The Commentariat -- December 5

New York Times artwork.Cleopatra biographer Stacy Schiff, in a New York Times op-ed, recounts "Cleopatra's Guide to Good Governance." CW: it appears the Republicans have been reading Schiff's biography; they're already good at her Lesson No. 1: "obliterate your rivals."

Frank Rich makes the case that President Obama is suffering from Stockholm syndrome. ...

... Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun, in a Washington Post op-ed: "To many liberals and progressives, the president's unwillingness to veto any measure that includes continued tax relief for billionaires is the last straw, building on a record of spinelessness that includes his escalation of the war in Afghanistan, abandonment of a public option for health-care reform, refusal to prosecute those who tortured in Iraq or lied us into that war, and unwillingness to tax carbon emissions." Rabbi Michael's solution: "a real way to save the Obama presidency: by challenging him in the 2012 presidential primaries with a candidate who would unambiguously commit to a well-defined progressive agenda and contrast it with the Obama administration's policies."

Manu Raju of Politico: "New York Sen. Chuck Schumer is wasting little time assuming his new power in the Senate leadership over the Democrats' message, seizing the reins of the tax debate by sharpening attacks against Republicans and effectively intensifying the partisan rancor in the upper chamber." ...

... Steve Benen lays out the case for "Why Compromise with These Guys Is Impossible, Part MCCXVII." ...

... Aw, but here's that nice Mitch McConnell talking about compromise:

... Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: Newt Gingrich says, in effect, "let rich people decide how long their tax cuts last." Then, "In practically the same breath that he proposes giving a massive tax cut to Paris Hilton, he [Gingrich] also suggests that 'we change the entire [unemployment benefits] program into a worker training program and not give anybody money for doing nothing.'” With video which I can't watch.

... Nate Silver looks at the probabilities in the tax standoff game.

Paul Krugman, in a post about the Obama Administration's "attempt to downplay the terrible jobs number," draws this conclusion: "top management has gone missing."

First, Sen. McCain said he would seriously consider repealing [DADT] if the military leadership thought we should, and [when] the military leadership said it should be repealed, he pulled away the football. Then Sen. McCain said he would need to see a study from the Pentagon. When the Pentagon produced the study saying repeal would have no negative effect at all, he pulled away the football again. And his latest trick, he said yesterday that he opposed repealing 'don't ask, don't tell,' a proposal that would be a great stride forward for both equality and military readiness ... because of the economy. I repeat, the senior senator from Arizona said he couldn't support repealing 'don't ask, don't tell' because of the economy. I have no idea what he's talking about and no one else does either.
-- Harry Reid, on the Senate floor ...

... It would be wrong to think John McCain is just betraying gays in the military; he also has it in for 9/11 heroes.

The House had a dramatic election. We picked up seats in the Senate. Some of us thought, maybe we could pick up two or three more, but we made some pretty poor choices when it came to candidates. -- Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, in a Senate floor speech

Matt Bai of the New York Times: "What makes [the debt commission's] case for sacrifice so much harder to embrace, perhaps, is that it goes to our national psyche, threatening our self-image as a land with limitless potential. While past generations have readily sacrificed for national greatness, debt reduction — at least in the gloomy way its advocates argue for it — feels like a call to sacrifice in the name of our national decline. CW: Bai says it ain't necessarily so; I say it's a call to sacrifice in the name of oligarchy.

The Editors of the Washington Post do not like the film "Fair Game." They write, "'Fair Game,' based on books by [Joe] Wilson and his wife [Valerie Plame], is full of distortions -- not to mention outright inventions." ...

... Matt Duss of the Wonk Room refutes some of the WashPo editors' claims & suggests, "Maybe the Washington Post’s editors should try reading their own paper." ...

... AND Dennis G. of Balloon Juice really lambastes WashPo editorial page editor Fred Hiatt: "Today he goes after a movie because the film shines a light on the big lie Fred defends.... Perhaps the fact that a Hollywood movie is more honest about the War (and life) than Hiatt’s Editorial page is what really sets the rat bastard off."

James Glanz & John Markoff of the New York Times: Cables "from American diplomats ... made public by WikiLeaks ... portray China’s leadership as nearly obsessed with the threat posed by the Internet to their grip on power — and, the reverse, by the opportunities it offered them, through hacking, to obtain secrets stored in computers of its rivals, especially the United States. Extensive hacking operations suspected of originating in China, including one leveled at Google, are a central theme in the cables. The operations ... were aimed at a wide ... array of American government and military data...." ...

