March 10th, 2010 1:36 PM
POSTED BY John Feehery

I have a theory.

America is going through its version of a mid-life crisis.

According to Wikipedia, the term midlife crisis was first coined “in 1965 by Elliott Jaques and used in Western societies to describe a period of dramatic self-doubt that is felt by some individuals in the “middle years” or middle age of life…The result may be a desire to make significant changes in core aspects of day-to-day life or situation.”

How do people who are going through a mid-life crisis show it?  The “acquisition of unusual or expensive items such as motorbikes, boats, clothing, sports cars, jewelry, gadgets, tattoos, piercings, etc.;  depression; blaming themselves or their partner for their failures;  paying special attention to physical appearance such as covering baldness, wearing “younger” designer clothes etc.;  entering relationships with younger people (either/or sexual, professional, parental, etc.)”

Here are some signs that the nation is going through the political equivalent of a mid-life crisis:

  • The collective mood of the American people is sour.  According to the Associated Press, fully 67% of the American people believe this country is heading in the wrong direction.
  • They entered into a relationship with a young, inexperienced and physically attractive Presidential candidate, who they are now starting to turn on.
    •  Read more...

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Posted in Financial Crisis, Government, Politics, election | No Comments »

March 9th, 2010 11:27 AM
POSTED BY John Feehery

Last week, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel had to step down because he had been bedeviled by ethics problems, including a failure to pay his taxes.  That wasn’t the direct reason he stepped down, but it wasn’t just his little junket to the Caribbean that ended his tax-writing career.

Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, tried to install her fellow Californian Pete Stark in Rangel’s place, but the rest of the Democratic Caucus, sensing that perhaps putting a crazy person in charge of the most powerful committee in Congress, told Pete to pack it in.  They decided to go instead with Sander Levin, who isn’t very exciting, but certainly isn’t crazy.

Late last week, rumors started flowing about the imminent resignation of an obscure New York Congressman, a guy named Eric Massa.  Massa was most notable for being a Democrat who voted against most of President Obama’s agenda.

Massa, who apparently got drunk at one of his staffer’s weddings and then made a complete ass out of himself, found out the hard way about the wonderful world of Washington.  Read more...

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Posted in health care | No Comments »

March 8th, 2010 4:51 PM
POSTED BY John Feehery

It wasn’t as exciting as the first time that Iraq held democratic elections, but it was probably more significant.

I asked my friend Alex Mistri, who spent a year in Iraq working at the highest levels of the American government, what these elections mean to him.

He told me two things.

First, Iraq is slowly but surely becoming a model of democracy in the Middle East.

Second, that having Iraq become a model of democracy is actually a threat to the Iranians, even if the Iranians have some influence on some of the political parties today.

As Alex puts it:   “The road ahead in Iraq no doubt remains uncertain.  But the Iraqis have once again demonstrated – not through word but action – their appetite for representative government.  Increasingly, it must enter the international consciousness – if it hasn’t already – that Iraq is becoming the most democratic nation in the region.”

As it turns out, President Bush might have been on to something with his crazy belief that a place like Iraq could handle democracy.  Alex asked the question, “Might the ‘quixotic’ aims of the previous administration still be within reach?”  Read more...

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Posted in Foreign Relations, Government, Politics, election | 1 Comment »

March 8th, 2010 1:15 PM
POSTED BY John Feehery

Most people looked at the President’s March 18th health care deadline and saw a totally unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky, hail Mary pass from a guy who has set down several totally unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky, hail Mary pass deadlines in the past.

Remember, when he wanted a health care law on his desk last August?  Or when he wanted it done before Thanksgiving? Or Christmas?

Now he wants it done the day after the most important holiday of the year, St. Patrick’s Day.

My middle name is Patrick, so I have always taken St. Patrick’s Day very seriously.

I believe that St. Patrick’s Day should be a national holiday, and as most people know about me, I don’t do any meetings on that day, unless, they are held at a very particular place.

Having a health care vote on the day after St. Patrick’s Day offends me personally.  Everybody knows that the day after St. Patrick Day should be a day of reflection and quiet contemplation, not a day of yelling, screaming, arm-twisting and fulminating at the mouth.  My head hurts just thinking about it.  Read more...

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Posted in Financial Crisis, Government, Politics, spending | 2 Comments »

March 6th, 2010 10:58 AM
POSTED BY John Feehery

The resignation of Congressman Eric Massa complicates the life of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  And her life is already pretty complicated.

Of course, it means one less vote for a health care bill that Congressional Democrats are trying to get through a reluctant House.

And one vote is a big deal, because it looks like pro-life Democrats aren’t going to swallow what the Senate passed late last year.

The Democrats have constructed a complicated scheme to pass health care, overly complicated in my view.  The House has to somehow pass a Senate bill that includes a huge new tax increase on labor union health plans and abortion language that is still unacceptable to Bart Stupak.

Then they are going to pass another follow-on bill that will somehow reverse that labor union tax with so-called “reconciliation” instructions that the Senate then will theoretically take up and pass with 51 votes.

But first, the Senate has to hope that the Senate parliamentarian decides that whatever the House passes somehow fits in with the Senate rules, not a certain proposition.

And if the Parliamentarian decides that it is not kosher, well, then, Joe Biden has to step in and create a new precedent that will give the Republicans ample cause to shut the Upper Chamber down for a while.  Read more...

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Posted in Government, Politics, Scandals, election | No Comments »

March 5th, 2010 2:39 PM
POSTED BY John Feehery

I hate it when David Brooks writes a column on a subject that I have been researching on and planning to write about for weeks.  And he did it to me this morning, with a great column about “The Wall Mart Hippies” (http://budurl.com/2r5v).

