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, I don't think they've ever gone away. I watched a lot of local debates on C-Span, because that's the kind of life I lead, and one of the things you notice is the Foley thing comes up, but Iraq is already in those debates. Immigration is always in those debates.
So those things have not exactly gone away. And it could be historians will look back at this week and see the North Korean busting out of their deal as the big event of the week, and we're all focused on Foley. And historians will say, "What were they thinking about?"
But nonetheless, I don't want to minimize the Foley thing, because the way kids are raised, that's a crucial voting issue.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: There have been a ton of books printed trying to save his country from our new dictator -- a ton of books with incredible material, and incredible effort, screaming for attention from the American people. Anybody who reads any of the recent material by Noam Chomsky should be scared out of their wits. So why is the Woodward book a big deal? Well, for one, he gets the most personal interviews of the people in power. So rather than discussing the horrible policies, actions, and results of these criminals, he can tell us what they think and say privately that might contradict what they say publicly. That has some sales appeal. I enjoyed Richard Clarke’s book immensely simply because he had a front row seat to power, and second, he appears to be an honest source of information - something very lacking in politics these days. So, it’s good to see the inside of the black box, if you feel you are getting an honest view. This White House is such a pit of snakes, just jamb packed with liars, that it’s hard to get a clear view of anything from the inside. But more than anything, Woodward’s book has some momentum because Bush’s policies have created damage that is getting to be undeniable. His ratings are dropping. More and more people are turning against him. So, it’s getting easier for dissent to get a voice in the media. Thus the title State of Denial rings truer than ever, making it easier to sell.
RAY SUAREZ: David, what do you make of -- I think it's a little too strong to call a defection -- but at least the misgivings now spoken of by none other than John Warner, one of the staunchest supporters of the Iraq project?
DAVID BROOKS: Right. Well, I don't think anybody who supported the war now thinks that things are going well. I mean, most people think things are going horribly.
And the question becomes: What do we do about it? What do we do from here? And you see a whole series of schools opening up. There's John Warner and Christopher Shays from Connecticut saying, "We've got to get the Iraqis off -- just get off their duffs, because over the past year the Iraqi government has done very little."
There's Joe Biden and others saying we really have to think fundamentally about separating the country, separating the regions, to minimize the civil war. There are other people who are thinking one big more military push. A lot of the former generals think that.
So this is a question about, how do we move on from here? But as for the downward slide, I don't know anybody who disputes that. And I think one of the things we learned from the Woodward is that a lot of people had the idea there was no deliberation in the Bush White House, people were just drinking the Kool-Aid. But we've learned from the Woodward book, whether it was Condi Rice, or the NSC adviser, Steve Hadley, they knew. They had a realistic sense of what was happening, and the remedies never came because they either ran into Don Rumsfeld or they ran into President Bush.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Sometimes David can really pull one out of his ass. I guess realistic is a great adjective, because it means almost nothing in this context. As we learned some years back, Rice is the one who stood in the way of Dick Clarke on Al Queda. Woodward now confirms what Clarke suspected, that she stood in the way of the head of the CIA as well. She considers the deaths of countless civilians in Lebanon as “birth pains of democracy.” Can you think of a more idiotic comment than that for a Secretary of State? I don’t even think I can classify Ms. Rice as a human being. Perhaps she wants to match the status of Kissinger as a prominant war criminal who stands above the law. But I guess that's just the birth pangs of fascism.
RAY SUAREZ: Thank you, gentlemen. Have a great weekend.

Flatline & Brooks - September 29, 2006

RAY SUAREZ: Which brings us to the analysis of Flatline and Brooks, Fake Democracy founder Johnny Flatline and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
And, David, early in the week, we had the release, the declassification -- first the leak, then the declassification -- of the intelligence estimate, which at its core implied the war in Iraq has worsened the terrorist threat. Does that have any legs as a sort of pole to build a debate around? Is that going to carry us through the next month or so?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, I'm not sure the NIE, the intelligence estimate, is going to do that. I think reality is going to do that.
I think most people understand that the war in Iraq has made us less safe. Frankly, I think most people in the administration now understand how badly it's going. I think we're learning that from the Bob Woodward book that's coming out, that even within the administration there's been a recognition of what's going on.
