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Welcome to the website for John K. Wilson’s new book, Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest (Paradigm Publishers, October 2007).
Barack Obama is quickly becoming America’s most popular politician, and his run for the presidency has brought huge crowds at home and an unprecedented wave of international attention as well. Much more than a biography, this book is a political tour of Obama’s legislative experience as well as his ideas about race, religion, and politics. Political writer John K. Wilson, author of four previous books including a study of Newt Gingrich, explores the reaction Obama has received from the left, the right, and the media.
To contact the author, please click here.
Submitted by JohnKWilson on Sat, 12/20/2008 - 10:36am.
In
the cultural book wars, the left is losing badly. Right-wing books
regularly make the best-seller lists while progressive books are
largely ignored.
I witnessed that personally this year, as the lunatic anti-Obama books soared to the top of the best-seller lists, while the pro-Obama books by myself and others languished, as did the books criticizing McCain.
Why does this matter? Books represent the most in-depth means of
educating people and promoting ideas, but progressives are far behind
the conservative movement in promoting books.
Conservatives
have a system of talk shows to promote their books to an audience that
aggressively buys these books in large quantities. Once these books are
on the best-seller lists, they are instantly given prime position and
huge discounts at bookstores everywhere, which generates even more
attention and sales.
Progressives won this election, and our values represent the
majority in America, but progressive books are increasingly being
shunted to the sidelines. Today, it’s conservatives who dominate the
political book industry.
If we can publicize progressive books and help sell more of them, we
can directly increase the dissemination of progressive ideas. And by
increasing sales, we would also encourage publishers to acquire more
progressive books and pay a living wage for them, enabling more
progressive writers and investigative journalists to do this important
work.
What can you do to help? I have a proposal below for a new website
(DailyProse.com) to be a bookish sister site to DailyKos, but here’s
the basic way progressives can help:
BLUR: Buy. Lend. Understand. Recommend.
Buy: Buy more progressive books. Try to support independent
bookstores or the Progressive Book Club, but if you need to buy them
cheaply, buy them. If you can’t afford to buy many books yourself,
contact your local library (don’t forget college and school libraries)
to recommend good books you’ve heard of. Ask to find out who the
acquisitions librarian is, and try to get an email address for
recommending good books (and DVDs, too). If you know a faculty member,
ask if they’ll request books you suggest to them for the university
library to buy. (Personally, I’m very bad at this–my own university
doesn’t have my latest books.) Note: donating books to libraries
doesn’t usually work at getting them into the collection (you can ask):
most of the time, they just sell these books to raise money.
Lend: books are for reading, not for hoarding. After you’ve read a
book, lend it out to someone. Start up a lending club among your
friends to exchange books.
Understand: Read those books, and think about them. Read progressive
book reviews. Watch BookTV on C-SPAN2 weekends. Start a book club, or
join one and suggest good books to read.
Recommend: Tell the wider world about the books you like. Write
comments and book reviews on DailyKos. Tell your friends on listservs
and in person about good books.
There are already some good book features on DailyKos.
Cfk has Bookflurries on Wednesday nights at 8pm ET.
plf515 has What are you reading? on Friday mornings.
sarahnity has Books by Kossacks on Sundays.
But we need to have more book reviews on DailyKos, features such as
interviews with authors, and a permanent website to make it easier to
find this information and promote good books.
Here’s my proposal for DailyProse.com:
The aim of DailyProse.com is to be a comprehensive website focused on progressive books working in cooperation with DailyKos.
DailyProse.com has the following goals:
- Increase awareness of progressive books (and books
in general) by providing easily accessible links (with commentary) to
current reviews (on DailyKos and other websites) of progressive books.
- Criticize conservatives by providing links to reviews that debunk right-wing books.
- Encourage DailyKos contributors to write book
reviews by providing an additional outlet for their reviews and by
providing an easy system for reviewers to get review copies of books in
advance of publication. Or, to put it in more easily understood terms,
Free Books!
- Create original content by doing email interviews
with authors and other features, such as a "best progressive books of
the year" list.
- Help DailyKos writers publish books by providing a
guide on how to do it, and perhaps working with an agent to look at
book proposals from DailyKos writers and to help them to improve their
proposals and find publishers.
- Help readers and authors find independent bookstores by having an updated list of links to these bookstores.