His central thesis is that tea-party crowd is not really conservative at all.  “Both the New Left and the Tea Party movement are radically anticonservative. Conservatism is built on the idea of original sin — on the assumption of human fallibility and uncertainty. To remedy our fallen condition, conservatives believe in civilization — in social structures, permanent institutions and just authorities, which embody the accumulated wisdom of the ages and structure individual longings.  That idea was rejected in the 1960s by people who put their faith in unrestrained passion and zealotry. The New Left then, like the Tea Partiers now, had a legitimate point about the failure of the ruling class. But they ruined it through their own imprudence, self-righteousness and naïve radicalism. The Tea Partiers will not take over the G.O.P., but it seems as though the ’60s political style will always be with us — first on the left, now the right.”  Read more...

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Posted in Government, Politics, Radicalism | 7 Comments »

March 4th, 2010 5:30 PM
POSTED BY John Feehery

The junior Senator from Florida put a simple question to the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee yesterday on the Senate floor.

When does PAYGO really mean PAYGO?

Senate Democrats answered with a resounding “never”.

For the second time in a week, Republicans in the Upper Body exposed the lie that is the President’s version of PAYGO.

You remember PAYGO, don’t you?  This is where the President pontificates about how he is going to show leadership by demanding that the Congress pay for all of its new spending.

Remember when Mr. Obama said:

“Now, Congress will have to pay for what it spends, just like everybody else.”

Or when he said: “Now in a perfect world, Congress would not have needed a law to act responsibly, to remember that every dollar spent would come from taxpayers today – or our  children tomorrow.”

Or when he said:  “Like families across the country, we have to take responsibility for every dollar we spend.  And with the return of ‘pay as you go,’ as well as other steps we’ve begun to take, that is exactly what we are doing.”  Read more...

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Posted in Government, Politics, Promises, Unemployment | No Comments »

March 4th, 2010 10:48 AM
POSTED BY John Feehery

Charlie Rangel is not crazy.  He may be liberal.  He may be corrupt.  He may be a partisan.  But he is not crazy.

The same cannot be said of Pete Stark, the man who will take Charlie Rangel’s place.

This reminds me a little bit of when Tom Foley had to find a replacement for Dan Rostenkowski during critical moment in the Clinton health care push, and put Sam Gibbons in the Chairman’s Chair.  Gibbons was not nearly as crazy at Pete Stark, but he wasn’t nearly as competent as Rosty, and Hillary’s health care died as a result.

Pete Stark is certifiable.  He has a penchant for disparaging just about everybody.

He once told a constituent: “I wouldn’t dignify you by peeing on your leg, it wouldn’t be worth wasting the urine.”  He Called Blue Dog Democrats, the folks he needs to pass his health care bill,  “brain dead.”  He said the Bush Administration sent soldiers “to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President’s amusement.”   According to Gannet, during the run-up to the Persian Gulf War, he called fellow liberals Tom Lantos and Stephen Solarz ‘hostile militant guys,’ suggesting their votes were ‘as a matter of convenience’ for Israel.”  He claimed that the children of one of his African American colleagues were “all born out of wedlock.”  Read more...

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Posted in Government, Politics | No Comments »

March 3rd, 2010 12:36 PM
POSTED BY John Feehery

“The times, they are a changing.”

That anthem of the 60’s should always be in the minds of all Hill ethics counselors.

Charlie Rangel’s troubles with the Ethics Committee follow a familiar path.

I remember well in November of 1994, when an obscure challenger named Michael Patrick Flanagan knocked off a powerful Ways and Means Chairman who had delivered billions of dollars back to his hometown of Chicago.

Before 1992, Dan Rostenkowski’s picture was right next to the definition of power-broker in the Congressional dictionary.  Two years later, his picture was next to the word “crook”.

Rosty did what he had always done.  He used his office as a way to get a little extra money for his family.  The particular crime he was charged with was cashing in the stamps that his office had bought and using the money for his own personal pleasure.

It was penny-ante stuff.  Minor corruption with a little bit of legal graft.

But after the downfall of Jim Wright, what passed for minor graft no longer passed the muster in the country or the media.

Everybody loves Charlie Wilson now – thanks to the book and the movie — but Wilson’s antics wouldn’t have survived in this ethics environment today.  Read more...

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Posted in Fundraising, Government, Politics, Scandals | 2 Comments »

March 2nd, 2010 11:39 PM
POSTED BY John Feehery

Rarely has a glowing, front-page profile in a leading daily newspaper been so controversial.  The President’s Chief of Staff got the full treatment today, as his allies let it be known that he is the only voice of reason in a White House that is struggling to remain relevant.

It was Rahm who said that the Democrats should have gone small on health care.  It was Rahm who said that the Administration would need help from Senate Republicans to close Guantanamo Bay.  It was Rahm who said that the Democrats would have to ditch the public option.  It was Rahm who said that the President wasn’t the Messiah, but just another guy who needed to get some solid accomplishments done before his team faced the voters.

If Rahm was right, guess who was wrong?  Yep, the President.  Oops!

But the President wasn’t only one who was wrong.

Nancy Pelosi has been wrong not to dump Charlie Rangel.  That is not my opinion.  That is the opinion of about 100 Democrats who will break ranks any day and vote to strip the Chairman of his Chairmanship.  Wonder how the CBC will react to that one?  Probably not very nicely.  Read more...

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Posted in Government, Politics | 1 Comment »

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