This (from the dickwhisperer) makes me want to start drinking:

My policy in each presidential race is to vote for the best candidate who is not on the ballot. I think this is superior to the Len Downie approach of not voting at all; I don’t have to commit to one candidate or the other in the race, but I can still go through the exercise of who would be a good president. So I voted for McCain in 2000, when Bush and Gore were on the ballot. I voted for Chuck Hagel in 2004, when Bush and Kerry were on the ballot. And I voted for Mike Bloomberg in 2008.

I found Steve Clemon’s description of this piece so annoying and ridiculous that I was unable to read the piece itself. People say it’s good, it’s Henry Edward Luce on Obama’s (too) close-knit team of advisers from Chicago, especially but not only Rahm.

Now that I check I can’t access the piece anyway because of the FT paywall. But you may be able to.

Update. Steve Clemons asks what I don’t like about his piece. So here’s what really got me:

I will never forget when Rahm Emanuel laughingly responded well within earshot of several national media (and this blogger/writer) at an Inaugural bash to an inquiry if Emanuel was enjoying putting Tom Daschle on the basement floor of the White House in a non-descript office pretty far from the president. Emanuel joked back glibly that Daschle had to be happy with any office in the White House because “any square inch of real estate inside the White House—no matter where it is—is more valuable than anything outside it.”

Compare this flippant meanness and hubris..

How is that in any way “flippant meanness and hubris”? Isn’t it what everybody in Washington believes? I thought it was a good thing to believe that someone should be more proud to work in the White House than as a corporate dog’s body (I’m trying to give an accurate description of what Daschle was doing when he was being considered for HHS)?

Maybe I’m making a mountain of mole hill here, but this bothers me.

Hank Paulson screwed a lot of things up, but his new book contains some interesting nuggets:

When he spoke to House Republicans about efforts to help Fannie and Freddie, he was chagrined that many responded with speeches about ACORN, the low-income housing activist group.

No one should pretend that fixating on idiocy like ACORN (instead of doing their fucking jobs as legislators) doesn’t have consequences.

Some big story about New York State governor David Patterson is supposed to break early this week, and the governor is supposed to resign (EDIT: e.g. TalkingPointsMemo) Monday or Tuesday. This is all over the place, but I have it from a pretty reasonable source. Supposedly, it involves extramarital sex, but that’s not the bad part, the bad part, according to my source, revolves around gambling and the repayment of gambling debts.

Update. I’ll just repeat exactly what my source told me. He says that Paterson ran up a big gambling debt to some people (possibly connected with this) who retired the debt in return for getting a big state contract.

I don’t know if that’s correct or not but it would be very typical New York State politics and the same general flavor as what Joe Bruno (the legendary longtime Republican Senate majority leader) went down for.

The sex angle might be fairly titillating (swinging, supposedly), but it’s minor compared to the gambling (EDIT: or more properly to the state contract, which really does stink, whatever the reason it was given) so it might not figure in as anything other than a footnote.

Update update. I don’t want to make any hard predictions here, politically. But I’m pretty sure that what my source says is, at least, what insiders are saying in Albany right now, FWIW.

Update update update. Just to be clear, everyone in NYS has been referring to rumors about Paterson and saying they’re likely to force him to resign. What I’m writing here seems to be the standard “insiders story” that is getting repeated. I don’t know if it’s true or not, for sure, obviously, but I thought people might be interested to know what it is that everyone is referring to, at least.

Final update. Paterson people say the gambling thing is bs, but everyone seems to think that something big is coming down the pipe. Maybe it’s just sex stuff, maybe it’s something more, maybe it’s nothing. We’ll see what happens.

This is two-thirds of a short thing in Kaplan about Sarah Palin last night:

1) She’s lost a lot of weight, perhaps 15 pounds. She looked trim and firm, like she’s hoisting the barbells or maybe chopping wood. Her chair at the head table was empty; if she had the shrimp and filet mignon served to attendees, she ate in her hotel room.

2) She wore a fitted black suit, black hose and high black platform heels. She had on three opera-length strands of pearls, two white and one multi-colored. In her lapel, a small pin with two flags—for Israel and the United States.

This isn’t that Robin Givens, or whatever her name is, queer eye for politicians’ wives thing, this is from a blog that purports to be about politics.

We did hear a lot about Al Gore’s weight and beard and so on, so I can’t honestly say for sure that a man wouldn’t be scrutinized in the same way.

Jonathan Alter on Countdown last night Tuesday night (via Steve Benen, who also criticizes Alter):

“I think [Republicans are] in a place now where they just want to hurt Obama.

“And what they don’t get—I wish they would look into their souls a little bit—is that if they convey over and over again that the president of the United States is weak, what does that do? It emboldens the terrorists, and I don’t say that lightly.

