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- Is the Obama administration facing a populist backlash over its fumbling of the AIG bonuses? This is the contention of The Washington Post, which in lieu of looking for real evidence of a backlash, chooses instead to chronicle the opinion of elites as they react to the news. More substantive is this Walter Shapiro essay that goes back to the the left- and right-wing populism of the 1930s in search of parallels to today's situation and Mark Blumenthal's comprehensive look at the implications of polling data for the administration's agenda. Meanwhile, congressional Democrats now have a plan for dealing with the bonuses, although they could have avoided the problem altogether by not scuttling bailout bonus review in the stimulus debate last month.
- Barack Obama has made his first judicial nomination in the form of David Hamilton, former counsel to Sen. Evan Bayh, for a seat on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Obama also restored the tradition of letting the American Bar Association review candidates before submitting them to the Senate, which had been abandoned by former president Bush.
- Defense Secretary Bob Gates and President Obama have repeatedly signaled their intent to reform military procurement and realign military capabilities with current military needs. But now, according to The Boston Globe, that talk appears to be real: "Two defense officials who were not authorized to speak publicly said Gates will announce up to a half-dozen major weapons cancellations later this month. Candidates include a new Navy destroyer, the Air Force's F-22 fighter jet, and Army ground-combat vehicles, the officials said."
- I'm not sure why this U.S. News and World Report story on Rahm Emanuel's weekly White House "power meetings" feels the need to mention, almost as an afterthought, the notion that since Bush used a crisis to expand executive authority, Obama is doing the same thing via the economic crisis. The subject of whether or not Obama is creating a more "muscular presidency" deserves its own in-depth reporting, rather than being awkwardly tacked onto a story about the shocking news that presidential advisers occasionally meet to shape political and policy strategy.
- Remainders: The Wall Street Journal previews the coming regulations for the financial sector; Mark Sanford apparently hates the fine people of South Carolina; the Norm Coleman legal team mulls invoking an extremely poor Supreme Court decision; SEIU puts the screws to an anti-EFCA Blue Dog; and Obama brings back the fireside chat.
--Mori Dinauer
