Since Plamegate, White House press briefings have suddenly become a kind of bloodsport. They usually result in a bunch of spirited diaries around here, each running down the lies du jour, everyone marveling at the credibility-challenged WH press secretary Scottie McLellan as he performs his minutely detailed impression of a pod person.
Today was a departure from the norm. As a special bonus, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director, National Economic Council Alan Hubbard was trotted out to blather endlessly about how quietly cooperative the reaction of our nation has been as he and his friends take turns raping it. This led to two interesting exchanges, one frightening and one encouraging. The bitchslap was the encouraging one. Apologies if someone else has beaten me to it.
Let's start with the fright show, and then progress to the bitchslap. At the top of the press conference, Scottie yielded the mike, promising that after Hubbard finished lathering the press corps with his strange brand of economic Swahili, "I'll be glad to come back up here and take some questions on other topics." Gee Scott, really? Has Christmas come early? We're so used to you hiding in the bathroom lately, like the kid from Pulp Fiction, clutching his gun and feverishly whispering to himself "I don't want to die!!"
Anyway here was where my antennae went up as I made my way through the transcripts, a highly impolitic and uncalled for dredging up of (gasp!) Hurricane Katrina. Don't they know that Presidential Economic Advisers have better things to do than play nostalgia games?:
Q And with respect to the administration a few months ago saying that Katrina victims are your first priority, I was wondering, first of all, does the White House support the Katrina tax relief package that is one of the budget reconciliation versions? And, secondly, when you said the economy is humming and standard of living is improving, what does the administration plan to do to improve the standard of living and make the economy hum for the at least 200,000 homeless Katrina victims?
DIRECTOR HUBBARD: That was a long question. (Laughter.) I must admit, I'm -- hit me one more time with -- (laughter.)
Q The Katrina relief package, do you support it?
Is anything more chilling than encountering that "(Laughter)" stage direction when the "laughter" is prompted by a remark from a conservative policy maker? OK Allan, you've got your Friar's Roast mojo working, now answer the freakin' question, funny guy...
DIRECTOR HUBBARD: Oh, yes, the tax bill for the Katrina relief. We're absolutely supportive of the tax bill for -- you know, the President, if you'll recall when he was in New Orleans at Jackson Square with his speech, a very important part of that was tax initiative and creating the Gulf Opportunity Zone and tax relief in order to encourage businesses to return to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, as well as encourage new businesses to start up there. We're very supportive of that. We follow that very closely and are very hopeful that Congress will get that passed this year.
In terms of the Katrina victims, I was just down there yesterday, in both New Orleans and Mississippi. The President is very concerned about the recovery. They're making good progress, but there is a long, long ways to go. The President is never happy with how fast they're going, and he keeps pushing us, keeps pushing DHS, keeps pushing FEMA, keeps pushing the Corps to do it faster and sooner and quicker so that part of the country will recover more quickly.
You know. Standard blah, blah, newspeak. I'm only including Hubbard's response because I feel any on-the-record comment regarding Katrina recovery is important, if only for it's value as a collectible rarity. Maybe after New Orleans has been resurrected as a nuclear waste processing facility, we can auction off the administration's statements about their "commitment to the rebuilding process" on ebay. Incidentally, a cursory review of the usual media outlets reveals no public record of this visit to the disaster region by Hubbard. If anyone has any information either verifying or disproving Hubbard's claim, that would be fun to know.
As you can see if you're still following along, Hubbard's performance perfectly exemplifies the standards of the Bush spokespersons. When in doubt, distract. When in unfriendly territory, spout drivel from rote memorization. And don't forget to be unctious while adopting a patronizing attitude, with a soupçon of contempt.
OK, on to the bitch slap. But first, a minor detour. Let's take a brief timeout and examine Allan Hubbard, the man, since the WH did us the lavishly good favor of trotting him out for public consumption. First he's the head of the National Economic Counsel, an arm of the Executive branch created under Clinton to advise the President on "domestic and international economic issues." His White House bio states very blandly that:
In 1969, Mr. Hubbard received his B.A. degree, cum laude, from Vanderbilt University. In 1975, Mr. Hubbard received his Juris Doctorate, cum laude, and Masters in Business Administration with Distinction from Harvard Law School and Harvard School of Business Administration.
Hmmm....1975, Harvard Business School, why that would put him there just around the time that a certain neer-do-well playboy with a
need for speed was "graduating." Darn! You guessed it. He's a
college buddy of George Walker Bush, Jr.
