The Dish

“What I reject is when some folks say we should go back to the past policies when it was those very same policies that got us into this mess in the first place. Another way of putting it is when, you know, I’m busy and Nancy is busy with our mop cleaning up somebody else’s mess — we don’t want somebody sitting back saying, you’re not holding the mop the right way. Why don’t you grab a mop, why don’t you help clean up.  (Applause.)  You’re not mopping fast enough.  (Laughter.)  That’s a socialist mop.  (Laughter and applause.)  Grab a mop — let’s get to work,” – Barack Obama.

It’s an inspired three-word challenge to the GOP. Devastating, actually – because it both reminds people of the damage the GOP did while not seeming to dwell on the past or to score partisan points (while actually doing both).

Meep. Meep …

New York, New York, 6.30 pm

Nicholas Beaudrot prods the right:

Lately I seem to be having conversations with wonkish right-of-center types who have this-or-that idea about how to design a simpler, more efficient, and more effective policy to deal with taxation, climate change, health care, whatever. But it always stops there. No one talks about managing the transition. No one talks about convincing Mitch McConnell to back these ideas. No one talks about sixty votes. No one talks about the interest group dynamics in Washington. No one even talks about working for a decade to elect members of Congress who might be more amenable to these sorts of policies. It’s just policy in a vacuum. Which is an interesting intellectual exercise, but not a legitimate substitute for governance, an ultimately messy endeavor.

The better "conservatism" succeeds as entertainment and business, the less it succeeds at looking like a philosophy of governance. And the wider that gap grows, the longer it will take to bridge it.

It will get worse before it gets better.

(Hat tip: Ordinary Gentlemen)

HuffPo surpassed WaPo in unique visitors last month.

Pajama-world cartoonist, Chris Muir, ran a really weird cartoon last Sunday. Some are hyperventilating that it's some veiled assassination threat, which seems silly to me. It could be read as a kind of mocking parody of Beckville. But the conviction with which this rant is delivered, and the need to place it in the mouth of a black man (cartoons are wonderful things) … well, you make up your own mind. There are ways of saying things without saying them. Which, of course, is why political cartooning endures as a form. It's after the jump:

Former UN Afghanistan official Peter Galbraith throws some more cold water in this week's Time:

There is no easy solution to Afghanistan's election mess. If the ECC removes enough fraudulent votes, Karzai will fall below 50%, and there will be a second round of voting. However, the factors that caused problems on Aug. 20 — ghost polling stations, corrupt election staff and a partisan commission — are still present. Dealing with those factors will require leadership that the head of the U.N. mission has yet to demonstrate.

If Karzai emerges the winner of the rushed and incomplete audit process now under way, Afghanistan's internal peace will depend on Karzai's opponents accepting — or at least tolerating — the outcome. Karzai's main opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, has said publicly that he does not believe the U.N.'s envoy is neutral. By failing to address the obvious fraud in Afghanistan's elections, the U.N. has lost credibility that is desperately needed for it to act as a postelection peacemaker.

Karzai's opponents are likely to be skeptical that the complaints process can change a fraudulent election into a good one. The Obama Administration should focus on persuading Karzai to adopt some of the opposition's program, including arrangements for genuine power-sharing by Afghanistan's diverse ethnic groups. Even so, Afghanistan's flawed elections have now become a major drag on Obama's new strategy, which just six months ago seemed to offer real hope for that war-torn land. It need not have turned out this way.

Megan unpacks the logic of the following:

It is safe to enact a program that is going to blow a 10-gauge hole in the Federal budget, because the mere fact that we can't currently afford to pay for it will force us to, um, do something.

Well, I do see the political logic of Obama getting real health insurance reform this year (making him a liberal icon) and then pivoting toward a major, Osborne-style fiscal responsibility summit before the mid-terms (making him an Independent one).

You get everyone in the health insurance tent, then you tackle the systemic fiscal crisis in a way that doesn't violate your base. If Obama has a GOP House after 2010, he can even vie with them on how to cut the long-term debt – you know, that way of his of calling the bluff on his opponents.

Win-win for the US though.

A reader writes:

In response to Robert Reich's comments you wrote:

"But I do think it's worth noting that very few people expected a Dow 10,000 any time soon last January. Obama has done the critical – and largely overlooked – thing. He has restored confidence in the markets and the economy after what came close to a total panic and meltdown. That is not easy. It is not sufficient, but it was necessary. And he did it."

So he did it, did he? 

Last time I checked, he wasn't in office until January 2009, 3 months after the real panic took place (following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and the TED spread crisis.)  I do remember Herny Paulson's face on the cover Time magazine for a reason.  You wouldn't want to give a Bushie credit though.  We get it.  But I digress…

Am I supposed to be happy we are at 10,000 on the Dow, a number we were at the beginning of this decade?  It's people like you who put economic power (and credit for outcomes) in the hands of politicians, giving one man credit for restoring confidence to a multi-trillion dollar stock market.  What kind of effing "conservative of doubt" are you?

Ouch. My point is that confidence matters in a recession like the last one. Inspiring confidence is not easy; and Obama deserves some credit for helping restore it. It's not over yet. But it's something essential for economic recovery. I'm not sure McCain-Palin would have given the same reassurance.

In graph form:
Now check out this poll of polls of her favs/unfavs over the last year:

A reader writes:

You quote Coll:

"Look, there's no chance that the Obama administration or the international community is just going to pull the plug on Afghanistan and walk away".

Sorry to break the news but Canada is walking away, the government has committed to no troops left in Afghanistan by 2011. The Canadian public has lost all faith in the mission, and an overwhelming majority of the population wants us out of there. The conservative government floated a trail balloon about some kind of non-combat role last week, which was shot down by the public right away.

With an election in the cards next spring, at the latest, and the conservatives cusp of majority Harper will not let Afghanistan become the wedge issue that stops him from getting a majority.

The mood in Britain is not exactly gung-ho either.