Jonathan Chait is surprised at Obama's negotiating over taxes:

Some weeks ago Chait argued that Obama had learned his lesson during the 2011 debt ceiling fight and would bargain tough with Republicans this time over the fiscal cliff (sorry, can't find the link to that essay).

At the time, it seemed a little naive of Chait, since Obama has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to "pre-concede" to Republicans. Frequently, the only thing stopping a bum deal from going through was Republican opposition - usually from hard-line Tea Party types.

Now the focus is on the fiscal cliff and tax rates. Chait has written that Obama should take advantage of his tactical position, let the Bush rates expire, and work from there.

But that's not what we've been reading lately. Chait now reassesses:

Why Is Obama Caving on Taxes?

Excerpt:

The discouraging thing about the “fiscal cliff” negotiations is not that they have gone into the eleventh hour, or that they may go into the new year, or even that they won’t resolve the long-term budget deficit. It’s that President Obama has retreated on his hard line on taxes. ...

Now, by all accounts, Obama is prepared to extend the Bush tax cuts up to $400,000 a year. Or maybe more. ...

The erosion signals not only a major substantive problem in its own right, but it also raises disturbing questions about Obama’s ability to handle his entire second term agenda.

The odd thing about the retreat is that Republicans had all but conceded eventual defeat on the issue. ...

What happened? The administration’s line seems to be that Senate Democrats undercut, or were going to undercut, Obama’s position. ...

... if Obama fears trying to hold a line that Senate Democrats have abandoned, it’s just as likely they fear the same about him. Obama’s history of foolish negotiating with the Republican Congress gave Democrats every reason to fear he might fail to hold firm on his own line — the burden lay with Obama to prove otherwise. And two weeks ago, when Obama made a concession to Boehner that he would let the Bush tax rates stay in place on income up to $400,000, he gave them every reason to doubt him.

... the effect of Obama’s concession to Boehner — which of course went unrequited — was to reset the tax debate at a new, more GOP-friendly level.

Worse, exposing Obama’s willingness to move his seemingly unmovable demand emboldened Republicans to demand even more. If they could push the line to $400,000, why not $500,000? Maybe cut Social Security too?The negotiating style Obama has displayed in these instances is what poker players call “tight-weak.” A tight-strong player avoids throwing in his chips, saving them for a big hand, which he plays aggressively in hopes of a huge win. A loose-weak player plays lots of hands, bluffing frequently. Tight-weak is the worst of all worlds — when you have a weak hand, you lose, and when you have a strong hand, you fail to maximize your position.

... the tax cuts are the one area where he enjoys overwhelming leverage over the Republicans. Their only threat is to block extension of tax cuts on income under $250,000, a wildly unpopular stance countless Republicans have acknowledged they could not sustain for long without courting an enormous public backlash. This is the hand where Obama needed to collect all the chips.

Instead he is allowing Republicans to whittle down the sum by essentially threatening to shoot themselves in the head. And this is the most ominous thing about it. The big meta question looming over Obama’s term is whether he has learned to grapple with Republican political hostage-taking. Hostage-taking is not simply aggressive or even irrational negotiating. It is the specific tactic of extracting concessions by threatening to withhold support for policies you yourself endorse, simply because your opponent cares more about the damage. Republicans agree that the debt ceiling must be lifted, but forced Obama to offer them policies he opposed because they believed he cared more about damage to the country than they did.

Obama claims, and seems to genuinely believe, that he won’t let Republicans jack him up over the debt ceiling again. But if Republicans could hold the middle class tax cuts hostage, they’ll try to hold the debt ceiling hostage. Indeed, they will probably discover other areas of traditionally routine policy agreement that can be turned into extortion opportunities.

Obama may think his conciliatory approach has helped avoid economic chaos. Instead, he is courting it.

This episode is not over yet, but it does appear that Obama's Ahab-like obsession with cutting a deal makes him a poor bargainer. There have been a number of theories as to why this is so. They are mostly psychological profiles, and somewhat speculative. But the bottom line is that Obama does not come off as a strong fighter for core Democratic party principles. It's been a source of frustration for liberals, and will likely be that way for the next four years.

UPDATE: Chait Tweets:




posted by Quiddity at 12/31/2012 09:40:00 AM

What will the NRA do?

These were Bob Schieffer's remarks on CBS This Morning on Thursday, Dec. 20:

I think one of the things this hinges on, what tact the National Rifle Association will take tomorrow when it holds its news conference. Somehow or another it seems to me this debate has to focus on putting common sense back into all of this. We don't ban cars, we have speed limits. There's a reason you can drive 75 miles an hour in the open desert and a reason we drive 25 miles an hour when we're in a school zone. It seems to me, if we could approach this in that way we could do something to at least make it harder for deranged people to get their hands on such weapons with such killing power. I'm waiting to see what the National Rifle Association will take tomorrow. If they bend somewhat I think they can play a very constructive role. But I think we're going to have to see what they say.

Now that the NRA has spoken out, calling  for armed security guards in schools and decrying "gun free zones", let's see if ol' Bob Shieffer will say if that's a "common sense" approach to the issue or not when he interviews someone from the NRA this coming Sunday.



posted by Quiddity at 12/21/2012 10:32:00 AM

Remember this:

Rumblings about a potential deal Obama may strike with Republicans:

---

On Tuesday afternoon, HuffPost asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney what Democrats who promised not to touch Social Security would tell their constituents if they voted for Obama's proposal.

"Let's be clear: This is something that the Republicans have asked for and as part of an effort to find common ground with Republicans, the president has agreed to put this in his proposal," replied Carney. "He has agreed to have this as part of a broad deficit reduction package that includes asking the wealthiest to pay more so that we can achieve the kind of revenue targets that are necessary to a balanced approach to deficit reduction."
---

They asked for something.  Common ground.

