Shorter David Broder:

No matter what, Obama should change his policies so that Congressional Republicans join him, even though most Republican governors agree with what's already been laid out.

(h/t Down with Tyranny)


posted by Quiddity at 1/31/2009 10:14:00 PM

The content crisis is here:

Just three weeks ago, this blog predicted a content crisis:

I see big problems for all content developers and providers within the next five years. The outcome could be dismal: limited original reporting, less news, less quality content of all types.

It's here in spades with cartoons for alt-weeklies. Tom Tomorrow has a round-up of the depressing news.

1   (TT)
2   (Jen Sorensen & Derf)
3   (TT)
4   (Lloyd Dangle) "Troubletown still appears in seventeen papers and here on the web." [!]
5   (Max Cannon)

It's rough out there.


posted by Quiddity at 1/30/2009 10:20:00 PM

Michael Kinsley's miserable opening line:

In his Time essay:

The Peter G. Peterson foundation, a new and welcome arrival on the national scold scene ...

They're not new. It's just the Concord Coalition in new clothes. They're not welcome. And they mislead (most significantly, by ignoring productivity gains when projecting ability-to-pay in the future).

Kinsley also presented dishonest figures, as Dean Baker points out.


posted by Quiddity at 1/30/2009 01:14:00 PM

Geography of the vote:

The New York Times has an interactive graphic showing who voted for and against the stimulus bill in the House. How about that West Coast? They say geography is destiny, so what's going on here?





Republicans seem to hold districts that are rural, with farming, mining, and logging as the main business. But they will feel the hurt as the industrial/trade sections of the economy (mostly blue) start to decline. Then, perhaps, they will be more inclined to support a stimulus.


posted by Quiddity at 1/30/2009 01:11:00 PM

Sean Hannity on the radio today:

He's celebrating pure destruction of any move to get the stimulus plan passed.

Also, lots of talk about that socalist menace, Saul Alinsky.


posted by Quiddity at 1/30/2009 12:14:00 PM

Cowardly Democrats target pariah class of cigarette smokers to pay for expanded S-CHIP ...

... instead of the wealthy. Details here.

It's also politically stupid, since a cigarette tax is an in-your-face, you-know-who-did-it, frequently experienced regressive tax that will alienate many poor smokers (c.f. the excise tax on automobile tires).

Why piss off 43 million voters?


posted by Quiddity at 1/30/2009 08:18:00 AM

Jonah Goldberg: Herbert Hoover was a philosophically aligned with the Nazis

Goldberg, in an interview about his book Liberal Fascism:

... the Nazis were in many ways picking up on ideas that first flourished in the United States under the progressives ...

Johan Goldberg, on the Glenn Beck program:

... Herbert Hoover was, in many ways, a progressive ...

Josh Marshall comments.


posted by Quiddity at 1/29/2009 12:10:00 AM

More excellent news:

A Republican congressman kowtows to Limbaugh. (He was also on Hannity today, apologizing.)


posted by Quiddity at 1/28/2009 03:08:00 PM

Depression?

Over at the Big Picture, there's an interesting post that looks at some pessimistic economic forecasts. The one that's the more optimistic (and realistic?) is the one from Merrill - but it's still bad. It says we are in a depression and it'll last until 2011. Basically, the views expressed are that anywhere from $6 to $15 trillion in debt has to leave the system before credit can work again.

If that's the case, probably all the government can do is provide a lifeline to the unemployed and businesses in distress, until the larger financal forces are played out.


posted by Quiddity at 1/28/2009 08:25:00 AM

Obama now bringing Fox News Channel into the Limbaugh-fold:

Excellent news (Ballon Juice).

A commentor writes: (emp original)

[Chris Matthews] just had a segment with Pat Buchanan and some right wing radio host I’d never heard of about Obama’s call-out of Rush Limbaugh. They all agreed that it was a horrible mistake to elevate Rush Limbaugh, and that the consequence of Obama’s comment was to make Rush Limbaugh the titular head of the Republican party.

