ONE OBVIOUS WAY THAT CLAY DUKE IS NOT LIKE BYRON WILLIAMS

Our pals on the right are having a self-righteousness-gasm because Clay Duke, who shot up a meeting of the Bay District Schools in Panama City, Florida, before taking his own life, made left-leaning statements on his Facebook page:

... The chilling Facebook statement, posted under the "About Clay" section, talks about being born poor and how the rich "take turns fleecing us":

My Testament: Some people (the government sponsored media) will say I was evil, a monster (V)... no... I was just born poor in a country where the Wealthy manipulate, use, abuse, and economically enslave 95% of the population. Rich Republicans, Rich Democrats... same-same... rich... they take turns fleecing us… our few dollars… pyramiding the wealth for themselves. The 95%... the us, in US of A, are the neo slaves of the Global South. Our Masters, the Wealthy, do, as they like to us...

In addition to the note, Duke also includes a reference to class warfare:

"There's class warfare, all right, but its my class, the rich class that’s making war and we're winning"
- Warren Buffet

The page also contained a list of left-oriented URLs -- mostly obscure and fringey (on the Progressive Mind, for instance, we're told, "The editor is an active supporter of efforts to uncover the truth about the horrible events on Sep 11, 2001"), although the list also includes Media Matters.

This leads to sneering from Andrew Breitbart's Big Journalism:

Clearly this guy was mentally unbalanced. He had a history of trouble with the law going back at least 10 years. In fact, he has a lot in common with "freeway shooter" Byron Williams. Williams was a two time felon who set out to kill some folks at the Tides Foundation. He never got there and no one was killed thanks to timely police intervention. But his story became big news when he later listed Glenn Beck among his favorite television programs.

Eric Boehlert, Senior Fellow at Media Matters, made much of the Beck connection saying that Beck had come close to having a "body count." In addition to Media Matters, Boehlert's article was picked up by major liberal sites.... But it was distributed much more widely by blogs.... The left ate it up like cotton candy....

Eric ... Would you like to comment on being among the Florida school board shooters favorite websites? Or would you prefer to admit that the actions of a disturbed individual with a police record, who was thousands of miles away at the time have nothing to do with you. You're free to choose the latter, but you need to offer Glenn Beck one helluva big apology first.

Here's the difference, though: Media Matters does not denounce the officers of the Bay City District Schools. I haven't done a thorough search, but I say without fear of contradictions that there's never been a negative word on the Media Matters site about this school board.

Beck, on the other hand, is obsessed with the Tides Foundation. He talks about Tides all the time.

Clay Duke stayed near home and shot at the people who fired his wife. That's appalling. But he didn't get the idea from Media Matters.

Clay Duke didn't shoot up the local Fox affiliate, an office of the Republican Party, a big financial firm, or a talk radio station. Byron Williams did taget an organization he almost certainly would never have heard of if it hadn't been for Glenn Beck. Big difference.

And yes, we have to stipulate: In each case, the violent impulse came from the diseased souls of the violent. But the attempt to pin this on Media Matters fails logically no matter what.

HUCKABEE: THE OTHER JEB?

This has me somewhat puzzled:

​Former Arkansas Governor turned Fox News host (and now Florida resident) Mike Huckabee says he won't run for President in 2012. Well, he won't if former Florida Governor Jeb Bush decides to run....

"Having gone through the process before and knowing just what it entails, it's not a decision I'll make lightly," Huckabee tells The National Journal. "If I did run, I do think I would have very significant strength going into it. The real question for me is, do I get through the nomination process?"

Other familiar names are also expected to mount a bid in 2012 as well, including Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. Though, only one person would keep Huckabee out of the race altogether, and that's Jeb.

"I love Jeb, I think he's brilliant," Huckabee says. "He could certainly raise the money, and I think he'd clear the deck." ...

It's interesting that the right-wing Protestant Huck sees the right-wing Catholic Jeb as the guy who could "clear the deck," and who could make a Huck candidacy unnecessary. There are still some rifts between the Protestant right and the Catholic right, but I tend to believe they're less and less meaningful to most right-wing Protestants, who really seem to like the Catholic righties' style. I sense that that's how Huck's thinking.

I wonder if Huck thinks he has a role he's obliged to play in 2012 -- namely, that he needs to be in the race to put a dent in Sarah Palin vote totals among Christian-right voters, on behalf of the GOP establishment. That recent poll of Protestant pastors revealed that most don't think Barack Obama is really a Christian (by whatever their definition is), and neither is Glenn Beck -- but Palin and George W. Bush certainly are. I wonder of this perception (which I suspect is shared somewhat by the religious right rank and file) would rub off on W.'s Catholic brother.

I still think it's a real longshot, but I don't think we should rule out a Jeb candidacy altogether, much as that notion appalls me. I'm sure the Bush clan is making much of the Gallup numbers that seem to show W passing Obama in popularity, as well as W's apparently unshakable #1 status at Amazon.

Be afraid -- be mildly afraid.

****

On the other hand, Jeb may be too busy positioning himself to rake in big online education dollars from Governor-elect Rick Scott's proposed education privatization "reforms." Story here.

RICHARD NIXON, JESUS-HATING LIBERAL

From Talking Points Memo:

To Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's suggestion that the Senate come back the week after Christmas isn't just a way to complete a busy lame duck agenda -- but an attack on people of the Christian faith.

"It is impossible to do all of the things that the majority leader laid out," Kyl said today, "frankly, without disrespecting the institution and without disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians and the families of all of the Senate, not just the senators themselves but all of the staff."

To be clear, Reid was suggesting the Senate come back for votes after Christmas and before this Congress ends on Jan. 4.

I'm no congressional historian, so I'm not sure how often, if ever, there's been a congressional session in the week between Christmas and New Year's -- when, as Steve Benen notes, most people with real jobs have to work -- but I do see from the Google news archives that there was talk of a post-Christmas session in 1944, to deal with issues such as Social Security and war powers; somehow, despite the fact that that heretical act was considered, God let us win the war anyway. In 1948, Harry Truman, newly returned to office by the voters, pressed the Senate Democratic Policy Committee to begin working on legislative strategy immediately after Christmas (ah, but Truman was a filthy Democrat, and the issues worked on included pro-labor legislation, though there used to be a time when Truman was considered a Real American, even by Republicans, because he was anti-commie).

