There's a diary on the rec-list slamming the Obama Administration for not being progressive enough. No surprise there. I'm generally a big fan of the diarist in question, but in this case, the diary itself is as misguided as the pitiful New York Times article from which it derives its (increasingly reactionary) progressive rage.
This is how our discourse gets broken.
Pitiful Flaw #1: Sourcing
"White House Unhappy With Caps on CEO Bonuses," the diary declares. Is it? Who says so? Let's turn to the very source of this overarching declaration and see. Ah...there it is in black-and-white in the venerable Grey Lady herself: "Congressional officials."
Top economic advisers to President Obama adamantly opposed the pay restrictions, according to Congressional officials, warning lawmakers behind closed doors that they went too far and would cause a brain drain in the financial industry during an acute crisis.
"Congressional officials" say so! What's more, The New York Times says that "Congressional officials" say so! So it must be true! The New York Times wouldn't just make this shit up, and neither would anonymous "Congressional officials" who have just rushed off before the ink is dry on the bill to feed politically damaging (for Obama) private negotiations to the country's largest newspaper!
As has been typical of The New York Times' political reportage going on 17 years or so, there is not one shred of solid evidence beyond this murky sourcing that the "White House" is "unhappy with caps on Wall Street CEO bonuses" in the stimulus bill, as the diary's title declares, or that the Obama administration "adamantly opposed the pay restrictions," as the article itself declares.
Let me be clear: The White House very well might be "unhappy with caps on Wall Street CEO bonuses," but sourcing that criticism on the flimsical dribblings of that New York Times article doesn't make it so.
The article's murky sourcing appears not in the lead paragraph, not in the next paragraph, not even in the next paragraph, but in paragraph eight. How's that for burying the fundamental shakiness of the very basis of your story's thesis until it's too late for the reader to unring the bell?
And finally, The New York Times doesn't actually quote anonymous "Congressional officials." They paraphrase them. That's right: there's not a single actual quotation from a single "Congressional official," but so what! -- get out the way & let the Deep-Throated Grand "Progressive" Narrative begin, inconvenient skepticisms be damned!
The article does, however, provide a direct quote from none other than the Obama Administration. And I should warn the weak amongst you to avert your eyes, cover your ears, and flee the room, because this level of adamant opposition is rarely heard, much less seen, and like a sonic boom or a total solar eclipse, can cause permanent damage if protective measures are not undertaken:
Jennifer R. Psaki, a spokeswoman for the White House, said President Obama "shares a deep concern about excessive executive compensation at financial firms that are receiving extraordinary assistance from American taxpayers."
Get it? "Concern!" There's the tell! Hypocrites! Sounds just like Larry Summers! And in case you had any doubts, The New York Times rubs our collective noses in it!
But she hinted at the White House’s displeasure, saying that Mr. Obama "looks forward to working with Congress to responsibly address this issue."
Displeasure, my ass. The White House sounds royally pissed! And in the lexicon of what passes for "progressive" discourse, the more the Obama White House sounds "progressive," the less chance they are.
Pitiful Flaw #2: Motives
And who are these "Congressional officials" anyway? Democrats? Republicans? Who cares, declares The New York Times! Who cares, declares the diary! And what is their motive for painting the Obama Administration as a big fat hypocrite? Hmmmm.
Obama will be signing the bill to much fanfare on President's Day, with the pay-cap provisions fully intact. Who would benefit from sowing the seeds of discord between the Democratic congress and the Democratic president? Hmmmm! Is it the "progressive" wing of the Democratic Party, proactively bullying Obama into a defensive corner so that he doesn't pull some Bushistic signing statement maneuver, as at least one of the diary's commenters suggested? (For those of you who find this proposition even remotely plausible, might I ask you to remove your hats -- the tin-foil is blinding.) Or could it be a Republican Iago hoping to add yet another negative story to the pile of negative stories deflating Obama's legislative successes these past three weeks? Hmmmm!!
But let's not worry our pretty little heads about such complicated (and complicating) questions. The Obama Adminstration is a big fat hypocrite (and worse, a big fat Centrist hypocrite!). The New York Times quoted anonymous "Congressional officials" who said so! And let's rush onto DKos and say so ourselves! (Mmmmmmmm, that's good down-home "Progressive" cookin', with a capital "P," no less!)
None of these bothersome vagaries is addressed or even questioned (no surprise) in The New York Times article as it blithely weaves a tangled web of intrigue and malice. None of this is addressed or even questioned (disappointing) in the diary as it ominously sounds the "progressive" alarm (we've heard it non-stop since November 5, 2008) of the Obama Administration's inevitable rightward policy-creep.
