Welcome to the "Loser's" Circle
Sportswriting legend Grantland Rice gave us this timeless definition of sportsmanship:
"For when the One Great Scorer comes
To write against your name,
He marks — not that you won or lost —
But how you played the game."
But here in Washington, that last line has been regularly amended to read, instead, "But where you place the blame."
As Congress flirted with national disaster over doing what previous Congresses had done 18 separate times at the request of President Ronald Reagan, raising the debt ceiling, much of the unofficial conversation was over who would be the political winners and losers out of this showdown.
My simple answer: There are no winners, just losers, including a serious hemorrhaging. Tom Gallagher, who keenly analyzes the economic implications of policy and politics, puts it best: "The winner of a mud-wrestling contest is still covered in mud."
But, counter Democratic partisans, what about the ABC News/Washington Post poll that asked questions such as, "Who do you think cares more (Barack Obama or Republicans in Congress) about protecting the economic interests of middle class Americans" or "you and your family?" Obama was the choice by substantial margins, while the GOP by more than two-to-one landslides was judged as caring "more about protecting the economic interests of Wall Street financial institutions."
"Caring more" is not unimportant to American voters. But good intentions and kindly sentiments are no match for practical results. Those of a certain age can recall a presidential election when voters asked who cared more about young voters, or elderly voters, or average voters like you overwhelmingly chose the Democratic nominee. Then, when asked for whom they would vote, these same folks by a landslide chose Republican Reagan over Democrat "Fritz" Mondale.
In picking a president, we want a leader tough and shrewd enough to deal with corporate moguls, with OPEC and the Chinese. That's why it was unhelpful to his cause when President Obama, visibly angry over Speaker John Boehner's withdrawal from their two-man summit on the debt ceiling, complained, "I've been left at the altar now a couple of times." Those are the words a victim, with a whiff of self-pity, might use.
Rep. Mike Capuano, D-Mass., was not pleased at reports that Obama in his private sessions with Boehner had been offering major cuts in Medicare and other domestic spending. After the president's end-of-the-session capitulation on the extension of the Bush tax cuts last December, Capuano observed that if Obama had been negotiating the purchase of a new car for him, Capuano "would end up paying sticker price" and get a model "with no radio."
Do not think that the GOP will emerge from this debacle unscarred. In addition to acting like the bootlickers of Big Business and Big Money, Republicans and Boehner appeared to surrender to every demand of the tea party. They would be wise to study the 1972 high-energy campaign of insurgent Democrat George McGovern, with its liberal true-believers brandishing their own demands and non-negotiable agenda. After McGovern's defeat, campaign director Frank Mankiewicz — avoiding the word "blackmail" — told historian Theodore White: "We were always subject to this pressure from the cause people. ... If I had it do over again, I'd learn when to tell them to go to hell."
This has been a sad saga with no winners and too many losers, including the grievous loss of our already depleted confidence in each other.
