Category: Capitol Jill

From the NYTimes comes this…
Now That’s Rich
By Paul Krugman

We need to pinch pennies these days. Don’t you know we have a budget deficit? For months that has been the word from Republicans and conservative Democrats, who have rejected every suggestion that we do more to avoid deep cuts in public services and help the ailing economy.

But these same politicians are eager to cut checks averaging $3 million each to the richest 120,000 people in the country.

What — you haven’t heard about this proposal? Actually, you have: I’m talking about demands that we make all of the Bush tax cuts, not just those for the middle class, permanent.

Some background: Back in 2001, when the first set of Bush tax cuts was rammed through Congress, the legislation was written with a peculiar provision — namely, that the whole thing would expire, with tax rates reverting to 2000 levels, on the last day of 2010.

Why the cutoff date? In part, it was used to disguise the fiscal irresponsibility of the tax cuts: lopping off that last year reduced the headline cost of the cuts, because such costs are normally calculated over a 10-year period. It also allowed the Bush administration to pass the tax cuts using reconciliation — yes, the same procedure that Republicans denounced when it was used to enact health reform — while sidestepping rules designed to prevent the use of that procedure to increase long-run budget deficits.

Obviously, the idea was to go back at a later date and make those tax cuts permanent. But things didn’t go according to plan. And now the witching hour is upon us.

So what’s the choice now? The Obama administration wants to preserve those parts of the original tax cuts that mainly benefit the middle class — which is an expensive proposition in its own right — but to let those provisions benefiting only people with very high incomes expire on schedule. Republicans, with support from some conservative Democrats, want to keep the whole thing.

And there’s a real chance that Republicans will get what they want. That’s a demonstration, if anyone needed one, that our political culture has become not just dysfunctional but deeply corrupt.

What’s at stake here? According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, as opposed to following the Obama proposal, would cost the federal government $680 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. For the sake of comparison, it took months of hard negotiations to get Congressional approval for a mere $26 billion in desperately needed aid to state and local governments.

And where would this $680 billion go? Nearly all of it would go to the richest 1 percent of Americans, people with incomes of more than $500,000 a year. But that’s the least of it: the policy center’s estimates say that the majority of the tax cuts would go to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent. Take a group of 1,000 randomly selected Americans, and pick the one with the highest income; he’s going to get the majority of that group’s tax break. And the average tax break for those lucky few — the poorest members of the group have annual incomes of more than $2 million, and the average member makes more than $7 million a year — would be $3 million over the course of the next decade.

How can this kind of giveaway be justified at a time when politicians claim to care about budget deficits? Well, history is repeating itself. The original campaign for the Bush tax cuts relied on deception and dishonesty. In fact, my first suspicions that we were being misled into invading Iraq were based on the resemblance between the campaign for war and the campaign for tax cuts the previous year. And sure enough, that same trademark deception and dishonesty is being deployed on behalf of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

So, for example, we’re told that it’s all about helping small business; but only a tiny fraction of small-business owners would receive any tax break at all. And how many small-business owners do you know making several million a year?

Or we’re told that it’s about helping the economy recover. But it’s hard to think of a less cost-effective way to help the economy than giving money to people who already have plenty, and aren’t likely to spend a windfall.

No, this has nothing to do with sound economic policy. Instead, as I said, it’s about a dysfunctional and corrupt political culture, in which Congress won’t take action to revive the economy, pleads poverty when it comes to protecting the jobs of schoolteachers and firefighters, but declares cost no object when it comes to sparing the already wealthy even the slightest financial inconvenience.

So far, the Obama administration is standing firm against this outrage. Let’s hope that it prevails in its fight. Otherwise, it will be hard not to lose all faith in America’s future.

“This is what change looks like” – Pres. Obama, March 21, 2010 after the HCR bill passes.

David Frum, Former Assistant To President George W. Bush:

“No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.”

WHY you keep getting screwed– MR. (Tea Party Patriot)

Hey you. You there in the Glenn Beck T-shirt headed off to the Tea Party Patriot rally.

Stop shouting for a moment, please, I want to explain to you why you’re so very angry.