That’s right. They said that Obama inadvertently labeled Rush the head of the Republican party, and that this was a mistake on Obama’s part. They flat-out said that Rush only says what all Republicans are thinking, but are too afraid electorally to say…and that therefore getting Rush’s words into the open would be bad for Obama.

posted by Quiddity at 1/27/2009 08:44:00 PM

They took the bait:

Last Friday, Obama was quoted as saying that the Republicans shouldn't be taking orders from Rush Limbaugh. That was something unusual for a president to say - mentioning a specific individual like that. Predictably, on Monday, Limbaugh brought it up and then pontificated about how he, Limbaugh, was going to be the voice for the opposition. That was followed by some truly inane commentary about the economy. (N.B. Limbaugh is unfamiliar with addition and subtraction.)

It's clearly in Obama's interest to bring Limbaugh, and other right-wingers like Hannity and Coulter, up front and center, and make them the face of the Republicans - not just within party circles but in the eyes of the press.

Today, in the Washington Post, we get a story that confirms this move, Is Rush Limbaugh the New Face of the GOP?

We read:

... on Monday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs offered another sly provocation of Limbaugh; asked to expand on Obama's comments about the talk show host, Gibbs demurred and then added: "Tell [Rush] I said hi."

And some Republicans are fine with this development:

"The party is in transition," said Ed Rogers, a Republican lobbyist and close ally of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. "Our leaders have not found their voice or direction....Limbaugh is filling a vacuum in a world that requires a constant media counter-point."

Others are wary: (emp add)

While there is nearly unanimous agreement with Rogers's sentiment that Limbaugh is filling a void left by the departure of former President George W. Bush from the scene, whether that is a good or a bad thing remains a point of considerable contention among party strategists.

"Rush is a double-edged sword, he cuts both ways" said Phil Musser, a Republican consultant and former executive director of the Republican Governors Association. "Sometimes you love him, sometimes you cringe at his impolitic (he'd say honest) fusillados."

John Weaver, a former senior aide to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said that Republicans must be careful not to allow their Democratic rivals to paint them all with the brush of Limbaugh.

"The Democrats and the far left will do all they can to grab electoral turf," said Weaver. "And one sure way to do it is take some of the most controversial voices on the extreme right -- like Limbaugh and [Alaska Gov. Sarah] Palin -- and try to insist they speak for all members of the center/right movement."

Forget Palin. Limbaugh is the real toxin.

A commentor in the Post story writes:

I think Obama is making a smart move here. The Republican Party is currently suffering from a leadership vaccum. One could make the argument that this leadership vacuum has existed since Katrina, when Bush's credibility and popularity began it's downhill slide.

So, much like in political campaigns, Obama is trying to define the Republican Party before they can define themselves. When people think of the Republicans, Obama doesn't want them to think of Boehner, McConnell or even Palin. He wants them to think of a fat-ass, opiate-addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host with a reputation for intolerance, negativity, and one of the largest egos in America.

Since Rush's massive ego won't allow him to think strategically on this issue, he's more than willing to play right into Obama's hand. His adoring listeners will continue to reinforce Rush's views of himself by enclosing him in a bubble of "mega-dittos" and elected Republicans will continue to appear on his show so they can kiss his ring, mostly because they still feel some debt of gratitude towards Rush for his role in the last century during the Clinton administration.

He'll continue to hog the limelight, and continue to say stupid sh*t like he's rooting for Obama to fail, except he'll probably escalate it, cause that's his M.O.. The Republicans, having lost most of their sane members over the last 8 years, will continue to play along, not realizing that most Americans want Obama to succeed in his goals of getting the economy back on track and wrapping up our foreign adventures.

posted by Quiddity at 1/27/2009 02:32:00 PM

Good news!

At the end of Bill Kristol's NYTimes op-ed:

This is William Kristol’s last column.

posted by Quiddity at 1/25/2009 10:09:00 PM

Unbelievable:

In Sunday's column, Frank Rich links to a story where we read:

In 2008, the average credit card balance was $11,212, according to CardTrak.com.

