Brew City Brawler

Shame on Rick Esenberg or Shark and Shepherd says something wrong on the internet

It takes a law professor to pack as much Obama Derangement Syndrome into 153 words as Rick Esenberg does in his latest opus,"Shame on Obama." The subject of his Ese's ire: Obama not going to Berlin to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Shark sets himself up as a voice of considered moderation. "There are some criticisms of Barack Obama that go too far," he says. Like, I dunno, fact-free accusations that Obama's stage at the Dem national convention was going to be a Greek temple. But Obama skipping the Berlin ceremonies goes too far! The fall of the wall was "one of the most significant and improbable events of the past fifty years; brought about, in large part, by constancy in American policy."

Let's unpack:

1. "Significant" -- sure
2. "Improbable" -- only improbable if one believed in hyped estimates of Soviet strength
3. "Brought about, in large part, by constancy in American policy" -- in this formulation, false; drop "large" and this phrase works fine.

Ese moves on:

To stay away is to send a message and it is the wrong message. Whether he seeks to placate the Russians, repudiate American exceptionalism or refuse to acknowledge a Republican accomplishment, rejecting what brought about one of the most remarkable and peaceful victories over tyranny is shameful.

OK:

1. Given Medvedev was in Berlin --  and Obama did deliver a message via video -- it's difficult to see how Obama's absence was motivated by fear of Russians
2. I'm not sure how Shark would articulate American exceptionalism, so can't comment on this. Obviously it's not clear that American exceptionalism, broadly defined, is a good thing.

Republican accomplishment. Ah, a laugh out loud line. This is Rick's defense of this statement, in comments at his site:

It's a Republican accomplishment because Reagan decided to win the Cold War. Had Carter been reelected, it would not have happened because he wouldn't have applied pressure when he had to.

One hopes that Rick expects a bit more supporting evidence from his students because this is about as fact-free assertion as one can make. Here are some facts. There is no evidence that the Reagan arms buildup "bankrupted" or weakened the Soviet Union. There is no evidence that bellicose Reagan rhetoric frightened the Soviets out of their wits -- quite the opposite (and seriously, apparatchiks who survived the Hitler invasion, either  as vets or as kids, were going to quiver over comments by Reagan?) . To the extent the ending of the Cold War was anyone's accomplishment, it was the accomplishment of Mikhail Gorbachev,who didn't want to play anymore. Had he wanted to take the USSR down the bellicose path, the country could have lumbered on. But he gambled that he could change it (and lost). Reagan's contribution was recognizing that Gorbachev could be dealt with and tried to deal (earning the wrath of the right).  As James Mann puts it in "The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A  History of the End of the Cold War": "Reagan didn't win the Cold War; Gorbachev abandoned it."

Just ask Angela Merkel:

She lauded Gorbachev, with whom she shared an umbrella amid a crush of hundreds, eager for a glimpse of the man many still consider a hero for his role in pushing reform in the Soviet Union.

"You made this possible — you courageously let things happen, and that was much more than we could expect," she said.

Now, the Brawler doesn't know why Obama didn't show. Presumably it had to do with passing a health care bill -- a defense Esenberg sneers at before muttering about the need for more debate as if the GOP had any interest in being an honest debate partner.

In any event, Esenberg demonstrates his true seriousness by concluding thusly:

For the winner of a faux peace prize to ignore one of history's singular triumphs for peace is an embarassment.

OH! Faux peace prize. The Brawler would suggest that the Shark should think about who's embarrassing himself here.

Why does Rick Esenberg, the Shark and Shepherd, believe the stimulus has failed or What is Rick Esenberg talking about?

Rick "Shark and Shepherd" Esenberg has sniffed at bloggers whose meager ambition is to "offer entertainment to our side."

As opposed to his blog, which, lately at least, has been a source of entertainment for those with a taste for unintentional comedy on the other side.

Such as this latest masterpiece:

He (Obama) has exacerbated those perceptions with an incredibly expensive and failed stimulus plan that was a text book proof of what public choice theory tells us about the hijacking of government programs.

Ese says his purpose is to explore issues, but I see only fact free assertion with a highfalutin and unexplored reference to public choice theory thrown in. Eight months and $73 billion of payouts later and the stimulus plan is a failure already?

Paul Krugman, who is merely a Nobel Prize-winning economist, would beg to differ. As would Niall Ferguson, not the Brawler's idea of a liberal, in an otherwise unfortunate column.