You should be angry. You’re getting screwed.

I think you know that. But you don’t seem to know that it doesn’t have to be that way. You can stop it. You can stop it easily because the system that’s screwing you over can only keep screwing you over if you keep demanding that it do so.

So stop demanding that. Stop helping the system screw you over.

Look, you can go back to yelling at me in a minute, but just read this first.

1. Get out your pay stub.

Or, if you have direct deposit — you really should get direct deposit, it saves a lot of time and money (I point this out because, honestly, I’m trying to help you here, even though you don’t make that easy Mr. Angry Screamy Guy) — then take out that little paper receipt they give you when your pay gets directly deposited.

2. Notice that your net pay is lower than your gross pay. This is because some of your wages are withheld every pay period.

3. Notice that only some of this money that was withheld went to pay taxes. (I know, I know — yeearrrgh! me hates taxes! — but just try to stick with me for just a second here.)

4. Notice that some of the money that was withheld didn’t go to taxes, but to your health insurance company.

5. Now go get a pay stub from last year around this time, from January of 2009.

6. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld for taxes in your current paycheck is less than the amount that was withheld a year ago.

That’s because of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan, which included more than $200 billion in tax cuts, including the one you’re holding right there in your hand, the tax cut that’s now staring you in the face. Republicans all voted against that tax cut. And then they told you to get angry about the stimulus plan. They didn’t explain, however, why you were supposed to get angry about getting a tax cut. Why would you be? Wouldn’t it make more sense to get angry at the people who voted against that Obama tax cut?

But taxes aren’t the really important thing here. The really important thing starts with the next point.

7. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld to pay for your health insurance is more than it was last year.

8. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld to pay for your health insurance is a lot more than it was last year.

I won’t ask you to dig up old paychecks from 2008 and 2007, but this has been going on for a long time. Every year, the amount of your paycheck withheld to pay for your health insurance goes up. A lot.

9. Notice the one figure there on your two pay stubs that hasn’t changed: Your wage. The raise you didn’t get this year went to pay for that big increase in the cost of your health insurance.

10. Here’s where I need you to start doing a better job of putting two and two together. If you didn’t get a raise last year because the cost of your health insurance went up by a lot, and the cost of your health insurance is going to go up by a lot again this year, what do you think that means for any chance you might have of getting a raise this year?

11. Did you figure it out? That’s right. The increasing cost of health insurance means you won’t get a raise this year. Or next year. Or the year after that. The increasing cost of health insurance means you will never get a raise again.

That’s what I meant when I said you really should be angry. That’s what I meant when I said you’re getting screwed.

OK, we’re almost done. Just a few more points, I promise.

12. The only hope you have of ever seeing another pay raise is if Congress passes health care reform. Without health care reform, the increasing cost of your health insurance will swallow this year’s raise. And next year’s raise. And pretty soon it won’t stop with just your raise. Without health care reform, the increasing cost of your health insurance will start making your pay go down.

13. I wish I could tell you that this was just a worst-case scenario, that this was only something that might, maybe happen, but that wouldn’t be true. Without health care reform, this is what will happen. We know this because this is what is happening now. It has been happening for the past 10 years. In 2008, employers spent on average 25 percent more per employee than they did in 2001, but wages on average did not increase during those years. The price of milk went up. The price of gas went up. But wages did not. All of the money that would have gone to higher wages went to pay the higher and higher and higher cost of health insurance. And unless Congress passes health care reform, that will not change.

Well, it will change in the sense that it will keep getting worse, but it won’t get better. Unless the problem gets fixed, the problem won’t be fixed. That’s kind of what “problem” and “fixed” mean.

14. Sadly for any chance you have of ever seeing a raise again, it looks like Congress may not pass health care reform. It looks like they won’t do that because they’re scared of angry voters who are demanding that they oppose health care reform, angry voters who demand that Congress not do anything that would keep the cost of health insurance from going up and up and up. Angry voters like you.