What emerges could end up being extremely volatile. Expect a war between the "establishment" and the rest of us.



posted by Quiddity at 12/18/2012 10:08:00 PM

Bad logic:

I have been following this closely, particularly the reaction and arguments from the "pro gun" side. They are literally insane, in that their reasoning is entirely fallacious. One of their favorite tricks is to examine a particular case (like the one in Connecticut) and either claim that gun restrictions could have been evaded, or alternatively, that there is a scenario where Rambo steps in and stops the crime. But in life things are rarely so cleanly cause-and-effect, which is why aggregate numbers (aka statistics) are the proper way to determine what works or not. The record is clear. In places (like Australia) where semi-automatic rifles and pistols are banned - along with a substantial buy-back program - homicides decline substantially.



posted by Quiddity at 12/16/2012 09:29:00 AM

This was posted on July 20 of this year:

Garance Franke-Ruta on the recent news:

The age of new media being now well-established, it goes a little something like this:

First we get the shaky camera phone videos and the tweets. Then the distraught eyewitness interviews and 911 call recording. Quickly, the shooter is identified. Politicians issue statements of shock and sorrow. The shooter's parents, if interviewed, are confused and abashed or else hide. The social media forensics begin. People with the same or a similar name as the shooter are harassed. There is speculation he is part of a right-wing group, or an Islamic terrorist, or a former Army veteran. The FBI and the armed forces check their records and issue denials or confirmations. Calls for better gun control efforts are issued once again. Defenders of the Second Amendment fight back immediately, or even pre-emptively. The victims of the shooting are blamed in social media for being where they were attacked. More eye-witness interviews. The shooter's parents are castigated. Survivors speak. Warning signs are identified as the alleged shooter's past is plumbed. We ask if violent movies are to blame for his actions. Or cuts to mental-health services. And talk about what kind of country we are, if we have culture of violence. The death toll fluctuates. International voices from countries where guns are heavily regulated shake their heads at us. People leave piles of flowers and teddy bears at the shooting site. There are candlelight vigils, and teary memorials. Everyone calls for national unity and a moment of togetherness. Eventually, the traumatized community holds a big healing ceremony. It is moving, and terribly sad, and watched by millions on TV or online. A few activists continue to make speeches. The shooter, if still alive, rapidly is brought to trial. There is another wave of public discussion about our failures, and the nature of evil. Politicians make feints at gun-law changes, which fail. And then everyone forgets and moves on. Everyone, that is, except the survivors.

Until the country want's to push back against the NRA and others in that camp, this will continue.



posted by Quiddity at 12/14/2012 01:28:00 PM

Illinois ban on carrying concealed weapons overturned:

posted by Quiddity at 12/12/2012 02:43:00 PM

No "false equivalency" at CBS Evening News:

No equivalency at all.  In a report on Michigan's Right to Work law, there was this graphic.




That came from the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, a staunchly anti-union organization (and they say so on their website).

But no equivalent graphic of income or benefits from a pro-union outfit.



posted by Quiddity at 12/12/2012 10:20:00 AM

Right wing radio on unions:



posted by Quiddity at 12/11/2012 08:02:00 PM

An insight to the Obama administration thinking about the economy:

From an interview at the Washington Post: (emp add)

Ezra Klein: My experience is that the very rich are open to higher taxes in the context of a deficit deal....But they don't like the idea that their money should be redistributed simply because they have too much of it....And so that's part of the tension: They don't like why Obama is raising their taxes. And they certainly don't like the lack of admiration he's showing while trying to do it. They see it as punishing their success.

Chrystia Freeland: I completely agree. I think Obama and the economists around him have a very sophisticated understanding of both globalization and the technology revolution and the impact they're having on the world economy and the way they're creating these winner-take-all spirals. The positive scenario, which I think is a bit pollyannaish, is all you need to do is improve the education system and change the skill set and all will be well. And even that takes a lot of investment and a lot of time. But there's actually the possibility that in order to have a healthy middle class, you're going to need to have a more redistributive society, at least for awhile.

If the Obama administration sees globalization contributing to winner-take-all and other pathologies, they are embarking on the wrong approach with redistribution. Their neo-liberal solution is to let the market work pretty much without restraint and at the end of the day provide financial assistance to the economic losers. This can, over time, lead to something called "pity charity liberalism" which is described as "[giving] some sort of ex post compensation for brute bad luck instead of giving workers agency or power". That is very bad politics, unsustainable, and wickedly hard to calculate.

A better approach would include measures to wall-off those elements of globalization that diminish domestic labor's economic power. One is tariffs. That puts the compensation up-front in the process, with industries paying workers higher wages because there is no outsourcing/imports escape hatch.

Regarding the "pollyannish" notion that all this country needs is a better educated workforce, that's been the common refrain for a couple of decades from people like Steve and Cokie Roberts, and has been show to be wildly off the mark as developing nations produce just as many skilled workers with which to compete.



posted by Quiddity at 11/29/2012 09:52:00 AM

The 2012 election two weeks later:

The re-election of Obama and the gain in Senate seats by Democrats has definitely shaken up conservatives. There have been many lamentations about how the country is headed for the toilet, that the voters were bribed - or stupid. And a casting around for a quick fix (e.g. immigration reform).

The Republican party, by so securely tying itself to a diminishing demographic, is in trouble.

Reading the remarks by prominent right wing bloggers and listening to various right wing radio hosts, they are, at least for now, totally unwilling to change their policies and politics. Yet it does seem as if their time is passing, if not already past.

They come off much like monarchists lamenting the end of the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

There were monarchists for a few decades after World War I, but they eventually dwindled to almost zero and never had a chance of getting their way.

Unless the Republicans make a big move away from their current policy/demographic mix, they risk the same future.



posted by Quiddity at 11/21/2012 01:53:00 PM

The 2012 election aftermath:

It's still a little early to be making a full assessment, but the 2012 election seems to have really shocked Republicans and their conservative allies. Many of them are lamenting that the country is not center-right, as they had been led to believe, and is now center-left. Also, that the country is headed for severe decline with the "takers" now in control (and who will tax the "makers").

Much of that is due to the fact that the election was incorrectly declared to be "the most significant of our time" and that Obama was hell-bent on bringing socialism - or worse - to these shores. That's nuts, since Obama is in the mold of a centrist Democrat or moderate Republican. But that doesn't capture audiences and so the extreme portrayal won out.

A few days ago Peggy Noonan wrote that back in 2009, the Tea Party did Republicans a favor (!) by not starting a third party but this year they were a hindrance, what with candidates like Richard Mourdoch losing a safe senate seat in Indiana, and a general hostility to entitlements that many Americans support.

