Author: Andrew Sullivan

A reader writes:

You conflate two policies with being essential to avoiding a Depression, when they are distinct. The Fed did the right thing when it pumped up the money supply in the banking system to avoid what Milton Friedman called “The Great Contraction” that led to the Great Depression in 1929. The analogy often used to justify this action is similar to putting out a fire in a row house that could spread to the other homes in the row if it isn’t put out.  Ben Bernanke did the right things to avert that disaster and your Big Babyism critique applies to that policy. However, what many conservatives do justifiably complain about are the TARP expenditures that amounted to pure wealth redistribution with no contagion rationale. 

The bailout of AIG preserved the credit default swap market to the benefit of Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs shareholders.  These institutions were not part of the banking system when the crisis broke out.  In fact, the government strong-armed them into becoming bank holding companies so that a fig-leaf could be used to justify this policy, ex post facto.

The same goes for the GM bailout.  The US economy would not collapse if GM went bankrupt.  However, a key voting Democrat voting bloc would be severely impacted – the unions who mostly contributed to the financial demise of the auto industry in the first place.

The pork-barrel spending contained in subsequent stimulus bills were of the same ilk and only deepened the government’s fiscal crisis in the hopes of creating a soft landing that doesn’t feel so soft 8 months later.  And now Obama wants to take over another 16% of the US economy before the fires have been put out on the Medicare and Social Security fiscal crises?  This is what is causing true conservatives to snap.

The brazen abuse of a crisis to pursue an ideological agenda instead of resolving the deep fiscal crisis faced by this government is what has caused the severe reaction against Obama. You should be ashamed of yourself for not screaming STOP to this madness.

This is it? Seriously? The madness is in my reader. There were indeed emergency measures used to prevent both a financial meltdown and an economic spiral. To my mind, the acid test is whether these measures helped avoid a second Great Depression, as a lot of people feared. They did. Now we get to tackle the underlying causes of the crash and re-regulate the financial industry to saner, older, more conservative standards. Then the recourse to utterly trivial pork barrel spending and the idiotic canard that Obama wants to “take over” 16 oercent of the US economy suggests to me we are simply dealing with ideology here, removed from any real engagement with the actual real world choices Obama faced and the real world choices we all have to face.

It is as if the right has become so ideologically calcified they cannot see what is in front of their noses. And so they concoct a fantasy world in which Obama is the leftist spender – rather than what he is, a pragmatic reformer in a desperate situation caused in part by conservatism’s ideological over-reach.

Nate Silver does the math:

Although Democrats can expect at least 7 defections among people who voted for the bill originally and possibly as many as 15-20, there are at least a dozen and possibly as many as 15-18 Democrats who could at least potentially be whipped in favor of the bill, although only a handful of these will be easy acquisitions.

Whip 'em!

A sample post – and an inspired satire.

David Roberts bets that the cap-and-trade is dead. The most likely path forward:

My prediction is that whatever [Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman] come up with will look more or less like energy policy over the last 20 years: a hodgepodge of subsidies and tax breaks for favored industries. At this point there seems little hope left of anything better. There’s much to discuss about the bill, the political fight that will take shape around it, and the best way forward for clean energy advocates in coming years. For now I just wanted to mark what looks to me like the final passing of the dream of an economy-wide price on carbon.

The US political system appears increasingly incapable of actually tackling any substantive problems.

Josh Marshall is trying to make sense of the bizarre O'Keefe story at the top of Memeorandum this morning:

[F]or the moment, as crazy as it may seem, I'm working on the assumption that O'Keefe really thought he'd get away with a major felony if he got recordings that would sound good enough on Fox and Drudge. Indeed, his very limited public statements still suggest he's thinking in terms of a justification defense. I still have a hard time believing that myself. But it's the only explanation I can square with the facts as we currently know them.

Conservatives have become used to the idea that their ideology allows them to break the law. Because their ideology is above the law. Just ask Cheney.

A graphic take:

Greg Sargent:

White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer told Capitol Hill staffers on a private briefing call that in his speech tonight, Obama will leave no doubt that his commitment to addressing health care is as strong right now as it was in his September speech, a White House official tells me. The official also said Pfeiffer told Hill staff that Obama will offer “additional details,” suggesting it’s possible he may begin to outline a way forward.

Know hope.

Trevor Butterworth offers a sharp account of the factors that led to a nation of natural bloggers – "What was the blogosphere but a virtual pub where wits could clash, lubricated by sobriety" – into an online desert. But he notes one huge success story:

Imagine most of the leading economists in the United States banding together to create a blog to analyze and comment on what the President and Congress were doing each day. That, in effect, is what Irish Economy is for Ireland

As Carey notes, Irish Economy is "driven by the demand for qualified opinion. We are in an economic crisis, and newspaper editors suddenly discovered they had no economists on staff! The academics could write all the blogs they want–but the financial crisis created the audience." And the economist bloggers really work for their audience, too, she says. "They tend to notice things normal mainstream journalists don't that end up coming into the mainstream. Irish Economy is doing what everyone thought blogs would do. But–in Ireland anyway–this blog is unique. The fact that this one blog succeeds shows why the others have failed."

“There was a major blow to the head on the right side. There was evidence of torture on the upper torso, and on the palms of his hand. There were needle marks on his right arm and on his left arm. I am a law enforcement professional. I know what to look for when examining a body,” – Talal Al-Zahrani, father of one of the Gitmo "suicides" examining what was left of his innocent son's body after the US returned it to him. As reported by Harpers' Magazine.

None of these details were noted in the U.S. autopsy report. Attorney general Eric Holder refuses to investigate further. And so on the critical fundamental question of accountability for war crimes, the distinction between the Obama and the Bush administrations gets increasingly blurry.

Timothy Kincaid sums up yesterday's testimony. The defense's second witness was called:

[David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, a non-profit think tank that focuses on fatherhood, marriage, child rearing, child well being, and family structure] testified that research shows that the ideal family relationship for a child is a biological mother and father in low-conflict marriage. 

Kincaid interjects:

[H]e’s likely correct. And a principled argument could be made that these are the only family forms that society should reward with marriage. But it doesn’t. It rewards remarriage of widows and widowers, divorced people with children, the childless, the elderly, and indeed absolutely every other less-than-ideal coupling provided that they are opposite-sex. The question is not whether biological parents are a smidgen better than two mothers (a position that could probably be made), but why two mothers (who are better than, say, a mother and stepfather) are not provided with marriage.

Talbot thinks that David Boies' cross examination of the defense's first witness "was a little like watching your cat play with his food before he eats it." The Prop 8 Trial Tracker informs us that today is likely to be the last day of testimony. There will be a couple week break before closing arguments.