PUT YOUR PROGRESSIVE DREAMS ON A SHELF UNTIL JANUARY 2017

Headlines right now:

Drive to Repeal 'Don't Ask' Policy All but Lost for Now (Wall Street Journal)

GOP Takeover In The House May Spell Doom For Obama's Environmental Policies (Talking Points Memo)

And, from The Economist (hat tip: Balloon Juice), I see that the rejection of federal funding for high-speed rail by current and soon-to-be Republican governors is going to put that funding back in the pool for other states ... unless it doesn't:

It will be interesting to see whether the Obama administration can convince the lame-duck Democratic congress to reassign the money -- or whether the GOP-run House will try to cancel the spending entirely next year.

On the eve of the midterms, Rachel Maddow made a powerful argument for Democrats, listing a lot of achievements. But this was her point:

The Democratic Party has had control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives for the last 21 months.... When they won those last two elections and they took control of the two branches of government that are subject to partisan control in our country, they could have governed in a way that was about accumulating political capital with the primary goal of winning the next election. They could have governed in constant campaign mode. Or they could have governed in a way that was about using their political capital, not accumulating more of it, about spending the political capital they had to get a legislative agenda done, to tackle big, complex, longstanding problems that had languished. The record of legislative achievement of the last 21 months was not designed to win the midterm elections and it will not win the midterm elections. The pendulum will swing back toward the Republicans and we'll go back to divided government again. The legislative agenda of the last 21 months was policy, not politics. It was designed to get stuff done for the country. And in that sense, it's an investment in long-term political reward, not short-term political reward, as Democrats expect after a list of accomplishments like this to be judged as the party that took on problems when it had the chance, even if they had to pay a short-term political price.

But it's not about them paying a political price. It's about us paying the price as a country.

Right now, even the moderate, incremental ambitions of the White House and congressional Democrats are going to be stymied for two years. And then, given the strong probability that the economy is going to be as bad as it is now or even worse (partly because of Republican intransigence), we as a nation are going to punish the president's party again and elect an all-GOP federal government. Now, since we're probably in a lost economic decade, that president will probably be deemed a failure, too. But he or she will control policy until January 20, 2017, and will hold the veto pen until that date even if we have another party-switching wave election in 2014.

And he or she will be, among other things, a homophobe and a climate-change denialist. No one who isn't will be able to win the Republican nomination in 2012.

So, yeah, DADT repeal is off the table -- until 2017 at the earliest. A change to our environmental approach is off the table -- until 2017 at the earliest. High-speed rail is off the table -- until 2017 at the earliest.

This is why Democrats shouldn't have spent all their political capital. This is why they shouldn't have assumed they didn't need to build up more. This is why even just seeming to feel America's economic pain was necessary, instead of a year-long monomaniacal pursuit of health care reform.

Because all that tackling of big, complex, longstanding problems? It's over -- for the next six years.

JUST ANOTHER OLDER WORKER THE BOSSES WANT TO REPLACE WITH SOMEONE YOUNGER AND CHEAPER?

I certainly see politics as a reason MSNBC's bosses might want to go after Keith Olbermann -- politics or quite possibly Olbermann's (completely understandable) vendetta against Fox News (former Clinton technology adviser Susan Crawford has pointed out to The Hill that MSNBC's new corporate overlord, Comcast, runs cable systems and thus needs to stay in the good graces of Fox, which a major content provider).

But (even as MSNBC announces that Olbermann will return to the air tomorrow night) I'm struck by a Mike Allen post at Politico, and this Mediaite's gloss on that post. Allen:

Network sources tell Playbook that Keith Olbermann was suspended because he refused to deliver an on-camera mea culpa, which would have allowed him to continue anchoring "Countdown." ... Olbermann may not hold as many cards as he thinks. He makes $7 million a year and MSNBC's prime time is not as dependent on him as it was before the addition of Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, who make considerably less.

Mediate:

MSNBC's ratings certainly back up the last line about Olbermann not holding as many cards as he thinks, something Steve Krakauer pointed out on Friday: "Rachel Maddow is getting better ratings than Olbermann in the key A25-54 demographic, and Lawrence O'Donnell isn't far behind. Olbermann is no longer the center of the strategy either -- as the network has unveiled a vibrant, massive new campaign "Lean Forward" which focuses on half a dozen members of the MSNBC talent pool."

Maybe it's an absurd analogy at this economic level, but it seems to me that Olbermann is just another fiftysomething worker (he's my age) who's put in the years and gotten the raises and benefits, but whose bosses wouldn't mind replacing him with someone cheaper and preferably younger. (Olbermann is 14 years older than Maddow, and while O'Donnell is older than either of them, he has a lot of irons in the fire, including movies and fictional TV.) Olbermann is still doing quite well in his time slot, but now he knows he's expendable. He's not the only worker his age who's been made to feel esdpecially vulnerable these days.

Although perhaps Maddow is the real target here. She's being shown what might happen if she starts demanding Olbermann money -- she might persuade the company to give it to her, but she'll be in the crosshairs.

I think CNN ought to bail on this centrism nonsense and just poach Olbermann and Maddow. Put crazy Nancy Grace in Larry King's slot and turn Headline News into what MSNBC is now. You think that'll hurt CNN's brand? In America, CNN is practically at the level of public access, while, by the standards of most nations overseas, Maddow and Olbermann are centrists.

MILBANK'S SELECTIVE MEMORY FOR 2008 (AND THE 1990s)

Dana Milbank wonders how things would be different now if Hillary Clinton were president, but he's forgetting quite a few things about our recent past:

...Would unemployment have been lower under a President Hillary? Would the Democrats have lost fewer seats on Tuesday? It's impossible to know. But what can be said with confidence is that Clinton's toolkit is a better match for the current set of national woes than they were for 2008, when her support for the Iraq war dominated the campaign.

Back then, Clinton's populist appeal to low-income white voters, union members and workers of the Rust Belt was not enough to overcome Obama's energized youth vote. But Clinton's working-class whites were the very ones who switched to the Republicans on Tuesday.

Let's stop right there.

Yes, we know that Hillary Clinton became the Queen of the Working Class for a few months in 2008. But how did that happen? It happened in large part because she began seeking out white voters driven by racial animus only when the delegate math showed clearly (to everyone but her) that she'd been beaten. Her efforts were reinforced by propaganda from Republicans and GOP operatives who wanted to divide the Democratic Party and possibly produce a divided convention -- all of a sudden they were full of praise for her.

Now, can we discuss what they would have been saying about her if she'd genuinely had a chance to win the nomination as the primaries moved into Appalachian states, or if she'd already handily defeated Obama, or if he'd never run? She wouldn't be the working-class queen. She'd be the Alinsky-addled anti-war radical of vintage-1992 propaganda. She'd be the evil baby boomer who as senator sought funds for a Woodstock museum -- the subject of a series of John McCain attacks during the early days of the 2008 campaign. (Yes, please recall that even before he won the nomination, McCain was running against Clinton -- and doing so by caricaturing her as a dirty '60s commie.) If she'd remained in contention and won the nomination, we'd have heard that kind of talk all through 2008 -- and every day since, if she'd won the general election. (How she'd have won the primaries and general election under those circumstances is a mystery to me.)

More:

... The Clinton campaign advisers acknowledge that she probably would have done the auto bailout and other things that got Obama labeled as a socialist. The difference is that she would have coupled that help for big business with more popular benefits for ordinary Americans.

Clinton, for example, first called for a 90-day foreclosure moratorium in December 2007, as part of a package to fight the early stages of the mortgage crisis with a five-year freeze on subprime rates and $30 billion to avoid foreclosures....

And the response to all of this by Rick Santelli (and, subsequently, by Dick Armey and Fox News and their minions) would have been what exactly?

Some differences would have been stylistic. As a senator from New York, Clinton had good relations with Wall Street. As the heir to her husband's donor base, she would have had more executives in government -- envoys who would have been able to ease the uncertainty about tax and regulatory policy that has been crippling business.

