Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live from 7-8 Eastern. Dave Schuler and I will be talk about Mark Sanford, Iran, health care, and President Obama’s poll numbers. Please join us. We’ll also be taking calls at (646) 716-7030. Owing to a high trolls to legit callers ratio, [...]
Over at New Atlanticist, I’ve published my thoughts on this weekend’s Iranian election mess in two separate posts: Iran’s Elections: What We Know (And What We Don’t) and Iran’s Elections: What Now? The short answers: “Not a whole hell of a lot” and “The same thing we do every day, Pinky.” I’m reasonably sure that [...]
The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live from 7-8 Eastern Wednesday night as per usual. The special Tueday Night Marvel Team-Up with League of Ordinary Gentlemen, Conor Friedersdorf, and Dan Riehl was waylaid by technical concerns and they will instead run it solo on Thursday at 2 Eastern [...]
The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live from 7-8 Eastern. Joining regular cohost Dave Schuler and myself will be Bill Roggio of The Long War Journal. Bill’s coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan has been among the very best and we’ll be discussing the most recent developments there on [...]
One of Dave Schuler’s favorite statements in recent months is that “Anything too big to fail is too big to exist.” If we’re not going to allow them to shoulder the negative consequences of failure because we deem it too dangerous to society, then their very existence is too dangerous for society. Ezra Klein makes [...]
Our special Thursday edition of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live from 7-8 Easter. As usual, Dave Schuler will co-host. Steve Verdon will do his best to join us. The Chrysler bankruptcy, swine flu, and probably some other topics will be discussed. Please join us. We’ll also be taking your calls [...]
Owing to scheduling conflicts, the next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live from 7-8 Eastern THURSDAY instead of the customary Wednesday. As usual, Dave Schuler will co-host. We have yet to book a guest, so topics are flexible. Please join us. We’ll also be taking your calls at (646) [...]
A Gallup poll showing that 48% of Americans believe their federal income tax burden is “about right,” and 46% saying it’s “too high” has naturally generated some conversation. Both Dave Schuler and Kevin Drum, though, looked behind the numbers and realized the 48% figure isn’t so impressive once you factor in the fact that somewhere [...]
The juxtaposition of two headlines this morning at memeorandum was rather amusing: As it turns out, Michael Shear‘s “An Early Military Victory for Obama” and Shailagh Murray‘s “Obama’s Chief of Staff Grants Access, Gets Results” are unrelated stories combined through the vagaries of automated selection algorithms. Indeed, the inside headline on the latter is actually [...]
There’ve been a number of blog posts over the last couple days accusing President Obama of fecklessness, cowardice, and being out-toughed by the French with regard to his handling of the Somali pirate situation. Fairness compels me to point out that the current spate of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and East Africa began [...]
Andrew Exum has “a policy whereby when someone is criticized by name, they have the right to post a response.” Having yesterday taken exception to a WSJ editorial by AEI’s Thomas Donnelly and Gary Schmitt arguing that Obama and Gates are “gutting the military” and received a lengthy email response from Donnelly, he reprints it [...]
“Capitalism isn’t about having the biggest bottom line for the current quarter. Capitalism is about individuals busting their asses to maximize value for shareholders. Sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture in order to reap the biggest returns. Not all rewards are short term.” – Mark Cuban That’s the bottom line of a [...]
“Henry Blodget (along with others at Clusterstock) wonders why bankers, notably BoA’s Ken Lewis, are getting such kid glove treatement while GM’s Rick Wagoner gets the axe. I think I can explain that. The White House’s pool of economic advisers isn’t filled to the brim with auto execs.” – Dave Schuler Indeed. Timothy Geithner and [...]
The editorial board at The Economist (which apparently considers itself a “newspaper” despite coming out weekly in magazine format) praises President Obama for having “already done some commendable things” in the foreign policy arena but charges that, domestically, “His performance has been weaker than those who endorsed his candidacy, including this newspaper, had hoped.” They [...]
Denis McDonough, deputy assistant to the president in charge of strategic communications for the National Security Council, and Caitlin Hayden, director of communications at NSC, held a conference call this afternoon, organized by the White House, to discuss the plan with invited bloggers. Uncharacteristically, I managed to get in the first question and some follow-ups: [...]
Dave Schuler laments yesterday’s conviction of a Chicago city official on federal mail fraud charges. Said official was bewildered, saying, “I just did my job the way I was supposed to do it. I guess it’s a federal crime.” As Dave notes, the man has a point: “Corruption isn’t a perversion of the system here. [...]
