Our Short Memories

I've seen several articles comparing the difficulties faced by Biden/Harris in 2021 to the problems facing FDR in 1933 or Lincoln in 1861.  The problems Obama/Biden faced in 2009 are usually ignored, or dismissed.  I think this reflects our short memories, as well as the success of the administration.  

 I recognize the economy is worse today than in 2009, but it's worse because of the pandemic. The assumption now is when we fix the pandemic by vaccinated the country the economy will revive. (I think the assumption is wrong--the pandemic will have caused changes in society and the economy which will be revealed as our health gets back to normal.)  In 2009 we knew the economy had systemic problems which needed fixing.  We also "knew" a big stimulus would lead to inflation, which seems to have been disproved.

Meanwhile Trump boasts of not getting the country into a new war, which is true enough. Obama faced two wars--the dying one in Iraq and the endless one in Afghanistan. 

I think our memory of the euphoria of electing a black president clouds a realistic perception--the division in the country which was revealed by the rise of the Tea Party movement (and Occupy Wall Street on the left) was there on January 20, 2009, even if we did not realize it until later.

Garrow on Obama

Just finished David Garrow's Rising Star.  It's only getting 3 stars on Amazon.  This piece gives a reasonable review.

It's the longest book I've read in a long time--1400+pages with footnotes and index, about 970 pages of text. Garrow seems to have talked to everyone who had significant dealings with Obama during his life up to 2004 and to everyone who remembered him. That means it's exhaustive and exhausting. Garrow vacuumed up everything, so he often reports fulsome compliments ("will be first Aftrican-American president") along with bitter feelings. After he's elected to the Senate the book speeds up a bit, ending with his election, with an epilogue which covers the presidency.

Garrow found a new lover--in addition to the two previous biographers had already identified, one from Obama's days as an organizer in Chicago.  He seems to have had a steady if not necessarily totally monogamous relationship at Occidental, in New York City, and then in Chicago before law school, before finally meeting and marrying Michelle after law school. As far as Garrow can tell he's been a faithful husband, surprisingly so in light of the atmosphere in Springfield, IL when he was a state senator.

Obama seems to have evolved into a person who greatly impressed most people he met and worked with, antagonizing a few along the way and leaving in his wake some more with ambivalence. Garrow sees the mature Obama as very ambitious and very private, rarely allowing people to see his core, sometimes leaving them with the feeling of being used or abandoned.  As his biographer Garrow doesn't penetrate that far, never resolving the apparent conflict between Obama's famous "cool" and his nicotine addiction.

Garrow''s extensive research turns up no skeletons in the closet, at most some evidence of of a toe or two of clay.  He does debunk anti-Obama stories popular on the right, not so much explicitly but by laying out the detailed sequence: these include the relationships with Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn, with Rev. Wright, and developer Tony Rezko.  As his fame grew, he minimized his ties to all of these.  Garrow notes the shading of the truth, but doesn't frame it as hiding lurid secrets, just a politician doing a hedge.

Garrow won a Pulitzer for his bio of M. L. King; he didn't win another for this book.

How Partisan Are We Really?

Some lines from a Fivethirtyeight chat (onObama's influence today):

According to the 2017 poll I referenced earlier, Obama was seen favorably by 22 percent of Republicans. That’s not awful.
micah: That’s better than I expected, actually.
nrakich: And, according to a Gallup poll from February, 38 percent of Democrats now approve of George W. Bush! Some of that is the Trump effect, but in general, partisans cool their jets once their mortal enemy stops being their mortal enemy.

White House Garden Lives!

From a post on plans for the state dinner welcoming French President Macron tomorrow night:

"The first course, using greens from the White House kitchen garden to represent a celebration of spring’s first harvest, will feature a goat cheese gateau, tomato jam, buttermilk biscuit crumbles and young variegated lettuces."

Our lettuce is up, but not yet big enough for salads.  Assuming the White House is a week-10 days ahead of Reston, this looks good.

USDA/FSA Burns "Bridges"

The Obama administration established "Bridges to Opportunity"--see the explanation here and a press release from January 2017 on the expansion. My brief explanation is FSA agreed with nonprofit organizations to refer farmers to them (i.e.  if someone was interested in organic ag, the FSA office could refer the person to organizations promoting organic ag, using a database of those with agreements) using a database.

Now the Trump administration is having the FSA offices to revoke the written agreements with these nonprofits.

The assertion is that the referral service is being incorporated into the "farmers.gov" website.  That seems reasonable, but what's not clear in the notice is why they need to revoke the agreement, if the change is basically incorporating the old "bridges" database into their new consolidated website.

I'd guess there was boilerplate language for the agreements with the nonprofits, but I can't find it anywhere. If I were really curious I'd submit a FOIA request for the language and for data on how many agreements were entered into.  If I were cynical, and I am, I'd suspect the Republican administration views the nonprofits with which agreements were made as likely leaning Democratic, many of them likely serving minorities and women.

Apparently the bulk of the "Bridges" was a replacement for the "Web Receipt for Service" software of several years ago.

Janesville and Liberal Government

This book just won a prize for nonfiction writing.  If you don't want to read the whole thing, this New Yorker piece of last year will substitute.

I'm still reading it, but I want to note one failure of government: Obama came, promised help, his man visited, listened, did nothing before leaving for a better paid post.  It's an old lesson of bureaucracy--you need unrelenting pressure from the top to accomplish the difficult.  President Nixon, despite his flaws, knew this and his administration was successful in removing the WWI "tempos"

now the site of "Constitution Gardens". 

Much as I like Obama, and my regard for him as a person is only increased by comparison with his successor, I don't see him as a good manager of the bureaucracy.  (The most glaring failure was, of course, healthcare.gov.)

Liberals believe in the power of government to help, but Janesville is disappointing in that respect.  The conventional wisdom is that job retraining programs are a necessary part of global free trade and/or fighting recessions.  The results from Janesville don't support their efficacy.  The job retraining seems to have worked somewhat like farm programs, easing the transition from a good past to a dimmer future. 

Cotton Wants

Am I getting old and forgetful--I don't remember blogging about this program.  Remember the pressure on Vilsack to do something for cotton, but not this.  Anyway, from DTN:

"The cotton industry and contingent of 135 members of Congress are calling on the Trump administration to continue operating the $300 million Cotton Ginning Cost Share Program created by the Obama administration as a way to help cotton producers."

Administrative Procedure Act Pros and Cons

EPA has run into an APA problem as interpreted by a court:

The ruling serves as a signal to Pruitt and other Trump administrations that delaying a rule's effective date may be viewed by courts as tantamount to revoking or amending a rule. In their ruling, Judges David Tatel and Robert Wilkins said that the agency could change the methane regulations but would need to create a new rule to undo the old one, and couldn't delay the effective date of the old law while seeking to rewrite it. 

Unless a higher court overrules, EPA must follow rulemaking procedures under APA to create the new rule, meaning a delay of months if not years.  As the Rural Blog notes, this is a problem because the Trump administration has used the same approach elsewhere as well.  But we liberals should not applaud too hardily; the strict application of APA could kill Obama's process for the children of undocumented immigrants (the "Dreamers").  And once liberals retake the presidency, we'll be stuck following the same process to revive those Obama rules which Trump's administration is eventually able to kill using the APA procedure

Saint Jimmy and Bad Barack

Barack Obama is taking some heat from the left for giving a speech for $400,000.  As usual I've mixed feelings:

On the one hand I wish the Obamas had followed the example of the Carters in sending their daughters to a public DC school.  They didn't.   I also wish the Obamas would follow the example of the Carters in "rarely" giving paid speeches.  They won't.

On the other hand where do you draw the line?  Is a $10,000 fee for a speech at an alumna mater okay while $400,000 would be wrong?  Or is the issue who the speech is to?  We don't want the Obamas talking to "bad" people but it's okay to talk to "good" people?  Won't "bad" people benefit more by listening to them?

On the third hand, I disdained Reagan's speeches in Japan.

My bottom line is while I wish we were a nation of saints, and I wish the president were the highest-paid, best compensated American executive, neither is true, so we live in the world we have.

Obama Versus Trump

Obama hired a personal photographer; Trump hired personal security staff .

Both men have big egos, but the contrast is IMHO telling.

Days of Hope

Reading this NYTimes piece from 8 years ago sparks memory of another era.  Briefly, Obama held, or spoke at, dinners honoring John McCain and Colin Powell on January 19, 2009.  (I was prompted to do a search by a tweet comparing photos of Trump's crowd at the Lincoln Memorial and Obama's.)

Changes in DC

There's a piece in the Washingtonian on how the Obama administration changed Washington, DC.

Perhaps the single most telling stat on changes in DC during the past years is contained in this Post article on the stagnation in high school graduations.  There's a table with the data on VA, MD, and DC, showing a graph of rates from 2000 to 2031-2.  While white rates in both states are flat, the graph for white rates in DC soars above all others, reaching 500+ percent over 2000-1 by the end of the period.  (I'm guessing that the rate is already 200 percent of 2000-1, an increase paralleling the Hispanic increase, but the Hispanic rate levels off and then drops in the 2020's.)

Perhaps the Obama administration symbolized the demographic changes in DC, without actually causing them.

Vote to Preserve the WH Garden?

If you don't like the Democratic ticket you can at least vote to preserve Michelle Obama's White House Garden.  PBS Newshour covers a ceremony this afternoon which tries to preserve it as a permanent feature of the grounds.  Not quite comparable to Jackie's Garden, but something.