I'm struggling to figure out how "good relations with Wall Street" and reconcile with "90-day foreclosure moratorium" and "five-year freeze on subprime rates and $30 billion to avoid foreclosures." I'm guessing either the mortgage relief measures would have been her first broken promise, at her Wall Street pals' insistence, or the Republicans would have made these measures the subject of her tea party "socialist"/"fascist" demonization.

And I'm really struggling to figure out how "more executives in government" reconciles with "more popular benefits for ordinary Americans." If we've learned nothing from the past few years, haven't we at least learned that, when the economic pie shrinks, fat cats demand as much pie as they get in good years, plus the usual large percentage increase in pie allotment, even if it means non-fat-cats get no pie at all, and have to bake extra pie to make sure fat cats get their due?

Zandar adds:

Unless Hillary could have gotten a significantly larger stimulus, the answer is she'd be in the same boat. The GOP would have blocked her every move, Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman would have jerked her around, and instead of birthers we'd have Clinton truthers refighting every stupid thing from 1997. Instead of pushing Obama's race to separate white working-class men in the Rust Belt from the Democrats, the GOP would have pushed gender fears instead. Rush wouldn't be making racist jokes, just misogynist ones.

Sarah Palin would still be throwing around her Mama Grizzly scat everywhere, the distractions of Michelle Obama, woman with Big Arms and Food Police, would be replaced with Hey What's First Dude Bill Doin'? Hillarycare would still be Hillarycare and not have gotten passed at all, we'd still have firebaggers because of that (Hillary wasn't progressive enough arrrrrgh!), energy and immigration still would have gotten blocked and we'd still be in the same damn mess we are right now.

No difference. Oh and the youth vote still wouldn't have turned out.

Not much I can add to that. Except that John McCain might very well be secretary of defense, and we might already have invaded Iran.

REPUBLICANS' HEALTH-CARE PLAN: TWO YEARS' WORTH OF TWO-MINUTES' HATES

I actually think Republicans are going to get more benefit from their plan to chip away at the health care law than they would from a quick, successful repeal by a veto-proof majority:

... they said they hoped to use the power of the purse to challenge main elements of the law, forcing Democrats -- especially those in the Senate who will be up for re-election in 2012 -- into a series of votes to defend it.

Republican lawmakers said, for example, that they would propose limiting the money and personnel available to the Internal Revenue Service, so the agency could not aggressively enforce provisions that require people to obtain health insurance and employers to help pay for it....

Moreover, Republican leaders said, they plan to use spending bills to block federal insurance regulations to which they object. And they will try to limit access to government-subsidized private health plans that include coverage of abortion -- one of the most contentious issues in Congressional debate over the legislation....

The Congressional Budget Office says the Internal Revenue Service will need $5 billion to $10 billion over 10 years to determine who is eligible for tax credits and other subsidies intended to make insurance affordable. The Department of Health and Human Services will need at least that much to carry out changes in Medicaid, Medicare and the private insurance market, the budget office said.

The law provided $11 billion for community health centers to serve 20 million more low-income people, including many expected to gain coverage under the law....

"House Republicans cannot enact legislation the president won't sign," said R. Scott Lilly, a former Democratic staff director of the House Appropriations Committee. "But the president cannot force them to appropriate money they don't want to appropriate."

This is from a New York Times article today -- there's not much in it that's new, but it's just a reminder of how many little battles the Republicans can fight in the next two years -- the kinds of battles that work perfectly as Fox News rallying points. (Tax money for more IRS agents! Tax money for clinics in poor neighborhoods!)

In a way, it's best for them to do this slowly. I know that George W. Bush was ultimately undone by the failures of his wars, but I'm convinced that he actually got reelected in 2004 precisely because the wars were ongoing and he could rally his voters around the ongoing fighting; his father, by contrast, went into Iraq, got out quickly, and had no similar rallying point. Republicans will use this going into 2012 the way W. used Iraq in particular -- failure to overturn health care reform means the fight isn't over

And no, I don't even entertain the notion that Democrats, with their godawful messaging skills, will ever find a way to rally the public around the bill. They needed to do that, and they could have done it -- they still could do it -- but I say that only theoretically: a theoretically imaginable Democratic Party could theoretically have made the health care bill popular. The Democratic Party that actually exists couldn't concoct a successful pro-life-preserver message for an electorate consisting exclusively of passengers on the Titanic.

PUNK THE 'PUBS AND THE 'BAGGERS!

Come on, folks -- can't we figure out a way to make this an agenda item in state capitals all over the country, which I think would be the easiest way possible to discredit teabaggers (and Republicans in general) in the eyes of swing voters?

Freshly reelected Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) just isn't ready to give up on the secession talk that made him a topic of conversation last year. Taking a national victory lap after his election to an unprecedented third term this week, Perry is out talking up his new plan to break up the union, kind of: It's time, he says, to let states opt out of Social Security.

... "When you look at social security, it's broke," Perry told the hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe [yesterday] morning. "My kids, 27 and 24, they know this is a Ponzi scheme." ...

Perry says seceding from Social Security is just one of many ways the system could get fixed....

We should start groups with names like Secede from Socialism. We should festoon these groups' Web sites with Gadsden flags and links to tea party groups. We should hold demonstrations demanding secession from Social Security -- demonstrations in which we wear tricorn hats and eighteenth-century garb, and which always begin with the Pledge of Allegiance (don't forget the "under God"!).

We should liaise with real tea party groups, and lobby far-right state legislators (wearing the tricorn hats and knee breeches!) until some of them actually introduce bills to do this. We should get this to the point where real teabaggers do all the work because they think it's such a wonderful, constitutional idea.

At that point, I want to grab some popcorn and watch the reaction of all those people -- especially older people -- who aren't teabaggers but who think the teabaggers are fine, virtuous, admirable patriots. I want to watch them freak the hell out.

Really now -- why can't we do this?

PROOF THAT WE ALREADY DON'T HAVE "DIVIDED GOVERNMENT"

It seems reasonable to assume that the suspension of Keith Olbermann is an attempt to curry favor with our new Republican overlords, quite possibly at the instigation of Kabletown Comcast chief operating officer Steve Burke, a major Bush fund-raiser, who's slated to take over MSNBC.

But, um, I thought what we were facing in Washington was divided government -- y'know, Republicans control one house of Congress, while Democrats still control the Senate and the White House?

I realize this gets into issues like the big difference between office-holding Democrats and genuine progressives of the Olbermann variety -- but still, the enemy of one's enemy is (usually) one's friend, right? In theory, shouldn't the president and other Democrats want to have the back of someone who's fighting the people they're fighting? Shouldn't they want MSNBC/Comcast to worry about negative consequences from doing something like this? Shouldn't both parties have the potential power to punish at this moment?

I know, I know: elected Democrats don't really share much of Olbermann's worldview or agenda. But beyond that, these fat cats can see that Obama and Congressional Dems won't use the power they still have.

That's an ongoing problem for Obama. I know I say this all the time, but consider the fact that Rupert Murdoch threw in his lot with Tony Blair when Blair seemed inevitable in England (and, by the way, endorsed Cuomo over Palladino this year in New York, the home base of Murdoch's U.S. interests), yet Murdoch and his media empire declared war on Obama from the very beginning of the administration, doubling down on the crazy in the last two years. Simple explanation: nobody fears Obama. Murdoch figured out early that he wasn't all that tough.

Obama could instill fear if he wanted to -- certainly in this case. But everyone knows he won't.

DOES KRISTOL FEAR ACCOUNTABILITY BLOWBACK?

I could be naive and say that Bill Kristol wrote this as a matter of principle, but really, when has he ever done anything that wasn't about what's best for his side?

Keep Keith!
On Olbermann’s unjust suspension.

First, he donated money to candidates he liked. He didn't take money, or favors, in a way that influenced his reporting.

Second, he's not a reporter. It's an opinion show. If Olbermann wants to put his money where his mouth is, more power to him.

