NQ First Responder Must Reads

(bumped up from yesterday)

While others are gushing about Obama girls in Russia, still obsessing over Sarah Palin or the death of Michael Jackson (sad or negative), a few stories shouldn’t be missed. Russians, for example, might reflect a truer picture of Obama than domestic media; campaign finance reform goes off the rails; federal computer networks face major attacks and California, ever a bellwether, provides a glimpse of the continuing cultural attacks against “low-information voters.”

1) NYT published a piece about how Obama is faring in his trip to Russia. (Has he really made five overseas trips now?) Russians are not terribly impressed, although it is fair to say they aren’t necessarily negative.

Crowds did not clamor for a glimpse of him. Headlines offered only glancing or flippant notice of his activities. Television programming was uninterrupted; devotees of the Russian Judge Judy had nothing to fear. Even many students and alumni of the Western-oriented business school where Mr. Obama gave the graduation address on Tuesday seemed merely respectful, but hardly enthralled.

“We don’t really understand why Obama is such a star,” said Kirill Zagorodnov, 25, one of the graduates. “It’s a question of trust, how he behaves, how he positions himself, that typical charisma, which in Russia is often parodied. Russians really are not accustomed to it. It is like he is trying to manipulate the public.”

This is interesting. Russia might offer us a good lens for viewing Obama as a President. Without all the fawning, they are likely to look at his accomplishments and judge him. Now, of course, that will be through a Russian view of things, but still likely to be more objective than others.

Oh, and the speech so much talked about here? Russian television did not broadcast live or in its entirety.

2) Politico has a piece about campaign finance reform. Obama’s administration could preside over a roll back of laws designed to blunt the effects of campaign contributions on candidates.

Most of the developments now threatening to reverse efforts to reduce the influence of money in politics were set in motion during George W. Bush’s presidency. But Obama is nevertheless poised to watch the regulatory regime crumble around him as his administration follows a cautious approach that mostly ignores calls for more activist steps to salvage the troubled campaign finance system

The irony that the system could collapse on Obama’s watch, after he convinced the advocates for stricter regulations that he was one of their own, is not lost on those who support limits on the flow of money into the American political system.

“I would like to see the president make good on his campaign promises to change the way Washington works,” said Paul Ryan, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit that pushes Congress, the White House, the Federal Election Commission and the courts to enact, enforce and uphold strict limits. “With respect to the campaign finance laws and the FEC, the only change we’ve seen has been a change for the worse,” said Ryan, who stressed, “I’m not blaming the president. I’m just stating it as a factual matter.”

Uh, these people didn’t see Obama’s behavior during the campaign as a possible problem?

Ryan’s group and others in the so-called campaign finance reform community had largely given Obama the benefit of the doubt during his presidential campaign, even as he broke a promise to participate in a Watergate-era clean election system on the way to raising a record-setting $665 million. He also got a pass during his busy first few months in office as his administration welcomed reform leaders into the White House for the first time.

But Obama has otherwise done little to advance the campaign finance agenda and has failed to take tide-stemming steps available to him, a source of considerable frustration for reform advocates who had embraced him as a longtime proponent of reducing the role of money in campaigns.

Reformers are frustrated that nothing has been happening. Of course, the economy is the usual excuse. But that isn’t what was promised.

As for the FEC, by the time Obama took office, it had already drawn criticism for a pattern of 3-3 party-line votes that resulted in the dismissal of a string of enforcement actions. Those dismissals had the effect of reversing some earlier precedents. The agency had also earned the scorn of reformers for its loophole-ridden implementation of a bundling disclosure provision championed by then-Sen. Obama, who had touted it on the campaign trail as his top legislative accomplishment.

. . . Many of the reformers with whom Eisen regularly consulted expected Obama to shake up the agency in May, when time ran out on the partial terms of two Bush-nominated commissioners — Chairman Steven Walther, a Democrat, and Don McGahn, a Republican who was considered the leader of the anti-enforcement bloc.

But the reformers were disappointed when, instead, Obama tapped labor lawyer John Sullivan — who has advocated anti-regulation stances on behalf of his union — to fill a different seat, held by Democratic commissioner Ellen Weintraub, who has continued to serve on the commission even though her term expired two years ago.
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If Obama pushes through a new system before the 2012 campaign, he’d either have to participate in it, which would likely limit his meteoric fundraising ability, or reject it and brace for a public relations hit.