To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
COPYRIGHT 2011 MARK SHIELDS
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7 Comments | Post Comment
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Sir;... Mr. Obama should not play the victim... For so many of us, Mr. Obama has taken the side of life's victors over that of the victims in this land... And when it gets time to vote, he knows that from our perspective, it is him, or some one worse we will vote for... I have to say that I like the tea party method... It is time for an all or nothing, take no prisoners approach to politics... To hell with fraternization... Man the baricades... Shoot to kill... Among all our unfinshed tasks in this land like the American Revolution and our Civil War may be found the seeds of this anti democratic reaction...Some of those people would not be Americans if there was an intelligence test required... Many of those people gaze with longing at the Lords and ladies of Britain, and say: I wish we too had a king... Some people never get it, that to deny their countrymen their due is to see themselves denied; but until some people learn the hard way they simply will not learn... Mr. Obama could be leading the charge against stupidity... He could be trotting out life's maimed and broken, the aged and infirm who need the help of the government to survive... He could be playing the race card, or the class card, or the sex card, or the education card... He could be pointing out that government does more than tax and collect taxes... He could point out the multitude of places where government does what no single individual or group could do... Instead, out of lack of imagination, or out of his formal education, and perhaps even out of want of intelligence, he lets them hit him time and again and whines about it... How is that for a fighter??? How is that for change that matter???s... These democratic leaders play the fool and fall right into the trap set for them by the right... Some one should tell that idiot that it is time to make a stand... It is time to be president of the people who elected him... Why those fools try to be president of all the people and serve the rich with the poor, maybe, is beyond me... It is time for that man to dance with the girl who bought his ticket... There is no common ground... There is no middle... He will not gain a single vote trying to be president of all the people... You don't see republicans making that mistake...They serve their masters, and call it principals... Why can't democratic presidents figure it out??? If they will do only one thing; it is not to lead, but to educate... Force the right to consider the consequences of the actions they propose... To think they get it, and are doing as they are doing without regard to consequences is to consider them morally defective... And I am certain they are morally defective, but even I would not take the fact for granted without trying to educate them to reality before they decide the issue... Educate them, and educate your base at the same time... What do we stand for as democrats and as Americans... Is this the land of the free, a commonwealth, or is it sold already to the rich??? Thanks.... Sweeney
Comment: #1
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Sat Jul 30, 2011 12:26 PM
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I would like to quote my 15 year old daughter who listened as I read this article aloud:
"The problem with Obama is not that he is weak but that he is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Obama has not stood up for the American people because he is not on their side. "
(She pays attention, and she recently picked up Howard Zinn's, "A People's History of the United States". She has told me that she finds it discouraging that the abuses of the past continue to this day.)
As for me and my household, we will not vote for Obama in 2012, even though I and members of my household traveled to Nevada from CA to register voters and canvass for him, sent money to his campaign, and made over 1300 cold calls across this nation to garner support for him and GOTV. Our system of government is totally corrupt, and both parties serve the interests of corporations and the wealthy elite over those of the American people. If I were to have any criticism the ideas put forth in this essay written by the great Mark Shields, it would be that it continues to frame the debate in Democrat vs. Republican terms when the real conflict is between economic justice and preserving the quality of life for the majority of Americans vs further enslavement to the corporations and monied interests who run our government. Sadly, we the people are the biggest losers because we don't even have a man in the fight.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Christina Hayes
Sat Jul 30, 2011 1:49 PM
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Funny, the point raised about self-pity. Last time I saw a clip of Boehner going off that was exactly how I was seeing him--full of self-pity.
I think the problem with Obama is that his brilliant speaking sets him up for failure. His oratory instills the belief that he really knows what he's doing, but the fact is he's not the most competent administrator the nation has seen. His intentions seem a lot better but I'm not sure he is any better at running a government than the guy he succeeded.
Mr. Sweeney, I love the stuff you write but I have to disagree. Revolutions are very risky. I used to think Russia's revolution helped usher it into the modern world, but now I'm not so sure. They only seem to succeed when the entire society has completely ground to a halt and the state has come crashing down, leaving just about no other alternative.
Most of what is behind our lovely tea party is uninformed and fantasy-based rage. There is no discipline or study behind the movement, and not much of any substance to being offered as a solution.
Americans are spoiled rotten. We have been living off the spoils of World War II for 7 decades now and the party's over. The American middle class can no longer be supported by our domination of the world economy, so as China's middle class and a lot of others come up, ours is headed back to the mean.
Those who do the really hard work here are...you guessed it... Yep, the immigrants.
Whenever I have worked with them, the job has gotten done. Well. And they have been proud of the job done and grateful for the opportunity to show off their skill and determination, not to mention getting paid for it.
When I have worked with the native-born, some work has been engaged in, everybody has paid much attention every step of the way to all the rights they have, arguments have occurred, etc., etc., and in the end maybe the job got done and maybe it really didn't. And of course, the pay was never enough.
There's a whiff in the air of born on third base and think we hit a triple, and why in the world can't we hit another one. Or even get to first base.