The Tea Party was, and remains, bad news for the Republicans. Instead of starting a third party, which might have faded away, the Tea Party contingent (which is very connected with what David Frum calls the "conservative entertainment complex") took over the Republican party. Or at least has parity with the establishment/business wing. Their extreme candidates have lost at least four senate seats in the last two years. They have cowed other Republicans who are scared of a primary challenge, like the ones that unseated Robert Bennett of Utah and Richard Lugar of Indiana. They are ideological and cannot compromise on anything. The recent talk that what they do is "constitutional", and by implication what others want to do is unconstitutional and hence invalid-on-first-principles shows the contempt for the democratic process. Their notion of bipartisanship was to have Democrats concede everything.

How much of this is a reaction to Obama, the man, is debatable. Racial animus does not appear to be the primary motivation, although there will always be Limbaugh and Drudge to use that angle on a subset of voters. But what is clear is that there was a last-gasp attempt to undo the New Deal and Great Society (the latter mainly civil rights and Medicare) while there was a chance. There was a chance this year, but it was always a bit of a long shot. And that effort failed.

It's not clear what will happen next. There is the usual big talk about shutting down businesses or leaving the country, but for most of the Tea Party crowd, that's not an option. Instead, they will be watching Hannity and others push for immigration reform and other intensely disliked policies. That will further alienate them and it wouldn't be a surprise to see that they retreat from politics for a decade or more.
posted by Quiddity at 11/12/2012 11:06:00 AM

The picture says more than the title:

Romney looks pretty worn out.


posted by Quiddity at 11/05/2012 09:21:00 PM

2012 Presidential election prediction:

These look like the reasonably secure states for both candidates. Not sure about New Hampshire or Virginia (shown as undecided in map)




posted by Quiddity at 11/05/2012 08:46:00 PM

From Romney's speech today:

You know that if the President is re-elected, he will still be unable to work with the people in Congress. ... The debt ceiling will come up again, and shutdown and default will be threatened, chilling the economy.

When cooperation is required for essential government activities, and one party refuses to cooperate and blames the other party for that failure, it is politically effective if nobody is aware of the details.

Two problems:

• The press doesn't do a good job of informing the public.
• A lot of the public gets their news from misleading sources (e.g. Fox News Channel).

posted by Quiddity at 11/02/2012 03:35:00 PM

Chris Christie's positive statements about Obama on several television interviews yesterday:


What Christie did was inoculate Obama from whatever minor screw-ups that take place in the next week. There will be a failure to get resources somewhere, which is inevitable in situations following a huge storm, but Christie's grand statement of praise speaks to the larger view.

Christie also undercuts Romney's persistent charge that Obama isn't a leader. What does a leader do? One thing is help expedite lower-level agencies and set them on the right path. Christie said that's what Obama did.

Right wing radio is countering by bringing up Benghazi: If he's so on the ball with Sandy, why did he mess up with Benghazi. That's not going to work with constant pictures of flooded subways, downed trees, boats on dry land, and damage along the shore. The visuals - and there are literally millions of them - will be the focus by the media for quite some time.


posted by Quiddity at 10/31/2012 01:26:00 PM

This has been obvious for some time now:

Ezra Klein tells us:

Mitch McConnell and John Boehner’s strategy worked

I’ve spent the morning reading various endorsements of Mitt Romney for president, and they all say the same thing: Mitch McConnell and John Boehner’s strategy worked.  

Okay, that’s not quite how they put it. But it’s precisely what they show. In endorsement after endorsement, the basic argument is that President Obama hasn’t been able to persuade House or Senate Republicans to work with him. If Obama is reelected, it’s a safe bet that they’ll continue to refuse to work with him. So vote Romney! 

That’s not even a slight exaggeration. Take the Des Moines Register, Iowa’s largest and most influential paper. They endorsed Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, and Barack Obama in 2008. But this year, they endorsed Romney. 

Why? In the end, they said, it came down to a simple test. “Which candidate could forge the compromises in Congress to achieve these goals? When the question is framed in those terms, Mitt Romney emerges the stronger candidate.”

Klein goes on to cite other editorials that share that view.  It has been abundantly clear that obstructionism works if nobody calls attention to it.  And nobody does.  The press has largely abandoned that role of informing people about why things are the way they are.  The Obama administration hasn't complained all that much, given its peculiar obsession with bipartisanship and finding common ground.

Of interest, the op-ed and book that came out in May of this year by Mann and Ornstein - two fair minded observers - made the case that what has happened in recent years is the ascent of a radical Republican politics.  And after the book came out, were they invited to the Sunday shows?  No.  Are they cited anywhere?  No.  Part of that is because their book is an implicit criticism of the press' failure to highlight this change in the Republican party, and the press will ignore criticism of what they do.
posted by Quiddity at 10/31/2012 01:02:00 AM

David Brooks writes a column about why Romney is better than Obama:

 He says that because the Republicans in the House will oppose Obama, but Democrats in the Senate (and Republicans in the House) will work with Romney, that Romney should be president. That's triggered a lot of responses. Kevin Drum says it amounts to giving in to hostage-takers. Over at Twitter, there is this slew of tweets from Jamelle Bouie (that also review Brooks' earlier endorsements):







Optimus Prime is  is a character from the Transformers franchise.






This is the head for Brooks' Salon article:

George W. Bush should be president
Forget his image as a callous, empty-headed frat boy. People like him, and that means he'll attract and retain the best minds.









posted by Quiddity at 10/30/2012 05:35:00 AM

Romney and charitable giving:

This is a moderately complicated report from Bloomberg about how Romney's "giving" to one particular charity was essentially a means of evading capital gains taxes.  If the charitable trust is set up just right, and it appears to the case for Romney, then the end result is a complete payback to Romney of the gift plus whatever growth occurred.  What does the charity get?  Close to nothing.

posted by Quiddity at 10/29/2012 10:58:00 AM

Rupert Murdoch tweets:




Public figures can parade their families, automobiles, books they've read, and lots of other things.  It does not mean that they have therefore surrendered the going's on within their household.




posted by Quiddity at 10/22/2012 07:02:00 AM

Fox Nation goes all out against Biden:







posted by Quiddity at 10/12/2012 08:03:00 AM

Remember when George W. Bush was criticized for not engaging the press?