And Richard Nixon, it seems, threatened to call Congress back to work just after Christmas at least three times -- in 1969, 1970, and 1971. Yes -- even though he was a Republican! Even though he and Billy Graham were like this! I guess Nixon hated Jesus as much as he hated Jews.

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Frankly, while I'm not surprised that the Republicans are trying to shut down the government even before the new Congress convenes, I'm a little bit surprised at some of the tactics. I thought they'd be a lot more careful about setting up the talking points so it looked as if the whole shutdown was the fault of Obama and the Democrats. Jim DeMint's demand that the entire spending bill be read out loud actually strikes me as an effective tactic -- the notion that huge bills are passed without being read by members of Congress does annoy a lot of ordinary folks, not all of them teabaggers by any means, and the pork in the bill doesn't help it in PR terms (even if the Republicans are hypocrites because many of the earmarks are theirs).

However, demanding that the START treaty be read aloud ought to be a bridge too far -- the White House, notes, correctly, that the complete text has been available online since April 8 (PDF). If I were a Democrat, I'd be handing out T-shirts that senators could wear during the reading of the treaty that just contained a URL and a date:

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/140035.pdf

Accessed April 8, 2010

But these are Democrats we're talking about, so they won't think of anything like that.

Still, in general, is this really when Republicans want to shut down the government? Last time they did this, ordinary Americans complained about not being able to see national monuments. Um, don't a lot of ordinary Americans with kids take vacation time during the week after Christmas precisely to see national monuments? Is this really likely to seem as if it's all the Democrats' fault?

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UPDATE: DeMint backs down, at least on the threat to have the START treaty read aloud. It's unclear how much this tweet from Harry Reid's press secretary had to do with the climbdown:

# of hours to read START on Sen. floor = 12-15, # of comm. hearings DeMint missed on START = 7. No wonder he needs to have it read to him.

Oh, snap!

A LIFETIME OF IMPERCEPTIBLE TYRANNY

In the context of the battle over the health care law, David Leonhardt of The New York Times looks back at rhetoric used by opponents of earlier government social programs. He starts with this:

"We are against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program," said one prominent critic of the new health care law. It is socialized medicine, he argued. If it stands, he said, "one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free."

The health care law in question was Medicare, and the critic was Ronald Reagan. He made the leap from actor to political activist, almost 50 years ago, in part by opposing government-run health insurance for the elderly....

It seems to me that while teabaggers and other wingnuts don't oppose Medicare these days as a rule, they actually do spend their time trying to tell everyone "what it once was like in America when men were free." The Beckbots, especially, believe that we need to reclaim the values of a lost Golden Age.

But when the hell was that Golden Age? And who among the wingnuts actually remembers any of it? FDR was elected 78 years ago. And, of course, Beck thinks the "cancer" of progressivism took root earlier than FDR's time, in the time of the evil Woodrow Wilson and, prior to him, the evil Teddy Roosevelt.

Which means that, according to the Beck cult, just about every American now alive has been suffering from the "cancer" of progressivism since birth. It's been nothing but tyranny for our entire lives.

Did right-wingers think they were victims of tyranny all that time? Did they feel that way during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan? Do the octogenarians and nonagenarians who were GIs in the World War II generation now think they were sent to war for a lie, because the freedom they were told they were fighting for turned out to be liberal fascism? Did they hate the Eisenhower/Leave It to Beaver/GI Bill world they came back to, for its relentless Big Brother oppression?

All I'm asking is: If "big government" is so horrifying, and if we've endured a century of it, shouldn't right-wingers have thought so throughout that century? And if they did, why didn't we hear their cries relentlessly all that time, like Soviet dissidents? Why do we hear them complain only when a new social program is being proposed -- and, by the way, usually never afterward?

ALLEN WEST LACKS THE COURAGE OF HIS FASCIST CONVICTIONS

You may have seen this story about extremist congressman-elect Allen West:

... On a right-wing Internet radio station last week, Rep.-elect Allen West (R-FL) condemned [Julian] Assange [Of WikiLeaks], and said that he thought the government "should be censoring the American news agencies which enabled him to do this." He added that American media outlets which "supported him and applaud[ed]" the WikiLeaks release should also be censored:

WEST: ... Regardless of whether you think it causes any harm, the fact that here is an individual that is not an American citizen first and foremost, for whatever reason gotten his hands on classified American material and put it out there in the public domain. And I think that we also should be censoring the American news agencies which enabled him to do this and also supported him and applauding him for the efforts. So that’s kind of aiding and abetting of a serious crime.

Now, West is supposedly a tough SOB. He was in the military for many years, and he never lets anyone forget that. He calls Barack Obama "weak" and "effete." Big tough guy! Not afraid of anybody!

... Except, um, when he got bad press for this "censored" remark, he said that -- whoops! -- there must have been a terrible mistake:

I am heard on the African-American Conservative Radio Show saying the media should be censured- meaning "harshly criticized." In no way would I ever ask to "censor" anyone or any organization. Of course, very few news organizations are even printing this reply so here it is for you so you understand my intention and my vision as a leader:

"It has never been my intent to quiet or censor the press or anyone for that matter utilizing their right of freedom of speech granted to them under this country's great American Constitution. The confusion comes with the word censor...when I meant censure- in context that the media should be harshly criticized for printing the damaging documents Assange has released which so clearly puts our soldiers and country at risk."

I've listened to the clip a few times, Mr. West. You did say "censor." You know you did. You know you used the word. Now be a man and own up to it.

WE SPIT ON YOUR PUBLIC OPINION POLLS

Here's Ezra Klein, after noting that there's increasing GOP opposition to the tax deal, which, along with opposition by liberal Democrats, might scuttle the whole thing:

At this point, both sides have to seriously ask themselves: Who gets a better deal if the compromise framework collapses? Republicans know that Democrats -- and Obama in particular -- have more to lose if the economy takes another hit. The president said as much at his news conference. But they also know the tax deal is popular, and if they blow it up over something unpopular, like cuts for the very richest Americans, the public might turn on them. It's not an easy calculus, for either side.

So the question of whether it's risky to defy popular sentiment is difficult for Republicans?

Really?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Lame-as-F@#k Congress
www.thedailyshow.com
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I'm posting last night's lead bit on Jon Stewart's show because it responds to what Ezra says about the "calculus" for Republicans. These are the folks who are blocking federal aid for sick and dying 9/11 first responders. Regarding popular sentiment, they think they're all but bulletproof. The clip also serves as a response to this quote from a Politico story published last night about possible Democratic attempts to tinker with the deal on the issue of the estate tax:

"Are Republicans really willing to hold up tax relief for millions of Americans, middle class Americans and others in order to provide a $25 billion hit to the deficit that benefits 6,600 estates at an average benefit of $1.8 million? We've never had that debate," [Democratic congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland] said on MSNBC Monday, according to a report in the Daily Caller.

