7 'Alternative Facts' from the White House

23 Jan 2017

WASHINGTON (NYTIMES) - Ms Kellyanne Conway, counsellor to President Donald Trump, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday (Jan 22) that the White House had put forth "alternative facts" to the ones reported by the news media about the size of the inauguration crowd.

She made this assertion a day after Mr Trump and Mr Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, accused the media of reporting falsehoods about the inauguration and Mr Trump's relationship with the intelligence agencies.

In leveling this attack, the president and Mr Spicer made a series of false statements.

Here are five [updated to seven] of their statements and the facts:

Democrats can’t win until they recognize how bad Obama’s financial policies were

He had opportunities to help the working class, and he passed them up.


By Matt Stoller
January 12 2017

Matt Stoller is fellow at the Open Markets Program of New America.

During his final news conference of 2016, in mid-December, President Obama criticized Democratic efforts during the election. “Where Democrats are characterized as coastal, liberal, latte-sipping, you know, politically correct, out-of-touch folks,” Obama said, “we have to be in those communities.” In fact, he went on, being in those communities — “going to fish-fries and sitting in VFW halls and talking to farmers” — is how, by his account, he became president. It’s true that Obama is skilled at projecting a populist image; he beat Hillary Clinton in Iowa in 2008, for instance, partly by attacking agriculture monopolies .

But Obama can’t place the blame for Clinton’s poor performance purely on her campaign. On the contrary, the past eight years of policymaking have damaged Democrats at all levels. Recovering Democratic strength will require the party’s leaders to come to terms with what it has become — and the role Obama played in bringing it to this point.

The four cryptic words Donald Trump can’t stop saying

By Max Ehrenfreund

June 13

Washington Post

A day after 49 people were killed in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, Donald Trump seemed to imply that President Obama might have been connected, in some way, with the attack.

"Look, we're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart or he's got something else in mind," the presumptive Republican nominee told Fox & Friends Monday morning.

Earlier in the interview, when asked why he called for Obama's resignation, Trump said, "He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands. It's one or the other."

Also during that interview, Trump repeated a four-word phrase that has come to define his conspiratorial campaign almost as much as his official slogan, "Make America Great Again."

"There's something going on," Trump said. "It's inconceivable. There's something going on."

Obama leaves a diminished America on world stage

Jonathan Eyal
Europe Correspondent

MAY 2, 2016

His stance has also diminished the foreign policy debate in the current US presidential campaign


LONDON • He didn't care much for foreign policy matters and didn't mind that people noticed his lack of interest. But with only nine months remaining to the end of his presidency, Mr Barack Obama is now busily recasting himself as an international relations guru.

The US President now gives long interviews on foreign matters to scholarly magazines read by the sort of policy wonks he never welcomed to his White House. Mr Obama has also just concluded a week-long jaunt to Europe, which proved short on real work but rich in photo opportunities. Similar grand tours are being planned for Asia in the near future.

One explanation for this remarkable transformation is the traditional desire of any US president to leave a positive legacy. But another reason for Mr Obama's increasingly frantic efforts to explain his approach to the world is the near-certainty that foreign policy would be remembered as the most controversial aspect of his presidency.

For what is increasingly being referred to as the "Obama Doctrine" not only diminished America's global footprint but is now also restricting the foreign policy options available to Mr Obama's successors. The foreign policy straitjacket under which Mrs Hillary Clinton now has to operate and the intellectual void in which Mr Donald Trump floats are both the result of fundamental flaws in Mr Obama's foreign policy vision.

What Do We Really Know About Osama bin Laden’s Death?

The history of Obama’s most important foreign-policy victory is still being written.

By JONATHAN MAHLER

OCT. 15, 2015

Mark Bowden was watching a ballgame — the Phillies versus the Mets — on the night of May 1, 2011, when the network cut away to President Obama in the East Room of the White House. “Tonight,” the president said, ‘‘I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children.’’

Five minutes or so after the president wrapped up his brief remarks, as thousands of Americans gathered in front of the White House and at ground zero chanting ‘‘U-S-A! U-S-A!’’ Bowden’s cellphone rang. It was Mike Stenson, the president of Jerry Bruckheimer Films. Bowden had worked with Bruckheimer on the film adaptation of his 1999 best seller, ‘‘Black Hawk Down.’’

‘‘Mike said, ‘Look, Mark, Jerry wants to make a movie about this bin Laden thing, and he wants to put together all of the people who made ‘Black Hawk Down,’ ’’ Bowden told me over lunch recently. ‘‘ ‘He wants to know: Would you be willing to write the script?’ ’’

Obama at the Prayer Breakfast on Religious Violence

[Using Religion to justify man's inhumanity to man is a long-cherished tradition. Three articles on Obama's speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. ]

The problem with Obama's self-criticism

FEB 10, 2015

BY ROSS DOUTHAT

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama, like many well-read inhabitants of public life, is a professed admirer of Reinhold Niebuhr, the famous mid-20th-century Protestant theologian. And more than most presidents, he has tried to incorporate one of Niebuhr's insights into his public rhetoric: the idea that no society is innocent, and that Americans, in particular, need to put aside illusions about their own alleged perfection.

The latest instance came at last week's National Prayer Breakfast, when the President, while condemning the religious violence perpetrated by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), urged Westerners not to "get on our high horse" because such violence was part of their own past as well: "During the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."

These comments were not well received by the President's critics - as, indeed, his Niebuhrian forays rarely are.

The Champion v The Challenger

Jul 02, 2014

Is a balance of power in Asia possible, when the United States and China are locked in bitter rivalry?


By Hugh White, For The Straits Times


WHAT kind of Asia do we want to live in over the coming decades?

Distinguished Singaporean statesman Professor Tommy Koh spoke for many when he wrote recently in these pages of "a balance of power in the region in which the US, China, Japan, India and the European Union are the five poles".

Within that multipolar balance, he envisaged a relationship between the US and China in which they agree "to cooperate where their interests converge, to compete where their interests do not, and to manage their differences with maturity and wisdom".

Prof Koh's vision of Asia's future is indeed a most desirable one, and I very much agree that this is what we in the region should all want. The question is whether there is much reason to believe that we will get it.

Prof Koh made his remarks in response to views that I have presented in these pages which paint a rather gloomier picture of US-China relations.

I take this gloomier view because, rather than moving towards an agreement to manage their differences with maturity and wisdom, I think we face a real risk that the US and China are being drawn into an increasingly bitter strategic rivalry.

Obama reassures allies, but doubts over ‘pivot’ to Asia persist

TODAY

APRIL 30, 2014

MANILA — From the elaborate details of a Japanese state visit to the more mundane question of how much face-time to give each of his Asian hosts, United States President Barack Obama’s aides spent months meticulously scripting his four-country tour of the region.

But, as the week-long trip wrapped up yesterday, it was clear that, while Mr Obama scored points with sceptical allies simply by showing up, not everything followed the White House plan.

3 Presidents and a Riddle Named Putin

By PETER BAKER

MARCH 23, 2014

NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON — Bill Clinton found him to be cold and worrisome, but predicted he would be a tough and able leader. George W. Bush wanted to make him a friend and partner in the war on terror, but grew disillusioned over time.

Barack Obama tried working around him by building up his protégé in the Kremlin, an approach that worked for a time but steadily deteriorated to the point that relations between Russia and the United States are now at their worst point since the end of the Cold War.

US Shutdown: Fallout for Asia; Windfall for China

China reaps rewards of US govt shutdown

4 Oct 2013


TODAY

WASHINGTON — Debate over the federal government shutdown has tended to focus on those it hurts: Veterans, tourists barred from the Lincoln Memorial and Yellowstone National Park, and giant panda enthusiasts deprived of their publicly funded panda cam.

But the shutdown has already produced at least one winner: China.

By forcing US President Barack Obama to cancel a visit next week to Malaysia and the Philippines, the impasse with House Republicans is spoiling his show of support for two South-east Asian countries that have long laboured under the shadow of China. And it is undermining his broader effort to put Asia at the heart of American foreign policy.

Mr Obama’s planned itinerary for next week — a mix of summit meetings and goodwill visits — was carefully moulded to reinforce the message to China that the United States is once again a central player in the region.

But the President’s Asian pivot keeps getting pulled back by two forces that have haunted his presidency: Strife in the Middle East and strife with Capitol Hill.