Many on the left did. Now it's time to acknowledge that our guy is just as bad. Case in point, Dana Milbank's column:

Obama pays price for ducking the questions  

Barack Obama received a valuable reminder in his drubbing at Wednesday night’s debate: He is a president, not a king. In the hours after the Republican challenger Mitt Romney embarrassed the incumbent in their first meeting, Obama loyalists expressed puzzlement that the incumbent had done badly. But Obama has only himself to blame, because he set himself up for Wednesday’s emperor-has-no-clothes moment. For the past four years, he has worked assiduously to avoid being questioned, maintaining a regal detachment from the media and other sources of dissent and skeptical inquiry.

Obama has set a modern record for refusal to be quizzed by the media, taking questions from reporters far less often than Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and even George W. Bush. Though his opponent in 2008 promised to take questions from lawmakers like the British prime minister does, Obama has shied from mixing it up with members of Congress, too.

Towson University political scientist Martha Kumar, who keeps a running tally of Obama’s media appearances, tells me he has had 19 solo news conferences in the White House as of Sept. 30. That compares to 26 for Ronald Reagan at the same point in his presidency, 59 for George H.W. Bush, and 31 for Bill Clinton. Obama had more formal news conferences than George W. Bush (13), but Bush engaged in many more informal Q&A sessions with reporters: 340 at this stage in his presidency to Obama’s 105. (Clinton had 585 at this point, the elder Bush had 309 and Reagan had 135.)

Obama hasn’t held a full-fledged news conference at the White House since March. After a Cabinet meeting in July, a reporter tried to ask him whether new gun laws were needed after the Colorado shooting — and Obama brushed off the inquiry with a joke.

In lieu of taking hard questions, Obama has opted for gauzy, soft-focus interviews with the likes of “Entertainment Tonight,” gentle appearances on late-night comedy shows, kid-glove satellite hits with regional TV stations, and joint appearances with the first lady where questions are certain to be gentle. Tough questions are rare in one-on-one interviews, because Obama has more control over the topic — and the interviewer wants to be invited back.

Engaging with Republican lawmakers is a waste of time, especially after they declared 100% opposition to Obama's agenda. But dealing with the press is another matter.

Obama has received surprisingly little criticism from the left on his remoteness from anything other than set-piece oratory.  Not that Obama would have changed, since he's demonstrated a stubbornness that will not be swayed (e.g. thinking that he can heal the partisanship and secure a Grand Bargain).
posted by Quiddity at 10/07/2012 01:20:00 AM

First debate summary:

Obama is not a detail man,  Never was.

Sure, Obama looked like he was in command of the facts compared to George W. Bush and John McCain, but so would most anybody.

Obama is a high-concept, broad-brush kind of guy.  Witness the hands-off approach to policy development during 2009 for health care legislation.  For a while he pretty much let Max Baucus run with the ball (partly on delusional bipartisan goals).

He's never been good in debates and should have prepared for an aggressive Romney, who was quite visible during the Republican debates.



posted by Quiddity at 10/05/2012 02:57:00 AM

For those right wingers who are beginning to complain about Romney ...

... not being conservative enough, consider these points made by Ronald Brownstein ("His Original Sin"): (emp add)

Of all Romney’s primary-season decisions, the most damaging was his choice to repel the challenges from Perry and Gingrich by attacking them from the right—and using immigration as his cudgel. That process led Romney to embrace a succession of edgy, conservative positions anathema to many Hispanics, including denouncing Texas for providing in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants; praising Arizona’s immigration-enforcement law; and, above all, promising to make life so difficult for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants that they would “self-deport.”
...
a second early decision has greatly compounded that challenge. Through the primaries, Romney embraced an unreservedly conservative social agenda (such as defunding Planned Parenthood and allowing employers to deny contraception coverage in health insurance plans), especially after Santorum emerged as his principal rival.
...
His decision, when the nomination was almost sealed, to embrace a 20 percent cut in marginal tax rates ...
...
Romney also fatefully dismissed criticism from other Republicans about his experience at Bain Capital as an attack on free enterprise rather than develop a more specific response to the allegations about his business record.

A tough stance on immigration, limited concern for womens rights, and extreme capitalism are all part of the right-wing policy mix. It's what Romney is out there selling (although with a lighter touch most recently). The charge that Romney will lose because he wasn't conservative enough is not credible.

It's true that some of Romney's positions emerged as a tactical response to challengers (Perry, Gingrich, Santorum), but that hardly matters. He took those positions and made them his own and the face of his campaign.  Oh yeah, and then there's the selection of Paul Ryan this summer.


posted by Quiddity at 9/29/2012 03:34:00 AM

Is the GOP still a national party?


posted by Quiddity at 9/26/2012 02:39:00 AM

Jennifer Rubin delivers the optimism:

In her latest upbeat column about Romney, she writes:

With regard to message, conservatives have worried that Romney has gotten off track or isn’t seizing opportunities swiftly or aggressively enough, while the wrong track/right trap gap closes for the president. Gillespie says this is a function of the leftover warm and fuzzy feeling from the convention. He argues there is no outside factors that will sustain that sentiment, pointing to a series of economic numbers including unemployment, the deficit, and the jump in healthcare costs. (Just today, the Wall Street Journal reports, “Stocks tapped the brakes on their recent rally, as data pointed toward weakening in global economies. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nine points, or 0.1%, to 13569, in midday trading on Thursday. The blue chips have climbed 4% over the past two weeks, as the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan have announced stimulus measures.”)

posted by Quiddity at 9/21/2012 07:47:00 AM

One for the time capsule:

Why Romney Will Win
By Dick Morris - September 14, 2012


posted by Quiddity at 9/14/2012 07:40:00 PM

The essence of the Romney campaign:

From the Los Angeles Times:

Romney plays on 'God gap' between the parties

Mitt Romney, in attacking President Obama, recites the Pledge of Allegiance and says he would fight any effort to remove 'In God we trust' from U.S. coins, though no one is proposing that.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Making a play for veterans and evangelical voters in this conservative military community, Mitt Romney on Saturday accused President Obama of straying from the nation's guiding principles.

After spontaneously reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in his speech, Romney referred to the fact that U.S. coins bear the motto "In God we trust" and said he would resist any move to change that.