Are they willing? In defiance of public opinion? Of course they are.

If Democrats think they can win by shaming Republicans, maybe they need to think again. Republicans think the gods have given them a special dispensation from negative consequences of unpopular acts. They don't think they'll be blamed if middle-class taxes rise, and if unemployment extensions run out. And they're probably right.

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UPDATE: Anti-deal Democrats have thrown in the towel. Well, there were consequences for Democrats in not getting the deal done -- there always are. And there were probably not going to be any consequences for Republicans either way -- there never are.

NO LABELS: A NOT-COMPLETELY-IDIOTIC IDEA, EXECUTED EXACTLY THE WRONG WAY

It's absurdly easy to mock the new centrist organization No Labels. The group is organized by the wife of a hack pollster who herself is primarily a political fund-raiser. Its marquee name is a guy who thinks he's one of the great men of the age because he has more money than God and because he got to run New York at a time when it sustained prosperity as a result of a government/business conspiracy to shake loose every dime in America and redeposit all of them in Wall Street's coffers. Its stated principles are almost parodically self-righteous and high-minded.

And yet I don't think the centrist impulse is laughable by definition -- though I think this particular expression of it is doomed to failure.

Slate's Christopher Beam thinks the group's stated principles just seek the lowest common denominator:

The group's mission statement is filled with the bland pablum of political campaigns. It's the kind of stuff that's so obvious, no one would ever disagree. "Americans are entitled to a government and a political system that works -- driven by shared purpose and common sense." Unlike all those groups that prefer a political system that doesn't work. "Americans want a government that empowers people with the tools for success ... provided that it does so in a fiscally prudent way." Me, I'm for spending wads of money on failure. "America must be strong and safe, ready and able to protect itself in a world of multiple dangers and uncertainties." That is going to upset their rival group, Americans Against Strength, Safety, Readiness, and Ability To Protect Ourselves.

Beam thinks "no one would ever disagree" with all that? Bollocks. The Foxite/Limbaughnista/tea party right doesn't want "a political system ... driven by shared purpose" -- righties want a political system in which they get everything they want and the rest of us are humiliatingly crushed, because those of us who disagree with them on anything aren't really Americans and don't even deserve crumbs. Righties also don't "want a government that empowers people with the tools for success" -- they think they want a government that doesn't empower anyone; what they really want is a government that gives them stuff -- Medicare, Social Security, their faith as the state religion -- while not giving stuff to nonwhites and city-dwellers and liberals and non-Christians, and that is minimalist except when we have a new Antichrist who needs an ass-kicking, at which point the government should be maximalist. And then there are some people on the left as well as on the Ron Paul right who aren't all that wild about the real implications of that "strong" and "able to protect" stuff.

This gets to the problem with No Labels: not that there isn't a large chunk of the electorate that wants the government to be middle-of-the-road, but that the group itself wants to eschew anger rather than being actively angry at the angry. I know that when these centrist guys do get their backs up, they reach for the boilerplate denunciation of "extremists of the left and right" -- but if they actually want to be effective, they'd make a real survey of the landscape and recognize that Democrats will compromise on pretty much anything, while the real impediment to centrism is Republican Murdochism. And they'd get mad at Republican Murdochites.

A group like this might actually have appeal if it were for an angry centrism -- if it gave centrists a chance to be pissed off at gridlock and the failure to work toward solutions to America's problems. I think that's why centrists can't attract a following -- there's no soul-satisfying outrage in centrism.

No Labels is somewhat like Jon Stewart's "sanity" campaign -- too sanctimonious, too focused on finding equivalences between the parties. A centrist movement that might work would be like Jon Stewart's show -- it would look at the specific events of the day and accurately identify the assholes, without fear, favor, or an obsession with grading on the curve to apportion blame evenly. That's why Stewart's show is funny and inspiring -- it's not angry at anger, it's angry at people who deserve to be targets of anger.

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In a New York Times article about No Labels Matt Bai writes:

... the rise of the independents represents a movement ... away from party organizations altogether.

This isn't so much a political phenomenon as it is a cultural one. In the last decade or so, the Web has created an increasingly decentralized and customized society, in which a new generation of voters seems less aligned, generally, with large institutions. MoveOn.org and the Tea Party groups, for instance, were born as protests against the establishments of both parties, and they empowered citizens to create their own agendas, rather than relying on any elected leadership.

To which Wonkette's Jack Stuef replies:

Matt Bai is dumb. MoveOn.org and the Tea Party groups, for instance, were born as protests against Bill Clinton’s long blow-job impeachment process and a scary black liberal president wanting to stimulate the economy and help people get medical care, respectively. They continued as advocacy groups that looked to reinforce or refocus their respective political parties, always fighting any efforts to exist on their own.

Which is basically correct -- and which shows what a centrist group would have to be to get anywhere: an advocacy group with ties to a political party that believes (or seems to believe) in certain stuff, and is angry at people and parties that don't believe in that stuff. People want to root for their team, dammit.

I know, I know: I'm not supposed to argue that people are really centrist in that Broder/Friedman/Scarborough/Brooks way. Unfortunately, I think some people are -- and I think those of us who are angry lefties and angry righties get into a " that's impossible -- nobody I know thinks that way" thing when we see polls showing, say, Obama still in surprisingly decent shape in terms of public approval, or the tax deal winning popular favor.

But where the centrists get it wrong is in thinking that everyone is a centrist except a few malcontents who somehow drown the vast majority out. In reality, centrists are just one faction. They could be a more influential faction (and, given our government's rightward tilt, could even pull the country a smidge to the left) if they'd just suit up and join the scrum -- as angry centrist partisans.

THE APOCALYPSE, URGED ON BY ... ERIC CANTOR?

There's a lot of learned commentary out there regarding Judge Henry Hudson's ruling on the health care law, but I tend to agree with Kevin Drum's gloss on Eric Cantor's reaction to the ruling:

...the Supreme Court will eventually provide a final determination. But Rep. Eric Cantor wants to cut out the red tape:

To ensure an expedited process moving forward, I call on President Obama and Attorney General Holder to join Attorney General Cuccinelli in requesting that this case be sent directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. In this challenging environment, we must not burden our states, employers, and families with the costs and uncertainty created by this unconstitutional law, and we must take all steps to resolve this issue immediately.

