DOWNLOADS: (872)

PLAYS: (1354)

Embed

About the only people on the planet who say the 2009 Recovery Act (ARRA) failed are Republicans. This is a necessary posture for them, given that not one of them voted for it. They have too much ideology vested in its failure to admit success, which is why they attack projects like Solyndra and green energy in particular. It's why the Republican governors in Republican states reject high-speed rail and other infrastructure projects. It isn't that it wouldn't be great for their states. It's simply that the funds came into being via the Democrat in the Oval Office and thin majority of Democrats in Congress, and so they just cannot, will not, bring themselves to be a party to possible success.

Their lack of patriotism is unsurprising, but still astounding in its cynicism. But was the stimulus package and overall success? Though there is a wide range of studies and opinions, the consensus among economists appears to be yes, it did.

Continue reading »

Where's Fox News? What? No breaking news, urgent bulletins? What's up with that? After weeks of creating a faux scandal over the failure of solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, they're not all up in arms over Mitt Romney's fundraising party with one of their lobbyists?

Sam Stein at Huffington Post has the story:

Romney is holding a fundraiser with nearly two dozen members of Congress on Wednesday, after which he will attend an event at the American Trucking Association with top K Street operatives. The list of attendees revealed by POLITICO includes Alex Mistri, managing director of The Glover Park Group.

Despite working at a predominantly Democratic lobbying firm, Mistri is a reliable GOP donor and Romney supporter. He has donated $2,500 to his presidential bid so far this cycle, on top of the $1,000 he gave to Romney's Free and Strong America PAC. But work he did at Glover Park as a lobbyist for Solyndra seems a touch discordant with the views of many in the Republican Party, who have worked to portray the company's failure as a referendum on alternative energy development and the administration's embrace of it.

If your reaction is to shrug and say "so what", that's great. It's exactly what Fox News and the rest of the traditional media should have done to the ginned-up Solyndra faux scandal. But given their penchant for making issues out of nothing, it deserves attention.

After all, on Monday Mitt glommed onto Solyndra as an example of cronyism inside the Obama administration.

First came Solyndra, the solar-panel maker backed by a major Obama campaign-funds bundler, which President Obama hailed as a "true engine of economic growth." It turned out to be a true engine of bankruptcy. Even as the administration trumpeted its accomplishments, the firm was careening toward insolvency. Taxpayers were left holding a $500 million bill, and the firm was left facing an FBI investigation. Nonetheless, at least one Solyndra-linked fundraiser is helping to organize Tuesday's presidential cash call in San Francisco.

And now at least one Solyndra lobbyist is gladhanding Mittens. So I suppose this would be the time for me to introduce the pot to the kettle?

Back in May, Brendan Nyhan used historical and statistical analysis to presciently conclude that for the hitherto untainted Obama White House, "the first Obama scandal is likely to arrive sooner than most people think." Now, the dual imbroglios over the $535 million loan lost to bankrupt Solyndra and the ATF's ill-conceived "Fast and Furious" gun-walking operation have Republicans targeting the President and his Attorney General, Eric Holder.

While the twin dust ups, each with roots in the Bush Administration, may ultimately reveal only bureaucratic bungling, poor judgment and taxpayer investments gone bad, Republicans are salivating at the prospect of manufacturing scandals just in time for President Obama's reelection. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa called the Solyndra case "salacious" and "a story of political interference" on behalf of "people giving to President Obama's campaign." Meanwhile, as House Republicans called for a special prosecutor to investigate Fast and Furious, grandstanding Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu declared, "I believe that this is a much larger scandal than what took place in Watergate."

Perception often trumps reality when it comes to presidential scandals. Of course, if the accusations are actually true, the political damage will (and should) be worse. Worse, but not necessarily fatal.

Just ask those masters of scandal survival from the Bush White House.