Credit where it’s due: although the gold medal for staving off depression goes to Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, and the silver medal to China’s leaders for their even more impressive stimulus, the president deserves at least bronze. According to Moody’s, the ratings agency, the stimulus package has saved more than 500,000 jobs. Without the jump in government spending, GDP would still be in a nosedive.

It would be fascinating if Ese could explain why the stimulus has failed.

Just in! Alan S. Blinder: "Stimulus Is Putting Country on Road to Recovery."

Is Rick Esenberg, the "Shark and Shepherd," a serious person?

Rick Esenberg, July 10, 2008:

My second post ("Being serious ...) was prompted by commenters who repeated the slander that "Bush lied and people died." If you believe that, I do think that you are either misinformed or hopelessly partisan; even not serious.

Rick Esenberg, August 5, 2009:

He is, of course, correct in that the bill does not call for "mandatory" end of life planning. It only provides that such planning will be paid for - presumably in ways that it is not today. (Having dealt with the death of two elderly parents - my Mom and Karen's Dad - there certainly was a lot of discussion of those matters.)

Of course you get what you pay for and that may not be all bad. But it is not surprising that there would be a certain sensitivity about the issue given the President's remarks about limiting care for those with limited life expectancy and the experience with that type of thing in other "universal care" schemes.

Rick made the first statement after it was clear beyond doubt that the Bush Administration cherrypicked intelligence in making its case for the war and ignored and buried intelligence that undercut their assertions that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction and planning to palm them off to al-Qaeda. As Fred Kaplan said:

 It is worth noting that the claims that reflected U.S. intelligence—on biological weapons, ballistic missiles, and support for non-al-Qaida terrorist groups—were, while serious, not the sorts of threats that would rally a nation to war. Meanwhile, the claims that did galvanize support for the invasion—on nuclear weapons and alliances with al-Qaida—either exaggerated or falsified the intelligence of the day.

Or, as Dick Cheney said on August 6, 2002:

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."

Simply stated that was a big fat lie. Cheney had no grounds for making such a statement of metaphysical certitude -- and he certainly knew that. He was trying to sow a false impression of the threat Iraq posed. He was, in short, lying. Seriously.

Meanwhile.  Esenberg's response to rightwing claims that HB 3200 empowers big gummint to guide "you in death" and "have a say in how your life ends" is that it is "not surprising."

Esenberg sincerely believes he is a serious person who uses his blog to "explore issues." Why?

Rick "Shark and Shepherd" Esenberg: Don't call Charlie Sykes "angry" or "divisive"!

Rick "Shark and Shepherd" Esenberg, perhaps whilst sipping Oregon pinot grigio(noir -- apologies, Ese), types:

But I can't agree with the notion - advanced by Begel and others (and more civilly by him) - that last week's election marked some type of defeat for "angry" talk radio. It wasn't a good night for conservatives, but this stereotype of talk radio as "angry" and "divisive" and "against everything" is tired. Listen to Joel McNally's morning show (or read his Shepherd Express column) and tell me that he doesn't take the position - at least for public consumption - that his political opponents are moral or intellectual defectives. Try reading this guy's blog. You won't find that kind of vituperative self-righteousness in many other places.

I understand that Belling's schtick is outrage, but Sykes and Wagner are hardly breathing fire.

Huh? Who is this "Charlie Sykes" he is talking about?

The guy who called President-elect Barack HUSSEIN Obama a "sniveling, snot-nosed community organizer"?

The guy who whipped his listeners into a lather about the potential for "massive voter fraud" in Milwaukee and warned that voter fraud could decide the election?

The guy who humored a caller who suggested that George Soros and the Dems might be manipulating the stock market in  order to win the election?

The guy who approvingly noted that Palinistas were flipping off the media bus in Cedarburg?

The guy who said that Obama had used crack?

Obviously the Brawler  could go on. I'm not sure who this reasonable Charlie Sykes person is that Rick Esenberg listens to. But he doesn't have a radio show on 620 WTMJ in Milwaukee.

Rick "Shark and Shepherd" Esenberg naive on Reagan record

A vote for Obama is a vote to bring back the 1970s, when we were an economic basketcase at home and a helpless, pathetic giant abroad.

Or so implies Rick Esenberg in a Sunday column in  the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Instead we should vote for John McCain, "a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution" to usher in happy days once again. Or something.

But while Ese slings some George Santayana -- "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" -- he has a hard time recalling what actually happened under Reagan. Instead, he reprises the Reagan fairytale that, while disconnected to reality, continues to cast a pall over our public discourse.

