Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is on the “inherited” beat today, as he testifies before the House Ways and Means Committee. Geithner’s an interesting case because, on the one hand, he wasn’t in Washington as recent spending was turning into deficits; on the other hand, he was an architect of the TARP program that made a substantial contribution […]
Congressman Paul Ryan, an up and coming leader in the Republican Party, offers a few economic policy ideas in today’s Wall Street Journal. They’re certainly worth paying attention to. What’s more interesting, though, is that Ryan begins his op-ed this way: “Inheriting countless challenges, Congress and the Obama administration have moved quickly on many fronts […]
February 24, 2009 – 5:33 pm
Last week, new RNC chairman Michael Steele generated some buzz when he said in a Washington Times interview that Republicans would be developing an “off-the-hook” messaging strategy to connect to a wider cross-section of voters. More interesting, I thought, was Steele’s assertion that developing a deep bench of prospective GOP candidates would be his top priority, rather […]
February 17, 2009 – 3:45 pm
Over at NewMajority, my former (more senior) colleague David Frum explains why, despite the general glee on the right, Republicans likely fumbled a real opportunity on stimulus.
February 17, 2009 – 3:23 pm
In today’s Politico Playbook, Mike Allen mentions a new White House slideshow of behind-the-scenes photos from the stimulus negotiating process. The general theme of the pics is of a president vigorously doing the public’s work. Then there’s slide #4, which is a picture of the president meeting with Republican members of Congress. The caption notes this, then says: […]
February 12, 2009 – 3:26 pm
Re: Ed’s two posts about the recent line up of bankers “like a murderers row” before their Congressional interrogators, that’s the whole point of these exercises — Congressional dominance and private sector submission, if not outright humiliation. In the classic film, The Great Dictator, Chaplin as Hitler ushers Mussolini into a chair with sawed off […]
February 12, 2009 – 3:15 pm
Apparently Senate Democrats are hearing Josh’s warning about the “socialist death spiral.” A well-sourced friend mentioned to me that Harry Reid has been trolling for a Republican – any Republican – to join Senators Specter, Collins, and Snowe in voting for the upcoming stimulus conference bill. Why? Because the original Senate vote scored 61 in […]
February 12, 2009 – 11:39 am
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove – no slouch when it comes to Republican strategy – agrees with Josh and disagrees with me about whether stimulus opposition will be good for Republicans. I agree with Karl that Republicans successfully branded this particular stimulus package a bloated, ill-prioritized porker. But they overshot. They forgot to […]
February 11, 2009 – 4:57 pm
If you want to know everything – and I mean everything – that happened at today’s bank CEO hearing in the House, check out the Wall Street Journal’s Deal Journal, which live-blogged the entire event. You’ll notice that at 1:32 pm (seriously, they blogged everything), the CEOs were asked to raise their hands if their company […]
February 11, 2009 – 3:36 pm
Update (3:35 pm) – I just received the press release with all of the details for tomorrow’s hearing. See them pasted below the jump. Call it the Geithner Effect: our new Treasury Secretary goes up to Congress (the very day the “stimulus” “ye dare not call it pork” plan passes) to unveil his new financial […]
February 9, 2009 – 10:25 am
Question: how does the spirit of bipartisanship jibe with Obama’s message (which I paraphrase only slightly), “You lost, we won, so stuff it!” Of course, the administration can count on the mainstream media to carry its water for them. The Washington Post seized on the total of three Republicans to go along with the stimulus […]
February 7, 2009 – 3:14 pm
According to Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, the Obama administration is searching for a phrase to replace the “War on Terror.” Good luck. This, of course, is the classic bureaucratic backwards approach to communications, in which people desperately search for just the right word or phrase to communicate a policy they can’t explain or an objective they […]
February 6, 2009 – 4:12 pm
John Adams may have had really terrible teeth (at least as portrayed in the excellent HBO miniseries by Paul Giamatti), but he was a powerful orator, in part because he took seriously his famous observation that “facts are stubborn things.” The full quote is: Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our […]
February 6, 2009 – 3:51 pm
I agree with Ed, but it doesn’t seem to me the Republicans are being obstructionist or even appearing that way, despite the President’s efforts to convey that impression. They’re not just standing athwart the stimulus bill saying “No,” they’re providing alternatives which might actually have a stimulatory effect and – another plus – seem to […]
