Behind Political Culture: U.S. President Clinton’s Lying under Oath

The stature that comes with occupying (and even having occupied) public office, whether elected or appointed and especially if high office, combined with the ability to attract the attention of the media such that the (former) official’s statements have the credibility of pronouncements, and thus of being true rather than false statements, is rarely examined for what the stature and societal “mouth-piece” imply (i.e., veracity). A very high former elected representative who has even admitted lying under oath in a court proceeding back while in office can very easily be assumed decades later to be making a true statement by the public even though that statement is practically identical to the statement known (and admitted) to have been false. Even published photos that are strong evidence that the second statement is false can be dismissed by a public too liable to being beguiled by clever political birds of prey. I have in mind here the twin statements of Bill Clinton, who was the U.S. President for two terms in the 1990s and went on to associate with Jeffrey Epstein, the infamous head of the child-prostitute sex-ring, and at least one of his paid girls.

The full essay is at "Behind Political Culture."

On the 2025 Political Convention of the European People’s Party

Competition within a pollical party and recognition that a political party is indeed a political party are essential or at least advantageous to any political party in a democratic system. Moreover, a republic, even if it contains smaller republics but is not just them in aggregate, deserves to be recognized as such rather than implicitly relegated by erroneous nomenclature that is designed to appease skeptics so they won’t rise up to resist the federal republic itself. “Let the chips fall where they may” is, I believe, an expression from gambling. Another expression comes from playing cards: Call a spade a spade. These two expressions evince truth and power, whereas hiding behind false notions is sheer weakness. Much of my writing on the European Union is oriented to strengthening it, as well as to gleam lessons for both the E.U. and U.S. by comparing and contrasting them as federal empire-scale unions of states.

The full essay is at "On the 2025 Political Convention of the European People's Party."

A Far-Right "States' Rights" Ideological Depiction of the European Union Critiqued

Roughly a month before the 2019 elections of the representatives in the E.U.’s Parliament, Matteo Salvini, the leader of an anti-immigrant party at the state level in the state of Italy, announced the formation of a far-right party—also anti-immigrant—at the federal level. Because far-right parties at the state level are dubbed “nationalist,” at least by The New York Times, that paper suggested at the time that such nationalist parties federalized can seem “incompatible with a transnational body.”[1] I submit that any such thought of even apparent incompatibility stems at least in part from a lack of understanding of the E.U. itself, as well as federalism and thus the place of states from the perspective of the federal system rather than a state. In short, the paper implicitly took the perspective of the states in writing about the upcoming election. The paradigm chosen by the paper reflects the far-right ideology in the E.U., and is thus not neutral. In fact, the slant is inherently helpful to the Euroskeptic and anti-immigration political agendas.

The full essay is at "A Euroskeptic Depiction of the E.U."

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1. Megan Specia, “European Elections 2019: How the System Works and Why It Matters,” The New York Times, May 21, 2019.

Inconvenient Truths

When I was a post-doctoral student, I sat in on a course on German films during World War II. The instructor was an 80 year-old German man whose parents had been forced into sending him to a Hitler Youth camp. I asked him once whether he had seen Hitler in person, and, if so, did he look like how the documentaries have him pictured. Having the respect for knowledge that should be expected from a scholar, he told me that he had indeed seen Hitler in person. The brutal Nazi dictator was authentically smiling during his visit to the Hitler youth.  I was surprised, as I had been brought up with the image of the grizzled grins and terse glares.  To be sure, the victor’s history fits the horrendous crimes committed, but at the cost of objectivity, which any historian should value. The subjective historical portrayal and the German professor’s honest answer led me to wonder what Hitler was really like as a person. Even the epitaph of monster does not fit with the notion of the banality of evil visible at the Eichmann trial in 1961. Eichmann had been responsible for making the trains run on time to the concentration camps.