For now, the White House is clinging to the two remaining stops on Mr Obama’s tour: A Pacific Rim economic summit meeting in Indonesia at which he hopes to meet with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, and the East Asia Summit, in the sultanate of Brunei, where he is scheduled to meet the new Prime Minister of China, Mr Li Keqiang.

With little sign of a compromise that would reopen the government by this weekend, however, Mr Obama may be forced to scrap those visits, too, sending Secretary of State John Kerry as his understudy. It would be the third time he has been forced to sacrifice an Asia trip because of domestic issues — he postponed a visit in March 2010 because of the battle over the healthcare overhaul, and delayed it again four months later because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Diplomatically, it’s very harmful,” said Mr Kenneth Lieberthal, a top China adviser during the Clinton administration. “I’m sure there are some in China who say, insofar as the US pivot has China as its bullseye, this prevents them from hitting that bullseye.”

Mr Jeffrey Bader, who was Mr Obama’s senior adviser on China until 2011, said the White House’s attempt to salvage the two meetings, even amid the chaos of the shutdown, was an important sign that it remained committed to the region.

But he added: “The mayhem that compelled the decision sends an unfortunate signal to those countries that the US is far away, and that the US political system is dysfunctional.”

While Mr Obama’s plans are in flux, President Xi Jinping of China has embarked on a tour of South-east Asia with visits to Indonesia and Malaysia.

China, with its expansionist impulses, is a clear beneficiary of a distracted US. It has clashed with Malaysia and the Philippines over claims to rocky outposts in the South China Sea, which the three countries border. On previous visits, Mr Obama said the US wanted to resolve these disputes peacefully and keep sea lanes open.

The administration wants to wrap up negotiations on a trade deal by the end of this year, a goal few analysts believe it can achieve.

That may be even more elusive if Mr Obama cannot personally offer his public backing at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, on the Indonesian island of Bali.

The turmoil in Syria has reinforced the reality that the Middle East is likely to remain a preoccupation for Mr Obama.

In his speech at the United Nations last week, he mentioned Asia in a single line, noting that it could serve as an economic example.

While the President may be no less committed to the region, there is a reduction of Asia expertise on his senior team. Mr Kerry has made the Middle East, and particularly peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, his top priority, in contrast to his predecessor, Mrs Hillary Clinton, whose first trip in the post was to Asia and who led the drive to open diplomatic ties with Myanmar.

Ms Susan Rice, the National Security Adviser, has by necessity focused less on Asia than her predecessor, Mr Tom Donilon, while Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew has far less experience in the region than his predecessor, Mr Timothy Geithner.

Administration officials counter that Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and the US Trade Representative, Mr Michael Froman, are both heavily involved in Asia.

But among top officials, only Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, whose history in Asia dates to his combat service in Vietnam, seems eager to put the rebalancing at the top of his agenda.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

----------

An unfortunate twist in the US pivot

By Simon Tay

4 OCT 2013

American President Barack Obama was due to tour Asia next week to attend two key multilateral summits and visit two other countries — Malaysia and the Philippines. The White House initially described this as an “on-going commitment”, building on the American pivot to emphasise ties with the region that the President established in his first term.

Events, however, have intervened. With the domestic debacle of the American government shutdown, reports are that the President’s trip might be cancelled or, at least, shortened. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Bali and the East Asia Summit in Brunei are likely to remain on the agenda. But bilateral stops in Malaysia and the Philippines have been cut.

This will not be without costs.

Mr Obama’s pivot, after all, primarily gave a political reassurance that US commitment remains, despite the crisis and possible impact on the coffers. The actual number of troops deployed in Asia — despite past headlines about Marines near Darwin — was ancillary.

The government shutdown starkly reveals divisive and dysfunctional Beltway politics. If they can furlough jobs, cease government services and risk a downgrade in the country’s credit rating, will American politicians be consistent about faraway Asia?

THE NEW SUBTEXT

There is also Syria to show how the Middle East soaks up American time and attention. US Secretary of State John Kerry seems to be wading into Middle East issues — not only Syria, but also Iran and even Israeli-Palestinian peace. Many of these priorities were voiced by Mr Obama at the United Nations.

If he does come to Asia, the President’s speeches will no doubt shift emphasis. But a subtext has emerged to question if the pivot will be sustained in his second term. And even if sustained, American engagement may no longer be as welcome.

Take the administration’s centrepiece for trade and economic ties, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Over the past months, American negotiators have pushed hard for Asians to cough up “deliverables” that suit US interests. Resistance has grown, rather than any sense of partnership.

This is a sharp contrast to China, which has not backed down on claims in the South China Sea, but nevertheless has adjusted its diplomacy.

With Foreign Minister Wang Yi smiling benignly, Beijing is calmly laying down a 10-year strategy for engagement.

Alongside the US$500 million (S$625 million) China-ASEAN Maritime Fund and US$50 billion Asian Infrastructure Fund, an upgrade to the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement seems likely, with new Chinese concessions to benefit its South-east Asian neighbours.

Malaysia, despite having overlapping claims with China to parts of the South China Sea, will roll out the red carpet for President Xi Jinping. His three-day state visit this week is expected to usher in a new era in ties between the two countries.

This makes a sharp contrast to Mr Obama’s reported decision to cancel, especially as no incumbent US President has been to Malaysia since Lyndon B Johnson during the Vietnam War.

KILL THE CHICKEN

The Philippines, another visit that has been cancelled, is in quite a different situation. The Aquino administration has challenged the Chinese claims, both at sea and through international arbitration. Beijing in response seems to be systematically isolating the Philippines.

The planned visit by President Benigno Aquino III to the ASEAN-China trade expo — ironically a flagship friendship event — was unceremoniously upended just last month.

The lesson is clear to other Asians who recall the old Chinese adage to, “kill the chicken to scare the monkeys”.

Because of this, it is Manila who will most miss Mr Obama. The two countries are already looking to an agreement for more troop visits and discussing the development of a mini-Subic Bay to host the American navy, proximate to maritime areas in dispute.

This might be delayed by the US President’s cancellation. But it will not be derailed. Indeed, there is some danger that America may, intentionally or otherwise, overcompensate with statements that the Chinese might find provocative.

SALVAGE THE SITUATION?

If Mr Obama does come to Asia, there are opportunities to salvage matters somewhat.

Practically speaking, he can meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the sidelines of the APEC Summit as a next step in coming to an agreement over Syria.

Symbolically, if he comes despite the US government shutdown and looming debt ceiling deadline, this can show the level of his interest, even under intense pressure at home.

Not all things will be resolved. But getting on Air Force One even for a shorter visit would be something to show US commitment.

Otherwise, Asian questions about the sustainability of the American pivot will find their own answers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Simon Tay is chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs and the author of Asia Alone: The Dangerous Post-Crisis Divide from America.

Can 'an apple a day' become law?

Apr 12, 2012
 
By Andy Mukherjee

EVEN if everyone in a society agrees with the old adage - an apple a day keeps the doctor away - is it still acceptable for a government to make a daily intake of the fruit mandatory for citizens?

That is the somewhat philosophical question Republicans in the United States are asking about the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as 'Obamacare', whose constitutional validity was recently the subject of oral arguments before the United States Supreme Court.

If health insurance is like apples - or broccoli, as one of the judges likened it to during hearings - in other words, a commodity bought and sold in the marketplace, how can President Barack Obama frustrate free choice and force millions of uninsured Americans to either buy coverage or pay a penalty to the government?

It's an outrage, say the Republicans, a travesty of the idea of limited government. Democrats have a ready counter: Insurance is different from other goods because while it is possible for someone to not be in the market for broccoli, everyone is willy- nilly a buyer of health-care services.

A citizen who does not have insurance will still fall sick, and may still show up in the emergency room of a hospital. That's the point where the society - especially a prosperous one like the US - will find it hard to look the other way. Since 1986, it has been illegal in the US for hospitals to refuse to care for, or send elsewhere, patients who need critical intervention but cannot afford it.

But there is no free lunch. The cost of this additional burden on the health-care system from free riders is borne by paying insurance customers. Their premiums are higher than they would otherwise be. All that Obamacare seeks to do is to redistribute the costs.

Illegal immigrants and those who earn so little that health-care premiums will account for 8 per cent or more of household incomes will be exempt. Medicaid will expand to cover the indigent elderly (and US states resent the extra financial burden that this expansion will impose on them). But out of 50 million uninsured Americans, some 16 million will either have to sign up with insurance companies or pay penalties for not doing so.

The conservatives hate the penalties. But they are there for a reason. The advantage Obamacare offers to consumers is that it takes away the power of insurance companies to deny coverage on any pretext, including that most obnoxious one: pre-existing conditions.