... Eric Lichtblau & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "Nine years after the United States vowed to shut down the money pipeline that finances terrorism, senior Obama administration officials say they believe that many millions of dollars are flowing largely unimpeded to extremist groups worldwide, and they have grown frustrated by frequent resistance from allies in the Middle East, according to secret diplomatic dispatches." ...

... Eric Lichtblau: "... dozens of State Department cables ... revealed the deep distrust of some traditional European allies toward what they considered American intrusion into their citizens’ affairs without stringent oversight.... When the European Parliament ordered a halt in February to an American government program to monitor international banking transactions for terrorist activity, the Obama administration was blindsided by the rebuke." ...

... David Samuels of The Atlantic deplores the attacks on Julian Assange: "It is dispiriting and upsetting for anyone who cares about the American tradition of a free press to see Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton and Robert Gibbs turn into H.R. Haldeman, John Erlichman and John Dean.... And American reporters, Pulitzer Prizes and all, should be ashamed for joining in the outraged chorus that defends a burgeoning secret world whose existence is a threat to democracy." ...

... Career Counseling. Robert Mackey of the New York Times: "Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, which grooms future diplomats, has confirmed ... that it did send an e-mail to students this week warning them to avoid posting comments online about the leaked diplomatic cables, if they ever hope to work for the State Department." ...

... Lolita Baldor of the AP: "It will take several more years for the [U.S.] government to fully install high-tech systems to block computer intrusions, a drawn-out timeline that enables criminals to become more adept at stealing sensitive data.... As the Department of Homeland Security moves methodically to pare down and secure the approximately 2,400 network connections used every day by millions of federal workers around the world, experts suggest that technology already may be passing them by."

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: a Senator's long good-bye is apt to be a lonely one.

In a well-argued essay appearing in the Washington Post, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend tears apart Sarah Palin's attack on President John Kennedy's Houston speech on the separation of church and state. What a shame Palin is too fucking dumb to understand Townsend's explanation of basic American principles. ...

Meanwhile, in Texas: We elected a house with Christian, conservative values. We now want a true Christian, conservative running it.
-- John Cook, Texas Republican Executive Committee

Grumpy Old Bigot

Maureen Dowd says Grumpy McCain is "erratic and intolerant." Since the New York Times moderators chose to axe my comment again, you can read it here, modified to return it to its Times-unfriendly form. I home in on an issue Dowd overlooks in her criticism of McCain's opposition to repeal of DADT:

For all of McCain’s supposed advocacy for bending to the whims of the rank-and-file soldiers, for all of his sudden interest in “troop morale,” for all of his concern about the dangers of initiating change in wartime -- which obviously is a time the military must make changes – for all of his knocking the leadership abilities of Adm. Mullen, for all of his questioning of the wisdom of the civilian Secretary of Defense Gates, he sure doesn’t seem to care much about national security.

Oh, down in Arizona, he wants us to “build the danged fence” to keep out ferriners who are driving around purposely causing accidents when they’re not decapitating Americans & burying their heads in the Arizona desert. But if any of the National Guard who are patrolling the Arizona-Mexico border are gay, they’d better keep quiet about it. Wonder how the morale of gay soldiers is doing? Ah, well, McCain doesn’t care about that.

As Daniel Drezner wrote in Foreign Policy, "The rigorous enforcement of DADT is preventing competent and patriotic soldiers from serving their country, particularly in high-demand positions like, say, Arabic translators.... I just want to know why the ranking minority member of the Senate Armed Services committee [i.e., McCain] is throwing national security, civilian control of the military, and the hierarchical chain of command under the f**king bus."

I never liked the “old” John McCain. I thought his phony “maverick” status, the one he denied during the 2010 campaign, was just evidence he was an unprincipled loose cannon. But the new, reconstituted John McCain is not just a blind old bigot; he poses a continuing threat to national security.

(You can read my comment on Frank Rich's column here. It's #5. The other comments on this page are very good.)

The Commentariat -- December 4

Mark Trumbull of the Christian Science Monitor: "... some prominent Nobel Prize winners [-- Joseph Stiglitz, Robert Solow & Paul Krugman --] argue for higher federal deficits – as a means of stimulating economic growth – rather than for quick steps on deficit reduction. Even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke appears sympathetic to this position." ...

... Meanwhile, David Dayan of Firedoglake: 14 Democratic senators, plus Dems Dick Durbin & Kent Conrad, rally round deficit reduction. "... the Catfood Commission, while 'failing' in the technical sense, did its job. It created a report that people can label 'bipartisan' moving forward, and it put deficit reduction – when there are 15 million Americans out of work – at the top of the agenda.... And it’s a self-inflicted wound, as this was a Presidential commission."

Alan Grayson goes out with a bang, not a whimper. Recommended viewing!