From the column:

As President Carter left office and 50 years of Democratic rule began to end, we suffered from levels of inflation and unemployment that are unimaginable to younger Americans.

So, 50 years or Democratic rule brought us crippling inflation and unemployment? I would have thought he could have mentioned lifting millions out of poverty, winning World War II, expanded civil rights, etc., but space is tight and it's a nice insinuating construction. That said, curious that none of Nixon's policies or, say,  two oil shocks in a six-year span  had anything to do with the Carter economy.

Sen. John McCain was, as he puts it, a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution. He and his colleagues won that war, and he hasn't forgotten what it taught us.

But the Shark has!

The 1980s brought us lower taxes and lighter regulation.

Well, it also brought us a sharp recession (1981-82, not Reagan's fault), the S&L crisis (partly Reagan's fault) and big deficits (Reagan's fault). And, as the Brawler has pointed out elsewhere, Reagan actually raised taxes during six of his eight years in office, and stuck it to the middle class during the Social Security bailout of 1983.

What followed was, notwithstanding our recent economic difficulties, a generation of growth and prosperity.

Actually the growth under Reagan was anemic compared to previous levels and much of the "growth" was the economy digging itself out of the hole of the 81-82 recession. He leaves out the fact that the economy grew under Clinton despite the 1993 tax increase -- which Ese's fellow supply siders claimed would send the economy (which had recently been in recession) into a tailspin. Sound familiar?

Later in the piece he says:

A president's most important responsibilities lie in the area of foreign policy and national security. During the past 30 years, the more muscular foreign policy ushered in by President Reagan has achieved things, such as the demise of communism, once thought impossible.

Here it seems that the Shark is endorsing the conservative triumphalist theory that Reagan defeated the Soviet Union by embarking on an arms race that bankrupted our cold war rival. Or maybe it was by invading Grenada or making a speech at the Berlin wall. Killing nuns in Central America? Whatever it is Shark's referring to, the demise of communism wasn't a Reagan achievement.

From Richard Rhodes' Arsenals of Folly (p.190):

But the evidence does not support this self-congratulatory claim. The Soviet arms buildup of the 1970s was largely complete by the time Reagan became president in 1981,and in any case Soviet defense budgets gradually increased, not decreased through 1988.

Neither George Shultz nor even Caspar Weinberger credited the triumphalist theory of Cold War victory. " I never really bought that,"Shultz told an interviewer. "The idea of building up our military capability was not to outspend them but to provide ourselves with adequate defenses." ...

Powers quotes former Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin:

Throughout the Reagan presidency, the rising Soviet defense effort contributed to [the  Soviet Union's] economic decline, but only marginally as it had in previous years. The troubles in our economy were the result of our own internal contradictions of autarky [i.e., economic self sufficiency], low investment and lack of innovation ...

Don't get the Brawler wrong: Reagan played a critical role in the Cold War. But it was by sitting down and negotiating with Gorbachev. (Gorbachev wanted to cut the defense budget to get funds to modernize the USSR. The reason he wanted to knock down Star Wars is because it would have strengthened the hand of his conservative rivals -- the USSR knew the thing wouldn't work or could be overwhelmed). It was Reagan's willingness to do that that ended the cold war. If Reagan had listened to the Irving Kristols of the world who accused him of being soft, Gorbachev would likely have to stuck to the hardline defense policies. 

 The Brawler realizes he's picking on a strand in Rick's (unpersuasive) endorsement of McCain (which mysteriously doesn't address the important issue of Bill Ayers). But he feels it's an important one. The "Reagan Revolution" as described by Esenberg is a fairy tale. And belief in fairy tales -- or worse, trying to recreate one -- is unhealthy for democracies.

Just in: Some might consider it worth pointing out that Reagan's muscular foreign policy and bellicose rhetoric came quite close to triggering a nuclear war:

Reagan's "evil empire" speech of March 1983 was widely noted in the Soviet Union , recalled Vladimir Slipchenko, then a member of the Soviet General Staff. "The military, the armed forces . . . used this," he added, "as a reason to begin a very intense preparation inside the military for a state of war." Furthermore, "we started to run huge strategic exercises. . . . These were the first military exercises in which we really tested our mobilization. We didn't just exercise the ground forces but also the strategic arms." Therefore, "for the military, the period when we were called the evil empire was actually very good and useful, because we achieved a very high military readiness. . . . We also rehearsed the situation when a non-nuclear war might turn into a nuclear war."

