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Obama and Aquino talk China in D.C., but media can’t get past Obama mini-gaffe on private sector

Below is the White House transcript on the press briefing after the meeting between President Obama and President Aquino of the Philippines.

As usual, what’s news is a function of the audience, and the most important issue here really is the international one:  the territorial dispute between the Philippines and China in the oil rich shoals of South China Sea. It’s resulted in some tense moments within the last month between the Philippines and China, and most Americans don’t even know about it.

What makes this briefing valuable is how it shows China the strength of the relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines.

If you’re in China, you’re seeing the U.S. remind us all that it sees itself as a Pacific power, and that the Philippines is a really, really good friend and ally.  Don’t mess with it. 

What else can China do but realize it has a lot invested in the U.S. If they want us to pay them back, it should put up with a little Filipino sabre-rattling. 

Frankly, the whole thing is a little too colonial for my taste.  The Philippines isn’t “Little Brown Brother” anymore. But the Philippines is so anemic it still needs the U.S. to play “Big Brother.” 

Maybe that’s all right if you find yourself in a pissing match with China over oil. 

Too bad the press chose to go domestic and followed up with a question focused on Obama’s earlier statements about the economy and the private sector doing well.

Is a mini-gaffe over language really more important than what happens in the South China Sea?  

Here’s the White House transcript of the Washington press briefing:

President Obama: It is a great pleasure to welcome President Aquino to the Oval Office and to the White House.

I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with him, most recently during my Asia trip, when we met most recently in Bali. And at that time, we discussed how important the U.S.-Philippine relationship was, the historic ties, the 60 years of a mutual defense treaty, the extraordinary links between Filipino-Americans that have brought our two countries so closely together.  And we pledged to work on a whole host of issues that would continue to strengthen and deepen the relationship for the 21st century.

We talked about how we could work on security issues, on economic issues, on people-to-people exchanges, and on a whole host of regional issues.  And I just want to thank President Aquino for his excellent cooperation, because we’ve made a great deal of progress since that time.

On economic issues, the Philippines is the recipient of a Millennium Challenge grant that is helping to foster greater development and opportunity within the Philippines.  We have a partnership for growth that is working on how we can make sure that we are structuring a relationship of expanding trade and commerce between our two countries.

I want to congratulate President Aquino for the work that he’s done on the Open Government Partnership that is consistent with his campaign to root out corruption that can facilitate greater economic development within the Philippines.

And on security and military issues, we had discussions about how we can continue to consult closely together, to engage in training together, work on a range of regional issues together — all of which is consistent with the announced pivot by the United States back to Asia, and reminding everybody that, in fact, the United States considers itself, and is, a Pacific power.

Throughout all these exchanges and all the work that we’ve done I’ve always found President Aquino to be a thoughtful and very helpful partner.  And I think that as a consequence of the meeting today in which we discussed not only military and economic issues, but also regional issues — for example, trying to make sure that we have a strong set of international norms and rules governing maritime disputes in the region — that I’m very confident that we’re going to see continued friendship and strong cooperation between our two countries. 

So, Mr. President, thank you for visiting.  We are very proud of the friendship between our two countries, and we look forward to continuing in the future.

PRESIDENT AQUINO:  I would like to thank President Obama for all the support that the U.S. has given us in our quest to really transform our society.  Ours is a shared history, shared values, and that’s why America is just one of two that we have strategic partnerships with.

Today’s meeting has really even deepened and strengthened a very long relationship we have, especially as we face the challenges that are before both our countries in the current situation.

And again, we’d like to thank them for all the expressions of support that even now has led to the resolution of situations within our territory.   

Thank you.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  All right.  Thank you, everybody.

  Q    Mr. President, Mitt Romney says you’re out of touch for saying the private sector is doing fine.  What’s your response?

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Listen, it is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine.  That’s the reason I had the press conference.  That’s why I spent yesterday, the day before yesterday, this past week, this past month, and this past year talking about how we can make the economy stronger.

The economy is not doing fine.  There are too many people out of work.  The housing market is still weak and too many homes underwater.  And that’s precisely why I asked Congress to start taking some steps that can make a difference.

Now, I think if you look at what I said this morning and what I’ve been saying consistently over the last year, we’ve actually seen some good momentum in the private sector.  We’ve seen 4.3 million jobs created — 800,000 this year alone — record corporate profits.  And so that has not been the biggest drag on the economy.

The folks who are hurting, where we have problems and where we can do even better, is small businesses that are having a tough time getting financing; we’ve seen teachers and police officers and firefighters who’ve been laid off — all of which, by the way, when they get laid off spend less money buying goods and going to restaurants and contributing to additional economic growth.  The construction industry is still very weak, and that’s one of the areas where we’ve still seen job losses instead of job gains.

