All of which is to say, there has been far more and far deeper continuity between Bush and Obama than there has been any sort of fundamental change. As is to be expected on the national security/state secrets front, Glenn Greenwald has already penned two excellent posts on this matter, “WH forces P.J. Crowley to resign for condemning abuse of Manning” on Sunday and “The clarifying Manning/Crowley controversy” today.

Rather than rehash any of the considerable territory that he has already covered, I want to hone in on an underlying question that I feel he somewhat glosses over due to his own ideological orientation. (Glenn often gives the impression it’s apparently unsurprising hypocrisy ala “both sides do it”.) That is the question of why and how Obama continues to get by with so little criticism and opposition from his activist and voter base. It’s not that people are entirely silent, but that critical voices who do exist have not made a meaningful impact on the broader mass of activists and/or voters. Obama continues to be perceived more as a liberal than a centrist, and liberals continue to support him disproportionately, despite his clearly center-right policies, not just on national security, but across a broad range of policy areas, including such central ones as economic and foreign policy, on both of which he is well to the right of Bush Sr. and relatively close to Bush Jr.

As Greenwald himself reminds us in several instances, there is a particularly striking disonnect between Obama’s campaign rhetoric and his actual governing practice:

It’s long been obvious that the Obama administration’s unprecedented war on whistleblowers “comes from the President himself,” notwithstanding his campaign decree — under the inspiring title “Protect Whistleblowers” — that “such acts of courage and patriotism should be encouraged rather than stifled.” …. Other than Obama’s tolerance for the same detainee abuse against which he campaigned and his ongoing subservience to the military that he supposedly “commands,” it is the way in which this Manning/Crowley behavior bolsters the regime of secrecy and the President’s obsessive attempts to destroy whistleblowing that makes this episode so important and so telling.

And:

Elsewhere, The Philadelphia Daily News‘ progressive columnist Will Bunch accuses Obama of “lying” during the campaign by firing Crowley and endorsing “the bizarre and immoral treatment of the alleged Wikileaks leaker.” In The Guardian, Obama voter Daniel Ellsberg condemns “this shameful abuse of Bradley Manning,” arguing that it “amounts to torture” and “makes me feel ashamed for the [Marine] Corps,” in which Ellsberg served three years, including nine months at Quantico.

This immediately struck a chord with me, since one of the more noteworthy findings of Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics by Marc J. Hetherington and Jonathan D. Weiler was that Obama voters during the primary were considerable more non-authoritarian than Clinton voters. (Greenwald himself called this “a certain-to-be-controversial chapter” in the book.)

To understand what’s going on here, I think one other factor that Hetherington and Weiler draw attention to needs to be considered, concerning what is most salient about authoritarianism. Quoting from a passage in the book that I quoted in my own comments as part of the TPMCafe discussion of the book:

Our treatment places a need for order at the center. Much emerging work in cognitive science depicts a struggle in all humans to achieve clarity in the face of confusion. To use terms more often used by social scientists, people hope to impose order on ambiguous situations….

Thinking about authoritarianism in terms of order rather than authority itself also helps explain why those scoring high are more inclined to simplify the world into black and white categories while those scoring lower in authoritarianism feel more comfortable with shades of gray. Black and white categories provide order. So, too, does a propensity to submit to authorities, but only to those who promise a black and white understanding of the world. Authoritarians do not view Barack Obama as the same type of authority as, say, George W. Bush. Hence it is not so much the submission that is important but rather a preference for concreteness that is important.

Bush’s language was the very essence of concreteness, as well as dividing the world strakly into black and white. Obama’s language was quite the opposite. And yet, as soon as Obama took power, his actions began paralleling Bush’s actions, rather than his own rhetoric. The reason for this can be seen as quite pedestrian, tracing back to an underlying consistency: Even from the beginnings of Obama’s campaign, he was very concerned about controlling the message and maintianing the discipline of his campaign–arguably even obsessively so. He even managed to convince major donors and outside organizations to silence themselves and allow his campaign virtually exclusive message control over everything coming from the Democratic side.

Thus, even as the campaign encouraged vigorous discussion and “bottom-up input” in its online fora, this had virtually no role in the broader campaign. It could even be seen as a way of allowing supports to ‘let off steam’ so as not to get in the way of the “grownups”. Indeed, within weeks of taking power, Obama completely dispensed with taking any notice of such input, first rejecting calls for holding Bush/Cheney war criminals accountable, then mocking his own supporters for calling for the decriminalization of marijuana.

It’s often been noted that Obama seems to care more about process than end results, and so it’s completely consistent for his own authoritarian bent to emerge almost effortlessly out of his organizational penchant for a smoothly-running machine. For him, much more than Bush or Cheney, it’s the order side of things that drives his authoritarianism, even though the black-and-white categories he ends up embracing are not rooted in anything deeper than the backroom political battles inside his own administration.

