Zero

That’s the number of House Republicans who voted for the stimulus bill, despite the best efforts of a Democratic president to water it down for them. Is this how we’re going to spend the next four years?


The Republicans aren’t going away and they aren’t going to change. I don’t care how many Michael Steeles they trot out to "put a new face on the party." They’re wedded to a right-wing, trickle-down ideology because 1) their base demands it 2) it’s lucrative and 3) its simplemindedness makes it a powerful campaign tool--in the right circumstances.


This is not a good year to be a Republican, yet Barack Obama insists on giving them credibility. (If he really thinks the GOP is brimming with good ideas, we’re in big trouble.) On substantive terms, getting more Republican votes than are absolutely necessary is going to make virtually all legislation worse than it need be. That’s just a fact. So the only justification for pandering to them has to be that it’s part of a long-term political strategy.


Does Obama believe that spending quality time with John Boehner is going to pave the way for a grand, bipartisan compromise on health care or anything else? That doesn’t pass the laugh test.


Maybe he thinks "going the extra mile" will make the GOP look obstructionist and strengthen his hand with the public. That might happen, but he’d better not be counting on Wolf Blitzer and company to hammer home the message. At Think Progress, they’re complaining about continued Republican dominance of the cable news guest list. Duh! What do they expect? Barack Obama has made bipartisanship the lodestar of his presidency. (As if the corporate media needs any more incentive than it already has to prop up Republicans!)


Then there’s the noxious influence of David Axelrod, Obama’s uber-Rove. His job in the White House is to prepare for 2012. Here’s how I see his political calculus:


"I’d rather not have to re-invent the wheel. We won with a feel-good campaign in 2008, and my client has a nice-guy image worth its weight in votes. So--where do we stand today? For the foreseeable future, elections will be won or lost on the economy. But here’s the thing–to a great extent, this recession will end when it ends. We might be able to ameliorate its awfulness, but how much credit will we get? What’s the difference between 9% unemployment and 8.5% unemployment? Barack is still going to get hammered. Is it worth it to fight for better policies at the risk of alienating our friends in the media? They’re so touchy when it comes to their precious bipartisanship. Isn't half a loaf better in the long run? After all, the world will still need Barack in 2013."

Does Obama see it like this? Who knows. But he certainly hasn’t embraced the James Carville strategy–which I endorse--of throwing your drowning opponent an anvil.

It’s going to take a long time to clean up the mess in this country. Politics needs to be about something. Democrats need to set the terms of the debate. They need to be clear about their solutions while attempting–respectfully–to highlight an unbroken line of Republican failure stretching from Hoover to Reagan to Bush to Boehner. They need to discredit–respectfully–the GOP and its policies the way the right-wing discredited the New Deal. (Leave the vicious, partisan name-calling to the blogosphere. I’m more than happy to do my part!)


Of course, presidents may have their own priorities. That’s why Obama needs to be pressured.

Team Of Professionals

I suppose it’s possible that Hillary Clinton, George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke will need a full-time referee, but is it likely? I think not. In any case, I’d rather have them managing our diplomacy than a pack of lightweights.


The media is always is always looking for a soap opera, and Hillary is their favorite scheming harpy. Rest assured that anytime a lazy reporter needs a story, he’ll find a bureaucrat willing to trash her. Or else he’ll just make something up. After all, there’s no downside in being 100% wrong about a Clinton (as long as you’re vague enough), and you may get a mention on Hardball or in Maureen Dowd’s trashy column.


Barack Obama seems to understand that a restoration of American economic strength is essential to a successful foreign policy. That’s where he plans to deploy his political capital. He also seems to recognize his own limitations, which is why he turned to Hillary Clinton in the first place.


Let’s just say I have a lot more confidence in our foreign policy team than in our domestic policy team. More on that later.

Live-Blogging Hardball: Once An Asshole...

Chris "I’m Afraid of Arlen Specter!" Matthews is all over the Senate’s 94-2 confirmation of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State--

Beware, Democrats! You’re ALL going to be held responsible for whatever fresh Clinton-bashing that David Vitter, Jim DeMint and ME--Tweety Matthews--decide to dispense!

MSNBC. Same as it ever was. A joke.

Geithner on C-SPAN

---Grassley is trying to get himself righteously worked up over the IRS thing, but his heart doesn’t seem to be in it. He’s reading from his notes as if for the first time. Yawn.

---Chairman Baucus is being a hard-ass on senatorial question time, and Kerry doesn’t like it. Neither do I. Big John is as windy as ever, but his "good bank/bad bank" line of inqiry is right on point and deserves a long answer. (God forbid any distinguished senator be shorted his full five minutes to spew nonsense.)

–-Surprise, surprise. Hatch wants to cut corporate taxes again. Groundhog Day in the Republican caucus.

–-Bunning is an idiot. No wonder he runs around the Senate in his pajamas–no, wait--that’s Domenici. (Maybe they’re the same person?)

---Snowe seems out of place here. Succinct, intelligent questions. Who let her in?

–-Ensign: Stimulus? We don't need no stinking stimulus. And tax increases caused the 1937 mini-depression. GOP Groundhog Day continues.

–-Bunning again. He hasn’t gotten any smarter in the last ninety minutes.

–-Kyl is asking the same question about the stimulus plan that Ensign asked. Same answer. (The Republicans seem to think this recession is going to be over by December. Trillion dollar stimulus–bad! Trillion dollar wars–good!)

I've seen enough.

Adios, Au Revoir, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye!

