I refer you to Matt Yglesias’s rebuke of Bill Kristol.
Month: October 2008
No one will, 10 years from now, write the story that this crisis was about Lehman Brothers going down.
Why do I have the feeling that Hank Paulson doth protest too much on this count?
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Hoax!
And it turns out the anti-McCain mutilation was a hoax.
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Palin 2012
A liberal friend of mine thought it was preposterous that Sarah Palin could have a legitimate shot at the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. And if it was true, he thought it was a suicidal move.
He cited the fact that Palin was dragging McCain’s polling numbers down, her numerous Alaskan scandals, her constant flubs in interviews, and “speeches that could only impress a six-year old.”
I disagree with him on her speechmaking ability – in my opinion, her Republican convention speech was electrifying. It was a truly impressive performance – even without taking into account that this was her first time on the national stage. Her appearance certainly electrified the conservative base – and inspired Democrats to donate to Obama in heretofore unprecedented numbers.
Her issues interviewing I think can be fixed with some more time in the limelight and less “handling.” She was much better in the Charlie Gibson interview than in the Katie Couric one – even if her answers in both were similar content-wise – because she bs’ed with confidence to Gibson, even if everyone watching could tell.
But her ability to tell such shameless falsehoods with conviction – or perhaps, her lack of interest to know that she is telling lies – has helped to make her a star in the Republican party. She can really give it to Obama – she’s tough – they say. McCain usually seems somewhat ashamed of himself when he goes overboard. This shameless quality will help her in interviews later – as she polishes her style and continues to develop her political personality.
If she is seen as the person who brought McCain down – then that will hurt her. But if that sentiment can be pigeon-holed as merely what “the media” is saying – then the Right will be perfectly fine to right this off as more media bias against attractive Republican women.
As for her numerous Alaskan scandals – they say only two things can end a political career – a dead girl or a live boy. I’m not sure how that aphorism gets de-genderized to fit Palin – but none of her scandals fit. Plus – given the context of Alaskan politics, Palin’s dipping into state funds has been modest.
Which is why conservative strategist Patrick Ruffini is asking if Palin will be the Howard Dean of the Republican Party in the next few years – the unofficial leader of unabashed conservatism who will lead the party out of the wilderness. Marc Ambinder, politics reporter for The Atlantic, explains the many reasons Palin will be well-positioned come 2012 including this one – which is the strongest:
The Republicans are going to want someone willing to really go for Obama’s throat, and be able to do it with a smile.
Remember how hated Hillary Clinton was in 1994? In 1998 even? Yet, ten years later she was almost able to coast her way to inevitable victory – winning over, in the end, many of the same figures who had most hated her while she was First Lady.
Sarah Palin turns off liberals – and scares them. She invigorates Republicans. Independents loved her inititially, and then turned against her as she proved to be inept and shallow. But a few years will give her enough time to develop some gravitas.
I’m certainly not rooting for Palin – but it would be wise not to underestimate her.
Alan Greenspan admits the failure of his pure free market ideology:
I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms
I got the very strong impression while reading Robert Draper’s New York Times Magazine piece on how the McCain campaign has presented it’s case to the American public that Steve Schmidt was already trying to pre-spin a McCain loss and to blame it on other voices in the campaign. Meanwhile, some other source, obviously closer to Draper, blames Schmidt primarily for what he sees as the McCain campaign’s forthcoming loss.
Schmidt is given almost sole credit in the piece for the Palin pick, the celebrity ads, the decision to shut out the press, the insistence on message discipline and on “controlling” McCain, and the push of the “winning” the surge versus Democratic quitters message, and the overall negative campaigning. Schmidt is given credit for being able to win many news cycles with these tactics – but the overall thrust of the piece is that McCain has been winning news cycles while losing the campaign. I’m certain reading through this that Schmidt himself was all to happy to take credit for some of these tactics, as much as I am certain he wouldn’t have wanted to take credit for others.
Reading the piece it looks all too much like the pieces written about Kerry’s team in 2004 – although not as bad as the constant backbiting in Hillary’s team this year. This doesn’t mean McCain has lost – but it does seem like the political operatives are sensing that this time around they need to cover their asses.