I understand that Senate obstructionism may get in the way of Obama’s ability to conduct foreign policy. But emboldening terrorists? Osama bin Laden wakes up one morning, sees Richard Shelby has put a hold on 70 nominees and says “now is the day that we strike”? There’s absolutely no evidence that Al Qaeda thinks in these terms at all.

It’s not just that “shut up, the terrorists are listening” is essentially anti-free speech and anti-democratic, it’s that it doesn’t make any sense as a strategy.

It was dumb when Congressional Democrats were attacked in this way and it’s dumb when Congressional Republicans are attacked this way.

This story is not getting as much attention as one would think in the American media, but Greece, Spain and Portugal are facing major financial crises that may end with the countries defaulting on their debt. If this happens, you can be pretty sure that the deficit scolds will use this as cautionary tale, e.g. “don’t let us be like Spain, enact `entitlement reform’ now”, etc.

Krugman points out that Spain’s budgetary practices have not been particularly irresponsible, that in fact they were running a surplus when the economy was good:

As Europe is roiled by sovereign debt fears, it’s important to realize that the crisis in the largest of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) has nothing to do with fiscal irresponsibility. On the eve of the crisis, Spain was running a budget surplus; its debts, as you can see in the figure above, were low relative to GDP.

So what happened? Spain is an object lesson in the problems of having monetary union without fiscal and labor market integration. First, there was a huge boom in Spain, largely driven by a housing bubble — and financed by capital outflows from Germany. This boom pulled up Spanish wages. Then the bubble burst, leaving Spanish labor overpriced relative to Germany and France, and precipitating a surge in unemployment. It also led to large Spanish budget deficits, mainly because of collapsing revenue but also due to efforts to limit the rise in unemployment.

John Cook at Gawker has a point-by-point teardown of Fox News’ “fair and balanced” editing of the underwhelming-on-the-air “faceoff” between Jon Stewart and Lord Falafel. “I’m Not Saying Your Mother’s A Whore: How Fox News Censored Jon Stewart vs. Bill O’Reilly” :

Fox News has generously placed the full, unedited conversation between Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart online, so we can see precisely how unfairly and deviously Fox edited the interview in order to weaken Stewart’s case: A lot!

Last night on his show—Part Two of a ludicrously overhyped “faceoff” between O’Reilly and Stewart in which Stewart attempted, among other things, to present a critique of Fox as a fear-mongering GOP messaging operation—O’Reilly boasted that his edit of their 42-minute interview for broadcast was “a fair cut” and invited viewers to have a look at the unedited version online to judge for themselves: “Some of these idiots in the press who hate us, ‘O’Reilly cut the interview to make Stewart look’—OK, all of that is bull. It’s a fair cut. And then when you watch the cut and watch the whole interview you’ll see it.”

So we took him up on the offer, and guess what? If by “fair cut” O’Reilly means “cut in a manner that left some of Stewart’s best lines, most effective arguments, and most convincing evidence out of the interview and hidden from the broadcast audience,” then he’s absolutely right…

And to watch the Fox News cut of this exchange, you’d think O’Reilly scored a minor point by mocking Stewart’s repeated use of the word “cyclonic”

O’REILLY: Cavuto sane?
STEWART: Being the thinnest kid at fat camp. So let’s just get that straight. Here is what Fox has done through their cyclonic, perpetual…
O’REILLY: We’re back to the cyclonic.
STEWART: Their cyclonic perpetual emotion machine that is a 24-hour a day, 7-day a week. They’ve taken reasonable concerns about this president and this economy and turned it into a full-fledged panic attack about the next coming of Chairman Mao. Explain to me why that is the narrative of your network?

Here’s what Stewart really said about Neil Cavuto’s practice of raising “Is Obama a Stalinist?”-style questions:

I know what this is. I come from Jersey—it’s the same thing: “I’m not saying your mother’s a whore. I’m just saying she has sex for money. With people.” [F]ox News used to be all about, you don’t criticize a president during wartime. It’s unacceptable, it’s treasonous, it gives aid and comfort to the enemy. All of a sudden, for some reason you can run out there and say, “Barack Obama is destroying the fabric of this country.”

Ah yes—the Cavuto Mark in all its glory!

Read the whole thing. The Gawker staff deserves great credit for, as the saying goes, watching these idiots so we don’t have to, and for exploring Fox’s bad-faith chop job at length. Comments are well worth reading, too—including, I suppose, the Fox apologist who whines “The rife condescension in this thread is exactly why more people watch Fox than the Big Three. Obviously, the bulk of Fox’s viewers don’t really sweat the fact it’s a right-leaning outlet, just like the Big Three viewers don’t sweat the left-of-center bias. Fox’s viewers watch Fox because it’s the one place in the MSM they don’t get called stupid all day long.”

