Mid week course correction. Or not.
Steven Pearlstein:
GOP to jobless: Drop dead
..."You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns," bellowed William Jennings Bryan as he brought the convention to its feet. "You shall not crucify mankind upon the cross of gold."
The world has supposedly learned a thing or two about economics since Bryan's day, including the limits of clinging mindlessly to hard money during depressions and bouts of price deflation. But you'd never know it listening to the newly empowered and emboldened Republicans who have returned to Washington determined not just to reduce government's role in the economy, but to thoroughly emasculate it.
Nice to see everyone is not following the script and worshipping the new GOP House majority.
Warren Buffett:
Dear Uncle Sam,
My mother told me to send thank-you notes promptly. I’ve been remiss.
Let me remind you why I’m writing. Just over two years ago, in September 2008, our country faced an economic meltdown. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the pillars that supported our mortgage system, had been forced into conservatorship. Several of our largest commercial banks were teetering. One of Wall Street’s giant investment banks had gone bankrupt, and the remaining three were poised to follow. A.I.G., the world’s most famous insurer, was at death’s door...
Well, Uncle Sam, you delivered. People will second-guess your specific decisions; you can always count on that. But just as there is a fog of war, there is a fog of panic — and, overall, your actions were remarkably effective.
Good point. True point. Needed saying, say, 6 months ago, but needs saying now.
Maureen Dowd:
After a period of estrangement and after circling each other with dueling memoirs, a happy W. and a gaunt Dick Cheney were reunited on stage.
"History is beginning to come around," Cheney said with satisfaction. After hailing W. as "classy," Vice acted unclassy. Demonstrating that Bush still cannot control Cheney, the former vice president defied W.’s promise not to mock President Obama.
"This may be the only shovel-ready project in America," Cheney noted sardonically, making fun of Obama’s attempts to dig out from under the trillions of debt left by his predecessors.
Glenn Thrush:
The roots of the partisan standoff that led to the postponement of the bipartisan White House summit scheduled for Thursday date back to January, when President Barack Obama dominated a GOP meeting in Baltimore to deliver a humiliating rebuke of House Republicans.
The one-sided televised presidential lecture many Republicans decried as a political ambush – Obama’s staff wanted the event be broadcast and GOP aides agreed reluctantly at the last minute — has left a lingering distrust of Obama invitations and a wariness about accommodating every scheduling request emanating from the West Wing, aides tell POLITICO.
And on that topic, Cornelius Hurley:
How many times do you ask the same girl to the prom before the light goes off that she doesn’t want to go with you? In the coming year (the time frame in which Obama has to decide whether he’s going to run for reelection), the president can forget about Congress. Its GOP leaders are only there to destroy him. He needs to define his agenda and take it directly to the American people every day spending as little time in Washington as possible. A dialogue with Main Street will be much more productive than a hundred coffee sessions with Sen. McConnell or Speaker Boehner.
Dana Milbank:
Will they address the urgent need for job promotion? Work out agreement on extending the Bush tax cuts?
Actually, no. Instead, Senate Democrats are planning, as their first order of business, a debate on . . . food safety.
Now, don't misunderstand: Eggs are best served without salmonella, and the legislation deserves to become law. But it would be a novel interpretation of the election results to conclude that Americans' top priority at this pivotal moment is a reorganization of the Food and Drug Administration.
This type of tone-deaf, seemingly haphazard scheduling of votes - often driven less by strategy than by procedural rules and caprice - has been a trademark of the Senate over the past couple of years. This, however, is about to change.
Really? We'll see.