Surprise!! Some would call this a “no-win” situation for Obama. I’d call it poetic justice since he bagged on his promise to use public funds.

3) The Chicago Tribune reports more attacks on federal computer systems.

A widespread and unusually resilient computer attack that began July 4 knocked out the Web sites of several government agencies, including some that are responsible for fighting cyber crime, The Associated Press has learned.

The Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department Web sites were all down at varying points over the holiday weekend and into this week, according to officials inside and outside the government. Some of the sites were still experiencing problems Tuesday evening. Cyber attacks on South Korea government and private sites also may be linked, officials there said.

This attack is significant because of the length of outage. It took days to get the Department of Transportation back up to 100%.

Although attacks on computer networks don’t regularly make the news, since it’s far more important to talk about Sarah Palin’s kids, the clothes of Mechelle or the general excellence of BO himself, we should pay more attention.

On an individual basis, these kinds of attacks can lead to your personal information being sold or misused. But more serious is the potential disruption to national services or networks. This recent attack, largely unnoticed outside of those unfortunate to actually need services at that time, should not be ignored. What if next time it’s not DOT, but FEMA or FDIC or social security networks? What if it is the IRS???

4) Reason online has an interesting take on the California budget problems. The author also says the media and pundit actions/reactions portend what is likely on a national level should budgetary problems escalate.

On May 19, California voters went to the polls to decide whether to pass a package of six tax-and-gimmick ballot propositions. Its supporters—Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Democratic legislative leaders, the California Teachers Association, and the overwhelming majority of the state’s major newspapers—billed it as the last best hope to plug Sacramento’s $24 billion budget deficit. “Either pass it,” warned the Los Angeles Times editorial board, “or risk fiscal disaster.”

Those who believe that either money or the media determine political outcomes should pay close heed to what happened next: Although opponents were outspent by more than 7 to 1, they trounced the state’s political class, rejecting five of the six measures by an average of 30 percentage points. The only proposition to pass was an anger-driven new law that limits elected officials’ salaries.

Faced with such thorough repudiation, California’s best and brightest then did a telling thing. They lashed right back.

The Los Angeles Times headlined its morning-after news analysis, “California Voters Exercise Their Power—and That’s the Problem.” Sacramento columnist George Skelton argued that “voters helped get themselves into this fix” by “passing feel-good ‘ballot box budgeting’ initiatives” and sanctioning “heavy borrowing” for “infrastructure projects.” Business columnist Michael Hiltzik averred that “far more blame for the deficit belongs to California voters” because “year in, year out, they enact spending mandates at the polls, often without endowing a revenue source.” Missing from any of these critiques was the fact that the Times’ own editorial board endorsed more than 90 percent of the very same ballot-box bond measures during the last decade. No matter: A perpetrator had been located.

“Good morning, California voters,” The Sacramento Bee’s post-election editorial began. “Do you feel better, now that you’ve gotten that out of your system?”

Remember what happened to the Bee? The editorial was quickly scrubbed, with a more conciliatory one in its place. Supposedly the Bee never intended to publish the first one. No, I didn’t buy that argument.

Rarely has the chasm between elite political discourse and grubby popular opinion been displayed in such sharp relief. The implications of this citizen revolt—and the hostile reactions to it—stretch far beyond Nevada’s western border. California is the Ghost of Federal Government Future.

During the last two decades, the Golden State has been transformed from what was once known as the nation’s most anti-labor outpost to a state essentially run by public-sector unions. Nearly three in five publicsector workers are unionized, compared to less than two in five public employees in other states. The Democratic Party, which is fully in hock to unions, has controlled the legislature and most statewide posts, with the notable exception of the governor’s mansion, for more than a decade. That means more government workers, higher salaries, and drastically higher pension costs.

Welch goes on to blame unions for much of the gridlock in California. I don’t know if that’s fair or not. What interests me is how all the “smart people” and media chose to blame what can only be called “low-information voters” for the situation. Clearly, newspapers were convinced they understood the situation better than voters and thought their editorials should be heeded by the masses. (Of course, declining readership is also blamed on increased stupidity.)

Can this happen on a national scale? Of course. It already does and did. I don’t like the slippage of media into name-calling or trying to influence policy decisions. I’d rather they report what is going on. But it’s been a very long time since any “major media outlets” have simply reported the news. They much prefer to feel they are policy players. The recent screw-up by the WaPo over selling access is proof enough of that.