“Mitch Daniels: serious, adult, not a wingnut, and articulating a lot of conservatism’s good ideas without a lot of its bulls**t. PLEASE RUN.” –me, on Twitter tonight I wish I’d paid more attention to Governor Mitch Daniels when I was living in Indiana during my time at Notre Dame, but I didn’t really care much about state politics because I… Read more »
We can remove the question mark now. The people have spoken, the dictator has (finally) heard them, and Hosni Mubarak has stepped down after three decades as Egypt’s ruler. What happens next? A true move toward some form of democracy, or Military Dictatorship II: Egyptian Boogaloo? Who the hell knows? For now, the protesters are jubilant. I heard a correspondent… Read more »
The Wall Street Journal‘s David Wessel looks ahead to Obama’s budget, due Monday, and what it may signify about his approach to the looming debt crisis. (You may recall that I blasted Obama after his State of the Union for timidity vis a vis the debt.) Wessel writes that “when Barack Obama’s budget arrives on Monday, the thoughtful will look… Read more »
From a FiveThirtyEight post on presidential approval ratings and re-election chances, a nifty chart: “What does this mean for Barack Obama?” Nate Silver asks rhetorically, then answers: Right now, we’re still in the period where the most useful number for estimating his re-election chances is not his approval rating but rather the historical track record of incumbent presidents. … [S]ince… Read more »
At the end of a fantastic column about Egypt, Ross Douthat says something I was trying to say recently, and says it better: The long-term consequences of a more populist and nationalistic Egypt might be better for the United States than the stasis of the Mubarak era, and the terrorism that it helped inspire. But then again they might be… Read more »
I’m not paying nearly enough attention to events in Egypt, but from the tweets I’m seeing here & there, it’s clear that things are pretty damn serious. What I can’t figure out is whether I should be #PANIC!!!-ing (instability!), rejoicing (democracy!), or both. Anyway, here’s a live feed of Al Jazeera English (though it may be shut down soon, apparently).
Mickey Kaus says it better than me: [Tuesday] night Obama staked “his claim to decades of well-worn political detritus,” writes Ed Kilgore, who accurately notes that the president’s plans “could easily have been harvested from any number of interchangeable speeches given during the last 20 years—not just by presidents but by members of Congress, governors, mayors, and CEOs—from both parties.”… Read more »
Curated and elaborated from my Twitter stream, here are some raw, incomplete, somewhat disjointed thoughts on last night’s State of the Union address: After that underwhelming speech, I have little hope for 2011 and, of course, none for 2012. Obama failed to inspire or lead. And so the nation creeps ever closer to its day of fiscal reckoning, with no… Read more »
Like I said earlier, I’m not sure how much live-tweeting I’ll do during the SOTU tonight. But to the extent I do tweet it — and also, to the extent Becky tweets it — our tweets will appear in the CiL window below. You can join in the conversation by tweeting something “@brendanloy” (or “@MileHighBecky“); those reply tweets, too, will… Read more »
Twas the night before SOTU, and all through the House Not a member was stirring, not even to grouse. The prompters were hung ‘fore the podium with care In hopes that Obama soon would be there. The partisans, nestled all snug in their beds, dreamed of cross-the-aisle prom dates to enhance #NewTone cred. And Bachmann, the wingnut, and Boehner, the… Read more »