Most of his liberal supporters still have yet to catch on precisely because Obama’s authoritarianism comes out of left field for them–not just from a purported “liberal” who even now uses more sophisticated language most of the time, but from someone motivated more by a bureaucrtic need for control in line with battles waged behind closed doors along lines that are often being fluidly redrawn according to criteria that are difficult for non-partipant to follow. Of course, participants and active critics see things quite differently. The numerous parallels between Bush and Obama that Greenwald draws attention to are anything but obscure to active, engaged critics. But decades of research tell us quite clearly that the mass public doesn’t read politics based on this sort of information. Obama’s manner–as well as his most prominent critics–continus to reinforce his appearance as a non-authoritarian, carefully considering and balancing a wide range of factors.

The big picture take-away here is that authoritarianism has gained such a pervasive foothold among the American ruling class that it is no longer even possible for a substantively non-authoritarian political position, actor, organization or movement to be recognized as such. Non- (or even anti-)authoritarian spoofs, set-pieces and fantasies by authoritarian actors of one stripe or another have completely taken over the roles of their authentically anti-authoritarian counterparts, and this is every bit as true of Obama as it is of the Tea Party, however much they may differ from one another in any number of other ways.

When a genuinely non-authoritarian movement arises–such as the mass opposition to Walkers’ Wisconsin coup–the political elites are completely flummoxed by it, and aside from falling back on hackneyed authoritarian-projection stereotypes of “union thugs” and “union bosses” they have literally nothing to say, and consequently simply decide not to cover what they cannot understand.

This, then, is the deeper sense in which the Manning/Crowly Affair reveals the fact that truth is not an option in American political life today.

If you want to get national attention as a governor these days, don’t try to be innovative about solving the problems you were elected to deal with – in education, transportation and health care. No, if you want ink and television time, just cut and cut and cut some more.

Almost no one in the national media is noticing governors who say the reasonable thing: that state budget deficits, caused largely by drops in revenue in the economic downturn, can’t be solved by cuts or tax increases alone.

There is nothing courageous about an ideological governor hacking away at programs that partisans of his philosophy, including campaign contributors, want eliminated. That’s staying in your comfort zone.

The brave ones are governors such as Jerry Brown in California, Dan Malloy in Connecticut, Pat Quinn in Illinois, Mark Dayton in Minnesota and Neil Abercrombie in Hawaii. They are declaring that you have to cut programs, even when your own side likes them, and raise taxes, which nobody likes much at all. Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee has warned of possible tax increases too.

Indeed, to the extent that Quinn received any national press coverage, he got pilloried in conservative outlets in January when he signed tax hikes that included a temporary increase in Illinois’ individual income tax rate from 3 percent to 5 percent.

Despite all the commotion around whether the federal government will shut down, the clamor in the states may be even more important than what’s happening in Washington, which is missing in action on the moment’s most vital fiscal question.

What states are doing to ease their fiscal agonies will only slow down our fragile economic recovery, and may stop it altogether. The last thing we need right now are state and local governments draining jobs and money from the economy, yet that is what they are being forced to do.

As the last three monthly reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed, an economy that created a net 317,000 private-sector jobs lost 70,000 state and local government jobs. Cutbacks are dead weight on the recovery.

This morning we got a frustrating dose of worst, as the producers decided to have a look at what’s happening in Wisconsin. You could have written the script without knowing any of the important details, because coverage like this isn’t informational, it’s ritual. Predictable tough-guy posing from Governor Scott Walker, Tea Party Darling, and then some comment from teachers and union members, the people in the crosshairs. There – “both” sides have been told. Journalism accomplished.

Except…except…CBS didn’t provide some important details, nor did they put a microphone in the face of anyone likely to do so for them. So, let me try to add a little texture, with a couple of caveats: first, yes, it’s complex; second, I’m not an economics expert, so I’m going to link and quote to those who know more than I do. In the end, my purpose isn’t to prove that X is definitively true about Wisconsin, but instead, to ask how come you aren’t hearing these details. How come you’re watching “balanced” news reports that omit such critical facts?

• In a nutshell, Walker transformed a $120M surplus into a deficit through special interest spending for his political friends and tax cuts for businesses. As The Cap Times explains:

To the extent that there is an imbalance — Walker claims there is a $137 million deficit — it is not because of a drop in revenues or increases in the cost of state employee contracts, benefits or pensions. It is because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January. If the Legislature were simply to rescind Walker’s new spending schemes — or delay their implementation until they are offset by fresh revenues — the “crisis” would not exist.

• More specifically, TPM notes that “more than half of the new shortfall comes from three of Walker’s initiatives”:

$25 million for an economic development fund for job creation, which still holds $73 million because of anemic job growth.

$48 million for private health savings accounts — a perennial Republican favorite.

$67 million for a tax incentive plan that benefits employers, but at levels too low to spur hiring.