We haven't treasured the fantastic position we've had in the world, our fabulous educational structure, our strong manufacturing base, our beautiful environment, or just about any other part of our incredibly wealthy and luckily stumbled-into heritage. We have failed to be wise investors in ourselves. We have let so much of what we have just crumble away over the decades, complaining that it was somebody else's fault every step of the way, and we are starting now to fight over the diminishing remains.
This tea party stuff will take us right down the path Yugoslavia went if we don't watch it. Think of turning onto the off-ramp of a highway and looking at that big red sign that says: "Wrong way! Go back!"
Comment: #3
Posted by: Masako
Sat Jul 30, 2011 2:43 PM
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P.S.
Anybody remember that scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Yoda sent Luke into the underground cave? There he ran into Darth Vader and, they did battle with light swords, and Luke cut Vader's head right off. Then you saw a close-up of Vader's head, and somehow what you were seeing was Luke's face instead of Vader's.
It took me the longest time to get the point. Many years later I realized that Luke thought he was eliminating his enemy, but in the end he found that he and his enemy were one and the same thing. Don't know who to credit with that--whether it was Kershner, Lucas, Brackett or Kasdan, but it was a great way to say I have met the enemy, and it is us.
Too bad we can't require everyone in Congress to see The Empire Strikes Back again and write a little essay about what that scene means.
Comment: #4
Posted by: Masako
Sat Jul 30, 2011 3:10 PM
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Masko---You are the uneducated and uninformed. Unfortunately for the mainstream press, the Dems and RINOS, the Tea Party is very well educated They just do not want to admit it. That is why they are so scared of them. The majority of the are the very people that built this country and do understand the Constitution. They were taught American history in the schools and do not like these morons that are trying to change the country and rewrite history.
Most Dems and all Libs are ideologues that can not understand that 2+2 = 4. I haven't figured out yet if liberalism as we know it today is a disease or a religion. Either way, a logical person can not have verbal intercourse with them. i.e. Alan Cholmes & Bob Beckel. Real morons that spout BS and I guess they believe it or Soros or somebody is paying them a lot.
As far as illegals...they are costing the country billions! Anyone that can't figure that out is an idiot too.
Just a thought or two for you people that try to make everything so difficult. It isn't...clean up the corrupt government, stop most foreign aid and nation building, kick out the illegals, control the unions, and support the Tea Party (but make sure they are really Tea Party before you vote for them. There have been a couple of imposters).
Comment: #5
Posted by: Charlie
Sat Jul 30, 2011 7:14 PM
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Charlie, you clicked onto the wrong website. This is Creators.com, not Foxnews.com. In this site, most of the readers have a basic understanding of reality.
Comment: #6
Posted by: Mike Ohr
Sun Jul 31, 2011 9:17 PM
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Good article. I favor defining the middle class with a lower salary range. $60,000 to $150,000 per year, I would say is middle class. Above $150,000 a year is rich. Below $60,000 per year would be called "working poor." We also need better statistics. Why were the census statistics not widely published? One article on this website did have a few statistics that were eye openers such as 63 percent of citizens are living in homes and paying a mortgage which used to be called "the American Dream." I would guess that nine percent are poor, 60 percent are working poor, twenty percent are middle class, ten percent are rich, and one percent are super rich. My guess might be wrong, but where is the data? I would also define middle class as being "in the black," as used to be the phrase that would describe people with savings. However, most people, I suspect, "cook their books" by salting away money into retirment savings or paying house mortgages and not putting those figures into their analysis of their situation. In other words, a Baby Boomer earning $85,000 per year, married, with five more years to pay one a mortgage and $500,000 in a retirement fund might cry, "I can't make ends meet." Really? With five hundred thousand hoarded the Boomer can't make ends meet? He needs to go back to school and study math. While going back to school, he might also consider a good church to learn about the sins of greed and selfishness.
Comment: #7
Posted by: Mike Hayne
Mon Aug 1, 2011 7:52 AM
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