The Commentariat -- June 7

I have a David Brooks comments page up on Off Times Square. Update: as of 11:10 am ET, the Times is still holding back my comment, which is posted on Off Times Square, along with some real winners.

"In State Parks, the Sharpest Ax Is the Budget's." William Yardley of the New York Times: "The vast majority of states have cut park financing, often significantly, since the economic downturn took full hold in 2008, and some were cutting long before that. Some parks are closing altogether; Gov. Jerry Brown of California in recent days announced plans to permanently close 70 of the state’s 278 parks this fall. Even where parks remain open, the compromises they make to do so are often uncomfortable."

This unemployment rate, for this long, is a humanitarian crisis of the first magnitude. -- James Carville ...

... Michael O'Brien of The Hill: "President Obama's reelection effort could be 'very rough' if job growth remains anemic, veteran Democratic strategist James Carville warned Monday. If the economy only adds about 54,000 jobs a month — as it did in May — Carville warned that Obama's 2012 campaign could be in danger." ...

... Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post fact-checker, gives President Obama three Pinocchios for his last weekly address on the auto industry, but I think Kessler is over-reading. All politicians point the spotlight on readings & facts that support them, and forget to mention info that doesn't suit them. Mostly that's what Obama seems to do here. It is true that providing too much shade can constitute a lie. See what you think. ...

... Here's the speech:

BUT enough about Medicareless, state cutbacks & jobs. Let's Do Der Weinerputz:

... In Search of a Citation. Will powerful, successful men learn from this latest example that their achievements do not exempt them from acts of reckless stupidity? I looked for inspiring quotes from John Adams, Tocqueville, Emerson and Reinhold Neibuhr, but found that John McEnroe said it best: 'You cannot be serious.'
-- Jeff Greenfield ...

... There are already more Weiner stories like this ABC story about a woman named Meagan Broussard, "a 26-year-old single mother from Texas who provided dozens of photos, emails, Facebook messages and cell phone call logs that she says chronicle a sexually-charged electronic relationship with Weiner that rapidly-evolved for more than a month, starting on April 20, 2011." With video. ...

... AND -- AP: Andrew Breitbart "who reported that a photo of a man's crotch had been sent from Rep. Anthony Weiner's Twitter account to a woman college student says he has an X-rated picture he'll publicize if the New York Democrat attempts reprisals against him." ...

... CW: Steve Benen issues the left's he's-not-as-bad-as... defense of Weiner:

On the Political Sex Scandal Richter Scale, I’m still not altogether sure why this even registers at all. Given what we know, Weiner shared adult content with women he met online. They were adults and the interactions were consensual. He didn’t commit adultery (Ensign), he didn’t hire prostitutes (Vitter, Spitzer), he didn’t solicit anyone in an airport bathroom (Craig), he didn’t pretend to be someone else in order to try to pick up women (Lee), he didn’t abandon his office for a rendezvous with his lover (Sanford), he didn’t leave his first two wives after they got sick (Gingrich), he didn’t have a child with his housekeeper (Schwarzenegger), there’s no sex tape (Edwards), and no interns were involved (Clinton). He’s not even a hypocrite — Weiner has never championed conservative 'family values,' condemning others for their 'moral failings.' ...

... Andrew Miga of the AP: Weiner's Congessional colleagues aren't exactly embracing him. ...

... Despite the Conventional Wisdom that Weiner should tough it out & try to hang onto his Congressional seat, Steve Kornacki of Salon wonders why he would want to -- his whole purpose has been to position himself in the New York City mayoral race, and that's out now. Plus, as a sideline, he was a popular talking head, and it's not likely now he'll be called on to comment on Medicareless or the jobs crisis. ...

... Others make light of Weiner's confession. Andy Borowitz: "Just minutes after Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) held a press conference to admit his culpability in the scandal involving pictures of his penis sent via Twitter, thousands of women claiming to have received such photos took to the streets of the nation’s capital to demand reparations. Traffic snarled for miles around the Capitol building as the streets filled with the penis-photo recipients, whom police sources said ranged in age from 21 to 22." ...

... CW: I'll let Mrs. Weiner, the House Ethics Committee and possibly law enforcement deal with Weiner's wiener. He violated you and me when he repeatedly lied about what was "the incident," and now turns out to be a pattern of behavior. Democrats should invite him to resign. Half-nude Rep. Chris Lee, a Republican from Upstate New York, has more class than Weiner. Lee quit when caught, albeit at the behest of the Republican leadership.