To view Obamacare as an encroachment of government in private lives is silly, Democrats say, because the only way insurers can be forced to cover everyone at a fair price is by requiring individuals to get cover.

So who's right? Judging by the kind of questions the justices asked, odds that Obamacare - or at least its compulsory individual mandate - will be thrown into the garbage dump have risen in markets where traders place bets on uncertain future events.

A defeat for Obamacare will close the doors on a compromise between Republicans and Democrats and leave the US with two stark choices, one in which millions of Americans remain uninsured and vulnerable, as they are now, and the other in which everyone gets health-care services paid for by taxes.

Democrats will bristle about the injustice of the former and Republicans will not support the latter. What is so different, Republicans will ask, between Mr Obama requiring all individuals to eat an apple a day and the government taxing everyone, buying apples with the money raised and then giving away the fruit 'free' to all citizens?

The debate has no easy answers, but as for Obamacare being an intrusion into free choice, surely there is something inherently 'un-free' about a parent having to worry about the financial consequences of children falling sick?

There is also something deeply immoral about the tyranny of insurance companies that all of us - anywhere in the world - must suffer. Denying coverage to someone who has high cholesterol but no other manifest health issues? That's awful. And it gets worse when every insurer follows the 'industry best practice' and leaves people uninsured.

This kind of discrimination may make insurance companies worthy of their shareholders' admiration. But if the whole point of insurance is to avoid payouts, then people may as well demand that their government move towards a Canadian-type, mostly tax-funded health-care system. Today, it is seen as un-American. Maybe that view will change; maybe it won't.

To the extent that health is a subject in which every society has a keen interest, the world will pay attention to the US Supreme Court, which is expected to announce its decision in June.

andym@sph.com.sg

Obama Says 'If I Had a Son, He'd Look Like Trayvon' - NYTimes.com

March 23, 2012
Obama Speaks Out on Trayvon Martin Killing
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

President Obama spoke in highly personal terms on Friday about how the shooting in Florida of a 17-year-old black youth named Trayvon Martin had affected him, saying that “if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

The comments by Mr. Obama were his first on the explosive case in which a neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman, has claimed self-defense after shooting Mr. Martin several weeks ago. The case has generated outrage about the state’s so-called Stand Your Ground law.

Mr. Obama was asked about his feelings regarding the case during the announcement of his nominee for president of the World Bank in the Rose Garden on Friday morning.

The president often appears perturbed when he is asked off-topic questions at ceremonial events, but on Friday, he seemed eager to address the case, which has quickly developed into a cause célèbre around the country. He cautioned that his comments would be limited because the Justice Department was investigating. But he talked at length about his personal feelings about the case.

“I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this,” Mr. Obama said. “All of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen.”

The brief remarks were nonetheless a rare example of Mr. Obama speaking to the nation as an African-American parent and the father of two children.

“Obviously, this is a tragedy. I can only imagine what these parents are going through,” Mr. Obama said, his face grim. “When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids.”
President Obama spoke in the Rose Garden at the White House on Friday.Jonathan Ernst/ReutersPresident Obama spoke in the Rose Garden at the White House on Friday.

The most powerful line came at the end of his brief remarks, as he said that his “main message” was directed at the parents of Mr. Martin, who have expressed their deep grief during interviews on television over the last several days.

“You know, if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” Mr. Obama said, pausing for a moment. “I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves, and we are going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.”

Mr. Obama sidestepped some of the most sensitive and politically charged specifics about the case — whether Mr. Zimmerman should be arrested; whether the Stand Your Ground law goes too far in protecting people who shoot others; whether the police chief in Sanford, where the shooting took place, should be fired. (The chief, Bill Lee, stepped down temporarily on Thursday, saying he had become a distraction to the investigation.)

“I’m the head of the executive branch, and the attorney general reports to me,” Mr. Obama said. “So I’ve got to be careful about my statements to make sure that we’re not impairing any investigation that’s taking place right now.”

Thousands of supporters of Mr. Martin’s parents expressed their outrage about the killing at a rally in Florida on Thursday night, adding to the growing political dimensions of the case.
Trayvon Martin.Courtesy of Sybrina FultonTrayvon Martin.

The shooting took place Feb. 26, when Mr. Zimmerman, 28, pursued, confronted and fatally shot Mr. Martin, an unarmed high school student carrying only an iced tea and a bag of Skittles.

In a statement on Friday, Mitt Romney, the presumed front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, said: “What happened to Trayvon Martin is a tragedy. There needs to be a thorough investigation that reassures the public that justice is carried out with impartiality and integrity.”

Rick Santorum made some pointed comments about the killing while campaigning at a shooting range in West Monroe, La., before the Louisiana primary on Saturday.

“Well, stand your ground is not doing what this man did,” he said. “There’s a difference between stand your ground and doing what he did. It’s a horrible case. I mean it’s chilling to hear what happened, and of course the fact that law enforcement didn’t immediately go after and prosecute this case is another chilling example of horrible decisions made by people in this process.”

Newt Gingrich, campaigning Friday in Port Fourchon, La., said the district attorney had done “the right thing” in empaneling a grand jury. But, speaking of Mr. Zimmerman, he said it was “pretty clear that this is a guy who found a hobby that’s very dangerous.”

“Having some kind of neighborhood watch is reasonable, but you had somebody who was clearly overreaching,” Mr. Gingrich said. “As I understand Florida law, what he was doing had nothing to do with the law that people are talking about.”

A History of Caution on Race

The last time the president waded into a racially charged incident, it became a political problem for him.

Asked at a news conference about the arrest of a black Harvard professor in the summer of 2009, Mr. Obama offered his opinion, saying that the white officer from Cambridge, Mass., had acted “stupidly” and starting a weeklong controversy about what he said.

“I think it’s fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry; No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, No. 3 , what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately,’’ Mr. Obama said at the time. “That’s just a fact.’’

Mr. Obama eventually invited the professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and the police officer, James Crowley, to the White House to discuss the situation over some beers.

But despite that incident, the president has been careful not to wade into racial politics. As the nation’s first African-American president, he is sometimes criticized by black leaders who say he is not doing enough to deal with problems in that community.

Asked about the issue in a news conference in his first few months in office, Mr. Obama defended his approach as one that “will lift all boats” by working to “level the playing field and ensure bottom-up economic growth.”

“I’m confident that that will help the African-American community live out the American dream at the same time that it’s helping communities all across the country,” Mr. Obama said in April of 2009.

Richard A. Oppel contributed reporting from West Monroe, La., and Trip Gabriel from Port Fourchon, La.

[I think Obama is doing the right thing. He is POTUS, not President of African-Americans. He is a symbol that the members of that community has progressed, if not arrived. If he does help the African-American community, it should be in his personal capacity as far as possible. Which is difficult to do as POTUS.]

The cost of bipartisan bickering over US budget

Apr 21, 2011

Risk of lower credit rating if Democrats and Republicans can't agree
 
By Chua Chin Hon

WHEN it comes to the worrying state of public finances in the United States, the writing has been on the wall for years.

The latest warning by credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P), which on Monday changed its long-term outlook on American debt from 'stable' to 'negative' for the first time, technically says nothing that is not already known.

The agency points out, for instance, that 'US policymakers might not reach an agreement on how to address medium and long-term budgetary challenges by 2013'. Anyone who has been following the fractious debate on this issue would not come to a different conclusion.

S&P's announcement doesn't alter market fundamentals either. Yes, global stocks slid on the news, but there were other market concerns in play as well, such as the debt crisis in Europe and inflation in China.

Ultimately, there is just no credible alternative to US Treasuries at the moment, even if panicky institutional investors are looking to diversify their investments.

The agency's economists must know this as well. So why go out on a limb like this and draw the collective scorn of their peers in the US?

One possible explanation is that the message is aimed not at economists, but rather the warring factions in Washington, particularly freshmen Republican lawmakers who are spoiling for a protracted fight over the country's purse strings. This could account for why the seven-page ratings report came with a 10-page explanation.

By injecting itself publicly into the conversation and going well beyond the usual polite warnings issued by institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, S&P's blunt message to the Democrats and Republicans seems to be this: Don't assume the partisan warfare is risk free, and understand that the ensuing gridlock will have real, not abstract, consequences.

To drive home its point, S&P warns specifically that there is a one-in-three chance that America could lose its top credit rating over the next two years if lawmakers do not come up with a credible plan to bring down the budget deficits.