Remember that balanced budget we were going to get? Not so fast. President Barack Obama‘s budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to the latest congressional estimates, significantly worse than predicted by the White House just last month. The Congressional Budget Office figures, obtained by The Associated [...]
“We need a Treasury secretary so terrifying that if you were stuck in an elevator alone with him, you would just automatically hand over your wallet and credit cards.” – Gail Collins Right now, we have rather the reverse. Via Dave Schuler, who’s got just such a man in mind. [UPDATE: No, it's not Charles [...]
A few weeks ago on OTB Radio, Dave Schuler predicted that Timothy Geithner would be out as Treasury Secretary by the end of the year. At the rate he’s going, he might not last to summer. It’s bad enough his every public appearance causes the Dow to plummet. Now, he’s been openly contradicted by his [...]
Thomas Friedman suggests that what we need to get out of this financial mess is a little more BOGSATT: Which is why I wake up every morning hoping to read this story: “President Obama announced today that he had invited the country’s 20 leading bankers, 20 leading industrialists, 20 top market economists and the Democratic [...]
H. Rodgin Cohen, “the leading candidate for Deputy Treasury Secretary, has withdrawn from consideration,” George Stephanoupoulous reports. He adds, “Cohen had risen to the top after the withdrawal last week of expected deputy treasury secretary pick Annette Nazareth.” Something’s wrong with this picture. To be sure, Cohen wasn’t technically an appointee. Still, as Glenn Reynolds [...]
A recent study seems to confirm a point that Dave Schuler has been making repeatedly for months: the housing bubble is a narrowly targeted geographic phenomenon: Via Andrew Sullivan [Yes, him again. -ed.], who summarizes, “66 percent of potential housing value losses in 2008 and subsequent years may be in California, with another 21 percent [...]
Via Glenn Reynolds, I see that Paul Kotkin has written an interesting essay on an “internal civil war” [Is there another kind? -ed.] looming within the Democratic Party: This is the Democratic Party’s moment, its power now greater than any time since the mid-1960s. But do not expect smooth sailing. The party is a fractious [...]
I can’t help but be bemused by the YahooNews headline “Obama promises to slash spending by $2 trillion,” which accompanies an AP story quite contrary to that. President Barack Obama unveiled a multi-trillion-dollar spending plan Thursday that would boost taxes on the wealthy, curtail Medicare, lay the groundwork for universal health care and leave a [...]
Taegan Goddard passes on a Bloomberg report that President Obama has thus far brought eleven Harvard professors to join his administration, “the most since the Kennedy White House.” This isn’t surprising, really. Obama’s a technocrat and enlisting top level college professors, who must be “the best and the brightest,” is natural. The problem, as Dave [...]
Dave Schuler and I had a similar reaction to the reactions to David Brooks‘ “Money for Idiots” column: Even the quickest glance at Brooks’s column and at these posts suggests that the bloggers simply don’t comprehend what he’s saying. They are functionally illiterate. Alternatively, they were just distracted by the shiny title.
The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live tonight from 7-8 Eastern. Dave Schuler will co-host and Steve Verdon will try to join us to talk about the the stimulus, auto bailouts, and related issues. We’ll also toss in some domestic politics, like the Roland Burris mess, and foreign [...]
Will Wilkinson passes on Bart Wilson‘s observation that, “fair is one-to-one untranslatable into any other language.” Jim Henley, blogging into the Google Reader comment share ether, retorts: I remember the days we were assured there was no word for ‘freedom’ in Russian. That was bullshit. ‘There’s no one-to-one translation of *fair* into other languages’ sounds [...]
A couple of comments on my posts of the last couple of days make it apparent that I should state directly something that seemed obvious: A change in administration, especially one from an ostensibly conservative Republican to a pragmatically liberal Democrat, brings a natural evolution in the editorial perspective of this blog. Since founding OTB [...]
Yesterday, Dave Schuler did an excellent job outlining the brewing mess on the subcontinent in Tensions Rising Between Pakistan and India. I’ve been blogging on the subject at New Atlanticist as well. My most recent posts on the subject are Pakistan Scales Down Anti-Terrorist Operations and Pakistan Readies for War with India. The upshot is [...]
Dave Schuler’s arguments and his responses to my cross-examination questions highlight three critical failings in his argument. These flaws are his preference for inertia over strategic assessment, overweighing ambiguous evidence that marginally supports his case while ignoring compelling evidence that refutes it, and a failure to account for what might be called “conditions on the [...]
George Will has a column in today’s WaPo, “Making Congress Moot,” making a point that I’ve been making about the Bush administration’s dubious use of TARP funds to bail out the auto companies. Congress’s marginalization was brutally underscored when, after lawmakers did not authorize $14 billion for General Motors and Chrysler, the executive branch said, [...]