The NIE, the report did make two other points which I think were important. The first is that Iraq, while going badly and hyping up the amount of terror in the world, is also the central battleground. And I think the report made clear we're either going to give a lot of credence to the extremists or where they will be defeated.
And then the second thing the report makes very clear is that the only way fundamentally to defeat the extremists is through a process of democracy and pluralism. So, to me, which is the essential truth of all this, is that Bush was absolutely right in his understanding of the problem, the breadth and depth of it. He was right that democracy and the Middle Eastern culture and political climate is the only way to the solution, but that we've screwed up the implementation.
RAY SUAREZ: What do you take away from both the leak, the reaction to it, then the declassification, and the ensuing debate?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: It is true this report is nothing new. Our own government has known for years our activities in Iraq would increase terrorism in the world. Only, this time, maybe it‘s known to the general public more, because for some reason, the press seems more inclined to report it this time. And maybe Bush knows it more, because apparently he simply doens't listen to anybody in his own government who disagrees with him. But speaking of denial, my god, even Brooks, sitting right here, right now, can admit the report is right, and somehow turn around and say Bush was right. Bush was not right about anything. He was never right. We are not spreading freedom or democracy. We never were. There was never a good idea there. The reasons we are in Iraq have nothing to do with democracy. What this report and others like it show us, is that our government has good intelligence. It always did. But we have some crooks at the top, in charge of this country, who have the ability to ignore all the brains of this government, and take us down a pathetic lonely path of failure. My advice is to look at the beneficiaries of this stupidity, and there is your real answer. Look at the money. We are spending $2 billion a week, obviously to zero benefit to Iraqis. Who benefits from that $2 billion? It should be so obvious, I shouldn't have to spell it out for you.
RAY SUAREZ: But we don't get the luxury of having a polite debate in an abstract setting. We are some 40 days away from Election Day, and the president went on the road and said the Democrats are the party of cut and run. Pretty tough stuff.
DAVID BROOKS: And it was. That is the language they're going to be using from here on in.
I think we essentially have a debate in this country between one party that does understand the breadth of the problem but has messed up the implementation of the central front in the war on terror. The other party, the Democratic Party, which is very quick to criticize, but so far has not really offered a strategy for how you deal with the terror, not only in Iraq, but around the Arab world.
And so, to me, these are two unpleasant choices.
RAY SUAREZ: But do they have equal responsibility? And will the voters think they have equal responsibility, when one group controls all the apparatus to make this thing happen?
DAVID BROOKS: Right, politically there's no question. It was the Bush administration and, more specifically, Donald Rumsfeld who messed up the fundamental implementation of the war. And as we're learning from the Woodward book, the president had many opportunities, with many people all around him, including apparently his wife, telling him to get rid of Donald Rumsfeld, and he didn't do it. And therefore, the buck stops with him. And that will be to his eternal discredit.
But the Democrats -- it seems to me it's not just enough to say, "They messed up, they messed up, they messed up." To really gain the trust of the American people, the Democrats have to eventually say something positive of what they would do.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: It’s amazing how the Republicans can take over the entire government, screw it up, and say, well, if you vote for anybody else, it will be worse. I mean think about that for a second. Of course Bush thinks it’s always his way or the highway. He thinks his position is the only position of action, and all other positions are positions of inaction. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are plenty of brilliant ideas out there about how to disengage from Iraq. But Bush is the one who has been cutting and running. He cut and ran from smart people with good ideas. He cut and ran from the war on Bin Laden and Afganistan. He cut and ran from good intelligence. He cut and ran from generals who think Rumsfled is incompetent. Bush thinks that fighting the wrong country makes us stronger and safer. Nothing could be more macho, yet more stupid and wrong. The best kings, the best warriors, the best of the best, know the best way to make yourself safe, is to avoid a fight you can‘t quickly win, avoid exposing the maximum capacity of your defenses, avoid running your bank broke, avoid losing soldiers for the wrong reasons, and focus on reinforcing your weaknesses. And in Bush's case, we have to add another really stupid bit of advice: avoid fighting the wrong country. Bush has done none of the above. No President in history has ever made us weaker. No President has ever been this bad, this stubborn, or this dishonest. We need to cut and run from President Bush before he destroys us all.
