Base Camp

For the upcoming battle over the budget, Obama is at least planting the right flag:

Obama's spending blueprint, with its massive $1.17 trillion deficit and tax hikes on the wealthy, seeks to squeeze billions of dollars in savings out of current spending through competitive bidding among health insurers and ending subsidies and tax breaks for banks, agribusiness and oil companies.

"These steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business," the president said in his weekly radio address.

"I know they're gearing up for a fight as we speak," he said. "My message to them is this: So am I."

Has the president has been sneaking a few peeks at the CPAC Wingnut Convention?

No more foot massages for Johnny Boehner!

Good Cop, Bad Cop

In a rational world, today's Republican Party would be little more than a kooky fringe group, like the Larouchites. Unfortunately, we live here. And in America circa 2009, on the nation's premier business channel, the utterly discredited economic theories promulgated by George W. Bush and Company are still sacrosanct. (I guess it’s comfort food for CNBC's shell-shocked viewers, who cling to the fantasy of becoming swashbuckling Wall Street Jedi.)


Last evening, on the network in question, Arthur Laffer, legendary father of a ridiculous economic curve, teamed up with Larry Kudlow to denounce the Administration's plan for saving the nation’s banking system. Well, all I can say is Hallelujah! This is the first piece of unadulterated good news I’ve heard in weeks. If Kudlow and Laffer think the plan is a train wreck, then I’m getting bullish on America again. Those guys are always wrong.


Then, this morning, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Judd "We Hardly Knew Ye" Gregg went on Squawk Box to complain about the deficit. No--really--they did. These "Republican moderates"–who never met a trillion dollar war they couldn’t put off-budget–had the audacity to pose as penny-pinching guardians of the public till. Forget the fact that their supply-side snake oil has turned fatally rancid. Hutchison and Gregg deserve to be tarred and feathered around the clock solely on the grounds of criminal hypocrisy.


I’m no fan of President Obama’s rhetoric, but on substance, his speech the other night was excellent. His obsession with bipartisanship drives me up a wall, but it appears to be part of a long-term political strategy. I may just have to get used to it. But what about the rest of the Democrats? You know, the ones who aren’t President? How about this, people--When you're not actually legislating, you might want to try to terminate--with extreme prejudice--the Republican Party's current raison d'etre. That's the enemy. Ridicule mixed with condescension--along with liberal doses of the truth–should be your weapon of choice. Let Obama take the high road.


The stakes are too great, and there’s too much to do, to risk letting the GOP get their hands on the government again. The proponents of such a dangerous and bankrupt philosophy need to be exposed.

Free Market Dead-Enders

Because every generation deserves its own Great Depression. Builds character.

Live-Blogging Hardball: Exit Judd Gregg!

5:25 Chris Matthews and the other Republican are gushing over the Juddster's integrity, but Democrat Steve McMahon is having none of it. Obama's stimulus plan hasn't exactly been a secret, guys. Only now is Gregg noticing that Democrats are (sometimes) more liberal than Republicans? And puh-lease, Tweety! Spare us the bullshit about this guy's devotion to "fiscal responsibility." That dog won't hunt. Not after a trillion dollar war war--off-budget.

5:45 Nancy Pelosi is talking to Chris. She's taking the gloves off, too.

Two nails for the bipartisan coffin. Keep 'em coming, kids!

Can You Beat Something With Nothing?

Krugman is being taken to task by the DLC types. For them, the process reigns supreme:

But in eschewing the strident partisanship that many on the left pine for, Obama is keeping faith with the people who elected him. He’s also maneuvering the Republicans into a position where they appear as dogmatic, lock-step partisans–and politically impotent to boot, since they can’t block a big stimulus bill from passing. And let’s face it: While the president has tried to foster a new spirit of comity and cooperation, the stimulus plans make very few concessions to GOP demands when you look at the big picture.

Some concessions are going to be necessary. But why give up territory before the battle is joined? And why puff up the opposition's "good ideas"? Just tell the public why their ideas are so bad!


The Republicans may look impotent, but do they really care? It’s not as if they think government can actually solve problems. Once they’ve cut taxes for their friends, they might as well go home.


The only thing that motivates the GOP is winning elections. On that score, they’re like Jason in the Friday the 13th movies. He does the same thing in every film, critics be damned. But the audience always knows what to expect, and sometimes they're in the mood for it.


Remember when Democrats were in the Bushian wilderness and Markos Moulitsas was screaming that we didn’t stand for anything? Not much has changed. The Republicans are looking to kick some wishy-washy Demcratic ass in the next movie, and the president is helping them write the script.

Jeb Hensarling (R-TX): Republicanus Moronicus

From his first question to the nation's biggest bankers just now on CNBC:

"What you do with your money is your business. What you do with the taxpayers' money is our business." Delivered with beady-eyed rodent smugness as he puffs out his empty chest.

Deregulation now, deregulation forever. Isn't that how we got here?

Idiot. Dangerous, cretinous idiot.

Who Died And Made Him Boss?

