Debasing the Nation's Coin

The New Normal

When a nation is run by demagogues--and political discourse consists of politicians trying to "out-demagogue" each other, things are at a pretty pass. The future does not look too good.

One of the worst thing about demagogues is that they take their audience for fools. By appealing to base instincts, beliefs, or interests they speak to manipulate the "great unwashed" into supporting them and providing political traction. But the most egregious aspect to the demagogue is that he or she is telling lies for sordid gain.  American politics is awash with demagoguery. Here are three egregious examples.

Firstly, three senators (Republicans McCain and Graham, and Independent Liebermann) have energetically pushed to see the US expand its military involvement in Libya. Fixated with a peculiar view of American grandness and exceptionalism, these three have been at the forefront of jawboning the President and the populace into America's Third War. Ghadafi just has to go!

But Andrew McCarthy reports in National Review Online:

John McCain, Joseph Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham are the Senate’s most energetic proponents of sinking the nation ever deeper into the Libyan morass. In a joint interview on Fox last weekend, Senators McCain (R., Ariz.) and Lieberman (I., Conn.) were breathless in their rendering of the “freedom fighters” and the “Arab Spring” of spontaneous “democracy.” Friday they upped the ante with a Wall Street Journal op-ed, rehearsing yet again what an incorrigible thug Qaddafi is and how “we cannot allow [him] to consolidate his grip” on parts of Libya that he still controls.

For his part, Senator Graham (R., S.C.) told CNN Wednesday that he would like President Obama to designate Qaddafi an “unlawful enemy combatant” with an eye toward legitimizing the strongman’s assassination. He and Wolf Blitzer discussed whether the hit could be pulled off by the covert intelligence operatives President Obama has inserted in Libya. The next day, in his plaintive questioning of Defense Secretary Robert Gates at a Senate hearing, Senator Graham wondered why American air power could not just “drop a bomb on him, to end this thing.”

Now, these three might be granted the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they are just honest men, albeit with perverse views. But it turns out that this same troika just eighteen months earlier were guests at Ghadafi's compound in which they slurped all over this same infamous dictator and miscreant.

It was only a short time ago, in mid-August 2009, that Senators McCain, Lieberman, and Graham, along with another transnational progressive moderate, Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine), paid a visit to Qaddafi’s Tripoli compound. If they seem to have amnesia about it now, perhaps that’s because the main item on the agenda was their support for the Obama administration’s offer of military aid to the same thug the senators now want gone yesterday.

A government cable (leaked by Wikileaks) memorializes the excruciating details of meetings between the Senate delegation and Qaddafi, along with his son Mutassim, Libya’s “national security adviser.” We find McCain and Graham promising to use their influence to push along Libya’s requests for C-130 military aircraft, among other armaments, and civilian nuclear assistance. And there’s Lieberman gushing, “We never would have guessed ten years ago that we would be sitting in Tripoli, being welcomed by a son of Muammar al-Qadhafi.” That’s before he opined that Libya had become “an important ally in the war on terrorism,” and that “common enemies sometimes make better friends.” . . .

The McCain who was face-to-face with Qaddafi was very different from the McCain who today rails about Qaddafi. Back in the tent, none of his concern would dampen the cozy mood. The Arizonan swooned over “the many ways in which the United States and Libya can work together as partners.”

What a difference eighteen months can make. Demagogues all. Dishonest men.

Second example. Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury and Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve had both been guilty of egregious demagoguery over the threat of Congress not raising the debt ceiling. Both have emphatically stated that a financial "global Armageddon" will result.

Just a few days ago, for instance, the Treasury Secretary was fanning the flames of a financial meltdown, as noted by Bloomberg:

Default would cause a financial crisis potentially more severe than the crisis from which we are only now starting to recover,” Geithner said. “For these reasons, default by the United States is unthinkable.

The Fed Chairman also tried to pour gasoline on the fire.

Here’s a passage from an article in the New York Times earlier this year:

Mr. Bernanke said the debt ceiling should not be used as a negotiating tactic, warning that even the possibility of the United States not being able to pay its creditors could create panic in the debt markets.

Sounds horrendous. But failure to raise the debt ceiling has no impact whatsoever on whether the US would default on paying interest on its borrowing. Bernanke and Geithner know this. It is pure, unadulterated demagoguery. 