The US has been given a triple A rating ever since the agency began its ratings 70 years ago. Losing this top rating would mean higher borrowing costs, a development that would worsen the budget deficit, which is expected to hit US$1.65 trillion (S$2 trillion) this year. The US national debt is already at a record US$14 trillion.

This in turn weakens Washington's ability to deal with future financial crises, and the needs of its own ageing population.

The political elites in Washington are not unaware of the problem. President Barack Obama and the Republican party's rising star, Mr Paul Ryan, have in fact used blunter language than S&P when talking about the long-term fallout.

Mr Obama warned in a speech last week: 'Even after our economy recovers, our government will still be on track to spend more money than it takes in throughout this decade and beyond.

'By 2025, the amount of taxes we currently pay will only be enough to finance our health-care programmes, social security, and the interest we owe on our debt. That's it. Every other national priority - education, transportation, even national security - will have to be paid for with borrowed money.'

Mr Ryan, who chairs the budget committee of the lower legislative Chamber, was no less candid, saying: 'The economic effects of a debt crisis on the US would be far worse than what the nation experienced during the financial crisis of 2008... absent a bailout, the only solutions to a debt crisis would be truly painful: massive tax increases, sudden and disruptive cuts to vital programmes, runaway inflation, or all three.'

But while they agree on the seriousness of the problem, their proposed solutions cannot be more different.

Mr Ryan's plan to slash the deficit by US$4.4 trillion over a 10-year period essentially calls for a major scaling back of the welfare state. This would involve eliminating two major government-run medical programmes for the poor and the elderly, and major cutbacks on social welfare benefits - policies which no Democratic leader can agree with.

To jump-start economic growth, he proposes to extend tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations so that they would be motivated to invest and create more jobs.

Mr Obama countered with what he called a more 'balanced' proposal to cut US$4 trillion over 12 years that would still allow the country to preserve its current social welfare system, albeit with some painful reforms. To increase government revenue, however, he would raise taxes on the rich - a non-starter for Republicans who are against tax hikes of any sort.

The duelling plans reflect the deep philosophical differences between the two political parties. Conventional wisdom in Washington suggests that this argument can be settled only at the voting booth next November when the presidential and legislative elections are held.

No doubt the point of having elections in the first place is to settle these fundamental differences in a peaceful manner. That's what democracies are meant to do. But at the same time, a serious solution to the fiscal crisis takes time to implement and demands long-term commitment from both sides. It simply cannot be a one-sided approach that one party undertakes, which the other party tries to overturn.

As the S&P report rightfully points out: 'For any plan to be credible, we believe that it would need to secure support from a cross-section of leaders in both political parties.'

Mr Obama has reacted by maintaining that the Democrats and Republicans can reach a deal. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also insists in new interviews that the prospects for a bipartisan deal are better than ever.

Let's hope they are right, and that the S&P's provocative move doesn't end up being ammunition for an uglier political battle in the months ahead.

chinhon@sph.com.sg

Arizona passes 'birther' bill, amid Obama questions

Apr 16, 2011

[Excerpt]

LOS ANGELES - ARIZONA is set to become the first US state to force presidential hopefuls to prove their citizenship, after deputies agreed the move highlighted by questions over President Barack Obama's birthplace.

Governor Jan Brewer has five days to sign into law a bill passed by Arizona's legislature late on Thursday that requires presidential candidates to prove they are US citizens to get on the state ballot.

'It's essential that we bring back the integrity to the office,' Republican state lawmaker Judy Burges said during a debate on the so-called 'birther' measures, agreed by a wide margin in a vote by deputies.

Ms Brewer's office did not immediately say when she plans to sign House Bill 2177. She can either sign it, veto it or do nothing and allow it to come into force, The Arizona Republic reported.

[A congresswoman was shot by a mentally unstable young man. Gun control issues, mental healthcare issues, law enforcement issues -- nope. Let's go after a fictitious issue. US democracy at work.]

Mideast unrest is a change the world should believe in, scholar says

25.02.11

Middle East scholar Prof. Fouad Ajami says current furor in the Arab world catalyzed not by a fruit vendor in Tunisia but by the execution of Saddam Hussein.

By Natasha Mozgovaya

The conventional wisdom has it that the wave of revolutions shaking up the Middle East these days began with Tunisian produce-seller Mohamed Bouazizi, who immolated himself in reaction to a humiliating slap by a policewoman. Prof. Fouad Ajami, a renowned scholar of the Middle East, commentator and writer who had close ties to the Bush administration, thinks the sign of what was to come actually appeared several years earlier, with the arrest of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

"There was a very distinct moment," says Ajami. "Yes, Saddam was flushed out of his spider hole. There was something very significant - they saw him come, hands up, without firing a shot. So they learned about the falseness and the false bravado of these dictators they revered and whose names they chanted. They saw him surrender in a very humiliating way. People who loved Saddam, people who hated Saddam, took notice of what happened."

Unlike many other conservative commentators, Ajami, who in his day aroused sharp controversy because of his staunch support for the war in Iraq, has reservations about giving all the credit to the Bush doctrine. "It wasn't American tanks" that brought about this moment, he observes. "It was a homegrown enterprise. It was Egyptians, Tunisians, Libyans conquering their fear - people went out and conquered fear and did something amazing."

Why didn't it happen before?

Ajami: "You know I have a feeling that if you and I sat down and looked at every revolution, the Chinese, the Bolshevik, etc., we could always say, and we would be absolutely right: Look at this pile, all the ingredients of revolution are there - hunger, tyranny, corruption, corrupt wives, corrupt greedy sons, etc. - and nothing happens. And then someone throws a match into this pile, and the world erupts. It really is a mystery. There's a mystery in all revolutions. After these Arab revolutions of 2011, I just pulled a whole bunch of books off the shelves and began looking at the Bolshevik revolution, the French revolution and other revolutions, and the question that you so rightly posed could be asked of any and each revolution: Why did it erupt on a certain day when all the ingredients were there and nothing happened? 'Who would have thunk it,' as they say in Texas? Who would have thought that a vegetable seller in a forlorn Tunisian village would get slapped in the face by a headstrong policewoman and that all hell would break loose in the Arab world?

"Suddenly the Egyptians had this remarkable gift given to them. They felt challenged by Tunisia, they felt that the Tunisians had stolen a march on them, as you say. And there you go - you have this revolution. A friend of mine, an Egyptian I love dearly, described to me his excitement on the phone. He said, 'On Friday January 28, a very big day in the Egyptian revolution, I went to the mosque, I prayed, I then went across the street to have some coffee and then go home, and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I see tens of thousands of people, an endless stream of humanity making its way to Tahrir, and I never expected to see this happen in my country.'"

This spontaneity, says Ajami, "is the nature of revolution. They happen suddenly and their speed is astonishing."

Until now, the scholar admits, he didn't have a good sense about where things were heading in the Arab world. "I had written some books and always had this kind of pessimism about Arab politics - and always had this feeling that there are terrible rulers and worse oppositions. But this revolution of 2011 has given me hope that something different is being born. Observing the upheaval in Tunisia and Egypt and the general trends in the region - you just have a hope that a new politics is rearing its head.

"In this revolution I sense that people my age, who were born and raised in post-World War II years, the baby boomers - we are done, we are finished, there is nothing left, we've given what we could and we've failed at things that we failed at, but there is something about these young people that seems more true to me, more optimistic, less ideological.

"We haven't seen it fully, but I'm optimistic about Egypt. They have in their DNA this kind of democratic politics, they remember that there was once democratic politics, a progressive social agenda, that Egypt was once a decent country. I understand that crowds are dangerous and crowds can turn, but there is something about these crowds that didn't chant about America, didn't chant 'death to the Jewish state.' There is promise in this moment of Arab politics. It's not a sure thing, history never gives us this kind of confidence, and revolutions get betrayed, revolutions get hijacked, revolutions go astray, wrong men come to power. All these outcomes are very possible, but there is something in this moment that bodes well for Arabs.

"These young people - I cannot fear them. I have a granddaughter who is 4 years old, and I see a girl a bit older than her with an Egyptian flag, and I see people bringing their kids to Tahrir Square to show them the new liberty. I can't tell them: 'Sorry, boys, I don't believe in you.' I can't do this, because it's a betrayal of history. I believe in these people and I will speak for them, until shown something else. History is open, and I can't say the region will always be stuck with these pathologies."

But we're talking about the same generation that was proclaimed the lost one - frustrated young people who are having a hard time finding jobs and making their voices heard in oppressive regimes.

