The Commentariat -- December 15

Both Tim Egan -- here -- and Gail Collins -- here -- manage to keep from sobbing over our soon-to-be Weeper of the House.

Eric Schmitt of the subversive media outlet known as the New York Times: "The Air Force is barring its personnel from using work computers to view the Web sites of The New York Times and more than 25 other news organizations and blogs that have posted secret cables obtained by WikiLeaks, Air Force officials said Tuesday."

Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times: "As President Obama prepares to release a review of American strategy in Afghanistan that will claim progress in the nine-year-old war there, two new classified intelligence reports offer a more negative assessment and say there is a limited chance of success unless Pakistan hunts down insurgents operating from havens on its Afghan border." Los Angeles Times story here. ...

     ... CW: I hope you're shocked, shocked, that the New York Times & Los Angeles Times would publish reports divulging information obtained from classified documents. Very WikiLeaky of them. For a more thorough analysis --

     ... Glenn Greenwald: "... if current reports are correct -- that the Obama DOJ has now convened a Grand Jury to indict WikiLeaks and Julian Assange -- this will constitute a far greater assault on press freedom than anything George W. Bush managed, or even attempted.  Put simply, there is no intellectually coherent way to distinguish what WikiLeaks has done ... with what newspapers around the world did in this case and what they do constantly:  namely, receive and then publish classified information without authorization."

Jason Linkins' headline says it all: "John Cornyn up in Arms over All the Earmarks Not Requested by John Cornyn." Thanks to Texan Bob M. for the link.

Carol Lee & Glenn Thrush of Politico: "President Barack Obama has delayed the most significant staff shuffle of his presidency until after New Year’s — but the changes may be more sweeping than anticipated and could include the hiring of high-profile Democrats defeated in the midterms. ...

... President Obama has made some mistakes, but none compares to this one:

With Majority Leader Harry Reid threatening to keep the Senate at work through January 4, the Upper Chamber gets moving (think Benny Hill):

     ... You can see the whole Rachel Maddow segment here.

Charles Babington of the AP: "A growing chorus of conservative criticism is prompting some House members to rethink the $850 billion package of tax cuts and extended jobless benefits that President Barack Obama negotiated with top Republicans in Congress. The attacks are unlikely to derail the measure.... The new reproach from conservatives is that the package would swell the federal debt while failing to make permanent the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 by then-President George W. Bush.

"Advise and Obstruct." New York Times Editors: "The Senate’s power to advise and consent on federal judicial nominations was intended as a check against sorely deficient presidential choices. It is not a license to exercise partisan influence over these vital jobs by blocking confirmation of entire slates of well-qualified nominees.... At this point, the Senate has approved 41 — barely half — of President Obama’s federal and district court nominees reported by the Judiciary Committee. Compare that with the first two years of the George W. Bush administration when the Senate approved all 100 of the judicial nominations approved by the committee."

Kathleen Hennessey in the Los Angeles Times: "After years of courting Latino voters with a softer tone on immigration, Republican leaders in Congress have all but abandoned that posture, risking what remains of GOP support among the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population. The latest example is the near-unanimous opposition by Senate Republicans to the Dream Act, a measure that provides a way for some illegal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children to become citizens."

David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "Nearly every time this country has expanded its social safety net or tried to guarantee civil rights, passionate opposition has followed. The opposition stems from the tension between two competing traditions in the American economy. One is the laissez-faire tradition that celebrates individuality and risk-taking. The other is the progressive tradition that says people have a right to a minimum standard of living — time off from work, education and the like." CW: AND, there's this:

Nick Anderson of the Houston Chronicle. Thanks to Ina M.

More on Richard Holbrooke:

... Peter Beinert of the Daily Beast: "Holbrooke didn't only push harder than his colleagues; he also cared more." ...

... Jonathan Alter: "Holbrooke belongs to a tiny group of diplomats—men like George Kennan and Chip Bohlen — who shaped their times as much as any secretary of state." ...

... Rick Hertzberg: "If the Supreme Court had allowed the votes to be counted in 2000, then [Holbrooke], almost certainly, would have become the Secretary of State, and the next decade would have unfolded very differently." ...

... AND Rajiv Chandrasekaran & Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post try to give more context to Holbrooke's Last Words.

