Sundays are great days for having an opinion. And if you read this blog, it's an informed opinion. Not everyone does.
NY Times editorial:
The economy grew at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009. But well over half of that growth came from large adjustments to business inventories that are unlikely to be repeated on a similar scale in the months to come. As such, they are evidence that the sick economy is recovering, not that it is healthy.
Maureen Dowd:
In the end, the Republicans may well go back to being inflexibly inflexible with this president, but for a moment in time, each side realized that the other side had something to say. It was, as The Times’s reporters Peter Baker and Carl Hulse called it, a televised marriage-therapy session "as each side vented grievances pent up after a year of partisan gridlock.
Which moment was that, Maureen? Only one side took a beating at the meeting and it wasn't the 'just say no' party that had something of substance to say. The examples you listed pale before the observation that Republicans opposed the stimulus and then showed up at ribbon cuttings paid for by the stimulus. Drawing false equivalence is exactly what's wrong with punditry. "The Jets and the Colts both showed up in the AFC title game, and both scored. Must have been a tie." "Opposing Bush on Iraq is the same as opposing Obama on health care'. Uh, no.
Obama’s advisers must wish they could do this every week for the cameras. It was a lot more elucidating than Joe Wilson shouting, "You lie!"
There's a reason Obama 's advisers must wish to do this every week. Can you think of what it is?
Frank Rich:
In Obama’s speech, he kept circling back to a Senate where both parties are dysfunctional. The obstructionist Republicans, he observed, will say no to every single bill "just because they can." But no less culpable are the Democrats, who maintain "the largest majority in decades" even after losing Teddy Kennedy’s seat — and yet would rather "run for the hills" than accomplish anything.
What does strong Senate leadership look like?
Anyone old enough to remember?
David A. Fahrenthold: Amusing piece on Fantasy Baseball Politics and drafting your fantasty team based on the available players.
-- President Obama (D). Last year, Obama didn't always perform like a No. 1 pick: He let Congress draft key legislation on health care and climate change, which meant he wouldn't get the points if that legislation passed (not that it did). But he's still got the presidency's advantages, including the ability to invite himself into scoring opportunities on network TV. And judging from the State of the Union, this may be a more active year for him, with Obama taking a more personal role in fights from offshore drilling to "don't ask don't tell." One caveat: He did, at one point during the speech, admit some fault for the Democrats' problems. Major negative points. Let's hope he doesn't make it a habit.
Matthew Dallek on fractured Dems:
Another moment that set the tone for the 2009 debate was the founding of the Democratic Leadership Council in 1985. The DLC advocated tax cuts for America’s middle-class, championed welfare reform, and denounced the proliferation of liberal interest-group politics. DLC executive director Al From argued that "fundamental changes in the [Democratic] message" were urgently needed after party losses in the 1988 presidential election, and DLC president Bill Clinton told centrist Democrats that their party should offer Americans "a new choice" that "provides them responsive government."
Such sentiments didn't end with the waning influence of the DLC in more recent times. Indeed, centrists often expressed unease with the size and scope of Obama's government-led health-care reform plan. Lest they be branded as big-government liberals, centrists, for the most part, fought against the public option, sang the praises of free markets in general, and opposed expanding Medicare to insure more Americans.
Still, health reform passed the House and got 60 (or 59, depending on your math) votes in the Senate. In a functional Senate, that'd be more than enough.
Norm Ornstein: In defense of Congress' productivity, they've done more than the pundits would have you believe.
The productivity began with the stimulus package, which was far more than an injection of $787 billion in government spending to jump-start the ailing economy. More than one-third of it -- $288 billion -- came in the form of tax cuts, making it one of the largest tax cuts in history, with sizable credits for energy conservation and renewable-energy production as well as home-buying and college tuition. The stimulus also promised $19 billion for the critical policy arena of health-information technology, and more than $1 billion to advance research on the effectiveness of health-care treatments.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan has leveraged some of the stimulus money to encourage wide-ranging reform in school districts across the country. There were also massive investments in green technologies, clean water and a smart grid for electricity, while the $70 billion or more in energy and environmental programs was perhaps the most ambitious advancement in these areas in modern times. As a bonus, more than $7 billion was allotted to expand broadband and wireless Internet access, a step toward the goal of universal access.
Good. But jobs and health reform dominate.
Nate Silver:
But right now it's Democrats who are behind the 8-ball -- and the extent to which voters are disengaged from each twist and turn of the news cycle is not liable to change any time soon. And what these semi-informed voters have mostly seen from the Democrats is a series of mixed messages.
Mixed messages? Depends at that moment whether you are dissing or courting Ben Nelson. See articles above by Dallek and Ornstein.
Adam Nagourney:
At a moment of what could be great opportunity, the Republican Party struggles with disputes over ideology, tactics and leadership.
Also, ideas, philosophy and public disdain.