Here are just some of the Republican scandal management tips for President Obama:

It's the "Criminalization of Politics." Ever since President George H.W. Bush first used it during the Iran/Contra scandal, Republicans and their conservative amen corner have routinely brushed off charges of their own corruption and lawlessness by accusing their opponents of "criminalizing politics." From Iran-Contra, Plamegate and Tom Delay to the U.S. attorneys purge and the Bush regime of detainee torture, Republicans survived their endless scandals by instead successfully politicizing crime.

Sadly, Attorney General Eric Holder is already quite familiar with the GOP's tried and untrue "criminalization of politics" sound bite. During his confirmation hearings in January 2009, Holder reassured Republican Senators the Obama administration would not prosecute the architects of the Bush detainee torture program:

"I think President-elect Obama has said it well. We don't want to criminalize policy differences that might exist between the outgoing administration and the administration that is about to take over. We certainly don't want to do that."

Four Words: "I Don't Recall Remembering." In a letter to Congress this week, Attorney General Holder pointed out that "I now understand some senior officials within the Department were aware at the time there was an operation called Fast and Furious although they were not advised of the unacceptable operational tactics being used in it." Then in words only a Republican could love, Holder explained how he remained unaware of the program's details until this summer:

"My testimony was truthful and accurate and I have been consistent on this point throughout. I have no recollection of knowing about Fast and Furious prior to the public controversy about it."

If the "no recollection" formula sounds familiar, it should. Then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales perfected it to the point of comedy during hearings about the Bush administration's politically-motivated prosecutors purge. Gonzales, who almost surely lied to Congress at least three times about the NSA domestic surveillance program, the Bush torture program as well as the U.S. attorneys scandal, reached new heights of selective amnesia in April 2007. As Dana Milbank recalled:

Explaining his role in the botched firing of federal prosecutors, Gonzales uttered the phrase "I don't recall" and its variants ("I have no recollection," "I have no memory") 64 times. Along the way, his answer became so routine that a Marine in the crowd put down his poster protesting the Iraq war and replaced it with a running "I don't recall" tally.

If he finds himself in a pinch during his next appearance before Congress, Eric Holder can always quote Alberto Gonzales:

"Senator, that I don't recall remembering."

Continue reading »

As Bernie Sanders says in that clip, we're picking winners and losers. Sure we are. And the Republicans are working hard to make solar energy a big loser. In the case of Solyndra, they're also hoping to smear the Obama administration with the "crony politician" label at the same time.

This Solyndra "story" is a non-story and just another smear, but as digby points out:

Progressives are very concerned that the right isn't out there misinforming the rest of the public and go to great lengths to "set the record straight." By contrast, during the Bush years, when liberals criticized the president, the other side would say "Yeah. So what? He did the right thing." They'd stage a symbolic hissy fit every once in a while to prove their moral/patriotic bonafides, usually over a perceived slight from a hippie somewhere, but they really didn't care if the left "understood" what they were doing or if they approved. In fact, they consciously try to offend them.

It's not limited to the Bush years. They still do it, every single day. Cheer the death of a hypothetical 30-year old? It's totally justified because "Obamacare is socialism." Climb into bed with Big Pharma? No problem, as long as you feign outrage that someone would dare suggest you can be bought for a mere $5,000.

Add to that the right-wing custom of ritual defamation, and the Solyndra smears begin to make more sense, particularly when it's clear what constituencies the right serves.

Still, as a lefty-type, it seems to me that facts do and should matter, so here is the Solyndra non-story/scandal in a nutshell, summarized from this Think Progress timeline.

The Solyndra loan guarantee process began in 2006, under the Bush administration, as part of a loan guarantee program under the newly-passed Energy Policy Act of 2006. It took three years for those loan guarantees to be approved, despite the efforts of the Bush administration to push the process in order to have something to show for their energy policy efforts. In that three-year period, the market changed for alternatives to silicon-based solar panels after China flooded the market with cheap silicon-based panels.

Free markets being what they are, Solyndra failed.

Continue reading »