"For me, the Pledge of Allegiance and placing our hand over our heart reminds us of the blood that was shed by our sons and daughters fighting for our liberty and sharing liberty with people around the world," Romney said. "The pledge says 'under God.' I will not take God out of the name of our platform. I will not take God off our coins and I will not take God out of my heart. We're a nation that's bestowed by God."

Romney's embrace of faith and patriotism come off as thin, phony, and unconvincing. Yet he will convince some people, such is the nature of mankind. Which explains how mountebanks have succeeded throughout history.


posted by Quiddity at 9/14/2012 03:17:00 AM

Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Best statement on that score comes from a Tweet by pourmecoffee:

Were you better off getting into wars and financial crises or getting out of them? Take your time, you have till Nov. 6.

posted by Quiddity at 9/04/2012 07:17:00 AM

posted by Quiddity at 8/14/2012 12:12:00 PM

They say Obama has been lucky in politics:

Often regarding the opponents he competes against.

Looks like it's happened again.


posted by Quiddity at 8/11/2012 03:59:00 PM

What next?

After Fox News is found wondering if Gabby Douglas was showing enough patriotism during the Olympics, we have this at the Fox Nation:





posted by Quiddity at 8/05/2012 06:54:00 PM

The probable origin of the "Obama sues to restrict military voting" charge that the Romney campaign is making:

Is this Breitbart article:

On July 17th, the Obama for America Campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and the Ohio Democratic Party filed suit in OH to strike down part of that state's law governing voting by members of the military. Their suit said that part of the law is "arbitrary" with "no discernible rational basis."

Currently, Ohio allows the public to vote early in-person up until the Friday before the election. Members of the military are given three extra days to do so. ...

I think it's unconscionable that we as a nation wouldn't make it as easy as possible for members of the military to vote. They arguably have more right to vote than the rest of us ...

Once you accept that, then it's easy to dismiss suits that call for equal ballot access.


posted by Quiddity at 8/05/2012 05:28:00 AM

Rush Limbaugh and Lay's potato chips:

For real, here's the transcript: (emp add)

RUSH: We have a 12-year-old young man from Petal, Mississippi, on the phone named Trent. And, Trent, welcome to the program. Glad that you called. How are you?

CALLER: I'm doing good. How are you?

RUSH: Well, I'm cool. I'm doing well today. Thank you.

CALLER: Well, I have a question.

RUSH: Well, you've called the right place.

CALLER: Ever since Obama's been elected, I used to buy chip bags at the store and they used to be all the way full, but now they're only half full. Why is that?

RUSH: Really? What kind of chips are we talking about here?

CALLER: Potato chips.

RUSH: What brand?

CALLER: The Lay's kind.

RUSH: The Lay's kind. So you're buying Lay's potato chips, and the bag is only half full now?

CALLER: Yes, that is correct.

RUSH: Since Obama was elected?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Well, you know, I'm glad you told me. I eat potato chips, but I never see the bag. When I get 'em, they're already out of the bag.

CALLER: Oh.

RUSH: But this doesn't surprise me. Have you mentioned this to your parents?

CALLER: Yes, I have.

RUSH: What do they think?

CALLER: They really don't know.

RUSH: They really don't know.

CALLER: So I decided to call you and ask.

RUSH: Well, I think you're on to something. You're in Mississippi, and I don't think the mayor of New York has anything to do with what happens in Mississippi yet, but this is a toughie. Have you made this assessment on every bag of potato chips that you bought?

CALLER: Most of them.

RUSH: Most of them.

CALLER: Well, honestly, Trent, if what you say is true, it could be a sneaky way for them to avoid having to increase the published price. I don't know. See, the problem is, I don't know what the price for your bag of Lay's potato chips is today versus last year or --

CALLER: I think they've gone up about two dollars.

RUSH: Well, then my theory is wrong. The price has gone up two dollars, and the amount of potato chips in there has been cut in half?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: It sounds to me like the Lay's people, the potato chip people are hoarding product, anticipating, perhaps, economic drought, potato famine, maybe the Obama administration banning potato chips somewhere. Michelle would be the one to do that and they're just trying to save the product so they have supply. It could be that it's really not happening. It could just be that the contents of the bags are being shipped a longer distance to your store. In the process, they're settling more in the bag, making it look like the bag is only half full when it really isn't. Now, do you have a theory? Have you evolved a theory of your own to explain this?

CALLER: No, not really.

RUSH: But you think it's got something to do with Obama?

CALLER: Yes, I do, because he's raised the price of everything, and the quality and the quantity of stuff has gone down.

RUSH: Well.

CALLER: So I think it's because of Obama.

RUSH: Well, that's hard to disagree with. Obama is not personally in charge of the price, but the things that have happened to the country economically have resulted in the cost of everything going up.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: For a host of reasons. Well, are you eating fewer potato chips now? Are your parents buying fewer bags.

CALLER: No. They're buying the same amount, but there just aren't as many in there.

RUSH: Well, if your parents don't have a problem, just buy more bags.

CALLER: Yes, sir. Thank you.

RUSH: All right.

posted by Quiddity at 7/31/2012 07:47:00 AM

Rupert Murdoch's New York Post on Romney in England:

Editorial: (emp add)

If Mitt Romney’s trip abroad is meant to burnish his foreign-policy bona fides, he’s off to a reasonably good start — even if the usual boo-birds are painting his remarks in London yesterday as a gaffe. ...

Of much more significance is what Romney said later: “I’m looking forward to the bust of Winston Churchill being in the Oval Office again.”

That would be the bust meant to celebrate — and cement — the special relationship that has informed US-British relations for a century or more.

The bust that was a gift to the American people from Britain in the wake of 9/11 — meant to recall America’s succor as night was falling across Europe in 1940.

If a foreigner came to the United States and bitched about all sorts of things, would a subsequent statement about wanting to have a portrait of George Washington on the wall quell the outrage? Or would it look like a phony gesture of sympathy?


posted by Quiddity at 7/27/2012 11:43:00 AM

Ornstein and Mann - still being ignored:

Some musing by Francis Wilkinson at Bloomberg:

Republican Extremism and Intransigence: Not Newsworthy

For decades, Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution and Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute have occupied the bull's eye at the center of the middle of Washington centrism.

So it's pretty amazing that they can drop a book like "It's Even Worse Than It Looks" smack in the center (sorry) of an election year and cause so few political ripples. ...