With a balance of $11K, and an APR rate of 15%*, we're talking $140 per month in interest charges. But any slippage in payments and the APR typically jumps to 29%, which would mean a monthly interest-only payment of $265, which is serious money for most people.

The thing is, people can probably manage a "maintenance level of debt" by only paying the interest, but to pay down the debt or deal with an increase of debt (through more buying) is much harder. Lots of people are stuck in this economy with a locked-in drain from their purchasing power. That will make any consumer driven recovery much more difficult to achieve.

* I have excellent credit, never miss a payment, pay off the full amount every month, and that's the interest rate I get from Wells Fargo for purchases (it's a higher 21% for cash advances).


posted by Quiddity at 1/25/2009 05:10:00 AM

No answer:

William Saletan asks:

Should parents go to jail for believing so devoutly in faith healing that they don't seek lifesaving medical treatment for their children?

He doesn't give a straightforward answer to that question. All he ends up is concluding that parents should take their ill children to the doctor; that his application of faith results in that preferred outcome.

Good comment in message thread here.


posted by Quiddity at 1/22/2009 01:48:00 PM

Tom Tomorrow's list:

Hard to disagree with any of them, with the possible exception of #9 (which is so fantastic that it's difficult to believe they'd risk it).


posted by Quiddity at 1/22/2009 01:21:00 PM

Best example of Limbaugh insanity yet:

Summarized at Political Animal (Washington Monthly) here.

Limbaugh wants Obama to fail and he wants liberalism to fail because he asserts that liberalism is "our problem".

But if Obama/liberalism succeeds, then liberalism isn't "our problem". It's what we should be pursuing.

So all that Limbaugh is saying is that he wants liberalism to fail merely because he doesn't like it - not because it works or not. That is the essence of right-wing thought.


posted by Quiddity at 1/22/2009 08:24:00 AM

New York Times goes easy on Geithner:

From their editorial (emp add):

For Treasury Secretary ...

[During the Senate confirmation process] we heard nothing disqualifying. He is clearly an intelligent man and Mr. Obama is entitled to pick his own team. ...

We still don’t have a clear picture of Mr. Geithner’s role — as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for the past five years — in the decisions to bail out Bear Stearns, the American International Group and Citigroup, or the decision to let Lehman Brothers go under. ...

At the hearing, Mr. Geithner was unchallenged when he said that the disastrous collapse of Lehman Brothers last September occurred because the government had no legal authority to intervene. That narrative surfaced weeks after the collapse and contradicts explanations given at the time. ...

The entire Obama economic team earned their stripes — for good and more often ill — during the deregulatory and self-regulatory efforts of the 1990s and this decade.

Not encouraging.


posted by Quiddity at 1/22/2009 07:22:00 AM

No surprise:

The fact that Chief Justice Roberts screwed up the swearing-in does not surprise me in the least. He never came off as smart during the hearings when he was appointed. He mostly smiles a lot and repeats conservative dogma. At the Supreme Court, with his staff, he can write stuff that sound intelligent. But as a person, he's a mediocrity.


posted by Quiddity at 1/20/2009 09:07:00 PM

Will Limbaugh stumble?

This morning Limbaugh was talking about Obama and in doing so, brought in a lot of racial language and politics. Stuff like, "We're being told we have to support this guy because his father was black." And he also mentioned some other black dude who was saying that since Obama didn't have "slave blood" that this country hasn't truly gotten over its racist heritage. There was no overriding point to all that Limbautg said (at least to my ears), but race was the topic du jour.

Maybe this is just a one-day affair, but if Limbaugh makes race the nexus of his show, he may very well go too far one day and get into hot water. Really hot.


posted by Quiddity at 1/19/2009 12:18:00 PM

One last day of Bush as president:

What a relief.

About the only thing left for the guy is to issue pardons.


posted by Quiddity at 1/19/2009 06:38:00 AM

Smart guy:

I've always been impressed with Steven Eisman (e.g. on the Charlie Rose show). Today, Tom Freedman quotes him at length:

“I wish people would stop saying that this is a crisis of confidence,” said Steven Eisman, a portfolio manager and banking expert at FrontPoint Partners. “The loss of confidence is just a symptom of bad credit and over-leverage. The banks are not lending because they know their balance sheets are loaded with future losses and they don’t have enough capital. The TARP gave them preferred equity, which is nothing more than a bridge loan. We need the government to force the banks to write down all their bad assets now and then recapitalize themselves, preferably with private capital. Those banks that cannot raise sufficient capital should be seized and their deposits sold off.”

