Lightning Round: From Sea to Shining Sea.

• I'd wager that the consensus among liberals about the stimulus was that while it should have been larger to address a recession underestimated by the Obama administration, what we got was probably the best possible under the political circumstances and institutional restraints. That being said, there were some who argued that the administration should have at least proposed a larger stimulus, which would have afforded the administration a "I told you so" response when the ARRA's inadequacy was finally revealed. Maybe. But one year later would that really be enough to convince the deficit peacocks that a stronger second stimulus jobs bill is needed, given that the ARRA has been a success despite its limitations?
• Then there's the principled opposition to stimulus spending, those who claim government spending can never create jobs because, you know, law enforcement, firefighting, teaching, and so forth aren't real jobs because they're funded by the state. Unfortunately for elected Republicans who sympathize with this perspective, they still have to bring home the bacon (and how!), which leads to the awkwardness of spending a year rejecting the federal government's largesse in public, while soliciting its help in private (or taking the credit for administration proposals). It's quite an achievement, the lion's share of the Republican congressional caucus on record requesting socialism dollars. Perhaps more attention should be given to these shameless hypocrites, arguably the single biggest problem afflicting the much-maligned United States Congress.
• If yesterday's New York Times story on how individual tea partiers found religion was a journalistic portraiture of the people making up the movement, then the results from this CNN poll provide the cold statistics of the same phenomenon. In short, the typical tea partier is a white, conservative, college-educated male, and while a third of them earn over $75,000, less than 10 percent earn under $30,000. Less than a movement of Ron Paul apostles, I think what we're seeing here is a bunch of John Galt wannabes passing the time until they can all move to their cities under the sea.
• Recommended: start associating the word "patriot" with State Rep. Mike Pitts of South Carolina for his heroic effort to get the Palmetto state to outlaw the use of paper and coin money currently employed by the other 49 states of the union in favor of only accepting gold and silver for all economic transactions. Pitts calls the substitution of Federal Reserve Notes for silver and gold coin "unconstitutional" even though Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power to coin money. I'd suggest next that Pitts introduce a measure to allow for South Carolina's secession from the union, but with liberal activist judges like Antonin Scalia on the high court, that won't get very far.
• There is one reason, and perhaps one reason only, to support Harold Ford Jr.'s kamikaze bid (not the candidate, just the spectacle of the run) for a New York Senate seat: its proven ability to produce writing that will lift our spirits in these dark times. To wit, Mr. Chait: "'Southern voters are interested in solutions,' said Harold Ford Jr. in 2003. 'They can spot a fake.' Perhaps this explains Ford’s subsequent decision to decamp from the South in search of a more gullible electorate."
• Remainders: Nobody could have predicted that people who hate Democrats also hate their agenda; Chris Dodd seems a bit clueless about the filibuster, Evan Bayh, surprisingly, is making sense; some Republican is writing a book about American values, so he must be running for president; I'm beginning to notice a synergy between the former governor of Alaska and her most hackish supporters in the field of unbridled embrace of stupidity; it seems the British are also afflicted with the notion that there is a centrist rebellion brewing against liberal (Labour) excess; and are Americans starting to hate their member of Congress as much as Congress itself?

--Mori Dinauer