Steve Clemons on Tonight’s Debate
By NoQuarter on January 21, 2008 at 11:30 PM in Barack Obama, Bush/Cheney, Chicago politics, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Obama, Steve Clemons, Tony Rezko
Steve Clemons, Senior Fellow & Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation and Director of the Japan Policy Research Institute — from his blog, The Washington Note:
… I wish I had heard none of the political commentators afterward because listening to Mark Halperin (a virtual friend of mine) after, I was very irritated. He said he gave Obama an A- tonight and then a B+ each to Hillary Clinton and to Edwards.
I have to go with my own filters … each scored points [but] Hillary Clinton performed with an authority, presence in that huge hall, and mastery of detail that was just second to none. She hammered Bush on the semi-secret deal he’s trying to rig with the Iraqi government to commit American troops and bases indefinitely — something the others did not mention. She had numbers and details flowing forth as if they were as natural as could be.
One thing that was weird for me in this debate is that Hillary Clinton is clearly not mimicking her husband in any way. John Edwards is. Bill Clinton is the master of anecdotes. … Hillary is dense with facts, details, experiences — but it’s not warm and fuzzy. …
“First, I was miffed at Obama and Edwards for their ignorance or purposeful duplicity about the subprime home mortgage crisis. …”
First, I was miffed at Obama and Edwards for their ignorance or purposeful duplicity about the subprime home mortgage crisis. They both said that African-Americans were perniciously targeted by lenders. That’s about as untrue as one can imagine. The subprime crisis is an outrage — but it was a systemic problem — and everyone who wanted credit got it. Had everyone else other than the African-American community received loans that were subprime and based on substandard collateral then there would be a case of discrimination, but to argue that Blacks were targeted to give bad loans to — below prime rate levels — was grossly wrong.
Hillary Clinton, alternatively, did not say that. She argues for a “work out” plan that freezes rates for six months and stops foreclosures for a period of time. The neoliberal Chicago school economist won’t like this approach because it lengthens the period in which capital is ineffectively and wrongly distributed. But the government — mostly because of a combination of financial innovations in the market it doesn’t understand, leading to poor regulation — actually helped create the housing bubble and the crisis. To extend the bubble to work out the worst elements so that the shock harms fewer people is sensible.
I was surprised to hear Obama and Edwards not embrace this plan. Obama didn’t want to reward speculators. This isn’t a simple game of good guys and bad guys. There are hundreds of billions of dollars of bad loans hiding out there in financial portfolios that are not yet disclosed — and much of the financial network will not finance each other in fear of subsidizing a corrupted portfolio. So, the problem is not only with homeowners but with the entire financial network.
Hillary Clinton got this in a way that really surprised me. …
ON THE HEALTH PLAN DEBATE:
I’m glad that Obama got hit by both Hillary Clinton and Edwards for his health plan. He needs to change it and just come up with a plan that covers all Americans. Edwards’ best moment was on health care policy I think, although he was wrong to say that none of their plans cover illegal aliens. I believe that Clinton’s plan does in fact have a sub-tier package of health care for illegals as it’s important to the core mechanism of her plan to cover everyone. When Edwards said that none of them covered illegal aliens, she shook her head no — but then never commented about it.
ON REZKO:
And while I didn’t like Hillary raising the slum lord issue with Obama, I was surprised to hear him refer to Rezko as “that indivdual.” That individual is someone Barack Obama has known for 17 years and someone who has raised more than $10 million for him and who was on his Senate campaign finance organization. Now Hillary Clinton had Norman Hsu — but while I didn’t expect Obama to embrace Rezko, he might have just said that he was surrounded (as they all are) by people who are not always what they seem to be. At that moment, Barack Obama using “that individual” sounded a lot like — well — you know who. . .
[Susan's NOTE: Read more on REZKO here, including all the background on that 17-year association.]
ON BUSH’S REBATE PLAN:
Hillary Clinton was right to blast President Bush’s financial rebate plan in his stimulus package. That kind of spending should be directed at generating America’s next platform for innovation and for rebuilding the core infrastructure of the country. Clinton got some of this right in my view, but Obama was a bit more defined and thorough.
Good for Hillary for bringing the Iraq War back into the debate front and center, where it belongs.
P.S. The new poll looks great!!! The positioning will get it more attention.
When Edwards said that none of them covered illegal aliens, she shook her head no — but then never commented about it.
Why should she have commented when John Edwards was going after Obama? Second illegal aliens and healthcare is worse than illegal aliens drivers licenses. Why create the soundbite?
Town here is 85% black, I’ve looked at maps showing the subprime ‘hot spots’ and the neghboring county in the next state, where many of the local Whites have moved, is one of them in the highest graded market.
