If one aspires to be a pundit, one should, in my own humble opinion, be prepared to be judged. Unlike David Brooks or Tom Friedman, I feel it my duty to revisit my prognostications, to see how they hold up in the light of reality. Last year, I made some predictions about the coming year, and, as I said I would, I now revisit them to grade myself on my performance.
If you check out the piece to which I’ve linked, you’ll see that I wrote both optimistic and pessimistic predictions. The optimistic predictions were mere mirror images of the pessimistic, and anyone (save, perhaps one of the myriads who actually think Stephen Colbert is a conservative) can see that I should be judged by the pessimistic predictions.
I am, for the most part, adopting a two part scoring system here. Letter grades, like they hand out in school, and degree of difficulty (like they use in diving competitions, on a scale of one to ten). The former is an indicator of my performance on the prediction; the latter the difficulty of making the prediction itself. So here, goes.
First prediction:
1. The Connecticut legislature will suddenly discover that it has the ability to buck the governor, and will do so whenever Malloy wants to do anything that is in the long term best interests of the state.
I must hang my head in shame on this one. I must give myself a D. DOD: Indeterminate. Some might argue for an F, but in my defense I first quote the very next line in that long ago post:
Okay, that’s it. My interest in state politics, never very high, has now waned. Now, on to the nation at large.
I also decline to give myself a failing grade because for all I know there is some truth in my prediction, but only someone far better informed than I could say for sure. Finally, this is my blog; I’m handing out the marks; and I decline on principle to give myself an F, at least this early on. However, I generously leave it to the reader to assign his or her own grade.
Now, on to the national predictions:
1. The United States Senate will make a gesture toward reforming its rules, but will do nothing meaningful. To the extent anything meaningful is proposed, it will be defeated in response to cries of unfairness from the same Republicans, including the Fox News people, who condemned filibusters when Democrats threatened to use them (and didn’t because they were intimidated).
A plus on this one. DOD:1. By the way, I decline to do the work involved in finding links to justify my marks. It’s the day after Christmas, and I am feeling lazy. Suffice it to say that the Democratic attempt to reform the rules was such an empty gesture that there was never any need for Fox to engage in hypocritical hyperbole.
Next up:
2. Republicans will make unreasonable demands in exchange for increasing the debt limit, most likely cuts in programs such as Medicaid. Unlike Clinton, Obama will be unable or unwilling to make the Republicans look like petty obstructionists bent on damaging the middle class. The Republicans will get what they want, with a fig leaf for Obama, who will proclaim that the deal was great for the country, thus undercutting any Democrat who comes out against it. Obama will earn beltway credibility for “bi-partisanship”. The deal will contain the seeds of yet another such “crisis”. Pundits on the left will therefore warn that we are being set up for another betrayal, but they will be ignored.
A. DOD:0. Why, you might ask, do I deny myself an A plus? Because it’s just possible that Obama offered the cuts in social programs before the Republicans could get around to demanding them. A bit of internet research would likely answer the question, and I might be able to add the plus, but really truly, I am a lazy guy, and I’ll settle for the gentleman’s A. It doesn’t matter anyway, since the degree of difficulty on this one is so low that the extra plus would yield no additional credit to my account.
Next:
3. Obama will propose cuts to social security. In this context, the term “cut” includes, but is not necessarily limited to, direct cuts in present benefits, raising the retirement age, or changing the way benefit amounts are determined so that, over time, the real value of benefits declines. Republicans will go along with his suggestions, and then successfully accuse Democrats of trying to destroy Social Security. Economists who know what they are talking about will point out that there is no economic need to cut Social Security, and that lifting the payroll tax limit, a relatively painless step, would assure benefits far into the future (assuming, of course, that we avoid economic or environmental collapse). These economists will be ignored, due to the fact that they have been right about economic issues in the past, thus disqualifying them from any participation in the national discourse.
B plus. DOD:3. The degree of difficulty is higher on this one because most people, looking forward at the time, would have refused to believe that a Democrat, especially in this political environment, would throw away votes by needlessly sacrificing social security; a program that does not add to the deficit, is extremely cost effective; very popular, and vital to millions of Americans. I didn’t earn an A because I failed to remember that the Republicans always refuse to agree with anything Obama suggests, which in this case was a good thing. Time will tell whether they’ll get around to accusing the Democrats of trying to destroy Social Security, so on that particular part of the prediction, the jury is still out. By the way, I don’t lose points because Obama was making the offer in response to the debt ceiling fiasco, which was covered by prediction two. Fact is, he offered to cut Social Security, so I win.
