The Commentariat -- January 2, 2012

My column in today's in the New York Times eXaminer is Part 2 of a grim retrospective of 2011: "The Year You Lost Your Civil Rights." Part 1 is here. The NYTX front page is here. Also, please consider donating to NYTX. You can do so here.

"Nobody Understands Debt." Elaborating on his blogposts and discussing what we have been writing about at the New York Times eXaminer and on Off Times Square, Paul Krugman explains the meaning of debt to us -- and to David Brooks. (For the fullest discussion of Krugman's previous posts & for links to all of them, see my NYTX column on the subject.)

Prof. Thomas Edsell in a New York Times op-ed: there's a reason Washington politicians think poverty is "a black thing." Edsell explains. And he demonstrates that the politicians' view is just plain wrong.

Right Wing World

Peter Wallsten of the Washington Post: "GOP officials in Washington are quietly and methodically finishing what operatives are calling 'the book' — 500 pages of Obama quotes and video links that will form the backbone of the party’s attack strategy against the president leading up to Election Day 2012. The document ... lays out how GOP officials plan to use Obama’s words and voice as they build an argument for his defeat: that he made specific promises and entered office with lofty expectations and has failed to deliver on both." ...

... Greg Sargent: "Of course, Obama had barely been sworn into office before the national Republican leadership mounted a concerted and determined effort to prevent any of Obama’s solutions to our severe national problems from passing, even as they openly declared they were doing so only to destroy him politically. Republicans have admitted on the record that deliberately denying Obama any bipartisan support for, well, anything at all was absolutely crucial to prevent voters from concluding that Obama had successfully forged ideological common ground over the way out of the myriad disasters Obama inherited from them."

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: Mitt Romney, the "moderate" GOP presidential candidate, says he would veto the Dream Act if Congress passed it while he was president. The act "would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who were brought into the country at a young age and then went on to attend college." ...

... Steve Benen: "... the DREAM Act is arguably the least controversial, bipartisan immigration reform measure. The proposal is just humane. But Romney doesn’t care. He’s running for the Republican presidential nomination, for Pete’s sake."

Oh, Santorum. Alex Altman of Time: "It took about 375 events, but Rick Santorum is finally Iowa’s man of the moment. A candidate who once seemed permanently relegated to campaign footnotes is commanding crowds befitting a front-runner...."

Ron Paul tells Jake Tapper of ABC News that his line of questioning is "off the wall":

... But Is It? Chris Johnson of Little Green Footballs: "Ron Paul’s angry denials should be weighed against his regular appearances on the Alex Jones radio show, since Jones is one of the loudest, most deranged 9/11 Truthers in America. If a journalist ever wanted to follow up on this, they could also ask Ron Paul about his association with antisemitic 9/11 Truther James Jaeger."

Kelefa Sannah of the New Yorker has another profile of Frontrunner for a Week (That Has Passed) Newt Gingrich.

"America's 'Iron Lady'"?:

AND Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker lists the top five electoral outcomes journalists are secretly rooting for. He isn't kidding, but it's a funny post.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Iran announced on Monday that it had successfully test fired a cruise missile during naval exercises near the Strait of Hormuz that have heightened tensions in a diplomatic standoff over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions."

Los Angeles Times: "Los Angeles police this morning have detained and are questioning a 'person of interest' in the spate of arson fires around the city since Friday. The suspect, believed to be the man in a video police released Sunday, was detained near Sunset Boulevard this morning, said an LAPD source familiar with the investigation into the case. However, in a statement, a Los Angeles fire official said 'it is too early to speculate if this person responsible for the spree arson fires.'”

New York Times: "The Coast Guard in December formally put into effect rules requiring certain passenger vessels to comply with its new Assumed Average Weight per Person. That new weight, 185 pounds, is a full 25 pounds more than the previous average, 160, a figure put in place about half a century ago...."

Washington Post: "Saying the Korean Peninsula was 'at a turning point,' South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Monday offered North Korea a 'window of opportunity' to improve relations but warned of a powerful retaliation if Pyongyang launches another military strike."

The Corn Won't Produce So Much Green in Iowa. New York Times: "A federal tax credit for ethanol expired on Saturday, ending an era in which the federal government provided more than $20 billion in subsidies for use of the product. The tax break, created more than 30 years ago, had long seemed untouchable. But in the last year, during which Congress was preoccupied with deficits and debt..., fiscal conservatives joined liberal environmentalists to kill it, with help from a diverse coalition of outside groups. In the United States, most ethanol is produced from corn. The demise of the subsidy is all the more remarkable because it comes at the peak of the political season in Iowa, where corn is king."