- Help progressive authors promote their books by
creating a weekly summary of new progressive books and interesting
reviews, and posting that summary while sending it out to various
reporters, editors, talk show producers, etc. DailyProse could also
provide a list of progressive author events around the country and a
system for helping them organize events.
The structure of DailyProse would be to have a rotating group of
editors who would make one post per day (or more as needed for breaking
news) probably featuring one "book of the day" (a quick summary, not
necessarily a review) and additional notable links found that day to
any book reviews on DailyKos and other websites. This post would also
be crossposted on DailyKos to get more comments and suggestions for
other books/book reviews. Each Saturday or Sunday would be a round-up
of various newspaper book reviews, and once a week the feature would be
a posting/email summarizing news about progressive books that week.
Although the site would focus on new books, there would be occasional
postings on interesting older books relevant to a current issue or
celebrations of the anniversary of important books.
Financial: the aim is for DailyProse to be a not-for-profit,
break-even endeavor, perhaps with advertising sought which might
eventually be used to pay editors and contributors a small amount.
DailyProse would rely primarily on volunteers.
That’s my idea for DailyProse.com. So what am I asking from you? I’d
like to see if there’s really interest in doing this. Are there people
here willing to volunteer to write some book reviews? Are there people
willing to be editors who search the internet for reviews and post
updates on the site? Is there someone willing to volunteer to design a
website for this project? Does anyone have contacts with the DailyKos
editors to convince them to endorse this project and help promote it?
Post a comment AND email me (collegefreedom@yahoo.com) if you’re interested in helping with the idea of DailyProse.com.
Crossposted at DailyKos.
Submitted by JohnKWilson on Sun, 11/09/2008 - 12:01pm.
Most analysts have downplayed the role of race in the Nov. 4 election, largely based on reports about the national exit poll.
However, I've discovered that there's a serious statistical error in
the national exit poll. It cannot be correct, if you look at the
separate state exit polls.
The common view about race in this election was given by ABC News:
Race was perhaps a surprisingly minor factor. Nineteen percent of
all voters called it at least somewhat of a factor in their vote; 80
percent said it was not a factor at all. But Obama's margin was
essentially the same among those who called race a factor – 53-45
percent – and those who said it was not, 51-46 percent. There were,
however, differences by race. Seventeen percent of whites called race a
factor, and favored McCain by 61-37 percent. Whites for whom race was
not a factor voted for McCain by a narrower 53-44 percent. Meanwhile
one in three blacks called race a factor in their vote, and, like all
blacks, favored Obama almost unanimously.
I've put together a spreadsheet listing the exit poll data
on racial views for each state. It is statistically impossible for the
9% and 19% figures to be correct. In fact, out of 36 states with exit
poll data on the race-based voting question, only California (9%
significant, 16% a factor) fell below the reported national figure of
9% significant and 19% a factor, and it only did so by a bare margin.
The states without exit poll data on the influence of race are
Alabama, Connecticut, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, North
Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont,
Wyoming, and District of Columbia. (If anyone can find this data,
please let me know; I've checked MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News with the same lack of results.)
Considering that the remaining states include high-population
states with high levels of racism such as Alabama, Mississippi, and
Texas, it's inconceivably that these missing states could lower these
numbers. In fact, the correct national numbers on race would almost
certainly be much higher than what I report below.
To get an accurate analysis of race, I calculated the influence of
race, and then adjusted it for the population of each state in the 36
states where we have results. Assuming that I didn't screw up, I found
that nationwide, 13.24% of voters said race was an important factor
(including the small number who said it was the single most important
factor), and 21.4% of voters said race was a factor (adding those who
called it a minor factor).
Now, it is true, as the reports said, that 53% of these votes where race mattered were for Obama, a contrast with the primaries where race-based voting
hurt Obama much more. However, it is mistake to imagine that these
votes indicate that race was a positive factor for Obama. The
overwhelming number of votes for Obama where race mattered came from
African-Americans, who vote for Democrats anyway by a large margin.
Obama slightly increased the Democratic percentage of the
African-American votes, and slightly increased African-American
turnout. But for the most part, the people voting for Obama who said
that race mattered were almost certain to vote for Democrats anyway.
And it is much easier to admit that race mattered and say that you
voted for the black candidate than. It is far less clear that people
are willing to admit racism.
