Tom Watson

The Politics of Pope

As a German Pope should, Pope Benedict XVI seems to understand the nuances of schadenfreude, which he delivered to progressive American Catholics in knockwurst-sized chunks of good, clean ecclesiastical fun this week.

How else to explain the sheer level of personal delight that Benedict provided at the expense of the right-wing, commie-baiting Latin Mass crowd epitomized by the likes of Pat Buchanan, and defensive anti-socialist middle class culture warriors like William Donohue. Oh, it had to hurt (so good).

First came the proposed "new world order" contained in the Pope's encyclical Caritas in Veritate - or "charity in truth." The reviews were unanimous:

The Times: "Benedict sounds like an old-school European socialist, lamenting the decline of the social welfare state and praising the “importance” of labor unions to protect workers."

USA Today: "What politician would casually refer to 'redistribution of wealth' or talk of international governing bodies to regulate the economy?"

Time: "Benedict believes that capitalism as such is now effectively "obsolete" and must be replaced by a new form of market economy whose driving force is not the maximization of profits."

How the right wing hated it! The Wall Street Journal stooped to argue that because Benedict didn't go so far as to call for an end to capitalism, it actually meant - in special Catholic smoke signals that can only be divined by conservative RC kimosabe - that the Church had "come to terms with its existence."  Catholic conservative George Weigel was far less elliptical in his National Review rip job; the encyclical, he sniffed, "resembles a duck-billed platypus." The American right wing is up in arms over the Pope's call for a “world political authority” to rein in the worst aspects of global trade and protect the poor and weak. Over at the conservative Catholic-infused Corner, for instance, the normally pious K-Lo damns the Pope with faint defense: "The encyclical is not the gift to the Left the media would have you believe."

Then came President Obama's visit with Pope Benedict today in Rome, after which both parties emphasized "common ground." And while the Vatican made it clear that the President received the traditional lecture on abortion, the Holy See also let slip a discussion on immigration in the U.S. - which to American conservatives would appear to consist of left (Obama) talking to far, radical left (Benedict) on that particular issue.

Quoth U.S. News: "The encyclical ramped up the level of White House enthusiasm for this meeting because you can't read it without sensing that these two men are seeing economic questions the same way," says a Catholic adviser to the White House who spoke on background.

And lo and behold, the Pope had some reading for the President: Caritas in Veritate. And a nifty souvenir for the American Catholic left.

Gail 'TMZ' Collins

As he so often does, Bob Somerby takes a two-by-four to the Times op-ed page today, swatting Gail Collins with the harshest possible language - that is to say, he judges Collins' recent work to be of the caliber of the NYT's resident conservative sex columnist, Maureen Dowd.

Dowd remains a simpering ninny, spreading around DSM diagnoses about Big Major Pols. And she has Gail Collins right there by her side! In case you haven’t been keeping score, her is the breakdown of Lady Collins’ recent columns—including the massive piece of self-parody she unloosed on the world today:

Gail Collins column topics, 2009:
June 20: John Ensign’s affair.
June 25: Mark Sanford’s affair.
June 27: Mark Sanford’s affair.
July 2: Mark Sanford’s affair.
July 4: Sarah Palin’s resignation
July 9: Michael Jackson’s funeral.

As your nation struggles with monetary heists, unemployment and national health care, Collins has three major things on her mind—celebrity, sex and gossip. This morning, though, she stoops to explain the thinking of her high class:

COLLINS (7/9/09): The media, for its part, plans to continue talking about Michael Jackson for quite a while—this is the first time since the election that we feel we have everyone's attention.

Yes, it's all about you, the insider commentariat. Always has been. It's been so unfair of us not to pay rapt attention to - oh, I dunno - the massive battle over our healthcare system or those millions of unemployed Americans. Collins is a fine writer who used to walk the municipal beat in New York, and she can still swing a roundhouse, especially when she turns her often insightful 'tude toward actual news and policy. Thankfully, Jacko's death has us paying more attention.

On Ruining Children (Not That I Have, Mind You)

Mr O'Connor tore a strip off the card and, lighting it, lit his cigarette. As he did so the flame lit up a leaf of dark glossy ivy in the lapel of his coat. The old man watched him attentively and then, taking up the piece of cardboard again, began to fan the fire slowly while his companion smoked.

`Ah, yes,' he said, continuing, `it's hard to know what way to bring up children. Now who'd think he'd turn out like that! I sent him to the Christian Brothers and I done what I could for him, and there he goes boozing about. I tried to make him somewhat decent.'

He replaced the cardboard wearily.

