Monday Open Thread
Welcome to the Monday edition of your open thread. I’m sitting here watching the rain through my window. We’ve had the weirdest weather this summer so far. What’s on your mind?
Paul Krugman has a smart take on the popularity gap of President Obama. As you can imagine, it’s the economy, stupid.
The latest hot political topic is the “Obama paradox” — the supposedly mysterious disconnect between the president’s achievements and his numbers. The line goes like this: The administration has had multiple big victories in Congress, most notably on health reform, yet President Obama’s approval rating is weak. What follows is speculation about what’s holding his numbers down: He’s too liberal for a center-right nation. No, he’s too intellectual, too Mr. Spock, for voters who want more passion. And so on.
But the only real puzzle here is the persistence of the pundit delusion, the belief that the stuff of daily political reporting — who won the news cycle, who had the snappiest comeback — actually matters.
This delusion is, of course, most prevalent among pundits themselves, but it’s also widespread among political operatives. And I’d argue that susceptibility to the pundit delusion is part of the Obama administration’s problem.
What political scientists, as opposed to pundits, tell us is that it really is the economy, stupid. Today, Ronald Reagan is often credited with godlike political skills — but in the summer of 1982, when the U.S. economy was performing badly, his approval rating was only 42 percent.
I think there’s actually two problems. Obama is achieving a pretty ambitious agenda which is not enough for his critics from the left and too much from his critics on the right. He won’t get much credit for it until people start feeling more secure about their finances.
Tea fight! The Tea Party Federation has asked that the Tea Party Express (led by Mark Williams of the “Lincoln letter” fame) be removed from the Tea Party.
The Tea Party Federation called on the Tea Party Express to do three things if it wanted to remain part of the group (from the group’s press release Saturday):
1. Mark Williams must be officially removed from the ranks of the Tea Party Express.
2. Notice of Mark Williams’ removal must be placed prominently on the official Tea Party Express website.
3. Tea Party Express must issue a press release articulating points 1 and 2 above.
On CBS’ Face The Nation Tea Party Federation leader David Webb explained that Williams’ letter was “clearly offensive” and needed to be answered for.
Yeah, it didn’t really help when the NAACP asks that you condemn racism and you reply by batsh%t crazy racism. At least some people recognize this. Of course, Mark Williams isn’t taking this lying down. He had a few words to share:
Apparently I have offended the tea party “leadership.”
Mind you, there is no tea party leadership; every tea partier is a tea party leader. But something happens when the stronger egos and personalities in a movement begin to feel a sense of ownership. It is not long before they act to claim and defend that feeling.
An example of that happened today. And it is a crying shame. We are fighting for the future of not just this nation but for the future of Mankind. That’s just a little more important than my fat head, or the apparently even fatter head on Face the Nation Today who misrepresented himself as the tea party “leader”.
…
My disappointment was a grandstanding statement on national television about expelling an individual (me) and my 34 other staff and performers from a grassroots movement that does nothing more than support the Constitution of theses United States because of the Constitutionally guaranteed exercise of the Creator’s endowed freedom to thought and expression is at least as damaging as the rest of the rhetoric that Morial, Sharpton, Dorelli and Shelton hammered such a delicate end.
Free speech! Free speech! Constitution! Apparently American is going to hell faster if the Tea Party criticizes each other, or something.
Tags: Open Thread
“Obama is achieving a pretty ambitious agenda
Mandatory purchases of defective health insurance products.
“Financial reform” without reinstating Glass-Steagall or ending “too-big-to-fail.”
War escalation in Afghanistan.
Achievements we could do without.
NPR came perilously close to committing an act of journalism yesterday. On Sunday’s show, Guy Raz puts on two Congressmen who tell it like it is about teabaggers and FOX news. You could read the transcript but it works so much better with audio. It’s worth the listen.
“Perilously close” because two different Congressmen hand Raz the story which is really about Republican anger, racism, and scapegoating… and Raz blows it. Raz brings in a talking head (actually a disembodied voice, since this is radio) to bring the usual faux balance to the story by equating right wing propaganda with left wing anger. The whole thing gets turned into the usual crap about “anger on both sides, and completely ignoring the points raised by the Congressmen about the truthfulness of the news sources, and racial scapegoating.
The story is misleadingly called “The Politics Of Anger” and Raz blithely ignores that what his sources are saying doesn’t match the title.
First, Brad Sherman (D-CA) describes an exchange at a town hall meeting:
The interview continues:
Then a Republican Congressman saying much the same thing:
Inglis might be a good candidate to be one of those rumored “sane Republicans.” Inglis was one of only seven Republicans who voted to condemn Joe “You lie!” Wilson. Now Inglis goes on to say something even more heretical:
Inglis’s identification of racial scapegoating I think gets to the heart of the teabagger mentality. Scapegoating fueled by propaganda has been at the heart of organized racism for centuries.
