In the ArenaWar
I’ve been trying to figure out how best to celebrate and mourn the members of Seal Team Six and our Afghan allies who were shot down in a Chinook helicopter last week. Hugh Hewitt does it well here. And I would add: those who would see this tragedy as another opportunity to make political points, on either side–please don’t. Not that …
In the ArenaViewpoint
I suspect that this piece by Drew Westen is going to cause a ruckus. Certainly, it will crystallize the concern in the Democratic Party about Barack Obama. A lot of us have been picking around the edges of the problem of Obama’s curiously unsatisfying presidency–I’ve written more than twice about the President’s failure to directly take …
In the ArenaViewpoint
Given its fabulously incompetent and quite possibly corrupt performance in the events leading up to the 2008 financial collapse, it takes a fair amount of chutzpah for Standard and Poor’s to downgrade US treasuries, especially after the debt ceiling deal proved that back-against-the-wall compromise can still be had in American politics, …
In the ArenaLibya
While Washington was dealing with the absolutely crucial debt ceiling waste of time, the world has remained in business…or, perhaps, in chaos. Libya, for example. No sooner did the primary western countries, including the U.S., recognize the Libyan rebel “government,” than did that government start fracturing. A military leader was …
In the ArenaViewpoint
Right now, as I write this, CNN is interviewing Donald Trump about the debt ceiling deal. This is the same dude who pulled everyone’s chain last spring, “running” for President to boost his reality-show’s rating, by saying some of the most outlandish stuff imaginable about the President. And CNN is consulting him as someone who might …
In the ArenaViewpoint
Mitt Romney demonstrates, yet again, why he lacks the character for higher office:
“As President, my plan would have produced a budget that was cut, capped and balanced – not one that opens the door to higher taxes and puts defense cuts on the table. President Obama’s leadership failure has pushed the economy to the brink at the
…
In the ArenaViewpoint
I agree with most of what Paul Krugman has to say about the debt deal–with one crucial exception. He’s right that Obama should have included raising the debt ceiling in last December’s tax deal…but he’s wrong, I think, about the President using what we’ll call “constitutional means”–the 14th Amendment–to blow past this silly, …
In the ArenaViewpoint
The ever-rational Matt Miller nails it. We are a joke.
In the ArenaViewpoint
Let us not put too fine a point on it: Thursday’s House vote on Speaker John Boehner’s debt ceiling proposal is a joke. If it passes the House, Harry Reid has said it is dead on arrival in the Senate. If it somehow passes the …
In the ArenaViewpoint
Another awful week for the Republic–and some interesting decisions by the President. He chose to compromise in his deficit reduction negotiations with the Republicans…and got nowhere. He chose to compromise by not appointing Elizabeth Warren the director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau…and got nowhere.
You’re expecting …
In the ArenaViewpoint
Well, this was one of the more exhilarating days of legislative politics we’ve had in quite some time. The Senate’s Gang of Six came up with the deal everyone thought impossible–upwards of $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade, a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases with some very attractive tax reform thrown in. …
In the ArenaViewpoint
David Leonhardt does his usual excellent job explaining why the economy is lagging: People are still more concerned about working down their debts than in buying new things (and running up new debts). As candidate Barack Obama told me in October, 2008, “The easy credit economy is over and we have to find what’s going to drive the …
In the ArenaViewpoint
Mark Blumenthal has put together an array of polling that shows the influence of the Tea Party on the Republican Party. The bottom line spells dark times for reasonable conservatives. The Tea Party represents a critical mass of Republican primary votes, and a distinct minority of the general electorate. This means one thing short-term …