[Ornstein and Mann write:]

The Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier -- ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

It's hard to imagine a more wholesale indictment from two eminent political scientists, each with a decades-long track record of nonpartisan analysis. It's equally hard to imagine the press quietly absorbing a similarly pedigreed indictment of the Democratic Party; the elite press, in particular, would likely talk of nothing else. Yet mainstream news outlets, while giving the authors fairly prominent play, seem to treat the their thesis as neither new nor news.

What gives?

Perhaps it's the soft bigotry of low expectations. The most anguish over the state of the Republican Party seems to flow from conservatives in varied states of excommunication, such as David Frum, Bruce Bartlett and a cadre of smart, young writers who object to the empowered-state vision of Democrats but can't abide the devolution of the Republicans. Many liberals, having perhaps never given sufficient credence to conservative thought in the first place, regard the book's premise with a knowing shrug. Elected Republicans, naturally, dismiss the book as partisan hackery (though former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel gave it an enthusiastic blurb). Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, with characteristic deference to facts, denounced the authors as "ultra, ultra liberal." But the authors -- and their centrist disposition -- are well known. Perhaps their thesis is, too. It's just that no one knows what can be done about it, or by whom.

posted by Quiddity at 7/27/2012 08:22:00 AM

Twitter exchange following Romney advisor's "Anglo-Saxon" remarks:




posted by Quiddity at 7/25/2012 11:59:00 PM

Only in America:

At Inside Edition:

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO STAY SAFE IN THEATERS

If a maniac opens fire inside a movie theater, what could you do to get out alive?

Safety expert and former NYPD captain, Peter Marino told INSIDE EDITION, "You need to remain calm and maintain a low profile so as not to attract a shooter's attention."

At the bloodbath in Colorado, theater-goers ran for their lives. Marino, however, said running might not always be the best choice.

INSIDE EDITION's Megan Alexander asked, "So I'm watching the film, and I sense something is wrong. What do I do?"

"Megan, I want you to get down. Get on the floor. Make yourself low. I want you to conceal yourself from the line of sight of the shooter," replied Marino.

He told INSIDE EDITION, safety should be on your mind from the moment you enter the theater.

"Where should I sit?" Alexander asked.

"Well, where you sit is not as important as what you do before you sit down. What you need to know is your surroundings. Before the lights are turned off, I want you to know where the exits are, where there are places that you might hide," said Marino.

Alexander asked, "What else can I do?"

"Remember, concealment is key," said Marino, and suggested hiding behind the curtains.

Just like they say in the safety promos in theaters, "Please use the exit nearest you in an emergency."

INSIDE EDITION's security expert Steve Kardian said, it's good advice.

"Sit in a place near an exit. Notice all the other exits. Notice how many people are in the theater. Notice what your nearest exit is, and keep that in the back of your head, should there be a time that you have to leave quickly," said Kardian.

At The Dark Knight Rises massacre, movie-goers thought at first that the gunman was part of the show. Our expert says, if something strange or unexpected happens, be leery.

Kardian told INSIDE EDITION, "Believe your eyes and ears. If you believe you're in danger, you are. If you hear gunshots, it likely is. Remove yourself from the scene, and get as far away as you can."

posted by Quiddity at 7/21/2012 06:00:00 PM

100% right:

Garance Franke-Ruta on the recent news:

The age of new media being now well-established, it goes a little something like this:

First we get the shaky camera phone videos and the tweets. Then the distraught eyewitness interviews and 911 call recording. Quickly, the shooter is identified. Politicians issue statements of shock and sorrow. The shooter's parents, if interviewed, are confused and abashed or else hide. The social media forensics begin. People with the same or a similar name as the shooter are harassed. There is speculation he is part of a right-wing group, or an Islamic terrorist, or a former Army veteran. The FBI and the armed forces check their records and issue denials or confirmations. Calls for better gun control efforts are issued once again. Defenders of the Second Amendment fight back immediately, or even pre-emptively. The victims of the shooting are blamed in social media for being where they were attacked. More eye-witness interviews. The shooter's parents are castigated. Survivors speak. Warning signs are identified as the alleged shooter's past is plumbed. We ask if violent movies are to blame for his actions. Or cuts to mental-health services. And talk about what kind of country we are, if we have culture of violence. The death toll fluctuates. International voices from countries where guns are heavily regulated shake their heads at us. People leave piles of flowers and teddy bears at the shooting site. There are candlelight vigils, and teary memorials. Everyone calls for national unity and a moment of togetherness. Eventually, the traumatized community holds a big healing ceremony. It is moving, and terribly sad, and watched by millions on TV or online. A few activists continue to make speeches. The shooter, if still alive, rapidly is brought to trial. There is another wave of public discussion about our failures, and the nature of evil. Politicians make feints at gun-law changes, which fail. And then everyone forgets and moves on. Everyone, that is, except the survivors.

Which is why I'm not following this story (at least beyond the basic outline.)


posted by Quiddity at 7/20/2012 04:08:00 PM

Where we'll end up eventually:

From ABC news:

Judge Nearly Stopped Tenn. Mosque Construction

A Muslim congregation fighting for two years to open its new mosque won a round in federal court order just in time, because a Tennessee judge was intending to stop construction, according a court order filed Friday.

Members of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro are pushing to get into their new 12,000-square-foot building before the holy month of Ramadan, which began at sundown Thursday, ends in August.

Opponents have waged a two-year court battle to stop them, challenging the county's approval of the mosque building plan. They have claimed in court that Islam isn't a true religion and that local Muslims want to overthrow the U.S. Constitution and replace it with Islamic religious law.

We should hear more calls that Islam isn't a "true religion", because let's face it, that's what they really believe.


posted by Quiddity at 7/20/2012 01:03:00 PM

What might be politically potent this election:

That:

Romney was sole shareholder, sole director, Chief Executive Officer, President, and managing director of Bain Capital when it invested in a company that was involved in disposing of aborted fetuses.

That won't get people to vote for Obama, but it might turn off a lot of conservatives who would ordinarily vote (perhaps reluctantly) for Romney.


posted by Quiddity at 7/13/2012 06:14:00 PM

Still here:

But very busy and unable to blog for a while. Also, something about the news lately defies analysis. The Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare didn't change the existing political dynamic. The economy is neither up nor down. Foreign affairs are reasonably stable. Everybody is tired of hearing about Mitt Romney's money. Etc.

