North America

I had breakfast today at the usual table in the usual restaurant with a very smart journalist who works for a large salmon colored newspaper. We both had oatmeal because a guy just can't get enough soluble fiber. 

My friend said that at the moment the most over-used term in Washington is "defining moment." Of course, the reason the phrase-turning classes keep returning to this particular phrase is that they are cockeyed optimists. They keep believing that such a moment will happen and they will begin to understand who Barack Obama is. They don't want to have to grapple with the notion that he has already defined himself. They keep hoping that he is really will emerge from the chrysalis of his learning curve months in the presidency as the glorious butterfly of change everyone hoped he would be in the first place. The fact that there is precious little evidence this is likely to happen doesn't daunt them. They'll stick to their s.o.p. of doing the analysis they want and hoping that reality catches up to them sooner or later.

Personally, I'm getting a little worried. (Actually, I'm kind of perennially worried. Not as bad as my ex-wife who actually believed she was going to be hit by Skylab. But able to nonetheless find the cloud around every silver lining.) For months I have been going around saying this is a new generation of leadership, noting that Obama entered high school after Vietnam and his practice as a lawyer after the fall of the wall (that's the Berlin Wall, for you kids who don't remember). But so far, on key issues he has been acting like he isn't the first of a new breed but that he is actually the last baby boomer.

This may be due to the lack of creativity of some on his team who have ignored Rahm Emmanuel's famous admonition not to let a crisis go to waste and who have failed to carpe the damn diem to make this a transformational moment with regard to finance or health care. (The jury is out on foreign policy and climate.) But whatever the case, as recent polls have shown, the "yes we can" of the campaign seems have just been the prefix to "yes we can keep doing business as usual."

Still, all is not lost. Every day new opportunities arise for the President to have that defining moment and to demonstrate to critics that something resoundingly new is happening.

I was thinking of this last night at the big annual dinner for Conservation International, a terrific organization that has done the math and realized that when it comes to planets we have exactly one. Absent spares, they are focused on doing what we can to keep this one habitable. That was reason enough to show up. But the food was good and it was a great group of people. 

(It attracted a much better bunch than Michele Bachmann's latest effort to teabag America, the anti-health care rally that reputable news organizations said had 10,000 attendees and that Fox News said had 40,000. It says something about Bachmann -- no relation to 70s Canadian rockers Bachman Turner Overdrive except to the extent that we might all hope she soon joins them in obscurity --that at an event co-organized by a Republican Rep. named Steven King and bringing together some of America's most deranged wingnuts that she was the scariest person in attendance.)

Sitting not 20 feet from me at the CI event were Energy Secretary Steven Chu, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, actor Harrison Ford and many, many vegetarians. Chu gave the main address and by any traditional Washington standards the remarks were remarkable. On the one hand the speech lacked any effort at soaring rhetoric or even structure for that matter. His delivery was uninspired. The talk came with 30 or 40 often very complex slides. In other words, we got remarks from a Nobel Prize winning scientist who was interested in facts and thoughtful analysis. He was the un-orator and a welcome, refreshing and even urgently needed alternative to the usual DC gloss. The point: the climate crisis is real and that the President is committed to addressing it and that if we harness creativity, science and engineering we can solve the problem. Oh ... and if we don't the Chinese will get there ahead of us and they will be the be neficiaries of the first big tech boom of the 21st Century. 

Listening you thought, "that's what I'm talkin' about!" But then reality sank in when I saw Rep. Edward Markey, co-author of the House climate bill, walk by and all the prognostications of a weak deal on the heels of a cobbled-together face-saver in Copenhagen came rushing into my brain. This is the great issue of our time (you can debate the trajectory of global warming all you want...you can't debate what's happening to the polar regions or the glaciers of the Himalayas). And unless something changes we are going to fumble the ball forward in the hopes that we can pick it up at some point in the future.

Obama could change that. As Al Gore said today, he could go to Copenhagen. Indeed, he should go there. If he could go for the Chicago Olympics ... supporting what's little more than a global marketing scam ... then presumably he can go to show that something like saving the planet is worth the trip and even the risk that things won't all work out so well. Two-thirds of Americans under 30 see this as a critical issue. Only the boomers and older are undecided. The president needs to pick a team. Is he with the next generation or the last one?

Same is true with China and his upcoming Asia trip. On this front, I frankly think he is trending in the right direction. I think that Obama, to paraphrase foreign policy expert Elle Woods, recognizes that Asia is the new Europe. Furthermore, after decades of pundits speculating about this, I think he can make this real with a productive trip to the region this month. 

The key: the turnabout is fair play meeting of the year. After 10 months at least significantly defined by how the Obama Administration is dealing with the banking community, now the president has to go meet with his banker. They have a full agenda: a deal on climate, collaboration on Iran and North Korea, the coordinated soft-landings of our national currencies. Pay more than lip service to the importance of the relationships ... produce real progress on these fronts ... because actions really do speak louder than words ... and he passes another critical test when it comes to proving this administration is about something new.

Two final related points:

At a meeting I was at with a bunch of big institutional investors in Chicago this week, the scenario for world markets that many were most concerned about was that of a failed Treasury auction ... something they felt was more plausible now than at any time in memory. The aftershocks for the global economy would be pretty darn grim. Avoiding this nightmare is perhaps job one in the U.S.-China relationship at the moment.

And on the climate issue ... as on health care ... I am starting to become embarrassed to call myself a centrist. The folks in the middle are among the greatest obstacles to the kind of reform that is really critical to demonstrating it is no longer business as usual in Washington. (After the entire Republican Party, that is.) My only consolation comes from the fact that most of these people are not what I consider to be real centrists.  They are actually "middle-ests", splitting the difference between left and right. True centrists don't take both sides and divide by two, they use every tool at their disposal to advance the national interest, regardless of what labels might be hurled their way. 

In short, we need courageous, centrist, post-Baby Boom leadership ... and absent a defining moment or two in this direction, all the moments that have come before will do the defining. Fortunately, in times like these, potentially defining moments crop up with alarming regularity.

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Have they no shame? Have they no sense of responsibility?

Perhaps by now nothing that Wall Street does ought to shock us. After all, these were the people who told us to trust them with our life fortunes when even they did not know the risks to which they would expose them. These were the people who felt it appropriate to game the U.S. economy, force families into the street and then claim big bonuses for their actions. These were the people who told the U.S. government to stay out of their hair ... right up until the moment they needed a government handout. A when they didn't need the cash any more, what's their response? To kick the people who helped them back to the curb.

Come on, Baby! Didn't I show you the love when you needed it? Wasn't I there for you when no one else wanted you? You weren't so big and powerful then, but I gave you what little I had. I mortgaged everything I had to get you back on your feet. I crawled right into bed with you and held you all night long. And what happens the minute you get a little wind to your back? You're out the door and you don't even know my name!

It's people like this that guarantee there will always be country music, the blues and drunks in bars getting the lyrics wrong while they sink into their beers. You know what I mean, those songs like "You Done Me Wrong" or "I'll Never Get Over You (Getting Over Me)." Or maybe what I really mean are songs like "Dirty Pool" or "Chain of Fools." Songs about betrayal and abuse.  Muddy Waters:

Now look what you've done

You left me here, the lonely one

And all I could say, is look what you've done

A broken heart, a weary mind

And (just for a) few dollars baby, (every) time

I once had a dream, but now I have none

You've taken your love and see what it done

Oh sure, I never expected that the princes of Wall Street would actually change their stripes. I'm not talking about disappointment that they are not voluntarily foregoing the big bonuses for a year or two until the country is back on its feet. I'm certainly not suggesting that I ever truly expected them to use government resources to actually start lending again or to really take major steps to keep home owners in their homes. Taking smaller risks? Forswearing complex investment strategies that only benefit them while putting everyone else at greater risk? Expecting that would be like expecting a pride of lions to go vegan and open a nursery school for baby antelopes.

No, I just thought that they would do the right thing in the one way that it is surely in character, that they would say thanks in their own language, the language of money. But here President Obama is hosting a fundraiser tonight in New York City, right in their own backyard, and according to the New York Times, Wall Street is snubbing him, not forking over. In fact, according to the story, Wall Street donations to the Democrats are down since, oh, I don't know, back when the Democratic controlled Congress and the Democratic President were saving their bacon. 

Apparently,the Masters of the Universe have concluded that the same Dems that bailed them out are now actually considering reforms that might mitigate risk and save the taxpayers for having to dig deep into their wallets to ensure the Wall Streeters could keep sending their kids to Dalton and Spence. And so no more soup for you, Barack. 

