Friday’s Mini-Report

May 2, 2008

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* In today’s economy, when the news is bad, but better than expected, it’s good: “The American economy shed 20,000 jobs in April, the Labor Department said on Friday in a report that many economists took as powerful evidence that the United States is ensnared in a recession. It was the fourth consecutive month of decline. But the size of the loss was significantly smaller than many analysts predicted, and the unemployment rate nudged down to 5 percent, sowing hopes that the economy may not suffer as severely as some have feared.”

* I wonder if the Hillary Clinton realizes how much her own Democratic colleagues are going to hate having to vote on an idea they all know is stupid: “Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson, on a conference call with reporters moments ago, confirmed that she’d be going forward with her plan to introduce the gas tax holiday legislation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposes the proposal, so there’s very little chance it will ever come to a vote, at least in the House. If it did, however, it could put members of Congress — the same ones who are also super-delegates being courted by Hillary — in a bit of a spot.”

* Might Rove actually testify? “The House Judiciary Committee threatened Thursday to subpoena former White House adviser Karl Rove if he does not agree by May 12 to testify about former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman’s corruption case. In a letter to Rove’s attorney, committee Democrats called it ‘completely unacceptable’ that the Republican political strategist has rejected the panel’s request for sworn testimony even as he discusses the matter publicly through the media. ‘We can see no justification for his refusal to speak on the record to the committee,’ the letter states. ‘We urge you and your client to reconsider … or we will have no choice but to consider the use of compulsory process.'”

* If this Rove fiasco sounds familiar, there’s a good reason for that.

* Speaking of testifying, David Addington may talk to Congress after all about the administration’s interrogation techniques.

* Bush is returning to his ATM: “President Bush said earlier this week that $108 billion is $108 billion, and he would allow no more than that on the latest Iraq funding bill. Well, there seems to be some flexibility in that demand. Bush today requested $70 billion in funding that would pay for Iraq operations into the next presidency, dovetailing with a Democratic request to put this so-called ‘bridge’ fund into the overall Iraq budget and fund the war for several months into the next presidency.”

* Congress hasn’t forgotten about the Pentagon Pundit scandal: “One of Congress’ leading progressive figures sent a harsh letter to the Department of Defense on Friday demanding an investigation into reports of an “extensive propaganda program” involving the Pentagon, network news outlets, and military analysts. Rep. Rosa Delauro (D-CT) and 39 other members of Congress are calling on the DOD’s Office of the Inspector General to release more information on what she deemed an ‘unethical and potentially illegal’ campaign to place sympathetic generals and military personnel into influential analysts roles on television.”

* Well put: “McCain wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal — that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we’ll stay.”

* The EPA firing in Chicago really does look just like the U.S. Attorney Purge scandal.

* E. J. Dionne ponders what would have happened if Jeremiah Wright were white. Good question.

* On a related note, Peggy Noonan’s column on Wright was actually pretty darn good.

* John Gibson’s stupidity knows no bounds.

* The Bush-McCain challenge.

* Great, now Fox News personalities are gloating about the Dems appearing on the network.

* I had no idea Ben Stein wrote for the NYT.

* Dumb, dumb, dumb: “Ohio’s attorney general admitted an extramarital affair with an employee Friday, soon after three of his aides were fired or forced out after an investigation found evidence of sexual harassment and other misconduct. Leader of both parties were critical of Attorney General Marc Dann, one of several Democrats swept into office in 2006 after a scandal over state investments sullied Republicans. He apologized to his wife and supporters but promised not to step down.”

* Congratulations, John McCain, you’re a natural-born citizen of the United States.

* And finally, Barack Obama delivered a Top 10 list on Letterman last night, and the topic was, “Surprising Facts About Barack Obama.” #1: “I have not slept since October.” I can think of two other candidates and several dozen staffers who know just what he means.

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

If you lose 20,000 jobs and the unemployment rate goes down, does that mean a lot of people retired? I know Paul Krugman doesn’t think the Bush Administration cooks the books, but I do. And furthermore, I think it would be absurd to assume otherwise.

  • I wonder if the Hillary Clinton realizes how much her own Democratic colleagues are going to hate having to vote on an idea they all know is stupid

    You really have to wonder what’s wrong with her. Her only (exceptionally slim) hope hinges on getting superdelegates on her side, and she’s going out of her way to piss them off. In focusing on the underinformed, easily-pandered-to vote, she’s wrecking the minutely small chance she had of getting Congressional and even DNC supers on her side.

    Why is this campaign so terminally short-sighted? Why did we ever believe the Clintons were good at campaigning? And can you imagine the panorama of moment-by-moment desperate decision-making that would characterize a Clinton II presidency?

  • E. J. Dionne ponders what would have happened if Jeremiah Wright were white. Good question.

    I propose another thought experiment. What if Jeremiah Wright was a Republican?

    You would think attacking the military service of veterans or triple amputees, or 9/11 widows would be out of bounds, but there’s simply nothing a conservative can say that’s extreme. And there’s absolutely nothing a Democrat can say, except, “I agree with Republicans.”