"Not everyone is Mohamed Atta," responds Ajami, referring to the young Egyptian who was one of the September 11 hijackers. "I don't think that I want to hold Atta as a rebuke to those young people, and what they are showing us - that they are willing to stay peaceful in revolution. And I can't tell them, 'Look, you are all pathological Mohamed Attas.' It's just completely cruel. Because people come because of the love of their country and because they've defeated the fear of death squads. I won't break faith with these people until I see something that calls for breaking faith with them. Before that, I won't condemn them. I saw Libyan people conquering fear with all they know about the cruelty of the monster Muammar Gadhafi and telling us they wish to be free of his tyranny. I don't think it's much of a choice. When you see history, and you see it to be noble, you have to respond. You can't hold previous afflictions and maladies against them. So my conscience is clear on this one - this is a good revolution."

No good autocrats

For several years, the West flirted with Gadhafi after he gave up his nuclear program and agreed to pay compensation to the families of the Lockerbie bombing victims. Ajami, though, never had any illusions about him.

"I think he's a killer, hyena and part fox," he says. "I never believed anything he said. I've written a book that basically chronicled his murder of Imam Mussa Sadr [a Lebanese Shi'ite leader who mysteriously disappeared along with his retinue on a visit to Libya in 1978 at Gadhafi's invitation].

"There are no good autocrats," he adds, and that applies to King Abdullah of Jordan as well. "I don't believe in King Abdullah. Governments don't mean a lot in Jordan, the palace decides everything. Besides, he did something that to me is very problematic - he promised his father on his deathbed that his half-brother Hamza would be his crown prince, and then he decided at the drop of a hat to make his own son his inheritor. It seems wrong to me, it's a break of faith. Anyway, King Abdullah has his own problems at home. He is not going to be overthrown, but he has to draw a decent social contract with his country. He needs to spend less time in Davos and with the Clinton's initiative and more with the tribes of Jordan. He, too, needs to change his ways. If he won't, he'll end up exactly where the others ended. He has a possibility of being reformed. He is not Bashar Assad. He is no killer. But nevertheless, he is not a democrat either. He's a kind of mild autocrat. I want to see him come to terms with the realities of Jordan."
We've been told by analysts many times that the only organized opposition in the Arab world is Islamists. We've seen pretty different crowds in Tahrir Square and solidarity among protesters of different Arab countries. Is it some reincarnation of Pan-Arabism, Facebook age?

"In my opinion, pan-Arabism is dead. It's finished. Pan-Arabism of my generation, of Gamal Abdel Nasser, that argued that borders don't exist, is finished completely. There are young people that can get on Facebook, Twitter - they do have these means of communication, but they are Tunisians, Egyptians, they don't insist on this immortal Arab nation. They do not say the borders are false. They don't hold pan-Arab solutions, they hold national solutions. They know the specificity of Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen. So this old Arab nationalism is dead and can never be revived. The young are done with it. They are concerned about tyrannies, about the theft, the plundering, the personal fortunes amassed by the Gadhafis, the house of Mubarak, the house of Assad. These rulers stole the public treasures and became wealthy beyond any comprehension.

"You have 360 million Arabs ruled by a handful of autocrats, mostly old, but some young, as in Jordan, Syria and Morocco. And eight of the Arab states practice torture on a regular basis. We know there are political prisons for the dissidents. We know there is massive economic failure, that the Arab world did not have economic growth since the '80s, that tens of millions of Arabs live below the poverty line.

"The young Arabs see the facts of their life, and many are eager to flee the Arab world, to London or Berlin or Oslo, and many of them leave. But this is their world and they have to make a stand in Cairo and Rabat and Tunis. They have to try to build a better public order for themselves. The pathologies of the Arab world are so deep, and these young people came to understand these pathologies.

"Lately I've been receiving a lot of letters by email from young Arabs trying to make sense of what is happening around them, and I was struck by their patriotism, love of home, Egypt, Tunisia, Gulf countries. They wish to reclaim their countries for themselves, from the dictators and their wives and their children. There was a kind of celebratory mood, and as a historian I know these things sometimes evaporate, but something has convinced me this is a very special moment in the lives of Arabs."

How does Israel fit into this new reality?

"I think Israel should not be afraid of Arab democracy. I've been very friendly to Israel and [to] the prospects of reconciliation between Israel and the Arab world, so take this as advice from a friend. I can remind you of what Natan Sharansky pointed out when he said that democrats who hate you are less dangerous than dictators who love you. There is a certain level of security that comes from autocracies, and Israel is not alone in this. The United States went to many lands and preferred dealing with autocrats because there is stability there. But the bargain with an autocrat is never a good bargain.

"Israel had made peace with pharaohs, but the peace between Israel and the Arab people has not yet come. And I understand that it's harder and more risky, but I still think that the peace of democracies makes more sense. There is something we now fully understand: Dictators that made peace with Israel and an accommodation with the U.S. - they always played from the bottom of the deck and always resorted to anti-Americanism, anti-modernism and anti-Semitism. I call that the 'holy trinity.' Therefore, Israel shouldn't be afraid of the coming of democracy in the Arab world. I've thought about it, it wasn't always the position I held, I understand the stability of dictatorships, but in the long run, if you want a long-lasting peace, you have to be willing to bet on this democratic experiment."

Peace will endure

Ajami says that if he "were in Israel's shoes," he would also have accepted peace offers from Egypt's Sadat and Jordan's King Hussein.

"The journalists, the physicians, the associations, the intellectuals were against the peace," he notes. "It was an orphan peace. Nobody wanted to be its father. But I think the next stage should be a deeper peace. It should really meet the requirement of Sharansky for a democratic peace."

Asked whether peace between Israel and other countries in the Arab world can be achieved without an agreement with the Palestinians, Ajami replies: "In the case of Egypt and Jordan, they did strike peace on their own. It can happen, but the Arab states in the near future will make the argument that they'll wait until the peace with the Palestinians."

The Egyptians, Ajami is convinced, will maintain the peace agreement. "Not because they love Israel, but because they know the history of what happened in the Arab-Israeli wars of the past. I think the military will keep this peace. It was Sadat who made the peace and Mubarak kept it. The military is going to be very important in Egypt, come what may. People ask, what are the possible futures for Egypt - is it a democracy, is it a theocracy, is it a military dictatorship? And the answer is: all these things and none of the above. There will be elements of religion in politics, there will be strong elements of democracy, and a strong guardian role for the army. I think Egypt has shown the world something good about its civility. I can discern the trends in Egypt's history and I am optimistic now."

He hesitates to predict the effect of the revolutions on the Palestinians. "I don't know what moves them and how they relate to this Arab revolution. I know that Palestinians sympathized with Saddam Hussein. So when the new Iraq was being built, with which I fully and wholeheartedly sympathize, I felt somewhat puzzled and disappointed that they had cast their fate with Saddam and preferred Saddam to what the new Iraq would present to them. So I have stayed away from any commentary on them."

In recent weeks, including this past one, Ajami was invited with other Middle East experts for discussion sessions at the White House.

"I'm not a natural for this White House," he admits. "I've written for two years now against President Barack Obama, ever since he was a candidate. I respect the alternation of power. I had access to the Bush White House, to President Bush directly, to Vice President Cheney, I knew and respected Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, I was a friend of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, I knew [National Security Adviser Stephen] Hadley and Secretary Rice. I shared their politics and so their doors were open to me. So I'm not exactly a favorite of this White House, but I was pleased that they invited me. I didn't really contribute much, and we were bound by a confidentiality that I respected.

"My general view of it is now President Obama has a chance with Libya. If I was a policy advocate in a more direct way, I would call on President Obama to declare that the Ghadafi regime is hereby illegitimate and fallen. We consider any regime that uses helicopter gunships and mass terror and mercenaries against its own people, we consider it an illegitimate regime and we will no longer traffic with it. Now people will say, what will you get for this? And I would say a lot. If indeed the president of the United States were to declare Ghadafi's goons illegitimate, there are many, many people sitting on the fence in Libya who would take heart from this.

"Senator [John] Kerry, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said something very compelling. He said that we should put the commanders in Libya on notice, that we know who they are, that we are going to follow what they are doing, and come the fall of the regime, we will hold them responsible for war crimes. This would make a tremendous difference.

