The Smithian

May 17th, 2013

‘There is still no evidence that the White House manipulated the public discussion of the [Benghazi] attacks for preëlection political gain, or that anyone deliberately lied by portraying what happened as a spontaneous outgrowth of demonstrations going on in the Arab world at the time when they knew it was a planned terrorist attack…’

…And there is certainly no evidence of the…most outlandish conspiracy theory about Benghazi: that the Administration left Americans to die because they were worried that responding to the incident with the force needed to beat back the assault would undermine President Obama’s counterterrorism record. Instead, what is in those e-mails documents the ways in which things in Washington are affected not by the big names—Obama, Clinton, Petraeus—but by the people who work for them, and the manner in which those staffers jostle with each other to protect their turf and their bosses. There is also a reminder that this “Administration” thing we think of as a single, unified entity is in fact a collection of people competing with each other.

more.

May 4th, 2013

thesmithian

'The Smithsonian Institution announced last night that parts of...the Hirshhorn, National Museum of African Art, and Smithsonian—will close...through Sept. 30 because of mandatory budget cuts, but the true effect of sequestration on the museum group is...wider...in addition to the closures...parts of other museums will go dark this year as exhibits come to their scheduled ends. Instead of quickly refilling exhibit rooms, the Smithsonian will let those spaces stay empty as a way to cut down on its security costs.'

April 30th, 2013

thesmithian

“It’s tough to be young these days—the economic concerns are very great, and a lot of what you hear out of Washington is not addressing those concerns. There are a lot of questions: Does either party really have my best interest at heart? And I think the answer to that is, ‘No.’”

That cynicism is coupled with a deepening partisan divide.

April 26th, 2013

thesmithian

"...What I would do is take a hard look at it and find ways to temper the more outrageous qualities of it. Why do we think to have a successful evening, you have to have Donald Trump as your guest of honor, for example, or Lindsay Lohan?" —Tom Brokaw, re the White House Correspondents Dinner

April 24th, 2013

thesmithian

Zoom

[how they’re doing it] in Washington DC

Reblogged from

March 30th, 2013

thesmithian

Zoom

Hillary Clinton left the State Department nearly two months ago, but she still needs a staff to keep up with the considerable business of being Hillary Clinton. A half-dozen people now work for the former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate in a tiny corporate space on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, in what is called her “transition office.” Transition to what, Mrs. Clinton and her aides have not yet said.

more.
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art: photo by Thomas Whiteside

Hillary Clinton left the State Department nearly two months ago, but she still needs a staff to keep up with the considerable business of being Hillary Clinton. A half-dozen people now work for the former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate in a tiny corporate space on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, in what is called her “transition office.” Transition to what, Mrs. Clinton and her aides have not yet said.

more.

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art: photo by Thomas Whiteside

March 28th, 2013

thesmithian

'Progressives conspicuously lack any equivalent organizations that connect students with a broader intellectual network, providing a potentially interesting explanation for why conservative ideas seem to have a direct pipeline to Washington while progressives alternatives stay at the margins of the debate.'

March 14th, 2013

thesmithian

If you have a senator or a congressman in a swing district who is prepared to take a tough vote—or what they consider to be a tough vote—on immigration reform, or legislation around background checks for guns, I want to make sure that they feel supported and that they know that there are constituencies of theirs who agree with them, even if they may be getting a lot of pushback in that district. If we move aggressively on an issue like climate change—that’s not an easy issue for a lot of folks, because the benefits may be out in the future. And I want to make sure that a congressman, senator feels as if they’ve got the information and the grassroots network that’s going to support them in that effort…I’ve always said that I am representing people, and that change comes about because people are activated, people are involved. People shape the agenda. People determine the framework for debate. People let their members of Congress know what is that they believe. And when those voices are heard, you can’t stop it. That’s when change happens.

President Obama, yesterday in Washington DC at an Organizing for America event.

March 14th, 2013

thesmithian

There’s been a lot made in D.C. about how the sequester hasn’t really been a disaster, how most Americans aren’t feeling it yet. Well, it all depends on who you ask. The folks losing unemployment checks don’t tend to know their congressman. Their parents don’t hold fundraisers. They don’t come to D.C., and before they come to D.C., they don’t get a congressional staffer on the phone and build a relationship. They’re hurting, but not in a way that the political system actually notices. The furor over the White House tours is an unusually vivid example of…grossly unequal responsiveness.

more.