Pace Eisman, the top person at Citigroup, Vikram Pandit, was saying last year (again, on the Charlie Rose show) that the banking problem was merely a crisis of confidence.


posted by Quiddity at 1/18/2009 04:11:00 AM

Polarizer:

Ann Coulter has a new bestselling book out, Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America. It's standard Coulter crap.

But get a load of the distribution of the customer reviews:

Talk about bimodal.

With a response pattern like that, you can be pretty sure nobody's mind is changed by her book. So maybe liberals should relax and let Coulter be the polarizing figure who helps sustain the current national consensus regarding Republicans and Democrats (which is pro-Democrat on the whole).


posted by Quiddity at 1/17/2009 01:11:00 PM

It was clear Bush was dim before he became president:

Jacob Weisberg presents his top 25 Bushisms of all time. Of interest is that 10 of the 25 were from the year 2000 (before the election).


posted by Quiddity at 1/15/2009 03:19:00 PM

Republican stimulus plan won't stimulate:

But it will make the economically secure better off.

Via Matt, this from Armbinder:

• cut marginal income tax rates across the board by five percent
• increase the child tax credit to $5000
• make the 15% capital gains and dividends tax rate permanent
• repeal the AMT on individuals
• cut the top corporate tax rate bracket by ten percentage points
• end the capital gains tax on inflation

Republicans will say that this is designed to stimulate the economy but the evidence is that it won't (or will be of minimal value). But "cutting taxes is good for everyone in the economy" is a standard refrain that's not challenged in the press. So Republicans get credit for "caring" about those in financial distress, even though their real agenda is to enrich their supporters.

More on this (an analysis of the Heritage Foundation's proposals failure to do much good) here.


posted by Quiddity at 1/14/2009 01:42:00 PM

Charles Fried is wrong:

He writes in the New York Times about possible trials for Bush administration staff vis-a-vis the torture issue: (emp add)

... our leaders were defending their country and people — albeit with an insufficient sense of moral restraint — against a terrifying threat by ruthless attackers with no sense of moral restraint at all.

After 9/11, there was no risk of a terrifying attack. What happened on 9/11 was that a bunch of people, with no weaponry of their own and limited resources, managed to exploit a vulnerability (cockpit cabin doors) and turn airliners into missles. That vulnerability was subsequently closed, leaving the wannabe terrorists with the old stock in trade: suicide bombing and random bombs in subways. While that's bad, it is in no way on the level of a "terrifying attack" on the nation.


posted by Quiddity at 1/12/2009 09:34:00 PM

Bush's final presser:

What an incredibly lazy, tired, I-don't-give-a-damn performance. With a streak of defensive anger ("I wouldn't do X, Y, or Z, just to be popular.")


posted by Quiddity at 1/12/2009 06:26:00 AM

It's rational for the economically secure to oppose sacrifice for an economic recovery:

I was going to write a long post about this, and may in the coming days, but wanted to get this out now.

What crystalized this thought was listening to an NPR interview with Mitch McConnell on Friday. He was very lukewarm to Obama's recovery plan but was very much in favor of lower taxes.

The tax cuts that McConnell wants won't do much for the economy. So you might say, why isn't McConnell in favor of policy moves that restart the economy? But McConnell is representing the interests of the rich, the comfortable, and those with well-paying secure jobs. They aren't getting unemployment insurance. They can afford healthcare. Why the rush to recovery? Especially if it means highr taxes (now or down the road as a response to deficits).

These people can actually be better off in a recession because they have buying power when everyone else has none (check out the prices of automobiles). And wealth is a relative concept. With more people being thrown out of homes and losing jobs, those left standing perceive their status as enhanced and like it just fine. In fact, look at some other countries where there is a fairly secure upper class. Are they in favor of redistribution if it would lead to a stronger economy? Not if it means taxes. And so the reform/recovery never takes place.

