Month: February 2010
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Blaming staff for structural problems
Back in January, I predicted a rash of process-based explanations of President Obama’s declining political fortunes in 2010: During the next eleven months, it will become increasingly obvious that Democrats face an unfavorable political environment and that President Obama’s approval ratings are trending downward. Inside the Beltway, these outcomes will be interpreted as evidence that
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Norquist denies admiration of Lenin’s tactics
Via Tom Lee, I see that American for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist denied endorsing Lenin’s tactics during an exchange with historian Rick Pearlstein on Diane Rehm’s NPR show today (starts at 48:17 in the Real Audio or Windows Media clips): PEARLSTEIN: Of course Grover Norquist wants to get rid of Social Security and Medicare.
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Brennan again smears GOP dissent
John Brennan, President Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, is making a habit of smearing GOP critics of the president’s security decisions. In a USA Today op-ed today, Brennan writes that “[p]olitically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda”: Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve
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Twitter roundup
Here are some of the latest items from my Twitter feed (follow it!): -Sarah Palin’s hand notes are the new Rorschach blot of American politics -My advice? Next time, Palin should write the notes on her shoes like Mike Seaver on Growing Pains -Inside Edition (!) corrects its misleading reporting on Desiree Jennings case —
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Obama’s phony health care summit
Understatement of the year on Obama’s proposed health care summit: [I]t remains unclear whether a single discussion can begin to bridge the political and substantive policy divide with Republicans, who view their united front against the Democratic bills as a key to their political recovery. I understand the supposed rationale for the summit is to
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Death panel myth will not die
Among the right-wing faithful, at least, the myth of the so-called “death panel” persists: When Andrew Breitbart, the founder of BigGovernment.com, introduced Ms. Palin [to the National Tea Party Convention] by describing her as “the first person to tell us about the death panel,” the crowd cheered.
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Kit Bond smears Obama on terror
During a conference call with conservative bloggers yesterday, Senator Kit Bond (R-Mo.) accused the Obama administration of conducting “a terrorist protection policy” and engaging in a “jihad to close Guantanamo” (MP3 audio): [0:21] Let me begin by saying that yesterday’s hearing with the leaders of the intelligence community shows how this Administration think it’s more
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Twitter roundup
Here are some of the latest items from my Twitter feed (follow it!): -Jon Chait shreds the Luntz memo on financial reform as a classic example of conservative postmodernism. –New economic research on the difficulty of estimating teacher effects on student achievement (PDF). –More evidence of the insanity of CA public finance under Prop. 13
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New left-wing smears of conservatives
Liberals and Democrats are increasingly adopting the popular post-9/11 tactic of comparing their political opponents to terrorists and murderous regimes. The latest examples come from SEIU president Andy Stern, MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews, and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. First, via CNSNews.com, Stern referred to Democratic senators who aren’t supportive of labor’s policy
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Obama’s misguided spending freeze
Since the beginning of the presidential campaign, Barack Obama and his advisers have repeatedly claimed that they don’t listen to DC’s conventional wisdom. But Obama’s decision to propose a freeze of discretionary non-security spending suggests that the White House misunderstands the problem in the same way as most of the rest of Washington. The problem,