Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Thursday, 4 September 2008
obama has 2 fathers
http://www.tmz.com/2008/09/02/barack-makes-his-tory-with-his-two-dads/
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Fox News meets Obama
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/02/AR2008090202730_pf.html
Obama Met With Fox News Executives
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 3, 2008; A22
ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 2 -- At a secret meeting with Barack Obama three months ago, Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes says, he tried to clear the air with the Democratic senator by saying that his organization was determined to be fair but would not be "in the tank" for Obama's campaign.
During the sit-down in a Waldorf-Astoria hotel suite in Manhattan that included Rupert Murdoch, the network's owner, Obama expressed concern about the way Fox was covering him. "I just wanted to know if I'm going to get a fair shake from Fox News Channel," Ailes recalled him saying.
"Senator, you're the one who boycotted us," Ailes says he replied. "We're not the ones who boycotted you. Nor did we retaliate for your boycott."
The meeting appears to have eased tensions between the two camps, which began when all the Democratic candidates, complaining that the network favors Republicans, refused to hold any primary-season debates on Fox. After resisting invitations for months, Obama now plans to appear on Bill O'Reilly's prime-time Fox program on Thursday, the night that John McCain delivers his acceptance speech at the Republican convention here.
Ailes said in an interview Tuesday that he would never have discussed the matter publicly had Vanity Fair not published an account of the earlier portion of the meeting, in which Murdoch sat on one side and Obama and advisers David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs on the other. The article, based on a forthcoming book about Murdoch by Michael Wolff, says Obama told the Australian-born mogul that he didn't want to waste time talking to Ailes if Fox was going to keep attacking the senator and his wife and portraying him as suspicious and foreign.
Asked for comment about the meeting, Murdoch adviser Gary Ginsberg said both Ailes and Murdoch "had a really cordial and constructive conversation" with Obama.
"They had a frank discussion, aired concerns on our side, and we're happy we were able to air our concerns," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.
Ailes, who joined the meeting in progress and spoke to Obama for 20 to 25 minutes, disputed the article's assertion that the candidate had "lit into" him. He called Obama "a very charming guy" who is "very smart" and was "gracious" throughout the meeting.
Underneath all the politeness, each side clearly wanted something. Ailes was interested in smoothing relations and having Obama appear on his network, and the senator from Illinois hoped to neutralize a potential adversary and improve his treatment on the nation's top-rated cable news channel.
Upon joining the meeting, Ailes shook Obama's hand and sat down next to him. As Ailes recalls it, he responded to Obama's concern about fairness by saying that "there are opinion shows and there are news shows." Some of the criticism, Ailes told him, has come from conservative commentator and co-host Sean Hannity -- whom he likened to MSNBC's more liberal pundits Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews.
Hannity has led the media pack in repeatedly playing videos of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's controversial former pastor, and questioning his association with William Ayers, a member of the violent Weather Underground in the 1960s. In a recent interview with Glamour magazine, Obama said Fox News and others went after his wife, Michelle, "in a pretty systematic way. . . . If you start being subjected to rants by Sean Hannity and the like, day in and day out, that'll drive up your negatives."
"If you're asking me if we're going to be in the tank for you, like MSNBC and CNN, the answer is no," Ailes recalls saying. Executives at the rival cable networks say it is Fox's political coverage that has been unfair.
According to Ailes, a onetime adviser to Republican presidential candidates, when Obama asked what issues Ailes was concerned about, he replied, "The sovereignty and security of the United States of America, period." Obama, he said, responded by talking about his love of country and his plans to end the Iraq war.
The talk turned to "The O'Reilly Factor," and Obama said he would appear on the show before the election. Ailes says he told the senator that there would be no "embarrassing or underhanded stuff" in the interview and that if he had any overall concerns about Fox's treatment in the future, he should call Ailes directly.
Murdoch has a history of mending fences with political adversaries whom his news outlets have strongly criticized, from former British prime minister Tony Blair to Sen. Hillary Clinton. An executive familiar with Murdoch's thinking, who declined to be identified discussing private conversations, said Murdoch sought the meeting because he is fascinated by Obama but that the two still have serious policy disagreements.
Asked to assess the sit-down, Ailes said: "I wanted him to understand that we're a real journalism organization and we're going to cover what's there. We're not out to get him. . . . Neither of us was overly aggressive but neither of us blinked."
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Economic plans of Obama and McCain
Alan S. Blinder is a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve. He has advised many Democratic politicians.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/business/31view.html?em
Is History Siding With Obama’s Economic Plan?
By ALAN S. BLINDER
Published: August 30, 2008
CLEARLY, there are major differences between the economic policies of Senators Barack Obama and John McCain. Mr. McCain wants more tax cuts for the rich; Mr. Obama wants tax cuts for the poor and middle class. The two men also disagree on health care, energy and many other topics.
Such differences are hardly surprising. Democrats and Republicans have followed different approaches to the economy for as long as there have been Democrats and Republicans. Longer, actually. Remember Hamilton versus Jefferson?
