Steve Clemons on Tonight’s Debate
By SusanUnPC on January 21, 2008 at 11:30 PM in Barack Obama, Bush/Cheney, Chicago politics, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Obama, 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.
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
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.by David Fredosso who wrote 2008's 
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