I'm not sure what the legal issues are here, but there have certainly been times in the past when I've wondered why we bother going through the whole rigamarole of lower court decisions in cases like this. I mean, everyone knows this is going to end up at the Supreme Court anyway, and everyone knows that the Supreme Court quite plainly couldn't care less what any of the lower courts say about it. All those lower court decisions are no better than waste paper.

Kevin's right -- the Roberts Court is going to conclude whatever the hell it wants to conclude, willfully disregarding and distorting arguments, precedent, and objective reality if these things get in the Court's way. An intellectually indefensible but binding decision is coming eventually. So why not just cut to the chase?

Um, because that could very well lead to the apocalypse? That's what Kevin's Mother Jones colleague Nick Baumann argues:

Most legal scholars agree with the Obama administration [that] the commerce clause allows Congress to regulate economic decisions, not just economic activity. Hudson, as you know by now, doesn't buy that argument....

Drastically limiting the scope of the Constitution's commerce clause (as Hudson would do) is the slippery slope to the libertarian paradise. Almost every meaningful action the federal government takes with regard to the economy rests on the commerce clause. In the past, the Supreme Court has read that clause to be incredibly constrained. During the Lochner era (1897-1937), the court routinely struck down federal laws regulating working hours, child labor, and minimum wages as inappropriate interventions in individuals' "right of contract."

In that time, individuals' "rights" to do whatever they wanted in the market -- even if a 12-year-old "agreeing" to work 80 hour weeks for next-to-nothing made it more likely that other children would have to do the same -- were thought to outweigh the state's interest (and, you know, the moral imperative) in not having children being worked to death in textile mills.

(Emphasis added.)

That, quite possibly, is where we're headed -- and Cantor says he wants us to get there sooner rather later.

Now, maybe Cantor just wanted to make a demand that he assumed the White House wouldn't agree to, in order to give his right-wing base one more thing to be aggrieved about. Or maybe he wants Cuccinelli, his fellow Virginia Republican, to have a big win sooner rather than later, i.e., prior to his inevitable run for governor or the Senate (or, as I see it, prior to a possible appointment as the next GOP president's attorney general).

Or Cantor is impatient to have the Court invalidate a century of progressive legislation in one fell swoop, to spare him and his fellow members of the Congress the hard work of battling to eliminate or eviscerate the few remaining progressive accomplishments (Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage) that the public and Democrats actually would battle to preserve. The gutting of those is what Republicans are going to be trying to accomplish once they have the White House as well as complete control of Congress -- but that's not going to be a popular fight once they're actually engaged in it. Much easier to have the Court level the entire 20th-century progressive edifice with one wrecking ball, and let Republicans in Congress be the blameless cleanup crew clearing away what's left of the wreckage.

TEABAGGING IS MY BUSINESS -- AND BUSINESS IS GOOD
(updated)

A George W. Bush-appointed judge just declared the health care law unconstitutional -- and almost immediately Ken Cuccinelli, the grandstanding Virginia attorney general who filed suit against the law, was using the ruling to raise campaign cash:

That's a screen shot (click it to enlarge it), but the real ad goes to this page. It's a campaign site, although the only campaign going on for this guy is, apparently, the campaign against the health care law. Cuccinelli is not up for reelection until 2013.

Or is he running for James Webb's Senate seat in 2012, as has been rumored? That'd be my guess.

In any case, this is an interesting way of looking at the job of being the people's lawyer in the State of Virginia: you win a ruling, the first thing you do is use that fact to pump the rubes for cash. Ethically interesting, that approach.

And let's see: here's what The New York Times has to say about the judge who overturned the law:

The opinion by Judge [Henry E.] Hudson, who has a long history in Republican politics in northern Virginia, continued a partisan pattern in the health care cases. Thus far, judges appointed by Republican presidents have ruled consistently against the Obama administration while Democratic appointees have found for it.

So we have a Virginia Republican dealing out a win to a Virginia Republican, who then uses it to fund-raise.

This, I guess, is what Republicans call "justice."

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UPDATE: Steve Benen and Right Wing Watch have much more on the very, very partisan career of Judge Hudson.

And Steve writes:

On the other hand, it's only fair to note Hudson did show some restraint. His ruling, for example, rejected the plaintiff's request to block implementation of the law, and more importantly, refused to go along with a push to find the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. Instead, he targeted the mandate exclusively, reassuring some reform proponents.

I can't help wondering if this is less a sign of restraint than a chess move worked out for what the GOP believes is its maximum benefit. Remember, Republicans in Congress intend to go into 2011 with opposition to the health care law at the top of their agenda. Rightly or wrongly, they think launching a full-on assault on the law is extremely good politics. Hudson's ruling complements their efforts without stealing their thunder -- if implementation of the law were blocked, or the whole thing declared unconstitutional, that might reduce the sense of urgency GOP House and Senate members are going to try to keep ginned up in order to keep the base and teabaggy swing voters on their side. If you think the law is the worst thing that ever happened to America -- as most Fox viewers and 2010 GOP voters apparently do -- we're still in a crisis (fortunately for Boehner and McConnell and the gang). Or at least that's how I read the situation.

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UPDATE: The Fix says the Cooch probably wants to be governor, not senator.

LIBERAL MESSAGE MACHINE: NOT EXACTLY RUNNING LIKE A DREAM

Well, first of all, if we're to believe the new ABC/Washington Post poll, the tax cut deal is basically the mirror image of the health care law -- people support the health care law's provisions but hate the law, whereas people have serious problems with the tax cut deal but support the deal:

About seven in 10 Americans back the tax deal negotiated last week by President Obama and congressional Republicans, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The high bipartisan support for the package masks more tepid public approval for some of the main components of the agreement that comes before a key Senate vote Monday afternoon.

A slender 11 percent of those polled back all four of the deal's primary tax provisions: an across-the-board extension of Bush-era tax cuts, additional jobless benefits, a payroll tax holiday and a $5 million threshold for inheritance taxes. Just 38 percent support even two of the components.

But put all four items together, and 69 percent of all Americans support the package. Large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents alike favor the agreement, which has drawn stiff opposition from some Democrats in the House. In the poll, 69 percent of liberal Democrats support the agreement, which Obama has called a framework for legislation.