I measured the "racist vote" (defined as those who said race was a
factor and who voted against the black candidate). I should note that
this definition represents the bottom-level measure of racism. For
example, there are an unknown number of people who voted against Obama
because of race and refused to admit it to the pollsters. There are
also probably a small number of racists who considered Obama's race as
a negative factor but voted for him nevertheless due to other factors
(for example, in nearly all-white West Virginia, the proportion of
people who said race mattered but who voted for Obama grew from 9% in
the primary to 39% in the general election). I know there are some who
would say that voters (of any race) who supported Obama and said race
was a factor are also racists. I disagree. That's like saying the NAACP
is the same as the KKK because they both are concerned about race. It’s
not racism to support electing the first African-American president. It
is racism to oppose doing so based on race.
The average state was 8.07% racist (as an important factor) and
12.62% racist (as any factor). Because the larger states tended to be
less racist, the nationwide average of these 36 states was 7.13% racist
as an important factor and 11.5% racist as any factor. (By contrast,
according to the inaccurate numbers reported by the national exit poll,
only 4.23% of voters were racists who considered race an important
factor, and 8.93% voters were racists who said race was a factor at any
level. So the levels of racism on Nov. 4 were 69% and 29% higher than
what's currently being reported.)
The most racist state in these polls was Louisiana, where 14.84% of
voters against Obama felt race was an important factor, while 23.78% of
anti-Obama votes said race was a factor in their vote. Closely
following Louisiana were Alaska (14.0% and 21.08%) and Kentucky (14.3%
and 19.8%).
The least racist state in these polls was California, where only
3.78% of voters against Obama said race was an important factor, and
only 5.92% overall said race was a factor. Close behind California were
New York (3.41% and 7.44%), Washington (3.51% and 6.84%), and Illinois
(3.96% and 7.68%). The biggest surprise might be Georgia, where the
numbers were only 4.81% and 8.4%. Maybe it’s notable that the Obama
campaign fought hard for Georgia, while the most racist states had
essentially no Obama commercials or campaign workers.
However, we shouldn't discount the power of racism just because
Obama won. In presidential elections, 11.5% of the electorate isn't a
small factor; it's a massive group of voters (more than 14 million
people).
How big of an influence was racism? The following states would have
turned to Obama if the McCain voters who said race was an important
factor had switched sides: Arizona (10), Missouri (11), Montana (3),
South Carolina (8), West Virginia (5). That's a total of 37 electoral
votes. And these states would have turned to Obama if the McCain voters
who said race was a factor of any kind had supported Obama: Georgia
(15), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Tennessee (11). That's 43 more
electoral votes.
Speculating among the states without exit polls on race, it seems
likely that Texas (34), Mississippi (6), South Dakota (3), and North
Dakota (3) would have gone for Obama without racism, since they were
fairly close, based on the levels of racism in similar states. That's
46 more electoral votes.
Altogether, without the influence of racism, by my calculation, the
only states McCain would have won would be Alaska (3), Idaho (3),
Wyoming (3), Utah (5), Alabama (9), Arkansas (6), Oklahoma (7),
Nebraska (4), Kansas (6): a total of 46 electoral votes, compared to
Obama's 492. And Obama's popular vote margin would have easily been in
double digits.
There has been far too much attention given to the Bradley Effect,
which many commentators declared dead on election night. The Bradley
Effect only refers to racists who lie to pollsters (which apparently
didn't happen on Nov. 4). But we should be far more concerned about the
large number of Americans who are openly willing to admit their racism
to pollsters (or those who are influenced by race without saying so).
Frank Rich proclaimed in the New York Times that the election proved, "While there are still bigots in America, they are in unambiguous retreat."
It is indeed a sign of progress in this country that "only"
one-tenth of Americans openly admit to being racist in choosing a
president. But it is far from a sign that racism is over. Obama was the
perfect candidate to overcome racist views among voters, and 2008 (with
an economic crisis and a failed Bush presidency) provided the perfect
circumstances to do so.
If someone as highly qualified as Obama still faces this kind of
racism, imagine what happens to African-Americans in this country who
don’t have sterling academic credentials, who are not among the most
eloquent speakers in American history, who do not happen to be the
greatest fundraiser and campaign organizer in the history of politics,
who do not have the opportunity of massive media coverage for two years
to enable racists to overcome their doubts.
