Jim Wilson / New York Times

From Greg Breining’s New York Times piece about a doglsedding in Montana.

There is a widespread and quite wrong conservative interpretation of the present political moment as being very much like 1993, but where Clinton mistook a repudiation of Bush for an endorsement of an aggressive Democratic agenda it is the GOP that has misread what just happened last year. Most of the right seems to expect a replay of ‘93-’94, and so are sticking to the same tactics that they used then (including the turn to Limbaugh and the return of Gingrich)…

Conservatives seem to have spent the last year rapidly regressing from cheering on lame politicians who could at least intelligently recite their platitudes (Romney) to worshipping pseudo-populists who could not even do that (Palin) to elevating random guys who didn’t like taxes (the Plumber) to rallying around a radio host who makes Romney’s own brand of Reagan nostalgia and three-legs-of-the-stoolism seem deep and meaningful by comparison. Of course, there isn’t that much substantively different between Romney’s opportunistic recitations and Limbaugh’s boilerplate, but at least with Romney you knew that he was capable of saying something else and would have said it if he had thought it was to his advantage. The boilerplate is not only all Limbaugh knows how to say, but if you pressed him to elaborate on any of it he would just repeat himself.

“The Republican Party is going to have to adhere to its principles, because they are foundational and they are important. But they need to be presented in a hopeful, optimistic, up-tempo, modern, practical way, and that’s not what we have been doing recently. We’ve become too petty and angry in many aspects. That’s unappealing to swing voters.”

-Tim Pawlenty, 02.23.09

These politicians are not standing up for principle. They are grandstanding. Most of them (particularly Palin, Sanford, and Jindal) are trying to raise their national profile and give themselves a talking point to use in a future presidential run.

Moreover, they are doing so in direct contravention of the interests of their own constituents. These folks are not federal office holders. Their duty is to look after the interests of the people of their respective states, not to police the federal budget. If they were CEOs of a corporation or trustees of organization or trust, this kind of action would be seen as a breach of their fiduciary duties. They would get sued. And rightfully so. By turning down federal stimulus money, they would be inflicting harm on their own citizens.”

-Anonymous Liberal, 02.20.09

The latest:

We’ve now found a case of lead Coleman lawyer Joe Friedberg actually being concerned about ballot fraud, and wanting to keep a vote out as a result — so much so that he’ll speculate about a Franken-voter being mentally disabled.

Really. No joke.

In court just now, lead Franken lawyer Marc Elias went over a rejected ballot envelope for which he said a power of attorney had been granted by a disabled voter, to allow a family member to fill it out. The issue was that the mark made to authorize the family member was not a signature or a conventional “X”, but was instead an amorphous scribble. Elias and Goodhue County elections official Carolyn Holmsted spent some time hashing it out.

Then Friedberg took issue with this whole idea of the power of attorney to fill out a ballot, which is a specifically allowed clause in Minnesota law for disabled voters.

It would be a regressive move that would hinder the development of  highly fuel efficient cars, whereas the gas tax punishes inefficient cars.

I realize that parts suppliers will have hard times if GM fails, but the reality is that suppliers success is based on public demand for cars. If the public is demanding cars from Company A instead of Company B, then the suppliers need to also be providing parts for Company A.

This is really pathetic:

In its own restructuring plan, GM said Tuesday it would need up to $30 billion from the U.S. Treasury Department, up from a previous estimate of $18 billion and including $13.4 billion it has already received. It also said it would need to cut 47,000 jobs worldwide and close five more U.S. factories. GM said it needed about $6 billion in support from the governments of Canada, Germany, Britain, Sweden and Thailand to provide liquidity for its overseas operations in those countries.

Tom Toles / Washinton Post

The Stimulus Bill battle is a good example. The Dems needed Specter, Collins and Snowe to get the thing through. With Franken they would have needed only two of those votes. I don’t know precisely what each of them wanted. But I don’t think there’s much doubt that would have led to a less watered-down bill. And it seems quite possible that that missing vote will play a similarly consequential role in the weeks ahead. Perhaps in the months ahead.

The court process has to play itself out. There’s no way around that — though the judges seem ready to strangle Coleman. But we could do with a little more recognition of the fact that this is not about getting Norm Coleman into the senate. It’s about paying money to give the Republicans a few more months of leverage against the Democrats 59 seat majority.”

-Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, 02.18.09

A Republican is suggesting bank nationalization and a Democrat thinks it is a bad idea.

~ ~ ~

To be honest, this should be an interesting situation to playout in the coming months. My take is that the Obama Administration will opt against a one size fits all approach. I believe they sent a clue as to their intention by Treasury Sec. Geithner’s discussion of “stress tests” on banks.

The tests themselves will publicize just how poorly managed some of the banks are; thereby allowing more leeway from the American public in how best to handle the situation.