Granted David Ignatius is even more of an idiot about economic matters than most Villagers, but Matt Yglesias (via Atrios) poses a very good question:

We have in this country one political party that doesn’t care at all about the budget deficit. And we have another political party that gets crapped on by the establishment every time it attempts to deal with deficits. Under the circumstances, how long can it possibly be until we have two parties that evince Bush/Reagan-esque levels of concern for the deficit?

I’m sitting here watching a 2 hour special on Biography about the making of Star Wars, and I am wondering how musical scores like what Williams made for the movie will be looked at in the future. Will someone in 2110 be driving to work in their hovercraft listening to Interglobal Public Radio listening to the Star Wars soundtrack the way we listen to the work of 17th and 18th century composers? Will it hold up over time?

I often wonder how the things we do will be viewed in the future- will people a hundred years from now look back on the way we treat homosexuals (DOMA, DADT, etc.) the same way that you and I look back on women’s suffrage- sort of a stunned disbelief at the way women were treated (and still are in some countries).

The Clinton recession, I guess:

There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well.

Middle-income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999—and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009. The Aughts were the first decade of falling median incomes since figures were first compiled in the 1960s.

And the net worth of American households—the value of their houses, retirement funds and other assets minus debts—has also declined when adjusted for inflation, compared with sharp gains in every previous decade since data were initially collected in the 1950s.

The facts about net worth may be slightly misleading, as the article points out, since late 1999 was near the top of various investment markets and 2009 was near the bottom of the markets.

But it also strikes me that these figures themselves don’t tell the full story of how bad the decade was economically. As various others have pointed out, the real estate bubble—unlike the tech boom, for example—didn’t generate much in the way of useful new infrastructure of any kind. And, remarkably, this ten years of economic stagnation happened during a time of huge deficits generated by tax cuts that were supposed to stimulate the economy.

What a disaster.

God, this is depressing:

There’s room to criticize the administration’s response to the crisis, most notably DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s idiotic insistence that “the system worked.” But the idea that the president was somehow supposed to stop the underwear bomber based on vague intelligence of an increased terrorism risk over the holidays is unreasonable.

Here is Janet Napolitano’s exact quote:

Once this incident occurred, everything went according to clockwork, not only sharing throughout the air industry, but also sharing with state and local law enforcement. Products were going out on Christmas Day, they went out yesterday, and also to the industry to make sure that the traveling public remains safe. I would leave you with that message. The traveling public is safe. We have instituted some additional screening and security measures, in light of this incident, but, again, everyone reacted as they should. The system, once the incident occurred, the system worked.

Tell me howanything she said there is controversial or wrong or “idiotic.” She isn’t in charge of the CIA. Or the FBI. Or Schiphol airport. Or the NCTC.

Napolitano’s only mistake is giving the GOP an easily repeated lie/talking point, not for saying anything wrong. And for the record, you don’t even need to do anything to let the GOP’s bullshit factory come up with an easily repeated lie or talking point- these are the folks who have managed to turn ACORN into SPECTRE and end of life counseling into death panels.

Yes, I know she walked it back a few days later. But that is a commentary on the effectiveness of the wurlitzer and the GOP puke funnel and the willingness of our village media to ask how high when the Republicans say jump. Not on the accuracy of Napolitano’s original comment.

Apparently I have decided to ring in the New Year with a head cold and some chest congestion. Awesome.

In one of the more interesting end-of-the-decade pieces, E. J. Dionne writes:

I’m afraid that the past 10 years will be seen as a time when the United States badly lost its way by using our military power carelessly, misunderstanding the real challenges to our long-term security, and pursuing domestic policies that constrained our options for the future while needlessly threatening our prosperity.

[....]

Bush’s defenders know that Obama’s election represented a popular reaction against the consequences of the 43rd president’s time in office. Because Obama is both the anti-Bush and the leader of the post-Bush cleanup squad, his success would complete the rebuke. So the Bush camp—Karl Rove’s regular contributions to The Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages are emblematic—must stay on the attack.

I think this is exactly right, that it’s important for conservatives to make sure that it doesn’t become settled law that Bush was a failure. So I think we will see come kind of concerted effort to rehab Dubya fairly soon, possibly even this year. It will take the usual pattern—a Rasmussen poll showing that Bush is viewed more favorably than Obama, which will then be trumpeted by the Andrew Malcolms of the world, some catchty phrase that Gerson and Krauthammer and Brooks can repeat in unison.

