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Sunday
Jan222012
The Commentariat -- January 23, 2012
My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on rank-and-file conservatives' mistrust of the mainstream media and how the GOP has created and stoked it. The NYTX front page is here. Make a contribution here.
Ha ha. A reprise, with backup by Les Deux Love Orchestra:
** CW: I haven't read all of Ryan Lizza's piece on "The Obama Memos" in today's New Yorker but I will. The bits I read are fascinating, even though I knew quite a few of them, some from Lizza's earlier digging into the nitty-gritty of Obama's career. ...
... John Hudson of The Atlantic has the Cliffnotes on Lizza's story, but read Lizza -- more fun.
Gabriel Sherman of New York magazine: President Obama is his own memorist, so it's no surprise the White House doesn't like outsiders muddying the waters by writing books about him, even largely favorable ones.
Joe Hagan in New York on "the coming tsunami of slime": "By almost every measure, the 2012 election is going to be the most negative in the history of American politics. In this, the post-hope election, the promise of Obama’s last campaign has been turned inside out. For all the Republicans’ attempts to emphasize the virtues of austerity, the animating force of their party is hatred of Obama, his 'Kenyan' ancestry, his 'socialism' and Chicago associates, and the charge that he ... landed us in an anxious, alien landscape that doesn’t feel anything like what people used to call 'America.'”
Our Long National Nightmare Might Be Ending. Paul Krugman: "... things ... would have been worse if we had followed the policies demanded by Mr. Obama’s opponents.... Republicans have been demanding that the Fed stop trying to bring down interest rates and that federal spending be slashed immediately — which amounts to demanding that we emulate Europe’s failure. And if this year’s election brings the wrong ideology to power, America’s nascent recovery might well be snuffed out." Read Krugman's explanation of "deleveraging," which is helping to pull us out of the crisis. He has more on deleveraging in this blogpost and in this one. I think it is important to see the federal debt in this light; that is, we have transferred some of the private debt to public debt, and that is what's necessary during a crisis.
Nino Sings Happy Birthday to Citizens United:
I don't care who is doing the speech -- the more the merrier. People are not stupid. If they don't like it, they'll shut it off.... If the system seems crazy to you, don't blame it on the court. -- Justice Antonin Scalia, at a South Carolina Bar Association forum
By nature, when a decision isn't unanimous, somebody is making a mistake.... There are real problems when people want to spend lots of money on a candidate ... they'll drown out the people who don't have a lot of money. -- Justice Stephen Breyer
CW: Bill Keller has a succinct overview of U.S. policy toward Iran. Keller is kind of a dim bulb, and I don't know enough to evaluate his basic premises, but if he's right, his column is helpful. The first comment, by a guy who uses the pseudonym "Winning Progressive" and is an Obamabot, adds a useful caveat to Keller's thesis. Any comments on the Keller piece, from those more knowledgeable that I, will be appreciated. Also, if I come across professional rebuttals by People Who Are Not John Bolton, I'll link them.
The Plot Thickens. Jim Yardley & Heather Timmons of the New York Times: a new assassination plot against novelist Salmon Rushdie -- or not? The supposed threat may have been invented to keep Rushdie from attending a literary festival in Jaipur, India.
Right Wing World
"'Grandiose' Idea? Not So Much. Ezra Klein: "I’m at a loss to name even one big idea animating [Newt] Gingrich’s campaign. He’s got the largest and most fiscally irresponsible tax cut in the race, but he doesn’t mention it much. His plans to cut spending are vague. He says he agrees with Ron Paul on the dangers of fiat money and the Federal Reserve, but he hasn’t proposed doing anything about it.... This seems typical for Gingrich’s career: His ideas on the big issues are standard-issue conservatism, and they’re mixed in with occasional flights of fancy (illuminate highways using orbiting mirrors that reflect moonlight), pure plays to resentment and fear (execute 19-year-olds who are stupidly trying to smuggle two ounces of pot from Mexico), and a lot of small, specific ideas, like the Louisiana port reconstruction." CW: see yesterday's Commentariat for "grandiose" context. Plus, you gotta read the one about executing small-time pot smugglers. What a stupid, nasty loon. ...