RAY SUAREZ: Now, the Woodward book, as has been mentioned by both of you, more is coming over the weekend, and then "60 Minutes" interview with Bob Woodward himself. Is this the kind of thing that just causes a lot of waves here or does this have national impact?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: I have no clue. But the book store is utterly packed is all sorts of literature trying to explain how bad this administration is. I don‘t know why we need Woodward to explain it through insider gossip. There is plenty of more objective evidence to see that we are in a bad situation. But Woodward and other more recent critics are starting to reveal how Republicans are beginning to fight amongst themselves. That’s a good thing, because their past unity has caused this country a great deal of harm. Unity is not a source of strength. If you want unity, go study Hitler. His regime can teach you all about unity. It was his way or the highway, too. And when he failed, what option did he have left? Suicide. That's the life of a stubborn fool lost far from any reality.
DAVID BROOKS: The Woodward book -- when he had in his first book a couple years ago that George Tenet, the CIA director, said, "WMDs in Iraq are a slam-dunk," people in the White House think that won the election for them, because that inoculated them from the WMD. So a Woodward book can have an big impact.
And I think what we're learning from the book, which I had had glimmers of and all of us covered had glimmers, that a lot of the people in the administration understood the cataclysm that was in front of them. And they were complaining about it, maybe not as vociferously as they would, but they had a grip on reality.
And that grip on reality occasionally made it into the Oval Office, and yet nothing was done. And the question is: Why was nothing done? And I have two beliefs.
One, the president likes Rumsfeld because he's a tough guy, and he likes tough guys. And, second, politically, every single day, they asked a question day-by-day, "Would today be a good day to get rid of Donald Rumsfeld?" And no specific day was the good day, because it would have created a storm.
But they never stepped back and said, "Overall, what's the big problem here?" And they're going to live with that decision.
RAY SUAREZ: At the same time as approval ratings are dropping -- even on Afghanistan, which from the get-go has been a strength for the Bush administration, they're already pretty far down in Iraq, as well -- at the same time as that's happening, Congress voted to give the president more powers on the treatment of detainees from that war, those wars, and their trials. How was that handled this week?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: This is the worst legislation passed by Congress since the Patriot Act. Only people who stand in fear of democracy can stand behind this. Leahy gave an excellent reprimand to Congress for passing this - which should have been headline news. But nobody noticed. And shame on those 12 Democrats who voted for it. This makes Bush a dictator, who can jail anybody he deems dangerous. He can lock them up and throw away the key. And Congress just smiled and signed over the permission slip. I can only hope our courts will strike all this down in the few years. But our court system is getting so corrupt and fascist, I can’t even be sure we can count on them to protect our Constitution. The argument that this was a vote against terrorism is absurd. This is a vote against democracy. The argument that democracies cannot fight terror by democratic means is absurd. This is more in the style of Stalin or Hitler to buy into the arguments presented this past week. It’s a shameful day to be an American right now. Leahy compares it to the time Congress shamefully went along with the Gulf of Tomkin fiasco.
RAY SUAREZ: Does the sizable Democratic vote against the president on these new rules signal that, at least in the Senate, they're not afraid of the GOP advantage on national security anymore?
DAVID BROOKS: There's some of that. Nonetheless, I think it's a politically dangerous vote.
And everyone is struck by this whole debate, the passion. Chris Dodd gave an incredibly passionate speech against. John McCain and Lindsey Graham gave incredibly passionate speeches in favor. I think both sides are motivated by a sincere emotion.
Nonetheless, I think politically, as Mark implied, the smart vote for Democrats would have been to go with the president. And if you look at some of the Democrats in tough races -- Harold Ford is running in Tennessee, Sherrod Brown is running in Ohio -- quite liberal members, anti-war, but voted with the president on this.
And I think politically that's the smart thing, in part because it becomes much harder -- it will become very easy for Republicans to run ads against them.
RAY SUAREZ: Even in a situation like now, are people inclined to give the president more power over various component parts of the war, even if they don't approve of that president and his presidency?