Third, GE, the corporate parent of MSNBC, gives money to political organizations. GE executives and, I'm sure, NBC executives give money. Why can't Olbermann?...

Republicans of the world, show you believe in the free expression of opinion! Tell the crony corporatists at NBC -- keep Keith!

Yeah, right. More like: Republicans of the world, don't let MSNBC actually fire Keith -- what if that starts a media-wide craze for holding political talking heads to higher standards? How do we then keep Karl Rove, whose organization basically replaced the RNC as a fund-raising arm of the GOP, on the air at Fox, not to mention practically all the A-list Republican presidential candidates? How do we justify everything else Fox and its hosts do to enrich the GOP and Republican-linked groups, including the tea party movement (which, last time I looked, was 99% Republican, if not 100%)?

I think Kristol's worried about nothing -- no one ever holds Republicans to standards like this. But I'm sure he's doing this out of group self-interest, not out of any sense of fairness or generosity of spirit.

PROLONGING THE BUSH TAX CUT AGONY

Politico's Mike Allen reports:

WHERE THE TAX-CUT FIGHT IS GOING: Hill sources tell us an income of up to $250,000 a year "is dead as the dividing line" for distinguishing the middle class in extending the Bush tax cuts, based on input from wounded returning Dems. Instead, negotiations will begin around a figure like $500,000 or $1 million. The administration play is to try to "decouple" the middle- and upper-class extensions, with a permanent extension for the middle class and a temporary extension for the top tier (maybe one or two years). "That gives us a better message," said a key Dem. aide.

No it doesn't, you idiot. You think that's going to stop Republicans from whining The small businesses! What about the poor, suffering small businesses? Of course it isn't -- not even at a million bucks. Never mind the fact that the definition of "small business" takes in big Wall Street players, very well-to-do professionals, and others for whom we shouldn't shed any tears; this myth won't die, and the GOP messaging will (as usual) prevail.

More from Mike Allen:

... Most likely outcome on tax cuts: a ONE-YEAR EXTENSION FOR EVERYONE. Second most likely outcome: GOP takes up a retroactive extension as one of the first big pushes of the new Congress.

A couple of days ago I told you that I just want the Democrats to put an end to this process, which is futile because it always ends with them failing to stand their ground. I thought that was the likely outcome -- the usual pattern for Republicans is, after all, to demand 100% of what they want and define any concessions as treason -- but Digby said a couple of days ago that she thought Republicans really might accept something less than a permanent extension, and I think she's right:

I think this may be the one "compromise" the Republicans agree to. They will get credit for extending the cuts from the public, credit for bipartisan cooperation from the Village --- and most importantly, they will still get to run on the issue again going into the presidential election.

Bingo -- and I'll add that they'll lull Obama into believing they can be reasoned with.

Meanwhile, they'll have set the pattern: we'll have this battle every year (which they'll win each time), at least until they take over the entire federal government. And the first subsequent battle will presumably be just before the Iowa caususes and New Hampshire primaries. Will Obama have a nettlesome primary challenger from the left by then? And if he and the congressional Dems support yet another extension (a near-certainty), will he be embarrassed (and weakened) by that challenger's subsequent strong showing? Given the GOP's utter lack of interest in governance and monomaniacal fixation on winning, I absolutely believe the party's leadership has gamed this out and imagined precisely that. (Hell, I think Karl Rove saw back in 2000 that the 2010 deadline would be a problem for Democrats going into the midterms. He's nerdy that way.)

UNDER THE LOVING CARE OF THE MOTHERLY, MOOSE-SHOOTIN' LEADER

There's a clip of Sarah Palin's new reality series up at the Huffington Post, accompanied by the headline "Sarah Palin Complains About Invasion Of Her Privacy On First Episode Of Her Reality Show." Yeah, yeah, feel the irony ...

But I'm not sure that's how it's going to play in Peoria. Even I, a Palin-loather, assume that she has near-total control over this reality series, while the "invader" she's complaining about, Joe McGinniss, is doing something she and Todd can't stage-manage. Which wouldn't bother me a bit -- Sarah, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the klieg lights -- except that McGinniss has been a bit of a jerk, and that house he moved into next door to her (I was never quite sure of this until I saw the clip) seems really close. Thus, McGinniss's presence is likely to elicit sympathy for Palin -- which is something no right-thinking person should ever do.

But I'm more interested in how Palin is presented in the clip, and in a Time magazine slideshow of images from the broadcast. In the clip, we first see her out on her patio with a book, then Todd approaches and asks her, "Get some work done?" This is just shamelessly staged -- it's obviously an attempt to rebut the notion that she's an illiterate bubblehead.

Nearly every photo in the slideshow is like that, too -- either an image meant to dispel the notion of unseriousness or an image meant to be iconic. Iconic: Palin with a hunting rifle! Palin riding an ATV in camo! Mama Sarah serving dinner! Serious: Palin at a desk preparing for a Fox interview! Palin reading a briefing book!

There's friction these days between Palin and Karl Rove, but Rove had George W. Bush creating iconic images like this of himself -- not just the brush clearing and the wearing of uniforms but the conspicuous carrying of books, accompanied by talk of book-reading contests with Rove.

Another guy who did this? Saddam Hussein. As I said a few years ago, during Saddam's reign, murals of him were all over Iraq,

each ... focused on a unique aspect of Saddam's alleged greatness: Saddam the giver of life. Saddam the war strategist. Saddam the devout and powerful Muslim leader.... Saddam the rifleman in a bowler hat. Saddam the who-the-hell-knows (a gaucho?).

Palin as Saddam? Let's compare and contrast:

You be the judge.

PASTOR OF PALIN AND COULTER'S FAVORITE CHURCH: SO CRAZY IT'S A WONDER HE WASN'T A TEABAG CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS

Sarah Palin just gets fringier -- and below I'll provide some background on the very fringy character at the center of this story:

Sarah Palin has used her Twitter account for a variety of things, including endorsements of key candidates during the 2010 midterm elections. But, and stay with us here, Palin's account features a retweet of an Ann Coulter tweet that links to this image:

Coulter's tweet, which is listed among Palin's "favorites," introduces the photo with the phrase, "MY NEW CHURCH!" The photo is of "The Blood of Jesus ATLAH World Missionary Church," and the text on the sign reads, "The blood of Jesus against Obama History made 4 Nov 2008 a Taliban Muslim illegally elected president USA: Hussein." The New York City-based church is led by James David Manning....

(Palin has since insisted to ABC News that she had nothing to do with favoriting this tweet.)

Now, about the church in question: it's a Harlem-based house of worship where the pastor is one Reverend James Manning, whose comments about Barack Obama include the following:

"His African-in-heat father went a-whoring after a trashy white woman."

"[Obama] was born trash."

"He got started -- you didn't notice him 'til he brought out those big-chested white women with their tight T-shirts and their short pants."

"That's what a pimp does. He's a mack daddy. He pimps white women and black women. Obama is a long-legged mack daddy."

If you want to watch the "sermon" in which he said these things, go here (embedding is disabled).Otherwise, here's a Manning highlight reel. No need to watch the whole thing; you'll get the gist from the first few moments:



(YouTube has more, though he's had a number of videos pulled down over there.)

Manning, a sometime Alex Jones guest and an especial favorite of the Freepers, calls Obama the Antichrist; he has argued that Obama never attended Columbia University and that he was a CIA operative when he seemed to be attending Columbia University, and he's announced a plan to conduct trial to demonstrate this; he thinks Obama is "a homosexual drug user forever." He also says he is willing to die to expose the (literal) deviltry of Obama.

So, nice one, Sarah, or whoever you hired to do your tweeting. (Manning, by the way, is a Palin fan.)

Here's an image of the Palin Favorites page with the Coulter tweet favorited, as cached by Yahoo (Palin's since cleared her Favorites page):

REPUBLICANS DOING THEIR PATRIOTIC DUTY BY DEMAGOGUING A PRESIDENTIAL TRIP
(updated)

Why, who on earth other than that crazy, nutty, wacko Michele Bachmann would believe something like this?