... John Cassidy of the New Yorker has a very good take on Newt's South Carolina win, and his prospects, complete with a well-wrought image of Mrs. Newt: "... the mannequin-like Callista..., her peroxide helmet seemingly held in place by a cryogenic freezing agent...."
Noam Scheiber of The New Republic: the South Carolina result was about Romney's weakness, not Gingrich's strength. "The story of 2011 was that Republicans had a frontrunner they weren’t in love with. Mitt Romney spent the entire year below 25 percent in national polls; a new Mitt alternative surged ahead of him every few weeks, only to collapse when it turned out he or she couldn’t pass an eighth grade civics class. The pundits concluded from this that Romney’s grip on the nomination was tenuous and that ... the race was a lot less stable than it looked.... That was the conventional wisdom up until New Hampshire, in any case, at which point a revisionist theory took hold. According to the theory, put forth by some of the smartest analysts around, Romney was much stronger than he appeared to be." The race looks a lot like the Obama-Clinton faceoff of 2008. ...
If I'm fortunate enough to become president, I'll care very deeply about it getting better in a big hurry. -- Mitt Romney ...
... Jonathan Chait of New York: "It’s not a bad plan at all. Though probably the smartest way to execute it involves pretending it’s not your plan and, say, doing a better job of concealing the fact that you’re desperately rooting for economic failure."
Don't Touch My Junk. Or My Leg. Or Any Part of Me! -- Rand Paul, before being carted off by local police after an "incident" with the TSA
Local News
Monica Davey of the New York Times: as Indianapolis prepares for its first Super Bowl ever, inside the statehouse, Republican legislators say they have the votes to pass an anti-union so-called "right to work" bill that would be the first such law passed in a decade. (Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels favors the bill and would sign it into law.) The National Football League Players Association, BTW, opposes the bill, which GOP legislators hope to get passed before the Super Bowl, despite Democratic "disruptions."
News Ledes
There's another Republican debate tonight, this one from Tampa.
... Update: The New York Times is liveblogging the debate here. ...
... Update: Here's the Times report on the debate.
New York Times: "A wealthy supporter of Newt Gingrich will donate $5 million to a 'super PAC' supporting his candidacy, providing a significant infusion of cash to the group as it seeks to defend Mr. Gingrich in Florida ahead of next week’s Republican primary, a person with knowledge of the contribution said on Monday. The supporter, Dr. Miriam Adelson, is the wife of Sheldon Adelson, a longtime Gingrich friend and conservative ally who contributed $5 million to the super PAC, Winning Our Future, earlier this month. The couple has now given a total of at least $10 million to Winning Our Future."
AP: "Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and his chief Democratic rival, Elizabeth Warren, have signed a pledge to curb political attack ads by outside groups in their Massachusetts Senate race. Under the terms of the deal, each campaign would agree to donate half the cost of any third-party ad to charity if that ad either supports their candidacy or attacks their opponent by name."
NBC News: "Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk underwent successful surgery on Monday after having suffered a stroke on Saturday night, his office announced Monday. Kirk underwent surgery to remove a 4 inch by 8 inch piece of his skull to relieve swelling in the brain, Dr. Richard Fessler of Northwestern Memorial Hospital told reporters late Monday morning in Chicago."
AP: "In one of her last acts in office, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords met Monday with other survivors and supporters more than a year after gunfire interrupted a spontaneous meet-and-greet with constituents outside a Tucson grocery store. As part of a bittersweet day, Giffords finished the meeting she had started on the morning of Jan. 8, 2011, by spending time at her office with others who had been at the scene of the rampage that killed six people and injured 13 others, including Giffords."
Yahoo! News: "The Justice Department has charged a former CIA counter-terrorism analyst [John Kiriakou] with revealing classified information to journalists, including the identity of a covert U.S. intelligence interrogator." After his stint at the CIA, Kiriakou became an ABC News analyst. ...