Soviet leaders, terrified that the Reagan administration was preparing a nuclear first strike against their country, nearly launched a nuclear war. In November 1983, during NATO's Able Archer military exercises, the jittery Soviet government became convinced that, under cover of the exercises, a U.S. nuclear attack upon the Soviet Union was underway. Consequently, Soviet nuclear forces were alerted, command staffs reviewed their strike missions, and nuclear weapons were readied for action. "The world did not quite reach the edge of the nuclear abyss," recalled Oleg Gordievsky, a U.S. intelligence agent within the KGB. "But during Able Archer 83 it had . . . come frighteningly close."

Thus, as Anatoly Dobrynin, the longtime Soviet ambassador to the United States, recalled: "The impact of Reagan's hard-line policy . . . was exactly the opposite of the one intended by Washington . It strengthened those in the Politburo, the Central Committee, and the security apparatus who had been pressing for a mirror-image of Reagan's own policy."

 

Scapegoating the financial crisis on Dems

My friends, when Barack Obama is sworn into office of the presidency next January, he will be taking the helm of a country that, more likely than not, will be deep in recession. And the right, naturally, will be blaming it on him, the Democrats and community activists he pushed the poor woebegotten giants of Wall Street into investing in poor neighborhoods. It's a canard of course -- right up there with the lie that FDR somehow prolonged the Depression. But if the right has learned anything, if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes, if not truth, something taken seriously.

Locally, Charlie Sykes -- the financial wizard who doesn't know how to read the fine print on credit card applications -- has been at the vanguard of pushing the deeply racist argument (supported by Sensenbrenner as well) that the Community Reinvestment Act is somehow to blame for our current travails. Barry Ritholtz reduces this smear to a smoking ruin.

Rick "Shark and Shepherd" Esenberg, meanwhile, makes a high church argument that while not blaming Democrats! exclusively manages to blame them by name: It was Fannie, the Fed pushing cheap money and a disastrous, though no doubt well-intentioned, big gummint effort to encourage home ownership.

Yet, one might ask,what was the exposure of the now-defunct Lehman Brothers to mortgage buyer Fannie Mae. "De minimis" one might say if one is so pretentious as to sling Latin. Like former Lehman CEO Dick Fuld.

Unmentioned in Esenberg's blame game are the nonbank mortgage companies and investment banks that were models in irresponsibility. Daniel Gross asks:

I await the Krauthammer column in which he points out the specific provision of the Community Reinvestment Act that forced Bear Stearns to run with an absurd leverage ratio of 33 to 1, which instructed Bear Stearns hedge-fund managers to blow up hundreds of millions of their clients' money, and that required its septuagenarian CEO to play bridge while his company ran into trouble. Perhaps Neil Cavuto knows which CRA clause required Lehman Bros. to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars in short-term debt in the capital markets and then buy tens of billions of dollars of commercial real estate at the top of the market. I can't find it. Did AIG plunge into the credit-default-swaps business with abandon because Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now members picketed its offices? Please. How about the hundreds of billions of dollars of leveraged loans—loans banks committed to private-equity firms that wanted to conduct leveraged buyouts of retailers, restaurant companies, and industrial firms? Many of those are going bad now, too. Is that Bill Clinton's fault?

Clearly, Fannie Mae and the Fed had gats against the heads of these executive all the while.

Esenberg, meanwhile, is baffled entirely by the claim that Bush-era deregulation played any role in this debacle. Ignoring radical Bolshevik dad29's claim that the SEC's upping the leverage ratio in 2004 maybe wasn't such a hot idea.

The Brawler would add that McCain adviser Phil Gramm's legislation banning oversight of credit default swaps maybe wasn't such a hot idea. Of course ol Phil slipped that into a bill in December 2000, during the lame duck era of the Clinton presidency. So perhaps Obama should -- well, he actually should -- broaden his critique of deregulation to cover a wider span.

But excessive government regulation or mandates did not lead us to where we are today. And the spirit of deregulation played no small role.

Sarah Palin's hick schtick

Europhilic, Mequon-dwelling, Oregon Pinot Grigio-swilling arbiter of just-folks authenticity Rick "Shark and Shepherd" Esenberg recentlysniffed:

Committed Obamniaks (to borrow from Joe Biden's use of what is apparently the term of Bosnian Muslims) are not going to like Sarah Palin's performance in last night's debate. Too folksy and not their girl.

Actually,one of my many problems with Sarah Palin is that her doggone "folksy" delivery is a wildly cynical and condescending pastiche of how "regular folks" talk.  

