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- "It’s eerie," says pollster Ann Seltzer, "I read the news from the Beltway, and there’s this disconnect with the polls from the Midwest that I see all around me." And indeed there is. We're into week four of the Obama administration and the president is set to sign a $780 billion economic stimulus plan in Denver tomorrow that is not only the largest and most ambitious spending plan passed by Congress since the Great Society but also one that almost perfectly resembles what the president originally wanted. Epic fail! Indeed, with the benefit of hindsight, it's tempting to say that Obama has wisely laid the groundwork for playing, in Hendrik Hertzberg's formulation, "Gandhian hardball," resisting the pressure to punish Joe Lieberman and turning him -- inadvertently or not -- into a key Senate ally. But as was clear from the conversation Obama had with op-ed columnists aboard Air Force One last Friday, the man is "flexible about tactics and unwavering in his goals," which makes him more pragmatic than visionary.
- According to Michael Steele, there is "absolutely no reason, none, to trust our [the GOP's] word or our actions at this point." No argument here. Indeed it seems that some members of the GOP House caucus only voted against the stimulus in order to provide political cover for their next reelection campaign, privately expressing relief for what the money will do for their districts. Or in the words of dealmaker Arlen Specter, "I think there are a lot of people in the Republican caucus who are glad to see this action taken without their fingerprints, without their participation."
- Then there's the rest of the Republican party. In addition to helping fund Norm Coleman's court challenge in Minnesota, the House GOP leadership is positively celebrating their ability to stand united against a popular president and the political party that has routed them in two consecutive election cycles. But if Eric Cantor believes he can find governing wisdom in the tenure of Newt Gingrich or by inaccurately recounting the political history of Winston Churchill, he better come up with some better tactics or face even greater political irrelevance in the future.
- The Obama administration has signaled that it will abandon plans to create a car czar, is considering issuing an executive order reversing the Bush policy of cutting off federal funding for stem cell research, has to decide whether to modernize (at high cost) the fleet of presidential helicopters, and the commander-in-chief decides the aforementioned British statesman isn't such a great role model.
- Just when you thought the Rod Blagojevich-Roland Burris saga had ended...
- Remainders: A GOP congressman thinks investigating the malfeasance of the Bush administration is a good idea, the previously-embargoed behind-the-scenes morsels from campaign '08 are worth a read, the corrupt early days of the Iraq invasion get closer scrutiny, Hillary Clinton speaks truth to power on North Korea, Ken Starr mounts a weak case for why Obama's eventual Supreme Court nominees will meet resistance, Newsweek proclaims "we are all socialists now" and The Corner's Michael Ledeen warns of our coming fascist future, George Will is stuck in the '70s and doesn't understand science, and former president Bush feels the effects of the economy he help create, reduced to personally soliciting donors for his presidential library.
- Recommended read: Richard Florida's exceptional Atlantic piece on "How the Crash Will Reshape America."
--Mori Dinauer