4. Republicans will demand cuts in all manner of public programs (over and above those they extort in exchange for increasing the debt limit). They will do so on the grounds that the deficit is out of control. Many Democrats will join the chorus. No one within the Beltway will note that the programs being attacked involve sums that are insignificant in comparison to the amount given to the rich by way of the tax cuts the Republicans extorted in 2010.
A plus. DOD: 0
5. The media will continue to portray the Republican party as the party of fiscal responsibility.
A plus. DOD: 0
6. We will continue mired in Afghanistan. The Republicans will hold war funding hostage to some horrible demand. No one will accuse them of not supporting the troops, and they will continue to be acknowledged to be the stronger party when it comes to foreign policy and “fighting terrorism”, the massive evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. By the way, they will get whatever they are demanding.
D. DOD 2. We are mired in Afghanistan,so I was right on that. I actually seem to recall that some Republicans did object to war funding, but on this one I did hit the google, and I admit defeat. On most other particulars of this prediction, I was blessedly wrong.
7. Congress will do nothing about global warming. In fact, the entire country will continue to pretend that nothing is happening, even while we suffer through one of the hottest summers on record.
A plus. DOD: 0
8. China will open up an even bigger lead in green technology.
A plus. DOD: 1
9. Unemployment will remain high. Republicans will blame Obama, while continuing to prevent him from doing anything about it.
A plus. DOD 1. Okay, the DOD is a gift to myself, but it’s Christmas time, after all.
Next was a bonus prediction, born out of sadistic hope to see Joe Lieberman crushed at the polls:
Okay, I’ll go out on a limb. This is one I’m not totally sure about:
Joe Liberman will announce he will run as an Independent, finally giving us liberals something to smile about. National Democrats will come to terms with the fact that one good vote is not enough to restore Liberman to favor and that the people of Connecticut are ready to kick him out of the club, and that they don’t really care what the Beltway crowd thinks.
F on this one. DOD 4. Okay, I never really believed it, but I so wanted it to happen.
So that’s it on the political front. No doubt anyone who has made it this far has noticed that the degrees of difficulty on these predictions were quite low, and that anyone of reasonable intelligence could have done as well. But I ask that you judge me not against the reasonable man standard, but against that of the Beltway pundit, and by that standard, I am a shining star. Consider prediction 2, for instance, a no brainer except Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and the entire Beltway punditry allegedly never saw it coming. Recall that Obama said after the disastrous tax deal of late 2010, when he neither demanded nor got a commitment on the debt ceiling, that he was sure the Republicans would be reasonable on the issue.
I made some other predictions on non-political issues, to which we must also return.
1. The Ipad will be updated, and I will find a reason why I absolutely need one, but Lon Seidman will get one first.
A plus. Degree of difficulty 0. Actually I’m not absolutely positive Lon got one before me, but I have such faith in him that I am going to award myself this score without checking. Actually, maybe I should reduce this grade, because I never really did come up with a reason, good or otherwise, to get one; but I got one anyway.
2. Lindsey Lohan, whoever she may be, will continue to self destruct, but people will cease to care, as some other celebrity will blaze new trails of tabloid documented self destruction.
Ungraded. I still don’t know who she is, and I have no idea whether she continued her self destructive behavior or whether someone took her place, though Charlie Sheen’s name pops to mind.
3. I will work my way through all of this century’s episodes of Dr. Who.
A plus. DOD: minus 10. This year’s Christmas special should be on Itunes any day now.
4. The entire world will continue to marvel at how much all of our lives have changed now that you can download Beatles songs from Itunes.
Okay, totally wrong, but I never meant it anyway.
5. The Red Sox will have a good year. And in the end, isn’t any year a good year in which Red Sox fans can chant “Yankees Suck” with full throated enthusiasm and some measure of truth?
F. DOD: 7. I have nothing to say in my defense on this one, except I take some small measure of solace in the fact that the late season swoon restored a certain amount of balance to the universe.
To conclude, on the political front, I’ll give myself a B plus average, as I’m throwing out the Lieberman prediction since I never really meant it. Not too bad. I’d be happy to compare my record with Friedman or Brooks any day, though I realize that’s setting the bar pretty low.
One more thing: A New Year is dawning, so we must try to look on the bright side of life. While the stuff I did predict is for the most part depressing, there were several things I (and I’m not alone on this) failed to predict that must give us all hope. The Arab world overthrew several dictators, and while it’s still too early to tell if they’ll end up with functioning democracies, there is at least hope. Here at home the kids took to the streets, and have changed the conversation, hopefully permanently, about what’s happening in this country. The tide may have started to turn against the oligarchs.
On or before the first I’ll have a new set of predictions, so check back about a year from now to see how I fare.
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