The Commentariat -- May 10

The Final Editon. A fabulous parody. Be sure to watch the Last Timescast. CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO GO TO THE SITE. Thanks to David H.

I have opened a comments page on Off Times Square for David Brooks, where you may also comment on other political issues. Karen Garcia & I have read Brooks and have posted our comments on his column. Now I must shower. Update: looks like my comment on Brooks got the axe, so you'll have to read it here. Update 2: Do read today's comments. They are so far superior to Babbling Brooks that there is really no comparison. ...

... AND thanks to commenter Denis Neville for liberally excerpting this article by U.S. labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan in a July 2010 post to In These Times, which is itself an excerpt from Geoghegan's book Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? The answer to the question is yes, if you're an American worker. You would be better off in Europe. And the U.S. economy would be better off if we followed the example of some European countries.

Peter Wallsten & Perry Bacon, Jr. of the Washington Post: "... in using a speech in El Paso to highlight his enforcement record, [President] Obama will signal that he intends to try turning the immigration debate into a political winner among conservative swing voters who back tougher immigration policies. The president is expected to reel off what his aides say is evidence of an unprecedented focus on border security.... The result, aides say, has been a steep decline in illegal incursions and plummeting crime rates in U.S. border communities from Texas to California." (This story is also linked in today's Ledes.)

Paul Kane & Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post: "House Speaker John A. Boehner defined the GOP’s terms for raising the legal limit on government borrowing Monday, demanding that President Obama reduce spending by more than $2 trillion in exchange for an increase big enough to cover the nation’s bills through the end of next year.... Democrats immediately rejected Boehner’s approach as reckless. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) said Monday that the speaker is 'playing with fire' by not telling the captains of Wall Street that he would definitely approve an increase in the debt ceiling, no matter how far along the fiscal negotiations are. Schumer mocked Boehner’s long-running call for an 'adult conversation' with the American public about the nation’s debt. 'Speaker Boehner needs to have an adult moment right here and now,' the senator told reporters." CW: The New York Times story, which I also linked under yestdays Ledes, is here. And Schumer is right. Boehner is completely irresponsible. ...

... BUT. Jonathan Chait of The New Republic: "John Boehner ... is bluffing.... The obvious bluff is his supposed willingness to permanently hamper the Treasury's ability to borrow money, something he's been privately assuring Wall Street he won't really do.... Boehner says he wants to cut trillions, which would have to entail cutting Social Security and Medicare.... Oh, sure, he wants them to be cut. But he does not want to be the one who cuts them. He wants a bipartisan agreement in which President Obama provides him with cover.... Obama's play here is clear: He needs to ask Boehner to spell out his demands." ...

... Joshua Green of The Atlantic: "The current debt ceiling fracas stems from one thing, and it's not spending. It's the pointless, silly, and potentially very costly, two-step process by which the United States, and no other country, goes about budgeting and spending money. First, Congress passes a budget resolution that determines how much will be spent. Then it raises the debt ceiling to accommodate that spending. The fight now is being driven by Republicans, and some Democrats, who don't want to do the second part, even though the spending decisions have already been made." Years ago, Rep. Dick Gephardt fixed this problem by making the raising of the debt ceiling part of the budget bill, after which Republicans unfixed the fix.

Alexander Bolton of The Hill: "A deep rift is opening wider and wider in the Republican Party over controversial proposals to cut Medicare. Senate Republicans have decided to avoid jeopardizing their chances of capturing the upper chamber in next year’s elections and will not echo the House GOP’s call for a major overhaul of the popular health entitlement for seniors." ...

... Because here's what Democratic ads will look like in 2012. This is an ad running in New York's 26th District special Congressional election. Democrat Kathy Hochul's opponents are a Tea Partier & a Republican:

Eric Schmitt, et al., of the New York Times: "President Obama insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops, senior administration and military officials said Monday.... Senior officials also said that two teams of specialists were on standby: One to bury Bin Laden if he was killed, and a second composed of lawyers, interrogators and translators in case he was captured alive."

The Washington Post Editors go all liberal soft-on-defense-y: "Even if waterboarding or extreme sleep deprivation produced some pieces of the bin Laden intelligence puzzle, the program wasn’t justified — and it still did America far more harm than good.... President Obama was right to dismantle the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program."

Right Wing World *

Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times profiles Callista Gingrich, the "blond bombshell" who had a long affair with the Newt that broke up Newt's second marriage during the Clinton impeachment episode; now Newt plans to use his marriage to Callista as evidence of his "family values." According to Stolberg, Newt will use his wife "as a character witness." CW: apparently Newt is assuming reporters will find it too unseemly to question Mrs. Newt's character.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) knows more about economics than some ole MIT Nobel laureate. Victoria McGrane of the Wall Street Journal: "The Senate Banking Committee is slated to vote Thursday on the nomination of Peter Diamond to join the Federal Reserve Board, but his confirmation by the full Senate still remains doubtful.... Sen. ... Shelby..., the top-ranking Republican on the banking panel, continues to lead the fight against the nomination, arguing that Mr. Diamond doesn't have any direct monetary policy experience.... Senate Republican leaders are deferring to Mr. Shelby on the matter, meaning Mr. Diamond's Fed nomination is almost certain to remain frozen in the Senate as long as the Alabama Republican continues to oppose him."

Norm Ornstein in The New Republic: Republicans were all for full disclosure of campaign contributions before they were dead-set against it.

Well, you know, when it comes to racism and racists, I am the least racist person there is.... I’ve had great relationships. In fact, Randal Pinkett won, as you know, on The Apprentice a little while ago, a couple of years ago. And Randal’s been outstanding in every way. So I am the least racist person. -- Donald Trump ...

... Alex Seitz-Ward of Think Progress has the story & video. Randal Pinkett, who is black, won "The Apprentice" contest six years ago. So there's your proof. ...

... BUT. Benjy Sarlin of TPM on Trump's handling of another black contestant, Kevin Allen. "Allen, a Wharton Business School grad, Emory MBA, and University of Chicago law graduate, was 'fired' from the show after Trump criticized his 'unbelievable education,' and numerous degrees from elite universities.... Allen was fired shortly after a controversial episode in which he was ordered to sell chocolate bars outside of New York City subway stops, a job stereotypically associated with African-American high school students. Entertainment Weekly's Mark Harris bluntly labeled Trump's handling of race tone-deaf at the time and said that the show 'humiliated itself in regards to Allen.'" Allen said to TPM recently, when asked about Trump's attacks on President Obama, "Apparently he doesn't like educated African-Americans very much." ...

     ... Update. Oh, dear. The least racist person is also the least popular. According to Frank Newport of Gallup,

Trump ... has the unenviable distinction of receiving a Positive Intensity Score of 0, the lowest for any of the 13 candidates measured.... Last week, when Trump's numbers were first reported, his Positive Intensity Score was 4, suggesting he lost ground after a week in which he was the butt of jokes that comedian Seth Meyers and President Barack Obama delivered at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner. That same week, Trump's focus on Obama's birthplace was defused by the release of Obama's long-form birth certificate.

     ... AND from Public Policy Polling: "Donald Trump has had one of the quickest rises and falls in the history of Presidential politics. Last month we found him leading the Republican field with 26%. In the space of just four weeks he's dropped all the way down to 8%, putting him in a tie for fifth place with Ron Paul."

* Where facts never intrude & consistency is just a hobgoblin.

News Ledes

President Obama speaks about immigration reform in El Paso, Texas:

ABC News: "Pakistani officials said today they're interested in studying the remains of the U.S.'s secret stealth-modified helicopter abandoned during the Navy SEAL raid of Osama bin Laden's compound, and suggested the Chinese are as well. The U.S. has already asked the Pakistanis for the helicopter wreckage back, but one Pakistani official told ABC News the Chinese were also 'very interested' in seeing the remains. Another official said, 'We might let them [the Chinese] take a look.'" ...

... ABC News: "One of Osama bin Laden's sons went missing in the midst of the Navy SEAL raid that took the life of the al Qaeda leader more than a week ago, Pakistani security officials told ABC News today. The officials said bin Laden's three wives, who are all in Pakistani custody, said that one of bin Laden's sons has not been seen since the raid. The son was not identified, but Pakistani investigators agreed that it appeared someone was missing from the sprawling compound, the officials said. Later, however, one U.S. official said there was no evidence anyone was missing from the compound...."

CNN: "Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, as well as those in the equivalent House committees, will be allowed to view the photographs taken of Osama bin Laden after he was killed...."

President Obama spoke at two DNC fundraisers in Austin, Texas, this evening.

President Obama spoke about fixing the immigration system in El Paso, Texas, this afternoon. Washington Post story here. Update: see video above. El Paso Times story here.

New York Times: "Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it would buy Skype Global for $8.5 billion in cash, in its largest acquisition ever. In Skype, Microsoft is buying the leader in Internet voice and video communications, with 107 million users per month connected for more than 100 minutes a month on average."

Washington Post: "The public outing of the CIA station chief here threatened on Monday to deepen the rift between the United States and Pakistan, with U.S. officials saying they believed the disclosure had been made deliberately by Pakistan’s main spy agency."

New York Times: "Rebel fighters made significant gains Monday against forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in both the western and eastern areas of the country, in the first faint signs that NATO airstrikes may be starting to strain the government forces."

The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal: "As the Mississippi River continued carrying near-record amounts of water past Memphis, draining storm-drenched lands stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, officials combined messages of reassurance and caution.... The river finally crests in Memphis today at about 48 feet -- a full 14 feet above Memphis' flood stage. The pressure will continue for weeks -- the river could stay at or near crest for more than a week and it may be June before it falls below 40 feet, still well above the 34-foot flood stage."

The Commentariat -- May 9

See the post below for the full Steve Kroft "60 Minutes" interview of President Obama.

Paul Krugman: "... what I’ve been hearing with growing frequency from members of the policy elite — self-appointed wise men, officials, and pundits in good standing — is the claim that ... mass long-term unemployment ... is mostly the public’s fault. The idea is that we got into this mess because voters wanted something for nothing, and weak-minded politicians catered to the electorate’s foolishness. So this seems like a good time to point out that this blame-the-public view isn’t just self-serving, it’s dead wrong." This is Krugman's most explicit anti-Brooks column. ...

... I've posted comments pages on Off Times Square for Krugman & Ross Douthat. I've also posted my comments on each.

A friend sends me a link to this news item under the title "Salamander Declares Presidential Intentions." So you know what it's about. Kendra Marr of Politico: "The long wait for Newt Gingrich to say what everyone already knew is almost over."

Joann Lublin of the Wall Street Journal: "The median value of salaries, bonuses and long-term incentive awards for CEOs of 350 major [U.S.] companies surged 11% to $9.3 million, according to a study of proxy statements conducted for The Wall Street Journal by management consultancy Hay Group." ...

... What Lublin doesn't mention, but Marie Diamond of Think Progress does, is that "most American families continue to struggle with high unemployment and stagnant wages." CW: what could possibly be wrong with that?

Martin Crutsinger of the AP: "Five years and one financial crisis since the United States and China commenced regular high-level economic talks, fast-growing Beijing might have the upper hand this week in the latest round of discussions between the world's two biggest economies."

** "The Rules of Engagement." Raffi Khatchadouria of the New Yorker has the best answer I've seen anywhere to the question, "Was the killing of Osama bin Laden legal?" This should eliminate some of the hand-wringing by Noam Chomsky (here), et al. It won't. And it does pose a larger issue, as Khatchadouria acknowledges:

To be uncomfortable with such operations is, in a sense, to be uncomfortable with war itself. And to accept that the bin Laden raid was legal, is, in effect, to acknowledge publically that what we are actually conducting in Pakistan is a kind of war. In his death, bin Laden has forced this admission from us.

Jane Mayer has a pretty entertaining story in the New Yorker about "Junior, the clandestine life of America's top Al Qaeda source." She gives you a good look at what life in "an undisclosed location" is like -- for the agents who have to deal with these characters. Mayer's story sort of mirrors some of the film comedies about mobster informants.

David Remnick of the New Yorker has a fine commentary on President Obama's speech announcing the death of Osama bin Laden. CW: Here's one aside that struck me: "To some, it has seemed that Obama’s determination to avoid the vulgar and the cheap is a form of superiority, a bearing designed to make everyone else seem vulgar and cheap." A President gets criticism for almost everything, but this is the first time I've heard of a complaint that he's too serious. Is Donald Trump now going to blame Obama for making him (Trump) seem vulgar & cheap???

Eli Saslow of the Washington Post: "Ever since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of government employees ... have reshaped their careers and restructured their lives around the search for one man — a quest they sometimes referred to simply as 'the hunt.'” Saslow focuses on one former CIA counterterrorism officer, Michael Hurley.

Liz Sly of the Washington Post: "In his almost 11 years in office, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has brought about some remarkable changes to a country formerly run by his notoriously ruthless father, fueling perceptions that he is at heart a reformer, albeit one who has been held back by hard-liners intent on preserving the status quo.... Yet in all those years, the younger Assad has implemented not one measure that would relax the ruling Baath Party’s 48-year-long hold on power, lift the draconian laws that enable the security forces to operate with impunity or ease restrictions on free speech."

A Congressional Race Worth Watching. Raymond Herdandez of the New York Times: New York's 26th Congressional District, quickly vacated by Republican Chris "Craigslist" Lee, was assumed to be a shoo-in for popular Republican candidate Jane Corwin. But Corwin has been standing behind the Ryan/Republican gut-Medicare plan, and her Democratic opponent Kathy Hochul has been hitting her hard with it. It's not a shoo-in any more, as evidenced by Speaker Boehner's plans to campaign for Corwin today.

Andrew Kimbrell, writing in AlterNet, lists five right-wing lies President Obama doesn't bother to debunk, so they live on. Here are a couple: (1) government is the problem; (2) global warming is vastly exaggerated/doesn't exist. ...

... E. J. Dionne makes a similar point about "government is the problem," but he blames the media for skewing the narrative & dropping the ball: "Far too little attention has been paid to the success of the government’s rescue of the Detroit-based auto companies, and almost no attention has been paid to how completely and utterly wrong bailout opponents were when they insisted it was doomed to failure."

Right Wing World *

Watch Jim Bullshit, Kids. Jed Lewison of the Daily Kos. Republican Tea Party Sen. Jim DeMint (SC) loved the individual mandate when it was a Republican idea and said "we should do it for the whole country." Now he's claiming he had no idea Romneycare included an individual mandate; Lewison shows DeMint's labored attempt at an about-face is "bullshit." With video.

Jon Chait of The New Republic: GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty has the Courage to Stand up and admit he made "a mistake" about taking a position in favor of cap-and-trade that is unpopular with today's righty-right Republican voters. "It would be interesting to see some reporters try to put pressure on Pawlenty's apology. What exactly did he get wrong? Does he believe that energy producers should be allowed to dump carbon into the atmosphere at no cost whatsoever in perpetuity? That line of inquiry could be illuminating, and probably fun."

* Where facts never intrude.

Local News

AP: "Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker and GOP leaders have launched a push to ram several years’ worth of conservative agenda items through the Legislature this spring before recall elections threaten to end the party’s control of state government."

"Florida Loses Its Mind. Again." Michael Grunwald of Time: "... the geniuses who run the state have decided that its economic distress is the result of overly strict growth management. So they’re wiping out three decades of growth management laws and making it even easier for developers to build.... It’s hard to imagine how any sentient being who’s visited Homestead or Cape Coral or any of Florida’s other boarded-up foreclosurevilles and seen all the vacant homes with unmowed lawns and mosquito-infested pools could conclude that the housing boom was insufficiently robust."

News Ledes

New York Times: "House Speaker John A. Boehner said on Monday that Republicans would insist on trillions of dollars in federal spending cuts in exchange for their support of an increase in the federal debt limit sought by the Obama administration to prevent a government default later this year."

AP: "Crew members and passengers wrestled a 28-year-old man to the cabin floor after he began pounding on the cockpit as an American Airlines flight approached San Francisco, the third security incident in a day on U.S. planes, authorities said Monday."

New York Times: "In an address to Parliament, Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani on Monday defended Pakistan’s spy agency and indirectly criticized the United States for Osama Bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan."

Politico: "The Obama administration will look at tightening security on trains if intelligence collected from Osama bin Laden’s compound about a rail plot is substantiated, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Monday, as he also outlined plans to redirect $2 billion in rejected high-speed rail money from Florida to 15 other states."

New York Times: "A military crackdown on Syria’s seven-week uprising escalated Sunday, with reinforcements sent to two cities, more forces deployed in a southern town and nearly all communications severed to besieged locales, activists and human rights groups said. Fourteen people were killed in the city of Homs, they said, and hundreds were arrested."

Al Jazeera: "Pakistan's prime minister is set to brief parliament on the US operation that killed Osama bin Laden, his first public statement since the attack.... Yusuf Raza Gilani is expected to 'take the nation into confidence' in parliament on Monday, an official told the AFP news agency, amid deepening suspicion in the US that Pakistani officials may have had ties with the al-Qaeda leader." ...

... AP: "Pakistani media have reported what they say is the name of the CIA station chief in Islamabad — the second such potential outing of a sensitive covert operative in six months.... The Associated Press has learned that the name being reported is incorrect. Still, the publication of any alleged identity of the U.S. spy agency's top official in this country could be pushback from Pakistan's powerful military and intelligence establishment, which was humiliated over the surprise raid on its soil."

President Obama -- "60 Minutes"

Here's Steve Kroft's full "60 Minutes" interview of President Obama in which they discuss the operation to "take down" Osama bin Laden. It's worth watching:

If this video isn't working for you, try clearing your browser cache (under Tools, Options). Otherwise, you can find the interview here.

... The transcript is here. There are currently some related videos here at the "60 Minutes Overtime" home page.

This episode of "West Wing Week" contains some of the footage released to news media of the President, Vice President & White House personnel reacting to the killing of bin Laden. The footage begins about 3:20 min. in.