A classmate of George W.'s at Harvard Business School, Hubbard is one of Bush's oldest chums and a top fund-raiser. Unlike departing NEC honcho Stephen Friedman, former chairman of Goldman, Sachs & Co., he is not a well-known financier. Hubbard, 57, made his fortune by acquiring a band of small manufacturing outfits under the rubric of Indianapolis-based E&A Industries Inc.
But dismissing Hubbard as a mere crony would be a serious misreading of the influence he could wield. "The notion that he is some kind of naïf is off base," says William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and Hubbard's boss when both were aides to former Veep Dan Quayle. "He is going to make a big splash."
In contrast to Bush, Hubbard actually made money in business and went to his home state of Indiana, where he was the head of the State GOP party for a while. Hubbard also became a political fundraiser as well, and qualified as a
"Pioneer," as did his wife, in the last presidential campaign. He was also (of course) a panelist at the famous 2002 Bush Economic Summit.
Upon taking his position at the White House, he had one mission: Social Security reform. In addition to personally going on the road with Dubya on the Great Social Security Dog and Pony Show, he came up with priceless contributions to help shape the "reform" agenda.
New York's disabled and those who suffer the loss of a spouse or parent would be in danger of cuts to their Social Security benefits under President Bush's overhaul scheme, according to comments made on May 12 and 13, 2005, by the President's own top economic advisor Allan Hubbard
Yes by all means Allen. Let's trim the fat out of those bloated programs and restore some sanity to the process. Why should the spouse or child of a deceased individual lay claim to government monies they didn't work for?
Now we head into the home stretch. Thanks for coming this far, if anyone in fact has. I promised a bitchslap, and a bitchslap you shall get. Well. YOU'RE not going to get a bitchslap, Hubbard did, but you know what I mean. Here goes. I warn you ahead of time, it is a sort of gentlemanly bitchslap, but a bitchslap all the same:
Q Al, can I ask you one? I can't remember the last time the President spoke about the national debt, which is now over $8 trillion. Is that something you guys worry about?
DIRECTOR HUBBARD: Well, I don't know where your $8 trillion comes from, but we --
Q The public website. [Diarist's note: Whoops, there it is!!]
DIRECTOR HUBBARD: Well, I guess it really depends on what you're including, but let me -- again, the President is most concerned about the economy and the budget. And a key component of that, as I have spoken earlier, is the budget deficit. And, you know, that's what contributes to the overall budget debt, the country's debt, and that's why it's so important to reduce the budget deficit and, hopefully, ultimately, eliminate the budget deficit.
Q Does the magnitude of the national debt disturb you?
DIRECTOR HUBBARD: Actually, again, I don't know what numbers you're using, but the current budget debt is not a problem, but we do not want it to grow as a percentage of the GDP. That's the way you want to look at it, is the debt as a percentage of GDP. And our budget debt is lower than many other developed countries. The President is committed to keeping it low; that's why he wants to cut the budget deficit in half by 2009.
But, you know, the biggest -- and this is off-balance-sheet -- the biggest problem we face are the unfunded liabilities of our entitlements, of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. For Social Security it's $11 trillion; for Medicare it's significantly higher than that. And that's why we've got to tackle entitlements. The longer we wait, the more difficult it's going to be, and that's why the President spent so much time last year talking about Social Security. That's why he will continue to talk about Social Security.
And that's why, unfortunately -- you know, I wish the Democrats were right, that we could avoid dealing with Social Security, but we can't. Every year it grows bigger by $600 billion, the problem. And the sooner we address it, the easier it's going to be to address, and that's why this President will never give up on reforming Social Security.
Thank you all.
Q Check the Bureau of Public Debt website, you'll see the number there.
DIRECTOR HUBBARD: Okay, thank you.
Q You bet. [OHH, Suh-nap!!]
BITCHSLAP! I know it reads as boring and civil, but for an economic press conference to trumpet the "good news" of the latest economic data, that's as close to a smackdown as we are likely to expect to see. Someone buy that reporter an O'Doul's on me. Just put it on my tab. I think the reporter was
Mark Knoller but I'm not sure, since he/she are not identified in the White House transcript.
Now, lest you decide I'm being unfair to poor Allan Hubbard, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director, National Economic Council, I'll let him weigh in one last time:
A classmate of George W. Bushís at Harvard Business School, Hubbard was a domestic policy advisor to that Bushís 2000 presidential campaign. "What [Bush] understands about conservatism that many conservatives don't," Hubbard said during that campaign, "is that, at its core, it's caring about the poor, the underclass."
To which I can summon only one response.
(Laughter).