The Dish

"Chris Matthews didn't forget Barack Obama was black. Chris Matthews forgot that Chris Matthews was white," – TNC. Read the whole brilliant post.

Mad TV got there first:

Clive Crook writes:

What does it matter who caused the problem? Obama's job is to solve it.

This with respect to the crippling fiscal legacy bequeathed by the Bush administration and the appalling recession that subsequently wiped out revenues. Yes, he actually wrote the words:

What does it matter who caused the problem?

Let me try to explain: it matters who caused the problem and why because if we do not understand the causes we cannot fix the problem and it matters because any adult judgment of a politician's first year that does not take into account the inheritance he was bequeathed is impossible.

It matters because the most important fact in American politics is the worst presidency in modern times that preceded Obama.

Two failed, unwinnable wars that continue to destroy lives and cripple our finances, a massive splurge in entitlement and discretionary spending, a huge increase in defense spending and massive tax cuts: this we now have to forget? This context should be removed from the picture?

It matters too because the very people who gave us this mess are now adamantly refusing to do anything to get us out of it, and pledge to return to exactly the same policies that got us there in the first place: more tax cuts, more war, more entitlement spending, more debt, no health insurance reform, no action on climate change. Clive acts as if there were some viable alternative out there. There isn't.

I'm not saying that Obama should not be held responsible for actions he has taken; I am saying he should not be held responsible for actions he did not take and an appalling inheritance he was forced to grapple with. Removing that context, as the GOP has largely done, and Crook now endorses, is to rig the entire debate so that Obama cannot win. It is a function of the kind of punditry that is, in fact, far more of a problem for the country than anything Obama has done – because it bases political judgment on unreality, and distorts the body politic's capacity for reasoned argument. It treats all of this as a game.

Many of us backed Obama to try and end that game. But so many are invested in continuing it.

Bob Gates applauded the line. That's the most encouraging sign in twenty years.

My live-blogging here; reader reactions here; blogosphere response here.

"To present such a proposal as a serious attempt at restraining spending is to reveal a low opinion of the intelligence of ordinary Americans," – Karl Rove.

In the end, all you can do is marvel at the vileness of such people, their total lack of any shame, sense of accountability, responsibility or honesty. Rove will advise Republicans to oppose any tax increases and to blame all spending cuts on Democrats if the debt commission comes through. 

What we saw last night was a president, defending his campaign pledges, against a Washington that has abandoned almost any pretense of tackling any of the actual problems faced by this country, in favor of talk radio grandstanding, FNC propaganda, Democratic cowardice, and Republican cynicism. And in his eight years of destroying this country's fiscal balance, moral standing and national security, it takes a man of Rove's deep cynicism to stand up and lambaste the one man prepared to do something.

From Steve Coll's House Armed Services Committee testimony:

[W]ith or without success in the pursuit of Al Qaeda’s leadership, the group’s self-isolation should provide a fundamental framework for U.S. counterterrorism policy, particularly in the communications sphere. That policy should be constructed to patiently reinforce Al Qaeda’s political isolation. (The hunt for Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri, by Predator drone and otherwise, may have a countervailing effect in the short run, but the effort to finally destroy Al Qaeda’s central leadership is nonetheless essential.) The most effective U.S. approach will be to call attention to Al Qaeda’s depredations and weaknesses, through proxies as much as possible, while taking no action itself that might reconnect Al Qaeda to its former political, financial and recruiting support.

Fortunately, in strategic communications, Al Qaeda’s own actions speak most effectively for themselves—the ghoulish spectacle of a young Nigerian “taught” to commit suicide by detonating explosives hidden in his underwear was hardly the image of noble war that Al Qaeda would require to recover its lost standing. American communications matter less, but as with Al Qaeda, actions always provide the clearest and most effective signals, particularly in a media era characterized by nearly infinite numbers of channels. Closing Guantanamo, repudiating torture, reaffirming American constitutional values, engaging constructively with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, affirming the sanctity of civilian life in military conflict, are all examples of specific acts by the Obama Administration—attempted or completed—that by themselves can contribute to a successful strategic communications policy aimed at Al Qaeda’s continued political isolation.

GOOD magazine provides a parachute chart of national, corporate, NGO, and personal donors to Haiti.

Chait flips through recent polls on the GOP senate primary in Florida and surmises:

As I see it, [Crist] has two options. First, he can bow out of the primary, campaign energetically for Rubio in November, and hope the party moves to the center far enough for him to run again at some future date. Second, he can make the case that the party has gotten too extreme for him — a legitimate case, as Crist is genuinely moderate on most of the key issues — and run for Senate as an independent or as a Democrat. Neither option is particularly easy, though the second seems easier than the first.

John Cassidy looks at past and future budget projections:

The CBO’s projections show the budget deficit declining from 9.2 per cent of GDP this year to 2.7 per cent in 2014. But this assumes three things will happen that are unlikely: Congress will allow all of the Bush tax cuts to expire; it will refrain from fiddling with the Alternative Minimum Tax, allowing it to ensnare more and more Americans; it will restrict the growth of appropriations to the rate of inflation. What about the fiscal outlook in the real world? Here’s the key sentence in the entire CBO report:

If the tax cuts were made permanent, the AMT was indexed for inflation, and annual appropriations kept pace with GDP, the deficit in 2020 would be nearly the same, historically large, share of GDP that it is today, and debt held by the public would equal nearly 100 percent of GDP.