Pitiful Flaw #3: There is no there there
Even if you take The New York Times at its word that the Obama Administration was "adamantly" opposed to the executive-compensation restrictions introduced by Senator Dodd into the stimulus bill (and I'm not sure why you would), the story itself makes absolutely no sense. We'll see if I'm up to unraveling just how little sense it makes, but I doubt my abilities to do so.
From the get-go, the article drips with melodramatic hyperbole. We discover that the executive pay-cap is "buried deep inside" the stimulus bill. Ooooh, deep, deeper, even deeper! No wonder it took two New York Times reporters to write this story! One had to hold the lantern while the other one dug the mine!
From there it devolves into the tried-and-true MSM strategy of employing rhetorical emphasis in the absence of concrete evidence. We discover that the new, deeply-buried, executive-compensation restrictions (the ones Obama is "adamantly" against!) are "much tougher" than those proposed by the Treasury Department ten days ago.
Are they? The article (and the rec-list diary in question) bases its entire rage on the notion that the new provision is tougher -- not just a "little" tougher but "much" tougher.
But it's a mixed-bag, at best. To be fair, some of Dodd's provisions do seem a bit tougher than the those proposed by the Treasury Department, like the one extending the restrictions of bonuses beyond merely top management.
But on the issue of restricting executive compensation, the notion that Dodd's plan is "much tougher" than Geithner's is just not there (and without this notion there is no case to be made that the Obama Administration is "adamantly" opposed to such restrictions). Senator Dodd's provision, according to the article, has no salary cap whatsoever, unlike the Treasury Department proposal which had a solid salary-cap of $500,000.
The revised rules do not impose a formal cap on executive compensation, unlike the Treasury proposal. Under that plan, banks were barred from paying more than $500,000 in salary until they repaid the TARP funds to the government.
Say what? You telling me that these "much tougher" restrictions on executive-compensation do not cap exectutive salaries at all? Well, heck, this would mean that banks could (and no doubt will) just jack up executive salaries to whatever they hell they wanted to. Doesn't sound "much tougher" at all, does it? (By the way, this pricking of the "much tougher" balloon occurs in paragraph...let me go count...thirteen of The New York Times article.)
Well, so Dodd's proposal allows executives to be paid an unlimited salary, which doesn't sound "much tougher" than Geithner's $500,000 salary-cap. But what about that loophole in Geithner's plan, the one that allowed banks to pay out bonuses in the form of restricted stock? Huh, what about that!!??
Yet again, Dodd's provision fails to live up to the "much tougher" billing. Dodd's plan caps (it does not prevent) the awarding of executive bonuses with restricted stock. He caps such bonuses to one-third of their annual salary, and this restriction only applies to the 25 highest-paid executives.
So let's review. According to The New York Times (and the overly alarmist diary in question), the Obama Administration is "adamantly" opposed to "much tougher" rules that allow a bank executive to make $10 million a year in salary and another $3.3 million in restricted-stock bonuses, even though the Obama Administration drafted a plan to cap that same bank executive's salary at $500,000 a year and then (to make up the difference) force him to take the now publicly suicidal step of awarding himself a $13 million bonus.
Oddly enough, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum (aka, The New York Times reporters) seem vaguely cognizant that Dodd's "much tougher" provisions aren't, well, "much" tougher at all:
One unintended effect, compensation experts said, is that financial firms might increase banker salaries in order to increase the restricted stock awards. "About the only way to address these limits is to pay large salaries," said Michael S. Melbinger, an executive compensation lawyer at Winston & Strawn in Chicago. "There’s no pay for performance in this."
That's right. They needed to find "compensation experts" to figure that out. If you don't restrict salary and bonuses, it's just like restricting nothing. Except that Obama's plan (daring them to pay out big bonuses rather than cloaking it in big salaries) will make over-compensation much more politically visible than Dodd's plan.
In conclusion...
It's wholly possible that Obama is a closet Republican masquerading as a "progressive" (as we are forever cautioned by all too many of our rec-list diaries), and it is wholly possible that the Obama Administration opposes real restrictions on executive compensation because the White House is infested with Centrist, Corporatist, Globalists.
I reject both arguments, but they are wholly possible.
But that New York Times article should not be used as evidence, or even the hint of evidence, or even the barest hint of the hint of evidence, to make that case, or sound the alarm.
At the risk of parroting the increasingly nutty Bob Somerby, is it too much to ask that we in the liberal blogosphere apply the same level of scrutiny to the MSM when they print something we like as we do when they print something we don't like?
Methinks it is.