So if we take the steps that I laid out to make sure that we’re not seeing teacher layoffs and we’re not seeing police officer layoffs, and we’re providing small businesses with additional financing and tax breaks for when they hire or if they’re giving raises to their employees; if we refinance housing — or allow homeowners to refinance so they’ve got an extra $3,000 in their pocket so that they can spend money and contribute to further economic growth; if we’re making sure that we’re rebuilding, work that has to be done anyway, deferred maintenance on roads and bridges that could put construction workers back to work — all those things will strengthen the economy, and independent economists estimate it would create an additional million jobs. 

Now, you can’t give me a good reason as to why Congress would not act on these items other than politics — because these are traditionally ideas that Democrats and Republicans have supported.  So let me be as clear as I can be.  The economy needs to be strengthened.  That’s why I had a press conference.

I believe that there are a lot of Americans who are hurting right now, which is what I’ve been saying for the last year, two years, three years, what I’ve been saying since I came into office.  And the question then is what are we going to do about it?  And one of the things that people get so frustrated about is that instead of actually talking about what would help, we get wrapped up in these political games.  That’s what we need to put an end to.

So the key right now is for folks — what I’m interested in hearing from Congress and Mr. Romney is what steps are they willing to take right now that are going to make an actual difference.  And so far, all we’ve heard are additional tax cuts to the folks who are doing fine, as opposed to taking steps that would actually help deal with the weaknesses in the economy and promote the kind of economic growth that we would all like to see.

All right.  Thank you very much, everybody.  Thank you.  Thanks.  Thank you, guys.

blog, diversity, news, politics

No schlemiels here, but are Asian Americans the New Jews in battle over affirmative action? Also: One way to thwart the system

The question is raised once again in the cyclical affirmative action fight in college admissions. Those against affirmative action are saying Jews and Asian Americans have both been victimized  by race-concisous admissions.

That  may be true. But is that a reason to get rid of affirmative action?

One commenter on my sfgate.com blog says that 86 percent of blacks and Latinos who get into exclusive schools are from wealthy backgrounds. I don’t know if that fact is true or not, but what difference does that make?  That’s always been a comeback by affirmative action foes. Poor kids are cool, but don’t give affirmative action to the Cosby kids.

I’d say that the well-to-do blacks and Latinos may even be so-called “legacy” admits, i.e., their parents went to the school. I actually am all for that for minorities. Most of the time, the parents were admitted through a more race-concious process. I don’t have a problem with creating a “legacy of affirmative action” where the off-spring of grads get admitted. It does show, after all, how an institution can change by generation.

What I don’t like is that if you get rid of race-conscious programs, the non-Cosby kids, the ones most deserving of a leg up, may lose that opportunity of a lifetime.

That’s why affirmative action is worth preserving.

There’s one another issue brought up by the the “New Jews” argument. If one makes the case that by experience Asian Americans are like the Jews in terms of discrimination faced in college admissions, can you then say that one’s common experience is valid in defining ethnicity? Considering how self-identification has been a standard in the Census(it’s merely “you are what you say you are,” you don’t have to show me any DNA)  it’s not illogical for Asian Americans to check the box on any form and say they are black, or Latino, or white.

That may be a better way for you anti-Affirmative Action folks to thwart the system. 

I remember reading Dean Henry Rosovsky’s book on Harvard where he said that Filipinos’ experiences were more closely aligned to blacks.

Maybe that’s why when I was at Harvard I felt more comfortable in my Afro American Studies courses than I did in my  Romantic Poets class.

But it may also be why I remain adamant about the need for affirmative action. Asian Americans are far from a homogenous group. Disparities within the group will have a much harder time being addressed if race-concisous admissions are eliminated.

blog, journalism, news, politics

Those high-rolling bundled Asian Americans at the San Jose Obama brunch meeting were typically Asian: shy, quiet, and reserved

Maybe they were saving their encounter for their memoirs?

Or maybe they will be posting later on their Facebook pages?

The 20 or so who paid $35,000 (not $40,000 as was originally reported) to meet with Obama talked to just one reporter at the end of the event, the SF Chronicle’s Joe Garafoli.

Though it was a closed press event, apparently there was no condition placed to not talk to the media. The meeting members  just chose not to as if they were protecting corporate secrets. The only one to talk was Vinod Bhardwagm the founder of a firm called Kalpana. He told the Chronicle he asked Obama a question about the constitution and how the founders would have viewed how the document is used. 

Can you say “softball.”

What bothers me is this was billed as a high-level meeting of Asian Americans with the president. As an Asian American, wouldn’t you want to know or share in this opportunity to have this kind of access to the president in order to let him know what the Asian American community really wants and needs? 

That would be a high-minded use of the president’s time.

Instead, it was just a vanity brunch with Obama,  where the people attending didn’t want to do much showing off afterwards.

The whole closed nature of the event just felt unseemly to me. But I suppose in an era of SuperPACs and Citizens United, the whole idea behind bundling to get around individual donor limits (usually $2,500) in order to offer facetime with the president  seems like just a small hole in our democracy.