"I don't agree that there's nothing in the middle between either sending the Marines or wringing our hands. We're not going to send the Marines, that's not going to happen, but wringing our hands is morally and strategically problematic. If it takes declaring the Ghadafi regime illegitimate, an outlaw regime, if we say this unequivocally, not through the secretary of state, not through Vice President Biden, but through Barack Obama himself, standing up in broad daylight saying, 'Look, we've seen all we need to see from this regime, we don't think Muammar Gadhafi is redeemable, and we call upon the Libyan people to hold these criminals accountable' - this would make a tremendous amount of difference."

A Singapore lesson for US politics

Jan 31, 2011

By Thomas L. Friedman

I AM in the Gan Eng Seng Primary School in a middle-class neighbourhood of Singapore, and the principal, Aw Ai Ling, has me visiting a fifth-grade science class.

All the 11-year-old boys and girls are wearing junior white lab coats with their names on them.

Outside in the hall, yellow police tape has blocked off a 'crime scene' and lying on a floor, bloodied, is a fake body that has been murdered.

The class is learning about DNA through the use of fingerprints, and their science teacher has turned the pupils into little Crime Scene Investigation detectives. They have to collect fingerprints from the scene and then break them down.

I missed that DNA lesson when I was in fifth grade.

When I asked the principal whether this was part of the national curriculum, she said 'no'.

She just had a great science teacher, she said, and was aware that Singapore was making a big push to expand its biotech industries and thought it would be good to push her pupils in the same direction early.

A couple of them checked my fingerprints. I was innocent - but impressed.

This was just an average public school, but the principal had made her own connections between 'What world am I living in', 'Where is my country trying to go in that world' and, therefore, 'What should I teach in fifth-grade science'.

I was struck because that kind of linkage is so often missing in United States politics today.

Republicans favour deep cuts in government spending, while so far exempting Medicare, Social Security and the defence budget.

Not only is that not realistic, but it basically says that our nation's priorities should be to fund retirement homes for older people rather than better schools for younger people and that we should build new schools in Afghanistan before Alabama.

President Barack Obama just laid out a smart and compelling vision of where our priorities should be. But he did not spell out how and where we will have to both cut and invest - really intelligently and at a large scale - to deliver on his vision.

Singapore is tiny and by no means a US-style democracy.

Yet, like America, it has a multi-ethnic population - Chinese, Indian and Malay - with a big working class.

It has no natural resources and even has to import sand for building.

But today its per capita income is just below US levels, built with high-end manufacturing, services and exports.

The country's economy grew last year at 14.7 per cent, led by biomedical exports.

How?

If Singapore has one thing to teach America, it is about taking governing seriously, relentlessly asking: What world are we living in and how do we adapt to thrive?

'We're like someone living in a hut without any insulation,' explained Mr Tan Kong Yam, an economist. 'We feel every change in the wind or the temperature and have to adapt.

'You Americans are still living in a brick house with central heating and don't have to be so responsive.'

And we have not been.

Singapore probably has the freest market in the world; it doesn't believe in import tariffs, minimum wages or unemployment insurance.

But it believes regulators need to make sure markets work properly - because they can't on their own - and it subsidises home-ownership and education to give everyone a foundation to become self-reliant.

Singapore copied the German model that strives to put everyone who graduates from high school on a track for higher education, but only about 40 per cent go to universities.

Others are tracked to polytechnics or vocational institutes, so the vast majority graduate with the skills to get a job, whether it be as a plumber or a scientist.

Explained Mr Ravi Menon, the Permanent Secretary of Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry: 'The two 'isms' that perhaps best describe Singapore's approach are: pragmatism - an emphasis on what works in practice rather than abstract theory; and eclecticism - a willingness to adapt to the local context best practices from around the world.'

It is a sophisticated mix of radical free market and nanny state that requires sophisticated policymakers to implement, which is why politics here is not treated as sports or entertainment.

Top bureaucrats and Cabinet ministers have their pay linked to top private sector wages, so most make well over US$1 million (S$1.3 million) a year, and their bonuses are tied to the country's annual GDP growth rate. It means the Government can attract high-quality professionals and corruption is low.

America never would or should copy Singapore's less-than-free politics. But Singapore has something to teach us about 'attitude' - about taking governing seriously and thinking strategically.

We used to do that and must again because our little brick house with central heating is not going to be resistant to the storms much longer.

'There is real puzzlement here about America today,' said Professor Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, 'because we learnt all about what it takes to build a well-functioning society from you.

'Many of our top officials are graduates of the Kennedy School at Harvard. They just came back home and applied its lessons vigorously.'

NEW YORK TIMES

Obama's 'Sputnik call' a desperate distraction

Jan 28, 2011
Commentary

Real issue US faces isn't threat from rising Asia, but domestic politicking

By Chua Chin Hon, US Bureau Chief

WHEN the former Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik 1, the world's first earth-orbiting satellite, in October 1957 and beat the Americans into space, it produced a wake-up call that many here have since dubbed the 'Sputnik moment'.
More than half a century later, President Barack Obama is hoping to rally the United States around a second 'Sputnik moment' supposedly created by the rise of new economic powerhouses in Asia.
In his annual State of the Union speech on Tuesday, he cited the following as examples of how the US might be falling behind: South Korea has faster Internet access, India is investing more in mathematics and science education, and China has the world's largest private solar research facility and the world's fastest computer.
He added: 'The world has changed. The competition for jobs is real...This is our generation's Sputnik moment.'
It is a memorable line. The only problem is that no such moment exists.
For one thing, the successes that China, India and South Korea currently enjoy accrue from decades of steady development, and not from any singular event.
Neither have these Asian powers produced an economic or technological game changer on the same scale as the Sputnik.
The successful launch of the Soviet satellite in 1957 not only showed up the inadequacies of the American space programme at that time, but also posed a range of uncomfortable security and military questions for the US. Some worried then, for instance, that Soviet nuclear weapons might start dropping on American cities from the sky.
The solar research labs and fast computers in Asia, while impressive, simply don't pose the kind of existential threat that the Sputnik represented at the time.
This is not to say that China or India will not produce a new breakthrough at some point in the future that will change the world. But for now, it is clear that the real question surrounding the future of US leadership and the nation's competitiveness does not come from developments in Asia or elsewhere.
The real issue at hand - as evidenced by the two distinct governing philosophies offered by Mr Obama and the opposition Republicans on Tuesday night - is how the US resolves its own deepening political divide at home.
At one end of the argument we have Mr Obama calling for a new wave of investments that would allow America to 'out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world'.
In his view, the US government, as it had done through history, should take the lead in these reforms and innovations, such as by providing the seed money for scientists who might not otherwise find support in the free market.
He cited examples like the computer chip and global positioning system, inventions which started out as military or government programmes before they found widespread commercial application.
On the other end of the argument, we have the Republicans and the conservative Tea Party movement clamouring for a return to smaller government. They also believe that Washington's most urgent mission is to reduce, not increase, runaway government spending.
Republican lawmaker Paul Ryan, a rising star who was picked to deliver the official opposition response to Mr Obama's address, said on Tuesday night: 'Depending on bureaucracy to foster innovation, competitiveness and wise consumer choices has never worked - and it won't work now.
'We need to reclaim our American system of limited government... and free enterprise (which) have helped make America the greatest nation on earth.'
The central dilemma boils down to this: Will America recover its footing best by emulating a little of what its competitors are doing in terms of state-led capitalism and strategic planning?
Or would it do better by returning to its founding principles of liberty and limited government, as Mr Ryan and most conservatives suggest, and let the free market work its magic?
The commonsensical answer would be a combination of both approaches. But as the heated political rhetoric and bitter election of the past year have shown, there is little chance the two sides can reconcile their fundamental differences any time soon.
If anything else, most Tea Party activists regard Mr Obama as a bigger 'threat' to America than foreign competition, frequently citing his ambitious agenda and governing philosophy as a roadmap to 'socialism' and financial ruin for the country.
In Tuesday's address, Mr Obama made brief references to the realities of governing in a democracy - 'we will argue about everything' - but said almost nothing about how he planned to bridge the political divide.
Will invoking the spectre of a foreign threat help coax a little more support from the opposition? Maybe, but it smacks of desperation.
More importantly perhaps, it is out of step with a leader who has spoken so eloquently about ushering in a new era of comity and cooperation in international relations.
As Mr Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution points out: 'Do we want to go back to that kind of mindless 'oh my god, the Soviets are going to beat us' (attitude)? That's an interesting framework to want to introduce in 2011.'
chinhon@sph.com.sg

India and China gaining on US, Obama warns

Jan 27, 2011

US President urges Americans to rise to challenge in new world

By Chua Chin Hon, US Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON: Flagging the competition from new economic powerhouses like China and India as a big challenge to United States primacy, President Barack Obama yesterday called on Americans to out-educate, out-innovate and out-build the rest of the world to 'win the future'.

