Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Sunday, and time for the pundits.

Frank Rich:

“I don’t want to pretend that today marks the end of our economic problems,” the president said on Tuesday at the signing ceremony in Denver. He added, hopefully: “But today does mark the beginning of the end.”

Does it?

No one knows, of course, but a bigger question may be whether we really want to know. One of the most persistent cultural tics of the early 21st century is Americans’ reluctance to absorb, let alone prepare for, bad news.

Maureen Dowd: Oh, goody! I get to talk about 42 advising 44. Nothing makes my day like a good disrepecting of both.

Nicholas Kristof: Yesterday, bob herbert told you about the Congo. Today, I'm doing Darfur. There are horrors Americans only have an inkling of.

Tom Friedman: Forget this auto bailout money. Give it to the start-ups, not the losers.

David Broder: I liked Gwen Ifill's book on Obama and the leadership of his generation. It's more insightful than some of my own work (yes, I said that) and a great read.

Jim Hoagland: Foreign policy is not Obama's strong suit, and he needs to be careful. Can there be anything more CW than that?

Clive Crook: No one's paying attention any more, but the stimulus really isn't big enough.

Score it as a victory for Obama, to be sure: He got most of what he wanted. Still, it is a strange way to run a government.

The country could have had a better bill, and it should certainly have been given a fuller account of what is in the bill it got. If another big stimulus is needed, as it might be, let us hope that it is better thought through and more carefully examined -- before the fact -- than this one was.

As for why the critics can't count to 60, the number needed in the Senate to pass anything, don't ask me.