Obama’s election as president surpassed the hurdle of racism only
because he was able to leap so high and because the racial barrier is
lower than it once was. But the barrier of race is still there. Racism
turned a double-digit Obama victory into a six-point margin. Racism
turned a massive electoral vote landslide that could have exceeded
Johnson’s victory over Goldwater into a moderate landslide.
Racism still matters in America. Racism substantially affected the
Nov. 4 elections, and severely hurt Obama’s pursuit of the presidency.
We need to recognize the continuing significance of race in America,
not only in order to continue the fight for racial equality, but also
to appreciate how truly amazing Obama’s substantial victory was in the
face of this racism.
Crossposted at DailyKos.
Submitted by JohnKWilson on Sat, 11/08/2008 - 2:13am.
MSNBC has a story declaring "Young voters not essential to Obama triumph." According to this article by Tom Curry,
AnaMaria Arumi, who directs the exit poll desk for NBC, MSNBC and
Telemundo, has done the calculations based on the exit poll data and
here is what she found: On a state-by-state level, when she re-ran the
numbers as if there were no voters under 30, the only states that would
switch to Republican presidential candidate John McCain are Indiana and
North Carolina.
The MSNBC blog First Read adds a snarky aside,
"(Never mind the cynics among us who may now send all these "young
voters did it" press releases into their junk email folder.)"
Perhaps those cynics should hold on to their press releases for a
moment. This may have seemed like a powerful story. Unfortunately, it's
not quite true. Obama won more than just Indiana and North Carolina due
to young voters.
In Florida,
Obama won 61-37 over McCain among the 18-29 group, which was 15% of the
voters. A 24-point gap times 15% = a 3.6% advantage. Obama won Florida
50.88-48.37, only a margin of 2.51%. Young voters won Florida for Obama.
In Ohio, Obama won 61-36 among the 18-29 group, which was 17% of
voters. That's a gap of 4.25%. Obama won Ohio 51.15-47.25, a margin of
3.9%. So Obama would have lost Ohio, too, without young voters. And
that one electoral vote in Nebraska, too.
Now it is true that Obama's landslide was so overwhelming that he
would have still won the election without these four states (or even
Virginia, which he would barely win without young voters). But Obama's
margin of victory would be cut in half in Nevada, Pennsylvania, New
Hampshire, and Iowa, putting him perilously close to losing if McCain
had been able to stage a comeback.
It's also notable that young voters 18-29 voted nationwide
in record numbers (18% of voters) and in record proportions (an amazing
66-34 margin) for the Democrats to give Obama an advantage of 7.57
million votes. Without them, Obama's popular vote victory would have
been cut to 400,000 votes, or 0.3%, essentially destroying Obama's
mandate for change.
Young voters inspired by Obama were absolutely essential in U.S.
Senate races in Georgia, Minnesota, Oregon, Alaska, and perhaps also
Louisiana, not to mention numerous close races in the House as well as
local and state elections.
It's also important to note that young people were a critical force
turning the election to Obama. Whether they were schlepping to Florida
or coming out in droves to the Iowa caucus, young voters won this
election for Obama. They were the core of the volunteers who drove the
enthusiasm for the Obama campaign. They were the people convincing
their neighbors and relatives to vote for Obama. They were the bulk of
the volunteers and low-paid campaign workers who did the essential
grunt work of this campaign. They were the ones who utilized the web
and social networking and cell phones and on-the-ground canvassing to
turn what might have been another election stolen by Republicans into a
landslide for Obama.
The cynical journalists can twist the poll numbers and dismiss the
Obama Generation all they want, but we know the truth about how Obama
transformed the youth numbers in this election to astonishing levels,
and in doing so may have helped establish the foundation for a
permanent progressive majority.
Crossposted at DailyKos.
Submitted by JohnKWilson on Thu, 11/06/2008 - 12:41pm.
Larry
Summers is a terrible choice for Secretary of the Treasury. He's a
centrist economist who seems certain to embarrass the Obama
administration with his authoritarian approach to leadership.
Rumors abound that Summers may be Obama's choice for Secretary of
the Treasury. The Chicago Tribune reports that a choice may be made
quickly, and Summers is one of the leading contenders. According to New Yorkmagazine,
"the inside betting is on a Larry Summers encore. 'They're gonna want
somebody who knows the building, knows the economy, has been confirmed
before and been advising them on economics,' says the former Clinton
aide. 'I'd be flabbergasted if they chose somebody else.'"