About a decade after my conversations with the German professor, I met a 92 year-old American veteran of World War II.  Did the American people know of the holocaust? I asked. Only after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, he answered. Before the U.S. went to war, the European war was something far away. When the U.S. was at war in Europe and Asia, Jewish leaders in Europe asked President Roosevelt to bomb the train tracks that were carrying the cattle-cars to the ovens. Roosevelt, the veteran said, told the Jews that he didn’t have time for that. “Wow, that’s a story!” I said in astonishment. One of the veteran’s daughters asked him how he knew this. “It was common knowledge at the time,” he replied. I had not even known that the American public knew of the gas chambers before the liberation of the camps. Even if Roosevelt wanted to be focused on military objectives because achieving them would mean winning the war, that he felt he didn’t have time to thwart the Nazis from transporting human beings to ovens astonishes me. I asked the veteran if the very language, cattle-cars to ovens applied to human beings shocked Americans during the war. He replied that “surprised” is not the right word for it. He did not characterize how he and other Americans had taken the news, which I found interesting.

The full essay is at "Inconvenient Truths."

The American Media Went “Nuclear” on the U.S. Senate's Filibuster: A Case of Hyperactive Marketing?

Is ending the filibuster on appointments to executive-branch offices as well as judicial appointments below the U.S. Supreme Court really “the nuclear option”? Is this expression simply rhetoric gone horribly over the top? Journalists would undoubtedly demur, at least publically, yet without feeling an ounce of shame.

The full essay is at "Going Nuclear on the Filibuster: Journalistic Over-Kill?" 

The Post

In Spielberg’s The Post (2017), the fateful decision to publish portions of the Pentagon Papers centers on Katharine Graham’s being willing to rebuff her newspaper’s lawyers, who represent the company’s financial interests, in favor of Ben Bradlee’s argument that free speech of the press as a check on government in a viable democracy—the company’s mission—is of overriding importance. As important as this critical decision was historically, I submit that the film allots too much attention to the decision and even the relationship between Graham and Bradlee at the expense of other deserving matters.

The full essay is at "The Post."

Judge Allows ATT Purchase of Time Warner: Vertical Integration Escapes Anti-Trust Objection

Typically horizontal mergers, as when one company merges with another that makes similar products, have trouble when it comes to anti-trust, restraint of trade, objections. The go-ahead of the ATT merger with Time Warner in mid-2018 suggests that vertical combinations, such as when distributor buys a content-creator, survive on anti-trust grounds. Even if trade is not restrained, another problem is present—that of conflicts of interest. Anti-trust law is oriented to preventing restraint of trade rather than such conflicts. Accordingly, just because the ATT merger survived on anti-trust grounds does not mean that a regulatory gap did not exist at the time.

The full essay is at "Vertical Integration and Anti-Trust Law."

How a Chairman of the Federal Reserve Made Strategic Use of the Media

Just as the US Senate was to take up the matter of Ben Bernanke’s re-appointment as Chair of the Federal Reserve in 2010, Time magazine came out with its announcement that he is to be its person of the year.  According to the magazine, “when turbulence in U.S. housing markets metastasized into the worst global financial crisis in more than 75 years, he conjured up trillions of new dollars and blasted them into the economy; engineered massive public rescues of failing private companies; ratcheted down interest rates to zero; lent to mutual funds, hedge funds, foreign banks, investment banks, manufacturers, insurers and other borrowers who had never dreamed of receiving Fed cash; jump-started stalled credit markets in everything from car loans to corporate paper; revolutionized housing finance with a breathtaking shopping spree for mortgage bonds; blew up the Fed’s balance sheet to three times its previous size; and generally transformed the staid arena of central banking into a stage for desperate improvisation. He didn’t just reshape U.S. monetary policy; he led an effort to save the world economy.”  Not to be outdone in service to the Chairman, CNN furnished its own reporters, who gave credit to Bernanke for these measures.  Interestingly, however, even though one reporter admitted that Bernanke had said in 2007 that the subprime market and its derivatives would not threaten the financial market and the banks, she attributed the fault there to the imperfections in the market rather than to Bernanke himself in being wrong.   So, he gets credit for having cleaned up the mess (ignoring the foreclosed homeowners) but not the blame for being wrong about the contagion (and not urging regulation of the derivatives).  

The full essay is at "How a Chairman of the Fed Used the Media."

Real or Incremental Change?