... "Well I think we know that just within a day or so the President of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day," Bachmann said [to CNN's Anderson Cooper]. "He's taking two thousand people with him. He'll be renting out over 870 rooms in India. And these are 5-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. This is the kind of over-the-top spending, it's a very small example, Anderson."

But wait: $200 million a day? Snopes.com says that the $200 million figure ... is "probably false." Snopes traced the rumor back to an anonymous Indian government official, quoted in a Press Trust of India article published on Tuesday. Factcheck.org calls the claim "highly doubtful," and points out that the entire war in Afghanistan currently costs about $190 million a day (h/t AJC).

None of which prevents this A-list right-wing blogger from citing the number as fact, or this one, or this one. Bachmann's crazy? So are they.

Even USA Today has bestirred itself to debunk this rumor, which traveled to West via England's right-wing (though non-Murdoch) Daily Mail, where the Indian news story was quoted. The original quote is as follows?

"The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit," a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said.

Why would an Indian government official (a) know the cost of the trip and (b) give it in dollars?

(The daily cost could conceivably be 200 million rupees, or $4.5 million.)

Ah, but now we have a new, Drudge-driven trip-related scandal, via the same Indian news source:

34 warships sent from US for Obama visit

... [President Obama] will ... be protected by a fleet of 34 warships, including an aircraft carrier, which will patrol the sea lanes off the Mumbai coast during his two-day stay there beginning Saturday. The measure has been taken as Mumbai attack in 2008 took place from the sea....

This is deemed cowardly in the right-o-sphere, but in January 2008, when President Bush traveled to the Middle East, The Times of London reported that

Overhead, US fighters will be stepping up patrols to protect Air Force One, while below the warships of the US Fifth Fleet will be ready to respond to any Iranian moves.

Was that the entire Fifth Fleet? I'm not sure, but the fleet generally has 20-plus ships.

Was it cowardly for President Bush to have military protection in a zone where terrorism was a serious risk? I don't recall anyone saying so at the time -- left or right.

****

MORE: Jonathan Weisman of The Wall Street Journal is debunks these stories, agreeing that the cost estimate is ludicrous ("fuzzy math," his headline calls it) and adding:

... the [first Indian press] report is demonstrably incorrect. It says the White House had blocked off the entire Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai -- it hasn't -- and that the press traveling with Mr. Obama will be staying there. We won't. Besides, the press pays its own way at considerable cost to the media outlets, not the U.S. taxpayer.

Now a new rumor has emerged courtesy of India's NDTV. Mr. Obama, the outlet says, "will be protected by a fleet of 34 warships, including an aircraft carrier, which will patrol the sea lanes off the Mumbai coast." The White House called that ridiculous. But on the conservative Drudge Report website, it's on the home page -- in huge type.

Um, Jonathan? It's also being cited as fact by your corporate cousins, Fox Nation and Fox News. And the top headline at Fox Nation as I type this is "WH Under Fire for Cost of Obama's India Trip." The top headline at Fox News: "Obama's India Entourage Earning Rep of Epic Proportions."

(UPDATE FRIDAY: The stories are no longer leads at Fox News and Fox Nation front pages, but here's the Fox Nation story and here's the Fox News front-page headline showing up all over the Interwebs; the headline of the Fox News story is "Security Entourage Earning Epic Reputation Ahead of Obama India Visit.")

****

STARS AND STRIPES: ALSO IN ON THE LIBERAL PLOT? Jeff Scogol, "The Rumor Doctor," for Stars and Stripes, says the cost estimates and warship number are absurd:

...Sure enough, there are not 34 ships -- and there isn't an aircraft carrier -- supporting the president's trip, said a defense official, who declined to provide any information on security measures for presidential trips.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell called the notion of sending so many warships to protect the president "comical."

"I will take the liberty this time of dismissing as absolutely absurd this notion that somehow we were deploying 10 percent of the Navy -- some 34 ships and an aircraft carrier -- in support of the president's trip to Asia," Morrell told reporters on Thursday.

Morrell would not talk about the president’s security arrangements other than to say "nothing close" to the armada reported in the Indian press is involved.

And another commie pinko weighs in:

"Foreign media always exaggerate about presidential trips," Gordon Johndroe, former deputy White House spokesman under President George W. Bush, said in an e-mail.. "I am positive there will not be '34 warships' involved in this trip." ...

Well, Fox? Going to change your headlines?

MIDDLE-SCHOOL BRATTINESS FITS PERFECTLY WITH RIGHT-WING THINKING

There's a long story in today's New York Times about the GOP's (clearly successful) two-year comeback strategy. I think the obvious takeaway from the story is that the central focus of Republicans, in a time of national crisis, with problems from foreclosures to energy to infrastructure to war needing to be addressed, was: How do we win again? But apart from that, a number of bloggers are focusing on one idea picked up from a PowerPoint presentation at a meeting of House Republicans in January 2009:

They also tried to push Democrats into retirement, using what was described in the presentation as “guerilla tactics” like chasing Democratic members down with video cameras and pressing them to explain votes or positions. (One target, Representative Bob Etheridge of North Carolina, had to apologize for manhandling one of his inquisitors in a clip memorialized on YouTube. Only this week did Republican strategists acknowledge they were behind the episode.)

Kevin Drum says:

I guess all's fair in love and politics, but seriously? One of their official strategies, memorialized in a PowerPoint presentation, was to harrass Democrats with video cameras until they got so sick of politics that they just gave up? Did we really just hand over control of Congress to a bunch of seventh graders?

Well, yes -- obviously. Are you surprised?

Republicans are expert manipulators of the public's sense of the pecking order -- and I mean that very much in the seventh-grade sense, because I think Americans are inclined to see the world in seventh-grade pecking-order terms, and Republicans get that. For instance, "elitist," as an insult directed at Democrats and liberals, has a lot of meanings, but one of them is "pathetic nerdy egghead loser."

More to the point, what does pranking say about the prankster? In seventh grade, pranksters are seen as kinda cool. Fellow students almost invariably identify more with a prankster than with a nerd target (even a lot of teachers, in my experience, admire the spirit of clever harassers). And if you prank a teacher, kids think you're extremely cool. You may not be the captain of the football team, but you're admirable.

And yet, if you harass a teacher and the teacher loses his temper, you get the benefit of seeming to be the victim of an abuse of power. That's basically what happened in the most famous harassment incident, as described today by Dave Weigel:

...In June, two young men identifying themselves as "students" found [Representative Bob] Etheridge walking to a fundraiser and asked "do you fully support the Obama agenda?" Etheridge blew up, pushing away the cameras and headlocking one of the young men as the other one filmed. I remember this very well, because at the time I said Etheridge "pulled the student to his side and grabbed him in a hug" ... I was asking who the young men were, because neither Etheridge or his opponent knew, which meant Etheridge couldn't apologize in person and the local GOP couldn't call on them to follow up.

Of course, now we know it wasn't really a power imbalance, because these "students" had the muscle of the GOP behind them. But the narrative is appealing to people. It worked.

Steve Benen, responding to Kevin Drum's "seventh graders" comment, says:

Voters rarely consider factors like this, but the current crop of GOP leaders make no effort to bring maturity or seriousness to their work. They're powerful children, and they're not especially embarrassed about it.

Right. And they have no reason to be -- in fact, they're smart to be proud of doing things like this, because it appeals to a lot of people, deep in their reptile brains.

YES, PLEASE KEEP TELLING HER THIS

The dreaded lamestream media has decided that Sarah Palin's status was greatly enhanced on Tuesday. CBS:

Palin Emerges with Even More Clout

Most of the candidates Sarah Palin endorsed chalked up victories Tuesday.

And that scorecard leaves pundits wondering whether she'll now train her sights directly on the Republican presidential nomination in 2012....

ABC:

Good Morning America took a moment to reflect upon how House, Senate, and gubernatorial candidates endorsed by Palin performed last night. So how did her Mama and Papa Grizzlies do? Pretty, pretty well.