We’ve actually been below the nat’l average for subprime.
From a comment someone made to one of my about market fundamentals being stretched too thin and in peril from pooling risk, I lost a recent link read elsewhere(crashed). Maybe I can find it again…
It was I. 40% of the county in which I live is subject to this subprime mess…
greenspan’s take on derivatives.
“Although the benefits and costs of derivatives remain the subject of spirited debate, the performance of the economy and the financial system in recent years suggests that those benefits have materially exceeded the costs.”
buffett’s take on derivatives.
“We view them as time bombs, both for the parties that deal in them and the economic system.”
i’ll go with the oracle from omaha…
fokowi
You cannot cut the rates, we don’t need 50 cent on the dollar buyouts of the underwriting creditors, either.
Instead table new payment plan for loans based upon a cap formula.
The more on time payments you make, the less your payment becomes, extended additionally, with incentive reward interest.
This can even be shaped to reflect cyclical concerns within markets that feature cyclical work and production surges for rural or factory regions, in accordance with other lending value from said institutions as well(school or car loans).
Since it’s a cap formula the bank wouldn’t have to count some its lower loans, an incentive to distribute across the spectrum and evaluate fairly, and the loan rewards would give incentives in both to meet more equitable payment arrangements.
Loans reaching critical stages could have their deferred counting costs applied to the upper cap structure in three year deferments restructures, provided they accompany adequate job creation numbers to insure extra market value or meet other evaluative norms.
It’s not that we lose money, we just extend it over a longer span of time, and can apply rich interactive terms to them that stimulate demand and incentive supply of them to people best able to work with the bank at both ends of the buyer/lender transaction.
Win-win situation, although the payment scale will shape out differently. Reducing some of the volatility can probably shape better results, without discouraging market activity to static levels.
Meanwhile, world markets are tanking. Bush went to the Mid East wanting loans for the tax cut as a way to rally GOP election chances and background his State of the Union. The Saudis told the warmonger where to go.
He hoped to put the blank check to the tax deal, one that still overlooks 28% of taxpayers, and do it on IOU’s from overseas. Now he’s asking Asian markets to match, many places already vested in production of jobs outsourced from us. The constraints on purchase here and the tense background of many emerging market sectors there aren’t meeting expectations, based on the currency juncture resulting from weakened dollars and diminished earnings.
This may be the one chance James Baker can kick back in and pulse the phone lines. It would be unique to see how someone like John Edwards could perhaps benefit from some of that based on prior proxy interests that parallel their foreign policy discussions at places like the Bilderburg Group meetings…
Dubya having to see daddy’s consigliere undo his mess, and do it be working with parallel interests from emerging democratic majorities.
Irony is thy name, translated as schadenfreude.
With Hillary, it will be Giuliani Time on Republicans this Fall.
I still do not understand why the Clinton campaign does not hammer Obama for not holding any policy meetings of the Foreign Relations Subcommitte on European Affairs, which he chairs. Does anyone have an idea why this is not a big deal? It seems to me that after the Democrats took over last year and Obama got the chair of that committee he would have gone out of his way to use it to begin to repair our tattered relationship with our European allies as well as learn more about these issues, get to know the leaders etc. to better prepare himself to be president. That he did not bother at all looks like the actions of a man who is a bit of a slacker.
Can anyone speak to this?
I was singularly unimpressed with Obama last night. I felt that, as Clinton pointed out, every time he was attacked on his record, he came up with a lame excuse. As much as I instinctively dislike Clinton, she was sharp, focused, on target, and had well thought out positions on every issue discussed. My preference is Edwards, but besides being largely ignored, I didn’t think he was very effective when he did get a chance to speak.
I fear we are facing a Clinton/McCain race in the fall, and it will be very tough for a Democrat to win that contest. Clinton is correct that it will be about National Security, and frankly her record doesn’t provide enough clear difference with McCain to inspire the kind of mass turnout we need to defeat the Republican machine. I think she would do much better than Obama though. Obama has the capacity to become the next Dukakis.
This post, is evidence, that Obama kicked butt last night. Everything I’ve read here drips of incoherent desperation.
Obama 08′
Jay,
Then certainly we cannot blame you if you do your reading elsewhere.
Since Obama is all about a different kind of politics, not the bickering of the past that he so decries, isn’t his “kicking butt” a repudiation of what is so appealing about him to so many? Seems to me like he is undercutting his own message.
Obama can’t hammer too much on Hillary for taking funds raised by Norman Hsu, as he received contributions from Mr. Hsu as well.
Funny how this gets overlooked by the media. They are really on his side, at least for now.
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