Even when primary objections to the pact are mentioned -- that it would add about $900 billion to the federal budget deficit and that it extends tax breaks to the wealthy -- 62 percent of all those polled support the package....

My guess is that poll respondents like it because it seems to be down the middle -- at least that's how it's been described -- and because it seemed to have been arrived at in a grown-up fashion. I'm not advocating these beliefs; I've just looked at a lot of polls and absorbed a lot of Beltway conventional wisdom, which inevitably seeps down to the public and becomes part of what the public thinks, so I believe the public just wants some kind of agreement, especially one that seems to include difference-splitting. Spare me the angry comments -- I know you don't think that's what this us. I'm just saying the public thinks that's what this is. And that, for better or worse, seems good to the public.

Now, maybe there'd be less support if certain progressive messages were finding agreement among liberals and Democrats. But some basic liberal notions aren't getting through:

Support for the tax exemption on inheritances to $5 million also tops 50 percent among Republicans (60 percent) and Democrats (52 percent).

... Some 54 percent of all Americans support an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for all taxpayers, including wealthy people and the middle class. It's this provision that generates the biggest partisan gap: 85 percent of Republicans say these tax cuts should be continued for all taxpayers; 38 percent of Democrats (31 percent of liberal Democrats) agree....

(Emphasis added.)

If nearly a third of liberals think the rich deserve to keep their tax cut, and more than a third of Democrats, then notions of how the classes have been faring in this country don't seem to have penetrated nearly as much as they need to. And a majority of Democrats support a very high exclusion for inheritance tax? Really?

Progressive messages just aren't getting through -- either that or self-described liberals are such bleeding hearts that they bleed even for the rich and comfortable.

This is why I've been dubious about the campaign to scuttle the deal -- it's based on messages that haven't really penetrated. How do you make Republicans fear the consequences of sticking to their pro-rich positions when the Democratic/liberal base isn't even universally ngry about that?

This is just one poll, and other polls have different results -- a USA Today/Gallup poll, for instance, shows the deal with only 49% approval. A mere third of voters oppose the eeal, however.

We need to be able to sell the arguments against GOP economics. It's the only way to strike fear in the hearts of Republican members of Congress. Absent that, they'll win every fight on issues like this, sooner or later.

PALIN HAITI TRIP SHOULD BE SCANDALOUS -- BUT NOT BECAUSE OF HAIR

Sarah Palin has gone to Haiti, where an AP photo in which (according to the caption) she "has her hair fixed" by someone with an obscured face has led to a small kerfuffle:

Allegedly, the "left" accused Palin of "bringing [a] hairdresser on [her] Haiti trip" -- a hairdresser or a "stylist." I can't find any evidence that anyone on the "left" used those words; AP (which right-wingers think is part of the "left") limited itself to the caption above, while a couple of lefty bloggers -- Michael Shaw of BagNewsNotes and the folks at Palingates -- did accuse her of being overly concerned with her appearance. Hardly a left-o-sphere outrage tsunami. And, yeah, it turns out that Palin's hair-smoother is her daughter Bristol. So I don't care. I'm not sure I'd care if there were an actual stylist in tow -- I suspect many pols, across the spectrum, take care to look presentable on TV in these situations, for better or worse. To me, there's no scandal here.

At least there's no hair scandal.

What really offends me is the rest of the company she's keeping:

... Mrs Palin was a guest in Port-au-Prince of Reverend Franklin Graham, whose aid group works in the impoverished country.

Reverend Graham's organisation, Samaritan's Purse, refused to discuss Mrs Palin's itinerary with other media and asked Haitian and American reporters to leave its compounds, citing a 'security lockdown'....

You remember Franklin Graham:

Graham came under criticism for comments he made about Islam in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks when he referred to Islam as "a very evil and wicked religion."[3] Further criticism came on April 18, 2003, when he preached at a Good Friday service at the Pentagon.[4] Rev. Franklin Graham has made anti-Islamic remarks saying "True Islam cannot be practiced in this country," Graham told CNN's Campbell Brown in December. "You can't beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they've committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries."[5] [6] [7] ...

In the August 30, 2010 issue of the Time magazine, "Is America Islamophobic?" Frank Graham reportedly said that Islam "is a religion of hatred. It's a religion of war." Building the cultural center near Ground Zero, he says, means Muslims "will claim now that the World Trade Center property ... is Islamic land."[9]

... On August 19, 2010, when asked by CNN correspondent John King if he had doubts that President Barack Obama is a Christian, Graham stated, "I think the president's problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name." Franklin continues to say, "Now it's obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed, and he has renounced Islam, and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That's what he says he has done. I cannot say that he hasn't. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said."[10] ...

So there was no other aid group Palin could have focused on? There wasn't even another aid group with a Christian conservative bent? 

I don't believe that. Palin's appreciation for Franklin Graham goes back a ways. I assume she and her crew are fully aware of these controversies and are reminding all of us in no uncertain terms that this kind of talk is not something they consider to be over the line.  Quite the contrary, in fact -- I'm sure they believe that if we don't like Franklin Graham, it's because we're the (anti-Christian) bigots.

****

Oh, and:

Mrs Palin has provided access on her tour solely to Fox News and the religious organisation she is travelling with has asked all other Haitian and American journalists to leave the area because of a 'security lockdown'.

So this is what? A fact-finding trip?  Or a means of collecting location footage for a future tearjerking Fox News TV special?  Is this an attempt to draw attention to a crisis -- or to some upcoming reality programming?

EMO OF THE HOUSE

If you missed John Boehner on 60 Minutes tonight, here's the video:

WHO COULD REALLY "MAN UP"?

In a New York Times op-ed, Ishmael Reed make a now-familiar argument:

...Progressives have been urging the president to "man up" in the face of the Republicans. Some want him to be like John Wayne. On horseback. Slapping people left and right.

One progressive commentator played an excerpt from a Harry Truman speech during which Truman screamed about the Republican Party to great applause. He recommended this style to Mr. Obama. If President Obama behaved that way, he’d be dismissed as an angry black militant with a deep hatred of white people....

What the progressives forget is that black intellectuals have been called "paranoid," "bitter," "rowdy,” "angry," "bullies," and accused of tirades and diatribes for more than 100 years....

Unlike white progressives, blacks and Latinos are not used to getting it all.... They know when not to shout. The president, the coolest man in the room, who worked among the unemployed in Chicago, knows too.

