... well-financed right-wing operatives and administration officials worked to marginalize mainstream journalists (the "liberal press") who raised troublesome questions about Reagan's domestic and foreign policies.

The impact of these information strategies [toward the CIA and the press] had deadly consequences even years later, such as when President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney essentially dictated the intelligence "analysis" on Iraq’s WMD to the CIA and the Washington press corps fell in line behind the march to war.

Even today, President Barack Obama complains that his options for addressing the nation's growing problems are limited by what he calls the Reagan "narrative," demonizing government.

Neoconservative claims to be ardent democracy promoters have always been met with well-deserved skepticism. Despite a great deal of high-flown rhetoric to the contrary, the movement has largely continued to abide by the framework set forth in Jeane Kirkpatrick’s “Dictatorships and Double Standards”: hostile dictators bad, friendly dictators good, and democratization worthwhile only so far as it replaces rivals with allies. Egypt itself has served as a good example of this tendency, as the Bush administration quickly abandoned its “freedom agenda” in 2005-6 once it became clear that free and fair elections might very well bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power. (Palestine was an even more striking example, as that pious democracy promoter Elliott Abrams helped launch a failed coup against Hamas after they won elections in 2006.) Still, it may be unfair to see the neocons’ support for democracy promotion as purely a cynical cover for other geopolitical goals. It is far from inconceivable that after reciting the pro-democracy script for so long, some neocons have genuinely come to believe it. [my emphasis]

In fact, many of the neocons appear unable even to deal with the possibility of a government led by Mohamed ElBaradei, who is about as much of a liberal secularist as the US could realistically hope for. Meanwhile, Charles Krauthammer is suggesting that the US's "ultimate objective" should be keeping the Muslim Brotherhood out of power, and that "arranging for a transition to a secular moderate regime" — note the absence of the qualifier "democratic" — "is our number one priority." One can easily anticipate a scenario in which US support for Egyptian democracy proves to be largely empty rhetoric, as it did during Bush's second term. [my emphasis]

Throughout his three decades in political life, he repeatedly seized on people's hopes, but also found their anger and played on their fears. In Reagan's lexicon, optimism competed with anger.

For instance, while he spoke of unleashing Californians' individual initiative during his first 1966 gubernatorial campaign, he also tapped voters' fears that the social order was beginning to crumble and that liberals and their allies had caused the crumbling. He campaigned by charging that "a small minority of beatniks, radicals and filthy speech advocates" had "brought shame" to the University of California at Berkeley, an elite, publicly funded school in the state's higher education system. Describing California's city streets as "jungle paths after dark" and college campuses as hotbeds of sexual licentiousness and immoral behavior, Reagan rode to power by depicting California as an overly liberal, permissive society. He vowed to crack down as one of his first priorities in the governor's mansion. Appropriately, he had a sign in his capitol office that said: "Obey the rules, or get out."

Nor was Reagan above using the hot-button social issue of race to further his political agenda by tacking rightward. At one news conference during his campaign for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination, Reagan refused to criticize Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who had become a leading symbol of segregation and white Southern resistance to the civil rights revolution of the mid-1960s.

As president, Reagan mocked "welfare queens," implying that African-American women on public assistance habitually cheated taxpayers out of their hard-earned money. President Reagan also defended segregation academies such as Bob Jones University (where interracial dating wasn't allowed)... [my emphasis]

Two traits we may now judge to be conspicuous in this president, in fair weather and foul, no matter what the pressure of the occasion. He rarely explains complex matters with a complexity equal to the subject matter; and he hates to be a bearer of bad news. The appreciative words he lavished on the big corporations in November, December, and January, and his appointment of William Daley of Morgan Chase as chief of staff and Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric as chairman of his White House jobs council, also indicate a larger personal tendency. When things are not going his way, Barack Obama tacks the other way farther and faster than most people would. In the process, he speaks words which sound like statements of newfound principles, for which he will not be answerable when the winds shift again. [my emphasis]

On immigration, another issue of the mid-term election in which Obama’s liberal position was unpopular, he has gently instructed Congress to conduct a polite debate and try to be decent to honest and hard-working immigrants. He did say children of immigrants, including illegals, hard-working or not, should have equal access to education without "the threat of deportation." And he suggested that foreigners who came here to get advanced degrees should be allowed to stay. But he made no mention of the Dream Act, or any specific policy that would achieve such goals.

The broad meaning of these offsetting trends is clear: with almost no notice to Congress, the American people, various public interest and local law enforcement groups, the Obama administration has implemented a very substantial shift in how it is enforcing federal laws. Four short years ago, slightly more than one-third (36 percent) of federal felony prosecutions were in the five federal districts along the southwest border, while almost two-thirds (64 percent) took place in the rest of the country. Now, while still less than 10 percent of the population lives in those border districts, almost half (47 percent) of all federal felony prosecutions occur there. ...