On October 13, 2010, Fox News reported a poll that found that women were turning on Obama.  The reason cited was that they feel there has been too much change—that it has been “jarring.”  I was stunned—wondering if I was listening to a broadcast from another planet. I remembered that when I had been sampling a fattening food item in a grocery store in my antiquated home town in Illinois; the old woman who gave me the sample, said, “We have lots of devils here!” as she was handing me the sample.  She was referring to the array of food samples in the store that day a few weeks before Thanksgiving.  My reaction, which I charitably did not share with her, was, Oh, horrors! I wondered what century she was from (probably Calvin's, I concluded privately as I chewed a “devilish” olive). I wondered, moreover, why some people magnify little things into horrendous sins. Such people, I concluded, cannot seem to let go of what is to the rest of us so utterly antiquated and get with it. That is, why are some people so resistant to change? Why do they perceive small, incremental changes as somehow momentous—even jarring?

The full essay is at "Real or Incremental Change."

On the Myopic Hyperbole of Wall Street: Overblowing Small Changes

I suppose that after looking at something closely for a long period of time, virtually anyone would perceive a small change in it as huge. This is reflected in how people formulate graphs. In particular, typically only a small interval is shown, the perceptual impact of which is that small changes look big. For example, Msnbc.com reported on June 8, 2011 that the price of oil “soared” on that day “almost $2 to near $101 a barrel.” My reaction in reading the report was that the word “soared” indicates a lack of perspective on Wall Street and the media.

The full essay is at "Exaggerating Market Volatility."

On a New Era Dawning in the E.U. State of France

With Emmanuel Macron finishing first on the first-round of voting for the head of state in the E.U. state of France, the media declared a new era in the state politics was already a foregone conclusion. Yet the support of the political elites at both the state and federal level could be read as tempering any such landmark announcement.

The full essay is at "Macron in Europe." 

Young Russians Protest Government Corruption

Russia witnessed the largest anti-government protests in more than five years on March 26, 2017. At the urging of Aleksei Navalny, “tens of thousands of Russians—many of them in their teens and 20s—poured into the streets in scores of cities . . . to protest endemic corruption among the governing elite.”[1] The police responded by beating protesters—a barbaric and psychologically pathological response to peaceful protest—and arresting more than a thousand. As the protests were not directed against Putin, but, rather, corruption, the Kremlin should have been a cheerleader rather than antagonist to the protests.

The full essay is at "Young Russians Protest."

Aleksei A. Navalny at a court in Moscow on Monday. He told reporters that he was “amazed” by the number of cities and by how many people had taken part in demonstrations. Source: Denis Tyrin/Associated Press

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1. Neil MacFarquhar and Ivan Nechepurenko, “Aleksei Navalny, Russian Opposition Leader, Receives 15-Day Sentence,” The New York Times, March 27, 2017.

One-Party Rule at the State Level: Federalism at Work

With Congressional Republicans appearing “flummoxed by the complexities of one-party rule, struggling with issues from repealing the Affordable Care Act . . . to paying for President Trump’s promised wall on the Mexican border, rising party leaders in the states seem far more at ease and assertive. Republicans have top-to-bottom control in 25 states now, holding both the governorship and the entire legislature, and Republican lawmakers are acting with lightning speed to enact longstanding conservative priorities.”[1] 

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

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1. Alexander Burns and Mitch Smith, “State G.O.P. Leaders Move Swiftly as Party Bickers in Congress,” The New York Times, February 11, 2017.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

A Federal Court Stays President Trump’s Muslim-Ban: Flawed Reportage?

Judge Ann Donnelly of the U.S. Federal District Court in Brooklyn, New York, issued a nationwide injunction on January 28, 2017 concerning President Donald Trump’s executive order barring people from seven countries from entering the United States. On the same day, BBC (America) radio reported that Trump had been stopped in his tracks. I submit that this instance points to the importance of investigative journalism prior to reporting. Alternatively, the case may illustrate a partisan or otherwise ideological penchant among journalists officially tasked with investigating and reporting rather than interpreting the news. 

The full essay is at "President Trump's Muslim Ban."

Getting an Election So Wrong: The American Media and Pollsters in 2016

“After projecting a relatively easy victory for Hillary Clinton with all the certainty of a calculus solution, news outlets like The New York Times, The Huffington Post and the major networks scrambled to provide candid answers.”[1] The dynamics likely went beyond even candid answers from the media, with major implications for how much reliance Americans should place on their media-establishment for political information.