I think Barack Obama has internalized a view of his own relationship to the larger, whiter world that tells him not to rock the boat -- in his tone and in his policies. So I think there's something to this.

But does that mean Democrats made a mistake picking him rather than Hillary Clinton in '08? A couple of days ago, Keith Olbermann hosted Dave Weigel on his show to make the case that she was a battler and Obama wasn't.

Except that she was able to be a battler in 2008 without being subjected to endless invective from her enemies because she was battling the then-inevitable Democratic nominee. If she'd actually been the nominee, or had even had a mathematical chance at the nomination, all this battling would have just meant she was an "angry bitch" in the eyes of right-wing and not-so-right-wing critics. And if she were president now and tried to give opponents hell? Same thing, cranked up to 11.

Blacks can't get angry because then they're "angry blacks." Women can't get angry because they're "bitches." How about John Edwards, the third major contender for the '08 Democratic nomination? Oh, don't listen to him if he unleashes a stem-winder -- he's just a slick trial lawyer.

I don't want to make light of the constraints society puts on African-Americans and women -- both of whom can literally risk their lives by not knowing "their place."

But I also wonder whether every Democrat, liberal, or even semi-liberal is just turned into a caricature of a dangerous lunatic whenever the anger and the volume go up. It's tough for Obama. It would have been tough for Hillary if she'd threatened Republicans. But white guys get this, too. Bill Clinton was "Slick Willie" -- another evil lawyer. Howard Dean was that crazy screaming guy. Michael Moore is the evil fat guy. It's always something.

To some extent, I think right-wingers get such a blanket pass on this that even black Republicans can vent at will. Clarence Thomas railed against his questioners in Congress. New teabag hero Allen West makes angry, frequently delusional pronouncements whenever the mood strikes him. So far, no downside.

In politics, it's fine to be a Democrat -- unless you look as if you'll fight back.

****

UPDATE: Link fixed.

RUBIO FOR VP? I'M NOT SURE

The Daily Beast's Mark McKinnon thinks this is unassailable logic:

If anyone other than the former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gets the Republican nod for the top spot, it's a no-brainer to pick Senator-elect Marco Rubio of Florida as the VP on the ticket.

Look at all the boxes he would check:

• A Tea Party favorite
• And a young, fresh face
• With a solid conservative record
• From the critical state of Florida
• He has a compelling American story
• And a rationale greater than himself for running, and for governing
• He appeals to the base
• He appeals to younger (and older) voters
• And he attracts Hispanic voters

If Palin chooses to run and is not the presidential nominee, Rubio fixes what will certainly be the "Palin problem" for the GOP. With her unmatched magnetic appeal, which attracts headlines as well as campaign donations, there will be enormous pressure on whomever is nominated for president to pick Palin as a running mate. The only other option that provides any real conservative cover for a VP pick is Rubio. Otherwise, you will have a grassroots riot on your hands.

Really? I'm not sure. I get the feeling that Rubio has a bit of Scott Brown in him -- he's going to dial down the purity so often that, while he's always going to be a good GOP foot soldier, he's not going to necessarily be a good tea party foot soldier. So if that's what's demanded on the GOP ticket, he'll fall short.

I'm not sure I believe that there's going to be a demand for Palin to be #2, and I'm not sure her ego would allow her to accept the "first runner-up" slot twice in a row. And who the hell (besides John McCain) would want her stealing the spotlight in the fall the way she inevitably would? Obama's rejection of Hillary Clinton as a running mate would be invoked -- that worked out electorally -- so I think it wouldn't happen. (Though let's hope she wouldn't be offered the secretary of state slot as a consolation prize.)

Maybe I'm just old-school, but I think the front-list contenders (Gingrich excepted, and he won't win) will all feel the need for someone with some semblance of a foreign policy background to balance the ticket. I'm thinking Santorum or John Bolton -- both of whom would be Fox News-y and red meat-y enough to quell the need to put a teabagger on the ticket. So that's my hunch -- or, God help us, Newt himself.

I GUESS ALL PUBLICITY REALLY ISN'T GOOD PUBLICITY

Apparently there are advantages to being a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate who isn't incessantly yammering away on Fox or attracting media attention in other ways:

President Barack Obama's approval ratings have sunk to the lowest level of his presidency, so low that he'd lose the White House to Republican Mitt Romney if the election were held today, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.

... A hypothetical 2012 matchup showed him getting the support of 44 percent of registered voters and Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, getting 46 percent.

Obama now is running slightly ahead of Republican former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, drawing 47 percent to Huckabee's 43 percent....

He'd easily defeat Republican former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, however. He'd get 52 percent of registered voters and she'd get 40 percent, if the election were held today....

So I guess it's not a problem that Romney's book is mired at #17,731 at Amazon, which is trying to unload it at a shelf-clearing 60% off. Sales of Palin's book, by contrast, may be (as The Washington Post put it) lackluster, but only by Palin standards: she's at #32 at Amazon, and she and the brood are, of course, all over TV, radio, Facebook, Twitter, and every gossip site and supermarket checkout magazine in America. And yet Obama (who's at 42%/50% approval/disapproval in the poll, with plummeting, sub-70% approval among liberals) cleans her clock by double digits.

Romney beats Obama because he does well among moderates, beating the president 47%/39%. Hmmm ... Romney's not on Fox, Romney does well among moderates -- coincidence?

I actually think Romney could get the nomination by winning the votes of the GOP's center-right remnant while the rest of the contenders try to out-wingnut one another and split the vote. But I think that would just lead to a vote-siphoning purist/teabag third-party challenge, from someone like Tancredo (or --and hold on to your hats for a really preposterous prediction, which I make because it now seems impossible to underestimate this country's craziness -- Christine O'Donnell). So I don't know if the Mittster can really win.

In any case, his absence from the limelight does seem to be making America's heart grow fonder. Maybe it's not the apparent lack of ideological Foxist harangues that are doing this -- maybe America just likes the fact that we never see him at all.

And another thought -- is the new guy who's a blank slate, the guy in whom we see what we want to see, on whom we project our own ideas and beliefs -- is that guy, the new Barack Obama, Mitt Romney? Good grief.

****

UPDATE: A few hours after writing this, I'm thinking: Was I nuts? Christine O'Donnell?

But truthfully, don't you think she thinks she should be president someday? Is it really so hard to imagine her wanting to run? And don't you think she'd enjoy a presidential campaign -- the interviews, the opportunities to hold forth, the glad-handing and baby-kissing, the possibility of being taken seriously -- more than just about anyone?

