Monday morning quarterbacking. So how far can the Jets actually go?
NY Times: too big too fail? How about AOL-Time Warner?
Paul Krugman:
Strange to say, however, what everyone knows isn’t true. Europe has its economic troubles; who doesn’t? But the story you hear all the time — of a stagnant economy in which high taxes and generous social benefits have undermined incentives, stalling growth and innovation — bears little resemblance to the surprisingly positive facts. The real lesson from Europe is actually the opposite of what conservatives claim: Europe is an economic success, and that success shows that social democracy works.
Ross Douthat:
If we tiptoe politely around this reality, then we betray every teacher, guru and philosopher — including Jesus of Nazareth and the Buddha both — who ever sought to resolve the most human of all problems: How then should we live?
It’s reasonable to doubt that a cable news analyst has the right answer to this question. But the debate that Brit Hume kicked off a week ago is still worth having. Indeed, it’s the most important one there is.
It's very important, but the wrong debate fo0r cable. It's even more important to debate on the news channels, in Congress and in our schools as to why fundamentalist Christianity can't be the official religion of the US (google "U.S. Constitution", the one that the conservatives carry in their pocket but never actually read.) But that's not where the discussion goes. And yeah, it’s reasonable to doubt that a cable news analyst has the right answer to this question, since cable edutainment does so poorly with everything else.
AP:
Sarah Palin believed that Sen. John McCain chose her to be his running mate in the 2008 presidential race because of "God's plan," according to a top political strategist in the Arizona Republican's campaign.
Faith is a wonderful thing, and to be respected. "I don't have to study up on the issues because God plans for me to win" is not. It's not her faith that's the problem, it's her difficulty with facts, a tendency to stray from "accuracy", as it was kindly put. In any case, the 60 Minutes interview with Steve Schmidt suggests Lieberman was the VP choice until word leaked. Schmidt suggests Palin made the losing gap less, but that's in comparison to Lieberman...
E.J. Dionne:
Reaching agreement on a health-care bill is harder in theory than it will be in practice.
Before the measure lands on President Obama's desk, there will be many crisis points, much posturing and dire warnings of impending failure. There are real differences between the bills passed by the House and the Senate. The last few votes are always the most difficult to get.
But more than negotiators can afford to acknowledge openly, there is broad agreement on the kinds of concessions the Senate can make to the House and still preserve the 60 votes needed for passage. Indeed, some of those concessions will be eagerly sought by progressive Democratic senators.
Health care will pass. There is no other political choice for Democrats in the Congress.
Steve Coll:
Apart from its construction on a false premise ("Now let me be clear: we are indeed at war with Al Qaeda and its affiliates," Obama declared last May; "We are at war," he said again last week), the statement, and the attention it received, suggested that American discourse on counterterrorism policy remains frozen in 2002. Fortunately, there is abundant evidence that the United States is entering a new era in its struggle against terrorists, one in which government and society are proving to be self-correcting, while Al Qaeda, like Dick Cheney, is proving to be self-isolating.