Summers
would be a lousy selection for this position. Summers is an overrated
economist with a conventional free market ideology. But worst of all,
Summers has a terrible reputation as a leader after being one of the
worst presidents of Harvard in its history. And Summers has shifted
even more toward the right-wing in recent years. If Obama chooses
Summers, it would send the worst possible message to his supporters:
that he may be nothing more than a repeat of Bill Clinton, and that is
rejecting the idea of change in one of the most important posts during
this economic crisis.
So what's wrong with Summers? At Harvard, there was his sexist
speech about women, his dismissive attacks on Cornel West, his
right-wing shift toward intolerance, and his rudeness and arrogance
that alienated nearly everyone around him. During the Clinton
Administration, Summers was infamous for signing a memo urging more
pollution in the Third World, as well as his legendary poor treatment
of others. Summers' approach to leadership and his ideology run
contrary to what Obama espoused during his campaign, and Obama would be
making a serious mistake if he appoints Summers to a prominent position.
The sexism of Summers may be the most well-known aspect of him now.
On January 14, 2005, Summers spoke at a Harvard Conference on
Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce. Summers declared,
It does appear that on many, many different human
attributes--height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ,
mathematical ability, scientific ability--there is relatively clear
evidence that whatever the difference in means--which can be
debated--there is a difference in the standard deviation, and
variability of a male and a female population.
In other words, Summers was claiming that the inferior genetics of
women regarding math was one major reason why so few women were found
in science and engineering. By contrast, Summers displayed an
extraordinary ignorance of how discrimination works in America:
...Gary Becker very powerfully pointed out in addressing racial
discrimination many years ago. If it was really the case that everybody
was discriminating, there would be very substantial opportunities for a
limited number of people who were not prepared to discriminate to
assemble remarkable departments of high quality people at relatively
limited cost simply by the act of their not discriminating, because of
what it would mean for the pool that was available.
Got that? Summers not only advanced the notion of female genetic
inferiority, but he largely dismissed the possibility that
discrimination is an explanation for the absence of women in these
fields. In doing so, Summers cited and embraced the right-wing
economics of Gary Becker, whose long-discredited dissertation in 1950s
espoused the ridiculous theory that discrimination can't exist in the
free market because rational employers would hire superior candidates
overlooked by prejudiced employers. In reality, of course, the world
doesn't work this way.
But that didn't stop Summers from concluding,
in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of
intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude,
and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser
factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination.
In the question period, Summers brushed off a question about how
female scientists are much more common in France and other countries:
"My guess is that you'll find that in most of those places, the
pressure to be high powered, to work eighty hours a week, is not the
same as it is in the United States." So aside from calling women
innately dumb, Summers was arguing that women are too lazy to be good
scientists. Perhaps not surprisingly,
"the number of women receiving tenure each year at Harvard had dropped
precipitously since Summers became president -- down to 4 of the past
32 offers."
But it is a mistake to think that Summers was forced out of his job
as president of Harvard because of his sexist remarks (and I believe he
should be free to express these stupid, offensive ideas). In fact,
Summers held on to his job long after he made his obnoxious remarks.
The conservative board running Harvard was fully behind him. Harvard's
Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted 218–185 to pass a motion of "no
confidence" in Summers, but this didn't seriously threaten his job.
Summers' end at Harvard came a year later, when he purged William
Kirby, the dean of Arts and Sciences, from his post, because Summers
wanted to have only his loyalists in positions of power. This prompted
the Faculty of Arts and Sciences planned to make another vote of no
confidence in Summers on February 28, 2006. But this time, the
conservatives at Harvard did not rise up to support Summers. Summers
had alienated them completely. Summers announced his resignation on
February 21, 2006, and received a substantial golden parachute.
As I note in my book,
professor Stephen Thernstrom, who is one of the most prominent
conservatives at Harvard, supported Summers but admitted that Summers
is in the "top tenth of one percent of any scale measuring
abrasiveness, arrogance, and overbearingness." When some of your best
friends and ideological allies admit that you're not suited for an
important job, it signifies something very important. Does Barack Obama
really embrace "abrasiveness, arrogance, and overbearingness" as the
model for his cabinet?
Harry R. Lewis had resigned as a dean in 2003 because of his
disagreements with Summers, and was sharply critical of him: "For all
his extraordinary talents, he just hasn't provided the kind of
leadership to the university that people were prepared to follow."