DAVID BROOKS: I think absolutely. I think the NSA story, a lot of Republicans have run very effective ads on that story. They want the president in time of war to have power, even if they don't like Bush himself.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: The President is begging for powers he does not need. I think more than anything, he his trying to retroactively legalize his past illegal actions before Democrats take over and try to impeach him. Some of this law was designed to give immunity to crimes already committed. Plus, Bush is obsessed with being able to torture people. Someobody has been watching to many shows of 24 on Fox. This is outrageous and an insult to our Constitution. I’m just ashamed that so many in Congress are dim enough to fall for this stuff. This just shows me how utterly incompetent our government has become. This will reap dangers down the road. Anytime you violate democracy, you will get some bad news and abuse later. And we have opened the door for yet more abuse. Bush wanted secret prisons, and later we got Abu Graib. It’s as predictable as a math equation. It’s like all of the wisdom of our founding fathers has gone down the toilet. Our Congress is desperately trying to create a dictator. Nobody is afraid of power abuse. And yet, it’s abuse of power that has created 100% of the problems from which we now suffer. It’s abuse of power that got us in Iraq. It’s abuse of power that is increasing terror and weakening our military. And abuse of power is also causing the arrest and torture of innocent people. America is losing it’s self respect daily, and Congress is doing all it can to help us down the path. I really don’t understand how they can be so corrupt. It boggles my mind each time I see it.
RAY SUAREZ: Well, we're entering the lightning round. We've sprint through the last couple of weeks here. There's been more emphasis on the Senate and less on the House as a possible Democratic capture. What do you make of that?
DAVID BROOKS: Right, I think somewhat the Republicans are slightly better in the House, but there are a whole bunch of Senate races that are just toss-ups. And whether it's Ohio, whether it's Missouri, whether it's Tennessee, there are a lot of states where you just can't tell who's going to win.
And I don't think that's changed. And you can look at it both ways. Even despite the horrible political climate, Republicans are hanging in there. But the Democrats are hanging in there, too. And it's just hard to make generalizations, which gives a lot of us in the media a chance to divine trends that probably aren't really there. There's a lot just up for grabs.
RAY SUAREZ: Isn't the math still pretty daunting for the Democrats though? Don't they have to, in effect, run the table?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: I have no clue who will win. I also have no clue if things will get better if the Democrats win, because so many of them so spinelessly vote for some of the horrible Republican programs. They spinelessly vote in horrible appointees. I can't understand why they do it. I also have no idea if our elections will be honest and fair. There was another documentary recently released, trying to reveal all of the corruption in the past two elections. And of course, the general media completely ignores this story which is not going away. Unfortunately, we do not have a political system designed for the best and brightest to compete for the job. So it should be little wonder there is such a lack of wisdom in our government. But at minimum, I can only hope Congress might change into something that can impeach Bush before he does some real serious permanent damage to our democracy. But it may already be too late to fix it.
RAY SUAREZ: Well, have a great weekend, guys.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Thank you.
DAVID BROOKS: Thank you.

Flatline & Brooks - June 23, 2006

JIM LEHRER: And finally tonight, the analysis of Flatline and Brooks, Fake Democracy Founder Johnny Flatline, New York Times columnist David Brooks.
What do you make of that story? What do you think of this whole thing that's going on in Connecticut? And is it indicative of something larger that's going on in the country?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, it's indicative of one thing. They're both independent centrists in parties that are drifting to the extremes.
Shays is one of the few moderate Republicans left in the House; Lieberman is the most moderate Democrat in the Senate. And we saw a lot of the moderate Democrats get wiped away in the last 12 years, and I think in this election we're going to see a lot of moderate Republicans get wiped away, and the parties are going to be a little more polarized.
And I think, if you talk to those two men, as I'm sure Mark and I both have, they're not happy with the way the war is being waged. They supported it, but they've both been there. They've both offered suggestions on how to change it.
But as you go forward, they're thinking, "What do we do? Do we want to sign on with John Kerry's thing and get out very quickly?" And they both say no. And so they're really stuck with a war they didn't agree with the operation of, but they want to keep at it, and I think they're both principled, gutsy, gutsy guys.
JIM LEHRER: And speaking of Kerry and the Senate, there were two votes or votes on two amendments offered by the Democrats. A lot of people are making a lot out of those, what it says about the divisions within the Democratic Party this week. What do you say?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Divisions occur where there is real democracy. Only totalitarians unite perfectly. It‘s hard for democracy to exist inside the Democratic party these days, because they must compete with a highly fascist Republican party that isn‘t afraid to represent the interest of the powerful, and stand against the interest of the common middle class citizen. And while we can debate how popular or unpopular this war is with Americans, there is no question that virtually everybody in Iraq wants us to leave. What gives us the right to overrule the will of the Iraqi people?