"If there was any doubt about it, last night's election confirmed the strength of the Tea Party and of Sarah Palin as a national figure," Robin Roberts informed her viewers....

The New York Times:

Palin Proves That 'Mama Grizzly' Has Bite

If former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska decides to run for president in 2012, she will now have plenty of help....

I want her to keep reading these things, and I want her to believe them -- because if there's anything Tuesday's results showed us, it's that the only kind of candidate Democrats actually know how to beat is a candidate who can be successfully portrayed as an out-of-control lunatic. O'Donnell, Miller, Angle, Paladino -- Democrats can beat these folks, even though it's clear that Dems utterly lack the ability to defend their own beliefs and deeds, or to challenge relatively sober-seeming garden-variety wingnuts and teabaggers on even their most wildly unpopular ideas.

That could mean that Palin is just about the only Republican who can be beaten in 2012. But that may be fine if she's the one who gets the nomination.

THIS LIBERAL SAYS: JUST RENEW ALL THE DAMN BUSH TAX CUTS PERMANENTLY

Yes, I mean it. Why? Well, first, here's some totally unsurprising news:

At his post-shellacking press conference this afternoon, President Obama said that he'll sit down with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders before the end of the year to reach a compromise on extending the Bush tax cuts.

... today Obama signaled that, in the wake of the election, he will not force a showdown over tax cuts for the wealthy. He's counting on the GOP to accept a compromise, but just today Speaker-to-be John Boehner reiterated the Republican position that all tax cuts should be renewed.

That leaves three likely options:

1. The middle-income cuts will be extended permanently, and the higher-income cuts extended temporarily.
2. All the cuts will be extended temporarily, and the whole fight will play itself out again in a couple years.
3. The White House and GOP will reach an impasse and all the tax cuts will expire.

Option #3 is simply not going to happen. Democrats will give in to Republicans; they won't play chicken.

But I don't even want them to bother with temporary measures -- they should just renew everything forever. Why make them temporary again? They're currently temporary. But if Democrats wouldn't repeal the tax cuts for the rich with a 77-seat majority in the House and a 19-seat majority in the Senate, and with the polls in their favor, and with a desperate need to do something popular in the weeks before a perilous set of midterm elections, then under what bloody circumstances would they ever repeal them?

So just make them permanent, Democrats. At least that way you spare yourself another moment, sometime in the future, when Republicans will demagogue you on this, and you'll give in yet again.

JANE HAMSHER STILL DOESN'T GET IT

In a post at Firedoglake (aso republished as a slideshow at the Huffington Post), Jane Hamsher lists the "Top 10 Surprise Losers of Election Night."

Here, we're told, is Loser #5:

5. Partisan Politics

The election results show that the bonds that tie voters to parties are getting ever weaker, and that the electorate understands the notion of empowering an opposition party to stop an agenda they do not believe is making things better. The idea that the GOP has redeemed themselves in the eyes of the public over the past two years since the rout of 2008 is ludicrous -- polling shows that voters have overwhelmingly negative opinions of both parties. Independent voters continue to be the fastest growing constituency in the electorate, and they swung from Democrats in 2008 to Republicans in 2010. Just as the 2008 vote was a referendum by independents against George Bush, so this one was a referendum against Obama.

Yes, all that is true, but how the hell does it translate into a big loss for "partisan politics"?

The GOP scored big victories by engaging in hyper-partisan politics. Democrats weren't just failing to deliver on the economy, the message went -- they were treasonous, evil, power-mad, communist, fascist, anti-colonial, and elitist. They're the most dangerous Americans who've ever lived. Left unchecked, they threatened to destroy America as it has existed for two centuries plus. (And oh yeah -- Republicans in recent years had been kinda disappointing as well.)

The fact that this staggeringly partisan message succeeded with quite a few swing voters, including some who voted for Obama and the Democrats in 2008, is no more a sign that partisan politics was discredited yesterday than the purging of bulimics after a binge is a sign that their calorie intake is actually pretty reasonable.

Is there going to be another pendulum swing to the Democrats sometime in the next few election cycles? Probably -- and if it's true to form, it'll involve a charismatic Democratic "post-partisan" "healer" (see: Obama '08, Clinton '92, Carter '76) who will then be relentlessly demonized by ... well, Republican partisans.

At which time we'll have another wave of relentless, angry partisanship, almost surely culminating in big congressional gains for the GOP (see: 1980, 1994, 2010) and, ultimately, a jaw-droppingly right-wing president (see: Reagan, Bush the Younger, Insert 2012 Winner Here).

The fact that swing voters ride the pendulum every time it swings may seem to Hamsher like a sign that partisanship took a hit yesterday. It doesn't look that way to me.

CAN'T YOU JUST FEEL THE MODERATION?

I see that the "modest," "cautious" Republicans David Brooks was just talking about are displaying that appealingly modest, cautionary approach to governance:

GOP likely to urge Obama officials not to shred documents

Republicans are likely to urge the Obama administration not to shred documents as they transition to the House majority. 



Before the election, GOP officials on Capitol Hill privately discussed the issue but refrained from publicly tackling it, not wanting to assume what would happen on Election Day.
Now that Republicans will control the House, the shredding matter will move front and center. 



No one is accusing the Obama administration of destroying documents, but Republicans are expected to try to ensure that all records -- on a range of issues -- are kept intact....


The GOP agenda consists of precisely two (2) elements: (1) as many tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks as possible and (2) using Obama as a pinata until Election Day 2012.

THE HUMBLE ACT AND THE RETURN OF "UPPITY"

Obviously, the Republicans have absorbed one basic bit of conventional wisdom about 1994 -- that Newt Gingrich's arrogance was a bad idea -- but I don't think that's the only explanation for their humble act:

...Many Republicans acknowledged the electorate's dour outlook in their victory speeches Tuesday night. "We make a great mistake if we believe tonight these results are somehow an embrace of the Republican Party," Marco Rubio, a tea party favorite who won Florida's closely watched Senate race, said Tuesday night. "What they are is a second chance -- a second chance for Republicans to be what they said were going to be not so long ago."

In Washington, [John] Boehner took the stage at a House GOP watch party where the mood was notably less celebratory than it's been during election-night festivities in years past. "This is not a time for celebration," Boehner somberly warned. "This is a time to roll up our sleeves and go to work." He called the election results "a repudiation of Washington, a repudiation of big government and a repudiation of politicians who refuse to listen to the people."

I think it's also an effort (by people like Boehner and Rubio, at least; I'm not sure how successful they'll be in a wingnut world that also includes Palin, DeMint, Limbaugh, Beck, etc.) to set themselves up as the thoughtful, responsive servants of the people as they approach a possible government shutdown, in which (as I said a couple of days ago) they'll probably try to blame Obama for the crisis. They want Obama to look out of touch, which equals "arrogant" and "elitist" and basically "uppity." I don't know if he'll step into the trap, but if he avoids it, it'll be because he's showing greater political cunning than he's had for the past 21 months.

****

By the way, Maureen Dowd has the smartest take on the question of how different Boehner 2010 is from Gingrich 1994 -- and I'm not being sarcastic. Be sure to read her column all the way to the end.

ELECTION TO INSTALL ALL BUT THE ABSOLUTE WORST DEVIATIONS FROM SANITY

Let's see: Last night had a huge wave of Republican wins, but Christine O'Donnell, Carl Paladino, Tom Tancredo and Dan Maes, and Sharron Angle (to my surprise) all lost, while Joe Miller seems to be losing and (if Nate Silver is to be believed) Ken Buck is struggling.

In other words, voters rejected many of the craziest candidates.

So explain to me again why it was a good idea for the national message to be "Republicans are going to be exactly the way they were in the Bush years," rather than "Republicans are going to be much crazier"?

And may I just add that whoever put together that "What the Fuck Has Obama Done So Far?" Web site understands messaging better than any Democrat in Washington -- and certainly anyone working in the White House? (Rachel Maddow, too.)