... AND here's Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM on the weird moment when Andrew Breitbart hijacked Weiner's confessional/press conference -- before Weiner took the podium. With video. ...

... Wonkette: "THANK YOU, ANTHONY WEINER, you have now guaranteed that greasy pustule Andrew Breitbart will never go away, ever." ...

... CW: AND John Edwards, who was indicted last Friday for "repurposing" campaign money, must be really glad that fellow Democrat Anthony Weiner has won the Prick of the Week Sweepstakes. ...

... Roger Simon of Politico notes all the press about how weak the government's case against Edwards is. Simon thinks Edwards may beat the rap: "John Edwards does sincerity very, very well. His next act may be to jurors. And I’ll bet you he wows them."

Right Wing World *

Charles Babington of the AP: in announcing his presidential run, Rick Santorum makes stuff up. CW: this, of course, is the Republican tradition,** and Santorum is hardly one to break with tradition.

Amy Gardner of the Washington Post: in a speech today, Tim Pawlenty will offer the country what he calls a "Better Deal" than Obama's failed economic policies. CW: Get ready. Here's the plan: lower taxes on corporations and the rich! Best Deal: an actual progressive president. Unfotunately, no such candidate is available.

"Democrats & the state teacher's union turned my daughter against me."  ABC News: "A North Carolina lawmaker doesn't think it was right for his daughter and her third-grade class to write to him and other elected officials protesting possible cuts in state education spending. Republican state Rep. Mike Stone says his daughter asked in her note to "please raise the budget, dad" and help keep two teacher assistants employed.

Jonah Goldberg finds the long-lost first draft of "Paul Revere's Ride" by Henry Dubya Longfellow. Goldberg has the entire draft, which begins,

LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear   
Of the early evening ride of Paul Revere,   
On the twentieth, or twenty-first, of May,
     or possibly June, in Seventy-six, or maybe Seventy-seven;   
Hardly a man is now alive   
Who refudiates that famous day and year.

* ... Is hard to distinguish from LiberalLand when Democrats like Weiner make themselves nearly indistinguishable from the denizens of Right Wing World.

** For example, here's the Pants-on-Fire Romney rollout, and here's Pinocchio Pawlenty's announcement in which he lies right out of the box.

News Ledes

President & Mrs. Obama welcome German Chancellor Angela Merkel & her husband Joachim Sauer to tonight's state dinner:

President Obama & Chancellor Merkel hold at joint press conference in the East Room:

... Washington Post: "President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel played down their differences Tuesday over the military campaign in Libya and the flagging European economic recovery, offering assurances that they share the goals of pushing Moammar Gaddafi from power and restoring the global economy."

New York Times: "In a sudden, sharp escalation of NATO’s air campaign over Libya, warplanes dropped more than 60 bombs on targets in Tripoli on Tuesday, obliterating large areas of Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziya command compound."

New York Times: "The uncertainty surrounding the political future of Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, deepened Tuesday as he was treated for far more severe burns than had first been disclosed, while maneuvering intensified in the capitals of Yemen, the United States and Saudi Arabia to head off an emerging and dangerous power vacuum."

Los Angeles Times: "Austan Goolsbee is stepping down as chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, the White House announced Monday night, shaking up the economic team just as the recovery is sputtering."

ScotusBlog: "The Senate on Monday approved the nomination of Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., to be the next U.S. Solicitor General.  The final vote was 72-16.  A statement by Attorney General Eric Holder on the approval is here.  Technically, Verrilli will succeed Elena Kagan, who left the post to become a Supreme Court Justice.  Since her departure, the office has been headed by her former deputy, Neal K. Katyal, as Acting Solicitor General."

Politico: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Steve Israel, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, have called for an investigation into Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) over the series of sexually explicit conversations and lewd photos he exchanged with a half-dozen women during the last several years." ...

... Wall Street Journal Update: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) sent the Ethics Committee a letter Tuesday formally asking the panel to investigate whether Rep. Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.) violated chamber rules by exchanging sexually explicit messages with at least six women." Here's the letter from Pelosi.

The Commentariat -- June 6

Paul Krugman explains the difference between demagoguery and telling the truth to people who don't know the difference. ...

... I put up a Krugman page on Off Times Square, but you may comment on Douthat or anything else within reason. (Hmm. Did not mean to suggest here that Douthat was reasonable; he is not.)

