The Commentariat -- December 17

"PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen 'government takeover of health care' as the 2010 Lie of the Year."

President Obama signs the tax-cut deal into law:

... Washington Post: "President Obama signed into law the most significant tax bill in nearly a decade Friday, a day after overcoming liberal resistance in Congress to continue for two more years tax breaks enacted under president George W. Bush and to provide a fresh federal boost for the tepid economic recovery." ...

... New York Times: "Congress at midnight Thursday approved an $801 billion package of tax cuts and $57 billion for extended unemployment insurance. The vote sealed the first major deal between President Obama and Congressional Republicans.... Administration officials said Mr.Obama would sign the package into law on Friday. The final vote in the House was 277 to 148 after liberal Democrats failed in one last bid to change an estate-tax provision in the bill that they said was too generous to the wealthiest Americans and that the administration agreed to in a concession to Republicans. The amendment failed, 233 to 194." Washington Post story here.

Sam Graham-Felsen, Barack Obama's chief blogger during the 2008 campaign, has had enough, as he writes in the Washington Post: "... at seemingly every turn, Obama has chosen to play an inside game. Instead of actively engaging supporters in major legislative battles, Obama has told them to sit tight as he makes compromises behind closed doors.... Obama has made it clear that, for the most part, his administration isn't seriously interested in deploying this massive grass-roots list - which was once heralded as a force that could reshape politics as we know it - to fight for sweeping legislative change."

Howard Fineman: "The new, more Republican Congress won't arrive in town until next month, but the Tea Party Era unofficially began on the Hill Thursday night.... The GOP brass, led by Senate party leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)..., eagerly back[ed] the successful efforts of Tea Party favorites to block debate on a $1.1 trillion 'omnibus' spending bill that would fund the entire federal government until next October -- but which contained billions of dollars in 'earmarks' Republicans, including McConnell, once stoutly defended." ...

... BUT Alex Pareene of Salon wonders how long it will take Republicans to demoralize their base. Even Fox "News," Pareene points out, is already calling out "real Republicans" on their hypocrisy on earmarks. "The right is paying attention, and it is even beginning to actually hold its leaders accountable for their rhetoric -- by demanding that they live up to its apocalyptic incoherence." ...

... AND Jonathan Chait figures out the "Secret Senate Plan," which explains some weird voting patterns of moderate Republicans. ...

... AND, speaking of the Secret Senate Plan, Jon Stewart devotes his entire show to the First Responders' Bill, which passed in the House, but which Senate Republicans blocked en masse:

     ... You can watch the rest of the show here. Or click on the other segments at the end of the video above.

Igor Volsky of Think Progress: Majority Leader Reid won't make promises on when or if significant legislation, including DADT repeal, will be brought up for a vote in the lame-duck session. With video. ...

... Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times on a Senate vote on DADT repeal: "The bill’s greatest obstacle is no longer votes, but the clock." ...

... Sam Stein Update: "Reid announced that he was filing cloture on two of the party's other major priorities: the DREAM Act, which would grant pathways to citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, and the stand-alone repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, the military law that restricts openly gay members from serving. Votes on those measures, a leadership aide told The Huffington Post, would now come on Saturday morning."

CW: forget Michael Gerson's first paragraph; remember, he's a first-joint winger. But his assessment of President Obama's strategy on "selling" the tax-cut deal & on his other ham-fisted political miscalculations is closer to the mark. On the tax-cut deal:

Obama launched into an assault on partners and opponents. Republicans are 'hostage-takers' who worship the 'Holy Grail' of trickle-down economics. Liberal opponents are 'sanctimonious,' preferring their own purity to the interests of the poor.... It is difficult to imagine the president's advisers sitting in the Oval Office and urging this approach: 'Mr. President, the best course here would be to savage likely supporters of the bill and to embitter your political base. This will show just how principled you are, in contrast to the corruption and fanaticism all around you.' -- Michael Gerson

Paul Krugman makes sport of the Republicans on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, who wrote their own separate report, one that "is all of nine pages long, with few facts and hardly any numbers. Beyond that, it tells a story that has been widely and repeatedly debunked — without responding at all to the debunkers." Krugman adds, "... we learned ... what happens when an ideology backed by vast wealth and immense power confronts inconvenient facts. And the answer is, the facts lose."  Here's a pdf of the Republican members' "Financial Crisis Primer."