Many Americans know that there are characteristic policy differences between the two parties. But few are aware of two important facts about the post-World War II era, both of which are brilliantly delineated in a new book, “Unequal Democracy,” by Larry M. Bartels, a professor of political science at Princeton. Understanding them might help voters see what could be at stake, economically speaking, in November.
I call the first fact the Great Partisan Growth Divide. Simply put, the United States economy has grown faster, on average, under Democratic presidents than under Republicans.
The stark contrast between the whiz-bang Clinton years and the dreary Bush years is familiar because it is so recent. But while it is extreme, it is not atypical. Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.
That 1.14-point difference, if maintained for eight years, would yield 9.33 percent more income per person, which is a lot more than almost anyone can expect from a tax cut.
Such a large historical gap in economic performance between the two parties is rather surprising, because presidents have limited leverage over the nation’s economy. Most economists will tell you that Federal Reserve policy and oil prices, to name just two influences, are far more powerful than fiscal policy. Furthermore, as those mutual fund prospectuses constantly warn us, past results are no guarantee of future performance. But statistical regularities, like facts, are stubborn things. You bet against them at your peril.
The second big historical fact, which might be called the Great Partisan Inequality Divide, is the focus of Professor Bartels’s work.
It is well known that income inequality in the United States has been on the rise for about 30 years now — an unsettling development that has finally touched the public consciousness. But Professor Bartels unearths a stunning statistical regularity: Over the entire 60-year period, income inequality trended substantially upward under Republican presidents but slightly downward under Democrats, thus accounting for the widening income gaps over all. And the bad news for America’s poor is that Republicans have won five of the seven elections going back to 1980.
The Great Partisan Inequality Divide is not limited to the poor. To get a more granular look, Professor Bartels studied the postwar history of income gains at five different places in the income distribution.
The 20th percentile is the income level at which 20 percent of all families have less income and 80 percent have more. It is thus a plausible dividing line between the poor and the nonpoor. Similarly, the 40th percentile is the income level at which 40 percent of the families are poorer and 60 percent are richer. And similarly for the 60th, 80th, and 95th percentiles. The 95th percentile is the best dividing line between the rich and the nonrich that the data permitted Professor Bartels to study. (That dividing line, by the way, is well below the $5 million threshold John McCain has jokingly used for defining the rich. It’s closer to $180,000.)
The accompanying table, which is adapted from the book, tells a remarkably consistent story. It shows that when Democrats were in the White House, lower-income families experienced slightly faster income growth than higher-income families — which means that incomes were equalizing. In stark contrast, it also shows much faster income growth for the better-off when Republicans were in the White House — thus widening the gap in income.
The table also shows that families at the 95th percentile fared almost as well under Republican presidents as under Democrats (1.90 percent growth per year, versus 2.12 percent), giving them little stake, economically, in election outcomes. But the stakes were enormous for the less well-to-do. Families at the 20th percentile fared much worse under Republicans than under Democrats (0.43 percent versus 2.64 percent). Eight years of growth at an annual rate of 0.43 percent increases a family’s income by just 3.5 percent, while eight years of growth at 2.64 percent raises it by 23.2 percent.
The sources of such large differences make for a slightly complicated story. In the early part of the period — say, the pre-Reagan years — the Great Partisan Growth Divide accounted for most of the Great Partisan Inequality divide, because the poor do relatively better in a high-growth economy.
Beginning with the Reagan presidency, however, growth differences are smaller and tax and transfer policies have played a larger role. We know, for example, that Republicans have typically favored large tax cuts for upper-income groups while Democrats have opposed them. In addition, Democrats have been more willing to raise the minimum wage, and Republicans have been more hostile toward unions.
The two Great Partisan Divides combine to suggest that, if history is a guide, an Obama victory in November would lead to faster economic growth with less inequality, while a McCain victory would lead to slower economic growth with more inequality. Which part of the Obama menu don’t you like?
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Tuesday, 10 June 2008
political humor
A big question people are asking Hillary Clinton: what is she going to do next? Where will she go? Where will she end up? Is she going to retire? I'm sorry, that's what they keep asking me. I'm sorry, I forgot." --Jay Leno
"It looks like Hillary Clinton will concede tomorrow. And, again, I don't think President Bush is familiar with this term. Like he said today, 'How could she concede? She's 60. That's too old to have kids.'" --Jay Leno
"Well, the talk is that Hillary Clinton is going to try and help unite the party. She's going to unite the party. But today Bill Clinton says, according to his experience, the party is usually over whenever Hillary shows up." --Jay Leno
"Well, according to the Wall Street Journal, a lot of Republicans are very excited about the idea of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal for McCain's running mate. Do you know about this guy? Interesting, interesting guy. He's a child of immigrants from India. His parents came from India, and he can bring youth to the ticket. And of course, McCain's excited because he wants to learn how to use email." --Jay Leno
"An article in USA Today reports that Barack Obama and John McCain have two very different visions of the world. That's what it said. Yeah. Biggest difference is that John McCain's vision makes it impossible for him to drive at night. He's got to go slowly." --Conan O'Brien
Meanwhile, after Hillary's meeting with Barack, Bill Clinton is now saying it's only fair he have a private meeting with Michelle Obama and Salma Hayek." --Jimmy Kimmel
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