“Whatever is going on inside the White House, from the outside it looks like moral collapse — a complete failure of purpose and loss of direction.” -Paul Krugman “The captors [Republicans] will win this battle, if they haven’t already by the time you read this, because Obama has seemingly surrendered his once-considerable abilities to act, [...]
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Living in the USA, it’s difficult to escape the influence of a constant stream of commentary by our pundits and political leaders telling our citizens that “you must suffer now, to avoid greater suffering tomorrow.” The offshoring of jobs and the weakening of unions is required for our firms to be competitive, we’re told, because [...]
Update: James Fallows says the speech failed the Eisenhower, Carter, and Obama tests. Before President Obama gave his oil spill speech, Marc Ambinder wondered “. . . in his 20 minute address to the nation, will President Obama go big? Or will he go small?” Sadly, Obama chose to go small. After acknowledging the root [...]
… about bank bailouts and gunshot wounds to the face. How can I not link to this? Describing a bank [Goldman Sachs] that had to be saved via a taxpayer bailout from a greed- and stupidity-induced accidental death as “top-notch” at risk management and “super-smart” is a lot like describing as a “firearms safety paragon” [...]
ACEP (the American College of Emergency Physicians) recently asked me to participate in a survey. I didn’t do it, because I’m tired of being asked to participate in surveys. Shadowfax didn’t participate either, but he has a better reason.
Daniel Larison summarizes the poll evidence that suggests Obama’s problem is that he isn’t liberal enough.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post is worried that health care reform won’t pass, and one of the reasons she gives is that some House Democrats are afraid to vote for it. Why? “This is a career-ending vote” according to one unnamed Democratic representative that talked to Marcus (but apparently didn’t want his or her [...]
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Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Sorry for the short absence . I was petrified with indecision about whether to use Google’s Buzz, or Twitter. (Actually, I wasn’t, but it’s a damn convenient excuse, eh?) Let me call your attention to the best two essays I’ve read over the past several week. Both assert that the United States government is somehow [...]
Thursday, January 21, 2010
And it’s about time. Just when I started to admit to myself that maybe the Obama administration really doesn’t stand for anything — a forgivable sentiment after watching it deal away just about everything that was worthwhile about health care reform — the President tells us that he intends to fight for commonsense banking regulations. [...]
Kevin Drum can’t decide. On the one hand, he agrees with Paul Campos that we shouldn’t be scared: [W]e need to stop doing al-Qaeda’s PR for it by panicking over every foiled terrorist plot. AQ’s public image — that they’re a triumphant army forever creating fear and hysteria in the decadent West — is the [...]
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