Sometimes I actually like what Peggy Noonan has to say. Other times she seems to have spent too long marinating in the Kool-Aid - like today:
Excuse me, but it is embarrassing—really, embarrassing to our country—that the president of the United States has again put off a state visit to Australia and Indonesia because he’s having […]

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Interesting. Obama is booked for an interview on Fox News, to be broadcast tomorrow:
President Obama will sit down with Fox News’ Bret Baier Wednesday afternoon, for an interview that will air at 6 p.m. ET.
Baier, who hosts Special Report, will interview the president for the full hour of his show.
According to Baier:
This is a real […]

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This may be the most insightful, dead-on thing I’ve ever read about the economic crisis, and the Obama team’s (non) response to it. With apologies to Yves, must quote at length - but we’ll also mention she has a book out, which you might be interested in picking up.

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Classy bunch, those teabaggers:
A top Tea Party leader derided Barack Obama as “our half white, racist president” in an email to colleagues.

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Everything that’s going on now, the focus on the deficit nearly everywhere is precursor to a big White House/legislative push to “do something” about the deficit.
This NYT piece today - the partisanship is getting in the way of addressing the deficit! - gives us an idea what that “something” will be - both spending cuts […]

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Via Sullivan - David Frum gets it:
Palin is Obama’s preferred opponent. What is good for Palin is good for Obama. Of course the White House builds her up, of course it seems to play into Palin’s ink-stained hands! The White House is counting on those hands to deliver them in turn an easy romp to […]

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As per some of the discussions yesterday, a bit from Yves Smith touching on an op-ed in the Washington Post that bascially says: Don’t regulate the banks, they’re the ones driving the recovery!
And so you have Democrats, and you have Republicans. Democrats stand for social equality, and put them in power and you’ll have things […]

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You know, I thought I voted against this krep:
Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear […]

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And then there are days you think Palin couldn’t possibly be any worse.

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It was a good speech, I thought, though Obama’s speeches are usually good. As presidential orators go, he’s probably the best I’ve seen - better than Clinton, maybe better than Reagan.
Problem is, the words have to become action, as we’ll get into later in the vid. There were a lot of “Yeah, but…” moments in […]

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Busy week, missed this when it happened. Extremely important:
For much of last year, Paul Volcker wandered the country arguing for tougher restraints on big banks while the Obama administration pursued a more moderate regulatory agenda driven by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.
Thursday morning at the White House, it seemed as if the two men had […]

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Noting a claim that Coakley lost/Obama is losing ground because he’s too far to the left, Sullivan pounces:
But if one had traveled to Mars and back this past year and read this statement, what would you assume had happened? I would assume that the banks had been nationalized, the stimulus was twice as large, that […]

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Sullivan on the “adolescent” anti-government rage that has propelled Brown’s campaign - and the “nihilist” conservative response to Obama in general:
The rage is adolescent. It did not exist when the Republicans were in power and exploded government during years of economic growth. Fox News backed Bush to the hilt through it all, as he added […]

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Sitting in a doctor’s office yesterday morning, way too early for a day off, and I’d only managed to suck down two cups of coffee on the way out the door. Dutifully and dazedly I sat, plowing through the morning paper, when a middle-aged woman hurried in and announced to the receptionist that this was an emergency.
Emergency? The […]

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Yves Smith on Obama’s suddenly “tough” rhetoric with the banks, which ain’t really that tough:
Today, Obama said to the banking industry, “We want our money back and we’re going to get it.”
Has he forgotten that possession is nine-tenths of the law?
While Uncle Sam is normally able to defeat such long odds, all bets are off […]

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First things first: Merry Christmas eve to you, I keep hearing these O’Reilly inspired conservatives yammering on about how they’re so oppressed and not allowed to say “Merry Christmas” and evil lib’ruls like me want to rub out “Merry Christmas” forever.
Right. And may all your Christmases be white.
In addition to a visit from the jolly […]

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We could re-import them from other countries and, according to the CBO, save the government more than $19 billion over the next 10 years; and Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota estimates that consumers would save up to $80 billion.
So of course, we won’t permit this. Taibbi explains why:

There’s no legitimate reason to bar re-importation, […]

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Intersting. Taibbi’s Rolling Stone article on how Obama’s change more of the same has generated a ton of heat in the blogosphere, particularly among those on the left who’ve attacked Taibbi for his “sloppiness” and his interpretation of the facts. Chief among those would be Tim Fernholz over at the American Prospect.
Taibbi, though - as […]

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Taibbi in Rolling Stone. Read it. And weep.

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Headline: Obama defends US wars as he accepts peace prize.
Sure.
Photo via Reddit.

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