Tomorrow afternoon at 12:01, having utterly failed at the only real job he’s ever had, George W. Bush will take his place at the bottom of the presidential barrel. His media mea culpas have already vanished into the ether. His apparent graciousness during the current transition (in marked contrast to his reprehensible behavior in 2001, when he allowed his staff to spread preposterous lies about Clintons having "trashed" the White House) will do him no permanent good. (It’s like Chris Rock’s riff about sleazy people demanding credit for doing what they’re supposed to do.) The world and we have seen enough. Bush’s unprecedented blend of incompetence and villainy will serve him well as he battles the stygian shade of Richard Nixon for the title of Worst President Ever. And unless the Middle East transforms itself rapidly enough for a critical mass of historians to somehow give Bush and his bloody wars a share of the credit, his fate is sealed.



Still, in ways large and small, the Bush Reclamation Project is already underway. Here’s Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal, on the president's prodigious White House reading:

A glutton for punishment, Mr. Bush insisted on another rematch in 2008. But it will be a three-peat for me: as of today, his total is 40 volumes to my 64. His reading this year included a heavy dose of history -- including David Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter," Rick Atkinson's "Day of Battle," Hugh Thomas's "Spanish Civil War, "Stephen W. Sears's "Gettysburg" and David King's "Vienna 1814." There's also plenty of biography -- including U.S. Grant's "Personal Memoirs"; Jon Meacham's "American Lion"; James M. McPherson's "Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief" and Jacobo Timerman's "Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number."

This is absurd and laughable. It's pure presidential scorekeeping. Bush undoubtedly counts "books I've read" the way Bill Clinton counts golf strokes. (Although, if Rove is telling the truth for once, it might explain why his boss demanded one-page national security memos. He was too busy reading about Dean Acheson to worry about Osama bin Laden.)


Unfortunately for Karl and George, other people are going to keep talking about the Dark Side of Dubya. Here’s Lawrence Wilkerson, quoted in this month’s Vanity Fair:

We had this confluence of characters—and I use that term very carefully—that included people like Powell, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, and so forth, which allowed one perception to be "the dream team." It allowed everybody to believe that this Sarah Palin-like president—because, let’s face it, that’s what he was—was going to be protected by this national-security elite, tested in the cauldrons of fire. What in effect happened was that a very astute, probably the most astute, bureaucratic entrepreneur I’ve ever run into in my life became the vice president of the United States.

He became vice president well before George Bush picked him. And he began to manipulate things from that point on, knowing that he was going to be able to convince this guy to pick him, knowing that he was then going to be able to wade into the vacuums that existed around George Bush—personality vacuum, character vacuum, details vacuum, experience vacuum.

Ironically, George W. Bush has left the country in such a sorry state that his successor and the Democratic Congress are unlikely to have the time to hold him accountable, even if they have the stomach for it--which they don’t.

For me, the jury is still out on Barack Obama. I need to see some results. I won’t be getting any thrills up my thigh tomorrow.


Unless I get to see a commercial jet–not Air Force One–taking off for Texas with George W. Bush aboard. One way.

Thanks, But No Thanks

The GOP is returning to the scene of the crime:

"Tomorrow will be an opportunity for Republicans to respond to President-elect Obama’s request to offer solutions that help put America back on the path to prosperity," Cantor said. "Top national experts will offer innovative approaches that address the needs of working families and small businesses and put American back on the path to prosperity."

Politicians and economic experts participating in Thursday’s hearing include:
*John Boehner, Republican leader (R-Ohio)
*Eric Cantor, Republican Whip
*Mike Pence, Republican Conference Chair (R-IN)
*Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts
*Meg Whitman, former CEO, e-Bay
*Alex Brill, American Enterprise Institute
*Bill Breach, The Heritage Foundation
*Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform

This is a joke, right? Grover Fucking Norquist? Are they planning to resurrect the K Street Project in broad daylight?


I sincerely hope Barack Obama’s talk of "bipartisanship" is just window dressing for the media. (Nobody else really gives a shit.) The Republican Party, as an institution, is currently unfit to participate in the making of public policy. Democrats need to push through their own agenda by picking off the few remaining decent Republicans and making it clear that the Grover Norquist "drown it in the bathtub" approach to government is no longer acceptable.



Wingnut economics is simple, stupid and appealing. The GOP will never abandon it. It’s their once and future meal ticket.


And there will be another K Street Project if they return to power.

Apocalypse. . .Now

"Walt Kurtz was one of the most outstanding officers this country has ever produced. He was brilliant and outstanding in every way, and he was a good man, too. Humanitarian man, man of wit, of humor. He joined the Special Forces. After that his ideas, methods have become unsound. . .Unsound."

The Republican Party has utterly devolved.

Dwight Eisenhower. . .Ronald Reagan. . . Tom Coburn.

A bankrupt economic ideology clings to the inherent cruelty of its Gipperesque myths.

Will the Democrats ever decide to win this war?

The Care And Feeding Of Wingnuts

On C-SPAN I’m watching James Inhofe--possessor, by consensus, of the lowest IQ in the Senate--warn the Republican base that Socialist Democrats are planning to muzzle the drug-addled Rush Limbaugh and the dim-witted Sean Hannity by re-instituting the Fairness Doctrine. I’m not sure how Pelosi and Reid should play this, but they need to understand the opposition party.


In terms of an effective governing philosophy, the Republicans bring nothing to the table. Any "compromises" that Democrats find necessary must be accompanied by a clear rejection of the GOP's phony "freedom" agenda. This is critical to any hope of cleaning up Bush's unholy mess.


The Fairness Doctrine should come back, but it’s not worth the distraction of Wingnut Armageddon.