In his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Mr Obama repeatedly cited gains that the two countries - and others - have made at the expense of the US.

To compete in this new world, 'they started educating their children earlier and longer, with greater emphasis on maths and science', he said.

'They're investing in research and new technologies. Just recently, China became home to the world's largest private solar research facility, and the world's fastest computer,' he told a joint session of Congress.

The nation that built the transcontinental railroad, brought electricity to rural communities, and constructed the interstate highway system has been bested in many areas in recent years by these rising Asian countries, he said.

'Our infrastructure used to be the best - but our lead has slipped. South Korean homes now have greater Internet access than we do. Countries in Europe and Russia invest more in their roads and railways than we do. China is building faster trains and newer airports. Meanwhile, when our own engineers graded our nation's infrastructure, they gave us a 'D',' said Mr Obama.

'We have to do better.'

While the world has changed, he said, the competition should not discourage Americans, but challenge them.

'Remember, for all the hits we've taken these last few years, for all the naysayers predicting our decline, America still has the largest, most prosperous economy in the world,' he said.

'No workers are more productive than ours. No country has more successful companies, or grants more patents to inventors and entrepreneurs. We're the home to the world's best colleges and universities.'

It is now up to this generation of Americans to meet the demands of a new age.

'We need to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit, and reform our government. That's how our people will prosper. That's how we'll win the future,' Mr Obama said.

[This sounds so much like a speech our PM would give to Singaporeans.]

He plans to propose in his upcoming budget new investments in areas like biomedical research, information technology and clean energy technology, he said.

He outlined some major goals:

# Enable clean energy sources to supply 80 per cent of America's electricity by 2035.

# Provide 80 per cent of Americans with access to high-speed rail within 25 years.

# Expand coverage of high-speed wireless Internet to reach nearly all Americans by 2016.

# A 'Race to the Top' school reform programme to promote science and learning.

The President did not put a price tag on the package of proposed investments, but suggested that Washington could help pay for these initiatives by eliminating tax breaks to oil companies and streamlining the government bureaucracy.

In a nod to Republican concerns about the unsustainable levels of government debt, he proposed a five-year freeze in spending on some domestic programmes that would cut spending by more than US$400 billion (S$512 billion) over the next 10 years. But he warned that the cuts should be judicious and not end up hurting long-term US competitiveness.

'Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine,' he said. 'It may feel like you're flying high at first, but it won't take long before you'll feel the impact.'

But the opposition Republicans poured cold water on Mr Obama's vision and proposals. Republican lawmaker Paul Ryan, tasked with delivering a formal response, called attention to the runaway fiscal deficit and the need to return to limited government.

'Our debt is out of control. What was a fiscal challenge is now a fiscal crisis... Just take a look at what's happening to Greece, Ireland and other nations in Europe. Their day of reckoning has arrived. Ours is around the corner,' he said.

The contrasting visions of the two speeches will probably become a key theme for the 2012 presidential campaign. Many regard Mr Obama's remarks as the opening speech of his re-election campaign.

Striking a centrist tone that has helped revive some of his political fortunes in recent months, the President reminded the divided Congress that the economic challenges before the country are bigger than their political differences.

'This is our generation's Sputnik moment,' he said, referring to the launch of the first Earth-orbiting satellite in 1957 by the former Soviet Union. The event shocked the US into embarking on a major wave of space research and development.

The President said relatively little about US foreign policy goals and objectives. He made perfunctory references to Iraq, Pakistan and the fighting in Afghanistan, but gave no new assessment on the progress in these key hot spots.

'Foreign policy will play second fiddle to domestic policy when the administration talks about its agenda in the year to come,' wrote Mr James Lindsay of the Council on Foreign Relations. 'The mantra going forward will be opportunities, jobs and growth, not threats, war and diplomacy.'

chinhon@sph.com.sg

When leaks expose a giant's helplessness

Dec 6, 2010

The real damage from leaked cables: sense of US inability to act

By Chua Chin Hon

WHATEVER you make of the value of the secret diplomatic cables being released by WikiLeaks, it is painfully clear that United States diplomacy will be set back for years.

With a quarter of a million once-private documents going public in the coming days, weeks and months, American diplomats are going to have a tough time regaining the trust of their foreign counterparts and the leaders of those countries.

The difficulties will be particularly pronounced in East Asia and the Middle East, where affairs of the state are conducted strictly behind closed doors. In these regions, discretion and secrecy are not optional but mandatory in diplomatic exchanges.

As one incredulous diplomat put it to me earlier last week: 'This is just unbelievable. You can't imagine the amount of distrust and suspicion that will go on in future meetings.'

But as damaging as the whole episode has been - or will be - it does not fundamentally alter the calculus that informs most countries' interaction with Washington.

Nor does it change the fact that the US is still the 800-pound gorilla of global diplomacy and politics.

The roads to peace in the Middle East, global climate change legislation, and action on Iran and North Korea's nuclear ambition all pass through Washington, DC.

In other words, countries around the world will still have to consult and deal with American diplomats, scandal or no scandal.

But any serious diplomat or policymaker must surely be asking himself or herself this: How long will this status quo last, given the worrying list of things gone wrong in the US these days?

Even if you don't buy all that talk about the supposed 'American decline', it is honestly hard to look at the back-to-back crises of the last two years - financial meltdown, rocky elections, political gridlock, disastrous oil spill, anaemic recovery, skyrocketing deficits, unprecedented loss of state secrets and so on - and still remain sanguine about the future of American leadership.

This ultimately is the real damage from WikiLeaks: a hardening of the perception of American helplessness against existing problems and unpredictable new challenges.

Many will argue that this is too pessimistic a view. Surely the US, having survived difficult times in the past such as the Great Depression, the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War, will bounce back again strongly.

I have no doubt that the US, given its embarrassment of resources and talent, will do just that if it puts its mind to it.

But that's precisely the problem. The country's leaders appear incapable of focusing on the big challenges these days, and seem more interested in distractions, elections and partisan warfare.
This mood was well captured in a satirical column by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently, in which he imagined what a 'WikiLeaked' diplomatic note written by the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC might look like.

In the tongue-in-cheek article, he wrote about how the Chinese secretly gloated while watching the US work itself into a froth over pat-downs at airports and frivolous arguments about why America is an 'exceptional' country.

'There is a wilful self-destructiveness in the air here as if America has all the time and money in the world for petty politics,' Mr Friedman wrote in his imagined role as a Chinese diplomat.

'It means America will do nothing serious to fix its structural problems: a ballooning deficit, declining educational performance, crumbling infrastructure and diminished immigration of new talent... In sum, things are going well for China in America.'

As with all good satire, there is more than an element of truth behind the article.

Take the example of the current political battle du jour in the US Congress over tax cuts and ratification of a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.

The real end game behind the tussle does not appear to be what's needed for the country, but how best to weaken President Barack Obama's hand before the 2012 election.

Mr Obama himself is not beyond blame. Some of the more surprising 'insider' revelations of late, to me at least, came not from WikiLeaks, but a series of new books about his first 18 months in office.

For instance, they revealed that he stubbornly pushed ahead with ambitious health-care reforms despite advice from nearly all of his principal advisers to hold off and focus on the economy.

Inexplicably, Mr Obama also devoted months of precious time in his first year to the arcane details of the nuclear treaty with Russia while job creation continued to be anaemic, and as his rivals appeared to gain the upper hand in an ugly debate over health-care reforms.

'Obama spends about half his time on foreign affairs, which drives (former White House chief of staff) Rahm Emanuel crazy,' author Richard Wolffe quoted a senior security aide saying in his book Revival: The Struggle For Survival Inside The Obama White House.

Did Mr Obama miscalculate badly, or is his remedy for the country's problems so complex as to be beyond the comprehension of most people?

To anxious American jobseekers, who have just been hit with the grim news that unemployment has crept back up to 9.8 per cent, this must seem a bigger mystery than the contents of WikiLeaks' vault.

chinhon@sph.com.sg

[I am wondering if Obama is good for the US after all. If his presence is divisive, if he causes the hidden racism to fight his presidency, if he is unable to draw support because his opponents only see his colour, then he is president before his time.

