State of the Union: Americans Disapprove

January 27, 2010

Column of the year thus far, from the unlikely source of Joel Achenbach: “The American people know what they don’t like, which is: everything. That sounds like nihilism, but they’re against that, too… The common ground that Obama hoped for has turned out to be the size of a bathroom scale.”

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An Asian Century, or the First Global One?

January 25, 2010

Sorman: “Many think that the next G20 meeting, which will take place in Seoul this autumn, represents a transfer of power from West to East, a decline of Western influence, and a geopolitical tectonic shift. Such a hyperbolic vision of history seems justified, at least on the surface, by a series of recent events.”

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Geithner Warns of Fallout if Bernanke is Not Reconfirmed

January 25, 2010

Asked about possible market reaction to a defeat, Geithner said: “I think the markets would view that as a very troubling thing to the economy as a whole. But, as I said, I don’t think they should be uncertain. I think they should be confident because we are very confident he will be reconfirmed.”

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The Great Unalignment: Why Political Parties Change Places so Regularly

January 25, 2010

Matt Bai claims the “entire concept of Rooseveltian realignment is a wishful conceit that should be retired. The realigning swing of the pendulum is almost certainly a relic of another age, never to be replicated, or at least not in our lifetimes.”

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Health Care Talks Collapse in Heap

January 22, 2010

Pelosi and Reid can only force it so far: “The legislative landscape was filled with obstacles: House Democrats won’t pass the Senate bill. Senate Democrats don’t want to start from scratch just to appease the House. And the White House still isn’t telling Congress how to fix the problem.”

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Senate Opposition to Bernanke Grows

January 22, 2010

Spiraling into failure? “I talked to Ben this morning,” said Corker. “I’ve shared with him, I think this AIG situation has certainly created some issues….You’d have to be sort of not alive to realize, no doubt, this AIG situation certainly has been damaging to the Fed.”

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Krauthammer on Massachusetts and the Meaning of Brown

January 22, 2010

Running away from key policies for good? “On Jan. 14, five days before the Massachusetts special election, President Obama was in full bring-it-on mode as he rallied House Democrats behind his health care reform… The bravado lasted three days.”

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Obama Retreats on Health, Searches for Smaller Fallback

January 21, 2010

“One day after losing their filibuster-proof Senate majority in a Massachusetts special election, exhausted Senate Democrats looked downtrodden as they filed into their weekly lunch in a second-floor room at the Capitol. “People are hysterical right now,” said one Senate aide. Party members clashed openly over what to do next.”

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Buffett: I Don't See Any Rationale for Bank Tax

January 21, 2010

“I don’t see any reason why they should be paying a special tax,” said Buffett, the chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., in an interview on Bloomberg Television today. Supporters of the plan to tax the banks “are trying to punish people,” he said. “I don’t see the rationale for it.”

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Forces of Change Now Moving Against Obama

January 20, 2010

The chief lesson of Massachusetts: “The same forces of disgust with establishment politicians and hunger for change in Washington that vaulted Obama to power 14 months ago can be harnessed with equal success by people who want to stop his agenda in its tracks.”

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