That left all 89 remaining federal districts — despite having more than 90 percent of the federal population — with only slightly more than half of the federal felony prosecution pie. And because a growing proportion of this declining enforcement effort is focused on immigration matters, there is less and less left over for prosecuting those who are committing all the other types of serious federal crimes. [my emphasis]

Obama wants to win, but he would also like nobody to lose, and he has coined some words to express his difference from the more agonistic proponents of American supremacy. ... "By 2035, 80 percent of America's electricity will come from clean energy sources." All the producers and all the consumers can be happy together: "Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all." All those folks, and all their energies. But at what time, in what place, was the central problem of nuclear energy solved: where to dump the radioactive waste that is lethal for thousands of years? ...

It remains a disturbing evasion in his presidency that Obama has hardly recognized the Tea Party’s existence, and has never attempted to answer its members—-not even where they are most deeply and harmfully mistaken, as in the belief they have taken up that global warming is a "hoax." He prefers to keep the political contest a face-off between his own abstract legitimacy and a nameless and inscrutable heterodoxy. [my emphasis]

$25.4 billion deficit through a mix of cuts and tax extensions, said Republicans who oppose a ballot measure to extend temporary tax increases have not given him a list of demands in their negotiations.

He invited Republicans to release an "all-cuts" budget that could be required if tax extensions are not approved, saying, "Is it really fair and honest to keep that secret?"

But Brown himself, fearful of being seen as threatening to voters, won't release such a document himself.

"It's so horrible that we don't like to release it," he said.

Brown said his goal is to halve the number of the state’s passenger cars, trucks and home storage permits - which allow state employees to use passenger cars for their daily commute.

"Fifty percent is a starting point. If we find more waste, we’ll make more cuts," Brown added.

In fact, this is one of those fortunate moments when the United States does not face a clear tradeoff between its moral sympathies and its strategic imperatives. For starters, Egypt is not a major oil producer like Saudi Arabia, so a shift in regime in Cairo will not imperil our vital interest in ensuring that Middle East oil continues to flow to world markets. By itself, in fact, Egypt isn't a critical strategic partner. Yes, military bases there can be useful transit points when we intervene in the region, but the United States has other alternatives and military intervention isn't something we should be eager to do anyway (remember Iraq?). Egypt is not as influential in the Arab world as it once was, in part due to the social and economic stagnation that has characterized the Mubarak era, and its recent efforts to mediate several on-going disputes have been unsuccessful. Furthermore, U.S. support for dictators like Mubarak has been one of al Qaeda's major reasons for targeting the United States, as well as a useful recruiting tool (along with our unstinting support for Israel and our military presence in the Gulf). It is also one of the main reasons why many Arabs have a negative view of the United States. Viewed strictly on its own, the U.S. alliance with Egypt has become a strategic liability.

There is no need to strain the analogy. Iran and Egypt were and are very different places, with very different political dynamics. But the fundamental nature of the decision that is required today by the United States is not very different from the dilemma faced by the Carter administration three decades ago. Should you back the regime to the hilt, in the conviction that a change of leadership would likely endanger your most precious security interests? Or should you side with the opposition -- either because you agree with its goals or simply because you want to be on the "right side of history" (and in a better position to pursue your policy objectives) once the dust has settled? ...

Revolutions are inherently unpredictable. They may fizzle or subside in the face of sustained regime oppression. They may inspire a hard line military man to "restore order" and perhaps thereby elevate himself into a position of political authority that he is later loathe to relinquish. They may propel a determined radical fringe into power and thereby impose an ideology that has nothing to do with what people thought they were fighting for. They may go on far longer than anyone imagined at the start.

Let's look at the emerging coalition, in its parts.

First, by all accounts, is the April 6 Youth Movement. Leftists, socialists and pro-labor people know that the movement takes its name from April 6, 2008, when a series of strikes and labor actions by textile workers in Mahalla led to a growing general strike by workers and residents and then, on April 6, faced a brutal crackdown by security forces. A second, allied movement of young Egyptians developed in response to the killing by police of Khaled Said, a university graduate, in Alexandria. Both the April 6 group and another group, called We Are All Khaled Said, built networks through Facebook, and according to one account the April 6 group has more than 80,000 members on Facebook. The two groups, which work together, are nearly entirely secular, pro-labor and support the overthrow of Mubarak and the creation of a democratic republic.

The leader of the April 6 movement is Ahmad Maher, a 28-year-old construction engineer who was profiled last week in the Los Angeles Times. Well-wired and Internet-connected, Maher told the paper: "After the revolution in Tunisia, we are able to market the idea of change in Egypt. People now want to seize something." A year ago, when ElBaradei returned to Egypt, Maher was inspired to organize a movement of young, secular, and pro-labor Egyptians. "Maher began reaching out to secular grass-roots and student movements emerging to reform a nation they believed had substituted oppression for vision," reported the LA Times. "Momentum was slow to build, particularly enlisting Egypt's increasing band of labor activists representing millions of underpaid workers."

