David Olive:
The biggest oil spill in U.S. history quickly found, in the one person of Tony Hayward, its Michael "Brownie" Brown, hapless head of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. And its delusional Baghdad Bob, the Saddam spokesman who coalition forces would never take the capital even as American tanks were visible a few thousand yards from where BB stood.
WaPo:
President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments, saying the money is needed to avoid "massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters" and to support the still-fragile economic recovery.
In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama defended last year's huge economic stimulus package, saying it helped break the economy's freefall, but argued that more spending is urgent and unavoidable. "We must take these emergency measures," he wrote in an appeal aimed primarily at members of his own party.
David Leonhardt:
When you look at the program as a whole, the picture is not nearly as uncertain. Home buying jumped during the very period when a tax credit for home buying was in effect. The same happened with corporate investment. State spending stabilized in the middle of last year — just as states were hearing about their stimulus awards — even though state revenues were continuing to fall at the time. Consumer spending has risen faster than income growth would suggest, but about as fast as you’d expect given the combination of income growth and stimulus tax cuts.
More broadly, job cuts began shrinking just as the stimulus was going into effect last year, and the stock market began rising shortly after it passed. The stimulus was by no means the only reason, but it appears to have been a significant one.
Greg Sargent:
It's the deregulation, stupid: One of the outstanding questions about Obama's handling of the spill has been whether he'd seize on it to make an aggressive case against the knee-jerk deregulatory ideology that ran rampant before he took office.
Now he's done that in an interview with Politico, taking direct aim at the hypocrisy of those who pose as anti-government diehards but are suddenly demanding a robust Federal response to the spill...
It's an interesting paradox: Even as the spill's destruction dramatically illustrates the need for more robust Federal regulation, the government's inability to respond effectively to the spill now that it's in motion risks undermining his larger effort to move the debate in the right direction. Polls show very low confidence in the government's handling of the spill.
One can only hope the public realizes that the inability to halt the spill shouldn't have any bearing on the argument over whether more Federal regulation, and real Federal energy reform, are required to prevent such disasters in the future.
Bob Herbert:
There is no good news coming out of the depressing and endless war in Afghanistan. There once was merit to our incursion there, but that was long ago. Now we’re just going through the tragic motions, flailing at this and that, with no real strategy or decent end in sight.
Frank Rich:
But there is a shadow over marriage in America just the same. The Gores and Limbaughs are free to marry, for better or for worse, and free to enjoy all the rights (and make all the mistakes) that marriage entails. Gay and lesbian couples are still fighting for those rights. That’s why the most significant marital event of June 2010 is the one taking place in San Francisco this Wednesday, when a Federal District Court judge is scheduled to hear the closing arguments in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the landmark case challenging Proposition 8, California’s same-sex marriage ban. A verdict will soon follow, setting off an appeals process that is likely to land in the Supreme Court, possibly by the 2011-12 term.