It's holiday weekend for most of us, but not for the pundits. if they stop opinionating, the wall they are leaning against will fall.
The Hill:
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said that his fellow South Carolinian, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R), is "wrong" to say that the Tea Party movement would die out.
As part of a profile in the New York Times Sunday magazine, Graham said that the Tea Party movement will "die out."
"I think it's just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country," Graham said.
Coherent vision? What's wrong with "it's Clinton's fault!"? Doesn't that cover everything?
In any case, DeMint and Graham don't agree agree on teabaggers but they agree on this (from the NY Times):
Mr. Graham of South Carolina said in an interview on CBS’s "Face the Nation" that he was "dismayed, angry, upset" over Mr. Steele’s remarks, calling them "uninformed, unnecessary, unwise, untimely."...
Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina and a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, also described Mr. Steele’s remarks as "inaccurate" and "unacceptable."
Steele isn't going anywhere until his term is up. He isn't functional, but he sure is entertaining.
Fox News:
Steele Scrambles to Contain Fallout From War Remark as GOP Criticism Mounts
Et tu, Fox?
Earl Ofari Hutchinson:
A mesmerized media, titillated public, and legions of Steele loathers, have made him the butt of derision and the talk of the land. That talk is just fine for Obama. But this dream scenario for the Democrats is likely to be just that a dream. If Steele weathers the current storm, and he probably will, almost certainly he will be toast in January. That's when his tenure as RNC chair ends. For now the Democrats love every minute of Steele and the GOP's arm wrestle, and they should. Enjoy it while it lasts, because it won't.
Reid Wilson:
Few have the opportunity to truly influence the 168 members of the RNC, and most who do have decided to keep quiet and focus on marginalizing the RNC. Prominent GOPers have signaled to major donors they should send their checks to the NRSC and the RGA, while outside groups have been established with the unstated goal of directing donor cash to campaign ads crafted and run outside the national party structure.
McCain and Graham are not widely popular inside the RNC, which tends to be a collection of much more conservative segments of the GOP. But they are respected voices on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Don'tcha love it when McCain and Graham are not conservative enough?
NY Times:
Newly released documents show that on June 2, BP sent out demands for nearly $400 million to its partners in the well, the Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and the Mitsui Oil Exploration Company of Japan, or roughly 40 percent of the $1 billion BP spent in May.
Anadarko, otoh, mumbled something about "gross negligence" and "willful misconduct", suggesting maybe they wouldn't fork over the money. Meanwhile Mitsui was reviewing their options. Doesn't sound like a windfall for BP.
Paul Krugman:
There was a time when everyone took it for granted that unemployment insurance, which normally terminates after 26 weeks, would be extended in times of persistent joblessness. It was, most people agreed, the decent thing to do.
But that was then. Today, American workers face the worst job market since the Great Depression, with five job seekers for every job opening, with the average spell of unemployment now at 35 weeks. Yet the Senate went home for the holiday weekend without extending benefits. How was that possible?
Jeffrey Rosen:
In her Supreme Court confirmation hearings last week, Elena Kagan cited Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. as her model of judicial restraint in response to questions from Republican senators who want the court to overturn health care, campaign finance and economic regulations.
Ms. Kagan picked the wrong justice. Holmes was a cold and brutally cynical man who had contempt for the masses and for the progressive laws he voted to uphold. Ms. Kagan would do better to look to the justice whose seat she has been nominated to fill: Louis D. Brandeis. Brandeis, who was succeeded by William O. Douglas and then John Paul Stevens, was not only a great and restrained judge but the most prescient critic of the "curse of bigness" in a time of economic crisis.
Anyone want to speculate on who McCain would have appointed? Sounds like Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Stevens and Brandeis would have been filibustered by the current crop of GOP ideologues.