The times call out for vision and for discipline. Discipline so that we live within the revenue which the state collects each year, and Vision so that we rise above mere party, act as Californians first, and put our trust in the people.

Under our form of government, it would be unconscionable to tell the electors of this state that they have no right to decide whether it is better to extend current tax statutes another five years or chop another $12 billion out of schools, public safety, our universities and our system of caring for the most vulnerable.

Let me read to you, Article 2, Section 1 of the California Constitution:
"All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their protection, security and benefit, and they have the right to alter or reform it when the public good may require."

When democratic ideals and calls for the right to vote are stirring the imagination of young people in Egypt and Tunisia and other parts of the world, we in California can't say now is the time to block a vote of the people. In the ordinary course of things, matters of state concern are properly handled in Sacramento. But when the elected representatives find themselves bogged down by deep differences which divide them, the only way forward is to go back to the people and seek their guidance. It is time for a legislative check-in with the people of California. [my emphasis]

Do I like the choices we face? No. I don't. But after serious study of the options left us by a $25 billion deficit, the budget I have proposed is the best I can devise. If any of you have other suggestions that you think are better, please, share them with us. After all, we are in this together. ...

From the time I first proposed what I believe to be a balanced approach to our budget deficit – both cuts and a temporary extension of current taxes – dozens of groups affected by one or another of the proposed cuts have said we should cut somewhere else instead. Still others say we should not extend the current taxes but let them them go away. So far, however, these same people have failed to offer even one alternative solution.

As I have said before, I have not come here to embrace delay or denial, but to get the job done. If you have solutions that are truly viable, by all means present them. We need everyone's best thinking. [my emphasis]]

Any observer of Obama realises that, by contrast, he is always slow, always circumspect, and he has two distinct registers of diction: one for talking to very clever but abstracted people, the other for talking to well-meaning people who are very young or very old and certainly need remedial help. In the higher idiom he talks of a 'critique' of policy and 'trend lines' and the ways to 'incentivise' better care and 'prioritise' the next steps of government assistance to show that we are 'doing everything we can to accelerate job creation'. It is the language of a technocrat, the man at the head of the conference table. In the lower idiom, there are lots of 'folks', 'folks who oppose me', 'a whole bunch of folks', interspersed with vaguely regional comfort words like 'oftentimes'. [my emphasis] (The Fastidious President London Review of Books 11/18/2010)

I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not, uh, and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He, he, he put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it.

I think they felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the Sixties and the Seventies and you know, government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. And, I think, you know, people just tapped in, he tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity, we want optimism, we want, uh, you know, a return to that sense of dynamism and, and, and, you know, uh, uh, entrepreneurship that had been missing, all right?.

Though Obama's chief point was that Reagan in 1980 "put us on a fundamentally different path" – which may be historically undeniable – the Democratic presidential candidate went further, justifying Reagan's course correction because of "all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s, and government had grown and grown, but there wasn't much sense of accountability."

While Obama later clarified his point to say he didn't mean to endorse Reagan's conservative policies, the Illinois senator seemed to suggest that Reagan's 1980 election administered a needed dose of accountability to the U.S. government. In reality, however, accountability wasn't part of Reagan’s medicine for America. Indeed, one could say the opposite. [my emphasis]

On the domestic side, Reagan oversaw the dismantling of regulatory structures that restrained the excesses of Wall Street investment banks, the energy industry and other economic powerhouses. Many of today’s problems – from the mortgage meltdown to the nation's wasteful energy policies – can be traced to Reagan's contempt for that type of accountability.

The truth is that Obama exposed himself to the worst the Republicans can do by his conciliatory tone from the first days of his administration. He gave assurance when he entered office that he would not look exactingly into the conduct of the last administration. Bush and Cheney received from him a legal indulgence for any conceivable transgression, on the theory that after the bombings of September 2001, anything that public servants did was a hasty but honourable response to a dreadful emergency by well-meaning persons. To Obama at the time, this must have seemed a magnanimous deed as well as a signal of non-aggression to tamp down the savagery of the Cheney circle. Yet his decision to make justice begin today achieved a different end. It made sure that none of the people from whom Obama had most to fear would ever fear him. It also robbed of reality all his talk of a profound commitment to justice – a justice which he had suggested went beyond considerations of bridge-building for the sake of domestic policy or national expedience. By broadening the claim of state secrets to prevent the disclosure of evidence of torture and extraordinary rendition, the Obama administration has lent credence to the original claim of Bush and Cheney that their actions were dictated by necessities of state. In doing so it has foregone the only assurance the law affords against the repetition of such acts. [my emphasis]