These words are important because Harry R. Lewis is a darling of the
conservative movement in higher education. Yet Lewis concluded, "His
misfortune arose from the impatience, harshness, thoughtlessness, and
lack of candor."
The lack of candor was a reference to Summers' dealings with Andrei
Shleifer, a close friend of Summers who cost Harvard a $26 million
settlement with the U.S. government. Shleifer violated
conflict-of-interest rules by making secret investments in Russia at
the same time he was working for a Harvard group contracted by the U.S.
Government to advise the Russian government. In 2004 a federal court
found Shleifer liable for conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Government.
While Shleifer was being investigated, Summers was pushing to have
Shleifer promoted to a prominent chair at Harvard.
The problem isn't just that Summers' buddies are corrupt; the
problem is that Summers deceived people about this issue, causing many
of his conservative allies at Harvard to abandon him. Summers knew his
buddy was investing in Russia, and knew that it might be illegal, and
even warned him in 1996. But Summers, even though he was working for
the Treasury Department, didn't nothing to stop Shleifer's criminal
activities and insider dealing.
At Harvard, Summers was
"a blunt and overbearing figure with an overt agenda of drastic
change." When he was asked about the value of affirmative action by a
faculty member, Summers responded, "The jury's out." When a female law
professor at a meeting asked Summers a question he didn't like, he
responded, "That's a stupid question." One professor "denounced Summers
as 'a control freak' and mocked Summers's hierarchical 'Washington'
style. 'He doesn't give a damn what anybody thinks.'"
Summers' life had taken a decidedly rightward turn, even to the
level of dating Laura Ingraham in 2001. Summers took a further turn to
the right after 9-11, when "Summers says that he felt called to speak
up for patriotic values."
Summers also adopted far-right stands on Israel, and harshly
denounced anyone who urged that universities disinvest from Israel were
"anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent." Accusing critics of
Israel of anti-Semitism is the lowest form of intellectual sleaze from
the far right.
Summers showed a disturbing disregard for academic freedom. In 2002,
Summers was responsible for helping cancel a poetry reading on campus
by Tom Paulin because Paulin had denounced Jewish settlers as "Nazis,
racists" and suggested they should be "shot dead." Although Paulin
apologized for the remarks, Summers consulted with the English
Department and then praised its decision to cancel the reading. (The
cancellation was denounced by Charles Fried, Summers' friend Alan
Dershowitz, and Laurence Tribe, showing how both conservatives and
liberals were appalled by the idea.)
Summers also pushed out famed professor Cornel West, meeting with
him to criticize him for recording a rap album and being involved in
supporting Bill Bradley's political campaign. A president of a
university has no business ordering a professor (or anyone else) to
stop participating in political campaigns. It is a clear violation of
academic freedom to do so. West called Summers both "uninformed" and
"an unprincipled power player" in describing what happened in his book
Democracy Matters (2004). If nothing else, Obama should ask West if
Summers has the leadership skills for any major post in the next
administration.
Summers' reign as president of Harvard was a terrible failure. How
bad was Summers? The Harvard Corporation accepted his resignation offer
even though it cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in donations
from angry conservative alumni who loved Summers.
But Summers' career as an economist hasn't been much better. Summers
is an ardent advocate of uncontrolled free trade and globalization.
Summers' first job was in 1981, when he worked as assistant to Martin
Feldstein, the head of Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers. After a
stint at Harvard, Summers went to the World Bank. Back in 1991, Summers
was the chief economist of the World Bank, when it was continuing to
pursue disastrous policies that did little to help the poor. Summers
doesn't deserve all the blame for the failings of the World Bank, but
he was never part of any solutions or serious reforms.
While at the World Bank, Summers signed a memo that declared:
"Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE
migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Least Developed
Countries]?" The memo noted,
"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the
lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that."
The memo was written by an underling, and Summers claims that he
"co-signed it to stimulate internal debate" (it's funny how many
disgusting theories Summers likes to promote in the name of "debate").
It's not even clear how closely Summers read his memo and its claim
that "underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted."
One of the problems with the defenders of Summers who suggest that
this was meant as satire is the fact that Summers' economic ideology
doesn't seem to be much different from this memo. Summers' free market
economic logic does seem to support that point of view, even if he
normally has the political skill not to say so openly.