Personally, I think they miscalculate. They finally may be undone by their greed. Except it won't be because they stole too much or blew up the international economy. It'll be because they stopped paying off the people who set the rules. And nothing puts a politician back in touch with his principles like a failure to keep up payments by the banker to whom he has mortgaged them.

So it is that the bankers of the most consequence at tonight's fundraiser at the Mandarin in Manhattan won't be the ones the news crews will be fussing about as they head into the $15,000 a plate gala. Rather they will be the ones who actually who don't show up ... and who, in so doing, "free" the President and the Congress to get aggressive about reforms in the way they should have been all along.

Perhaps that old Muddy Waters tune will go through the president's head tomorrow as he thinks back on his visit to the big city tonight:

Saw you last night, I was movin' around

With your new toys, paint the town

But it is ok, keep having your fun

Because someday, you'll pay for all you've done

And if you ask me, it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of guys.

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The Republican Party has, since the days of Ronald Reagan, prided itself as the party of lunch-bucket Americans and main-street values. And what could be more lunch bucket, more main street than the National Football League?

So when the players of the NFL line up to oppose the bid for St. Louis Rams ownership of alpha Republican Rush Limbaugh, it is more than just football news. It is a sign that the voice of America's right-wing party has become odious precisely where it should be most embraced ... particularly when the express reason for the players' opposition is their discomfort with Limbaugh's message of hatred, of his role as the Old Faithful of right-wing media bile.

One can only imagine how the former sportscaster Reagan would react to the news that his replacement as his party's great communicator had become so offensive that he had put the players of the NFL on the defensive. The Reagan message was about broadening the Republican base, about building a new coalition. The Party of Limbaugh is about exclusion and anger ... and it's not sitting well with constituency after constituency.

Listen to the rationale offered by NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith in an e-mail to the executive committee of his union: "Sport in America is at its best when it unifies, gives all of us reason to cheer, and when it transcends. Our sport does exactly that when it overcomes division and rejects discrimination and hatred." Clearly, Smith believes that Limbaugh is representative of such discrimination and hatred and he is not alone. At least seven league players have already spoken out against the purchase, and with Smith's encouragement you can only imagine there will be many more to come.

It's no wonder when you consider that among Limbaugh's most famous recent gaffes and offenses (and there are many even if you don't include his drug abuse) was the statement that "the media" was rooting for black quarterbacks like Donovan McNabb to do well and therefore gave him more credit than he deserves. It's not the only instance in which his racism has bubbled to the surface ... and yet the party dares not repudiate him. The notion that the party of Lincoln has become the party of Limbaugh beggars the imagination.

Oh sure, we'll no doubt hear from Limbaugh that the union represents millionaires and is hardly representative of the true "values" of its fans. But, it also represents a group of custodians of the NFL brand that happens to include a large number of empowered athletes of diverse backgrounds who actually have both the stature and the guts to stand up a guy who would instantly become the Marge Schott of football. (Schott was the racist owner of the Cincinnati Reds awhile back.)

To international observers, this is an important story because it underscores a little understood fact: Obama is much stronger than he may appear because his opposition is much weaker than it is either shrill or loud. Obama is about to win a victory in health care. Ridicule the Nobel Prize all you want (and it was ridiculous), it is hardly going to hurt. He will send at least some quantity of additional troops to Afghanistan and blunt critiques that he is not listening to his generals. And the Republicans have done nothing and are being led by people like Limbaugh who deepen divisions every time they open their mouths.

Limbaugh's dittoheads will continue to howl at the moon and wish Dick Cheney was still the most powerful man on Earth ... but this incident is just another example of why having lost their grip intellectually they are continuing to lose it politically. That's why, while the world may have thought that all the important football news that was occurring this weekend had to do with World Cup qualifications, the biggest win for the people on the planet who wish to see unilateralism and America the bully consigned to the dustbin of history may have had to do with the strange American version of the sport ... and it took place off the field thanks to athletes exercising not muscles but their right of free speech. 

Once again, it seems that old maxim of American football strategy is being proven true: The one sure way to success is to shut down the Rush.

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Reports late today that Attorney General Eric Holder is appointing career Justice Department prosecutor John Durham to investigate whether CIA interrogators may have tortured detainees in violation of the law have stirred the predictable outcries. 

