Latest Column

You have to look at this as a compromise budget from Obama. Steep cuts combined with new taxes and a pathway to universal health care.

Conservatives must understand that they LOST the election. This is the best they can expect for awhile.

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Obama did give a very good speech. The Jindal train wreck made it seem even better. The republican hype of Jindal didn’t work out too well. If there’s a fine line between genius and insanity, Jindal made it even finer. He came across like Opie of New Delhi. The Katrina parts of his speech defied logic. If his goal was to remind the nation of the ineptness of the republican administration’s response, you have to say it was successful. If his goal was to lay out a republican alternative to Obama, it was a disaster. He wasn’t even an effective concern troll.

If nothing else, this proves that drawing an analogy to a musical piece gives you much greater freedom of movement than a comparison to a locker room pep-talk affords.
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I’m still concerned that Obama is indeed promising significantly more than he can deliver. Your use of the word ‘unmanagable’ suggests the same, but he is showing a remarkable talent for making his detractors look like absolute idiots.

A fine column. Thank you for drawing attention to the vacuity, cynicism, and– thank God– massive unpopularity of the GOP.
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You know all those cliches about the Democratic Party in the 1980s and ’90s? That they were rudderless, in the thrall of a radical, politically correct base? Well, they’re all ten times more true today for the GOP. That is the New CW, and there’s no sign that the GOP wants to do anything about it anytime soon.
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I wanted to complain about your point that “there were precious few details about his policy priorities,” but you’re right. Having few policy details is just fine in a 40-minute speech, but you’re right that he didn’t prioritize. It’s not clear that we have any choice but to address about 10 catastrophes at once, but I’m not sure Obama made that explicit.
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A small point: Obama did not “wonk out” with McCain. That is not possible, because McCain doesn’t know anything about anything. He threw a disingenuous talking point at Obama, who shot it down gracefully and substantively.

The modern presidency is a vast electronic synthesizer, capable of exhilarating musical effects or rank cacophony.
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LOL
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If the entitlement summit was a conversational concerto, the budget speech was a full-blown symphony featuring a percussive series of simple declarative sentences that conveyed a sense of command, especially in the emotional heart of the speech, the section on banking reform.
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LOL
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Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a smart fellow if not yet a wise one…
LOL
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All is not joy for Obama, of course. He has to govern.
LOL
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Joe Klein:
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I’m curious: who do you write this stuff for, exactly?
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“…especially in the emotional heart of the speech, the section on banking reform”? “a vast electronic synthesizer”?
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Is this parody of some sort?
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Who do you imagine reading this type of thing when you’re putting hands to keyboard?
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It’s really hard to believe that you’re not lampooning somebody with this, but I just can’t tell who it is, Joe Klein. Who are you mocking?

Obama had to promise a lot because he realized that, if this speech could do anything, it was to inspire confidence. And inspire confidence it did. It’s less important that he provides on everything he said, and more important that he keeps everyone feeling good about the direction of reform so that they will keep the economy going.
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Also, Jindals speech was just terrible, both in tonality and substance. His delivery was amateurish, but his subject matter was just laughable. I can sum up the premise behind it pretty quick.
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“American people, we believe that government can do nothing for you, and republicans proved it by taking control of the government and running it into the ground. Now that that excercise is over, can’t you realize we just wanted to show you how bad it would be if we did anything? Our plan is for you to give it back to us so we can sit on our hands and do nothing, we just like the cushy title. Thank you. Oh, and the American people can do ANYTHING! I have to keep saying that because it’s the only way I can assume they’ll do the improbable and vote back in the GOP.”

Obama is an oratorical genius who can’t be matched. While I agree that Jindal looked the buffon afterward, my take is that it was standard repub buffonery magnified beyond embarassment by Obama’s genius.
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I hate cliches and enjoy creative language. When it is understandable. Asked to describe Little Bush’s oratory, never in a million years, thesaurus and dictionary in hand, would I ever have come up with “clenched orotundity”. Thanks throwing out a word I had never, in 62 years, heard, but I am only going to try using it once. Next I am in the company of shallow minded right wing repubs (is there another kind?), I will not only throw that out in description of Bush, but will also draw ask them about Obmam in relation to Edmund Burke.
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About those “wise conservatives” mentioned in an earlier blog entry, there is not such thing in 2009. Edmund Burke might have been something of that order a few centuries ago. The readership of the “wise conservatives” is not modern “conservative” (god, guns, gays), but independents and dems.

If nothing else, this proves that drawing an analogy to a musical piece gives you much greater freedom of movement than a comparison to a locker room pep-talk affords.
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well, Scherer did produce his within hours of the speech itself. JK took a whole day to write a completely substanceless column.
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A fine column.
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c’mon Elvis. It was Maureen Dowd territory. Just because you agree with the viewpoint represented does not make it a good column.

Buffoon. Didn’t check my dictionary.

The Joe klein column is a vast sausage machine, capable of endless variations on water and rusks with a minimal amount of meat.
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If the discussion of FISA was a rancid sludge, the article on the budget speech was a bloated pseudo-kielbasa featuring a selection of grey offcuts, blended into a strange, indigestible substance that conveyed a sense of haste, especially by the guts of the machine, which cranked out a bloated metaphor, composed mainly of the usual tripe.

Time columnist Joe Klein, a hasty sausage-maker if not yet a nourishing one…

All is not joy for Klein, of course. He has to write.

flagrantenigma: I’ll never eat at McDonalds again. Thanks.

Sacredh, you perceive a cnnection between McDonalds and Joe Klein? Care to elaborate?