CW: More later. Perhaps. I'm now living in a McDonald's somewhere in Pennsylvania. It's freezing and they're playing really loud music. BUT they have a WiFi hotspot AND an outlet to plug in my laptop. They will be throwing me out in a few hours. The lives of the unconnected are pitiful indeed.

Okay, here's more:

Dean Baker: "... Welcome to the Second Great Depression."

Sara Murray of the Wall Street Journal: "At least half the states have begun to rein in safety-net programs that swelled during the downturn, even as high unemployment and slow job growth persist. States offer a range of assistance programs such as tax credits for the working poor, unemployment benefits for the jobless and cash for low-income mothers and children. Governors from both parties have begun to make or propose cuts to these programs as they face another year of yawning budget gaps."

Thom Shanker of the New York Times: "President Obama’s national security team is contemplating troop reductions in Afghanistan that would be steeper than those discussed even a few weeks ago, with some officials arguing that such a change is justified by the rising cost of the war and the death of Osama bin Laden, which they called new 'strategic considerations.' These new considerations, along with a desire to find new ways to press the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to get more of his forces to take the lead, are combining to create a counterweight to an approach favored by the departing secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, and top military commanders in the field."

"Headwinds." Karen Garcia: President Obama has a new word & the court stenographers have got it down pat. She is having trouble distinguishing among Obama, Romney & Huntsman. Same policies: just different pretenses to shore up their bases..

Lisa Mascaro & Noam Levey of the Los Angeles Times suggest Democrats & Republicans will kick the deficit debate down the road & "resolve" the debt ceiling standoff by essentially doing nothing till after the 2012 election. No kidding.

Nathan Schwartz of the New York Times: "Bank stocks took another tumble late last week after Moody’s, the credit rating firm, warned it might downgrade the debt of giants like Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo as the government eases back on support for the sector. Even as the market absorbed that news, reports that Goldman Sachs had been subpoenaed in an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney further unnerved investors, and sent that giant investment’s bank’s shares sinking."

Another Lesson from Alan Greenspan on How to Say, "I Fucked up," without Saying "I Fucked up." Phil Izzo of the Wall Street Journal: "Alan Greenspan, a high-profile proponent of President George W. Bush's tax cuts, now says the U.S.'s debt troubles have become so worrisome that he would support going back to Clinton-era tax rates. 'The fact that I'm in favor of going back to the Clinton tax structure is merely an indicator of how scared I am of this debt problem that has emerged and its order of magnitude,' said the former chairman of the Federal Reserve in an interview Friday on CNBC."

James Surowiecki of the New Yorker: Elizabeth Warren may be both the best loved & most hated person in Washington. "Given the intensely partisan nature of Washington these days, the demonization of Warren and the C.F.P.B. is all too predictable. But it’s profoundly misguided, because Warren is far from the anti-capitalist radical that her critics (and some of her supporters) suppose. Indeed, an empowered C.F.P.B. could actually be a boon to business."

John Burns of the New York Times: "... Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, returning from a brief visit to the rebel headquarters in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, hinted at concern in Western capitals about what might come after the toppling of Colonel Qaddafi. Mr. Hague said he had pressed the rebel leaders to make early progress on a more detailed plan for a post-Qaddafi government that would include sharing power with some of Colonel Qaddafi’s loyalists."

Elizabeth Kolbert of the New Yorker: "President Obama named some of the country’s most knowledgeable climate scientists to his Administration. But any hope that he might take the lead on global warming has faded."

Right Wing World *

Art by Boing Boing via Little Green Footballs.Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs: "Man, you’ve gotta almost admire the sheer blind dedication of Sarah Palin’s wingnut acolytes. Now they’re trying like crazy to edit the Wikipedia page for 'Paul Revere' to make it match Palin’s botched version of history." (Paul Revere artwork by Boing Boing is here.) CW: this is taking Right Wing World to a whole new dimension. ...

... Jeff Spross of Think Progress: in a Fox "News" Sunday appearance, Palin herself insists she got the Revere story right. Of course, she botches it again. With video of our Historian Laureate re-explaining history.

* Sorry, can't help it.

News Ledes

New York Times: "At a news conference in Midtown Monday afternoon, Representative Anthony D. Weiner tearfully confessed to sending a photo of himself in his underwear to a woman via Twitter and then lying about it. Mr. Weiner said the indiscretion was part of a pattern of sending inappropriate and at times explicit photos and messages to women he met over the Internet." CNN's print story is here. ...

