Morning Must Reads: Albatross

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Reuters

Reuters/Jason Redmond

–Congress returns from recess to a full plate.

–Minority Leader Boehner, for a fleeting moment, flirts with compromise on the Bush tax cuts.

–Jerry Brown takes the bait from that Whitman ad featuring Bill Clinton and, to the chagrin of Democrats everywhere, goes after the former president:

–Basel III, that very important international banking regulation accord I mentioned after financial reform passed, has produced a set of agreements on capital requirements. Felix Salmon has a worthwhile overview of what they will do, but the long and short of it is this: Once everything is finalized, ratified, enough time passes, etc., banks will have to hold more (and higher quality) capital in reserve in case things go south. Our colleague Michael Schuman ponders how the new rules will effect growth.

–Newt Gingrich has amended his “secular, socialist machine” anti-Obama repertoire to include “Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior.” Dave Weigel unpacks it a bit.

–James Surowiecki at the New Yorker muddles over why the stimulus has been a political flop. The gist:

Bizarre as it may seem, a less well-designed stimulus might have been more popular, and that would have made it easier for Obama to sell the electorate on his new stimulus proposals. But, given the scope and depth of the recession, it’s also likely that any stimulus would have become a political albatross.

–Sewell Chan revisits vacancies in the highest levels of economic decision making.

–The Weekly Standard digs into Delaware Tea Party insurgent Christine O’Donnell’s past.

–And Charlie Rangel takes to the streets.

What did I miss?

E-mail Adam