David Sanger of the New York Times: "Even the toned-down, public version of the one-year [Afghanistan-Pakistan War] progress report released by the White House on Thursday makes clear President Obama is still in search of the leverage he needs to persuade, or compel, Pakistan to close down the safe haven for terrorists and insurgents that has let a battered al Qaeda leadership and a vigorous Taliban survive." ...

... Dan Froomkin: "President Barack Obama asserted on Thursday that the White House's questionable assessment of progress in Afghanistan 'reflect[s] the dedication of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, whose memory we honor and whose work we'll continue.' But the reality is that a year ago, when Obama was choosing between escalation and deescalation in the region, Holbrooke was one of several top advisors who cautioned him that the path he ultimately chose -- sending in 30,000 more American troops -- simply could not succeed." ...

... Alissa Rubin of the New York Times: "The White House report on Afghan strategy released Thursday was notable as much for what it did not say as for what it did.... President Obama is on a political timetable, needing to assure a restless public and his political base that a withdrawal is on track to begin by the deadline he set of next summer and that he can show measurable success before the next election cycle. Afghanistan, and the American military, are running on a different clock, based on more intractable realities." ...

... New York Times Editors: "For Americans, anxious about the war in Afghanistan, there is not a lot of comfort or clarity to be found in President Obama’s long-promised strategy review." ...

... Brave New Foundation more starkly puts the lie to the Administration's rosy assessment of "progress":

... Mark Thompson of Time has more on the "difficulties" NATO forces face. Problems with Pakistan aside, "The get-out-of-Afghanistan card for the nearly 100,000 U.S. troops now there requires training sufficient Afghan army and police to take their place. The U.S. is trying to build an Afghan security force 305,000 strong (171,000 troops, 134,000 police) by next October. Currently, they're up to 250,000, including 146,000 soldiers and 115,000 cops." CW: see "Afghan Police Jumping Jacks" video in yesterday's Commentariat for a reality check on how well that effort is going.

Anne Kornblut & Ashley Halsey of the Washington Post: "Nine years after the Sept. 11 attacks and decades after hijackers first began to target passenger airliners, the United States has invested billions of dollars in an airport system that makes technology the last line of defense to intercept terrorists. It has yet to catch one." ...

... My old friend Bob Poole, a leading libertarian, has been railing against TSA policies & practices for years. Here he is a year ago, suggesting "a risk-based approach to aviation security," and a month ago suggesting a refinement of the risk-based approach.

Ben Armbruster of Think Progress: a World Public Opinion polls provides more statistical evidence that Fox "News" watchers are more misinformed and less knowledgeable about issues than are people who get their news elsewhere.

This idea that you can’t be an honest man and a Washington politician is a myth, a crock made up by sellouts and careerist hacks who don’t stand for anything and are impatient with people who do. It’s possible to do this job with honor and dignity. It’s just that most of our politicians – our president included, apparently – would rather not bother. -- Matt Taibbi ...

... ** "Bernie Sanders Puts Barack Obama to Shame." Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: "In an era of Democratic waffling and compromise, the Independent from Vermont actually stands up for what he believes in."

... if there’s one thing that’s truly toxic in this country, it is its middle class, with its debt-laden suburban mansions, humongous S.U.V.’s and minivans, garages crammed with yesterday’s gadgets and an insatiable need to surpass the Joneses. If in 2030, these middle-class “values” of overconsumption and waste were to infect half a billion Indians, it would be a disaster for our planet. -- Sridhar Subramanian, who immigrated to the U.S. from India, in a letter to the editor of the New York Times in response to David Brooks' truly stupid column suggesting we export our middle class values

Peter S. Goodman of the Huffington Post on the Home Affordable Modification Program: "Even those who supposedly manage to get help have wound up battered and mistreated along the way, highlighting how many more simply give up along the way."

Barry Meier of the New York Times: "Unlike new drugs, many of which go through a series of clinical trials before receiving approval from the Food and Drug Administration, critical implants can be sold without such testing if a device, like an artificial hip, resembles an implant already approved and used on patients.

"The End Is Near." Gordon Dickson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "Two weeks after controversy erupted because the Fort Worth Transportation Authority accepted ads with the atheist message 'Millions of Americans are Good Without God,' the T board revised its policy Wednesday night to ban all religious ads effective Jan. 1."