15. Do you see the point here? You are angrily, loudly demanding that Congress make sure that you never, ever get another pay raise as long as you live. Because of you and because of your angry demands, you and your family and your kids are going to have to get by with less this year than last year. And next year you’re going to have to get by with even less. And if you keep angrily demanding that no one must ever fix this problem, then you’re going to have to figure out how to get by on less and less every year for the rest of your life.

16. So please, for your own sake, for your family’s sake and the sake of your children, stop. Stop demanding that problems not get fixed. Stop demanding that you keep getting screwed. Stay angry — you should be angry — but start directing that anger toward the system that’s screwing you over and taking money out of your pocket. Start directing that anger toward fixing problems instead of toward making sure they never get fixed. Instead of demanding that Congress oppose health care reform so that you never, ever, get another pay raise, start demanding that they pass health care reform, as soon as possible. Because until they do, you’re just going to keep on getting screwed.

And it’s going to be that much worse knowing that you brought this on yourself — that you demanded it.

Thanks for your time.

P.S. — I didn’t mention this because I’m trying here to be as patient with you as I can, but you might also want to keep in mind that in addition to screwing over yourself and screwing over your family and screwing over your own children by demanding that Congress oppose health care reform so that you will never, ever see another pay raise, by doing that you’re also demanding that I never, ever see another pay raise, which means that you’re also screwing over me, and my family, and my children. Not to mention the millions of poor and uninsured and uninsureable people I didn’t even mention above because they don’t seem to matter at all to you. And for that, let me just say the only appropriate thing that can be said to someone so determined to do direct, tangible harm to the welfare of my family: F*&$ you, you f*&$ing moron.

From Andrew Sullivan comes this:

In the vast, ungainly contraption of the American political system, there is always surprise. A couple of weeks ago, as news started to trickle in of the spectacularly awful campaign of one Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, we were warned. And the result was not, in the end, much of a surprise. In a by-election in a safe seat in a deep recession, the voters threw out the de facto incumbent. This happens in politics. When you realize that the seat had been a Democratic party sinecure for decades (it had been all but owned by the Kenney family for half a century) and that voters knew they could vote out the Republican in only a couple of years, it’s even less of an earth-shaker. And if you simply watched the two candidates, it would take a partisan maniac to prefer the wooden, listless Coakley over an affable, moderate Republican who supports universal healthcare (in his home state) and abortion rights.

What doesn’t usually happen is that an entire presidency is suddenly immobilized by one stray result. Washington is still a little stunned by the immediate consequences. But the asteroid hit just as the final, small adjustments on the massive health insurance reform bill were being completed. Getting that far along in the sausage-making – keeping conservative and liberal Democrats together against total Republican obstructionism – was like finishing a book on a lap-top, clicking save, and then watching it accidentally delete the whole thing for ever.

It was staggeringly demoralizing for the Democrats.

In one swoop, the implications sank in. As long as the Republicans refuse to accept or compromise on anything, as long as they insist on filibustering every single piece of legislation Obama favors in the Senate, then nothing can be done. That’s how the system works. It doesn’t matter that the House passed health reform (and cap and trade) by a big margin months ago. What matters is that just one or two senators can hold up the entire process indefinitely. This is, of course, an insane way to govern a country. But it’s right there in the Constitution. Because every state gets two senators, and the empty rural states tend to be Republican, you end up with the fact – illustrated by writer James Fallows – that the Senators favoring health reform represent 63 percent of Americans, while those voting against represent 37 percent. But the 37 percent wins. Hence the great spoof headline of last week: Republicans win 41 – 59 majority in Senate.

The public is evenly divided on such a huge reform in a period of real economic distress. The current polls show 40 percent in favor and 50 percent against. But a swathe of the opposition comes from the left who think the bill does not go far enough. The complexity of the issue makes it hard to sell, and in the current recession, right-wing populism against all forms of government control is as red-hot as left-wing populism against bankers. In an adult political culture, in a period of economic growth, it might be possible to achieve something this complicated and necessary for long-term reform. Most sane people understand that America’s current healthcare system is bankrupting the public and private sectors while failing to provide any care at all to 40 million people. But the centrist reform Obama has laid out – marshalling the policy consensus of the last twenty years – is just too abstract and diffuse to succeed against all these forces at once.