It’s safe to say that the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges is inconvenient for President-Elect Barack Obama. NYT yesterday ran a longish piece headlined “Scandal is an Early Test for Obama Team.” Exactly what role he or his team played will be a focus of intense scrutiny in the weeks to [...]
The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live tonight from 7-8 Eastern. Dave Schuler and Steve Verdon will join me to discuss Barack Obama’s cabinet choices, the continuing economic meltdown, and whatever other topics we meander into. Please join us. We’ll also be taking your calls at (646) 716-7030. [...]
Aside from the issue of the wisdom of appointing Hillary Clinton Secretary of State, which I’ve discussed previously, there’s also the issue of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which states, “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the [...]
One would think that a biracial president named “Barack Obama” who grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia would feel a certain freedom from the need to demonstrate his bonafides on the diversity front. Not so much, it seems. Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee — once the chief economic adviser to candidate Barack Obama — may be [...]
During his address this evening to the Atlantic Council, ISAF commander General David McKiernan emphasized the many positive trends in Afghanistan, noting that he preferred a “Glass Half Full” view. At the same time, he emphasized that Afghanistan is in the middle of a war — not a peacekeeping, stability, or human assistance operation. Afghanistan [...]
Then-candidate Barack Obama sent letters to federal employees promising them big gains if he got elected, Carol Leonnig writes in a front page story in today’s WaPo. The letters, sent to employees at seven agencies, describe Obama’s intention to scale back on contracts to private firms doing government work, to remove censorship from scientific research, [...]
NBC’s Mike Vigueira confirms a rumor that’s been circulating for several days: Three House Democratic sources confirmed Rep. Rahm Emanuel has been offered a Chief of Staff job with an Obama White House and is currently “agonizing” over whether to take the job. Emanuel is a much better fit as a politco than a legislator [...]
A new poll claims that a whopping 14 percent of likely voters think they may still change their minds in the five days remaining before the election. One in seven, or 14 percent, can’t decide or back a candidate but might switch, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll of likely voters released Friday. Who [...]
Nate Silver seconds Mike Murphy‘s plea for television networks to end the practice of showing the instant reaction of uncommitted voters via dial group “squigglys” on the screen during presidential debates. Says Murphy: First, the sample from one group is far too small to mean much. Second, turning this voodoo into a television spectacular completely [...]
Over the weekend, Dave Schuler closed his post “Winning in Afghanistan” with three very good questions: What are our strategic objectives in Afghanistan? What tactics will effect those objectives? What are the logistical requirements of implementing the objectives? Today in New Atlanticist, my former graduate advisor, Don Snow, gives an extensive response with “Are We [...]
As Dave Schuler has been predicting for a while now, the financial crisis is starting to hit state governments. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, alarmed by the ongoing national financial crisis, warned Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson on Thursday that the state might need an emergency loan of as much as $7 billion from the federal [...]
The Obama campaign launched a new ad yesterday, “Still,” which mocks John McCain for being out of touch because, among other things, he “doesn’t know how to use a computer” and “can’t send an email.” The Charge: McCain Computer Illiterate The key ‘graph in its entirety: Things have changed in the last 26 years, but [...]
The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live tonight from 7-8 Eastern. Dave Schuler will be joining me tonight, along with special guest Bill Dyer of BeldarBlog, to talk about Sarah Palin, the Republican Convention, and maybe some other stuff. Please join us. We’ll also be taking your calls [...]
Josh Marshall headlines as “Sadly Nuts” a post responding to John McCain’s retort, to questions of Sarah Palin’s qualifications to serve as president, “If they want to go down that route, in all candor, she has far, far more experience than Senator Obama does.” Says Josh, Set aside the bravado. Can McCain possibly believe that? [...]
Those who’ve read my previous commentary on Sarah Palin, notably yesterday’s post on the announcement of Palin as McCain’s VP pick, know that I think she’s a poor choice. While she has many fans and may be possessed of some remarkable political gifts, she’s a tough sell as “Ready On Day One” and thus undercuts [...]
I wrote a quick post before bed last night giving my off-the-cuff reaction to Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech, arguing that, despite all the talk of “change,” it was basically a speech that Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or John Kerry could have given. The NYT has a six-page transcript [...]
The Tax Policy Center, a joint effort by the Brookings Institute and the Urban Institute, has looked at both candidates tax proposals and…well it isn’t pretty. Basically both candidates do not believe in fiscal responsibility, both are pandering, and neither of them are willing to make the hard decisions. Which is somewhat to be expected [...]