They can pretend giving the rich tax breaks creates jobs, but we know it doesn’t. If that were the case, the economy would be booming.
-- Harry Reid ...

... David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "In a last-ditch effort to control the political messaging in the tax fight, Democrats accused the Republicans of favoring the rich over the middle class, of cruelly holding up an extension of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed, and of pursuing bad economic policies that contributed to the recent recession." ...

... Jay Newton-Small of Time has more on today's Senate votes.

John Amato of Crooks & Liars: "... the CBO released a study that shows if Congress does pass the DREAM Act, it would save us $1.4 billion over ten years.... Why does this matter? Because Republicans are screaming that they won't vote for any legislation that doesn't cut the federal deficit." Amato provides a call list of Senators we should lobby. The CBO report is here.

Super PACs provide a means for the super wealthy to have even more influence and an even greater voice in the political process.
-- Meredith McGehee, of the Campaign Legal Center ...

... T. W. Farnam of the Washington Post: "The newly created independent political groups known as super PACs, which raised and spent millions of dollars on last month's elections, drew much of their funding from private-equity partners and others in the financial industry, according to new financial disclosure reports. The 72 super PACs, all formed this year, together spent $83.7 million on the election. The figures provide the best indication yet of the impact of recent Supreme Court decisions that opened the door for wealthy individuals and corporations to give unlimited contributions."

"Death by Budget Cut." Gail Collins writes of an Arizona man in need of a liver transplant who was literally prepped for surgery when "the Arizona state government, which is totally controlled by Republicans, got between him and his doctor." AND here's the backstory by Marc Lacey of the Times. The comments to Collins' column are pretty good, too.

Michael O'Brien of The Hill: "Democrats hoping to move forward with legislation other than tax cuts shouldn't look to centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to break the logjam. Collins said again on Friday that, while she would vote with Democrats to end the military's 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy, she wouldn't do so until a debate over tax cuts has been resolved." CW: assuming Harry Reid can keep all the Democrats in line, Collins' "after-tax" vote is the 60th vote needed to break a filibuster. ,,,

... Daniel Drezner in Foreign Policy in his "one post on repealing DADT: "... the status quo is undermining national security far more than any change. The rigorous enforcement of DADT is preventing competent and patriotic soldiers from serving their country, particularly in high-demand positions like, say, Arabic translators.... I therefore really and truly don't give a s**t why John McCain's position has shifted. I just want to know why the ranking minority member of the Senate Armed Services committee is throwing national security, civilian control of the military, and the hierarchical chain of command under the f***ing bus." ...

... Matt Yglesias: "I really wonder what’s happening, subjectively, inside the heads of people who oppose repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Do any of them think they’re on the right side of history here? That people are going to look back from 2040 and say 'if only we’d listened to John McCain thirty years ago?'"

Steve Benen on Sen. Bob Menendez's (D-NJ) comparing negotiating with Republicans to negotiating with terrorists. Republicans are having hissy-fits, but, Benen asks, after citing examples, "what about when Republicans compare themselves to terrorists?"

Ron Brownstein in the National Journal on why Dick Luger is the lone Republican Senator to openly back the New START treaty.

Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "A small stockpile of spent nuclear fuel destined for disposal in Russia remained behind in a lightly guarded research center, apparently because of a fit of pique by Libya’s mercurial leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. In a frantic cable back to Washington, American officials in Tripoli warned of dire consequences unless the carefully brokered deal to remove the 5.2 kilograms (11.4 pounds) of highly enriched uranium stored in seven five-ton casks was quickly resurrected."

Scott Shane of the New York Times: "Diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks ... offer the most intimate view to date of the wily, irreverent and sometimes erratic Yemeni autocrat [Ali Abdullah Saleh], who over the past year has become steadily more aggressive against Al Qaeda. But he appears determined to join the fight on his own terms, sometimes accommodating and other times rebuffing American requests on counterterrrorism." ...

... In the National Journal, Matthew Dowd, a former Bush strategist, writes, "... we’re mired in a political environment where much of the public distrusts the federal government and despises both parties.... If we want to restore trust in our government, maybe we can start by telling the truth, keeping fewer secrets, and respecting the privacy of average citizens a little more." Dowd castigates the media for not "defending WikiLeaks and doing some soul-searching of their own about why they aren’t devoting more resources to the search for the truth."

... Chris Cillizza (who is high on my list of village idiots) of the Washington Post says WikiLeaks made for a ruinous week for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. BUT Glenn Kessler of the Post sees a silver lining: "Arab angst about Iran's nuclear ambitions has been exposed, perhaps giving the United States greater leverage in international talks scheduled for next week."