BusinessInsider.com
“If you aren’t in the top 1% of America’s earners, you’re pretty much screwed “
Ex-Clinton Democrat and co-Chair of Obama’s so-called debt commission Erskine Bowles recently warned that our nation’s debt is a fiscal cancer that threatens to devour the nation from within, if left unchecked. The warnings from the committee he tasked with solving our economic dysfunction couldn’t be any clearer.
In spite of this dire prediction, have Obama and Congressional Progressives begun to tighten the purse strings? To the contrary. Aided by Republicans like Scott Brown, they’re spending like never before and show no signs of slowing down. In fact, from June 29 to June 30, 2010 in one 24-hour period alone, the US national debt ballooned $166 billion dollars. (Canada Free Press)
In spite of this dire prediction, have Obama and Congressional Progressives begun to tighten the purse strings? To the contrary.
Republicans make the false premise that you can cut spending without crashing GDP. You can’t. You can’t cut spending faster than GDP will fall as a result of your spending cuts. The spending cuts will never catch up to the crash they create. And meanwhile we will be suffering from the elimination of vital services.
What would be the point of having a slightly smaller deficit, and 25% unemployment?
ishmael, ishmael, ishmael why do you think obomba is a “progressive”?
In spite of this dire prediction, have Republicans in the House and Senate begun to rescind the tax cuts for the top 1% of taxpayers? To the contrary. Aided by Democrats like Tom Carper, they’re trying to extend those cuts permanently, despite the fact they weren’t payed for with budget cuts in the first place.
Fixed that for you.
“What would be the point of having a slightly smaller deficit, and 25% unemployment?”
More retained wealth among the top 1%. Yippie !!
What would be the point of having a slightly smaller deficit, and 25% unemployment?
Excuse me, I mis-spoke.
The recession and its lingering unemployment are one of the largest components of the deficit.
If you think our deficit is intolerable at 10% unemployment, wait until you see the deficit when we have 25% unemployment caused by a general economic crash after spending cuts.
ofcourse, how silly of me…
the sun rose this morning and so should taxes.
the moon will rise tonight and so should spending.
Imagine the prosperity we will enjoy when taxes are finaly 100%!
I wonder which day would be better, the day when taxes are 100% or the day that they are 0%. I guess it all depends on whether you can afford a private security detail on that day.
Geek, On that day I’ll trade half of my private security system for half of your private safe water system.
Wait…holy shit..if we do that we will have formed a sort of government. Never mind.
But Ishmael…. you have not told us what/whom should we cut ? Please REVEAL.
Imagine the prosperity we will enjoy when taxes are finaly 100%!
I agree there is a tipping point where high taxes bring down the economy. But we are nowhere near that point.
It is also true there is another tipping point where tax cuts hurt the economy rather than help it. Bush blew through that tipping point in 2001 and we have been stuck there ever since.
Exactly, anon.
Hitch on Mel Gibson.
Hey, don’t knock Mel Gibson.
Christine O’Donnell updated her “about” page today:
http://christine2010.com/meet-christine/
“Christine has served as a marketing and media consultant to various clients, including: Icon Pictures’ The Passion of The Christ;”
Oddly, this morning it said “Mel Gibson”. Now, it reads as if her client was a film.
Can’t scrub this blog comment, though:
http://theothermccain.com/2010/03/26/christine-odonnell-for-senate/
“At any rate, Ms. O’Donnell has been a long time P.R. and media relations expert who has worked on behalf of Mel Gibson during “The Passion of Christ” and other more recent movies.”
Or this article:
http://thebulletin.us/articles/2010/07/12/top_stories/doc4c3b33d695b52118535376.txt
“Ms. O’Donnell is also a marketing consultant whose clients have included Mel Gibson”
Keep scrubbing, Crazy Christine…
Holy Crackers!
Christine O’Donnell is making ready to unleash the CRAZY, the likes of which Delaware has never seen.
http://www.delawaretomorrow.com/christine-relates-a-zany-yarn/#comments
The new staffer, Yates Walker, mentioned in this Delaware politics post might be just the catalyst this primary race needs in order to blow up.
When does the NJ pick up on the fact that Castle is in free fall?
He is down from a 90% lock to 64% at 538.
The odds of Biden’s seat flipping to Republicans have gone from being rated “Safe Republican” to “Likely Republican” to “Leans Republican” in the space of three months.