****

Ahhh, but our pal Allen West apparently won, so he may jump to the front of the crazy-freshman queue.

REASONS TO BE, IF NOT CHEERFUL, THEN NOT TOTALLY MISERABLE

I'm happy that Barney Frank won easily, to the horror and disgust of a lot of wingers. I'm happy that Carl Paladino's behavior problems kept the crazy wave out of my state. I'm happy Linda McMahon lost. I'm happy Tom Tancredo lost to John Hickenlooper. I'm happy it wasn't even close in Delaware.

Basically, we're mostly back to red states and blue states in this country and I'm happy I live in a blue state, and a blue region.

***

Now, it's conventional wisdom among real political savants that the truly important contests tonight are the governors' races, because governors control redistricting for the House of Representatives, and once districts are drawn, party control is fixed for a decade.

Except, um, this is going to be the second party switch in the House since the last round of redistricting. Was it all just done really, really ineptly after the 2000 census?

I don't think so. District demographics change, and swing voters keep switching parties in a desperate attempt to find one they like, especially when things suck in America, as they have pretty much for the entire 21st century.

So I'm not going to panic regarding party switches in governors' races. I think there'll be another wave reasonably soon (alas, probably not until Republicans seize control of the entire federal government and fail to extract us from an economic lost decade, but still). And maybe I'll live long enough to see Democrats figure out what to do after a winning election cycle.

JESUS WEPT

Sorry, I have nothing to say so far about the results, which are about as bad as I expected (I'm just happy that a few Democrats may possibly be on their way to victories -- Blumenthal, Boxer, Murray -- on a day when it's seemed as if Republicans might run the table) I just have to point out the most dispiriting number I've seen so far, and it's just a late poll posted at TPM:

Rick Scott. Rick Scott the crook. More favorable than, well ... anybody. That's appalling. It makes me ashamed to be an American.

THAT SILLY MAINSTREAM PRESS MIGHT NOT LOOK SO SILLY SOON*

People across the political spectrum are having a self-righteousness-gasm in response to this story from Yahoo's Upshot blog:

The most covered candidate of 2010: Christine O’Donnell

Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell ... has vaulted from zero national name recognition to garnering more coverage than any other 2010 candidate, according to research provided by Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism....

Dave Weigel sneers that the press "focus[es] on elections the way American Idol producers focus on which schmucks they'll use from the audition footage." Weasel Zippers thinks the damn liberals in the Em-Ess-Emm covered her because she's "the Tea Party candidate most likely to lose." Ezra Klein wonders whether this is what you get when you believe in "markets in everything."

Except that maybe it wasn't so crazy after all:

Coons Camp Expresses Turnout Worries

... In a noon email alert to supporters, [Chris] Coons campaign manager Christy Gleason said close monitoring of voter turnout in the state's 41 representative districts showed "lower turnout in New Castle and Kent counties than we're comfortable with."

To win, Mr. Coons will have to get heavy support from Democrats and independents in New Castle, the state's most populous county. In the primary, Ms. O'Donnell drew heavy support from the state's other two counties, Kent and Sussex, which skew more to the right.

I'm worried too. I live in New York -- the one other state where a teabagger seems to have been laughed out of contention -- and when I went to vote this morning, in my extremely blue neighborhood, turnout was not very heavy at all. Like Delawareans, New Yorkers think a Cuomo win is a lock, as are victories by Schumer and Gillibrand.

Um, I sure hope so. But here and in Delaware, maybe you folks should get your butts out to the polls, just to be on the safe side.

****

The Upshot story seems to confirm what David Brooks sniffily wrote last week:

... Democrats and their media enablers have paid lavish attention to Christine O’Donnell and Carl Paladino, even though these two Republican candidates have almost no chance of winning. That's because it feels so delicious to feel superior to opponents you consider to be feeble-minded wackos.

On the other hand, Democrats and their enablers have paid no attention to Republicans like Rob Portman, Dan Coats, John Boozman and Roy Blunt, who are likely to actually get elected. It doesn't feel good when your opponents are experienced people who simply have different points of view. The existence of these impressive opponents introduces tension into the chi of your self-esteem....

Except that if you go to FoxNews.com and search for stories over the past year about these people, here are the numbers you get:

Rob Portman: 44.
Dan Coats: 40.
John Boozman: 39.
Roy Blunt: 47.
Christine O'Donnell: 185.

Even Carl Paladino gets 51 hits, more than any of Brooks's sober, responsible candidates. And Crazy Sharron Angle tops 'em all: 239 hits. Damn liberal Fox News!

And the Upshot story notes that Pew's sample covered stories "across five platforms -- broadcast networks, cable news networks, online outlets, newspapers and talk radio." Talk radio? If this were a liberal plot to highlight teabagging embarrassments, wouldn't talk radio have tipped the balance in favor of, say, that fine, upstanding winner-to-be Dan Coats?

Sorry, liberals shouldn't take the rap for this. And hell, O'Donnell might (gulp) even win.

****

MORE: From The Hill:

Delaware's state Democratic Party is claiming that supporters of Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell are creating problems at some polling locations in the state.

This, as the campaign of Democrat Chris Coons e-mails supporters expressing concerns over turnout levels in the Democratic bastion of New Castle County.

... the state's commissioner of elections, Elaine Manlove, confirmed ... that after receiving several complaints from voters at polling stations Tuesday, she contacted the O'Donnell campaign and asked that it direct its supporters to tone down their efforts.

She said O'Donnell backers were crowding the exterior of several polling places in anticipation of the candidate's arrival, which briefly restricted access for some voters.

"The campaign was basically sending out advance teams to polling places to form crowds before [O'Donnell] got there to greet voters," said Manlove. "My issue with that is that at some places they were blocking the sidewalk and voters need to have access to polling places at all times." ...

Republicans: is this the person you really want to elect by illegal electioneering and harassment?

****

*UPDATE: False alarm -- Coons won handily.

JEROME ARMSTRONG ON FUTURE NADERS AND PEACENIK REPUBLICANS
(updated)

Kevin K. is right to be appalled by this MyDD post, in which Jerome Armstrong seems to be practically rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of (in his words) "Crash and Burn Day for the Democrats":

Fallout: Of course this mid-term result is more a rejection of the Democrats, and specifically Obama politics, than it is an embrace of the Republicans. The Obama loyalists will say they are reality-based and that Obama wasn't on the ballot. White liberal intellectuals imply that any potential Democratic '12 challenger is being racially divisive.

No, schmuck, not (primarily) racially divisive -- divisive as in a suicide mission that will serve only to weaken Democrats more. Or is saying that somehow playing the race card by definition, through some mechanism I can't grasp?

(I'll grant that President Obama won't be a very strong candidate going into 2012, unless the economy improves or he learns how to counterpunch. But I see no challenge scenario that doesn't weaken him further and help the Republicans.)

A challenge (in the primaries or third party or both) is going to happen, alas -- you can take that to the bank. The only question is who gets to play Nader this time. Back in May, TBogg found a Firedoglake commenter rooting for Russ Feingold to run if he loses his reelection bid, and now he says he's seeing that genius idea surfacing again. I could easily see that happening, with Jerome A.'s backing.

But here's the dumbest thing Armstrong says:

Probably the thing to be most hopeful for in 2011 is that, because its Obama's war in Afghanistan, we can help push Republicans to join Democrats in not funding Obama's war.

Oh, please -- you've got to be joking.

Maybe the Pauls will demand withdrawal (I'm not sure Rand will), but what other Republican is politically tone-deaf enough to challenge the GOP brand, with its heavily reliance on guns and flags and eagles and the sense that the identity of the good people and the bad people is easy to grasp and only effete liberals with their effete liberal nuance can't figure out who deserves to be killed and who deserves to kill? Is Armstrong nuts? Who's going to back this? All the people who rail endlessly at Obama for "bowing"? All the people who hate the "Ground Zero mosque"? All the people who think Obama is a secret Muslim jihadist and anti-colonialist? Is this going to come before or after Grover Norquist and Jane Hamsher emerge from a confab with a secret bipartisan plan to bring Goldman Sachs to heel?

