Month: March 2010

Jonathan Bernstein piles on. Earlier criticism of Halperinism here.

Keith Hennessey, who worked on economic policy in the Bush White House and opposes the health care bill, gives it a 40% chance of passing:

The Stupak/abortion issue appears to be the biggest substantive hurdle. Chatter about a possible three bill strategy (!?) to address this is stunning. Two bills isn’t hard enough?

Ezra Klein gives you a little memory-jog about how the GOP forced an utterly unfunded Medicare expansion through the Congress in 2003:

A 15-minute vote was scheduled, and at the end of 15 minutes, the Democrats had won. The Republican leadership froze the clock for three hours while they desperately whipped defectors. This had never been done before. The closest was a 15-minute extension in 1987 that then-congressman Dick Cheney called “the most arrogant, heavy-handed abuse of power I’ve ever seen in the 10 years that I’ve been here.”

And if you think Ramesh Ponnuru is a fiscal conservative, or a constitutional conservative, read this.

Not a dumb-ass tea-party slogan – a Republican candidate for Senate. Seriously.

A reader writes:

What exactly was "smug, self-righteous" about Mo'Nique's speech? Mo'Nique is a large, dark-skinned Black woman — one of the most vilified images in this country for centuries — and that she won an Oscar for a supporting role (only the 3rd Black woman to do so in 82 years) is astounding, even with her other awards leading up to last night, because Oscars are known to flip the script (such as Geoffrey Fletcher beating Jason Reitman).

That she also won for a role that made quite a few in the Black community cringe was even more astounding. 

Her respect and knowledge of cultural history regarding her Oscar was such that she not only made reference to Hattie McDaniel as "Mammy" (for many, another cringe-inducing role) but that even her style dress and flower was reminiscent of first Black Academy Awards-winner, Hattie's attire on her Oscar night.

For me, her tone was on point; her reference to her husband convincing her to take a role that was not popular (and it so wasn't) was truthful; her giving love to fellow cast members/"Precious" family was correct; her acknowledging Oprah's and Tyler's roles in the movie's visibility was absolutely true; and her shout-outs to reps, etc. was standard acceptance speech fare. 

It looks like an impasse between Emanuel and Holder with little or no presidential leadership.

In the wake of last week's shooting, James Joyner begs:

Can we please stop with the political name-calling whenever one of these nuts goes off?

Look, we’re a big country.  There are over 300 million of us.  Almost everyone holds a position or two that’s way off the charts and a whole lot of people believe in 9/11 Trutherism, black helicopters, and all the rest.  Less than a handful of those people are out trying to kill people.    However stupid or loathesome a political view may be, the fact that some nut also holds it adds nothing to the counter-argument.

 

Megan Carpentier flags a new AARP study on older unemployed Americans:

An analysis of unemployment data from January 2000 to December 2009 shows that the number of unemployed Americans 55 and older increased by more than 331 percent last decade. Importantly, the analysis uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which does not count people as unemployed if they are retired or if they have ceased to look for work. That means that the more than 2 million Americans over the age of 55 who are unemployed are not retirees –  they are people actively looking for work but unable to find any.

The most illuminating, profound and brilliant piece on the effects of long-term unemployment on the American psyche, family, society and politics is Don Peck's riveting cover-story in the new Atlantic. Really: read it and you will read everything on this subject in the news in a different and more sobering light. It's one more reason I believe that old media print journalism remains as vital as ever. And one more reason why I'm so proud to work among so many brilliant and committed writers at the Atlantic.

Ackerman runs through the Bush loyalists decrying the "Al Qaeda Seven" smear.

Contra Juan Cole, Marc Lynch believes that while it matters who comes out on top "there's almost certainly going to be a coalition of some kind (fully inclusive or otherwise) and the differences probably won't be as stark as some people expect." He cautions:

[A] main headline of the Iraqi election campaign has to be the overwhelmingly nationalist tone of all major politicians and the marginal American role in the process. The election campaign (as opposed to the results, which we still don't know) showed clearly that Iraqis are determined to seize control of their own future and make their own decisions. The U.S. ability to intervene productively has dramatically receded, as the Obama administration wisely recognizes. The election produced nothing to change the U.S. drawdown schedule, and offered little sign that Iraqis are eager to revise the SOFA or ask the U.S. to keep troops longer. Iraq is in Iraqi hands, and the Obama administration is right both to pay close attention and to resist the incessant calls to 'do more.'"

The whole post is worth reading.