The only interesting news was that the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson was made in Comic Sans font.


posted by Quiddity at 7/07/2012 08:04:00 AM

Crisis!

On the CBS Evening News tonight:

ANCHOR:

Major banks in New York and London are on alert this weekend, ahead of tomorrow's crucial elections in Greec. Crisis committees are standing by for a possible leftist victory that would likely send shock waves throughout the world financial system. ...

REPORTER:

... European leaders have pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into Greece with the understanding that Greece would adhere to strict austerity measures and make important structural reforms. And the fear is that a victory for [the] leftist candidate ... would mean that Greece might very well renege on that agreement ...

Has Greece received hundreds of billions of dollars? Most reports put the figure at less than $200 billion.

In any event, the division is clear. Banks on one side, leftist parties on the other. And now the battle is set to begin.


posted by Quiddity at 6/16/2012 05:52:00 PM

All you need to know about the Sunday shows:

On the last This Week (ABC) program, they had Ann Coulter at the round table.

Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann haven't been invited to any Sunday shows.


posted by Quiddity at 6/15/2012 07:42:00 PM

Must-read of the week:

Michael Lind over at Salon in Will conservatism bankrupt America?

Excellent on merit goods and how to pay for them. Excerpts:

... American government at all levels provides two kinds of goods — public goods, which are essential to the private sector but would never be provided efficiently if at all by the private sector, and merit goods, defined as goods that the private sector does produce, but in inadequate quantities or at unaffordable prices ...

The major merit goods that Americans have decided their government should provide are income maintenance, healthcare, education and housing... These merit goods can be provided either directly by government or indirectly, by means of government subsidies to the private sector, including tax credits, vouchers and subsidized loans.

At the purely public end of the spectrum are merit goods that are directly provided by government agencies, like public K-12 schools and public colleges and public clinics. In the middle of the spectrum are transfer payments, like income or unemployment insurance, which are collected and distributed by the government but spent mostly on private goods and services. At the other end of the spectrum are specific merit goods like private higher education, housing and most healthcare.

Key paragraph:

If ever there were a real-world test of competing public policy models, it is found in the realm of merit goods in America. In the last half century, we have not seen out-of-control cost inflation in merit goods that are provided directly by government, like public K-12 schools and direct income maintenance payments to citizens like Social Security and unemployment insurance. Instead, the runaway costs have all come from merit goods like higher ed, health care and housing which follow the conservative model of subsidizing purchases of privately-provided goods.

And has a political recommendation:

American progressives and centrists are missing a great opportunity to champion real and lasting budgetary savings by proposing the replacement of the unaffordable conservative voucher approach to all merit goods by two cheaper approaches, where competitive markets for merit goods cannot exist: public provision or utility-style price regulation.

Lind goes on to detail various merit good in detail (e.g. healthcare) but the basic economic point is captured in the excerpts above. Markets do not always work, and some markets do much worse when they are fueled by government money instead of having the goods delivered by the government.

Lind has written many thoughtful essays at Salon over the years. His history is that of an apostate (liberal?) Republican that has completely given up on where that party is headed. Today's essay is a good example of that new stance he's taken.


posted by Quiddity at 6/13/2012 04:36:00 AM

This is excellent news:

Ann Romney’s Horse Comes in Third in Olympic Qualifying Event

Ann Romney’s dressage trainer Jan Ebeling and the horse they co-own, Rafalca, came in third this weekend at the United States Equestrian Federation National Dressage Championships in Gladstone, N.J. This competition, which will continue next weekend, also serves as an Olympics qualifying event for the U.S. Dressage Team for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. ...

In a Los Angeles Times story last month, Robin Abcarian reported that despite Romney’s relatively late start in dressage Romney won silver and gold medals in 2005 and 2006 at the highest level of competition from the U.S. Dressage Federation and she credits Ebeling with her success in the top tier of amateur dressage.

Hey, maybe doing well in - or merely being in - this category of "sports", almost exclusively practiced by the rich, will bring votes to Romney. If this country's reaction to Great Britain's celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee is any indication, the higher up you are, the more adulation you get. For those thinking that inequality has a grip on the public's mind, how do you explain all the positive coverage of Queen Elizabeth?


posted by Quiddity at 6/11/2012 02:24:00 AM

Money in politics doesn't matter that much, but don't regulate it!

In the wake of Scott Walker surviving a recall with the help of a seven-to-one spending advantage, conservatives are poo-pooing the influence of money. As Noonan does in the WSJ today:

The line laid down by the Democrats weeks before the vote was that it's all about money: The Walker forces outspent the unions so they won, end of story.

Money is important, as all but children know. But the line wasn't very flattering to Wisconsin's voters, implying that they were automatons drooling in front of the TV waiting to be told who to back. It was also demonstrably incorrect. Most voters, according to surveys, had made up their minds well before the heavy spending of the closing weeks.

There was heavy spending in the closing weeks, but there was also heavy spending before the closing weeks.

Spending matters and does shape elections, and will continue to do so as we see the national impact of the Citizens United decision at the national level this year.


posted by Quiddity at 6/08/2012 07:55:00 AM

What gets Obama's attention:

From John Hielemann's long story in New York magazine (Hope: The Sequel) on the Obama administration and political team: (emp add)

[January to August of 2011] had been hell for Obama. After the self-­described “shellacking” his party suffered in the 2010 midterm elections, the president had sought to find a way to work with Republicans, to reestablish the post-partisan métier that animated his election. “For the first part of the year, he played what was largely an inside game,” says Obama’s longtime counselor David Axelrod. “The ideas being (a) maybe we can reason with the Republicans and come to some rational conclusions, and (b) maybe people really wanted to see cooperation. But that obviously didn’t work.”

Not just obviously, but screamingly so, as evinced by the reckless Republican brinkmanship over the debt ceiling and the collapse of the grand bargain on deficit reduction that Obama labored long to fashion with John Boehner. By the time the president took off for vacation to Martha’s Vineyard, recalls a senior White House official, “he was as frustrated as I’ve ever seen him.” Most irritating to Obama was the portrayal of him, on the right and left alike, as a terminally weak leader. “We found ourselves in the worst possible situation,” says ­Pfeiffer, “in which Republicans and some Democrats were using the same talking points to describe the president. That’s a moment of great political peril.”

