Paul Krugman on the 'Wall Street Whitewash'

In the world according to the G.O.P. commissioners, it’s all the fault of government do-gooders, who used various levers — especially Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored loan-guarantee agencies — to promote loans to low-income borrowers. Wall Street — I mean, the private sector — erred only to the extent that it got suckered into going along with this government-created bubble.

It’s hard to overstate how wrongheaded all of this is. For one thing, as I’ve already noted, the housing bubble was international — and Fannie and Freddie weren’t guaranteeing mortgages in Latvia. Nor were they guaranteeing loans in commercial real estate, which also experienced a huge bubble.

Beyond that, the timing shows that private players weren’t suckered into a government-created bubble. It was the other way around. During the peak years of housing inflation, Fannie and Freddie were pushed to the sidelines; they only got into dubious lending late in the game, as they tried to regain market share.

via nytimes.com

I do wonder if the GOP is backing itself into a corner where it can never, ever acknowledge that the free market -- as wonderful as it is -- might have some shortcomings or excesses. Thoughtful conservatives (and not just the ones that liberals like) recognize that and consequently allow that *some* regulation is needed. But if the market can do no wrong that isn't caused by the government, then regulation is always and everywhere wrong.

Fred Kaplan on why we're not winning in Afghanistan

Six times in the course of five pages, the report's authors note that, unless Pakistan does a better job of controlling its borders—the western tribal areas, where Taliban leaders find safe haven and move reinforcements and supplies into Afghanistan and back again—the U.S. military successes of recent months are for naught.

For instance, on Page 1, the report defines "our ultimate end state" as "the eventual strategic defeat of al-Qaida in the region," but it adds that this "will require the sustained denial of the group's safe haven in the tribal areas of western Pakistan."

On Page 3: The "denial of extremist safe havens will require greater cooperation with Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan."

On Page 5: "Consolidating those gains [made in the fight against the Afghan Taliban] will require that we make more progress with Pakistan to eliminate sanctuaries for violent extremist networks."

Those italics (all mine) make the point: Clearing the safe havens in Pakistan is not just an important ingredient in achieving our strategic objectives in Afghanistan; it is a requirement. Without it, all other successes are merely tactical and, even then, probably short-lived ("fragile and reversible," as the report puts it).

via slate.com

You know what's awesome about North Korea?

Great propaganda rhetoric:

Meanwhile, North Korea’s official news agency assailed a plan by the South Korean military to stage a live-fire artillery exercise from Yeonpyeong Island, perhaps as early as Saturday.

The latest inter-Korean crisis erupted three weeks ago with an artillery barrage from the North that targeted Yeonpyeong and killed four South Koreans.

“The puppet warmongers are contemplating staging madcap naval firing exercises,” said the news agency, K.C.N.A., which also called the new South Korean defense minister “a war maniac keen to ignite a war” and “a puppy knowing no fear of a tiger.”

It's like Snidely Whiplash is in charge of North Korea's PR.

This is why Obama's failure to speedily nominate judges is so damning

I'm hoping for the moment when a federal judge picked by a Democratic president strikes down the health-care law. Or when a Republican-appointed judge upholds it.

Either way. Because the current lineup of decisions, in which two Democratic-nominated judges have ruled in favor of the law, one Republican against, is not healthy for the judiciary or the democratic process.

It is facile to think of judges as umpires robotically calling balls and strikes. But it is also dangerous to think of judges as players on a particular team, still wearing uniforms under their robes.

via voices.washingtonpost.com

Ruth Marcus is right that partisanship in the judiciary probably isn't great for democracy. But right now, that's the way the game is played. President Obama has been taking his time making nominations to the federal judiciary; the results are plain to see, and will continue to be.

It's like Charles Krauthammer has forgotten about Ralph Nader

Despite this, some on the right are gloating that Obama had been maneuvered into forfeiting his liberal base. Nonsense. He will never lose his base. Where do they go? Liberals will never have a president as ideologically kindred - and they know it. For the left, Obama is as good as it gets in a country that is barely 20 percent liberal.

via washingtonpost.com

It's possible that Krauthammer is being intentionally forgetful here, but a few liberals -- not a lot, but enough to make a difference -- cast their votes for Ralph Nader in 2000. Not because they thought he'd be president, but because they didn't think it mattered if a Democrat or Republican held office. The presidency of George W. Bush heightened the contradictions between the two major parties in ways that have given plenty of former Naderites pause since then, but there are plenty of liberals whose disgust with a centrist Democrat might cause them to A) abandon politics altogether for a cycle or two, or B) find the new Nader, or a lefty equivalent of Ron Paul. (Dennis Kucinich, I'm NOT looking at you.) The idea wouldn't be to win the presidency right away, but to begin building a serious, viable third party that could offer voters an alternative. I'm not saying it would be successful, but there *is* someplace for liberal voters to go.

The other reason Philadelphia is so walkable...

...is because it HAS to be, because nobody here knows how to drive with just a light dusting of snow. 

The State Department doesn't want its diplomats to know what every other diplomat in the world will know about American diplomacy

The Air Force may not want its personnel reading the WikiLeaks leaks on military computers, but the State Department has just made it clear that it doesn't want its personnel reading them on any computers. In a Wednesday memo to employees of the Consular Affairs-Passport division of the State Department, officials reminded their underlings that "unauthorized disclosure of classified documents in the media does not mean that the documents have been disclassified," and "accordingly, PPT employees shall not access any classified documents, including the 'Wikileaks documents,' during business hours or on their personal time."

via slatest.slate.com

Stupid.