The Commentariat -- November 17

Sewell Chan of the New York Times: "The Federal Reserve, faced with more criticism than its leaders anticipated, stepped up its counteroffensive on Wednesday as leading Republican lawmakers continued to attack its plan to spur the recovery.... Ben S. Bernanke, met with 11 members of the Senate banking committee to explain the decision to inject $600 billion into the banking system.... In a speech on Wednesday, Eric S. Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston ... said the plan could reduce the unemployment rate by a little less than half a percentage point by the end of 2012." CW: Congressional Republicans refuse to do anything to create jobs; now they're criticizing the Fed for doing what it can to create jobs.

Robert Draper writes a feature piece on Sarah Palin & her inner circle for the New York Times Magazine.

Greg Sargent: "... from Richard Wolffe's new book on the Obama White House... The President seemed to acknowledge that in pursuing bipartisan support for health reform, he and Democrats got snookered by a previously-thought-out GOP strategy to delay the process for as long as possible.... If Obama believes this ... you have to wonder why he keeps heaping blame on himself for failing to change the tone in Washington."

Politico reports on Robert Gibbs' off-camera morning gaggle. Gibbs comments on (1) Ailes, (2) Kyl (see below) & the postponed meeting with the GOP (see below).

Steve Benen on Sen. Jon Kyl's inexplicable decision to pull the plug on ratification of the New START Treaty: "

Kyl wouldn't even give the White House the courtesy of a phone call to let them know he was betraying them and the nation's national security needs. Worse, the dimwitted Kyl, with the future of American foreign policy in his hands, couldn't even give a coherent rationale for why he'd made the decision -- his office would only say 'there doesn't appear to be enough time' in the lame-duck session. This is what happens when serious officials try to negotiate in good faith with Republicans -- they refuse to take 'yes' for an answer, they don't have intellectual capacity to explain why, and the entire country has to suffer the consequences.

       ... Here's the New York Times' backstory.

... Max Fisher of The Atlantic on how Kyl's craven move could weaken U.S. foreign policy: "If New START fails then heads of state ... and negotiators from around the world will ... think twice before making a difficult deal with the U.S. They will have to consider the possibility that any political sacrifices they make in the course of negotiating could very well be wasted." ...

... Greg Sargent Adam Serwer: "Voting on START means making a choice between indulging the reflexive hatred of the [Republican] base or acting in the U.S.'s basic national security interests. The decision shouldn't be hard."

Dana Milbank: "Responding to [complaints by] junior Democratic members..., Majority Leader Harry Reid ... has given broad new authority over Senate Democrats' floor strategy to Chuck Schumer, with an eye toward making it a more politically savvy operation. Schumer's ... ascension is an indication that the Democrats are preparing for two years of hard-nosed politics.... Expect to see a Clintonian focus on popular (though not pathbreaking) middle-class issues and regular votes designed to split and embarrass Senate Republicans. Schumer's rise should come as a warning to the White House, as well: With 23 of their seats on the ballot in 2012, Senate Democrats are going to start looking out for themselves rather than for the president."

Glenn Thrush of Politico: "The roots of the partisan standoff that led to the postponement of the bipartisan White House summit scheduled for Thursday date back to January, when President Barack Obama dominated a GOP meeting in Baltimore to deliver a humiliating rebuke of House Republicans." Earlier Politico story here. CW: basically, Republicans don't want to meet with President Obama because he showed them up. Nobody wants to look dumb, corrupt & hypocritical. Can you blame them for postponing while they try to dream up cover stories for their insupportable policies? ...

... Washington Post backstory: President "Obama had summoned congressional leaders from both parties for a gathering Thursday to ... focus on economic concerns, particularly the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 that are set to expire at year's end. But the White House said in a statement Tuesday night that the meeting had been rescheduled 'at the request of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner due to scheduling conflicts in organizing their caucuses.' The meeting will instead be held on Nov. 30, the White House said." Politico backstory here....

... Josh Marshall of TPM with the way it really happened: the Republicans invited the President to their caucus so they would have the home court advantage. "Only it didn't work out according to plan. The president came, talked, took questions.... The Republicans came off looking kind of stupid, unable to make their arguments when the president was there to point out the holes in their arguments."

In a popular New York Times op-ed, billionaire Warren Buffett thanks the federal government for saving Americans from "economic meltdown." He gives kudos to Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner, Sheila Bair & George W. Bush."

The New York Times Editorial Board on the tea party's "Earmarks Victory": "More transparency. Less corruption. And fewer bridges to nowhere. Those are all laudable goals to embrace. But they won’t fix the country’s economic problems. Representative Boehner, Senator McConnell and President Obama need to stop posturing and tell the voters their real plans for getting the economy growing again and then cutting the deficit." ...

... Isn't it great that the tea party, which by and large opposes the President, has unwittingly (and so much of what the tea party proposes is wit-free) forced Republican hypocrites to turn over their earmark pork to the Obama Administration? Thank you, Dick Armey & the Brothers Koch. Maybe the OED will add you as a footnote to their definition of 'Pyrrhic victory.' -- Constant Weader ...

