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- President Obama signed an executive order today reversing the Bush administration's federal ban on using embryonic stem cells for medical research and ordered executive branch officials not to rely on the hundreds of signing statements issued by Bush challenging that the president could selectively choose what parts of the law he wished to comply with. Obama explained that his administration would return to the original use of signing statements, which was reserved for interpreting the implementation or constitutionality of laws he is expected to enforce.
- The severity of the near-term economic outlook is threatening to overwhelm any benefits of the economic stimulus package passed last month, particularly its ability to keep up with job losses. Paul Krugman writes today that a second stimulus might be needed just to keep pace, but that the political window for its passage is closing fast. Meanwhile, Media Matters finds that network news reporting of the stimulus debate focused almost exclusively on anti-stimulus arguments (it's too big!) rather than the arguments from economists like Krugman who warned it was too small.
- The other threat to our economic health lies in the administration's halting response to the financial crisis. Despite the fact that a majority of the public supports, by name, "temporary nationalization" of troubled banks, the real obstacle, as Ezra shares with us, is the difficulty of bankers working in the regulatory apparatus of government to "face down" the bankers who head these troubled firms.
- On Friday, President Obama gave his first interview to The New York Times since ascending to the White House, where he elaborated on some of his foreign policy goals, notably his openness to negotiating a peace with some elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan. On the domestic front, the interview was less than enlightened at times, The Times' Peter Baker asking bluntly at one point whether Obama was "a socialist, as some people have suggested." Obama called Baker back to follow up on the question, which he wasn't sure was "entirely serious," and patiently explained that no, he isn't a socialist, and the reason he's doing what he's doing is because he inherited an enormous economic mess that requires drastic measures to repair. Would it really kill The Times to identify the "some people" who think Obama is a socialist and point out that they want him to fail and maybe, just maybe, calling him a socialist is a way of helping along that failure?
- The Hill reports that Arlen Specter, clearly facing a difficult primary challenge in the form of his 2004 rival Pat Toomey, could be at the point where switching parties would actually be the best solution: "Specter would have a stronger chance against Toomey in the fall general election when independents and centrist Republicans-turned-Democrats could vote. Democratic strategists acknowledge it would be difficult to defeat Specter in a general election because of his strong ties to labor and centrist voting record. Specter could run as an independent or return to the Democratic Party."
- RNC Chair Michael Steele gets a profile in The New York Times, shuts down his blog, and incurs the wrath of that non-plumber the GOP has decided to embrace as its folk hero.
- Weekend Remainders: Joel Lovell offers us some more CNBC-bashing, this time from an insider's perspective; Matt Yglesias explains the relationship between intelligence and advancement within the conservative movement; The White House tinkers with Bush's biography; RedState's Erik Erickson doesn't much care for the new gop.com redesign; David Brooks correctly describes the House GOP's idea for a spending freeze as "insane"; and poor David Addington can't find a job. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
--Mori Dinauer