The US probably won't go belly up overnight. But the things that need to be done are not being done, while the things that will rip that country apart are being entrenched and institutionalised. Tactics that work won't be tossed away unless someone learns to disarm them. So the Republicans will obstruct when they are not in power, and destruct when they are, while the Democrats will be more consistent. They will be ineffective when they are not in majority, and ineffective when they are.]

Cursing the blues in kingmaker state

Dec 3, 2010

In the last instalment of our series on how economic anxieties have affected ordinary Americans and the way they vote, we look at the 'kingmaker' state of Ohio, where polling results in last month's mid-terms could have a lasting effect on the Obama presidency.

By Paul Zach


As a lifelong Republican, Kelly frowns on government handouts: the political party he supports detests anything that smacks of 'socialism'.


But on Tuesday, the 36-year-old father of three turned up at the Parma Hunger Centre with his own hand held out.


For the first time in their lives, he and his wife, Chris, accepted a shopping cart overflowing with cartons of eggs, cans of spaghetti, a sack of Russet potatoes and other groceries, without paying for them.


'It feels like crap,' said Chris, 39.


'It doesn't feel good,' said Kelly. 'But if it feeds my kids... my kids are worth a lot more than my pride.'


Indeed, the couple are so mortified about their plight that they did not want their full names to be used or their pictures taken for this report.


Their decision to turn to a branch of the Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland, which relies in part on federal and local government subsidies as well as donations, came after another first in their 10 years of marriage: they have started receiving disconnection notices from utility companies just as the winter chill is setting in.


Chris said bills started piling up after she lost her job as a nurse in the nearly bankrupt school system of Parma 'a couple of years ago', and she had to see doctors about a medical condition they have yet to diagnose.


Her husband is the manager of a restaurant outlet in another city a long daily drive from their home. His salary is not enough for them to make ends meet.


'We went through all my retirement funds,' said Chris. 'The last couple of months I was counting change, buying groceries with change.'


Parma is a suburb that borders Cleveland, traditionally the most blue of Ohio's big cities. Located on the banks of Lake Erie, and fuelled by a legion of steel mills and auto factories in the early part of the last century, Cleveland was a magnet for hardworking immigrants. They joined unions and became solid supporters of Democratic Party politics.


When the steel and auto industries started leaving town in the 1960s, however, the population followed.


Over the past few months, years of corruption in government also saw federal charges filed against many of the most powerful Democrats in the Cuyahoga county government. Cleveland, the heart of the county, became the capital of the growing 'rust belt', an economic basket case unkindly called 'The Mistake on the Lake' - a long way from the days it billed itself as the 'Best Location in the Nation'.


Still, its legacy of supporting Democrats persists.


In 2008, the media projected that Mr Barack Obama would win the United States presidency for the Democrats as soon as it became clear that he had taken Ohio, with overwhelming support in Cleveland, even before vote counting had ended in most of the country.


Ohio has long been known as the 'kingmaker' in American politics - and not just because the state has sent the most number of natives to the White House. It has often been the key to victory in the presidential elections.


Political pundits thus viewed the decisive victory by Mr Obama in 2008, and that by Mr Ted Strickland for governor in 2006 - a win that ended 16 years of Republican domination in the post - as a sure sign that Democrats would rule Ohio, and thus the nation, for years to come.


Fast forward to this year.


Those same pundits now point to last month's mid-term election results in Ohio as a sure sign that Mr Obama will lose the state, and thus re-election to a second term, in 2012.


Mr Strickland is now a footnote. He became a one-term governor when he lost to Republican John Kasich, even though - although some would argue because - Mr Obama made more visits to Ohio to campaign for him than he did to any other state.


Mr Kasich is not going to be a regular governor in regular times.


When he takes over the post next month, he will have a direct hand in drawing Ohio's legislative districts next year as the head of the Apportionment Board.


That exercise - a once-in-10-years affair - involves the redrawing of electoral boundaries to reflect population changes.


The process has been criticised as a form of gerrymandering, and having a Republican in charge of the process means it markedly improves the party's chances of upending Mr Obama in Ohio, and - assuming history repeats itself - the country, in the next presidential election.


In the wake of the red tidal wave that swept Republicans into power in the US House of Representatives across the country on Nov 2, Ohio's Mr John Boehner, 61, was also elected the next Speaker of the House. He takes over from Democrat - and powerful Obama ally - Nancy Pelosi when the new Congress is sworn in next month.


So how did things come to this?


Put simply: jobs.


As states across the nation weathered the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, hundreds of thousands of Ohioans lost their jobs during Mr Strickland's four years as governor.
The state's jobless rate was 5.5 per cent in September 2006, when only 328,000 were unemployed, according to Department of Job and Family Services data. By March this year, unemployment had doubled to a 26-year high of 11 per cent.


The final snapshot of Ohio's job market before election day last month showed the state's unemployment rate had improved to 10 per cent in September. That was too little, too late to save the jobs of Mr Strickland and many other Democrats in the state.


While the media loudly blamed the seismic shift on 'voter anger', Chris and Kelly looked more defeated than upset at politicians as they loaded their modest Chevy with groceries in the cold rain outside the Parma Hunger Centre.


In fact, Kelly did not even have time to vote for his Republican Party candidates; he wound up working from 5.30am until 8pm on election day, and did not get home until the polls had closed.
Mr Kevin O'Brien, the conservative columnist for The Plain Dealer, Cleveland's nationally respected newspaper, told The Straits Times that he blamed the Troubled Asset Relief Programme (Tarp) and 'Obamacare'.


He was referring to Mr Obama's decision to pour dollars that came out of the pockets of ordinary taxpayers into Tarp which rescued rich banks and financial institutions, and to focus on health-care reform rather than addressing the plight of Americans struggling to make ends meet.


'If the Democrats had waited two years to play for the big-government jackpot, they would not now be facing a huge turnover in state legislatures and governorships from November's election, which will lead to a decade of congressional districts drawn to suit Republicans,' he said.


'Tarp alone might not have cost the Democrats much, in Ohio or elsewhere. Forcing the issue on unpopular health-care reform will cost them for quite a while, though.'


Over at the Hunger Centre, Kelly refused to point fingers at either political party for his own problems, in effect showing his Republican side by accepting responsibility for them.


But he said: 'I've always noticed when the Republicans are in office, at the presidential level, I wind up making more. My raises are better. I take home more in my pay cheques.'


Sentiment like that, in a kingmaker state where making ends meet is more of a struggle than it usually is, and where Republicans hold the power to rezone polling districts, will mean the results of the mid-term elections could resonate all the way to 2012.


And Mr Obama may well pay the price then.


zach@sph.com.sg



Voters reject tax raise for schools


VOTERS in Ohio are so angry, they are willing to mortgage the future.


The instinctive Republican anti-tax mentality kicked in during last month's elections, and the target was schools.


During the polls, Parma voters rejected a tax increase for their city's public schools - for the seventh straight time. That will leave a system that is already on life support with a US$3.7 million (S$4.9 million) deficit next year.


In the Cleveland area alone, 41 school districts asked parents for more money to help them keep up with rising costs on the mid-term ballot on Nov 2. All but two went down in flames.
Foreign analysts wondering why the United States no longer leads in many areas of education need look no further than places like Parma.


The city has already slashed US$18 million from its budget and closed three primary schools. It has eliminated so many courses that students spend a large part of their school days in study halls, say some parents.


A campaign in the affluent Brecksville-Broadview Heights school district saw signs on lawns in both cities begging people to give their school system - which had been ranked third in the entire district - the thumbs up. No dice. Voters rejected calls for a school levy for the second straight time.


West of Cleveland, the city of Lorain has been begging residents to approve school funding for almost 20 years, to no avail. In last month's polls, 56 per cent of the residents again voted no.


Yet the tax increases asked for in such issues are far below tuition fees for private schools in the region. The suburb of Garfield Heights, for instance, asked for the area's biggest hike. It would have cost residents there another US$273 a year in property taxes per US$100,000 home valuation - and few homes there are worth that much.


Even in Hudson, a lush wealthy suburb south of Cleveland, people who can afford million-dollar mansions and Porsches refused to shell out another cent for their children's education.


They nixed a tax levy although the school district has already made US$8.8 million in budget cuts since 2006 and teachers agreed to freeze their wages.


In Medina, residents voted down a school levy for the third straight time.


Afterwards, the system's superintendent, Mr Randy Stepp, said: 'Based on my conversations with people, there's a lot of unhappiness out there with government, and the only place people really get a chance to voice their opinion is locally, which hits the schools.'


PAUL ZACH