    The GOP is playing racial politics, for sure, but it’s also about neutralizing Obama’s Christianity the same way the neutralized Kerry’s heroism. You can mock his valor, but St. McCain? Not unless you’re George Bush.

  • First, we needed to get rid of Iraq’s WMD. Once we made sure the country was free of those, we needed to occupy the country to liberate them. Then we had to round up all the Iraqis to interrogate them so we could keep the peace. Once we destroyed the terrorist networks, we were the only thing keeping Al Qaeda out, and we couldn’t just up and leave after that with Al Qaeda causing trouble everywhere.

    Around this time, all hell had broken loose, and we were the glue holding everything together, and so many people had died we didn’t want them to die in vain.

    Remember, a civil war was possible, and once that crisis had passed, we found ourselves the only thing maintaining order during Baghdad’s transition into ethnic enclaves, and we had a moral obligation to prevent an ethnic cleansing.

    With so much at stake in such a vital region, it would be devastating to our national interests if we let things deteriorate. After all, we didn’t want Iran nfluencing the Iraqi government, but now that they appear to be backing the Iraqi coalition, we need to give the Iraqi government the breathing room to set up a government, and give the disbanded Iraqi army time to organize, so they can take over security without the country erupting into chaos.

    So the only thing we have left to do before we withdraw is to continue fighting until we win the war, so we can maintain a military presence for the next 100 years.

  • “Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson, on a conference call with reporters moments ago, confirmed that she’d be going forward with her plan to introduce the gas tax holiday legislation.

    Clinton is a modern day version of LBJ.
    She’s got tons of experience.
    She’s a goddess of action on The Hill.

    She’ll get this passed.
    Just you wait and see…

    [crickets farting]

  • memekiller:

    You would think attacking the military service of veterans or triple amputees, or 9/11 widows would be out of bounds, but there’s simply nothing a conservative can say that’s extreme. And there’s absolutely nothing an OBAMA Democrat can say, except, “I agree with Republicans.”

    Pardon my insertion. But it is apropos.
    Both McCain and McClinton have now entered the zone where they can say, sing, or sling any kind of shit whatsoever.

    Here is a morph to prove my point:

    Male voice: Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, IRAN.
    Female chorus: O, O, O, Oblterrrrrratttteeeee…..

    You know I almost want to see what I predicted years ago: A McCain/McClinton contest for the presidency. Can you imagine? It’d be a panderfest and a shitfest. Say anything. Lie anything. Promise anything.

    Man oh man oh man.
    This country is freakin’ fuggin’ fricked.

  • “Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson, on a conference call with reporters moments ago, confirmed that she’d be going forward with her plan to introduce the gas tax holiday legislation…”

    The Clinton-McCain Triangulation Act of 2008.

  • Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann

    Hey—doesn’t every state deserve an “Eliot” of its own? This guy is so toast—even Strickland is tagging him for setting a double standard!

  • [crickets farting]

    ROTFLMLiberalAO, but they have such wee-little bung-holes?

  • Is this likely to be the fate of young girls and women from “chronically and habitually” welfare-dependent families under John McCain’s brand of “reinventing welfare”?

  • Josh Marshall maybe (and probably is) a devoted Clintonista, but he does, occasionally, exhibit a god sense of humour. Which is something I sorely miss most of the time (Americans tend to take themselves far too seriously). From TPM ((please note the headline. Super-delicious!):

    A Marshmallow in Every Pot

    Given how much money they’re pouring into ads on it I’m thinking that the Clinton campaign must be seeing this gas tax holiday thing helping them a lot in Indiana — even though virtually everybody agrees it’s a bad idea that’s basically a giveaway to the oil companies. Guess we’ll see.

    –Josh Marshall

  • Perhaps someone could suggest to Senator Clinton that some of us voters find her willingness to do whatever it takes to win dangerously reminiscent of the current occupant of the Oval Office.

    I’m tired of being talked down to, and having the Congress’s time wasted on nonsense in support of venal agendas.

  • Josh Marshall is not a Clinton supporter. He believes he is being impartial but the headlines on his few Clinton stories, generally negative, are a giveaway.

    First you blame Clinton for making an empty proposal while doing nothing about it in the senate, now you howl because she called the bluff and is actually introducing the bill. You really do want to have things both ways. A principled argument cannot be “damned if you don’t and damned if you do”.

    She is daring the Obama Democrats to vote against something popular with the voters. They won’t do it and that will undermine Obama because it is his proposal they will all be voting against. It will be a demonstration to the superdelegates that Obama cannot lead. The other senators won’t hold firm on this because it would be political suicide. Obama is being out-maneuvered. Since this is only about pennies, all the howling about how prices will go up more and the gas companies will profit is as empty as you think Clinton’s proposal is. If the amount to be saved means nothing to voters or the economy it cannot mean any more than that to the gas companies. Again, you cannot have this both ways at once.