As Andrew Sullivan observes of the clip below, "Ask yourself where the folksiness is. See how many times she says "doggone" in 2006.":

Sullivan says: "In my judgment she is the biggest fraud we have seen in national politics in generations." Shucks, it's difficult to argue.

Kudos to the Shark

The Brawler disagrees with, well, just about everything Rick Esenberg writes. And he disagrees with a great deal of his portrayal of Van Hollen's voter check lawsuit and how the matter should be resolved (It's not clear, for instance, why all voters registered by Acorn should be given extra scrutiny at polling places given those registrations are already being, not inappropriately, thoroughly vetted).

That said, the Brawler does give the ol Shark credit for announcing a more than minor dissent from his kith and kin on the right in calling for some sort of reasonable approach on this issue and recognizing the reality -- denied by Sykes and others -- that it's probably unrealistic to do a massive cross-check/verification of all voters before election day.

We grow good people in the Heights, yo.

Working class voters ignore pleadings of Oregon Pinot Noir drinking pundit

Apparently white working class voters are ignoring Mequon-residing,Oregon Pinot Noir-drinking pundit Rick Esenberg when he says that Obama looks down on them, that Obama is an elitist or that Obama thinks he's the messiah.

From Talking Points Memo:

Now this should put the "Obama's working class whites problem" meme to rest. Buried in the new Washington Post poll is

a startling number

:

But even among white workers -- a group of voters that has been targeted by both parties as a key to victory in November -- Obama leads McCain by 10 percentage points, 47 percent to 37 percent, and has the advantage as the more empathetic candidate.

In an even bigger shocker, it turns out that Obama's advantage is partly driven by the fact that he's better on an issue of importance to these voters: Health care. Seven in ten working class whites polled say government should focus on getting people like them health insurance they can afford, a key Obama position.

If this poll is accurate, McCain is dramatically under-performing among these voters. Will we be hearing a "McCain's working class whites problem" meme anytime soon?

A post about tire gauges or The Dark Knight (presumably how the preznit who choked on a pretzel is like Batman) might turn things around.

Perhaps Rick Esenberg is a better lawyer than football analyst

The Brawler and mini-Brawler have just returned from a camping trip (vaguely reminiscent of William Faulkner's  The Bear), so the Brawler only now has read Rick "Shark and Shepherd" Esenberg's recent opining on the Favre affair (that is: Despite retiring and balking twice in recent months at returning, Brett Favre should be allowed to do whatever he wants because ... well, that's tough to say why.)

And all the Brawler can say is: LOL.

Actually, a bit more. The Brawler's pointed out before that Esenberg is fond of distorting history and omitting unpleasant facts to make his case. Now, that may work in a legal brief. But it doesn't really work when talking about the mighty Pack.

To wit: Esenberg excuses Favre's getting cold at Lambeau, blaming the loss on the D and a nonexistent running game, while ignoring that a shivering Favre also managed to lose at Chicago  to Kyle Orton. Esenberg totally ignores Favre's record in recent years of swooning in the second half of seasons. He criticizes Rodgers for not completing drives in last year's game in Dallas -- conveniently omitting the fact that Favre had trouble completing passes to guys not wearing Cowboys uniforms in that game (obviously that was the D's and running game's fault). He says 4th & 26 wasn't Favre's fault -- while failing to note the interception that doomed the Packers' chances was.

And we should believe this guy's analysis of Iraq or Obama or global warming?

Esenberg also acts as of Favre's routine takes place in a context of routinely jerking the team around over the past three years. Indeed, last year rumors flew from the Favre camp -- as noted here by Shark and Shepherd (who, demonstrating that his football knowledge is superior to Ted Thompson's, dissed James Jones)-- that Brett wants to be traded.

So apparently Thompson should not take any of this history into account in trying to gauge the best direction for the team, assume that a 38-year-old man who routinely waxed all Denmark princelike about what to do will be in fighting shape all season long, and send a message to the team that some players can get away with holding a franchise hostage.

Please.

As always, Bob McGinn, the best journalist in Wisconsin, nailed it.

As a bonus, in the comments to Esenberg's latest on the Pack, the Reddess takes a commenter to task for spelling Favre "Farve." Ignoring the fact that Mr. Reddess has used said spelling in a headline, has referred to Aaron Rogers, a Keshawn Johnson and some guy named Justin Herill (or is it Herrill).

Esenberg said, after Ted Thompson passed on Randy Moss, that "Ted Thompson is an idiot or everyone else is." Esenberg ought to ponder that a bit more.