Two of my favorite political columnists and pundits, Frank Rich and Matt Taibbi, have outstanding and incisive pieces appearing in the latest editions of the New York Review of Books and Rolling Stone, respectively.
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RICH...
If I had a list of favorite members of the fourth estate, Frank Rich would be near the top of it. I'd give my right arm (I write with my left, but type with both) to attain just a fraction of the level of mastery that this gentleman has achieved as it relates to his choice of the perfect adjective and/or adverb to transform an exceptionally well-structured sentence into something that frequently achieves literal perfection. And, in one of his, IMHO, very best columns that I've read in a long, long time, a review of "The Promise: President Obama, Year One," by Jonathan Alter, (Simon and Schuster, 458 pp., $28.00), in the August 19th edition of the New York Review of Books, Rich comes as close as anyone I've read to conveying my sentiments about President Obama, and then some.
Most readers in this community will be pleased to find that (despite the title of the piece) Rich is exceptionally even-handed, yet full of hope, respect and praise for our President, while nonetheless simultaneously taking him to task on a few issues. But, it's all done in a sublime manner that few but someone as talented as Rich could pull off. (You may also be pleasantly surprised to find Rich's commentary on our President to be nothing short of inspirational...but also "trenchant to the bone.") IMHO, you really must read this!
A little taste...from the very first sentence....
"Why Has He Fallen Short?"
August 19, 2010
by Frank Rich
New York Review of Books
The Promise: President Obama, Year One
by Jonathan Alter
Simon and Schuster, 458 pp., $28.00
Of course Barack Obama was too hot not to cool down. He was the one so many were waiting for--not only the first African-American president but also the nation's long-awaited liberator after eight years of Bush-Cheney, the golden-tongued evangelist who could at long last revive and sell the old liberal faith, the first American president in memory to speak to voters as if they might be thinking adults, the first national politician in years to electrify the young. He was even, of all implausible oddities, a contemporary politician- author who actually wrote his own books.
The Obama of Hope and Change was too tough an act for Obama, a mere chief executive, to follow...
--SNIP--
...His achievements so far have been accomplished in spite of obstacles that would fell most mortals--the almost uncountable messes he inherited from Bush-Cheney, a cratered economy, a sclerotic Congress in thrall to lobbyists and special-interest money, and a rabid opposition underwritten by a media empire that owns both America's most-watched cable news channel and its most highly circulated newspaper. Indeed it could be argued that the matrix of crises facing Obama would have outmatched any Bush successor, no matter how talented. (They certainly would have drowned John McCain, whose utter cluelessness about the economic crisis alarmed even his Republican allies in 2008.) But Obama knew what he was getting into when he ran for president, and the question that matters now is how he can do the job better...
--SNIP--
...Can Obama self-correct? He remains the same driven, smart, psychologically balanced leader we saw in the campaign, and to these familiar attributes, Alter adds another quality that is less frequently displayed in public--an utter lack of sentimentality. He's "the most unsentimental man I've ever met," says one aide, summing up for many of his peers. That trait may be the most useful of all if Obama undertakes the ruthless course corrections that are essential to the realization of his promise.
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TAIBBI...
Matt Taibbi's latest, "Wall Street's Big Win," (Rolling Stone, August 6, 2010) pulls back the curtain on Capitol Hill and gives us an all-too-rare glimpse of what really happened amidst the jockeying in the Senate as it related to the passage of the brutally gutted Dodd-Frank FinReg legislation, specifically with regard to: the virtually complete evisceration of the Volcker Rule, the trashing of the closely-related Merkley-Levin Amendment, and the self-evident (thanks to Taibbi) whoring of Chris Dodd and Blanche Lincoln, among many others.
I have to admit that it is often a bit of a guilty pleasure reading Taibbi's sometimes sophomoric, over-the-top comments, such as the last sentence of this first blockquote, immediately below. But, IMHO, he more than makes up for his "bad behavior" with his frequently-exceptional sourcing.
"Wall Street's Big Win"
Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone
August 6, 2010
...But that very fact that the Merkley-Levin amendment had such momentum is ultimately what did it in. "What killed us," says Merkley, "was that it was looking pretty good."
What happened next was a prime example of the basic con of congressional politics. Throughout the debate over finance reform, Democrats had sold the public on the idea that it was the Republicans who were killing progressive initiatives. In reality, Republican and Democratic leaders were working together with industry insiders and deep-pocketed lobbyists to prevent rogue members like Merkley and Levin from effecting real change. In public, the parties stage a show of bitter bipartisan stalemate. But when the cameras are off, they fuck like crazed weasels in heat.
And, as part of Taibbi's conclusion...
....the bill even punts on the fundamental question of how much capital banks should be required to keep on hand as a hedge against meltdowns, leaving the question to the Basel banking conferences in Switzerland later this year, where financial interests from all over the world will gather to hammer things out in inscrutable backroom negotiations...
--SNIP--
...Worst of all, some analysts warn that the failure to rein in Wall Street makes another meltdown a near-certainty. "Oh, sure, within a decade," said Johnson, the MIT economist. "The question: Is it three years or seven years?"
Of course, I could write extensively about both of these pieces, but you're going to be far better served by just clicking on their respective links, above.