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- As expected, Republicans are refining vague criticisms about government spending into a targeted assault of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with some going so far as to call for an outright repeal. The political angle is of course to leverage disillusion with stimulus spending into picking up seats for the GOP in 2010 but at this point Americans are still not willing to trust Republicans on the economy -- and that has to change before bad economic news enables the minority party to recapture power.
- As annoying as the filibuster is (or these days, the implicit threat of filibusters) the anonymous Senate hold is even more absurd. The worst part is that holds are honored by courtesy, meaning the majority leader can break them at will, and it looks like Harry Reid has finally had enough of this obstructionist tactic, at least in the case of Robert Groves, nominee for director of the Census Bureau.
- Next week, hearings to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court will begin, and regardless of whether Republicans are making headway in their opposition to the nominee, or whether Sotomayor's training routine is adequate preparation, I expect the proceedings to be a relatively staid affair. It is unknown whether the hundreds of pages withheld from the Clinton administration's internal deliberations over Sotomayor's nomination and confirmation to the Appeals Court will have any impact.
- There isn't much to say in response to the news that Roland Burris will not be running for reelection to the Senate in 2010, due primarily to anemic fundraising. At least Burris will be able to end his career demonstrating that he knew his own limitations as a politician. Meanwhile, the most credible GOP challenger for the president's old seat isn't getting into the race after all.
- Gushing hagiographers aside, conservatives who are concerned about the future of their relevance to the political world would do well to read Peggy Noonan's post-mortem of the Thing from Wasilla's impact on Republican politics. See also this comprehensive list of the Alaska governor's many, easily-verifiable lies.
- Remainders: The Obama White House keeps working the refs; conservative misanthropy takes a bold leap forward; and behold the unspeakable horror of cities that adopt urban gardening policies.
--Mori Dinauer