From Capitol Hill, a collection of Republican Senators produced a letter saying, "The intelligence community will be left to wonder whether actions taken today in the interest of national security will be subject to legal recriminations when the political winds shift." Rumors even swirled that renewed scrutiny of the agency's activities had CIA Director Leon Panetta threatening to resign, though the White House rejected them as unfounded. 

Here's the reality: the Senators who sent up the protest letter have a point. The law should not be allowed to be tossed and twisted with every new breeze of public opinion. The law is the law. And if one administration misinterprets public outrage at a crime like a terror attack as license to overlook the law or to bend it to suit the mood of the moment, it is not an option for the next administration to question that action ... it is an obligation. The whole point of having a legal system is to have objective standards by which to define acceptable parameters of behavior. 

No employee of the CIA has anything to fear if they acted within those objective standards. If the investigation demonstrates that anyone in the government misinterpreted the law for whatever reason and acted in violation of those laws, their actions should be evaluated within the context of the justice system. If they had good legal advice and acted within a reasonable interpretation of the law, then they have nothing to fear. 

Those who fear the investigation are revealing their lack of faith in our justice system ... a trait that happens to have been shared by those who went beyond the boundaries of that system in the name of justice. With some luck the investigation will remind them that by suggesting justice may lie outside those boundaries or by suggesting that fundamental rights may be waived due to circumstances they do more damage to the system than those they were interrogating were capable of.

My only concern: that by defining the investigation too narrowly, the rank and file of the CIA will be sacrificed while those who insisted the laws be bent, broken and ignored will be free to walk away, perhaps even complaining from the sidelines about the process. If this investigation finds violations of the law, we can only hope that the well-respected Durham will follow the actions in question through to their origins and not prosecute foot-soldiers for the violations of their most senior leaders.

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So, I don't know about you but I am clearing my schedule for the end of September. If the Obama administration is to be believed it will be a turning point in modern history. 

First, at the time of the G8-plus-1-plus-5-plus-3-carry-the-1-times-everyone-minus-the-ones-we-don't-like meetings in Italy, it was announced that the U.S. was going to give Iran until the next gathering of the G-whiz kids to make a move in the general direction of progress on their little problem with all those centrifuges and all that enriched uranium. The next such meeting is in that renowned center of global statecraft, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on September 24 and 25. (Last known outbreak of diplomacy: when charitable Steelers fans chose not to actually drink blood out of the skull of the most recent Cleveland fan to accidentally wander up to the wrong tailgate party in the parking lot of Heinz Field.)

That's a busy time of year for diplomacy as it is what with the UN General Assembly meeting scheduled for the last week of September not to mention the first annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative since Clinton also became the name of America's Secretary of State which is scheduled for the 22nd through the 25th. Both of these events are to take place in New York City.

Now, yet another event to which to look forward: during a press briefing following yesterday's meeting between Barack Obama and Egyptian Pharaoh...er...president -- whatever  they are calling their autocratic rulers these days -- Hosni Mubarak, Robert Gibbs responded to reports the U.S. will be presenting a more detailed plan for an Israeli-Palestinian peace process by saying he felt the time of the UN General Assembly meeting would be "an important opportunity to continue to make progress on comprehensive Middle Peace." (I'm sorry for the shot at President Mubarak. I can't help it. Yesterday at the Four Seasons I was having breakfast, minding my own business among the scores of giant, armed thugs with squiggly wires in their ears and when I got up to leave I was told we were in "lock down" and that we would not be allowed out of the restaurant until Mubarak and his entourage decamped and gave us the word we were free again. Imagine my surprise. I thought Passover had taken care of this problem.)

Could it really be that things are going so badly with regard to the health care debate that the White House feels compelled solve all the major intractable problems faced by the world at once just to provide a distraction? And on top of that the premiere (and quite possibly the last episode) of ABC's new show "Cougar Town" starring Courtney Cox is slated for September 23d. 

Peace. Disarmament. Another member of the "Friends" cast being wrestled to the ground by middle age. It's why I love back-to-school time more than any other season of the year.

Michael Smith/Getty Images

We have come to the conclusion of the first six months of the Obama presidency. I know. It seems like a lot longer to me, too. In fact, to me history is starting to look kind of like that Steinberg map of the United States from New York's perspective. Most of the map is New York, then there's a thin strip of New Jersey, then there is a brief stretch of nothingness in which you find Kansas City, Nebraska, Las Vegas and some rocks and mountains and then there is L.A.. Same with history: the Obama Epoch looms large, next comes the fire swamps of the Bush era, then Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky are standing there waving, then a couple of wars, a cowboy movie, Abe Lincoln, and then George Washington.

