The Commentariat -- August 17

Maureen Dowd: "In dueling buses crisscrossing cornfields, a temperate president and intemperate governor check out the political temperature."

I've posted a page for comments on Dowd's column on Off Times Square.

... Marc Ambinder & George Condon of the National Journal: "The White House, burned by failed efforts to work with Republicans and dismayed by a growing perception that President Obama is a weak leader, has made the decision to put more pressure – and blame – on Congress when Obama returns to Washington after his family vacation." ...

     ... More video & story here.

Most Obnoxious MSM Headline of the Day: "Obama Aims to Keep White Voters on Board." The article itself, by Laura Meckler & Carol Lee of the Wall Street Journal is actually a serious analysis of voting patterns.

Profs. David Campell & Robert Putnam, in a New York Times op-ed: "On everything but the size of government, Tea Party supporters are increasingly out of step with most Americans, even many Republicans."

"What Would Hillary Have Done?" Hillary Clinton supporter Rebecca Traister, in a New York Times Magazine article, has the answer. She presents various possibilities, but in the end concludes,

Hillary Clinton’s presidency would probably not have looked so different from Obama’s. She was, after all, a senator who, for a variety of structural and strategic reasons, often crossed party lines to co-sponsor legislation with Republicans, who voted to go to war in Iraq, who moved to the center on everything from Israel to violent video games. You think Obama’s advisers are bad? Hillary Clinton hired, and then took far too long to get rid of, Mark Penn. And her economic team probably would have looked an awful lot like Obama’s. 

Joshua Miller of Roll Call: "Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren is preparing for her likely bid to unseat Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) by attending house parties in the Boston area...." ...

... The Democratic political establishment is ... so obsessed with winning this seat back that Washington elitists are trying to push aside local Democrat candidates in favor of Professor Warren from Oklahoma. -- Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass), in a fundraising letter [emphasis added]

Right Wing World *

Excuse me. The "Texas Miracle" just fell off the page:

Graph by Felix Salmon of Reuters.... Felix Salmon of Reuters: "Perry’s [employment] record is pretty bad, here: he inherited a ratio of more than 47% in Texas from George W Bush, and has presided over a steady decline ever since — including every year of the Bush presidency bar 2005." ...

... ** NEW. Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: "Rick Perry’s Texas is Ross Perot’s Mexico come north. Through a range of enticements we more commonly associate with Third World nations — low wages, no benefits, high rates of poverty, scant taxes, few regulations and generous corporate subsidies — the state has produced its own 'giant sucking sound,' attracting businesses from other states to a place where workers come cheap.... He is the 21st-century, homegrown version of the Manchurian candidate." ...

... Michael Scherer of Time: on Hypocrisy Watch: Rick Perry has aggressively lobbied (and won) federal deficit spending dedicated to his own projects, including one huge grant that went to a group of Perry's favorite oil and gas industry buddies. The programs for which Perry's lobbied are the very ones (or worse than the very ones) he is now attacking as "wasteful spending of our children's inheritance." ...

... Jonathan Weisman of the Wall Street Journal: twice this weekend Rick Perry railed against an Obama Administration "rule" that doesn't exist and never did. 

... "Perrymania Is Overrated." Ed Kilgore of The New Republic: "Until Perry’s popularity in Iowa can be verified by polls of likely Caucus-goers, the most plausible scenario is a Bachmann win in the Caucuses, followed by Romney victories in Nevada and New Hampshire, and then a Perry breakthrough in South Carolina. This scenario would take the GOP into uncharted territory, since there’s never been a presidential nominating contest where the first three big states were won by three different candidates."

Perry’s rant is a particularly low moment in American political debate. -- Steve Stromberg of the Washington Post, on Rick Perry's remarks about Ben Bernanke

The guy who threatened secession is now calling someone else treasonous? Hello, pot, it’s me, kettle. -- Republican "Insider"

When you’re president or you’re running for president you have to think about what you’re saying because your words have greater impact. President Obama and we take the independence of the Federal Reserve very seriously and certainly think threatening the Fed chairman is probably not a good idea. -- White House Press Secretary Jay Carney  ...

... Steve Benen: The White House is framing a new narrative. "The question for voters is whether someone like Obama, the grown-up who solves problems, or someone like Perry, the buffoon who accuses Ben Bernanke of treason, can be trusted to help make politics work again." ...

* Where the sleaziest, meanest most prolific liar wins the day.

Local News

Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times: "The Florida Supreme Court concluded that [Florida Gov. Rick] Scott 'overstepped his constitutional authority' and 'violated the separation of powers' when he suspended all proposed rules until he could review and approve them. It was the governor’s first executive order. A majority of judges stated that Mr. Scott encroached on the State Legislature’s authority when he opted to unilaterally freeze rule-making." Meanwhile, "teachers, prison workers, food stamp recipients, doctors — are plastering him with [more] lawsuits." The ruling is here (pdf). St. Pete Times story here.: "Scott attorney Charles Trippe had argued that the 'supreme executive power' granted the governor by the state Constitution is among the reasons he has final say over rules developed by state agencies under his control." CW: so much for our Supreme Leader. Jerk.

News Ledes

AP: "... President Barack Obama will give a major speech in early September to unveil new ideas for speeding up job growth and helping the struggling poor and middle class.... The president's plan is likely to contain tax cuts, jobs-boosting infrastructure ideas and steps that would specifically help the long-term unemployed.... All of Obama's proposals would be fresh ones, not a rehash of plans he has pitched for many weeks and still supports, including his 'infrastructure bank' idea to finance construction jobs.... Obama will also present a specific plan to cut the suffocating long-term national debt and to pay for the cost of his new short-term economic ideas."

AP: "Global stocks fell Wednesday in a downbeat appraisal of a Franco-German summit that failed to persuade investors that a convincing fix to the eurozone's spiraling debt crisis was imminent."

Reuters: "Libyan rebels launched an assault on an oil refinery on Wednesday to drive the last remaining troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi out of a city on Tripoli's outskirts and consolidate a siege of the capital.... Gaddafi is looking isolated, with reinvigorated rebel forces closing in on the capital from the west and south and cutting off its road links to the outside." ...

     ... Al Jazeera: "Libyan rebels say they now control most of the strategic western town of Az-Zawiyah, as they continue an offensive aimed at isolating Tripoli, the country's capital."

AP: "Chinese commentators are marking a visit by Vice President Joseph Biden by offering a struggling United States advice: Stop flooding your economy with cheap credit. The prescriptions awaiting Biden, who arrived Wednesday in Beijing, range from cutting government budget deficits to fighting poverty."