• Not only that, Walker has chased investment out of the state to the tune of at least $810M.
• In an e-mail exchange earlier this morning, Paul Rosenberg of Random Lengths News explained that “[a]pparently these measures don’t take effect until next fiscal year, so they actually AREN’T increasing the current year shortfall. But, as I noted, the Cap Times commentary highlights an unused cache of $73 million, more than twice what’s being sought from public sector workers.”
• The idea of Walker and the legislature teeing up corporate tax cuts is especially remarkable, given that “the share of corporate tax revenue funding the state government has fallen by half since 1981 and, according to Wisconsin Department of Revenue, two-thirds of corporations pay no taxes.”

Rosenberg, who shares my frustrations with the state of the press, also backtracks the governor’s original press release, uncovering some important double dealing. Let me go ahead and plug in a longish section from Paul’s e-mail on this subject.

Salient points:

(1) Stated Deficit:

“The state of Wisconsin is facing an immediate deficit of $137 million for the current fiscal year which ends July 1. In addition, bill collectors are waiting to collect over $225 million for a prior raid of the Patients’ Compensation Fund.”

(2) Piddling amount gained by raiding public employee benefits:

“First, it will require state employees to pay about 5.8% toward their pension (about the private sector national average) and about 12% of their healthcare benefits (about half the private sector national average). These changes will help the state save $30 million in the last three months of the current fiscal year.”

(3) ENTIRE deficit covered by single non-controversial item:

“The budget repair will also restructure the state debt, lowering the state’s interest rate, saving the state $165 million.”

(4) Which carries with it a severe time-constraint:

“Since the state is required to make debt service payments by March 15th, the bill must be enacted by February 25th to allow time to sell the refinancing bonds. This provision will reduce debt service costs by $165 million in fiscal year 2010-11.”

There are, of course, all manner of other bells and whistles in this bill, but the whole “fiscal emergency” narrative–which is clearly questionable at best on other ground–is put to bed with this simple set of facts.

To cop a phrase from Brad DeLong, “Oh why can’t we have a better press corps?”

If just ONE major news outlet knew how to CRITICALLY read a press release, none of this rightwing hysteria could have gotten off the ground. When I was managing editor at Random Lengths News, teaching interns to critically read press releases was one of the basics, since incoming press releases went into a file from which we drew potential “news briefs,” and it was always important to spot slant, spin and contradictions in order to assess what other information sources we might want to contact for a more accurate story–if, indeed, we were going to run anything at all. So when I say this is a basic skill, I mean a BASIC skill.

Oh yeah, and one more thing:

(5) The destruction of workers’ rights is not only fiscally irrelevant, it does not even come into effect until AFTER the end of the current fiscal year:

“Collective bargaining – The bill would make various changes to limit collective bargaining for most public employees to wages. Total wage increases could not exceed a cap based on the consumer price index (CPI) unless approved by referendum. Contracts would be limited to one year and wages would be frozen until the new contract is settled. Collective bargaining units are required to take annual votes to maintain certification as a union. Employers would be prohibited from collecting union dues and members of collective bargaining units would not be required to pay dues. These changes take effect upon the expiration of existing contracts.“

Right. And herein lies the piece that ought to have any good journalist scratching his/her head. To wit – why is so much energy being devoted to busting union power in Wisconsin? Even if Walker were able to completely annihilate all unions in the state, it would have zero effect on his ginned-up budget “crisis,” right?

Hmmmm.

As I allow above, this is a complex situation. And it’s an evolving situation, with more facts and analysis emerging as it unfolds. How much of this were you aware of? If the answer is somewhere between “none” and “not much,” why? Is it unfair to ask our nation’s largest and richest news organizations to present the details you need to make an intelligent decision? Are you not bright enough to process facts? Do they not think you’re bright enough? If the latter, what do you think about the journalism establishment’s decision to make your mind up for you like you’re a three year-old?

If Walker Really Wants to Solve the Problem, There’s an Obvious Solution He Isn’t Talking About

If you want to get serious about Wisconsin’s fiscal issues, you have to take a hard look at one of the biggest drains on the state economy: the United States of America. In 2007 (the most recent year for which we have data, I think), Wisconsin contributed $43,778,325,000 in taxpayer revenue to the federal government. Washington, however, only returns $.86 per dollar to the state in benefits and services. That comes to $37,649,359,500. If you don’t have a calculator handy, that means that the state is losing $6,128,965,500.

Whoa. Check that again – Wisconsin is losing better than $6 billion a year – that’s billion with a “B” – and we’re cluttering up the Capitol over $137 million?

What I want to know is why the Tea Party counter-protesters in Madison (what few there were) aren’t demanding that Walker and the legislature do the only fiscally responsible thing and begin talking secession. The case has already been made that California, Washington and Oregon have an incentive to secede, and the same should go for other donor states. Like Wisconsin.

Am I right? Well, Rosenberg observes that Walker’s “plan is to destroy public service unions that work for cities and counties as well as the state. So state supremacy over local governments is part of his mix, as is rejecting federal stimulus money. I don’t think you’re stretching things all that much.”

I’m sure we all look forward to the more penetrating follow-up story next Sunday morning.

______

Thanks to Jeremy Woodburn and Paul Rosenberg for their valuable contributions to this story.