Nonetheless, despite this skewed perspective, I have been following Obama's foreign policy team pretty closely this past half year and I think it is time for an interim report card. Note: all these evaluations are entirely subjective and can be raised in the future by bribing the teacher with free rides on Air Force One or tuna salad sandwiches in the White House mess. Also: I'm going to offer grades for individual performance and then, in my next post, grades for key initiatives because it is hard to know just who is driving what or deserves credit for which portion of which initiatives. 

Barack Obama, Grade: A

Woody Allen said 85 percent of life is just showing up. Well, in this case, for this first six month period, 85 percent of Barack Obama's foreign policy grade is for just showing up. In the first instance, just for showing up in Washington and showing George Bush and his policies that were anathema to so much of the world to the door. In the next several instances from showing up at summits or meetings in London, Prague, Paris, and Cairo (among other places) and sending a message that America is entering a new phase in foreign policy in which engagement, multilateralism and pragmatism will drive U.S. actions. Of course, we all know that the first six months' core policy of "I'm Barack Obama and you're not" won't carry on much longer. There are problems that need to be solved and some of them are complicated by the small fact that they are actually insoluble. But for now, give the guy credit. He has actually installed himself at the center of the foreign policy apparatus, put foreign policy atop his list of priorities and has been an engaged, informed chief executive and commander in chief.  In fact, if anything, he has made himself too important to U.S. foreign policy and he needs to delegate more. But that'll come...because he'll have no choice.

Joe Biden, Grade: B

The fact that he is even on this list is to his credit. Most VPs disappear without a trace on the foreign policy front. And after the Cheney example, there was every reason to think the next VP would be permanently sealed into that undisclosed location. But Obama has turned to Biden for his experience, has made him a partner in policymaking and has made him a spokesperson for the administration on key issues. Does he sometimes stick his foot in it? You betcha. But so far no real damage has been done and Obama has often turned to Biden (supported by a good team of advisors like Ron Klain and Tony Blinken) for guidance that has, reportedly, been taken very seriously.

Rahm Emanuel, Grade: A-

Emanuel is the most powerful White House chief of staff since Sherman Adams (in the Eisenhower administration). That's saying something since White House chief of staff is one of the most powerful jobs in the world...and one of the most consistently under-estimated. Rahm is in the room at key meetings and is a critical force to be reckoned with. He has played a crucial role in making key political appointments, he has shaped policy discussions, he has worked the Hill. In fact, if I were a foreign leader and I couldn't get to Obama himself, I'd probably go to Rahm before Hillary or Jim Jones. But that's just me. 'Cause I have a soft-spot for "self-hating Jews." Why is it an A minus? Well, you just can't get an A in foreign policy when you piss so many people off. And further, it doesn't serve the president well to have so much foreign policy power concentrated in the immediate office of the president (David Axelrod, Greg Craig, Valerie Jarrett, and others have weighed in on big issues here often causing some to thing the hub of U.S. foreign policy at the moment is not the NSC but wherever the president and his staff are.)

Jim Jones, Grade: B

Tell them all to go to hell, Jim. The reality is that despite all the negative buzz ... mostly from people inside the administration that wanted or still want your job ... the Obama NSC was set up quickly, is running smoothly, is staffing the president well and hasn't recommended that he invade Iraq. (Admittedly you did recommend pushing forward in AfPak and that will likely prove a very serious mistake...but we'll get to that later.) While one of your colleagues said "he just isn't suited for a job demanding 12 hour days and attention to detail", you are there when the president needs you and you add important value on the military front. You're still spinning up to speed on foreign policy per se and you may have let delegating go too far (give a guy in Washington too much rope and he's likely to use it to try to hang you) but I say, you're off to a good start. 

Tom Donilon, Grade: A

You're Jones's number two and he has fully empowered you to be the chief operating officer of the NSC. Thus far, the reports from all quarters are that the inter-agency process is working well, that you're a big time problem solver and that your quiet professionalism is paying off. Not bad for a guy whose previous foreign policy high water mark was being the force behind the glory that was Warren Christopher. And for all those folks eager to push Jones in front of a train, careful. No matter what the conventional wisdom is now, look at history. Number twos at the NSC often get to be number one.

Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert, Grade: B+

You guys are Obama's boys, his body men, and seen as real power players as a result despite your respective traditionally second tier roles as mouthpiece for the NSC and NSC chief of staff. You have the president's trust and that is better than any title in Washington. That said, careful gentlemen. In-fighting in Washington is a long, often subtle game and he who is up today is almost certainly he who has a target on his back tomorrow. Denis, you've got big time reporters steaming at your "arrogance" (their word, not mine...please, don't hurt me...) and you've made a few missteps...like getting out in front of State's negotiations to restore an Ambassador to Syria...that have generated some ill-will elsewhere in the administration. Even among people who slap you on the back daily.

Hillary Clinton, Grade: A-

Your first job was to scotch that buzz that you would be stealing the president's limelight, working against him. But you've got experience with letting a guy stand in the spotlight while you do a lot of the heavy lifting...and the senate choice to be a "workhorse and not a showhorse" served you well, too. Frankly, they should have used you more, earlier. No one in the administration other than the president is a more effective spokesperson, has more impact overseas, or works harder to get it right.  No one other than the president is even close. Your role will almost certainly grow. Only missteps to note: you skipped off the talking points on North Korea and then the Gulf defense umbrella in the past couple weeks ... but frankly, in both cases, you advanced the administration's interests. And some members of your team at State are viewed as Team Hillary and not as foreign policy pros, common in early days, but they need to work to reach out to the foreign service and prove themselves.

Robert Gates, Grade: A

Gates is perhaps the best example of the American national security technocrat the country has produced in the past half century. His smooth, service-to-his-country oriented, transition from serving as George Bush's SecDef to Barack Obama's was masterful and has helped keep Iraq and AfPak from dominating the news even more than they have. He has spoken truth in terms of cutting back on defense waste and he has done what he has done for every president, provided trusted, measured advice. But those who know him are looking forward to the memoirs. He is a measured man but he has strong opinions that can be expressed rather colorfully. Look out Don Rumsfeld.

Special Envoys, Grade: A

I don't much like the proliferation of special envoys throughout the U.S. government. But the guys on point for big foreign policy initiatives have dived in and made a difference early, notably Richard Holbrooke and George Mitchell. (Dennis Ross's role changed too soon to judge, but reports are he is adding very real value at the NSC now.)

Holbrooke still uses the first person singular too often but there is literally no one smarter or more capable on the entire Dem foreign policy bench. When people say Obama has a team of envoys all of whom could be Secretaries of State, they mean Holbrooke (Mitchell could, too, of course, but Holbrooke is at another level of knowledge, experience and energy). Mitchell has done well to build trust on the Israeli-Palestinian issues and the result has been that there is hope for progress on Syria and ultimately for movement toward a two-state solution. He is playing a big role making that possible.

Okay ... so you probably think, soft-headed former Clintonite is giving these guys a free ride. Not so fast. I think the team is very solid and doing pretty darn well all things considered. But as for their policies? Er...um...I'm a bit more concerned there. But you are going to have to wait for those grades until Monday.

Matthew Cavanaugh-Pool/Getty Images

Now that all the ecstatic moaning of the press surrounding the president's first hundred days has subsided, we can return our attention to the fact that things are worse in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the global economy is still deteriorating, the U.S. deficit is still ballooning, and I am experiencing sudden dizziness and a slight fever (although I think it is just from listening to replays of the Vice President's remarks on the Today Show this morning.)

So, to stay on top of the news, let's start with a few questions about the auto industry:

Is anybody stopping to work the numbers on this Chrysler deal? How much did we have to pay for the privilege of having Chrysler go bankrupt in springtime rather than winter? Isn't it true that bankruptcy was always the best outcome and that this was just a very costly stall to make the unions feel their members were being taken care of?

Aren't the unions getting a disproportionately large chunk of Chrysler and GM at the expense of creditors and shareholders? What'll happen if the companies go belly-up again in a few years and the unions lose the stake they got in exchange for the pension money that they were owed? (Hint: The taxpayers will cover it again after having shelled out a fortune now to protect them. )

Wouldn't it have been cheaper to let the companies go bankrupt, sell off their good assets, pay off the workers who got fired, retrain them and invest the billions in incentive programs to develop new, green transportation technologies? And are the unions really the people we want to be the dominant owners of these companies? Do we really think it is either right or in our collective interests to reward union leaders (as opposed to rank and file workers) who played a central role in forcing into place the unsustainable business models that essentially killed GM and Chrysler?