So is Obama finished? Of course not. By last week’s end, even the most panicked Democrats had begun to calm down. The only practical option left is for the House to pass the Senate bill unamended. Last Thursday, Speaker Pelosi said that she didn’t have the votes for that. But she might get them if the House gets to fix its problems with the Senate bill in a subsequent bill that can be passed by a mere 51 senators in a process called “reconciliation.” This process would also be brutally obstructed – but it could possibly win out in the end. And the only way to do that right now, without brutal blowback, is to alter the political dynamic dramatically.

Only Obama can do that. And like many moments in the campaign when he seemed adrift or embattled, he has been given a big speech next week, his first State of the Union address, to recast the debate. And for the first time, he has experienced a major defeat at the hands of his opponents. These two things lead to one obvious battle plan.

What Obama needs to do is not ram the current bill through. He needs to accept, as he has, that the public remains anxious. But he also needs to remind people that he was elected to grapple with the mounting problems, not avoid them. The pivot is obvious: tell the American people that he understands their anger and frustration (hence the big swipe at the banks last week), but that he refuses to stand by and do nothing. If the American people want nothing, they should support the opposition. If the American people want something, they should back the president they just elected in implementing a health reform plan he campaigned on.

In my view, the key to reassuring Independents, the critical swing vote, is the deficit and the long term debt. If Obama can persuade them that the healthcare reform actually addresses that problem and cuts entitlements (as it does), he can combine it with his recently announced plan for a bipartisan commission to cut entitlements and raise taxes. Such a plan can alone reassure the markets that the US isn’t headed toward the fiscal status of a banana republic.

I feel for the guy. His bill was attacked by the left as a sell-out to insurance companies; it was attacked by the foam-flecked right as communism – the end of America as they have known it. The bill remains more moderate than those once proposed by Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Obama has also taken all the blame for the recession and the debt, as if Bush never existed. And he has helped turn the economy around in ways not yet felt on main street.

But this is the big time and politics is a contact sport. How Obama responds to this will tell us a huge amount about him. He cannot and should not reinvent himself as a Democratic partisan. He isn’t. He cannot fake populism. He’s too responsible for that. He cannot ram a bill through by hook or by crook if he is to respect the genuine anxiety about the reform. So he has to be calm, patient, reasonable and somehow harness Democratic anger as well. He is still well-liked and his approval ratings have recently been gliding up. He could easily prosper personally, as Clinton did, by presiding over a Congress dominated by the opposition. But he does not want to be a Clinton; and the times require much more.

If he fails now, the reformist center of American politics, fragile at best, may be gone for a long time. And so his crucible awaits. The promise of his candidacy – that there must be a way to unite Americans in dealing with their longstanding problems – hangs in the balance. I do not know – because no one can – how he will grapple with this. But one recalls that politics, in the country as well as Massachusetts, is always pregnant with the possibility of surprise. And the audacity – for it is truly audacious now – of hope.

From Andrew Sullivan comes this…”I’m Done”

Another reader throws up her hands:

This is yet another email from an Obama supporter who has lost all hope. I will no longer vote in national elections, because it is clear to me now that my vote for president or senator are worthless. A handful of morons in (insert a state here) invalidate my choice because the Senate is ruled by 5-6 Senators that refuse to face tough choices that need to be made to avoid a financial catastrophe in 10 years. There will be NO health care bill passed and the raging idiots will blame the Democrats and vote the Republicans in a landslide in November 2010. Forget about the REALLY tough problems like the debt, Social Security, moving away from our dependence on foreign energy supplies, etc. If Congress can’t get it’s collective shit together to pass a bill that attempts to fix a problem EVERYONE agrees on, then all hope is lost.

Obama can’t change this. The country has exactly the government it deserves: fat, stupid and lazy. Built to respond to the 24-hour news cycle and a singular goal of protecting seats in the next election. Obama is a one termer. I hate writing that, but it’s true. Republicans will put up some populist puff piece in 2012 and he’s going to win.

I’m done.

For what it’s worth, I’m not. And for what it’s worth, I beg you not to be.

