The Commentariat -- December 30

** Paul Krugman & Robin Wells in the New York Review of Books: President Obama has totally fucked up the hoped-for economic recovery: "Democrats need to make it clear that if Obama isn’t going to be the leader of the Democratic agenda — and all indications are that he can’t or won’t — they will advance that agenda anyway, with or without his help. They have to be ready to delink their political fate from Obama, and make it clear that they won’t tolerate further undermining of their goals by deluded calls for bipartisanship."

** Revolving Door. Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "The president's recently departed budget director is joining Citigroup. The New York Federal Reserve Bank's derivatives expert is joining Goldman Sachs.... The vast overhaul of financial regulations and the renewed intensity of investigations into white-collar crime has been a boon for regulators, prosecutors and financial policymakers looking to cash in on their government experience and contacts. In recent months, prominent officials from the White House, Justice Department, SEC, banking regulators and other agencies, both federal and state, a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/29/AR2010122902721.html?hpid=topnews" target="_blank">have been walking through the proverbial revolving door to join Goldman, Citi, other financial companies and top law firms in Washington and New York." ...

... Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "The federal internship program that President Obama plans to shut down in March has been criticized by union leaders for 'abuses.' ... But what were abuses to some ... were to many managers a welcome system of recruiting the best talent to their agencies. And they say scrapping the program in favor of one geared solely to recent school graduates will leave them at a big disadvantage." ...

... ** Michael Fletcher of the Washington Post: "As they return home to the worst labor market in generations, the veterans who are publicly venerated for their patriotism and service are also having a harder time than most finding work.... While their nonmilitary contemporaries were launching careers during the nearly 10 years the nation has been at war, troops were repeatedly deployed to desolate war zones. And on their return to civilian life, these veterans are forced to find their way in a bleak economy where the skills they learned at war have little value."

Pitchfork & Torches Time. Arthur Delaney & Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post: Glenn Beck advocates for the return of the 19th-century (& before) poorhouse. President Obama seems to like the idea. ...

... Paul Rosenberg elaborates in Open Left: "Barack Obama [is] sleepwalking us back to Grover Cleveland-land, as he articulates more and more of the age-old conservative Republican mindset."

Ruth Simon of the Wall Street Journal: "Some big U.S. banks are starting to increase their lending to businesses as demand for loans rises and healthier banks seek to grab customers from weaker rivals. After declining steadily for most of the past two years, the amount of commercial and industrial loans held by commercial banks inched upward during the past two months, according to the Federal Reserve.... An uptick in business lending is an optimistic sign for the economy...."

New York Times Editors: "... new Republican rules will gut pay-as-you-go because they require offsets only for entitlement increases, not for tax cuts. In effect, the new rules will codify the Republican fantasy that tax cuts do not deepen the deficit."

Tom Jackman of the Washington Post: "A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that noncitizens in criminal cases must be advised of the possible consequences of a conviction has sparked a flurry of appeals by defendants who claim that they didn't know that conviction would lead to deportation.... Judges and lawyers across the country have scrambled to deal with the ramifications of the U.S. Supreme Court's March ruling in Padilla v. Kentucky, which clarified a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel."

Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The Obama administration is expressing alarm over reports that thousands of political separatists and captured Taliban insurgents have disappeared into the hands of Pakistan’s police and security forces, and that some may have been tortured or killed.... The concern is over a steady stream of accounts from human rights groups that Pakistan’s security services have rounded up thousands of people over the past decade, mainly in Baluchistan, a vast and restive province...."

Carlotta Gall & Ruhullah Khapalwak of the New York Times: "The inauguration of a new [Afghan] Parliament in just weeks threatens to worsen ethnic tensions and instability and to drive an important part of President Hamid Karzai’s political base into the arms of the insurgency, Afghans and foreign officials warn."

David Barboza of the New York Times: why Shanghai students outperform students 65 other countries -- "discipline, rote learning and obsessive test preparation." ...

... BUT Jiang Xueqin, a deputy principal of Peking University High School, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the regimentation that produces high test scores also has meant that Chinese students "... cannot work independently, lack the social skills to work in a team and are too arrogant to learn new skills."

Behind the Scenes. President Obama signs repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell:

Crackpot News

David Catanese of Politico: "Former Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell issued a remarkable statement Wednesday night, accusing both political parties in Delaware and the Vice President of the United States of trying to destroy her political career through charges she misused campaign funds." Catanese includes O'Donnell's complete statement. ...

Philip Rucker & Krissah Thompson of the Washington Post: House Republicans will institute new rules that (1) will require opening the Congressional session by reading the Constitution aloud. (2) "And then they will require that every new bill contain a statement by the lawmaker who wrote it citing the constitutional authority to enact the proposed legislation. Call it the tea party-ization of Congress." ...

... I think it's entirely cosmetic. This is the way the establishment handles grass-roots movements. They humor people who are not expert or not fully cognizant. And then once they've humored them and those people go away, it's right back to business as usual. It looks like this will be business as usual -- except for the half-hour or however long it takes to read the Constitution out loud. -- Prof. Kevin Gutzman, a conservative libertarian

... Related: Frivolous News

Republican Presidential Contenders Fight about Flab. Jason Horowitz & Nia-Malika Henderson of the Washington Post: "Sarah Palin has taken to assailing Michelle Obama's anti-obesity initiative on her reality show and elsewhere, while former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, the Republican Party's resident authority on obesity and a potential Palin rival, has been defending it from Palin's salvos. Two other possible GOP presidential contenders, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.), have also praised Obama's efforts.

Michael Shear of the New York Times recalls the most famous refudiations of their earlier positions made by politicians in 2010. P.S. Looks like Sarah Palin can't tell a "p" from a "d." Okay, a "p" is just an upside-down lower-case "d." CW: she's Ginger Rogers. She types upside-down. While wearing heels.