The Latest from Robert Kuttner

Calling Paulson's Bluff

Sep 21, 2008 | 02:10 PM

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson spent the past two weeks playing a game of chicken with firms like Lehman Brothers and A.I.G. Now he is playing even higher-stakes chicken with Congress and the economy.

Game Changer

Sep 18, 2008 | 11:35 AM

Read it on the Huffington Post

This week, historians will record, was a game-changer in two key respects.

First, the free-market chickens finally came home to roost.

And this was the week when Barack Obama recovered that voice that gave so many of us so much hope.

Populist McCain, Polite Obama

Sep 17, 2008 | 11:29 AM

Read it on the Huffington Post

The progressive Section 527 groups, such as America Votes, have been gathering all this week, determined to save the Obama campaign from its own gentle post-partisanship. They began aggressively recruiting large donors, to finance the tough TV spots that the Obama campaign has mostly avoided to date. I attended one of these meetings on an off-the-record basis. "We need to do a far better job defining John McCain," said one national 527 leader.

Wall Street Delivers

Sep 15, 2008 | 12:51 PM

Sometimes, the fates deliver.

This past weekend, they delivered a worsening of America's financial crisis, which is the direct result of rightwing economic policies of deregulating Wall Street. Some Democrats colluded in these policies, but their essence was Republican ideology. Under George W. Bush, misguided theories of deregulation were entangled with corruption and incompetence in enforcing the scant regulation that remained. The result was subprime and its spawn.

An American Puzzle

Sep 12, 2008 | 03:27 PM

Note: I found this one page on the sidewalk outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington. I can't vouch for its authenticity-RK:

TRANSLATION: MANDARIN TO ENGLISH
From: Geng Huichang, Ministry of State Security
To: Zhou Wenzhong, Chinese Ambassador to the United States
Re: Request for evaluation of PALIN, SARAH

Security Classification: Eyes Only

Shaggy Fox Story

Sep 11, 2008 | 05:24 PM

You do all kinds of dubious things when you're promoting a book. But when my publisher suggested that I accept an invitation to appear on Fox's "Hannity and Colmes," I was a bit skeptical. I've been on O'Reilly a few times over the years, and have stopped doing it, because these people play with such a stacked deck. They control the format, the timing, they flat-out lie, and they're rude as hell. Even if you win the debate, you're lending credibility to a propaganda act.

Hannity & Colmes

Sep 11, 2008 | 04:41 PM

Here is the video of an interview I did on Fox's Hannity & Colmes last night. Commentary to follow...

The Passion Gap

Sep 10, 2008 | 01:40 PM

So who is the grinch who stole Obama's passion? Maybe Obama himself.

Obama fans should be reassured that he has been in this funk before, and has managed to get his mojo back. However, the anxious class has good reason to be anxious.

Obama's particular brand of post-partisanship seems to be having a rendezvous with the condition that has afflicted the Democrats in the past two elections, best known as "Gorekerry Disease." Each element of the malady is worth unpacking.

Too Clever by Half?

Sep 09, 2008 | 05:12 PM

Read it on the Huffington Post

So what is the connection between Barack Obama's core beliefs, his campaign advisers, and his rather lackluster performance since Denver?

Little Orphan Fannie

Sep 08, 2008 | 11:24 AM

Read it on Huffington Post and AlterNet

In the past several days, before the U.S. Treasury Department acted to seize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, several people asked me if I thought it was a good idea for the government to "nationalize" the two mortgage giants. In virtually none of the coverage of the Bush administration's latest emergency action, did anyone bother to tell the back story. Fannie Mae, nee the Federal National Mortgage Association, (FNMA) began life as a government invention. It was born "nationalized"--and it worked beautifully until it was privatized.

The Uniter-Divider and His Bare Cupboard

Sep 05, 2008 | 02:11 PM

Read it on the Huffington Post

On Thursday, John McCain pledged to end partisan rancor. On Wednesday, his running mate, Sarah Palin, and the rest of his crew did everything possible to stir it up. This will evidently be the nice-cop/bad cop act through the campaign.

Anything But the Economy, Stupid

Sep 04, 2008 | 10:53 AM

Read it on AlterNet

So now we understand what John McCain's handlers were up to: intensify the culture wars, and once again use cultural symbols as substitutes for policies. In particular, use Hockey Mom Sarah Palin to change the subject from why regular Americans are hurting in the pocketbook to why Palin is a more regular American than Barack Obama. Will the Democrats change it back? Whether they do will decide the election.

Last night, we learned once again how Republicans keep managing to turn seemingly weak candidates and weaker economic circumstances into instruments of political victory: they are superb at creating master narratives that make Democrats, liberals, and "the media" into the cultural enemies of ordinary people.

McCain-Palin = Nail McPanic

Sep 02, 2008 | 10:03 AM

As more details come out, it's increasingly clear that John McCain's campaign acted in haste and panic. Sarah Palin blows away the talk of Barack Obama being insufficiently qualified to be commander in chief. The right looks increasingly ridiculous in trying to equate Obama and Palin.

But there are still two wild cards that have yet to be fully revealed: Palin's effect on the socially conservative working class vote beyond the Republican hard core; and her effect on women voters.