Isn't a pattern becoming apparent here? Can't people see that the deals the government cuts -- whether it is forcing Merrill and B of A together or "bailing out AIG" or the auto deals -- are actually lousy? Isn't anyone other than Ken Lewis going to argue for a discussion about what is the appropriate thing for the government as an owner to do when the national interest conflicts with their fiduciary responsibilities to other shareholders? 

And when is anyone going to notice that the "white knight" that is going to save Chrysler is one of the world's crummiest car companies, one just back from the brink itself and that they are getting their stake in Chrysler for a song? Or that much of the benefit from this deal will accrue to stakeholders outside the U.S.? Also, for the fun of it, ask yourself if we would be doing all this to secure this deal if the purchaser in question were Chinese car manufacturer Chery? (Hint: we would not.  Even though it would likely be a much better deal for all concerned.)

Another question is who are the creditors and if any of them are financial does the U.S. have a stake in any of them? Is it using its clout in the financial services sector to influence the outcome of the auto deals? If so, how, with whom, and in whose interests in the long-run?

After we get answers to these questions, I will offer my opinion of the deal. In the meantime, as with everything else right now, I am just hoping for the best (and, like the proverbial Bavarian at lunchtime, expecting the wurst.)

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

See, here's the problem: There's lots of stuff in this budget that I like, but, upon closer examination, it seems I'm going to have to pay for it all. I mean, I was reading the reports and listening to the learned television analysis from carefully balanced panels of rabidly partisan Republicans and smugly defensive Democrats. I even listened to George Stephanopoulos's whole interview with Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orzag who is a) exceptionally well-equipped for his job and b) a dead ringer for Screech from "Saved by the Bell." I realize he has been on some lists of the hottest Obamamanians, and I take this personally. I mean, Rahm Emanuel was on this list. Say what you may about Rahm Emanuel, but he looks like the lunatic cousin of the Geico gecko. Why weren't there lists like this when I was in the government? I would have had a fighting chance, anyway.

As Orzag and others laid out the budget -- which really is a document of extraordinary sweep, truly demanding coverage by a magazine like Foreign Policy, because if passed it would dramatically redefine the role and priorities of the most powerful government in the world, and almost certainly will have a great impact on its relative power and international policies going forward -- anyway, as I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself with extraneous clauses, when these guys laid out the budget, I thought, "Hey, not bad."

I mean, what's not to like? We need health care reform and one good place to start is actually accounting for the money we are spending. (Ditto on putting the cost of war on the books.) Same with investing in energy security, energy choice and green jobs. Same with investing in education. We can't succeed as a 21st-century nation without investing heavily in these three areas. Now is precisely the right time. If we are going to have to double-down on government spending to plug a hole in the economy, we might as well investment-spend in these three areas.

Further, we need to find ways to pay for these things now -- we can't put it all on our People's Bank of China credit card and worry about it later. One great way to pay now is with a carbon tax. Another way is a cap and trade system, which would generate revenues and create healthy disincentives for carbon use (and incentives for clean energy use). Such systems have worked only marginally well overseas, often because the initial prices for carbon were set too low or there were too many offset mechanisms -- essentially because political timidity diluted the approach. While Obama's plan to use an auction to set initial prices is better than some, watching Orzag back-track whenever Stephanopoulos suggested that the program was actually a tax was uncomfortable. What he should have done -- listen to me on this, Peter, I didn't mean the thing about Screech, I'm a big fan, I swear it -- is simply say, "Yes, it's a tax." And, to take a page out of Tom Friedman's book on this, say, "We don't just want a tax, we want a big tax." The point is that it's a tax. The point is that it makes carbon-laden forms of energy more expensive. But there is an easy form of tax relief: use other forms of energy and use less energy. The average citizen can offset the additional costs by changing just a few behaviors every day -- which is why we want the tax. (Although we won't mind the revenue either, will we? And just so we're clear here: I strongly prefer a direct carbon tax to a cap and trade system. But either is better than nothing.)

So I'm kinda loving all this. And then I hear that there are going to be credits for people who are paying to put their kids through school and I'm thinking, "Bingo! That's just what I need! This is a party! I knew there was a reason I supported you during the campaign, President O!"

