Category Archives: Political Commentary

Political Commentary, Space

Courtney

5 Comments

I don’t think I’ve posted on this subject, but I was shocked to hear that Courtney Stadd was indicted recently for allegedly steering funds to a client while at NASA. Shocked because it seems entirely out of character, based on knowing him for almost three decades. In any event, there has been some discussion of it over at NASA Watch, where he has broken his (no doubt lawyer-encouraged) silence in comments:

There are no words to express my gratitude to (a) Keith Cowing for reminding his readers of the presumption of innocence (believe me, I will NEVER again second guess someone who declares from the courthouse steps his or her innocence!) and to (b) the many who have taken the time (the most precious gift we have to give one another) to express their heartfelt support for me and my family.

I guess the greatest compliment I have received since the indictment came out on Friday is that my server had a near nervous breakdown from the outpouring of support from extended family and friends. The other side has the unlimited resources of the US Government (I guess I should be grateful that the NASA Inspector General has yet to be supplied with Apache gun ships) but I want you all to know that I have felt empowered and fortified by your collective good wishes and prayers. Faith is a very powerful weapon. Empires have been known to crumple at its feet.

I would not wish this situation on my worst enemy. But I am bearing it with the strength, courage and honor that I was brought up to believe in. When I recently read about a 75-year old woman in Saudi Arabia who was sentenced to 40 lashes, and four months in prison, for mingling with two young men who reportedly brought her bread, I am reminded of the fortune of living in this great nation. To date, the prosecution has held all the cards – including how to shape and time the indictment, including the press release to drive the news cycle. (And, of course, a grand jury hears but one side of a case. Thus the cliche: a prosecutor can get a ham sandwich indicted for not having cheese.) As the wheels of US jurisprudence turn, the defense, thankfully, gets its turn at bat. Although I sleep with an absolutely clear conscience, I would not be human, of course, if anger did not try to interrupt my slumber from time to time. But I find great solace from these superb lines from A Man for All Seasons:

Sir Thomas More: “You threaten like a dockside bully.”
Oliver Cromwell: “How should I threaten?”
Sir More: “Like a Minister of State. With justice.
Cromwell: “Oh, justice is what you’re threatened with.”
More: “Then I am not threatened.”

My family and I feel grateful and most blessed by your support in the weeks and months to come.

Let us hope that justice is served. As Jim Muncy also notes in comments, it sounds like he’s being accused of recommending to the agency that a powerful appropriator’s earmark be honored, which isn’t corruption — it’s just common sense in the very ugly world of Congressional prerogatives and federal procurement.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

“The Great Vetting Disaster”

4 Comments

Well, this certainly inspires confidennce:

2009 is the anti-2008 for Team Obama. Whereas, last year, the Obama campaign was able to demonstrate its supreme competence at running a campaign, raising money, and using technology to further Barack Obama’s political goals and personal ambitions, once Team Obama moved into the White House, it seemed that its hold on managerial competence disappeared. Thus, we have a Treasury Secretary whose tax delinquencies were not discovered by the Obama vetting system, and who is Home Alone at the Treasury Department because the White House can’t get its nominees confirmed quickly enough to provide the Treasury Secretary the personnel support he needs to deal with the greatest economic crisis since the recession of the early 1980s. The White House’s initial choice for HHS Secretary, Tom Daschle, was himself eliminated because of tax delinquencies. Because of the multiple problems with nominees running into tax problems, the responsibility for vetting over tax issues became concentrated in the White House Counsel’s Office . . . only to discover that White House Counsel Greg Craig has his own tax problems. Two Commerce Secretaries have been forced to withdraw their nominations. Only now is the Senate turning its attention to confirming the nomination of Ron Kirk as U.S. Trade Representative. And in the latest personnel snafu, the selection of Charles Freeman as the Chairman of the National Intelligence Counsel has been withdrawn.

Well, as that astute Chicago politician, Jesse Jackson, said, “Barack ain’t ever run anything but his mouth.”

[Update a few minutes later]

“No one wants to be Obama’s Brownie.”

It’s not surprise that he can’t get good help. I sure wouldn’t want to be part of the team that will be blamed for the disaster that is inevitable from these policies.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s another explanation, from the same comments section (read the post, too) — ethics bends:

He’s a Chicago machine politician, used to associating with the likes of Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers, and nobody complaining about it. And he got catapulted into the highest office of the land in an unnaturally short time, with a media so in the tank that he wasn’t vetted himself.

Give the guy a break, he’s suffering from the “ethics bends”, all that corruption is coming out in great painful bubbles, instead of gradually seeping out over the course of a long political career.

Seriously, had he reached the White House after a normal political trajectory, as the capstone of a long, long career, he’d have had time to adjust himself to the differing expectations at the federal level, and to shed a lot of baggage. He must be very disoriented right now.

It’s not just a lack of experience. It’s an overabundance of bad experience.

It also means that it may be very tough to find a good NASA administrator (not that it’s ever easy).

[Update a few minutes later]

A crisis of competence. Well, some of us aren’t surprised.

[Update a couple minutes later, from comments at the link.]

His statement about “profit-to-earnings ratios” comes from that same well of ignorance.

Actually, it was even worse than that. The moron said “profits AND earnings ratio”. Not only didn’t the idiot know what a P/E ratio is, he doesn’t know how to translate mathematical operations to English. I’m betting that the idiot messiah was pretty darned awful at mathematical word problems. Frankly, I’d be surprised if the fool understood any math beyond some basic arithmetic.

I’d be willing to bet that’s right. Actually, with all the trillions being tossed around, I wonder even about the basic arithmetic. Of course, it’s hard to know, because he refuses to release his transcripts. There’s certainly no available evidence that he understands anything about business, or math.

But he wants us to take stock advice from him. Because he talks pretty.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Even ObamaweekNewsweek’s Howard Fineman is taking a break from his usual Obama tongue bath, except this part is nuts:

The center usually is the safest, most productive place in politics, but perhaps not now, not in a once-in-a-century economic crisis.

Swimming in the middle, he’s denounced as a socialist by conservatives, criticized as a polite accommodationist by government-is-the-answer liberals, and increasingly, dismissed as being in over his head by technocrats.

“Swimming in the middle”? “Swimming in the freakin’ middle?!“

Only on planet Leftist.

[Update a few minutes later]

And why does Fineman feel a need to declare that The One isn’t a socialist? Methinks the sycophant doth protest too much.

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Missed Opportunity

4 Comments

If the Republicans were on the ball, and had the money in the bank, they should look up the parents of the kids who are about to get kicked out of the school that the president’s kids are attending as a result of the Omnibus Bill, and have them plead for a veto of it in front of the camera. Then run the ads.

[Update late evening]

For those who don’t want to follow all the links in the linked article, here is the relevant one.

Political Commentary

Gaffe?

4 Comments

Now this is a gaffe (i.e., when a politician/bureaucrat accidentally tells the truth):

In an extraordinary blunder, the usually-guarded Sir Gus said no-one in the U.S. Treasury department was answering telephone calls.

He said it meant the Government was finding it ‘unbelievably difficult’ to hold discussions ahead of the meeting of world leaders in London.

Even though the world was in the grip of the worst economic crisis in decades – top of the G20 agenda – Number 10 was having trouble getting in touch with key personnel, said the Cabinet Secretary.

‘There is nobody there,’ he told a civil service conference in Gateshead.

‘You cannot believe how difficult it is.’

No worries. It’s all part of that new, smart diplomacy that we were promised by the Obama campaign.

Business, Political Commentary

No More Ken Burns For GM

8 Comments

Apparently, GM has been underwriting Ken Burns’ documentaries for years. It is no longer doing so.

I supposed the gut response is a big “Duhhhh…” The company is going broke, and can’t afford it, right?

Well, maybe. This seems to me akin to the stupid, stupid demagoguery about corporate jets (from people who ride them themselves at taxpayer expense).

Look, is the company in business, or is it out of business? If it’s in business, it has a CEO with great responsibilities, and only so many hours in a day, and it doesn’t make sense for him to waste time with TSA and sitting in Dallas for layovers (or stupider still, driving from Detroit), despite how bad it appears when he shows up in Washington with his hand out.

And if it’s in business, it is presumably (at least theoretically, even if it looks more like a finance company, pension and health-care provider that just does it on the side) in the business of manufacturing and selling cars. In order to sell cars, one has to market them. One of the traditional ways one does this is by sponsorships, to provide brand recognition.

Now one can argue that perhaps this is an ineffective form of marketing, particularly for a company that has been around as long as General Motors, but one could have argued that during boom times as well. Unless it was purely viewed as philanthropic (in which case they certainly should cut back, since they have no available funds for pure do-goodery), it was presumably previously justified as part of their marketing budget. If it was justified then, why wouldn’t it be now, when marketing is more critical than ever? The problem with marketing, as the old saw on Madison Avenue goes, is that only half of it is effective, but no one knows which half.

My question is, does this mean that, after all these years, some analyst did an analysis and said, “Hey guys, it turns out that the Ken Burns stuff doesn’t sell cars! Sorry I didn’t let you know twenty years ago — I could have saved the company a lot of money.” Or is it just one more sign that the company is bankrupt, but won’t admit it?

Administrative, Political Commentary

Feel The Love

4 Comments

Why can’t I get fun emails like this one? I particularly liked the berating of the evil “CAPITOLISM.” I’m always a little surprised when I hear conservative bloggers talk about the vitriol in their email, because I just don’t see it.

I suppose that it’s partly, or largely because I have a comments section where unhappy customers can vent (and demand their money back). But even there, I rarely get this kind of stuff, other than from Elifritz.