There’s been a lot made in D.C. about how the sequester hasn’t really been a disaster, how most Americans aren’t feeling it yet. Well, it all depends on who you ask. The folks losing unemployment checks don’t tend to know their congressman. Their parents don’t hold fundraisers. They don’t come to D.C., and before they come to D.C., they don’t get a congressional staffer on the phone and build a relationship. They’re hurting, but not in a way that the political system actually notices. The furor over the White House tours is an unusually vivid example of…grossly unequal responsiveness.

more.

March 12th, 2013

thesmithian

Congressional Republican leaders are now saying they won’t even talk to the president unless Obama agrees—before any meetings even take place—to give them what they want. In other words, when the White House announces that all efforts at deficit reduction in the coming years will include literally nothing but 100% spending cuts, then GOP leaders will be prepared to negotiate with the president. Please, Beltway pundits, remind me again how all the president has to do to resolve political paralysis is “lead” and offer good-faith compromises.

Steve Benen, at Maddow Blog

March 1st, 2013

thesmithian

'Imagine a plot to undermine the government of the United States, to destroy much of its capacity to do the public’s business, and to sow distrust among the population. Imagine further that the plotters infiltrate Congress and state governments, reshape their districts to give them disproportionate influence in Washington, and use the media to spread big lies about the government. Finally, imagine they not only paralyze the government but are on the verge of dismantling pieces of it. Far-fetched? Perhaps. But take a look at what’s been happening in Washington and many state capitals since Tea Party fanatics gained effective control of the Republican Party, and you’d be forgiven if you see parallels.'

and more.

February 25th, 2013

thesmithian

…though I’m a great admirer of the First Lady, I found Michelle Obama’s appearance to open the Best Picture envelope, accompanied by the gold-braided honor guard behind her, wildly inappropriate in its affirmation of the hard power behind the soft power—the connection of real politics to the representational politics of the movies, of the peculiar and long-standing symbiosis of Washington and Hollywood—all the more so when the matter of access to inside-government information is a key issue with the making of ‘Zero Dark Thirty.’

Richard Brody, at the New Yorker

February 24th, 2013

thesmithian

Zoom

What’s remarkable about photojournalist Leonard Freed’s book…a photo essay documenting the historic Aug. 28, 1963, civil-rights march, is that it includes only one photograph of Martin Luther King Jr…Freed’s “focus was on seeing the event from multiple points of view, from students to clergy to the national park rangers…”

more.

What’s remarkable about photojournalist Leonard Freed’s book…a photo essay documenting the historic Aug. 28, 1963, civil-rights march, is that it includes only one photograph of Martin Luther King Jr…Freed’s “focus was on seeing the event from multiple points of view, from students to clergy to the national park rangers…”

more.

February 23rd, 2013

thesmithian

…a gripping analytical narrative of U.S. state policing of ethnic Mexicans in the far west Texas and the New Mexico borderlands from 1893 and 1933. While the “when” in the title refers to the critical years of growing U.S. immigration controls and Prohibition, it is more accurate to say that the book examines how border people’s perceived transgressions against Anglo authority linked the Mexican community with criminal activity in the minds of officials in Austin and Washington.

more.

…a gripping analytical narrative of U.S. state policing of ethnic Mexicans in the far west Texas and the New Mexico borderlands from 1893 and 1933. While the “when” in the title refers to the critical years of growing U.S. immigration controls and Prohibition, it is more accurate to say that the book examines how border people’s perceived transgressions against Anglo authority linked the Mexican community with criminal activity in the minds of officials in Austin and Washington.

more.

February 22nd, 2013

thesmithian

President Obama’s political team is fanning out across the country in pursuit of an ambitious goal: raising $50 million to convert his re-election campaign into a powerhouse national advocacy network, a sum that would rank the new group as one of Washington’s biggest lobbying operations. But the rebooted campaign, known as Organizing for Action, has plunged the president and his aides into a campaign finance limbo with few clear rules, ample potential for influence-peddling, and no real precedent in national politics.

more.

President Obama’s political team is fanning out across the country in pursuit of an ambitious goal: raising $50 million to convert his re-election campaign into a powerhouse national advocacy network, a sum that would rank the new group as one of Washington’s biggest lobbying operations. But the rebooted campaign, known as Organizing for Action, has plunged the president and his aides into a campaign finance limbo with few clear rules, ample potential for influence-peddling, and no real precedent in national politics.

more.