I think I've noted earlier my skepticism that the Obama children ever did much in it, despite their mother's naive hopes when it was first announced.  That's just as well, because I suspect Barron Trump won't be living in the White House and the Clinton grandchildren are too young.  So the Park Service will continue to care for it.

Given what happened to Carter's solar roof, I'd expect Trump to do away with all Obama innovations.  Indeed, I wish someone would ask him in the debates whether he plans to redecorate the White House to suit his tastes, maybe a nice gold color with "Trump" in neon above the portico?

The Clintons likely will continue with the garden, but without the fanfare.

Most Surprising Paragraph of Yesterday--M.Obama

From Powerline, the conservative blog, Paul Mirengoff writes:

Sanders’ address was preceded by a speech by Elizabeth Warren and an introduction by Keith Ellison. Before that, Michelle Obama spoke. I didn’t hear her speech, but assume she was good. She always is. [Emphasis added.]

Powerline hasn't gone completely soft; Scott Johnson was not impressed. 

I'm avoiding watching the convention, but given the praise for Michelle's speech I just watched it on Youtube. Glad I missed it--I'm too old to cry.

The Influence of Vested Interests and How to Overcome Them

 Political scientists and others like decry the power of special interest groups, sometimes described as having pretty complete power over public policy.  That's often true, but not always.  Take the example of the nutrition label on food, which has just been changed.

As background, consider this NY Times  article, which includes this: 

A team of researchers at the University of North Carolina conducted a detailed survey of the packaged foods and drinks that are purchased in American grocery stores and found that 60 percent of them include some form of added sugar. When they looked at every individual processed food in the store, 68 percent had added sugar.

Naturally the food processors liked the status quo.  But with Michelle Obama as the spokesperson, they were defeated.  Among the factors: Obama's image and clout, the easy contrast between self-interested food processors and those who want to improve the nation's health, and the absence of any broad-based coalition in favor of sugar.  There's no NRA, no grass-roots organization, to provide support to the processors.

The Last White House Garden?

Recently there's not been much publicity about the Obama White House Garden, which I've noted.  Apparently part of that is due to my lagging involvement in social media.  Turns out Obamafoodorama has moved to twitter, it seems. [Updated:  seems I saw that last year, but failed to follow Ms.Gehman Kohan on twitter.]

Anyhow, this week the final spring planting of the garden in Obama's terms of office took place, and the White House posted about it. Mrs. Obama can claim some credit for gains in health.

The really interesting question for a follower of politics and government is: what happens next spring?  Will Bill Clinton be out there planting, or Jane Sanders?  Somehow I don't see Trump's wife doing the planting, nor Mrs. Cruz.

The garden was a personal project of Michelle Obama, meaning it's doomed.  At best the new occupants of the White House will find the money in the budget to continue having the Park Service care for it.  But I remember that President Carter's solar panels were removed by the Reagans.  Each spouse has had her own personal projects, so my prediction is: no garden in 2017.

Court Gamesmanship

Having just seen my prediction for the Presidential elections go up in flames with Rubio's withdrawal, I forge ahead with commenting on the Supreme Court.

I seems to me that Obama has this strategy:
  

• taking the Senate Republicans at their word--they won't vote to confirm any appointee now.
• Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee and she's likely to beat Trump.
• if she beats Trump, there's some chance a nominee who's not a liberal icon and who's a little older will seem more palatable to the Republican Senate after election day.  That's particularly true if the new Senate has a Democratic majority.   

Paul Meringoff at  Powerline, a conservative with whom I almost always disagree, seems to support my theory, writing this morning: " Things might look different in September, if Hillary Clinton is 25 points ahead of Donald Trump in the polls and the Republicans are headed towards losing the Senate. In that event, Garland might look a lot better."

Does 2016 Campaign Make Obama Look Better?

IMHO the answer is "yes".

[Update: I note Gallup says his approval rating now exceeds his disapproval rating.]

Spring and the Garden Calls

Reston's been in the 60's the last two days, so it's time to work in the garden, spreading manure, digging the beds, trying to get peas in timely.

That caused me to google for the White House garden news.  Not a lot.  The latest I found was a June 2015 piece on doing a harvest, segueing to planting a pollinator garden, including for monarch butterflies.  Doubt they'll take credit for the rebound in monarch numbers recently reported.

White House Garden Coverage or Lack Thereof

Apparently Eddie Gehman Kohan has shut down the obamafoodorama blog and instead is solely tweeting (https://twitter.com/obamafoodorama).  She notes that March 20 was the anniversary of the initiation of the project in 2009, but a quick search doesn't reveal any recent coverage of it. The last news item I find is from last fall.  Now that Sam Kass has left, I suppose Barack is worried about his legacy, and the family is worried about colleges, it may be running on bureaucratic inertia.   If so, that's the usual fate of initiatives of outsiders who come into the bureaucracy with great ideas.