`Only I'm an old man now I'd change his tune for him. I'd take the stick to his back and beat him while I could stand over him - as I done many a time before. The mother you know, she cocks him up with this and that... '

`That's what ruins children,' said Mr O'Connor.

- Ivy Day in the Committee Room, Dubliners by James Joyce

Splendid Isolation

One of the great Warren Zevon numbers - this one's from an old Letterman show. Dig Dave holding up an LP.

Tegucigalpa Tweets

As far as I can tell, not a single human being in the many thousands surrounding Tegucigalpa airport in Honduras during yesterday's dramatic and deadly stand-off between protesters and outlaw military units supporting the rump post-coup government was using Twitter. Yet the conversation around the confrontation - which ended with a young protester shot dead and the plane of ousted President Manuel Zelaya blocked from landing - swirled furiously on Twitter and by late afternoon, the #Honduras hashtag was trending.

Unlike the larger and murkier drama in Iran, where one faction of the 30-year theocracy seeks to oust another while pro-democracy organizers seek a foothold in an essentially closed and repressive society, the situation in Honduras was far more transparent - and, in my view, more authentic and dramatic online. While fake Twitter accounts, disinformation and frantic rumors seemed to abound in the long, drawn-out and widespread upheaval in Iran as a large, western echo chamber grew with every "retweet," the Honduran Twitter "story" was far more straightforward, for several reasons:

1. Honduras is small - just 7.5 million people - so an accurate picture of a society in political turmoil is easier to capture.

2. Old media was allowed to cover the story. Live footage from Venezuelan outlet teleSUR and al-Jazeera covered the stand-off from the airport live. Their coverage (streamed via the net) became the basis for the ongoing Twitter dialogue.

3. That dialogue was intense and featured several different points of view - this is important, and in sharp contrast to the Twitter "conversation" over the Iranian protests, which at times devolved into a Diana-like display of mass hysteria. Yesterday, American right-wingers sided with the coup plotters (in contrast to their calls for "freedom" in Iran) while most liberals either took a cautious wait-and-see stance or called for Zelaya's return; the Spanish-language debate (as much as I could folow) was equally intense among Hondurans.

4. There was a real chance to influence the outcome - oh, not at the airport, perhaps, but in terms of U.S. policy toward Honduras and Latin America. Many of those on Twitter appealed directly to President Obama and Secretary Cinton via Twitter. And indeed, the Administration clearly understand it has a more hands-on role to play in this important hemispheric stand-off; Clinton will meet with Zelaya tomorrow.

For my own part, I tweeted like a mad man. The story is a compelling one, it's a true test for President Obama, and offers the chance for better U.S. policy in Latin America. It's time to call the right's commie-baiting on Venezuelan's Chavez, for example - just as it's time for the left to stop allowing him to be the hemispheric pebble in their shoe. Public engagement - promised by Obama during the campaign - should be our guide.

That said, there were a couple of times yesterday when I stopped to consider the journalistic phenomenon of Twitter. I think it's a brilliant interactive distribution channel for news stories, one that invites participation and conversation. But it's no pure substitute for reporting. Without question, the video feeds from the airport yesterday carried the day. They were supplemented by great opinionated blogging, Flickr pics, and Twitter commentary and linkage.

As I blasted away yesterday on the Twitter story from Honduras, I took two quick time-outs and tweeted them:

Caution on #Honduras info coming via me - RT'ing does not constitute journalism, but merely a conversation (also good) - grain o' salt.

Caveat emptor: nothing I tweet on #Honduras should be taken as journalism or reporting - it's a conversation in public only.

As I watched people pick up on my tweets and pass them on, I thought it was important to issue mild disclaimers. Nonetheless, it was a moment of journalism - one that American television and web outlets pretty much let slip by, unwilling as they were to interrupt the latest updates on the Jacko funeral plans or Sarah Palin's imaginary future.

My Tiger Lily Summer

Tiger Lily, originally uploaded by Tom Watson.

My grandmother called these orange day lilies "Tiger Lilies" and they graced every late June of my early childhood, heralding July and summers of sprinkler dashing, grilled hamburgers, and long bike rides. This one was photographed in my front yard earlier this week; the clump was there when we bought the place 18 years ago and it's only grown heartier and more spectacular every year. Some of the hoity-toity cultivation types call these humble Tiger Lilies - or hemerocallis fulva - "invasive weeds." I prefer "tough volunteers." I look forward to their bloom at the start of every summer, and recall the happy times in my grandmother's back garden.