But let’s set aside this first concern and focus on the second problem, which is whether Geithner and Bernanke are being honest. Simply stated, does a failure to raise the debt limit mean default? According to a wide range of expert opinion, the answer is no.

Donald Marron, head of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, explained what actually would happen in an article for CNN Money.

Our monthly bills average about $300 billion, while revenues are about $180 billion. If we hit the debt limit, the federal government would be able to pay only 60 cents of every dollar it should be paying. But even that does not mean that we will default on the public debt. Geithner would then choose which creditors to pay promptly and which to defer. …Geithner would undoubtedly keep making payments on the public debt, rolling over the outstanding principal and paying interest. Interest payments are relatively small, averaging about $20 billion per month, and paying them on time is essential to America’s enviable position in world capital markets.

And here is the analysis of Stan Collender, one of Washington’s elder statesman on budget issues (and definitely not a small-government conservative).

There is so much misinformation and grossly misleading talk about what will happen if the federal debt ceiling isn’t increased that, before any more unnecessary bloodcurdling language is used that increases everyone’s anxiety, it’s worth taking a few steps back from the edge. …if a standoff on raising the debt ceiling lasts for a significant amount of time, the alternatives to borrowing eventually may not be enough to provide the government with the cash it needs to meet its obligations. Even at that point, however, a default wouldn’t be automatic because payments to existing bondholders could be made the priority while payments to others could be delayed for months.

The Economist magazine also is nonplussed by the demagoguery coming from Washington.

Tim Geithner, the treasury secretary, sent Congress a letter on January 6th describing in gory detail the “catastrophic economic consequences” such an event would entail. …Even with no increase in the ceiling, the Treasury can easily service its existing debt; it is free to roll over maturing issues, and tax revenue covers monthly interest payments by a large multiple. But in that case it would have to postpone paying something else: tax refunds, Medicare or Medicaid payments, civil-service salaries, or Social Security (pensions) cheques.

These men are simply corrupt.  They have failed in the most fundamental requirement of a public official: truth-telling.  Their efforts to use lies to fear-monger and manipulate the electorate toward their preferred political direction can only be described as despicable.  Note--it is not that these two officials honestly hold an erroneous view: they both know that what they are saying is not true. Cynical manipulation is always the demagogue's stock-in-trade.

Example number three: President Obama himself.  It is a sad, sad day when the President himself resorts to cheap demagogic tricks to "energize his political base".  And he is doing it over one of the most important issues of his generation: the fiscal crisis facing the United States.

Recently Obama, trying to regain pol-cred, gave a speech in which he endeavoured to show that he as President was now going to focus upon the deficit.  In fact he used the occasion to lionise central government planning and spending, and to lambast his Republican opponents' budget plan.

Remember, the pre-speech buzz suggested that President Obama was going to debut a new seriousness about America’s looming debt. We were led to expect, if not a full embrace of entitlement reform, at least an honest grapple with the scope of the problem. Instead, he stooped to full “Mediscare” scurrilousness. Under the Republican plan, Obama warned darkly, the elderly would have their Medicare withdrawn, to be replaced with “a voucher.” Kids with autism and other debilitating diseases would be told “to fend for themselves.” Obama basically accused Republicans of sponsoring death panels. And “50 million Americans would have to lose their health care in order for us to reduce the deficit.”

The president didn’t identify those 50 million  — except to suggest to his college audience that it might be “someone’s grandmother” — but he may have been referring to the “uninsured” who would be covered by Obamacare. If so, that’s a figure that’s been through more changes than Hillary Clinton’s hairstyle. In July 2009, the president said there were “47 million uninsured Americans.” The following month, he used the figure of 46 million. And in September, he and his administration began to speak of “30 million” uninsured. Is the president now boosting the estimate to 50? None of the numbers, incidentally, was correct. But that wouldn’t trouble someone bent not on leading but on misleading.

When leaders, governors, and politicians engage in spurious falsehoods, lies, slurs, and misrepresentations to appeal to the baser instincts of the electorate in an endeavour to garner support they not only lose credibility.  They also show they are morally unfit for office.

The Commandment is clear: "Thou shalt not bear false witness".  No nation can long survive that tolerates such evil behaviour in its leaders.