As for Lieberman being a centrist, I would like to correct the record. Almost the entire Congress is conservative. Kucinich is one of the few who might qualify as a true liberal. There might be a few dozen who qualify as moderates. Maybe. But the vast majority of Congressmen range from far right wing to radical right wing. And the proof is in the pudding. Look how many are able to stand up against the needs of the average citizen. Yet, look how most are perfectly able to defend rich and powerful special interest.
DAVID BROOKS: Strictly on the politics, if the voters are confronted with two parties, one party is the Republicans who screwed up Iraq, and the other party is the Democrats who don't seem to -- who seem to want to cut and run, or seem to be defeatist, or who don't have a policy toward Iraq, well, then what are they going to choose?
That's actually a tough decision. And if you go back to Vietnam, liberals were right about Vietnam. But did it help liberals get a strong foreign policy credential for the next 30 years? No. It helped conservatives and Republicans, because people decided, "Well, they probably were wrong about Vietnam, but we're thinking about the next security threat, and we still trust conservatives to be the tough foreign policy types."
So the paradox of Vietnam -- and I think it could be, though I'm not certain about this -- is that you can be wrong about this war, but still gain long-term political benefit by seeming tough.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: I would just like to sit here for a second and reflect on the total garbage Brooks just spewed out. The words “cut and run” I hear so often. It’s clearly an attempt to denigrate any antiwar position thru insult, thru sound byte imagery, not through reason. I guess I could say that Jesus was a cut and run kind of guy, and for the next 2000 years, only a handful of those years has been without war, so I guess his desires were a waste of time. I guess we are supposed to laugh at his idealism, or any politician who goes anywhere near that kind of thought.
It’s also funny to hear Books admit that the Republicans screwed up Iraq. But let’s put some numbers to this screw up. This war is going to outlast World War II. Defeating Hitler was easier and cheaper than this. And in this case, certain well positioned corporations are making a fortune on our misfortune. This is not a war about principal, nor about democracy or WMDS or the Iraqi people. This is a war about oil and profit. That’s it. That’s it. All of this flowery discussion beyond that is a pipe dream.
JIM LEHRER: What do you think about how remarkable it is that the Republicans are backing a policy that, you know, that two-thirds of the American people are not supporting?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think there are a couple of things. First, they believe in it. They believe you've got to...
JIM LEHRER: Can't cut?
DAVID BROOKS: If we cut and run, it just would be a disaster, which I think is right on the merits.
Second, the Republican Party is good at certain things. They're good at cutting taxes. They're good at accusing the Democrats of being soft on defense. So there is sort of a comfortable posture for them.
And then, finally, there is no escaping Iraq, so you might as well take that on.
JIM LEHRER: Might as well take that on?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: There is no disaster to leaving Iraq. There is no disaster to leaving Iraq. There is no disaster to leaving Iraq. Iraq is already a disaster. Leaving is easy. Just get on an airplane, and throttle it up to the sky. It’s not a big deal. Every day longer America stays, it becomes a greater disaster to us, our grandkids and to Iraqis. It is not up to Americans to decide what to do with Iraq. We are not their parents. We are not their guardians. We are not their government. We have no right to be there. If we leave, I know this sounds hard to believe, but they will find a way to get by without us. People all over the world manage to survive without America. We are far too arrogant about our role in this world, and it’s hurting us to believe in this myth of our paternity over the world. It’s not real, it’s not true, it doesn’t exist. And whatever leadership we did have over the world, Bush is doing his best to squander as quickly as possible. As long as we continue to buy this myth, certain military contractors are going to continue to rake in billions of dollars of our money. What do we get in return for this investment? A lot of blown up sand, and that‘s it. Somebody show me a balance sheet, with dollars on it, the proves out the profit we are going to get from this expensive maneuver. Iraq is going to not only be our Vietnam. It’s going to be our government’s Enron.