Hanging Together

The committee to draft the Declaration of Independence reviews the crucial words in this scene from the HBO series John Adams - happy 4th, folks.

The GOP's Gerry Cooney Hits the Canvas

Because of America's economic crisis, the Republicans' Deadliest Catch has decided to suspend her public service career in order to spend more time posing as someone with a serious notion of government. The announcement crashes Memeorandum under the weight of Palin linkage. Bright spot: at least Andrew Sullivan gets his mind back.

Coup, Coup Ga Joob

In the complex world of hemispheric politics, where the name of Revolutionary War veteran James Monroe is still tossed about in glorious ancient relevancy, currency is everything and subtle shifts in the stance of the North American superpower start as ripples below the mouth of the Potomac, only to end as tidal waves on the shores of nations to our south.

The late upset in Honduras has created what appears to be a neat left-right furrow in our own commentariat. Fresh from backing the Khomeini - er, democratic - faction in the dispute over the clearly fraudulent Iranian election, our right-wing voices (God bless 'em) are now arguing that the military takeover in the small Central American nation is anything but the coup d'etat that it so clearly is.

As Larisa Alexandrovna writes for Raw Story, the right-wing nuts are trying to use Obama's relatively cautious support for returning the elected president of Honduras to office as a bludgeon, claiming "radical leftist" leanings.

What is remarkably strange in these talking points is the absence of world condemnation of this coup. Over and over, in countless examples, Obama is being painted as a Castro and Chavez ally, a left-wing radical who supports tyranny. The talking points are so similar and so numerous that the only logical explanation is that this is a coordinated political effort.

Most importantly, these type of extreme word-games have real world implications. Consider that the turn of events in Honduras and the political attack on Obama using that crisis have some on the extreme-right hoping that our own military will remove President Obama from office to protect “democracy.”

More dangerous signal flares: based on his support for the elected government in Honduras, Barack Obama deserves his own, uh, intervention, in the exercise of his presidential powers, argues right-wing blogger MacRanger:

Americans - true Americans - need to keep a special eye on President Obama, or else risk a time when his unconstitutional grabs for power get past the point of no return. Our constitution also provides the solution for that, and I hope our elected leaders - on both sides of the isle - remember that.

Much of this is about using Venezuelan boss Hugo Chavez as a stalking horse to tar Obama as a socialist fellow traveler. In typical follow-the-leader fashion, Pam at Atlas Shrugged said the Honduran military moved to "save itself from a Chavez backed dictatorship." That jibes with the strange, erratic behavior of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, who says President Barack Obama's call to reinstate Zelaya is "a slap in the face to the people of the Honduras."

Before he departed (once again) to visit his personal Neverland of Trig Palin obstetrics conspiracy obsession, Andrew Sullivan tweeted: "Honduras Is Not Iran" and linked to a reader's email claiming the thuggish armed takeover that sent elected Honduran President Zelaya scurrying to the United States in his pajamas was both legal and necessary. He's right about one thing: it's not Iran - in that American intervention, foreign policy, and citizen involvement can indeed change the outcome and restore the rule of law to the poor country of 7.5 million. There's a worthwhile petition over on Facebook worth signing and sending to your friends demanding the restoration of the elected president of Honduras - which is no less than President Obama, Secretary Clinton, the United Nations Security Council, and the Organization of American States have done.

President Zelaya has vowed to return to his country this weekend to confront the rump government that took control at the point of a bayonet. The situation is, as they say, fluid. I'll be following the story via Al Giordano and his team at Narco News, which has the best sources of any English-language publication covering Central America.

The Big Steep

Today's unemployment numbers should have splashed all that talk of "green shoots" with economic Weed-B-Gone, as the official job deficit rolls toward 10 percent in our midnight garden of recession - while the unofficial numbers creep higher still.

To crib from early 70s Paul Simon: "I don't know a soul who's not been battered. I don't have a friend who feels at ease." The Labor Department's monthly number - 9.5 percent and once again picking speed on the downhill lie - doesn't include all the underemployed, the furloughed, the salary-sliced, the benefits-deprived and the just plain battered into submission in our society. Throw in the fearful and the trepidatious still clinging to old-fashioned paychecks, and that's pretty much everyone I know.

As monsoon season in New York gives way to rainy season, and the humidity grows and ripens in the corners and on the subway platforms, there's a gathering gloom about town that has nothing to do with merely the latest thunderhead rolling in from New Jersey. No, what's rolling in from the rest of America is the Great Recession, the economic event of most of our lifetimes, the one they warned us about, the one our parents and grandparents lived through a couple of generations back before the war.