Obama's Challenge, Part I: The Rhetoric

Aug 28, 2008 | 04:27 PM

Cross-posted on the Huffington Post

Obama is said to be in a rhetorical pickle. If he talks a language of hope and inspiration, it's too general and ethereal. On the other hand, if he get too specific, he sounds like a policy wonk. And if he goes for McCain's throat, the pundits have been warning that he will evoke the dreaded specter of the Angry Black Man.

Forgotten Man

Aug 27, 2008 | 01:03 PM

Cross-posted at the HuffingtonPost

Lyndon Baines Johnson was born 100 years ago today. After Franklin Roosevelt, his record as a progressive Democrat was unsurpassed. Thanks to his leadership and passion, Congress enacted Medicare, Medicaid, federal aid to education, Headstart, the Job Corps, legal services for the poor, and countless other pocketbook measures that helped millions out of poverty and reinforced a secure middle class. And Johnson took immense risks to pass the three landmark civil rights laws. It is not an exaggeration to say that without Johnson's leadership, Barack Obama would not be accepting the Democratic nomination for president this week.

A Perfect Opening

Aug 26, 2008 | 06:22 PM

When Ted Kennedy walked to the Denver podium, flanked by his wife Vicki and his niece Caroline, the roars that Kennedy had to finally silence marked a moment of high emotion. When he echoed the most powerful words of past Kennedy moments--"The torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans"--it was in the robust and booming voice that Democrats have come to cherish.

But Kennedy, 76, and gravely ill with brain cancer, almost didn't make this trip. When he arrived in Denver Sunday, he went straight to a hospital for a medical check. And until the moment that he set out for the convention hall, neither he nor his family could be certain whether he'd feel strong enough to speak. The magnificent short film tribute was initially conceived as a stand-in for Kennedy himself. The tears mixed with the cheers marked the fact that, barring divine intervention, this will be Kennedy's last convention.

Will the Clintons Behave?

Aug 25, 2008 | 02:23 PM

DENVER--I attended my first convention in 1964 in Atlantic City, as a college Young Democrat, when my thrill was smuggling gallery passes to Mississippi Freedom Democrats who were challenging the official all-white Mississippi delegation. The nominee, of course, was never in doubt, since Lyndon Johnson was the incumbent president. Johnson had just delivered the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the demonstrations were an acute embarrassment to him. In the end, two of the Freedom delegation were offered token non-voting seats, a compromise that satisfied no one. Civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper on the plantation of Mississippi Congressman Jamie Whitten, declared, "We didn't come all this way for no two seats, 'cause all of us is tired.'"

Make No Small Plans

Aug 22, 2008 | 01:16 PM

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting page-one piece today on how wages have lagged behind inflation in the US, while keeping up on Europe. This is of course because Europe has a stronger welfare state and stronger unions. Workers get a larger share of the total pie.

The End of Economics?

Aug 21, 2008 | 01:32 PM

Cross-posted at TAPPED

Columnist David Leonhardt has a piece forthcoming in the New York Times Sunday Magazine that nytimes.com posted early. The piece asks the question: where does Obama really stand on economic issues. It's the right question--but along with some useful insights Leonhardt provides some odd answers.

His Own Best Adviser

Aug 20, 2008 | 12:52 PM

This election will depend on whether Barack Obama, in the end, is able to be persuasive with working and middle-class voters who have deep economic anxieties. That means an economy of restored opportunity, decent incomes, and economic security.

Notes from the Publishing Wars

Aug 19, 2008 | 12:21 PM

Cross-posted at the HuffingtonPost

Well, Obama's Challenge (the book) is stimulating a lot of press notice, but not exactly the sort I had in mind. It set off a huge controversy about what's fair play in the publishing industry. What's fair? You decide.

Mortgage Emergency

Aug 18, 2008 | 10:17 AM

The Dodd-Frank bill to brake the collapse in housing values, signed by a reluctant President Bush just three weeks ago, is already far too weak to fix what's broken. The latest statistics are staggering. According to the firm RealtyTrac, there were 271,171 foreclosures recorded just in July. The Congressional Budget Office estimates, not disputed by Senator Dodd and Congressman Frank, that their bill, now law, will save just 400,000 homes from foreclosure over the next three years. Two to three million mortgages are projected to default this year alone.

Origins of a Book

Aug 13, 2008 | 03:15 PM

This book began with the germ of an idea for a magazine article. In the fall of 2007, I had just published a book warning of impending financial collapse (and none too soon) called The Squandering of America. Barack Obama was starting to look like he could be more than just a fresh face.

It dawned on me that by January 2009, there could be a rendezvous of a perilous economic moment with a new leader and an ideological reversal. I began reading more about great American presidents--Lincoln, FDR, the Lyndon Johnson of the civil rights era--leaders whom I thought of as transformational, who grew in office and took America places that seemed politically impossible when they began.

These transformations were the product of a rare crisis with rare leadership. I saw evidence that Obama might have the makings of such a leader. Interestingly, though John Edwards and Hillary Clinton seemed slightly to Obama's left on some issues like health insurance, many Obama supporters were willing to cut him some slack in issue positions because they saw in him a potentially transformative president.