Republicans are just waiting for Obama to try to withdraw from Afghanistan. Then they'll pounce -- from the right.

Oh, and Jerome, I think you're wrong about this, too:

Lieberman, seeing CT go red, "in the interest of Connecticut (himself)" will caucus with the Republicans as an Independent, giving the GOP the Senate majority.

The link shows Connecticut's GOP candidate for governor leading by (according to the Real Clear Politics poll average) a whopping 1.7 points. (This while Democrat Dick Blumenthal leads Republican Linda McMahon by 8.7 in the Senate race.)

Two problems: Um, Jerome, you do realize that Connecticut currently has a Republican governor, don't you? (She's a cancer survivor, as is her husband, and she chose not to seek reelection.) A lot of Republicans have served as governors recently in states that have been very blue in presidential races -- New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey.

Beyond that, I'm just offering my hunch: Lieberman won't switch because his right-wing buddies like the fact that he's a "Fox News Democrat." Fox, in particular, loves having guests who echo its ideas but can be ID'd as Democrats -- Dick Morris, Doug Schoen, Tammy Bruce, Lieberman.

Oh, and besides, the Republicans' victory plan for 2012 is to say that the continued failure of the economy is the fault of the all-powerful Democrats, who still control the White House and Senate. (Along with the media and Hollywood and academia, of course.) So I don't think they care all that much about having a Senate majority -- yet.

****

UPDATE: Writing about a possible primary challenge for Obama, The Wall Street Journal's John Fund mentions Hillary Clinton (though he says she's not going to turn on her boss, and I agree), then names Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich as people who might really step up. His headline is "Obama's Next Worry: A Restive Left Flank" -- but I think Obama has to worry about the left and right-center, in the general election as well as in the primaries. An AP stories suggests that Mike Bloomberg is getting the itch, either to run or to be kingmaker/financier to a third-party candidate:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent who has considered running for president, declared Monday that an independent has a better chance at succeeding in the White House than a Republican or a Democrat.

The billionaire Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent mayor toyed with a third-party run in 2008 but ultimately abandoned the idea. He has said unequivocally he won't run in 2012, but during a forum at Harvard University on Monday he endorsed the idea of an independent in the White House.

"I think actually a third-party candidate could run the government easier than a partisan political president because the partisan political president -- yeah he's got half the votes, but he can't get the others -- whereas the guy in the middle may very well be able to get enough across the aisle," Bloomberg said....

I think there could be four or five big-name candidates in 2012, Obama, the Republican, Nader, Bloomberg or his sock puppet, and (if Romney or nother non-tea-friendly candidate wins the GOP primary in a split vote) a 'bagger candidate like Tom Tancredo. It could get ugly.

AS WINGNUT YEAR ZERO DAWNS, WHY DO THIS UNILATERALLY?

I don't approve of this, especially now:

... MSNBC host Keith Olbermann made a surprise announcement on his show tonight, saying that he was suspending his popular "Wost Persons in the World" segment in response to the message from Saturday's Rally to Restore Sanity:

First, the overall message that the tone needs to change, that the volume needs to change, was not lost on any of us....

[The segment's] satire and whimsy have gradually gotten lost in some anger, so in the spirit of the thing, as of right now, I am unilaterally suspending that segment with an eye towards discontinuing it....

It's just that today, given the serious stuff we have to start covering tomorrow, we think it's the right time to do it short-term and then we'll see what happens. And we'll also see if anybody else on TV or radio will do something similar.

I have to assume that Olbermann knows that Fox -- i.e., "anybody else on TV" -- will bloody well not "do something similar."

Olbermann's now taken the rally way too seriously twice, in two conflicting directions. First, he snapped at Stewart for conflating MSNBC and Fox. But if that's how he feels -- and last night he reiterated that point -- why do this unilaterally?

Isn't this a bit like what the president of the United States did two years ago -- laying down a weapon and waiting for a similar response from the enemy (yes, I'm using that word) that's never going to come?

Of course, in Olbermann's case, it's a tiny weapon. Look, our side simply doesn't have the power. A couple of hours of prime time talk on MSNBC every weeknight is not the same as 24/7 Fox -- wake me when angry mobs storm the town meetings of GOP members of Congress shouting, "Worst person in the world!"

Wingnut Year Zero begins today -- although, really, we've been living in a world defined by wingnut ideas since January 20, 1981, with no breaks. Still, it's an ongoing war, and Fox's noise is a serious weapon of that war; Olbermann's Worst Person segment is just a guy in the crowd giving a furtive finger to the Generalissimo for the amusement of a few friends as the Generalissimo and his private militia prepare to finish the coup. But if that's all you've got, why give it up?

****

UPDATE: Mediaite's Tommy Christopher also wants Worst Persons back. He's right about this:

First of all, the very premise of "Worst Persons" is, on most nights, to satirize the very hyperbole against which Stewart rallied.

Exactly -- much of the time, it's calling right-wingers evil who are calling liberals and moderates Antichrists.

And if it's fighting fire with fire, if an eye for an eye makes everyone blind, yadda yadda yadda, well, what the hell's the alternative? Just keep getting hit by the right?

I donm't think there are very many people on the left who want to stay in a state of permanent war with the right. I don't -- I'd happily give this blog up if the lunatics and haters lost control of the GOP and conservative-media asylums. We've been demonized as elitists since Nixon, as (horrors!) believers that sometimes government does good things since Reagan, and as liberals-therefore-monsters since the '88 Poppy Bush campaign. What's going to stop it if not an angry response? Total surrender?

(Oh, and whatever high-minded words Jon Stewart may have uttered on Saturday, he was back attacking Republicans and Fox last night. I don't think that's hypocrisy. I think the need for "sanity" is just a premise he partly believes and mostly saw that he could mine for a lot of material. But his main premise -- that the most malign demagogues and abusers of the public trust deserve the sharpest rebukes -- lead him to Fox and the GOP last night for a simple reason: they are the worst people out there, and so they're inevitably his most frequent targets.)

LESSON LEARNED

So you think the Republicans learned from the mistake of forcing a government shutdown back in the Gingrich era? Yes, they learned -- but the lesson they learned is not the one you think:

A top House Republican said Monday President Obama might try to force a government shutdown to hurt Republicans.

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), the top GOP member of the influential House Financial Services Committee, said Republicans should be prepared to be "brave" in the face of a shutdown.

"I would think when we send the spending bills to the president he will veto them, and then the hard vote will be when he sends them back and we will be faced with another situation where he will probably try to force us to shut government down and we are going to have to be brave this time," Bachus explained on the Fox Business Network....

That's what they learned: not to avoid shutting down the government, but to make sure that if they do shut down the government, the Democratic president gets blamed.

I've assumed for a while that they're planning to go for it, and that they assume that they just have to do better message management than Gingrich did. I didn't know they'd actually try to make their shutdown seem like Obama's doing, but, well, it's hard to imagine a message so credulity-straining that they wouldn't think they could sell it. They're damn good at messaging.

In fact, they're doing pretty well at messaging already, just with this dry run. Check out the end of the quoted story (from The Hill):

... Bachus's comments on Monday hint at early Republican posturing over a shutdown they might not necessarily want, but could be forced into if Obama takes a hard-line stance against congressional Republicans next year. Bachus sought to shoulder Obama with the blame and prevent the GOP from being tarred by a Democratic president. That was Clinton's tactic.

"We wouldn't be shutting it down. We would be cutting out the excessive spending. And if the president wanted to shut the government down -- but we would not shut the government down," he said. "But what we would do, we wouldn't allow him to force us to spend taxpayer dollars that don't need to be spent."

Say what? "[A] shutdown they might not necessarily want, but could be forced into if Obama takes a hard-line stance against congressional Republicans next year"? In the Hill story, this isn't in quotes. These aren't presented as a Republican's words. They're presented as an objective description of what might happen -- Republicans having no choice but to refuse to compromise with the president of the United States.