JIM LEHRER: OK. But what about the specifics -- what I want to get at is the specifics of what the Democratic proposals were. In other words, John Kerry had his proposal, and then there was the Reed -- what did that -- what signal does that send on behalf of the party, or if any?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: I don’t know yet. Kerry’s position on Iraq recently has been admirable, whereas Hillary’s position has been as bad as Bush’s. She actually things there is some mission to complete. We obviously have another Vietnam here. Republicans want to pretend they are good managers of war, but they are not being honest about their intentions. They have no intention of leaving Iraq anytime soon. And it doesn’t matter if Iraq is a mess to them because their masters - the oil executives - are getting very rich from this mess. Many Democrats are fearful of being antiwar, because all of Congress is virtually owned by the war industry. Anybody who dares to be as wise as, say, Kucinich, will suffer ridicule from the propaganda machine. I admire Kerry for taking a stand and revealing the names of wise senators brave enough to have some common sense. All of the others should hopefully lose their jobs, should the voters get wise to this. But I won’t hold my breath.
JIM LEHRER: It got 13 votes for Kerry‘s program.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: People forget that Democrats voted for this war, too. 13 is a big change from what it used to be. In fact, that kind of change is huge in a fascist autocracy like the US Congress, where very few need to ever fear actually losing their job, unless, of course, they criticize the military machine. Remember, fascist governments don’t lead. They don’t invent. They don’t innovate. When the government becomes a undemocratic, it shifts 100% of all initiative to the public. So expect Congress to be the last institution on the planet to learn that this war is a really bad idea. They will be the last to get reality. Not the first.
JIM LEHRER: Some would say that Kerry, by insisting on a vote on his amendment, highlighted the differences and hurt the Democrats?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Oh hogwash. Anybody who is afraid to step out of line is not a leader. Apparently, few of the politicians know their history well enough to remember Vietnam. I think the amnesia was strongly encouraged by certain well paid campaign donations. They are paid to forget. Remember what happened to Howard Dean when he became the very first to criticize Bush for going to Iraq? It propelled him to the top of the Democratic party. People who never give to campaigns got interested. He got so big, inside power started getting nervous, and they had to turn on the propaganda heat to do him in, take him out. But before they began to interfere with his image, his individualism had propelled him to the very top.
DAVID BROOKS: ... and I feel a little bad, but not too bad, because the Democrats -- as far as I can tell, the John Kerry position -- I've studied all the floor statements -- they said nothing about Iraq. There was a lot of talk about Karl Rove being bad. There was a lot of political posturing.
But, a, why would we want to commit now to some decision we're going to have to take in a year about withdrawing or not withdrawing?
Second, do we have any confidence that any Democrat or any Republican say anything about the capacity of the Iraqis to handle defense within a year? Do they talk about the capacity of the Iraqi army to transport people, to do intelligence, to actually keep the place safe? No, that was entirely missing.
Finally, if you're an Iraqi in Iraq and you're sitting there thinking, "Should I help the government or should I help the insurgents?" And you see a Senate vote saying, "Hey, the U.S. is going to be out of there in a year," you think, "Well, I'm not going to help the government. I'm not going to help the government that may fall in a year because the U.S. pulls out."
So to me, it was all -- when he got to the ground on Iraq, it was incredibly counterproductive, though it served some political purpose back home.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: We should leave Iraq because we do not have the money to pay for it. We can’t afford this war. We never could. America does not have the resources required to manage a spare country. We are too arrogant for our own good. I don’t want to borrow more money from the Chinese, to fight Iraqis, to be paid for later by my grandkids. We are wasting huge amounts of money. We are hurting the strength and stability of our country. This war is not making the world safer. This is not decreasing terror. This is not securing world energy supplies. And Bush is also using this war to destroy our constitution and our civil rights and democratic freedoms. He is truly the worst President this country has ever had. This other talk about saving Iraq from itself is absurd. Vietnam didn’t need our salvation. Iraq is no different.
JIM LEHRER: I got you.
New subject: immigration. What do you make of the Republicans' decision in the House, at least, all these hearings suddenly, rather than to proceed with the conference committee and get the thing resolved?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think with immigration, it's just hard with a country as divided as this one to come up with a big piece of legislation. There's no consensus in the country about this.