It will be interesting to see how the effort goes. It’s possible that this year is too soon for it to succeed.

This made me laugh out loud:

And then you read the article, and the Democrats calling for her resignation are some state Senator somewhere and former Lieberman aide Dan Gerstein. This is not a news organization, it is the propaganda wing of the GOP.

In related news, Steve Benen notes that Breitbart’s clowns at Big Government dropped the ball again, and wonders why they don’t have a better fact checking system and states “they never learn.”

The answer, of course, is simple. They don’t care about facts. They care about narratives and spreading propaganda. It doesn’t matter if they have completely made things up, it will be conventional “wisdom” with wingnuts that Bertha Lewis was at the White House. And crazy as that sounds, they are remarkably successful at spreading bullshit and making people believe it- see the ACORN nonsense from this summer, which has now turned out to be absolutely nothing. The last I checked, the beltway stenographers were all upset that they didn’t investigate harder.

Breitbart and Big Government learned, all right. They learned that it doesn’t matter what you make up, if you can get enough people repeating it, you can convince our investigative journalists that it is true. It’s a huge joke and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn every political reporter in the country has been taken by a Nigerian email scam.

What is the general consensus on Babylon A.D.?

Also, here is a new sports thread for you. Both my teams managed to lose today, although I like that Bowden got to go out on top.

I see John’s Broder and I raise him a Bobo. This is so shrill it could have been written by someone in pajamas. He does everything but call people bedwetters. It is genuinely good.

This is from my iPhone so apologies if it is even more screwed up than usual.

I was kind of shocked when I read this:

It came as no surprise to anyone who knows her that Napolitano handled the incident and its aftermath with aplomb. In the years I have known her, she has managed every challenge that has come her way with the same calm command that she showed in this instance. If there is anyone in the administration who embodies President Obama’s preference for quiet competence with “no drama,” it is Janet Napolitano.

I watched as she made the rounds of the morning interview programs on Sunday, laying out what she knew about the would-be terrorist and carefully refusing to speculate about the many matters that were still being investigated. She is being criticized for saying “the system worked,” but her part of the response system did work.

The whole column is little more than a mash note to Janet, but I was shocked to see the portion about the system. Broder is usually more concerned with appearances, and the bipartisan thing to do for him is usually to agree with Republican criticisms of Democrats.

I haven’t been following this too closely, but is anyone else shocked at how unprofessional Craig James has been- he quite clearly leveraged his celebrity at ESPN into forcing Leach out at Tech. Now granted, Leach’s stubbornness most certainly was a factor, but James just seems all over this. Am I misreading this?

I fail to see how anyone could dislike this time of year.

Also, I can not decide what is cuter- Lily barking in her sleep or the way she uses her nose to pick up the comforter to get under the covers.

BTW- her breath is getting worse and I have no idea what to do. Her teeth are not in bad shape and the vet said there was no need to clean them yet, I brush her teeth every other day, and I give her breath mints, but her breath could simply knock a buzzard off a junk pile it is so bad.

Let me take you to the movies. Can I take you to the show

Let me be yours ever truly. Can I make your garden grow

Led Zeppelin. It is good.

From one O-bot, to another- Happy New Year.

You have your orders. Have a Happy New Year. My life depends on it.

Also, since we did not vote on comments of the year this year (some idiot forgot to run the poll), I am using my near dictatorial powers to choose the top three.

The bronze goes to Cbear:

Yeah, this Michael Jackson coverage is way over the top.

You’d think we lost Tim Russert or something.

The silver goes to Beltane:

The modern conservative movement is a glorified quest to reach the absolute zero of humanity. Already, the true believers have largely lost the ability to communicate in standard English. Another turn of the spiral will find them unable to perform simple functions such as driving (traffic signs are kind of communist if you think about it) and preparing food (that lettuce was picked by Mexicans and lord knows what they’ve done to it).

The teabagger protests of the future will feature partially clothed, excrement covered fat people shrieking incomprehensible gibberish. It will be the Woodstock of the damned.

And the comment of the year goes to… Xecky Gilchrist:

Seriously, the Republican nomination race in ‘08 was a metaphorical lineup of oiled posers at Venice Beach flexing for the lunatics passing by.

Honorable mention goes to AKADad for offering this up two hours after Michael Jackson died:

I heard Michael Jackson is to be cremated and have his ashes spread out into sandboxes, so children can still play with him.
...
Too soon?

Thanks for playing.