But it’s still a hole.

See the original version of my post on sfgate.com and at www.aaldef.org/blog

blog, news, politics

Bundling for Democracy and your Eggs Obama

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(The original version of this was on the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund blog).

That  off-again, on-again morning meeting in San Jose between President Obama and a roundtable of Asian American business leaders represents the stark undemocratic reality of today’s politics.

Not only is it closed to the media, but the participants’ names are part of an exclusive list that haven’t been readily disclosed. Are they embarrassed to be one of 20 or so to pay $40,000 for the privilege of a private audience with the president? Unlikely.

Still, $40,000 for some grub and gab with the president?  If you’re on a Grand Slam breakfast budget, you’re out of luck.  (Of course, at $40k, I’m assuming with the president you get a meal.)

I figured there’s at least one person I could ask who would know the details of this elite “roundtable.” That would have to be Shefali Razdan Duggal, a 40-year-old,  Indian-born, self-employed San Franciscan who has become a big bucks go-to person for Obama in Northern California.

Naturally, she deferred to the official press team of the president.  But Shefali’s definitely high up in the campaign to know what’s going on since she’s  become what is known as a top “bundler.”

Given that the individual limit to federal campaigns is generally $2,500, people who want to get around that low ceiling, like say give $40,000 for some Eggs Obama, just simply funnel the money directly to a person like Shefali.

She becomes the ribbon and bow around the checks that are then delivered to the campaign as “bundled.”  

Compared to a Super PAC, it may seem like a small hole in the system. Nevertheless, it’s still a way to get around limits and funnel large amounts of money legally.

For 2012, Shefali has become one of the top Asian American bundlers  for Obama in the nation. Earlier this year, the Obama campaign disclosed to the Federal Electon Committee that she was responsible for between  $200,000-$500,000 in bundled contributions, with her own personal lifetime contributions at $122,177. (All the numbers come from the campaign finance watchdog, opensecrets.org).

And that’s a moderate amount among the 532 bundlers in 33 states who have raised about $106.4 million for Obama and the DNC this election year.

Among Asian American Obama bundlers is Los Angeles-based Brian Lee, the LegalZoom entrepreneur who has given $299,800 to the Obama campaign.

But it’s the number of Asian Indian bundlers that seems to be more impressive. The list includes among others, the self-help guru, Deepak Chopra ($197,000) and New York’s Deven Parekh of Insight Venture Partners ($226,100).

Asian Indians are actually the No.3  Asian American ethnic group after the Chinese and Filipinos. And yet when it comes to giving money, Indian Americans seem well represented.

I certainly didn’t see many Chinese or Filipino names on Obama’s bundlers list.  Maybe the Chinese are still reeling over the donation scandals during the Clinton years.

Being a bundler is definitely legit and has its advantages. While everyone denies there’s a quid pro quo, in politics, every penny matters—especially if you want something.

In the 2008 campaign, Hillsborough’s John Roos was a big bundler for Obama while at  the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. And though his own personal contribution is on the books at a relatively modest $41,600, I’m sure it was mere coincidence that Roos, a Lowell High alum  was ultimately tabbed by Obama to serve as ambassador to Japan.

So my guess is the Asian American leaders at this somewhat secret “Roundtable”  meeting are likely to be made up of primarily Indian American entrepreneurs and businessmen who see nothing wrong with giving $40,000 for a little face time with the president to discuss such things as the flow of highly educated workers through immigration and special visas to work in their businesses. In other words, they’ll talk about all their special issues.

This would ordinarily be seen as a form of  “lobbying,” but since there are few things lower in the likeability scale than “lobbyist,” why impugn these wealthy private Asian American “roundtable-ists”?

Indeed, lobbyists are so disliked, Federal law requires that a campaign disclose only the bundling activity—of lobbyists.

That’s why President Obama and the Democrats, having disclosed all 532 bundlers, are actually much more open and go above and beyond the law on this point than the GOP.

Maybe bundling isn’t so bad, say compared to the current campaign finance villains, the Super-PACs.

Still, while the Obama has been upfront about his bundlers, the GOP has only disclosed that 22 registered lobbyists have bundled a measly $2.9 million.

Romney’s other bundlers?  No one knows how much has been raised by how many. Romney hasn’t disclosed them. Maybe he should. Now.

But this is how our democracy works today. There are lots of dark places where photo-ops give way to cash-ops.

And neither you nor I can have breakfast with the president in a closed-door roundtable.

Actually, I thought it would be nice if President Obama capped off Asian Pacific American Heritage Month with a nice fitting visit into the community to eat some veggie pork buns or something.

He could have visited Asian Health Services in Oakland and witnessed all the language issues they work around to provide health care to those who need it most. Or he could have visited Asian Americans for Community Involvement in San Jose.

But when the president is in campaign mode, there’s little time in democracy for the unbundled.