Noting that Leo Hindery's "real" job losses are 18.7 percent - or more than 30 million Americans - Steve Clemons argues that "with Christina Romer out raising expectations again with giddy talk predicting a V-shaped recovery and given the 'jobs, jobs, jobs' mantra of President Obama himself -- the gap between the job figures expected and the disappointing economic realities generated may be politically consequential." Yeah, when a fifth of working age Americans are out of a job, you can bet there are consequences.

One of which is a clear depression in spending. "Americans are tightening their belts" report the pollsters, which is a bit like saying that someone run over by a semi has "passed on." Magazine subscriptions are being cancelled, fewer shirts are headed for the drycleaners, more workers are brownbagging it, coffee sales are down - hence Starbucks' massive cutbacks. The jobs cliff is pretty obvious - and so is this recession's historic nature (via Ezra Klein):

Was the stimulus enough? Is it well-targeted? Is it working and creating jobs? Hard to tell, but the job numbers are pretty indicative - and perhaps we'd be worse without it. And as Kevin Drum said today: "keep in mind that we're in good shape compared to Europe and China." This could be a long, gloomy summer.

In the Trenches of Digital Change: Hype Mavens Need Not Apply

This week's Personal Democracy Forum in New York was the sixth annual confab of social media geeks, government 2.0 types, non-profit changemakers and digital dreamers of all shapes and sizes - but it was really Year One AO: After Obama.

Last year's social media avalanche, loosed from the peaks of a historic national election, made everything seem possible; armies of do-gooders wielding iPhones and tweeting for change were poised to radically remake both the polity and our vast social commons. (Well ok, that was #IranElection two weeks ago as well - but you get the idea).

This year, it seemed to me, doubt walked the halls at PDF, and optimism tempered by experience kept both the Twitterstream and the panels and speeches well out of the red on my hand-held hype meter. Indeed, the very word "Obama" seemed to be sharply discounted in its usage around the Time Warner Center - used more respectfully (and sparingly) as a reference to a new(ish) Administration facing a myriad of challenges foreign and domestic than as a harbinger of of sweeping, digitally-interconnected change.

That's no knock on the President, especially at a conference where progressive-leaning attendees clearly outnumber their conservative counterparts. ("Republicans don't really don't care about community and all that," snorted GOP digital operative David All, as if to cement his side's outsider status at a gathering largely devoted to more open government). Rather, I think it was a "settling in for the long road ahead" moment, a groupthink realization that big change isn't easy, and that turning an entity the size of the Federal Government quickly is a bit like spinning the Queen Mary into a watery parking space.

Yet the fact that 900 attendees would gather to talk about the possibility for wired change - both 'CauseWired' to borrow the theme of my book, and politics-oriented - in the current economic dust storm (and in a non-election year) was very impressive. And some of the themes and news bytes well worth recording:

The talk about the super-hyped role of Twitter and other social media in the protests surrounding the disputed Iranian elections was mainly about authenticity, crowd-sourced reporting, and whether governments could effectively shut down digital communications. Yet it was stunning to hear Randi Zuckerberg admit that Facebook doesn't know if the "official" page on the social network for Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi is genuine or not, considering the missives published there are often taken for the official voice of the protest. And it was hardly a triumphalist sentiment that NPR's new media wizard Andy Carvin shared when he emphasized that Twitter users "have to be skeptical of where the information is coming from."

Yet there was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's social media maven Alec Ross extolling the use of digital platforms and networks to change how Americans face the rest of the world. Ross argued that everybody who lives in our network society now has the power "to be a Paul Revere" and sound the alarm for everyone else, noting that it was a couple of young people on Facebook who organized massive rallies against the Colombian guerilla group FARC. "It doesn't always have to be over the mahogany table with porcelain cups of tea," said Ross of crowd-sourced statecraft; it was Ross who leaned on Twitter not to shit down for maintainance during the height of the Iranian protests.

And there were a couple of big "government 2.0" announcements at PDF: the Obama Administration's launch via CIO Vivek Kundra of the new U.S. Federal IT Dashboard, which provides at-a-glance access to the budget process, and Mayor Bloomberg's announcement (via Skype) of a "big apps" contest for developers who mash up the city's data feeds in ways that benefit the public. Such thinking about sharing information, said PDF co-founder Andrew Rasiej, shows that "we do have Big Brother now - Big Brother now is us."