The full essay is at "Getting an Election So Wrong."

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1. Jim Rutenberg, “News Outlets Wonder Where the Predictions Went Wrong,” The New York Times, November 9, 2016.

Political Theater Undermining American Democracy

To be viable, a representative democracy needs a virtuous and educated citizenry. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams agreed on this point in their exchange of letters in retirement. Their assumption was that an electorate would be able to apply judgment informed by virtue and a broad knowledge to not only matters of public policy, but also the candidates and incumbent office-holders themselves. To the extent that the people in power use it to present a false image, the judgment by the popular sovereign is unavoidably marred. The democratic system itself falters even if it is being portrayed as strong by those at its helm. I contend that the extent of political theater being orchestrated by U.S. office-holders compromises the democratic legitimacy of public power at the federal level.

The full essay is at “Political Theater”

Narrowing Public Debate: Political Narrative as Fact

For ordering his men at Gettysburg to keep firing at over 10,000 Virginian infantrymen in what is now known as Pickett’s Charge, Alonzo Cushing—who died in the battle—was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Barak Obama on November 6, 2014. As a result of that charge, Pickett lost his entire division. In the 1984 film, Gettysburg, General Lee tells Pickett after the battle to look after his division. “But General Lee,” Pickett counters, “I have no division.” Suddenly Lee is confronted with the true magnitude of his military blunders at Gettysburg. From this point of view, Cushing’s military honor looks rather different than from Obama’s point of view. As conveyed by the media, that vantage point enjoyed a virtual monopoly, and thus the interpretation could easily be taken as true rather than relative. I submit that much from the political discourse as sourced or conveyed by the media is projected as truth when it is highly subjective and thus subject to question and debate.

The full essay is at "Narrowing Public Debate: Political Narrative as Fact"

Minimizing the Gap Between CEOs and Workers

According to one study of people around the world, people of different cultures, incomes, religions, and other differences show “a universal desire for smaller gaps in pay between the rich and poor” than was the actual case at the time of the survey in 2014.[1] Interestingly, the respondents didn’t have a clue how much of a gap actually existed in their respective economies. The difficulty in estimation means that the public discourse on economic inequality has been rife with erroneous assumptions. Where the error lies in the direction of minimizing the gap, we can postulate that public policy allows for greater economic inequality than would otherwise be the case.

The full essay is at "CEO/worker Pay."

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1. Gretchen Gavett, “CEOs Get Paid Too Much, According to Pretty Much Everyone in the World,” The Huffington Post, September 24, 2014.

European Parliament Election Results: An Analysis

In the wake of the E.U.’s parliamentary election in 2014, the media reported the results as though a number of “national elections” had just taken place. Unlike the European Council, the Parliament does not represent states; in fact, the representatives of the people do not even sit by state, but by federal-level party, renders the reportage as distortive at best. Moreover, its ideological bent can help us situate the E.U. along the interval of federal-state relations possible in federal systems; this situs in turn can tell us something about the likely trajectory for the Union—the electoral success of the Euro-skeptic parties being only a symptom. To situate the election results, I briefly cover a bit of federalism theory before discussing the election-results coverage itself.

From: “The European Parliament: A National Election?”

Former Fed Chair Greenspan: How to Break the Back of a Bubble

While being interviewed on CNBC on March 7, 2014, Alan Greenspan spoke a bit on the problem of irrational exuberance in a market. Pointing to the failure of the Federal Reserve under his chairmanship to innocuously dissolve the “dot.com” bubble in the 1990s, Greenspan said he had come to the conclusion that asset-appreciation bubbles cannot be “defused” (for reasons he says are in his new book) “unless you break the back of the actual euphoria that generates the bubbles.”[1] Alas, piercing that wave would involve nothing short of unplugging a basic instinct in human nature; both monetary and fiscal policy would doubtless come up short. However, I suspect that the field of rhetoric may have something to say about how we can deflate societal exuberance, but only on the condition that greater clarity will have been achieved in identifying whether a given market is overvalued due to emotional excess (i.e.g, emotive greed having reached a critical mass) circumventing normal risk-aversion.

The full essay is at "Chair Greenspan."

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1. “Greenspan Revisits ‘Irrational Exuberance,” CNBC, March 7, 2014 (accessed same date).