... David Herszenhorn of the New York Times: "... the renewed push against earmarks highlighted a potential conflict between the calls to eliminate the spending items and demands by many Tea Party supporters for greater fidelity to the Constitution. It is the Constitution, after all, that put Congress in charge of deciding how to spend the taxpayers’ money. In pledging not to let individual lawmakers designate federal money for local purposes, the anti-earmark contingent is in effect ceding more power to the executive branch over how taxpayer dollars are spent, presumably not the outcome desired by the new crop of grass-roots conservatives."

Stupidest. Plan. Ever. Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: a deficit reduction plan, proposed by a bipartisan group headed up by former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) & Alice Rivlin, President Clinton's budget director, "calls for a one-year holiday from Social Security payroll taxes to encourage hiring and for a national sales tax to reduce deficits." Wait'll you read the details. CW: Paul Krugman, of all people, recently embraced the VAT tax, a regressive tax that will eat up a huge chunk of the incomes of the poor & lower-middle-class, while simply annoying the rich. Everything about this idea sucks. ...

     ... Domenici & Rivlin tout their plan in a Washington Post op-ed.

Washington Post: "Airline passengers who object to any type of physical screening are not going to fly anywhere, the head of the Transportation Security Administration told a congressional committee Tuesday." ...

... "See You Soon." Joel Johnson of Gizmodo: "At the heart of the controversy over 'body scanners' is a promise: The images of our naked bodies will never be public. U.S. Marshals in a Florida Federal courthouse saved 35,000 images on their scanner. These are those images.... Fortunately for those who walked through the scanner in Florida last year, this mismanaged machine used the less embarrassing imaging technique.... That we can see these images today almost guarantees that others will be seeing similar images in the future":

... Jane Hamsher on the new TSA "porno scanners" & "groping techniques," which "the Airline Pilots Association describes as 'sexual molestation'": "... constant threats of 'terror' are used to create new markets for products nobody needs. The public is then intimidated into compliance in the name of 'national security,' when in reality they’re sacrificing their dignity, their civil liberties and their tax dollars for the sake of enormous profits." Hamsher links to passenger John Tyner's site, which includes videos of his experience at San Diego International Airport. Tyner is now the subject of a TSA investigation; Hamsher is urging readers to petition Congress to investigate the TSA instead....

... The San Diego Tribune has more on Tyner's TSA encounter & the ensuing events. ...

... Digby writes, "Welcome to the Police State."

Tom Friedman congratulates CNN's Anderson Cooper on popping the $200 million/day Obama Asia trip myth perpetuated by Rep. Michele Bachmann, Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh & Glenn Beck:

When widely followed public figures feel free to say anything, without any fact-checking, we have a problem. It becomes impossible for a democracy to think intelligently about big issues ... let alone act on them.... But the carnival barkers that so dominate our public debate today are not going away — and neither is the Internet. All you can hope is that more people will do what Cooper did — so when the next crazy lie races around the world, people’s first instinct will be to doubt it, not repeat it.

Drew Armstrong of Bloomberg: "Health insurers last year gave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce $86.2 million that was used to oppose the health-care overhaul law.... The expenditures reflect the insurers’ attempts to influence the bill after Democrats in Congress and the White House put more focus on regulation of the insurance industry."

Washington Post: "State attorneys general and the country's biggest lenders are negotiating to create a nationwide fund to compensate borrowers who can prove they lost their home in an improper foreclosure, state and industry officials said."

New York Times: "The first former Guantánamo detainee to be tried in a civilian court was acquitted on Wednesday of all but one of more than 280 charges of conspiracy and murder in the 1998 terrorist bombings of the United States Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.... The defendant, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, 36, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to destroy government buildings and property. He was acquitted of six counts of conspiracy, including conspiring to kill Americans and use weapons of mass destruction.... Mr. Ghailani faces a sentence of 20 years to life in prison."

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "I read 'Decision Points,' and it turns out that [George W.] Bush is the Edith Piaf of fiscal policy: He regrets nothing." ...

... Even Sinatra had a few regrets:

Evidently the Palin family will not be cutting an anti-bullying video anytime soon. TMZ has caught 16-year-old Willow Palin repeatedly using homophobic slurs to discredit a fellow student who gave a bad review to "Sarah Palin's Alaska" on Facebook. According to TMZ, a "source close to the Palin family ... [said] it was the baby bear defending Mama Grizzly." Includes link to pdf of Facebook pages. CW: the real Sarah Palin's Alaska appears to be downright disgusting.

Forgot to post this yesterday. "Republicans miss the feel-good 90s when a universally respected President Clinton reigned over an eight-year bipartisan love fest" :

Tina Fey accepts the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor (sorry, this really belongs in Infotainment, but I can't resize the video):

 ... Hollywood Reporter: here's the Sarah Palin joke PBS cut:

And, you know, politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women - except, of course --those who will end up, you know, like, paying for their own rape 'kit 'n' stuff, But for everybody else, it's a win-win. Unless you're a gay woman who wants to marry your partner of 20 years - whatever. But for most women, the success of conservative women is good for all of us. Unless you believe in evolution. You know - actually, I take it back. The whole thing's a disaster. -- Tina Fey

Infotainment Extra

Prince William & his fiancee Kate Middleton give their first post- engagement interview:

... More in Infotainment, lower right column.