Yeah, it's highly unlikely that she'll do this in two years. But if the field boils down to Romney and Obama (along with, inevitably Nader, and perhaps Bloomberg or a Bloomberg sock puppet), don't you think some minor party that's been on the ballot for years but gone all but unnoticed -- some group with a name like the Freedom Party or the Eagle Party or the Constitution Party or whatever -- will find it unusually easy to recruit some semi-major name, some teabag hero or heroine, and that (in this environment) that person could very well pull in 1% or 2% of the vote in November, even if (or perhaps especially if) he or she is completely nuts?

So, OK, not O'Donnell. Joe the Plumber, maybe. Or Joe Miller. Or someone even loopier.

THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN, BUT WILL PROBABLY BE PROFOUNDLY DISAPPOINTING

Greg Sargent asks:

Will Obama really end tax cuts for rich in 2012?

No.

Wow, that was easy.

Oh, sorry. Let let me address Greg's post in more detail.

The fact that many liberals and Dems answer that question in the negative is perhaps the primary reason the White House is having so much trouble selling them on the tax cut deal. Obama has promised to do this, but libs and Dems just don't believe him.

I don't believe him, either -- I think he thinks he will, but I don't see it happening. Yes, I'm the same guy who's been defending The Deal. But I haven't been doing it because I expect that it's a promissory note for a better-fought fight in the future. I've been doing it because I have such low expectations of what Obama, Democrats, and non-elected non-Republicans are capable of accomplishing that The Deal clears my very, very low bar.

Obama should fight to overturn these cuts two years from now by laying groundwork to do so from now until then. It would take a lot of work and a lot of messaging. But I think we know what he's going to do instead: he's going to get caught up in a big, complicated effort to overhaul the tax code completely. That's how he thinks he'll overturn the cuts for the rich. However, his plan is going to be dismayingly centrist and Village-y, so we won't like it -- and at the same time it's going to provide fodder for the right to accuse Obama of being a socialist totalitarian granny/widow/orphan/small-businessman-robber.

So it will all fall apart, and then we'll get to a moment when the tax cuts have to be renewed or repealed. Republicans will just take all their off-the-shelf talking points down and put them on display again, while Democrats and liberals -- and I mean everyone, from Sanders and Olbermann to Obama and his crew -- will be saying, "Oh, crap, it's time to do something. Now what?"

You know -- just like this month.

Greg says:

... let's presume Obama is going to take up this argument. Will he win it? He has said that if the economy improves, it will sweep away the GOP's best case: That you should never raise taxes on anyone in a recession.

If the economy improves, Republicans will just say you should never raise taxes when we're not in a recession, because you run the risk of bringing back the recession. Come on, are our memories really that bad? Didn't we have precisely this bait-and-switch when the tax cuts were being debated in 2001, only in reverse -- i.e., first we were told that we should give the people their money back precisely because times were good, and then were told we should do it because times were getting bad?

It's moot, though -- the economy isn't going to be much better. Voters will want the cuts for the rich repealed, according to polls -- but they'll also probably be favoring a GOP presidential candidate who wants the cuts extended. And the Democrats will have spent two years failing to relentlessly hammer home a simple message about these particular tax cuts, because they'll have spent time instead on a mind-bogglingly complex overhaul of the entire tax code.

So agree with The Deal or oppose it, but don't decide on the basis of expecting much from the process in the next two years.

PROGRESSIVE MESSAGING: ABOUT AS EFFECTIVE AS USUAL

Hey, let's take a stand on the Bush tax cuts because people need to see it's Republicans holding the middle class hostage hell yeah!

Oops:

Who will be blamed if tax cuts expire on December 31st? According to a new McClatchy-Marist Poll, it depends on how you slice it.

... exactly one-third of the nation said Republicans in Congress would be most to blame.

President Obama ... receives 19 percent of blame in the poll.

About 3 in 10 Americans said they'd blame Democrats, who voted on Thursday to reject the deal brokered between Obama and the GOP.

Combining the values for [Democrats] in Congress and the president reveals that almost half the nation would place the blame on Democrats for failing to reach a compromise with the GOP. One in ten said all parties would be at fault....

(Emphasis added.)

I'm genuinely sorry that this poll didn't offer the option of expressing approval of the expiration on principle, or approving it because, dammit, it's time to take a stand, or for any other reason. I hope a better poll tests all the possible responses. And I know that the response to this will go in the usual circles: anti-Obamaites will say Obama muddied the message by cutting a sellout deal with hostage-takers, while Obama backers will say that progressives are leading a crusade the point of which is misunderstood by the public because of inadequate attention to messaging. In any case, it's clear from this poll that the public isn't spontaneously grasping the blameworthiness of the GOP.

TAX-CODE REFORM IS YOUR NEW HEALTH-CARE REFORM

I thought the huzzahs for President Obama's plan to overhaul the tax code would come mostly from the Broders and Friedmans, but, alas, here's the usually astute Michael Tomasky with a round of applause:

I had meant yesterday to post praise and link to this excellent piece from TNR by Bill Galston, who argued that the only way for Obama to win in 2012 is to:

...seize the initiative by moving comprehensive tax reform to the center of his agenda. He could argue -- correctly, in my view -- that the current tax code is far too complex, treats millions of average families unfairly, and constitutes an impediment to economic growth. Building on an emerging bipartisan consensus, he could go on to advocate a plan that broadens the base of the system while reducing rates -- a formula that applies to both individual and corporate taxes. And he could challenge both parties to join with him to make a reformed code the law of the land during the 112th Congress.

So conceived and framed, tax reform serves both of the long-term goals -- economic growth and fiscal restraint -- that Obama must promote as the heart of his domestic agenda. Embracing it would enable him to move back on offense and to become the transformative leader he clearly wants to be. And if he places himself at the head of an initiative with substantial appeal across party lines, he could also begin to redeem the promise of a more cooperative, less confrontational politics that first brought him to national notice and helped him become president.

I'd been thinking the same thing....

Oh, please.

This is exactly the sort of thing ordinary people say they approve of -- until they see the details. What?! Where's my mortgage interest deduction? Why is my health care plan taxable now? What the hell?

That's problem #1. And if you don't think it's going to be a problem, go look at this story about a new poll on the deficit. Tax simplification is just like deficit reduction: Americans believe in it in the abstract, but then they hate the details if they think their own ox is going to be gored (and really, you can't blame them):

Americans want Congress to bring down a federal budget deficit that many believe is "dangerously out of control" only under two conditions: minimize the pain and make the rich pay.

