Bill Clinton is out there making great new headlines and laying out the case every day now… invaluable for the campaign – and a great comfort in framing things.
“This shouldn’t be a race. The only reason it is, is because Americans are impatient on things not made before yesterday and they don’t understand why the economy is not totally hunky-dory again.”
– Bill Clinton, quoted by the AP.
(Via Pwire.)
Just starting watching a new series from HBO today – with a great pilot from Atlantic City in the 1920s and Prohibition. 18 Emmy nominations, directed by Martin Scorsese, great music and visuals, nice characters. Steve Buscemi is doing a great job, same with Al Capone and Lucky Luciano. Off to a promising start.
The ’84 candidate who lost 49 states to Ronald Reagan writes an Op-Ed about taxes in Wapo today. The crux of it is this:
We will not be able to control our budget deficits without raising taxes. That simple reality has brought us to a moment of truth in American politics. President Obama’s speech Wednesday lived up to that moment, and now Democrats and Republicans in Congress must take a similar stand.
This is the title of a post by Sullivan over at the Dish. After some days of disbelief – he landed on this:
Many of us supported this president because he promised to bring back the constitutional balance after the theories of Yoo, Delahunty, et al put the president on a par with emperors and kings in wartime. And yet in this Libya move, what difference is there between Bush and Obama? In some ways, Bush was more respectful of the Congress, waiting for a vote of support before launching us like an angry bird into the desert. Hillary Clinton, channeling her inner Cheney, said in a classified Congressional briefing that her administration would simply ignore the War Powers Resolution of 1973 that requires the president to seek Congressional approval within 60 days of the conflict starting. If the congress voted against continuing the war, it would be irrelevant to the administration. Beat that, King George III.
This sums it up. Disaster has struck, and things are truly in horrible shape.
Last full column from Bob Herbert in the New York Times:
..
Losing Our Way
By BOB HERBERT
So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home.
Welcome to America in the second decade of the 21st century. An army of long-term unemployed workers is spread across the land, the human fallout from the Great Recession and long years of misguided economic policies. Optimism is in short supply. The few jobs now being created too often pay a pittance, not nearly enough to pry open the doors to a middle-class standard of living.