They're going to do it. And they're going to win the spin war.

IS GEORGE W. BUSH THE NEW SARAH PALIN?

George W. Bush is really, really good at throwing ceremonial first pitches at baseball games. These pitches don't actually accomplish anything in either statecraft or baseball, but, as Scott Lemieux and Steve Benen have noted, right-wingers are mightily impressed. Steve:

One prominent conservative wrote about the former president throwing a baseball, "What a moment! ... What a wonderful moment." Another called the joint appearance on the field [by Bush and his father], "What a moving study in dignity and class. What a great example." Another writer on the same site wrote, "God, I miss the man. I disagreed with him on a number of issues ... but no one ever doubted where his loyalties lay or what country he thought he was President of.... It's good to see that he still throws a baseball like a man, which is how he governed."

Another wrote, "Miss them yet, America? What a moment in Texas. Father, son and baseball -- it does not get any more American than that.... Remember Barack Hussein Obama's pathetic first pitches? Who could forget the lameness."

DougJ at Balloon Juice says, "yes, wingers still have a crush on George W. Bush." That seems to be true -- and the evidence isn't just in their public appearances.

Bush has a book coming out next week. Sarah Palin has a book coming out two weeks after that. Based on advance orders Bush's book is #5 at Amazon right now. Sarah Palin's book? It's #468. Now, presumably Palin's book will go higher on the list as the publication date approaches. But that date is 22 days away, and Palin's book is nowhere near Amazon's top 100 -- whereas Bush's book has spent 63 days in the top 100 at Amazon.

What the hell happened to Palin?

Now, maybe people are less interested in this Palin book because it's an odds-and-sods collection of patriotic readings. Or maybe she's sent out word that her fans shouldn't buy it at any lamestream online retailers. But still, I would have expected her to be doing a lot better than this by now.

Is it really possible that the one politician in the GOP with as much star power as Palin -- or more -- is George W. Bush?

Maybe. Or maybe it's just that, well, he was defeated (UPDATE: well, effectively, in '06 and '08), and by elitist limp-wristed liberals, for heaven's sake. (And when I'm talking about how righties see us, I do mean "limp-wristed" literally.) Losing is intolerable for the right; every loss, from the Civil War to the present day, must be endlessly re-litigated, until right-wingers win.

I think that's a big part of what's going on. I don't know if they even care about George W. Bush; they just hate us. They really, really want to erase that loss from the board.

WE ARE A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE OF THE PEOPLE WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR

Steve Benen this morning:

We talked yesterday about the latest data showing Democrats actually faring pretty well with registered voters, but struggling with likely voters.

Rachel Maddow had a good segment on this last night.... "The country likes Democrats better," Rachel explained, "but the people who don't are the people planning to vote.

"The distance between Democrats winning versus Democrats losing on Tuesday is the distance between your tuchus on the couch if you're going to vote for Democrats and your tuchus actually making it to the voting booth on Tuesday if you're going to vote for Democrats. That's the distance...."

John Cole this morning, in response to a Politico story noting that a hated nuclear waste repository might open in Nevada if Sharron Angle beats Harry Reid and Reid takes his clout back to Searchlight with him:

I'm all in favor of rewarding Nevadans for their Sharron Angle votes. If we have to tolerate her toxic waste on the national scene, you get our radioactive waste in your back yard. Seems like a fair trade.

When Republicans sweep to power in the next 48 hours, this site is a no sympathy zone. Everyone of you jackasses who complained about how there was no difference between the two parties better find another website for your tears as the cold, cruel reality of wingnut rule becomes clear. There will be no sympathy here. Have fun, protest people. Now you really have something to protest about, and you don't have Rahm to kick around any more.

I agree with Steve and Rachel and John: you bloody well ought to get out there and vote Democratic, because Republicans are even crazier and more extreme than usual.

But, nationwide, we're not going to get trounced tomorrow because readers of Political Animal and Balloon Juice didn't vote, or because Rachel Maddow-watchers didn't vote. I don't even believe that's going to be the case in Nevada, where I predict Angle will win by at least a 5-point margin.

We're going to get trounced because the vast majority of people in the Democratic coalition are people who don't read political blogs all day and who watch CSI rather than Rachel Maddow. No one's given them a reason to feel hope, and no one's made a case they find persuasive for why they should remain patient -- not the administration, not the Democratic Party, and not us (our message doesn't even filter down to them indirectly, the way the right blogosphere's does to rank-and-file right-wingers, via Fox and talk radio). And we never laid the groundwork to make these people progressive Democrats, not just folks who happened to vote Democratic in 2006 and 2008. I think we just assumed they'd keep turning out, based on their demography and our expectation that they'd continue to loathe the GOP and admire Obama.

It doesn't work that way. The party and especially the White House needed to find a way to keep their hope alive over the past two bleak years; we needed to recognize the fact that they aren't us and therefore they don't instantly see what we see when we look at the right wing. They don't obsess over politics in general the way we do, so they don't grasp the very subtle arguments for why Obama's been at least a partial success.

I say this kind of thing all the time. I'm just saying it again because blaming people like ourselves for the enthusiasm gap is one more sign that we don't understand our own coalition, and thus one more reason we have such trouble preventing it from falling apart.

I HOPE IT'S THIS MUCH FUN, BUT I'M NOT OPTIMISTIC

Politico's lead story right now foresees a possible conservative crack-up in the future, and while I'd love to believe the scenario, I'm not sure it's going to play out this way. I'll explain below.

Next for GOP leaders: Stopping Palin

Top Republicans in Washington and in the national GOP establishment say the 2010 campaign highlighted an urgent task that they will begin in earnest as soon as the elections are over: Stop Sarah Palin.

Interviews with advisers to the main 2012 presidential contenders and with other veteran Republican operatives make clear they see themselves on a common, if uncoordinated, mission of halting the momentum and credibility Palin gained with conservative activists by plunging so aggressively into this year's midterm campaigns.

There is rising expectation among GOP elites that Palin will probably run for president in 2012 and could win the Republican nomination, a prospect many of them regard as a disaster in waiting....

"There is a determined, focused establishment effort ... to find a candidate we can coalesce around who can beat Sarah Palin," said one prominent and longtime Washington Republican. "We believe she could get the nomination, but Barack Obama would crush her." ...

In the abstract, I don't see how they do this without finding another Palin -- someone who gets the crazy base's juices flowing as much as she does. The other people who seem to want this most (Romney, Pawlenty) aren't going get that job done. John Thune, whom various insiders seem to favor, voted for TARP, so he's toast. Maybe Gingrich? Not the most appealing candidate to the center.

And I gather that this is people like Karl Rove and the American Crossroads/Chamber of Commerce crowd vs. Palin -- but if they want to take her on, they're going to have to go after the sometime employer of both Rove and Palin: Fox News. They're going to have to persuade Murdoch and Ailes to actively discredit the notion of taking on the GOP establishment, and implicitly or explicitly discredit Palin herself as a possible candidate. They're going to have to rein in Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and the rest of that crowd. I don't see how that can happen. You'd think Murdoch would be canny enough to want to prevent a Palin presidency, but he knows that calls to counterrevolution are great for his ratings. And how does he suddenly change the message of his flagship media outlet? How does he unring this bell?

I think what's really going to happen is what happened in Kentucky and Nevada and Colorado: the Rove/fat-cat crowd will acknowledge the inevitability of a Palin candidacy, and possibly a Palin victory in the primaries, and just get ready to rally around her and work like hell to remake her image -- which is precisely what they did when Rand Paul and Sharron Angle and Ken Buck beat establishment-GOP candidates.

And since we can pretty much assume we're going to have unemployment over 9% continuously between now and then, with the chance that we'll be in a far worse situation, quite possibly because of GOP policies acceded to by Obama in the spirit of "compromise," who won't be able to beat Obama, in the fourth year of a near-depression?