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- President Obama has pledged to committing the U.S. to reducing carbon emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels in advance of traveling to Copenhagen Dec. 7 for the international climate conference, but between the parochial interests of individual senators and the energy industries they represent, as well as the denial caucus' proclivity for putting would-be political candidates in awkward positions, I have my doubts.
- Ezra Klein summarizes the unintended consequences of parliamentary rule changes: "The story of the filibuster is a story of small changes that everybody got used to, which allowed for more small changes that everybody got used to, and so on, until the Senate had undergone a large change indeed."
- It shouldn't even be necessary to point out that arguments against health-care reform on the grounds of constitutionality fail even the lightest scrutiny, but Tom Schaller has generated a list of rebuttals that ought to come in handy the next time you come across arguments like "members of Congress swear an oath to uphold the Constitution -- not the court's funhouse-mirror version of it."
- A persistent, one-size-fits-all criticism of the first year of the Obama presidency is that candidate Obama and President Obama are two different people, leading to both disappointment in his liberal base (hasn't moved enough to the left) and to outrage on the right (because he's moved too far to the left). In fact this is just the reality of settling in to governing and the pace of policy change is always going to be controversial for critics on the right and left, albeit for different reasons.
- Remainders: To claim the stimulus has done nothing or made things worse is patently absurd; at least on cap-and-trade it would be good to follow California's example; the people of New Jersey get a taste of the fabled compassionate conservatism; Alan Grayson reminds us that only the Senate can reform itself; Nancy Pelosi has the right idea on economic stimulus and jobs creation; and Charlie Crist asks a reasonable question of the conservative base, forgets said base is not reasonable.
--Mori Dinauer