That might be the ideal, but as a couple of speakers argued, nirvana on the digital public common's ain't exactly nigh. “Can poor people see streaming video that calls out corruption in government and in business?” Josh Silver, the executive director and co-founder of Free Press, in reaction to a discussion about President Obama's broadband. And Microsoft's Danah Boyd called out class distinctions on the digital commons - to the mainly white, non-deprived, plugged-in geekage: "We still don't have a language to talk about classism in America today," she argued in an eye-opening presentation. "There is no universal public online."

The Big Six-0

Clown. Loonbox. Buffoon. Just a sampling of what the terrified right-wing blogs are calling Al Franken tonight.

Think I'll just call him Senator.

And in honor of the 60th Democrat, here's a bit o' classic Franken. That's Senator Franken as Mick Jagger and Tom Davis as Keith Richards. Rock on Minnesota.

Death to Madoff!

I know he's committed the financial crime of the young century, but I still find some of vengeance porn around the Bernie Madoff sentencing a bit off-putting. There's a bloodthirsty quality to the digital mob, as if Madoff were the American economic equivalent of Guy Fawkes, planting explosives under our vulnerable financial infrastructure. Because he revealed our weakness, he must watch his entrails roasted before his own eyes on the public commons.

Writing in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Gary Stein calls for the death penalty in cases like Madoff's: "How about making the worst of the defrauders and bilkers and scam artists and life ruiners - people like Bernie - be eligible for the death penalty? I'm very serious about that."

Over on MSNBC's Newsvine thread, it's much tougher - no lethal injection clinician to ease the Ponzi king's departure from this mortal coil.

Bernie Madoff should be WATERBOARDED to reveal where he has all this money stached!

scumbag. I say let him out, and publish his address on the internet......

He is an evil man. If there's a Hell, he's headed there. And I hope the prisoners there LOVE him and show him exactly how much.

He should have been taken out in back of the courthouse and strapped down on a hill of fire ants - as a starting point...

It's just gonna be hell sitting in prison remembering why he's there. Too bad he couldn't have been turned over to the people he defrauded

Bernie Madoff is a crook alright. But the size of his monetary theft doesn't make thievery any worse; it's like swimming - once the water's six feet deep, it may as well be 10,000. What stirs this particular pot is the social status of his victims (generally upper middle class and higher, plus some horribly victimized charities) and the poor judgement they showed in trusting the Madoff name without adding up the returns and asking questions. And the "torture Bernie  till he bleeds money" chorus mourns not just some personal fortunes lost, but an era of financial blindness just ended.

Metsie, Metsie, Metsie

There's nothing cute about the Mets getting pounded by the New York Yankees, the cross-town American League team whose management felt it necessary to install a field level moat to keep its regular fans away from the swells paying a couple of grand for the lame "Legends Club" seats in the $1.5 billion Vegas attraction that replaced the real American field of dreams on River Avenue in the Bronx.

Sure, the Mets play in a smaller, more fan-friendly ballpark in Corona and clearly their management feel more comfy in second team status - yet their lack of ambition as a franchise is showing; this is a team of Triple-A talent, journeymen, and 40-plus types on their last big league rosters. Yes, they're "hanging close" in the under-achieving triumvirate of the NL East with the Phils and Marlins - but that's because the Phils and Marlins aren't the Dodgers or Red Sox.

Blame the injuries if you will - two of this year's projected starting five are out, as are sparkplug Jose Reyes, cool centerfielder Carlos Beltran, and twilight slugger Carlos Delgado. David Wright is the one prime-time regular still in action, hitting for a high average with almost no power and a strikeout ration that should give him the nickname "Bonds." Filling in are a bunch of jumped up Mets like Santos and Murphy, and the elderly Gary Sheffield.

Even in their nice new park (despoiled by embarassingly and exclusionary "private" clubs built on the public dime that I'm formally urging Assemblyman Richard Brodsky to investigate) the Mets seem like a smaller, shrinking baseball team. The one exception: super-closer Frankie "K-Rod" Rodriquez, an upfront, in-your-face New York star whose temperament and talent are built for this city.

Pity he doesn't have the mangement or teammates to push his amazing closing talent to the post-season stage.

Middle of the Road

I've always thought that like the late Bob Murphy, Chrissie Hynde's voice was a vocal harbinger of summer. Catch her running through those early Pretenders hits from 'round about '79 or '80 and it pretty much called for a cold beer on the back porch or the front stoop. Later this summer, the artist and I are planning to see Hynde and the current Pretenders lineup in Central Park - but I thight it would be great to kick off summer 'round here (and perhaps chase away the lingering monsoon) with this live gem, an early 80s rendition of Middle of the Road (which Chrissie Hynde most definitely is not).