David Sirota is getting nasty emails from Clinton supporters who aren't thrilled with Obama:

Movements and activists and voters have to choose the best among this imperfect pool of possibilities. Journalists like me--if we're interested in the truth--will end up being both critical and supportive of candidates because those candidate aren't typically 100% bad or 100% good. That doesn't make the criticism or the praise "hypocritical"--it makes the reporting authentic and real, rather than sycophantic and propagandistic, and it certainly doesn't make it "hypocritical." {Emphasis added}

I get it--David Sirota is in charge of dispensing The Truth. If he said Barack Obama was the best available progressive--well, then--

To Clintonites, just STFU and slither back to your rathole of bitterness. Your candidate lost because she helped create the problems we now have to fix. Deal with that and become a productive member of society, or again, just STFU.

Listen, David. Thanks to you and the rest of the Democratic/Media establishment, we'll never know what kind of president Hillary Clinton would have made. One thing's for sure, though. Pretty much every negative prediction I made about your candidate's weakness is proving true. Shouldn't you be showing a little humility?

I don't feel like shutting the fuck up. As a matter of fact, David--Can I have your job? You seem to suck at it.

State of Denial

So how are things going these days in the Mainstream Liberal Blogosphere? Not too good, I'm afraid. Here’s georgia10 from Daily Kos:

Democrats must shake off this stale stench of the minority that still wafts about them. They need not cling to the vessel of bipartisanship as if there were no other manner by which to reach the shore.

They need to realize that their efforts are buoyed on the backs of some 68 million strong that voted in favor of bold Democratic principles. As several Democrats (including the president) have noted, the American people voted for change. By selecting a man labeled as the most liberal Senator to the White House and by strengthening Democratic majorities in both chambers, they rejected the Republican policies that have left Americans alone to tread water for so long.

The American people voted for "change," but they didn’t vote for "bold Democratic principles." Barack Obama’s signature campaign promise was to find common ground with Republicans, and that’s exactly the strategy he's been pursuing. If Democrats are "clinging to the vessel of bipartisanship," it’s because they’re following the lead of their Captain.


And here’s Joe Sudaby from Americablog today (I can’t seem to find the link):

While that's all playing out in the Capitol Hill bubble, Obama is taking his show on the road. He's going to talk directly to the American people. Probably a good idea since the traditional media and pundits, a.k.a the Villagers, would rather talk about the very inside political game instead of the dire state of the economy. The perilous state of our country is an afterthought for them.

Get your head out of the sand, Joe. The Villagers aren’t the only ones talking about the "inside political game." The president can’t stop talking about it either. This weekend, instead of using his bully pulpit to press his own "bold" agenda, he’s out there praising the Lieberman Caucus for its wisdom in gutting the stimulus bill. But as always, nothing is ever Barack's fault in Obamaland.


Physician, heal thyself!

Iceberg Ahead

Paul Krugman today:

Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.

David Axelrod got his candidate elected by placing him above the political fray, and he'd like to keep him there. But he didn't foresee that President Obama would have to enact the most important economic legislation legislation of the last fifty years right off the bat.

The whole world is watching. If Obama screws this up because he still wants to be President Gandhi, he's going to pay a political price.

Are you listening, Mr. Axelrod? Time to change course.

Bush: A Love Supreme

Bernard Goldberg’s new sop to the wingnuts--A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (and Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media--probably contains a fair amount of truth, but his audience needs to know that a real journalist would have already written the same book about George W. Bush.

After 9/11, Dubya got a four-year fluffing the likes of which we’ll not see again (short of the USA going all Kim Jong Il in the wake of a massive terrorist attack). Chris Matthews’ fixation on the manliness of his president is well documented, and I’ll never forget Howard Fineman writing a whole column about Bush’s belt buckles. Yowza!

As for serious scrutiny of the Cheney regime’s policies and crimes–Sorry, America. Not in a time of war. (After Chimpy’s stage-managed press conference on the eve of the Iraq debacle, Elizabeth Bumiller of the New York Times admitted she was too scared to risk upsetting him with a hard question. Thanks, Liz.)


The media still loves Obama, and his honeymoon is far from over, but he’s not going to get the Bush treatment. They managed to embarrass even themselves with all their carrying on over the worst president ever.

Unforced Errors

Each of the last three presidents, immediately upon taking office, loudly proclaimed that when it came to running an ethical administration, he was going to make George Washington look like a sleazebag. Then, when the inevitable nanny problems and IRS issues cropped up, they each had to spend a week getting pummeled by their own lofty rhetoric.

Why can't these guys just keep their pieholes shut to begin with?

Who's the Boss?

E. J. Dionne writes:

The president's quest for a new tone in Washington. . . has a practical motive. He believes that economic recovery is about psychology as well as money and that Americans will have more confidence in the future if they see the nation's politicians cooperating to resolve the crisis.

Obama may believe this (although I have my doubts), but is it true? Will people start spending again if they see John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi prancing arm in arm through the cherry blossoms? I don’t know why they should. Maybe there’s some abstruse economic theory at work here, but to me it just seems. . .dumb.

Dionne continues:

If achieving bipartisanship takes priority over the actual content of policy, Republicans are handed a powerful weapon. In theory, they can keep moving the bipartisan bar indefinitely. And each concession to their sensibilities threatens the solidarity in the president's own camp.

Now you’re making sense, E. J. At some point, President Obama is going to have to stop acting like a spectator in his own administration. Thus far, he’s been happy to let a thousand flowers bloom, even some smelly Republican ones. That better not last much longer.


Politics abhors a vacuum.