The Commentariat -- November 16

President Obama awards the Medal of Honor to Army SSgt. Salvatore Giunta. Here's the New York Times story on Giunta's acts of valor:

Michael Moore tells Senate Democrats they've got seven weeks to get off their asses & pass the 420 bills the House already passed. CW: unfortunately, the majority of Senate Democrats are not of a mind to do what's right by the American people.

** Michael Hudson, writing for AlterNet, demonstrates how President Obama's cynical economic policy is indistinguishable from Bush-Cheney pro-Wall Street policies."

Charlie Rangel and Congressional Ethics Farce. Dana Milbank: "The man who until recently had sway over hundreds of billions of dollars as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee was now claiming that he was too indigent to hire a lawyer. Half an hour into the public hearing he had demanded for so long, Rangel announced that he was leaving."

We never did enough in terms of [the unemployment rate] for us to have the kind of success we would have. We had a Roosevelt moment and responded like Hoover.-- Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) ...

... Jordan Fabian of The Hill: "Rep. John Larson (Conn.), the House Democratic Caucus chairman who is expected to keep his position in a vote on Wednesday, said that his party did not do enough in the eyes of voters to help bring down the nation's 9.6 percent unemployment rate."

Tom Scotta, in Slate, has a terrific takedown, not just of partisan pollsters Pat Caddell & Douglas Schoen for their disingenuous "bilge," but also of the lowlife editor of the Washington Post's editorial page Fred Hiatt:

Fred Hiatt, the insufferable editor of the Post's opinion pages, seems to believe that people hate his section because he has clung with fearless integrity to his support for invading Iraq ... and because the section's overall politics are to the right of the beliefs of the average reader of the Washington Post. Actually, the reason some of us despise Hiatt and his section is that he consistently chooses to print dishonest garbage, composed by disingenuous partisan hacks, lobbyists, or lobbyist-hacks. The Post opinion section is ... a place where ... professional propagandists float their newest lies, slogans, and unsubstantiated nonsense, to see if they can get them to bob into the political mainstream.

Speaking of hacks writing op-ed nonsense for the Washington Post, here's pseudo-journalist Keith Olbermann harumphing about former journalist Ted Koppel's harumphing over Olbermann & his part in the "death of real news." Keith gets it right:

CBS News: "Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowki told CBS News' Katie Couric today that she would not support Sarah Palin for president because Palin lacks the "leadership qualities" and "intellectual curiosity" to craft great policy":

... Matt Bai of the New York Times: the airing of the first episode of "Sarah Palin's Alaska" is just a reminder that Sarah Palin herself is a media production. "Palin expertly allowed herself to be shaped by the demands of the marketplace, and in this way she became the best example yet of a new phenomenon in our politics -- what we might think of as the crowd-sourced candidate."

... Nick Bilton of the New York Times: "... refudiate has been named the word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary, published by the Oxford University Press, beating out a number of other locutions - many technology-related -- that have spread through the language and the Web over the past year."

Alex Pareene of Salon has an appropriately snarky take on Ginni Thomas' departure or demotion or whatever from her tea party "non-profit": "Not because political activism and fundraising (from anonymous donors) by the wife of a Supreme Court justice raises ethical questions, but because the media keeps bugging Ginni about said ethical questions. Just last month, Ginni had to remove her name from a 'memo' that called Obamacare unconstitutional, so that her husband wouldn't have to recuse himself when it came time for him to decide that Obamacare is unconstitutional." ...

Wonkette, of course, is even snarkier. Highly recommended for a laugh.

Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Senate Republicans opened the lame-duck session of Congress on Monday by signaling their commitment to the antispending posture that fueled their big gains on Election Day, underscoring the Tea Party movement’s influence on the Republican leadership. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, drove the point home as soon as the Senate convened by announcing that he would support a proposed ban on Congressional earmarks, reversing his longtime practice of avidly pursuing money for his state." ...

... Michael Shear of the New York Times thinks John McCain, who for years has made the banning of earmarks his cri de coeur, must have a bittersweet reaction to President Obama & former earmark lovers being the ones who may actually end earmarks.

Republican Hypocrisy Watch. Glenn Thrush of Politico: Freshman Maryland Republican Congressman Andy Harris, a physician no less, was upset to learn his government-subsidized health insurance policy would not kick in the day he was sworn in. "Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap," said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. The staffer "was struck by the similarity to Harris’s request and the public option he denounced as a gateway to socialized medicine." ...

... I think we finally have a working definition of a health insurance crisis -- when a member of Congress has to go a whole month without coverage. Of course nothing's stopping him [Rep. Harris] from using his own money and purchasing private health insurance in the individual market. Those onerous Obamacare regulations haven't taken effect yet so he can explore the wonders of a still-functioning private insurance market as God and Adam Smith intended. -- Jonathan Chait of The New Republic