We supported Obama precisely because he was trying to combat this system, to attempt governance that was not hostage to news-cycle Rovian politics. And this he has tried to do, operating within a system that is the one we have, in a climate that the last four decades has created. He has achieved, despite the carping on the left and rage on the right, many good things. Health insurance reform is one of the toughest. And the more I have studied this subject, the more sensible the Senate bill actually appears – given the exigencies of the system and the economic distress of the moment.

I don’t think ramming the Senate bill through the House and trying to get through reconciliation will work. I do think Obama has a golden opportunity at his SOTU to do what he did last September, and patiently explain why some reform is necessary, that he is open to constructive criticism, but that he was elected to get difficult things done. What he needs to do politically is expose the vacuity of the opposition, by hanging back a little and letting their politics of no and never sink in. If he can credibly explain how he will bring the budget back to balance, and how healthcare reform is actually partly a means to do this, he can regain the initiative.

This is the GOP’s high water-mark. They have abdicated any responsibility to tackle the problems we all acknowledge, while indulging in extremist rhetoric. They live for the spin and the rage. So this is the moment they have been waiting for. Most Americans don’t think this way. They are legitimately worried that health reform is too costly right now. They’re wrong if we find the will in the coming years to ensure that the Medicare cuts are real and the cost controls are followed up. And we need to do our part in persuading them.

This is not over. In some ways, it is only just beginning.

Which is why Obama needs us breathing down his neck, and galvanizing support for necessary reform – now, more than in the campaign. If we give up, we will be copying the hysteria and nihilism of the right. Do not give up. Focus. Argue. Mobilize.

Yes. We. Can.

The Great Brown Hope?
Why Republicans should try to contain their excitement about winning a Senate seat in Massachusetts.
By Rachael Larimore

Republicans around the nation, not just in Massachusetts, are toasting Scott Brown’s victory over Martha Coakley tonight, and rightfully so. The “people’s seat,” as Brown famously described it, had been in Democratic hands since JFK beat Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. in 1952. A month ago, Brown was considered a long shot, and as recently as Sunday, FiveThirtyEight.com called the race a tossup. And yet, by the end, his margin of victory was both comfortable and unsurprising.

But it’s important not to read too much into tonight’s results. The personalities and idiosyncrasies of the candidates shape every election, of course. Yet even if Brown weren’t blessed with unusual political talent and an unusually incompetent opponent, his victory shouldn’t be cause for Republicans to get overly excited.

Still, let’s dwell on the specifics of the Massachusetts race for a moment. First and foremost, Martha Coakley was an awful candidate. Her gaffes have been widely recounted. But just for kicks, let’s recap: Forgetting to campaign in the first place. Dissing Fenway Park. Dissing Curt Schilling. Claiming there are no terrorists in Afghanistan. Attending fundraisers with lobbyists (with bonus video of an aide shoving a reporter!). It may well be the case that Coakley lost the race more than Brown won it.

Brown, meanwhile, was the right candidate at the right time. He has charisma enough to pull off opposing the congressional health care bills, even though he voted for Massachusetts’ health care reform bill in 2006, and to appeal to both mainstream Republicans and the Tea Party crowd that almost carried Doug Hoffman to Congress last year in New York. He worked hard, holding 66 actual campaign events and using the virtual space of the Internet for a savvy social media campaign and a 24-hour, $1.3 million “money bomb.” He also had the advantage of running in a special election, giving him a national spotlight at a time when Americans are increasingly uneasy about health care reform and government spending.

It’s hard to say whether the Republicans will be able to replicate Brown’s success nationally. In 1994, when the Republicans took control of the House and the Senate in the first midterm after Bill Clinton’s election, they were guided by Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America. Now, instead of offering contracts to the public, Republicans are holding their own candidates to “purity pledges.”