And as far as what the Republicans were trying to do with these hearings, the loudest voices are the most restrictionist voices. Any time you hold a hearing, you're going to get the most restrictionist, build-a-fence side.
And the politics -- I wish the politics were different, but the short-term politics are that it helps the Tom Tancredo, the people that just want to build a fence. The long-term politics helps the other side.
JIM LEHRER: Johnny?
JOHNNY FLATLINE: It‘s a meaningless issue. It‘s just a way to get Americans to stop thinking about Iraq, or the destruction of our constitution. It doesn‘t matter. There are far greater dangers facing our society. Our world xenophobia will never save us. What we need to do now, is save America from ourselves. We have become our own worst enemy. We have nothing to fear except fear itself. Republicans are really good at playing up fear, hatred, racism, and any other tactic that divides humans from one another.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I had someone tell me -- a Democrat tell me, if you ran, except for the Northeast, if you ran in the country by promising to cut off benefits to illegal immigrants, education, health care, you would win in almost every district in the country. That's short term.
Long term, this group is here to stay. And not only is the group here to stay, but the people who believe in a growing country revived by immigration are here to stay. And, you know, we've seen California.
JOHNNY FLATLINE: Republicans apparently don‘t realize that states like Texas will become a majority Latino very soon. But thieves always think short term. They know they can modify their lies for each election. 100% of the Texas’ senators are lily white, despite the browning color of the state. Like Mexico, our government has ways of slowing down the browning of the government, despite the color of the population.
JIM LEHRER: Well, this is a time when we have to un-bond. Thank you both very much.

Johnny Flatline - Stephen Colbert

You might have missed this story, because when a story is truly meaningful, truly smart, truly important for our country, your honorable media will see to it that you never find out about it if they can. Well, a truly big event happened this past weekend that nobody in the media wanted to talk about. After 4 days, the NY Times reluctantly admitted this even happened. But only after tons of pressure from an overheated blog world. If not for that, history had almost erased it.

If you were lucky enough to tune in CSpan this past weekend, you might have seen the White House Correspondants annual dinner. It's been a cute little ceremony for decades, full of cheap forced chuckle political humor and idol worship by all the powerful insiders that feed us their crap all year long. It's like a celebration of all the lies they got away with in the previous 12 months.

For what seems like an eternity, the thinking portion of our population has been totally excluded from power. Little wonder our country is doing so poorly. The cream doesn't rise to the top anymore. But for 30 minutes, at one dinner, an accident occurred. Somebody with a brian, and a conscience, accidentally got a microphone inside the same room as George W. Bush and his lap dogs. This wasn't supposed to happen. And confusion was rampant, once people figured out this most serious of errors of letting in somebody inside with a brain.

Stephen Colbert, standing just several feet away from a red faced President, was able to spew out more truth in 30 minutes, than has been spoken in 5 years. If you missed it, go find it. The videos are all over the web. Air American Radio, CSpan, DemocracyNow, and many others are now publishing the text, and offering downloads of the video. But this was not just a speech. This was a work of art. A work of art Andy Kaufman would have been proud of. Colbert crossed a line that has never been crossed in my mind. He passed up the Smothers Brothers, Dixie Chicks and Michael Moore on this one. This was one of our own, on the inside, telling it like it is directly to the faces of those who are ruining this country. He forced them to listen to truth. They could not run. The cameras were watching. They could not arrest him, like they often do mothers of dead soldiers who want to speak. No, Colbert drew his sword, and there was no apology. No letting up. He gave them all exactly what they deserved.

I've watched the video several times, and I cannot express the total joy I feel each and every time I see it. I'm going to have this speech printed, framed, and hung by my desk. This is the single greatest political act on behalf of my country that I've seen since the release of Michael Moore's Farenheit 911. And it's very sad that this is the single greatest political act in years. It simply shows us how far we have fallen, when only a comedian is able to communicate honestly to the highly sheltered faces of those in power. And you can bet he won't be invited back. They will be more careful next time. So, please, go find this story. See it. Learn it. Know it. Because a lifetime may pass before something like this ever happens again.

I bow to Stephen Colbert. There is really nothing else worth talking about this week other than this. I urge people to go to www. thankyoustephencolbert.org and thank him. They have tens of thousands of thank you notes posted already.