... Update: the New York Times story is here.
** New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously ruled that the police violated the Constitution when they placed a Global Positioning System tracking device on a suspect’s car and monitored its movements for 28 days. But the justices divided 5-to-4 on the rationale for the decision, with the majority saying that the problem was the placement of the device on private property. That ruling avoided many difficult questions, including how to treat information gathered from devices installed by the manufacturer and how to treat information held by third parties like cellphone companies."
New York Times: "As they prepared for a debate [in Florida] Monday night, the [Romney & Gingrich] campaigns were trading charges over the Congressional ethics inquiry on Mr. Gingrich in the 1990s, over Mr. Romney’s tax returns and over whether Mr. Gingrich’s consulting work for the government-sponsored mortgage lender Freddie Mac amounted to lobbying." Washington Post story here.
New York Times: "The 27 nations of the European Union on Monday increased pressure on Iran over its nuclear program by agreeing to ban oil imports."
New York Times: "Denouncing a new Arab League peace proposal that calls for Syria’s embattled president to resign, the government emphatically rejected the plan on Monday, calling it a blatant infringement on Syrian sovereignty and evidence of a 'conspiratorial scheme.'”
New York Times: "Pakistan’s Supreme Court is waging a campaign of judicial activism that has pitted it against an elected civilian government, in a legal fight that many Pakistanis fear could damage their fragile democracy and open the door to a fresh military intervention."
Washington Post: "International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde warned of a '1930s moment' for the world economy if Europe does not solve its fiscal problems, and said Germany must contribute more money to stave off financial disaster."
AP: "Italian officials were clearing hurdles Monday to begin pumping some half a million gallons of fuel from the capsized Costa Concordia that threaten an environmental catastrophe, as divers continued the search for 19 people known missing."
Reuters: "A cache of ancient Jewish scrolls from northern Afghanistan that has only recently come to light is creating a storm among scholars who say the landmark find could reveal an undiscovered side of medieval Jewry. The 150 or so documents, dated from the 11th century, were found in Afghanistan's Samangan province and most likely smuggled out...."
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Reader Comments (5)
My understanding is that Iran fears Israel's panting wolves much more than they fear us at this time. With Bibi and his slick Willy ways with anything that smacks of piety and iron it wouldn't surprise me if he would try and seduce us into the shelling of Iran's facilities. He and Obama are not the best of friends which gives one a little hope that we will resist that suggestion. There are those that say we need to fear Pakistan nukes more than Iran's; Iran may be off the charts, but not crazy––Pakistan is crazy they say.
Re Krugman's article (sort of): One of the reasons the right wing has put forth for its opposition to stimulus spending is Federal debt. They are all over the idea that it is public debt that is somehow responsible for the economic downturn, despite all evidence to the contrary. At the same time, it is often the "Red States" that have accepted more than their share of Federal money. For a hilarious take on all this, see Michael Moore's excellent piece filmed (in 1994!) in Cobb County, Georgia; and featuring the one and only Newt Gingrich .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJWemnpvrSM
Okay, so we are down to three (forget Paul). The deeply religious Romney who lies every day, the deeply religious Santorum who is obsessed with sex and the deeply religious Gingrich who is seriously mentally ill. We keep hearing words like grandiose, crazy ideas and on and on. I am not a psychiatrist but I am pretty sure we are dealing with a serious mental disorder here. The unofficial diagnosis, a really dangerous nut case. Never mind his ex wives, I wonder when the 'media elite' are going to have the nerve to address this one.
@Marvin Schwalb-
You are assuming the "media elite" know squat about mental illness! They don't. And, talk about grandiosity: that is a component of a whole spectrum of disorders--from narcissistic personality and bi-polar illness to sociopathic (anti-social) personality. The "media elite" often demonstrate amazing grandiosity themselves, so how can we assume they would recognize a larger case of it in the Republican candidates?
@ Victoria: Watched the video–-had never seen that before. Good old Moore playing like Colbert and revealing the scaling skin beneath all that southern charm. Thanks.