The Commentariat -- December 14

You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan. -- Richard Holbrooke's last words*

* But the Obama Administration says he was only kidding.

... ** Blake Hounshell of Foreign Policy on Holbrooke's last words. ...

Richard Holbrooke, March 2010. AP photo.

** New York Times: "Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2009 and a diplomatic troubleshooter in Asia, Europe and the Middle East who worked for every Democratic president since the late 1960s, died on Monday evening in Washington. He was 69 and lived in Manhattan."

... George Packer of the New Yorker profiled Richard Holbrooke in September 2009. ...

... Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times writes a remembrance of diplomat Richard Holbrooke. ...

... Susan Glasser of Foreign Policy remembers Richard Holbrooke, who edited FP in the 1970s. ...

... Massimo Calabresi writes Richard Holbrooke's obituary for Time. ...

... Slobodan Lekic of the AP: "World leaders on Tuesday praised Richard Holbrooke as the 'Bulldozer' diplomat who engineered the end of Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II and sought to bring stability to war-torn Afghanistan." ...

... Statements from Presidents Obama & Clinton, Vice President Biden, Secretary Clinton & others. ...

... Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "The death of Richard C. Holbrooke, who directed the civilian side of the war in Afghanistan, leaves a major void in what has always been the most difficult and vulnerable aspect of President Obama's strategy."

Bad News for Buckley T. Ratchford:

Writer James Ledbetter, in a New York Times op-ed, on President Eisenhower's famous farewell speech. in which he warned about "the military-industrial complex." Sam Roberts of the Times has a story on the release of documents related to & earlier drafts of the speech. You can read those documents here, and watch the speech here.

So, first you read this:

I don't think there's a sense that I've been successful. I think people still feel that over all, Washington is about a lot of politics and special interests and big money, but that ordinary people's voices too often aren't represented, and so my hope is that we're going to continue rebuilding a trust in government. -- Barack Obama ...

... THEN, on the same page, you read this:

President Obama met with the billionaire investor Warren Buffett, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Gates's wife, Melinda, in the Oval Office on Tuesday to discuss their pledge to give away most of their money to charity. 'During the visit, they also discussed ideas for growing the economy and making America more competitive including investment in education to better prepare the next generation and investing in innovative areas with opportunity for growth,' a White House official said in an e-mail to reporters."

In a Bloomberg poll..., just 7% [of respondents] said [Wall Street bonuses] should remain an incentive. To put that 7% figure in perspective, 6% of Americans believe the moon landings were a hoax; 7% believe Elvis lives; 24% believe that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim; 41% believe in ESP; and 48% believe in creationism. Americans will believe anything, it seems — except the idea that incentivizing bankers at systemically-important institutions to take big risks makes any sense at all. Now all we need to do is find one or two people in the Obama administration who are aligned with the 88% rather than the 7%. I’m not holding my breath. -- Felix Salmon of Bloomberg ...

... "Welcome to the World of the Temporary Tax Code." John McKinnon, et al. of the Wall Street Journal: if the Obama tax-cut deal passes, as expected, "the U.S. will have no permanent regime governing levies on salaries, capital gains and dividends, the Social Security tax, as well as a slew of targeted breaks for families, students and other groups. This on top of dozens of corporate-tax provisions that already were subject to annual renewal. The level of uncertainty, unusual for developed nations, complicates planning and discourages hiring and investment, many economists and corporate executives say." ...

... AP: "The struggle over tax cuts is seriously straining President Barack Obama's relationship with House Democrats, who have backed him on key issues even when it cost them politically. Expressing hurt and bewilderment, Democratic lawmakers say Obama ignored them at crucial negotiating moments, misled them about his intentions and made needless concessions to Republicans."

Two analyses of the ruling against the Affordable Care Law from the New York Times:

     ... Sheryl Gay Stolberg: "Judge Henry E. Hudson’s decision leaves the White House playing defense for the foreseeable future on an issue it once thought would secure Mr. Obama’s legacy." ...

     ... Kevin Sack: "Judge Henry E. Hudson of Federal District Court in Richmond wrote with conviction that the law’s requirement that most Americans obtain insurance goes 'beyond the historical reach' of Supreme Court cases that limit federal regulation of commercial activity. During the last two months, however, two other federal judges ruled with equal force that the provision fell squarely within the authority Congress was granted under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution." ...