Don't be fooled. The Republicans, for the most part, have no interest in getting the economy moving again. For them, neo-Hooverite policies are just what's called for.


posted by Quiddity at 1/11/2009 08:48:00 AM

Washington Post's jihad against Social Security:

Fred Hiatt is working hard. Look what was in the paper three days in a row.

• Wednesday (article): ... mounting debt has raised an alarm on Capitol Hill, where some Republicans and moderate Democrats are pressing Obama to tackle the looming challenge of skyrocketing Medicare and Social Security spending, and to adopt tough new budget rules to prevent future deficits from ballooning.
  
  
• Thrsday (editorial): Over the long run, investors will finance the U.S. government at reasonable rates only if it tackles its huge unfunded health-care and pension commitments. Unchecked, the cost of providing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to 77 million retiring baby boomers could push the debt-to-GDP ratio up to nearly 300 percent by 2050, according to a December 2007 CBO report.
  
  
• Friday (editorial): As Mr. Obama knows, the deficit would still be immense even if he eliminated all the waste he could find. A truly "unprecedented" effort would be one that attacked the structural threats to the federal government's solvency: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

H/T: Dean Baker has been monitoring the Washington Post (and the New York Times) for instances where the basically sound Social Security program is lumped with Medicare and Medicaid in order to make the federal retirement insurance program look bad.


posted by Quiddity at 1/08/2009 11:05:00 PM

Obama plants a flag in the time period of Bush's presidency:

Obama went out today and said the economic situation is bad. He forecast substantial unemployment and big deficits. It was gloomy news all around.

Part of the address was to get people thinking about his plan for recovery, but another aspect is that by saying what's going to happen now, before he's inaugurated, Obama is packing future bad news into the conceptual framework of Bush's presidency. To the extent that it works, it lessens the blame he'd otherwise get with a two year recession.

This guy's a good politician.


posted by Quiddity at 1/08/2009 10:57:00 PM

Murdoch-ized?

Why is Alexis Glick, Fox Business News anchor, on CBS' Early Show with Harry Smith, discussing the economy and Obama's recovery plan?

Doesn't CBS have their own reporters?


posted by Quiddity at 1/08/2009 07:09:00 AM

I predict a content crisis:

Newspapers are taking it on the chin (paper editions). Internet advertising revenue cannot compensate. DRM is out for digital audio, so copying will increase (and purchases will decline). It's going to be extremely difficult for content providers (news, music, entertainment) to get paid for what they do. There are some technical approaches that can help somewhat, like when you have to look at an ad page on the Internet before reading a story or entering a domain, but it's not clear that's enough.

With the Internet and digital technology practically making all content free, how long can that situation last?

I see big problems for all content developers and providers within the next five years. The outcome could be dismal: limited original reporting, less news, less quality content of all types. (There will always be scruffy bloggers and places like FaceBook, but that's virtually all amateur and low-quality.)


posted by Quiddity at 1/08/2009 04:36:00 AM

Re Ann Coulter:

If conservatives want her to be their public face, it's fine with me.

AND: I have no problem with more Joe the Plumber exposure.


posted by Quiddity at 1/07/2009 12:43:00 PM

Here's where Democrats piss me off:

In order to fund the S-CHIP program, Democrats will increase the tax on the "pariah class" of citizens who smoke cigarettes.

This will impact 45 million smokers and it's a tax that is very visible - noticed every time a (frequent) purchase is made. The tax is extremely regressive given the demographics of smokers and it isn't for smoking-related healh costs (which the current federal+state taxes already cover).

It's a pure moralist pose. And I don't like it.

Reminds me of a (failed) proposal by a California state legislator who wanted to increase taxes on beer and pornography. This taxing of the reprobrate is a coward's move. No guts to tax wealth (e.g. property) or income. Screw that.