Some idiot at Kaplan today (in a piece about how liberals are condescending):

It follows that the thinkers, politicians and citizens who advance conservative ideas must be dupes, quacks or hired guns selling stories they know to be a sham. In this spirit, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman regularly dismisses conservative arguments not simply as incorrect, but as lies. Writing last summer, Krugman pondered the duplicity he found evident in 35 years’ worth of Wall Street Journal editorial writers. “What do these people really believe? I mean, they’re not stupid—life would be a lot easier if they were. So they know they’re not telling the truth. But they obviously believe that their dishonesty serves a higher truth. . . . The question is, what is that higher truth? What do these people really believe in?”

In Krugman’s condescending world, there is no need to take seriously the arguments of “these people”—only to plumb the depths of their errors and ponder their hidden motivations.

How is this condescending at all? If I call someone a liar and then say “I know you’re not dumb, so why are you telling this ridiculous lie”, how is that condescending?

It’s a strange political world we live in, where pointing out, however politely, that someone is lying makes you uppity and condescending. And where people write entire pieces complaining about how “their side” is called liars without in any way defending themselves from the charge. And where a once serious newspaper publishes all of this.

No comment.

The ad, called “12 inches of Global Warming” is specifically targeting Reps. Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Tom Perriello (D-VA) in advance of the fall midterm elections.

I’ve been thinking for a while that the discussion of the deficit reminds me of the pre-war discussion of Iraq. Krugman spells it out:

To me — and I’m not alone in this — the sudden outbreak of deficit hysteria brings back memories of the groupthink that took hold during the run-up to the Iraq war. Now, as then, dubious allegations, not backed by hard evidence, are being reported as if they have been established beyond a shadow of a doubt. Now, as then, much of the political and media establishments have bought into the notion that we must take drastic action quickly, even though there hasn’t been any new information to justify this sudden urgency. Now, as then, those who challenge the prevailing narrative, no matter how strong their case and no matter how solid their background, are being marginalized.

This sort of thing happens every so often in the Village—the Clinton impeachment is another good example and I’m sure there are lots of others.

I don’t think I’ll ever understand how this happens, but maybe we could think of a good catchphrase to describe it, something we could add to the lexicon. Any ideas?

You probably heard about this:

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary “blanket hold” on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

“While holds are frequent,” CongressDaily’s Dan Friedman and Megan Scully report (sub. req.), “Senate aides said a blanket hold represents a far more aggressive use of the power than is normal.”

The Mobile Press-Register picked up the story early this afternoon. The paper confirmed Reid’s account of the hold, and reported that a Shelby spokesperson “did not immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages seeking confirmation of the senator’s action or his reason for doing so.”

It goes without saying that this shows what a great, venerable institution the Senate is, what a serious, bipartisan legislator Shelby is, and (of course) what a failure Obama has been at changing the tone in Washington.

Here’s what I’d like to know: is there any limit to how much a strong-willed minority can slow things down in the Senate? Could a new Republican Senator do something like this every day and bring everything to a complete halt for months on end?

Even dumber than the Rahm Emanuel “retarded” controversy?

Consider this an open tread.

It’s interesting to see this kind of thing. A winger in today’s WaPo chat started in with:

Cincinnati: Lois, I’ve seen nothing at all about Nancy Pelosi’s extravagant use of military aircraft as a private jet fleet for her family. Is this a story? I read about it on a right-wing blog (Instapundit), but there’s nothing in the real media. If she did it, it seems like a serious ethical breach (not that ethics are ever treated seriously in Washington!). Will she have to repay the money?

Then there was this:

Detroit: I don’t think you answered the Nancy Pelosi question. We’re talking about her kids—and their kids—using military jets to fly around the world. By themselves. And they only have to pay $200 for a private jet from DC to San Francisco? What the hell is that? This smells like a scandal. Why did you brush it off so quickly? Do you know something about it that makes you think it’s a non-issue?

Then this:

re: Pelosi: “What we dont know is what kinds of threats she and her family get.” So is someone from the Post investigating these reports? How often her family flew? Where they flew? What it cost? Have you asked the Secret Service and the FBI if there have been realistic threats made? Or are you just going on supposition and the Speaker’s word in an attempt to protect her from criticism?

No links (aside from a generic link to Instapundit), no details, no nothing. All the more reason their ombudsman thinks they need more reporters working on tracking down right-wing rumors: the lack of evidence for them means it takes that much more manpower to research them.

Did anyone TiVo Scott Brown’s inauguration speech? Is it true that a million people filled the mall to see it?