–It’s the question of the moment and Crowley captures the White House’s delicate balancing act well in this week’s cover story for dead tree TIME:
Is the U.S. on a firm path to recovery — one that just needs more time to play out? Or are we trapped in the doldrums, perhaps en route to a lost decade like the one Japan had in the 1990s? Worst of all, could we be headed for a terrifying reprise of 1937, when a U.S. economy fighting its way out of the Great Depression crashed a second time, requiring the massive industrial effort of World War II to rejuvenate it?
You can read an abridged version here, download the iPad app here or subscribe here.
–As Harry Reid prepares to file for cloture on financial reform, journalists prepare to break out the “sweeping overhaul” ledes for the second time this year.
–Why Reid can win re-election despite his unpopularity: He’s raising enough money to run wild with brutal ads like this one:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqlfjMQVAE8]
–Tomorrow’s energy talking points today: “light switch tax.”
–Senate Republicans retaliate over the Berwick recess appointment.
–Mark Halperin handicaps the 2012 field, hears Mitt Romney’s people taking shots at Palin.
–Romney is raising twice as much money as his rivals.
–Not the last you’ll here of it: Bob McDonnell steers Virginia to a $220 million budget surplus.
–Gubernatorial candidate Scott Mcinnis gets mired deeper in a plagiarism flap, some Colorado Republicans think his goose is cooked.
–Rand Paul gets forthright in the National Review.
–And financial reform: It’s all in the wrist.
What did I miss?