... Orin Kerr in the Volokh Conspiracy writes that Judge Hudson completely misunderstands the Necessary & Proper Clause of the Constitution & has no idea of its history of interpretation from John Marshall forward. ...

... Eric Holder & Kathleen Sebelius in a Washington Post op-ed, decry Hudson's ruling & opponents of the law who are trying to block it: "... these attacks are wrong on the law, and if allowed to succeed, they would have devastating consequences for everyone with health insurance." ...

... AND Joe Weisenthal of the Business Insider reminds us, "The health insurance companies ... are up in knee-jerk fashion on the news that a judge has struck down the individual mandate aspect of Obamacare. Investors should wake up: If this were ultimately upheld, it would be horrible news for the insurers." ...

... BUT Ezra Klein, who is a real wonk on the healthcare debate, goes into some detail on the implications of Judge Hudson's ruling & concludes:

If Republicans succeed in taking it off the table, they may sign the death warrant for private insurers in America: Eventually, rising cost pressures will force more aggressive reforms than even Obama has proposed, and if conservative judges have made the private market unfixable by removing the most effective way to deal with adverse selection problems, the only alternative will be the very constitutional, but decidedly non-conservative, single-payer path. ...

... President Obama on Hudson's ruling. Sam Stein has a portion of the transcript:

M. J. Lee of Politico: "... The Obama administration’s loan modification program will prevent 700,000 foreclosures, a fraction of the 8 to 13 million that was initially expected, by 2012," according to a report by the Congressional Oversight Panel. Former Sen. Ted Kaufman, who headed the panel, said, “'Many of the problems now plaguing HAMP are inherent in its design and cannot be fixed at this late date.'” Kaufmann urged the Treasury Department to take the necessary steps to keep home owners in their homes, such as carefully monitoring and intervening in cases where borrowers are falling behind on their payments and preventing re-defaults." CW: no kidding. This program was so fucking bank-friendly that there was no chance it was ever going to work for those in need of assistance. There's a pdf of the report here.

The collapsed roof of the Metrodome is shown in this aerial view in Minneapolis on Sunday, December 12. AP photo.Andy Borowitz: "In a move that took many political observers by surprise, the Democratic National Committee decided today to move its 2012 nominating convention to the Minneapolis Metrodome. Insiders questioned the wisdom of choosing a venue which collapsed over the weekend, but Obama political adviser David Axelrod told reporters, 'Quite frankly, we can’t think of a more appropriate site.'”

Rep. Ron Paul on the WikiLeaks dumps & our foreign policy. He speaks for me:

... AP: "A British judge granted bail to Julian Assange on Tuesday under strict monitoring conditions but the WikiLeaks founder remained in custody pending a possible appeal by Sweden. Swedish authorities had two hours to lodge an appeal against the bail decision and their lawyer, Gemma Lindfield, said it was likely she would. An appeal would have to be heard by Britain's High Court within 48 hours." New York Times story here. ...

 ... Michael Moore takes the same tack as Paul, & Moore puts his money where his mouth is; he's contributed $20,000 to Assange's bail.

Rod Norland of the New York Times: "At least 100 relief workers in Afghanistan have been killed so far this year, far more than in any previous year, prompting a debate within humanitarian organizations about whether American military strategy is putting them and the Afghans they serve at unnecessary risk. Most of the victims worked for aid contractors employed by NATO countries, with fewer victims among traditional nonprofit aid groups."

AP: "America's neighborhoods became more integrated last year than during any time in at least a century as a rising black middle class moved into fast-growing white areas in the South and West. Still, ethnic segregation in many parts of the U.S. persisted, particularly for Hispanics."

President Obama speaks at a reception for the foreign diplomatic corps, and honors Richard Holbrooke, at the United States Department of State:

The President and members of the Los Angeles Lakers work with children at a Boys and Girls Club in Washington, D.C. to send holiday greetings and care packages to service men and women:

Fats Putin

I looked the man in the eye & I was able to get a sense of his soul, brother.

... Mike Krumboltz of Yahoo! News: "The Internet is full of bizarre videos. But with all due respect to kittens who climb Christmas trees and babies who dance to Beyoncé, this clip from Vladimir Putin is a whole other level of weird."