We have an RNC chairman who’s known better for his gaffes and his speechmaking fees than anything else and who is on record saying the party won’t take back the House in 2010. (Can you blame him, when a new poll shows that 25 percent of the public has a positive view of Republicans?) The most visible—though hardly the most likely—contender for the 2012 GOP nomination is Sarah Palin, who quit her job as governor of Alaska to write a book, take a Fox News gig, and appear on the cover of InTouch magazine. The party’s great hope for the future, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, earned comparisons to Kenneth from 30 Rock for his disastrous response to Obama’s congressional address last February and hasn’t been heard from since. Perhaps most telling—and most troubling—is the London Telegraph’s recently published list of top conservatives: Dick Cheney, unlikely ever to run for office again, is No. 1, followed by Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, Palin, Robert Gates (oh, breath of fresh air), and Glenn Beck.

Don’t get me wrong: Brown’s win is still important—and satisfying. It will provide the party with a needed morale boost going into this fall’s campaign, and it will be entertaining to watch Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid try to get anything done without a supermajority that has slipped in and out of his fingers in the past year. So pass the Sam Adams. But let’s not party like it’s 1994.

Reid’s Three Little Words: The Log In Our Own Eye, by John McWhorter

To rake Harry Reid over the coals about his “no Negro dialect” comment will bring to mind the Biblical passage about trying to take a speck out of someone’s eye when you’ve got a log in your own. Pretty much all of America black and white feels exactly the way Harry Reid does about the way black people talk – and aren’t even worried about saying it out loud.

First of all, we need not pretend that by “Negro dialect” Reid meant the cartoon minstrel talk of Amos n Andy. After all, why would Reid, a rational human being under any analysis, be under the impression that any black person talks like Uncle Remus, much less be surprised that one of them does not? My guess is that he said “negro” in a passing attempt to name Black English in a detached, professional way, randomly choosing a slightly arcane and outdated term. Or, consider that Negro English was what scholars called “Ebonics” until the early seventies. Reid likely caught wind of that terminology — he’s been around a while, after all.

Second, yes there is a such thing as Black English. Sometimes one hears a claim that Black English is the same as white Southern English. We must always beware of stereotyping and be open to the counterintuitive, but here is an instance where we can trust our senses: there is a “black sound.” It’s not just youth slang: it’s sentence patterns – Why you ain’t call me? (not a white Southernism, notice) – and a “sound,” such that you’d know Morgan Freeman was black even if he were reading the phone book. The combination is what we all feel – with uncanny accuracy even without seeing faces, as linguists have found – as “sounding black.” Of course not all blacks speak Black English or have The Sound, and those that do (which is most) do to varying extents. But they do. That’s what Reid meant, we all know it, and it’s okay to know it.

Third: Reid’s comment suggests that he associates Black English with lack of polish and low intelligence, okay. But before we burn him in effigy for it or ask “What’s that all about?” as if we don’t know, let’s admit that most Americans feel like Reid does. He wasn’t being a benighted “racist” holdout; he was speaking as an ordinary American person. We have caught him in nothing we don’t most of us feel ourselves.

It’s a love/hate relationship we have with black speech. On the one hand we associate it with emotional honesty, vernacular warmth, and sex – Marvin Gaye would not have had a hit with “Why Don’t We Venture to Consummate Our Relationship?” or even “Let’s Have Sex” instead of “Let’s Get It On.” Yet it’s not a dialect – a sound – that we associate with explaining Greek verbs or cosines or engaging in complex reasoning. Black English sounds cool, and even hot, and maybe “sharp” – but note that sharp is what you call someone who you wouldn’t necessarily expect to be smart … and who you don’t actually think is all that smart.

That’s a shame because Black English is as systematic as standard English, and what we hear as “mistakes” are just variations, not denigrations. Try telling a French person that double negatives are “illogical.” The “unconjugated” be in a sentence like Folks be tryin’ it out is used in a very particular way to indicate habits rather than current events, making explicit something that standard English leaves to context.

But in the real world, it’s very hard to hear it that way. You can get a sense of it with linguistic training or curling up with books like these by Stanford’s John Rickford and U. Mass Amherst’s Lisa Green, but otherwise, Black English will always sound to most people like mistakes, in all of its warmth. As we also feel about Southern “hick” grammar – race is not the only factor here. In both cases we spontaneously demote a dialect born in illiteracy. It’s a weird intersection: speech born in illiteracy is not “broken.” The most “primitive” society’s languages are the ones that are the most complicated; often the backwater dialects of a language are harder than the standard – out in the sticks in Bulgaria there are often three ways to say the instead of one.