  • She’s damned because not a single economist supports it. It’s stupid. And her putting the remaining supers on the spot is going to kill her.

    About time, too.

    Buh bye, Hills. We don’t need another Say Anything candidate.

  • Obama’s insight that he has not slept since September is really important. That means he is totally ready for whatever happens at 3:00 AM.

  • Someone who doesn’t understand what sleep deprivation does to cognitive processing isn’t a good bet for president.

    In PA, everyone was commenting on how haggard Obama looked during the debate and how exhausted he was. He is a lot younger than Clinton but can’t stand the pace. He doesn’t have the stamina to do the job.

    We don’t need another man who will go to be at 10 pm and take vacations all the time. Obama is hardly a slacker, but he can’t keep up with a 60 year old woman on the stump. That doesn’t say much for his ability to answer 3 am phone calls.

    I’ll bet that is part of the reason why his staff is buffering him from spontaneous conversations with the press. Clinton sits down with whoever wishes to talk to her but Obama only gives prepared speeches because he can’t think clearly enough to trust himself with off-the-cuff remarks. NOT ready for prime time.

  • If Jeremiah Wright were white he would be Pat Robertson and a well respected power broker in Republican circles as well as a regular commentator on cultural issues in the media.

    Crazy white preachers are a dime a dozen.

  • On April 28, the Brookings Institution’s Opportunity 08 project hosted U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters for a discussion of America’s transportation infrastructure

    PDF Transcript;
    http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/events/2008/0428_transportation/20080428_transportation.pdf

    Some money quotes;
    pg 7 “The balance in the highway Trust Fund
    will probably run into shortfall before years end.”

    pg 13 “congestion pricing”
    pg 14 “Heres the plan, Dynamically-Priced Hot Lanes”

    pg 24 “the Highway Trust Fund is running out of money and
    will likely go into deficit spending.”

    pg 26 “to bring private sector investment to the table
    to fund transportation.”

    pg 32 “Heres why I think that Amreicans might be willing to
    pay fees or tolls than they are to pay an increase in gas tax.”

    pg 34 “Newt Gingrich told me that I should quit calling it
    a congestion fee and start calling it a convenience fee.”

    Am I reading this right?
    1…The Highway Trust Fund is being depleated,
    2…We “bring private sector investment
    to the table to fund transportation”
    3…The American people pay fees and or tolls
    4…The “private sector” investors get a return on thier “investment”
    5…The oil companies get to skate.

  • But the size of the loss was significantly smaller than many analysts predicted, and the unemployment rate nudged down to 5 percent, sowing hopes that the economy may not suffer as severely as some have feared.”

    Could it be:

    1. There are no more people left to fire.

    2. BushCo is basing unemployment on the number of new claims filed and ignoring all the old claims filed which is what they’ve been doing for ages.

    3. People are working again but they’re all working as greeters at WalMart.

    Sorry to sound tin-foil hatish but this Admin. always comes out with figures that show things aren’t so bad right before something nightmarish happens.

  • When Senator Clinton accidentally misremembered the Tuzla story she explained that it was at the end of a long day and she was tired. But everyone attacked her for lying then and when she told that story repeatedly in the middle of the morning and the afternoon when she was also tired. A vicious smear obviously directed at her femininity and age, implying that post-menopausal women like to sleep a lot. Women voters can easily see through this attack.

    Yet she has prevailed, now has momentum and is going to win this thing. Seeing her popularity, Senator Me Too has decided to emulate her strategy of becoming tired after 18-hour days on the campaign trail, because he can never think of anything himself and always has to appropriate Senator Clinton’s leadership. The media won’t call him on the copycatting. The Obamabots won’t call him on the copycatting. Because he’s an “oppressed minorty,” he gets a free pass.

  • Oh mary – you clinton folks are just so full of crap.

    But then I remember – YOU WANT TO VOTE FOR SHILLARY!

    And then it all makes sense – lying and misdirection are all you have, because no one in their right mind believes this nation needs a BUSH-CLINTON-BUSH-CLINTON junta that will answer to the same criminal cabal that brought us dur chimpfurher!

    Does anyone really believe that America was created to morph into a monarchy of elite families?

    NO WONDER YOU ARE SO FULL OF SH%T, MARY!

  • Insane …,

    The problem about Hillary’s misremembering was that her story was told multiple times with such detail as putting flack jackets under the passengers on the seats just in case a bullet penetrated. It was a detailed, totally untrue story. I totally question your assertion that it was accidental, unless it was an honest act of deluding herself into a serious untruth, which is not exactly a flattering characteristic for a President. (I think we have one of those right now.)

    The notable thing to remember is that Obama, the one with class, did not create a series of hit negative commercials on this topic, and he did not exploit it in his speeches as an indicator of Clinton’s integrity. Do you think for a moment that Clinton would have backed off the opportunity to pummel a fellow Democrat on character like he did? Only one of the two remaining Democratic contenders is not creating McCain election material to use against the opponent, and I think that is clearly Obama.

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