From the first day of his presidency, Republicans:

• Publicly announce they won't work with Obama.
• Don't vote for any of Obama's policies.
• Slow down and obstruct his nominees.
• Violate decades-long political norms.

And with an even more conservative bunch of Republicans due to the 2010 election:

the president had sought to find a way to work with Republicans, to reestablish the post-partisan métier that animated his election

From Heilemann's story, what animated Obama was (a) irritation with being called "weak", or (b) really bad poll numbers.

Obama and his team were deaf to rational, fact-based arguments trying to convince him that this is not a time for compromise, that all moves to reach a deal merely move the Democrats to the right, and it dispirits his side and emboldens the conservatives.

"the post-partisan métier that animated his election" was part of Obama's rhetoric, and maybe he believed it, but for many observers it was seen as a way of softening the image of a black president for anxious voters in 2008. It certainly was not something that should have been driving political strategy when the reality of the situation was demonstrated once he was in office, and repeatedly afterwards.

If what caused Obama to jettison that approach and get feisty was him being called "weak" by the left, that means those Obots telling disgruntled progressives to quit their complaining are wrong. Complaining, especially ad hominem charges of being weak, appear to be what it takes.

So do it.


posted by Quiddity at 6/03/2012 01:01:00 PM

What Atrios missed:

Over at Eschatonblog, we read:

If the CEO of Honeywell really thinks that the economic problems are due to government debt and the failure of the confidence fairy to appear, he could do the patriotic thing and give back the 15% of his company's revenue that comes from the federal government.

And:

Less corporate welfare for companies like Honeywell might help.

Honeywell used offshore subsidiaries and tax loopholes to pay a negative tax rate between 2008 and 2010, according to the report.

The company reported $5 billion in domestic profits and received $1.75 billion in federal tax subsidies, making its effective tax rate negative 0.7 percent the group reported, citing 2010 10-K reports for the company.

But in the first story linked to, there's this:

[David M. Cote, the CEO of Honeywell] whom Obama appointed to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (a.k.a. the Bowles-Simpson Commission) in 2010, has long advocated an elixir of spending cuts, entitlement reforms and tax hikes to fix the problem.

He voted in favor of the commission’s draft plan, which included those elements.

The appointment was in 2010, by which time the corporate behavior of Honewell was evident. Nevertheless, Obama appointed this guy to the commission.


posted by Quiddity at 6/03/2012 10:55:00 AM

Our new economy - especially for the younger people:

In a Washington Post op-ed that presented kinds moving back to their parents' home after college as not such a bad thing, we read: (emp add)

Millennials are the “go nowhere” generation. They’re spoiled, lazy, undecided about a line of work and all too willing to move back in with their parents after college. Boomerang kids, they are called — as if every time their moms and dads toss them out, they circle back to crash their parents’ hopes of a child-free life. At least that’s the rap against them.

It’s true that many 20-somethings move back to their childhood homes and let their parents subsidize them in ways that would have been unthinkable 50 years ago. But are they really entitled narcissists exploiting their parents’ goodwill? I don’t think so. I’ve been teaching undergraduates for 30 years, and when I talk to families, I see parents who are supportive of the semi-empty nest — and a recognition that this is the reality of the current job market. ...

... it turns out that this type of path is the best preparation for success in an economy that rewards ambition, risk-taking, entrepreneurship and adaptability.

With very few exceptions, the students whom I and other faculty members around the country work with are ... a generation facing a historic transformation in the route to a successful job and family life.

It used to be that you'd get educated and be hired for your skill set at a place that was reasonably stable and that offered health and retirement benefits.

To declare that that's not enough and that people also need "ambition, risk-taking, entrepreneurship and adaptability" is an admission that the system is broken. Or rather, has tilted way far away from a situation where labor has any negotiating power.


posted by Quiddity at 6/03/2012 10:43:00 AM

Simple-minded politics:

Over at Kevin Drum's place, guest blogger Heather Digby Parton writes about the upcoming Wisconsin election: (emp add)

... in looking at the Marquette University poll just out yesterday, I couldn't help but be somewhat surprised by this:

Voters say they feel their current governor would be better at creating jobs than his recall challenger. Half say they think Walker would do a better job, while just 43 percent pick Barrett. And Walker holds a 51 percent favorable rating and 46 percent unfavorable, while his rival is at 41 percent favorable and 46 percent unfavorable.

It's almost unbelievable to me that voters would believe that when job creation has been the biggest issue of the campaign—and it hasn't been good for Walker ...

Even though Walker is being recalled mostly because of a fight with workers and the state is dead-last in job creation, 50% of the voters think he'll be better at job creation than the other guy? Nobody in the country has done worse!

This strikes me as yet another success of conservative talking points. I think many people have simply absorbed the oft-repeated notion that Republicans are the advocates for "job-creators" with their low taxes and deregulation and even in the face of clear evidence otherwise they can't really see how anything else would work.

Similarly, it appears that most people do not believe in Keynesian economics.

This is an era of simple-minded thinking. The overall economy is just like your household budget. Of all the components in the economy, only the much-heralded "job creators" matter. Regulations are bad. Facts and the historical record be damned.


posted by Quiddity at 5/31/2012 07:13:00 PM

British power relations revealed:

From New York Magazine:

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair appeared before the ongoing phone-hacking inquiry to respond to criticisms that he was too cozy with media barons such as Rupert Murdoch, whose newspapers have been accused of tapping phones and bribing police. According to Reuters, Blair said over and over again that the power of the British press "is indisputable," so he had no choice but to manage them as best he could.

With any of these big media groups, you fall out with them and you watch out, because it is literally relentless and unremitting once that happens... If [for instance] you fall out with the controlling element of the Daily Mail, you are then going to be subject to a huge and sustained attack.

... Blair is the godfather of Murdoch's daughter Grace, and acknowledged giving him back-door access to No. 10 Downing Street.

... In defending himself, Blair noted that Murdoch, more than any of his editors, runs the show, and that when "the country's most powerful newspaper proprietor, whose publications have hitherto been rancorous in their opposition to the Labour Party, invites us into the lion's den, you go, don't you?"

So, Rupert Murdoch really is in charge.


posted by Quiddity at 5/28/2012 06:35:00 PM