White House Fool Report: I give up

The green card goslings I first saw a couple of weeks ago nestled around a tree trunk in Riverside Park South with their Canadian parents are now fluent swimmers.

Last night BooMan put up a post on the Trans-Pacific Partnership which articulated some things I hadn't understood about how the Senate is voting, which doesn't seem to be on any clear left-right axis but geared more to local issues, and also his informed sense, which I found really surprising and intriguing, that the administration doesn't really know how much it wants the treaty passed, if at all. I left a comment, which I'll just reproduce:

Thanks, that was very clarifying. A lot of the argument on both sides has been very propagandistic; I'm especially disappointed with Warren, who is saying things about the ISDS aspect that are really at odds with reality. The way they've been denouncing TPA as if it were the end of democracy is shameful, and I'm glad you point out that it's the only way the treaty can get written--and voted down if necessary--at all.

Out here where we have no inside knowledge at all, the president's language seems really committed at this point, and we have to ask why. In addition to the points you make about corporate happiness with the Democrats and paying tribute to internationalism (the worst thing about the Warren opposition is its NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY exceptionalist tone), I think he must have compelling reasons for believing he will get really good labor and especially environmental agreements. (And language in the ISDS part guaranteeing government right to regulate for legitimate national interests, as seems to have been done in the EU-Canada treaty.)

Unfortunately the hostility on the part of some of our friends is so intense at this point that it could be a great treaty and they'd refuse to see it. It's really important that progressives and liberals who are willing to wait to see what the final draft looks like should be speaking up right now.

This morning, on the other hand, Krugman. Even he, in my view, is wrong about some things, in particular the danger the treaty poses to US regulations of the banking industry (because I am convinced that [a] the Canadian attack he refers to on the Volcker rule as in violation of NAFTA does not have a chance of succeeding, and [b] that the TPP will protect the right to regulate in national interest in the way NAFTA failed to do, I looked at some roughly related issues last week), but jeez, it's not very pleasant to be an ignorant nebbish disagreeing with Robert Reich, Joseph Stieglitz, and even Senators Warren and Sherrod Brown and hopefully-soon-to-be no-longer-ex-Senator Feingold, and when the Krugthulu comes out with guns blazing, I am daunted, and one thing he is absolutely right about:

Instead of addressing real concerns, however, the Obama administration has been dismissive, trying to portray skeptics as uninformed hacks who don’t understand the virtues of trade. But they’re not: ... the only really hackish economics I’ve seen in this debate is coming from supporters of the trade pact.

It’s really disappointing and disheartening to see this kind of thing from a White House that has, as I said, been quite forthright on other issues. And the fact that the administration evidently doesn’t feel that it can make an honest case for the Trans-Pacific Partnership suggests that this isn’t a deal we should support.

Really, why should we Obot pawns work to defend something when the administration isn't even trying? I don't know this stuff, I'm not sure I really care, I'm not doing this any more until the treaty text comes out. If it ever does, seriously. I'd rather be making fun of David Brooks.