That’s all very nice, but real life is that Harry Reid hears black speech as lowly. But – so do black people as often as not. In 1996 during the Oakland Ebonics controversy, black people were laughing as loud as anyone at the idea that “Ebonics” is “a language.” Or, over the transom recently I got a copy of a presentation that James Meredith, who was the first black person admitted to the University of Mississippi and caught hell for it physically and emotionally, nowadays gives to young black audiences. On the first page, Meredith spells it out:

BLACK ENGLISH LANGUAGE

PROPER ENGLISH LANGAGE

Which one do you use? Most people in this room use a lot of Black English and a little Proper English.

Anyone who wants to become an intellectual giant must learn and use a lot of Proper English and as little Black English as possible.

I am not going to argue with anyone about the matter. You can do what you want to do.

However, I will tell you that anyone who continues to use a lot of Black English will never become an intellectual giant.

So, Meredith would surely hear it as a plus that Obama has no trace of what a man of his years likely has been known to call, in all seriousness, Negro dialect.

Fourth: Reid’s feelings about Black English are likely couched in a thoroughly compassionate position. Here’s a guess, based on what I have heard countless people of all colors say:

“Black people use bad grammar so much because they were brought here as slaves and denied education. The bad grammar holds on today because too many blacks still have bad schooling, and they pass it down the generations. They would be best off if society allowed them the education and opportunities to get rid of their bad grammar. It’s not their fault.”

There are all kinds of things that are off here, if we are inclined to go pointy-headed. Humans can be bidialectal as easily as bilingual and can speak standard as well as Black English (which Obama does, and as Reid acknowledged); the dialect is now felt as a cultural hallmark within a richly ambivalent yet loving sense of its being “ungrammatical,” albeit often unconsciously; and so on. But most of this is for seminars. Back to, as always, real life. I know so very many black people who would agree with the above hypothetical quotation from Reed — many of them deeply dedicated in assorted ways to black uplift. Are they immoral? Do they hate their own people? No – upon which we can give Harry Reid a break.

Fifth: We have to really listen to what Reid said instead of getting carried away over the tangy, backwards flavor of the one word “Negro.” In mentioning that Obama doesn’t speak in “dialect,” Reid acknowledged something many blacks are hot and quick to point out, that not all black people use Black English. Okay, they don’t – and Reid knows. He didn’t seem surprised that Obama can not sound black when he talks – he was just pointing out that Obama is part of the subset of blacks who can. He knows there is such a subset. Lesson learned.

Indeed Reid implied that black dialect is less prestigious than standard, such that not speaking it made Obama more likely to become President. That is, he implied what we all think too: Black English is, to the typical American ear, warm, honest — and mistaken. If that’s wrong, okay – but since when are most Americans, including black ones, at all shy about dissing Black English? And who among us — including black people — thinks someone with what I call a “black-cent” who occasionally popped up with double negatives and things like aks could be elected President, whether it’s fair or not? Reid, again, deserves no censure for what he said unless we’re ready to censure ourselves too.

Inevitably there will be reminiscences of Joe Biden’s comment about Obama being “articulate.” I’m less politic on that term as applied to black people who have no reason not to be articulate. A recent favorite: someone writing me a letter about one of my Teaching Company set of lectures on linguistics praised me for “enjoying yourself up there so confidently speaking standard English” – as if I have to take a deep breath and “wield” standard English and feel like I’m a pretty special fella for being able to, with my “native” ghetto inflections and expressions turning up in my speech when I’m tired.

But this isn’t the same thing. Reid implied that Black English is lesser than standard English and that it’s therefore good that Obama doesn’t use it in public. This is not about whether black people have to sweat to speak standard English; it’s about whether Black English is as good as standard English. Most of America black as well as white is at the exact same point in understanding vernacular speech and its proper evaluation as Reid is.

For which reason most of America should leave him alone about this and move on.