How is Democrats targeting cigarette smokers for moral reasons any different than Republicans opposing gay-marriage for moral reasons?


posted by Quiddity at 1/07/2009 07:08:00 AM

A little over eight years ago:

John Bolton and John Yoo were in the thick of the Bush vs. Gore post-election fight. Yoo was on the news shows opining on what the Florida Supreme Court should do. Bolton was challenging chads.

Most people think of Boldon and Yoo as foreign-policy types and therefore, their op-ed in the New York Times is some sort of high-minded talk about proper inter-government relations. That's false. Bolton and Yoo only want to reduce Obama's freedom of action.


posted by Quiddity at 1/05/2009 09:55:00 PM

Consider the source:

In a Bloomberg story, Fed Officials Endorse ‘Big Stimulus’ to Battle U.S. Recession, we read: (emp add)

Federal Reserve officials, after taking the historic step of cutting the benchmark interest rate to as low as zero, are calling for greater government spending to help revive the U.S. economy.

San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen said yesterday at an economics conference in San Francisco that “it’s worth pulling out all the stops” with an economic recovery package. Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Fed, told the same gathering he believes a “big stimulus is appropriate.”

Janet Yellen is not anybody you'd want to pay attention to.

From this blog's June post from last year:

Ben Bernanke (via Calculated Risk): (emp add)

Although the severity of the financial stresses became apparent only in August, several longer-term developments served as prologue for the recent turmoil and helped bring us to the current situation.

The first of these was the U.S. housing boom, which began in the mid-1990s and picked up steam around 2000. Between 1996 and 2005, house prices nationwide increased about 90 percent. During the years from 2000 to 2005 alone, house prices increased by roughly 60 percent--far outstripping the increases in incomes and general prices ...

Janet Yelen of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (in her October 2007 speech at the Omni hotel in Los Angeles, printed in the Winter 2007 edition of the Town Hall Journal - not affiliated with townhall.com): (emp add)

Here in California, the rise and fall of house prices has been a lot like the nation's, only more so. In 2004 and 2005, many homeowners gleeflully watched the meter tick up and up on their house values. I know I did.

Yellen was a cheerleader of the housing bubble. She should not be a Fed president. She should not be giving advice on financial policy. She should resign. (So should Bernanke, et al)


posted by Quiddity at 1/05/2009 12:01:00 AM

Cheney: "not impeached" = it's legal

From his appearance on Face the Nation this Sunday:

CHENEY: If you hark back in our history, you can look at Abraham Lincoln, who suspended the writ of habeas corpus in the middle of the Civil War.

SCHIEFFER: But nobody thinks that that was legal.

CHENEY: Well, no. Well, it certainly was, in the sense he wasn’t impeached.

ALSO: (emp add)

CHENEY: I think we’ve done some very good things over the course of the last eight years. Defending the country against further terrorist attacks like 9/11, I think, is a major accomplishment, for example.

posted by Quiddity at 1/04/2009 03:38:00 PM

Safe:

From page 2 of the White House's Highlights of Accomplishments and Results (of) The Administration of President George W. Bush 2001-2009 (15 meg pdf)



That optics of this (along with the section title) is horrible.

ALSO: From page 17:

When our Nation faced an unprecedented inancial crisis in September,the President called for an unprecedented response.He rallied Members of Congress to enact a $700 billion rescue plan to avert a global financial meltdown.

He was hardly a player. It was all Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke (and Congress).

From page 18:

After-tax per-capita income increased 12 ercent from 2000 o 2007.

That's almost certainly not inflation-adjusted.

Page 25 consists of only this picture:



Lurid.

Page 28:

The President worked to protect our forests.Forest Initiative. This initiative improved and protected more than 27 million acres of Federal forests and grasslands and helped protect communities from catastrophic fires.

In other words, if you chop down a lot of trees, there's a lower chance of a catastrophic fire.

Page 50:

Directed Unprecedented Preparations for a Smooth Presidential Transition
Led the most comprehensive and forward-leaning effort in modern history to facilitate a smooth and effective transition.

That last item is like a student padding a report by saying that the report was put in a binder.


posted by Quiddity at 1/04/2009 12:15:00 AM