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Drudge’s Bold Red Headlines
Drudge has outdone himself today with two unusually misleading headlines.
First, the blaring red super-sized font that announced that a McCain volunteer has been ATTACKED AND MUTILATED IN PITTSBURGH – which quickly became a small side story when the actual facts came out – that a woman with a McCain sticker on her car had been mugged outside an ATM. Awful – but not the political violence initially suggested.
Now, he’s put up a link to what he calls the “Most Accurate Pollster in 2004 Election” which puts the race within 1.1 points. Of course, a perusal of the breakdown shows that the poll has McCain beating Obama in the 18-24 year old age group by 74% to 22%. To repeat, McCain is – according to this poll – winning 74% of 18-24 year old; Obama is winning only 22%.
C’mon Drudge, old boy – you can do better than that.
To think – it was just a few months ago that Drudge had seemed to have shifted his support to Obama. It was subtle but there – just like his animus towards McCain. But then – roughly as the Paris ads went up, Drudge began his not-so-subtle attempts to throw the election to McCain.
I don’t know what happened – but it does make Drudge seem like he’s losing his touch.
You know things are bad when Bush calls for an emergency meeting of not just the G-7 or the G-8, but the G-20. As they say on the Gossip Girls, OMFG. That’s like when the Justice League called in not just Superman, Aquaman, and the Wonder Twins, but the Black Canary and the Red Tornado, too. The meeting, planned for Nov. 15, will hopefully make significant strides toward a new, forward-looking, structural response to the financial crisis.
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Deficiencies of Judgment
Mona Charen over at The Corner thinks that Palin’s $150,000 spent on wardrobe in two months isn’t really all that impressive. To demonstrate, she points out that Obama’s suits are rumored to cost as much as $1,500.
Of course, for Obama to buy enough $1,500 suits to spend $150,000 in 52 days – the amount of time between Palin’s selection as Vice Presidential nominee and when the story broke on Monday – he would need to buy 1.9 suits per day.
Of course – Charen also points out that some of the money was also spent on the rest of the Palin clan – but the amounts here seem to be relatively trivial – $5,000 on her husband for example.
This is also clearly part of a history of Palin using public office for her private enrichment – from the budding travelgate scandal, in which Palin charged the state of Alaska for all of her children’s and husband’s travel and for hotel rooms, adding up to at least $40,000 (not including her own travel) – to the per diem charges she billed to the state of Alaska for every night she stayed in her own home adding up to some $16,000.
Based on her dismissal of the outrage over Palin’s expensive wardrobe due to her faulty math skills and partisan blinders, Charen declares the real reason for the outrage:
I cannot escape the suspicion that one reason everyone is so exercised (other than the obvious, i.e. that she’s a Republican) is that she is so gorgeous in those clothes. There is simply no other woman in political life to match her. The green-eyed monster strikes!
By that logic, can’t we also accuse all those conservatives out there of jealousy – as they brought up John Edwards’s $400 haircuts at every mention of his name?
I just don’t buy it. I think $150,000 in a close fought race is a lot of money to spend on clothes.
At the same time, this reinforces some of the more unsavory aspects of the scandals brewing in Alaska.
It’s news – whether Mona Charen likes it or not.
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Too Big to Fail
Robert Reich points out the obvious result of this crisis of “too-big-to-fail” institutions:
Maybe the biggest irony today is that Washington policymakers who are funneling taxpayer dollars to these too-big-to-fail companies are simultaneously pushing them to consolidate into even bigger companies. They’ve prodded Bank of America to take over Merrill-Lynch and Countrywide. JP Morgan to acquire Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns. And now they’re urging General Motors to absorb Chrysler.
So we’re ending up with even bigger giants, with even more power over the economy and politics, subsidized by taxpayers, and guaranteed never to fail because they’re just … too big.
Reich echoes the common sense idea that has been articulated all over the United States – if they’re too big to fail, they’re too big to exist. Perhaps that should be another criteria to judge whether a monopoly should be broken up or not – whether a company is so large that any of it’s internal problems would threaten te entire financial system.