But then the dark reality sets in: It turns out I'm not eligible. I make too much money. (Who makes too much money not to get some help, what with the $200,000-plus it takes to send a kid to college? And that's after-tax dollars. I have to earn $400,000 a kid just to deal with college -- times two kids who may want to go to graduate school -- that's after 14 years of private school 'cause public school really wasn't an option in D.C. That's another, say, $25K a year, times 14. In sum: $700K, post-tax, per kid. In excess of $2.6 million pre-tax to send two kids to school. How can I possibly make too much money not to get some kind of help with that? Especially since I'm already paying all the property taxes that support the public schools I'm not using. And since ultimately society will be getting a return on my investment. Because my beautiful, brilliant girls will definitely make a contribution. At the very least, they have already conclusively demonstrated that they will do their fair share of consuming. In fact, had I known when they were born what I know now, I would have named them Stimulus 1 and Stimulus 2.)

So, maybe there's something else for me in here. 95 percent of Americans are going to get a tax break. Even people who don't pay any taxes at all are getting a break. (Which is something like half of all taxpayers.) Surely, I must be getting some kind of break. I own a small business. We're creating jobs. Not a lot. A few. But some jobs. And so I comb the proposals looking for something for me and my family. Not only do I find no breaks. I'm going to pay more. A lot more. I have become part of the only group in America it seems to be okay to raise taxes on in a deep recession. Somehow raising taxes on most people is a drag on the economy, but raising taxes on people like me is actually good for the economy.

And I keep looking. But everywhere there is something delicious, there is a clause that says, effectively, "Not for you, David." In fact, I believe my name is actually used several times in the budget document. I take a look at the mortgage stuff. Surely there is something in all this mortgage stuff that will help my family out. We pay our mortgage. We work to keep the value of our house up.  We're responsible about all this. What's in there for us? Ah, I see, we get to subsidize the people who weren't responsible. Er, um, fantastic. I mean, I know I should be happy about this. Because I am a Democrat. I'm a liberal. I want progressive taxes. I want to adjust for the grotesque skewing of income to the top fraction of one percent. I wrote a book on how grotesque all that was. (Out in paperback this week, by the way, folks. It's called Superclass. Have I mentioned that?)

So, why am I not feeling good about this? Why do I not feel great about this massive rebalancing? Because I don't feel like the top two percent of anything. I don't feel rich. I'm working my ass off to pay for all the things my parents could have at a fraction of the cost. Where I grew up, you could actually send your kid to the public schools. As for the house, the one we live in is almost precisely the same house my parents raised me in. It cost them $52,000 in 1967. That was a perfectly reasonable amount for a middle-class house. But that house, I discovered to my horror, now costs over $1 million. My wife and I have to work seven days a week to pay for what used to be a middle-class lifestyle -- but without the benefits from the system that helped my folks get there. I don't get a boost. I get a kick in the wallet. Yoiks. Why me, Barack? Why me? Can't you go after the really rich? Or can't we get more from everyone on a few of these things? And while we're at it, could we remember that some of the people in America who make over $250,000 a year are not the evil wealthy, we're also hard working Americans seeking to maintain, not even improve, the lifestyles we enjoyed as kids? And that it's not getting any easier for us either? (Admit it. The baby boomers got screwed. You had to work five times as hard to maintain the lifestyle you grew up with and just as you got to the point we thought we could take a deep breath, the economy blew up and obliterated our savings and any hope of retirement. My financial planner has it worked out and I can get whole again if I a) put all my money in my mattress and b) figure out how to work for about 15 years past the point actuarial tables suggest I will expire.)

Of course, just when I get myself all worked up, I stop and think of the words of my psychotherapist ex-wife: "It's not me," she would say therapeutically. "It's you." I have to wonder: Is the problem not with Barack? Could it be me? Could I be having a hard time swallowing the kinds of policies that I have long forcefully advocated over brie, wheat thins, and Chilean merlot? It was easier being a Democrat when there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that our policies would ever be fully implemented. Now we have to ask, did we really mean all that stuff about a fairer society? About new priorities? Even if it meant we would have to shoulder the load? And that's the unkindest cut of all. Barack has put the question to me (and possibly, I'll admit it, to others as well): Are we the people we thought we were? Are we prepared to walk the walk as well as talk the talk? I'm frustrated and angry, all right. But, maybe the real question I'll need to grapple with is whether my battle is with the President or with myself.