     ... Update: the Times has a more expansive story here.

New York Times: "Peter A. Diamond said Monday he was withdrawing his name from consideration for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, issuing a sharply worded broadside that criticized Senate Republicans for blocking his nomination. Mr. Diamond, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Nobel Prize laureate for his work on labor markets, had waited more than a year for a Senate vote, a step that Republicans refused to allow."

AP: "Five American troops serving as advisers to Iraqi security police in eastern Baghdad were killed Monday when rockets slammed into the compound where they lived. The deaths were the largest single-day loss of life for American forces in two years."

Reuters: "Israel accused Syria on Monday of orchestrating lethal confrontations on the once-quiet ceasefire line between the two countries as a distraction from Damascus's bloody crackdown on an 11-week-old revolt."

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, another Republican who will not be POTUS, says he'll run anyway. WashPo story here.

The Commentariat -- June 5

No Commentariat today, as I'm on the road. I've posted an Open Thread on Off Times Square, though, so you can do the weading today.

Well, okay, a teeny bit of Commentariat:

Economics Nobel Laureate Peter Diamond defends himself in a New York Times op-ed against the arrogant, stupid Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) who has blocked Diamond's appointment to the Federal Reserve because Shelby says Diamond doesn't know enough. CW: It appears Diamond is defending himself because Obama won't bother. What a revolting state of affairs.

Andrew Martin of the New York Times: "The Obama administration’s main program to keep distressed homeowners from falling into foreclosure has been aimed at those who took out subprime loans or other risky mortgages during the heady days of the housing boom. But these days, the primary cause of foreclosures is unemployment. As a result, there is a mismatch between the homeowner program’s design and the country’s economic realities — and a new round of finger-pointing about how best to fix it." ...

... Michael Fletcher of the Washington Post: "Reversing the economic decline fueled by the housing bust is a paramount test for President Obama as he campaigns for reelection. The president’s challenge is particularly pressing in potential swing states such as Florida, Nevada and Arizona, where stubborn joblessness and the pain from the collapse in real estate is most acute. It is in these places where Obama will face pointed questions from voters who think the administration’s policies have done little to make things better." ...

... CW: what gripes me about the two stories above is that ultimately they're all about Washington politics -- how is Obama going to balance Republicans demands to do nothing for anybody? how is this double whammy going to affect Obama's chance for re-election? There is very little concern (less than none from those despicable, callous Republicans) for the actual victims of the economic crisis: people hit with a double whammy -- lost their jobs, losing their homes. ...

... CBS News reports on a bank foreclosure you'll actually like.

Howard Dean Poses Scariest Scenario Ever. Alexander Bolton of The Hill: "Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman who helped Democrats capture the White House in 2008, warns that Sarah Palin could defeat President Obama in 2012. Dean says his fellow Democrats should beware of inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom that Obama would crush Palin in a general-election contest next year."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Portugal’s Social Democrats unseated the governing Socialists with a resounding parliamentary election victory on Sunday, giving the next government a strong mandate to enact a tough austerity program in return for 78 billion euros, or about $114 billion, international bailout. Pedro Passos Coelho, the leader of the Social Democrats, is expected to become the next prime minister, at the helm of a center-right coalition government with the conservative Popular Party."

New York Times: "Israeli forces fired at pro-Palestinian protesters on the Syrian frontier on Sunday as they tried to breach the border for the second time in three weeks, reflecting a new mode of popular struggle and deadly confrontation fueled by turmoil in the Arab world and the vacuum of stalled peace talks."

New York Times: "Yemen’s embattled president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, arrived in Saudi Arabia on Saturday for urgent medical treatment of wounds sustained in a bold attack on the presidential compound, Saudi officials said, abruptly shifting the political calculus that has allowed him to cling to power despite months of protest and violence." ...

... Washington Post: "Hours after the Yemen’s president flew to Saudi Arabia for treatment of wounds sustained in a rocket attack, thousands of demonstrators flocked to the streets of the capital Sunday to celebrate what they billed as the latest ouster of an Arab autocrat."

New York Times: "Lawrence S. Eagleburger, a troubleshooting diplomat and senior foreign policy adviser to presidents who served the country for more than 40 years, including 42 days as secretary of state at the close of President George Bush’s term, died on Saturday in Charlottesville, Va. He was 80."