Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
–BP’s containment cap made some progress over the weekend.
–The administration’s not slapping any backs quite yet. They expect clean-up efforts to last at least through the fall. Thad Allen is on deck for today’s White House press briefing.
—Underestimating risk might be the theme of the decade.
—Geithner wants to be able to go to the G20 summit with final financial reform language in hand.
–Jay and Katy cue up tomorrow’s super primary Tuesday nicely. Tea Party favs Sharron Angle and Nikki Haley look strong in Nevada and South Carolina respectively.
–The AP, in what is perhaps a bit of a causal leap, reports midterm jitters have put the kibosh on spending.
–Democrats remember last summer.
–Paul Krugman questions the logic of (U.S.) austerity measures. Reihan Salam questions the efficiency of stimulus.
–It looks like Charlie Crist will be hit hardest by RPOF spending scrutiny in the end. His handpicked party chairman Jim Greer has turned on Crist and Co. in wake of being slapped with a handful of felony charges.
–Mitch Daniels gets a Weekly Standard cover. (Cue the ’12 buzz.)
—Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman write public employee unions have become hot political targets. Teachers unions are chief among them, and this New York Times Sunday mag piece from a few weeks back is well worth a read.
–And Arizona looks to remake its image. Second City saw this coming.
I missed a lot in the last two weeks, but you readers didn’t thanks to Michael, Kate, Alex and Jay. My two cents from 30,000 feet: The Gaza Flotilla incident has put the Obama administration in another impossible situation vis-à-vis Israel, but their ambivalence can only last so long. It is difficult to overstate the gravity of the Gulf Oil spill and difficult to understate the gravity of Jim Messina’s overtures to Andrew Romanoff.
What did I miss?