The Commentariat -- September 20

Cheer Up! Chris Bowers, writing in the Daily Kos, argues that, despite the right-wing backlash, the country is really moving to the left. Via AlterNet.

Jackie Calmes & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "White House and Congressional Democratic strategists ... see openings to exploit after a string of Tea Party successes split Republicans in a number of states, culminating last week with developments that scrambled Senate races in Delaware and Alaska." ...

... BUT Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post: voters don't like either party.

... AND Politico Update: "The White House is pushing back hard against a New York Times report that the president's political team is considering a national ad campaign that would cast the GOP as taken over by tea party extremists. The story is '100 percent inaccurate,' a White House official told Politico." CW: the Times has since drastically modified their story, linked above.

David Herszenhorn & Carl Hulse of the New York Times: does the Republican party have any room for moderates like Olympia Snowe & Susan Collins of Maine? "Senator Jim DeMint ... made it clear in the aftermath of the Delaware upset [of Republican moderate Mike Castle] that he would prefer losing a seat to Democrats than having Republican colleagues who stray from the conservative line and erode party unity and image by voting for policies supported by the Obama administration."

Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "Even after taxpayer bailouts restored bankers’ profits and pay, the great Wall Street money machine is decelerating.... The activities at the heart of what Wall Street does — selling and trading stocks and bonds, and advising on mergers — are running at levels well below where they were at this point last year...."

Neil King, Jr. & Janet Adamy of the Wall Street Journal: "Eyeing a potential Congressional win in November, House Republicans are planning to chip away at the White House's legislative agenda—in particular the health-care law—by depriving the programs of cash."

They Have No Shame. Zaid Jilani of Think Progress: when a GM auto engines plant held a reopening ceremony in Spring Hill, Tennessee, "Sens. Bob Corker, Lamar Alexander, and Rep. Marsha Blackburn [attended]. Ironically, all three ... opposed the plans to save General Motors and other U.S. auto companies. This didn’t stop Corker from taking credit for the federal rescue, anyway.” The auto workers booed Corker.

Catherine Rampell of the New York Times: "The recession officially ended in June 2009, according to the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of such dates. As many economists had expected, this official end date makes the most recent downturn the longest since World War II. This recent recession, having begun in December 2007, lasted 18 months." ...

... Motoko Rich of the New York Times: "... because it will take years to absorb the giant pool of unemployed at the economy’s recent pace, many of these older [over-50] people may simply age out of the labor force before their luck changes." ...

... Conor Dougherty of the Wall Street Journal: "It's not only that the college educated earn more, but that they are far more likely to keep their jobs when times get tough."

Melissa Taylor & Warren Strobel of McClatchy News: the U.S. Agency for International Development continues to award defense contracts to U.S. firms it knows or suspects have defrauded the government of huge sums, & the Justice Department aids & abets the contractors.

James Warren in the New York Times: a newly-released audio tape of President Kennedy, Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen & Democratic Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield is a good example of how the parties used to work together to solve national problems.

President Carter talks to Matt Lauer of NBC:

President Jimmy Carter talks to CBS News' Leslie Stahl about his "White House Diary":

Woman of the Middle Atlantic

Maureen Dowd: reports on Christine O'Donnell's fascnation with the writings of J.R.R. Tolkein & C. S. Lewis. "We the People in the Ruling Class Elites do think O’Donnell comes across as alarmingly loopy." Dowd writes, "She might have gone a broom too far, though, when she once told Bill Maher that she had 'dabbled into witchcraft' and went on a date with a witch that included 'a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.'”

Here's the "dabbling into witchcraft"/satanic altar segment:

C-SPAN has the 2003 O'Donnell footage on Tolkein's portrayal of women in the Lord of the Rings cycle here. in a video titled "Women of the Middle Earth." I really could not bear to listen.

Here's O'Donnell's speech to the Values Voters. Her remarks about C. S. Lewis' Narnia books begin at 4:40 min. in. Bear in mind, these are remarks she made days ago, not when she was a teenager.

The Constant Weader comments on the practical aspects of O'Donnell's "phantastic philosophy":

We all had childhood fantasies & we all did and said stupid things when we were young. The difference between Christine O'Donnell and us is that we grew out of those fantasies & modified our stupid ideas. Christine O'Donnell, candidate for U.S. Senate, still sees the world in terms of children's books. (Yeah, I know Lewis' & Tolkein's stories are allegories, but the subjects of their allegories & the theologies they espouse are still nonsense.)

O'Donnell probably doesn't have time to date witches (I thought the boy witches were warlocks) anymore, but -- like all extremist conservatives -- she's still deeply into voodoo economics. She favors the flat tax, which reduces the burden on the wealthy & raises the burden on the poor & middle class. She favors a balanced budget amendment yet she has repeatedly pledged "never" to raise taxes & she would reduce capital gains taxes & estate taxes (which she calls "death taxes," of course). Obviously, O'Donnell's proposed tax cuts make balancing the budget essentially impossible. You would think she would know this with the personal financial troubles she has had -- the same trouble millions of Americans have -- with balancing her own budget. She seems unaware that when you've got more outgo than income, you've got a budget deficit. It's, you know, unbalanced.

Still, O'Donnell doesn't mind if we spend more. She thinks it might be a good idea to start a war against Iran. Hard to see an economic downside to that. She does have one "foreign policy" idea to save a little money. She wants us to discontinue funding the United Nations. At least she's consistent, since ignoring the U.N. fits in well with the "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" policy. Many of O'Donnell's wackiest ideas come from her conservative Christian background. Too bad "peace on earth" wasn't one of them.

The number one issue on Americans' minds today is jobs. What's O'Donnell's policy on how to create more jobs? Oh, she doesn't have one. But if you're out of work & get sick, too bad, because O'Donnell wants to "defund, repeal & replace federal health care with free market" care. The private sector has worked so well so far.

Barack Obama may be too "cool" and "disengaged" for Maureen Dowd -- & for me -- but we are all better off with a cold fish politician who is sensible than with a passionate partisan who looks to religiously-oriented children's books to inform her philosophy of governance.

Update: "Dabbling into Witchcraft" Is Not an Excuse to Bail on the Washington Elite:

      Dave Weigel of Slate isn't buying O'Donnell's "I had to go on a picnic" excuse. He says O'Donnell had plenty of time to get to the picnic after taping the shows in Washington. Weigel wonders why the networks didn't allow O'Donnell's Democratic rival Chris Coons to replace her on the shows "because, you know, he's winning the election so far." Via Amanda Terkel of the HuffPost.

Update 2: AP: "Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell is making light of comments she made more than a decade ago when she was in high school about having dabbled in witchcraft." CW: does this make sense? O'Donnell is 41 years old. This would have made her about 30 years of age in 1999 when the show reported aired. Why was she still in high school? ... Here's the video: