The Commentariat -- August 16
I've posted an Open Thread for today's Off Times Square.
The luckiest thing that ever happened to me was the Eightieth Congress. -- Harry Truman ...
... Norm Ornstein in The New Republic: what Barack Obama can learn from Harry Truman. "Truman seized upon [Congressional] conservative over-reaching and openly fought against what he dubbed the 'Do-Nothing Eightieth Congress.' ... But, unlike Truman, Obama has constantly sought common ground with Congress.... The absence of an energized and angry president demanding better of the do-nothings in Congress can only lead to something worse." ...
... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "It looks like President Obama really has found his inner Harry Truman, at least for the moment." CW: a good overview of tea leaves that suggest Obama may finally start ratcheting up his rhetoric. Obama still won't say "Republican," a calculated decision, Cohn surmises, of focus-group testing. ...
... Peter Nicholas of the Los Angeles Times: "As he sets out on a three-day bus tour of the Midwest focused on the economy, President Obama is coming under growing pressure from fellow Democrats to put forward a more aggressive strategy to create jobs than the one he has been touting for months. Obama has offered a jobs package crafted to win Republican support in a divided Congress. But he faces two distinct problems: Republicans say they won't vote for several pieces of the plan. And Democrats contend the program, even if enacted in full, would fall short of what's needed to boost job growth or revive Obama's political prospects.
One Democratic congressman ... said he told White House officials at a recent meeting that they seemed to have Stockholm syndrome — embracing the Republican view that deficit reduction should be a major national priority.
This Is Not 2008. Roger Lowenstein of the Daily Beast: actually, this time, the fundamentals of are economy are strong. The biggest problem: those Bush-era tax cuts, which President Obama should have let expire in 2010 and must allow to expire in 2012.
Anna Palmer of Politico: "Now that the members of the supercommittee have been named, lobbyists have begun strategizing in earnest. And they’ve got their sights set beyond just the elite 12." CW: so predictable it's hardly a story.
Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "President Obama has directed a small team of advisers to develop a proposal that would keep the government playing a major role in the nation’s mortgage market, extending a federal loan subsidy for most home buyers.... The decision follows the advice of his senior economic and housing advisers, who favor maintaining the government’s role as an insurer of mortgages for most borrowers."
Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "Friday’s federal court ruling against a key provision of the health care reform law makes it almost certain the Supreme Court will decide the law’s constitutionality in the 2012 term.... The high court ... probably won’t rule until June — ensuring that President Barack Obama’s signature law will be the center of another very public debate just five months before the election."
CW: Cenk Uygar is an annoying, perennially pissed-off screamer, but he's right about the beltway crowd, exemplified here in the person of Fareed Zakaria. I used to think Zakaria was a genius, and maybe he is, but some while back he took a ride on the Conventional Wisdom express, & like Charlie on the MTA, he has never returned:
AND Democrats thinking whacking the Tea Party will work this time, now that Americans have seen something of what a Tea Party government looks like:
Right Wing World *
Look, I know there are some who say 'let’s just tax the rich.' ... So if we raise taxes on wealthy people, that means businesses see their taxes go up. I don’t want to raise taxes on employers. -- Mitt Romney, responding to Warren Buffett's op-ed urging Congress to raise taxes on the super-rich ...
... Raising taxes on the rich will have little effect on small businesses. Fewer than 2 percent of small businesses owners make more than $250,000, never mind the $1 million level, at which Buffett is advocating a tax increase. Far more small businesses (14 percent) claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is only available to low-income workers. -- Pat Garofalo of Think Progress
Steven Rattner in the New York Times: "... the leading Republican presidential candidates have ... a philosophy oriented around shrinking the role of the federal government in every imaginable way, by slashing spending, cutting taxes and halting or rescinding regulations. Their mantra is repeal and retrenchment, devoid of new initiatives or a positive agenda. Some of these views are to the right even of the Tea Party; they amount to the most radically conservative positions of any set of candidates at least since Barry M. Goldwater in 1964."
** Matea Gold & Melanie Mason of the Los Angeles Times: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry has powered his political career on the largesse of donors ... [who] have found the rewards to be mutual, reaping benefits from Texas during Perry's tenure.... Nearly half of those mega-donors received hefty business contracts, tax breaks or appointments under Perry, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis."
... If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous, or treasonous, in my opinion. -- Gov. Rick Perry, on Fed Chair Ben Bernanke ...
... Let's Rough up Ben Bernanke (Alternate Title: Texas Governor Is Dangerously Crazy & Ignorant). Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "Perry’s comments drew a sharp rebuke by some commentators online." ...
... Conservative columnist John Podhoretz: Perry is "trying to be the next president, and he needs to be judged on that standard. What Perry did was make a thoughtless blunder, an unforced error; we’re now going to spend a couple of days discussing whether he was summoning violence on Ben Bernanke’s head or not, which is of absolutely no use to Perry." ...
... See also conservative columnist Ramesh Ponnuru, who argues, contra Perry, in favor of the Feds loosening the purse strings. ...
... Clifford Krauss of the New York Times: nonpartisan economists and academicians argue that Rick Perry is not responsible for the "Texas Miracle," which isn't so miraculous anyway and cannot be duplicated at a national level.
If this shirt has a few wrinkles in it, it's not my wife's fault. -- Gov. Rick Perry
The line rang a bell, but I couldn't place it until this morning: It was what the overtly sexist talk-radio kids who stood up in a New Hampshire town hall meeting yelled at Hillary Clinton, helping to feed a sympathetic surge toward her in the state. They were chanting, 'Iron my shirt.' -- Ben Smith of Politico
Psst. Bud. Want to ask Paul Ryan a question? That will be $15 please. And it's a deal. Prince Ben Quayle Son of Dan is charging $35. Reid Epstein of Politico: "It’s no secret why members of Congress would shy away from holding open town hall meetings – it’s no fun getting yelled at by angry constituents or having an uncomfortable question become an unfortunate YouTube moment. By outsourcing the events to third parties that charge an entry fee to raise money, members of Congress can eliminate most of the riffraff while still – in some cases – allowing in reporters and TV cameras for a positive local news story."
* Where the Tea Party is the liberal wing and women know their place.
News Ledes
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "The six-month saga that was Wisconsin's state Senate recall movement ended Tuesday with Democrats retaining two seats -- and Republicans still in possession of a week-old, razor-thin 17-16 majority."
President Obama spoke at a White House Rural Economic Forum this afternoon. Reuters: "President Barack Obama will on Tuesday announce fresh steps to boost rural hiring on the second day of a bus tour through the U.S. heartland to explain his economic and job policies to anxious voters."
New York Times: "A high-profile parliamentary panel investigating phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct tabloid released embarrassing new evidence Tuesday that the practice of intercepting voice mail had been widely discussed at the newspaper, contradicting assertions by its owners and editors." Facsimilies of documents are here.
New York Times: " officials said Tuesday that as many as 10,000 residents of a refugee neighborhood in the Syrian port city of Latakia had fled during a four-day assault, as security forces carried out more arrests and intimidation in what residents said was a government attempt to rebuild a wall of fear in one of ’s largest cities." Al Jazeera story here, with video.
Reuters: "The leaders of France and Germany meet for high-pressure talks on Tuesday to discuss what further measures they can take to shore up investor confidence in the euro zone following a dramatic market sell-off last week. President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are under pressure to show financial markets they are in agreement on doing more to shore up the embattled currency union -- or risk watching the euro zone unravel." ...
... New York Times Update: ", the German chancellor, and France’s president, , on Tuesday called for closer coordination of economic policy among the 17 countries that share currency and proposed that they enshrine in their constitutions an obligation to balance their national budgets.
AP: "Gunmen wearing military uniforms pulled seven people from a Sunni mosque south of Baghdad and then shot and killed them execution-style, officials said Tuesday, raising the death toll to 70 in Iraq's deadliest day this year."
New York Times: Indiana state investigators are examining structural issues & the actions of state fair officials preceding the storm that caused the collapse of a stage killed five people & injured many more. ...
... AP: Sugarland tour manager Hellen Rollens may have saved the lives of the group & crew when she decided at the last minute to hold the band backstage because of weather.
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