Back in 1993, Al Gore reportedly
prevented Summers from becoming chair of the the Council of Economic
Advisers. Instead, Summers was named undersecretary of the treasury for
international affairs. At the Treasury Department, Summers was a
protege of the free market advocate Robert Rubin, and followed him in
the role of Secretary of the Treasury from 1999-2001. At the Treasury, "Summers had earned a reputation as a politically careless upstart."
When Summers was being hired by Harvard,
"Summers's temperament was troubling to some members of the
corporation. The word from Washington was that he could be peremptory,
condescending, impatient with lesser mortals. He had, as Robert Rubin,
Summers's mentor and predecessor as treasury secretary, delicately put
it, 'a rough-edges issue.'" As Secretary of the Treasury during a time
with few crises, Summers had few dramatic events to challenge him.
As Richard Bradley noted,
"Though deferential to his superiors, Summers could be a boss from
hell. 'If you're in a meeting, whatever you say, he will make you feel
like you're an idiot,' says one Treasury aide who worked for both
Summers and Rubin." Paul Gigot once wrote, "Larry Summers is to humility what Madonna is to chastity."
Recently, Summers called for
Paulsen to be given unchecked authority over the $700 billion bailout
plan: "There's more risk in having too little flexibility than there is
risk that they will have too much authority."
That indicates that Summers would resist any efforts to monitor,
scrutinize, and criticize his control over the bailout if he is the
Treasury Secretary. That promises to be a disaster. There's already far
too little transparency and monitoring in the bailout plan, and Summers
wants no one to be looking over the shoulder of Paulsen or anyone else.
There's also a danger of a conflict of interest, since Summers is a
part-time managing director of the hedge fund D. E. Shaw & Co. Will
he try to help his friends by continuing to bail out businesses? He
also refuses to answer questions about the financial advice he has been giving Shaw.
I don't want anyone to think that I hate Larry Summers and regard
him as a horrible person. He's a well-respected economist, seems to be
regarded as a good teacher, and he did undertake some valuable actions
at Harvard (such as increasing financial aid for the poor and trying to
emphasize undergraduate teaching). I don't have a problem with Summers
being an advisor to Obama, and he's not a free market ideologue on the
scale of the Republicans.
A 2007 New York Times profile
of Summers noted that "Clinton ended up embracing the centrist,
business-friendly ideas of Summers and his mentor, Robert Rubin." But
it added that now Summers "sounds, strangely enough, a little like Bob
Reich." It's good if Summers is rethinking some of his free market
faith. But why do we need him if we can get Reich himself, or someone
else who was right all along?
However, there are also good reasons to doubt that Summers' conversion is real. Summers played a central role
in "negotiations over China's entry into the World Trade Organization,"
which has been a disaster in terms of protecting human rights, the
environment, and labor rights. And Summers doesn't seem to have changed
his views much at all.
Back in April 2008, Summers was predicting:
"There is a reasonable chance that from a financial market, Wall Street
perspective, the worst has passed." That doesn't sound like a smart
economic prognosticator.
Just a few months ago, Summers declared: "Alan Greenspan had a tremendous record as Fed chairman."
And in April 2008, Summers proclaimed, "Any honest Democrat will admit that we are now all Friedmanites."
Larry Summers may be a Friedmanite, but I'm not. No one appointed by
Obama to this essential position should be announcing how much he
agrees with Milton Friedman, the intellectual godfather of the current
economic disaster. And an endorsement from Henry Kissinger ("Henry Kissinger has said that Summers should be given a permanent White House job, a sort of fixer of flabby policy ideas") scares the hell out of me.
Still, I find myself agreeing with Kissinger (shudder!) on this
point. I think Summers should be an adviser to Obama, somebody who
challenges old ideas (hopefully his own) and tries to come up with new
ones. But that doesn't mean he should be running the show. Everyone
agrees that he lacks the temperament. What he also lacks are genuinely
new ideas. And that may be the most disturbing thing of all. We don't
need the recycled, pro-business, free-market-is-god ideas of the
Clinton Administration in a time of economic crisis. We need change,
not more of the same. And Larry Summers is a lot more of the same.
At his best, Summers is a gaffe machine who actually exceeds Joe
Biden's capacity to shove his foot down his larynx. At his worst, he's
a conservative, domineering leader who alienates almost all of the
people he works with. In neither case is he a good choice for the
Treasury Department or any other major position.
Crossposted at DailyKos.

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