Friday, November 12, 2010

Obama Maybe Not Caving On Tax Cuts

Good, so far: "'Here's the right interpretation -- I want to make sure that taxes don't go up for middle class families starting on January 1st,' Obama said at a news conference at the conclusion of the G-20 Summit here. 'That is my number one priority for those families and for our economy. I also believe that it would be fiscally irresponsible for us to permanently extend the high income tax cuts. I think that would be a mistake, particularly when we've got our Republican friends saying that their number 1 priority is making sure that we are dealing with our debt and our deficit.'"

That does hint he might be amenable to a temporary extension. We can come back in two or three years and have this argument all over again?

Will Obama Give Tax Breaks To The Wealthy?

It sure looks that way: "President Obama has infuriated progressive Democrats by signaling that he's willing to compromise with John Boehner on the extension of the Bush tax cuts. Obama has long said that he wanted to extend the cuts for the middle class while letting rates rise for the wealthy, but Republicans threatened to kill any legislation that didn't preserve tax breaks for the rich."

I've said this before: Let them. It's not that difficult in the lame duck session to pass -- or try to pass -- tax cut extensions for the middle-class only. Let the Republicans kill that because they want to save tax cuts for the rich. Is the GOP that intent on saving the Rockefellers and Hiltons a few bucks that they won't let Joe Cubicle keep his paycheck if they can't get what they want? Really? If Dems can't win this political fight, there's no point having them around.

The Government Wants To Protect Your Online Privacy. Sort Of.

It would be easier for me to be more enthusiastic about this....

"The Obama administration is rolling out new policies to safeguard internet privacy, reports the Wall Street Journal. The new internet privacy strategy will be outlined in a report by the Commerce Department to be released in the next few weeks. The White House has set up a task force headed by Cameron Kerry (brother to Sen. John Kerry) to implement the strategy."


...if the administration wasn't also pursuing plans to ensure that communications providers build in back doors to let the government snoop on your web traffic. I guess, though, I'd rather not have to choose from an array of Big Brothers.

Are The Russians Sending A Contract Killer to the U.S.?

This can't be right, can it?:

"A contract killer has been dispatched to assassinate the Russian double agent who betrayed Anna Chapman and nine other spies in the United States this spring, according to reports in Moscow.

'We know who he is and where he is,' a high-ranking Kremlin source told the reputable Kommersant newspaper.

'You can have no doubt – a Mercader has already been sent after him.'"

Paul Krugman Asks A Good Question

I'm not panicking about the deficit commission, myself, for various reasons.But Paul Krugman has an interesting observation: "The goals of reform, as Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson see them, are presented in the form of seven bullet points. “Lower Rates” is the first point; “Reduce the Deficit” is the seventh.So how, exactly, did a deficit-cutting commission become a commission whose first priority is cutting tax rates, with deficit reduction literally at the bottom of the list?"

This Is What Authoritarian Nations Do

They treat dissent, literally, like a mental illness. Sometimes they even end up creating it:

"Xu Lindong’s confinement in a locked mental ward was all the more notable, his brother says, for one extraordinary fact: he was not the least bit deranged. Angered by a dispute over land, he had merely filed a series of complaints against the local government. The government’s response was to draw up an order to commit him to a mental hospital — and then to forge his brother’s name on the signature line.

He was finally released in April, after six and a half years in Zhumadian and a second mental institution. In an interview, he said he had endured 54 electric-shock treatments, was repeatedly roped to his bed and was routinely injected with drugs powerful enough to make him swoon. Fearing he would be left permanently disabled, he said, he attempted suicide three times."

Thursday, November 11, 2010

George W. Bush: Still A Bad President

In our Scripps Howard column this week, Ben Boychuk and I examine George W. Bush's rising poll numbers as the former president goes on tour to support his new book, "Decision Points." My take:

George W. Bush is more popular than he was two years ago? Of course he is! His approval rating really had nowhere to go but up.

And since he hasn't had his hand at the wheel of government for nearly two years now -- some might argue that it's actually been longer than that -- it's easy, natural and understandable for Americans to lose some of the passion in the white-hot grudge they once deservedly held against him.

Here's what I wrote in this space in December 2008: "Consider this record: Hurricane Katrina. The financial meltdown. An explosive national debt. No WMDs in Iraq. Warrantless wiretapping.

"Torture. The list goes on and on. In most democracies, such a litany of failure and abuse would have led to the resignation of the chief executive long before now."

Nothing in that list has changed in the last two years, of course: It is history, set in concrete, impossible to undo. And none of it reflects any better on Bush now than it did then.

Bush has been fond, over the years, of saying that history will vindicate his decisions. Here's the problem, though: History never loses its job or pension. History never sacrifices its son in a war fought for a flimsy premise. History is never waterboarded, never has its phone calls and e-mails intercepted, never pays a price. It's the people who actually live through an era who must deal with the real-time consequences -- and benefits -- of a president's bad decisions.

Their judgment, expressed in the 2006 and 2008 electoral repudiation of the GOP, should count heavily in history's ledger.

Our memories of that time are already growing hazy. They can never grow hazy enough to make Bush a good president. He was one of the worst.

Stubborn desperation

Oh man, this describes my post-2008 journalism career: If I have stubbornly proceeded in the face of discouragement, that is not from confid...