(Ah, yes: "make the rich pay." Too bad the public doesn't actually vote against pols who protect the rich. But I digress.)

The public wants Congress to keep its hands off entitlements such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, a Bloomberg National Poll shows. They oppose cuts in most other major domestic programs and defense. They want to maintain subsidies for farmers and tax breaks like the mortgage-interest deduction. And they're against an increase in the gasoline tax....

See, the wonks and centrists and centrist wonks have all sorts of ideas about deficit reduction -- but ordinary people are in no mood for the ones that will affect them adversely. The same thing will be true of any Obama tax overhaul, as soon as details emerge.

You know what else is like this? Health-care reform -- voters want it, but then they don't like any ideas that reduce (or seem to reduce) their coverage or their access to care. (And even ideas that don't affect ordinary citizens adversely can be made to seem as if they're a threat by the GOP noise machine. Think the Republicans and the Murdoch media are going to have much difficulty finding a "death panel" in whatever Obama cooks up for the tax code?)

Here's another way that tax reform is like health-care reform: if this becomes Obama's obsession in the next year or two, it will be another thing he seems bizarrely fixated on, while the public cries out in agony, "We need jobs, dammit!"

This is a terrible idea. This, and not the deal on the Bush tax cuts, could be the thing that finally sinks his presidency. It's disastrously bad politics.

****

How naive is Michael Tomasky about this, by the way? Put something soft under your jaw before reading this:

I, as my regulars know, would hope to see a top marginal rate on really high income ($3 million or more) of, oh, 60% to start; run it up the flagpole and bargain it down from there. But if you're lowering rates on everyone up to something like $200,000, i.e. 97% of taxpayers, you might be able to return to high top marginal rate on Bill Gates, LeBron James and the ex-junkie radio entertainer.

You might? With this Congress? Yeah -- and everyone in America might get a pony, too.

WEEP FOR THE CORPORATIONS

You know, they'd really love to spend all this cash they have lying around on hiring and expansion, but, well, they just can't, y'know?

Corporate America's cash pile has hit its highest level in half a century.

Rather than pouring their money into building plants or hiring workers, nonfinancial companies in the U.S. were sitting on $1.93 trillion in cash and other liquid assets at the end of September, up from $1.8 trillion at the end of June, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. Cash accounted for 7.4% of the companies' total assets -- the largest share since 1959.

The cash buildup shows the deep caution many companies feel about investing in expansion while the economic recovery remains painfully slow and high unemployment and battered household finances continue to limit consumers' ability to spend.

The buildup has a big downside for companies, which get little return on their money because interest rates are low, but it reflects the relatively few opportunities they see to deploy their cash more creatively.

"The corporate sector is looking at the household sector and saying, this is not the environment where we should expand our business," said Deutsche Bank economist Torsten Slok....

Hey, corporate sector: you want the people in the household sector -- i.e., us ordinary folks -- to have more money to spend on your goods and services? Well, then you and your bought-and-paid-for puppets in Washington should get your boots off our freaking necks.

We need some genuine stimulus, enough to actually put a dent in unemployment in a Keynesian way until you'll deign to do some private-sectoring hiring. We need mortgage relief. We need the rich to pay a share of taxes that's more along the lines of what the rich paid for most of the past seventy-five or so years. And yes, I know saying all this is preposterously naive, because you don't give a goddamn about us as people. But if you want us as consumers, we have to have a couple of nickels to rub together to consume with.

Then again, for all your whining about how little money your money is making while it's parked and idle, you're apparently not suffering all that much, because American businesses had record profits last quarter.

I suspect our corporate overlords care about our lack of ability to spend not because they're suffering in any way, but because their pent-up "animal spirits" are making them itchy to expand. Well, fine. Your precious animal spirits are going to continue to be denied as long as you keep grinding the rest of us under your heel.

THE TELEVISED WILL NOT BE REVOLUTION

It seems to me that, in relation to the American left, Barack Obama is approaching the position of Lyndon Johnson in 1968. I know Obama fully intends to run for reelection, but a lot of lefties clearly want him to drop out, like LBJ.

The difference is that the issue that drove LBJ out of the race is 1968 is an issue on which lefties had demonstrated, rioted, sat in, and generally raised hell. In fact, the run-up to LBJ's withdrawal looked a bit like London yesterday:

Central London has been rocked by large and at times violent student protests over the government's decision to triple university fees.

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla were caught up in the demonstrations. Their car was pelted with paint and had one of its windows cracked as the Royal couple made their way towards a theatre....



That's what going on there as a result of disgust with government leaders. This is what's going on here:



OK, that's not a breaking news video -- but as students riot in London, this is who's stepping up in America to respond to the failures of the Obama administration:

Former Alaska Senator and 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel told The Daily Caller in an exclusive interview that he is mulling a primary challenge to President Barack Obama in 2012.

In an e-mail exchange arranged by his daughter, TheDC asked Gravel if he was considering a run for president in 2012 and if he is specifically considering a primary challenge to President Obama. He replied, "Both are possible."

... Gravel, who served in the Senate from 1969 to 1980, also stated that he believes that members of the U.S. government "may certainly have participated with the obviously known perpetrators" of the September 11th attacks. "Obviously an act that has triggered three wars, Afghan, Iraqi and the continuing War on Terror, should be extensively investigated", Gravel continued, "which was not done and which the government avoids addressing." ...

Bloody hell.

Where are the demonstrators? Where are the leaders? What are people on the left doing?

Oh, yeah, right -- they're staring at screens. They're reading Kos and DU and FDL and HuffPo. They're watching Rachel and Keith. They're blogging and commenting and tweeting.

I'm no better. In fact, I'm the worst. I'm not out there. And I'm enabling screen-staring several times a day.

But if we hate Barack Obama now -- oh and, yeah, the Republicans too -- maybe we need to close our laptops and let these guys know in a real-world way.

And maybe -- just maybe -- there's a cause-and-effect relationship between the fact that we haven't done anything like this and the fact that we keep getting screwed.

WALL-TO-WALL PATHETIC

The frustration with President Barack Obama over his tax cut compromise was palpable and even profane at Thursday’s House Democratic Caucus meeting.

One unidentified lawmaker went so far as to mutter “f--- the president” while Rep. Shelley Berkley was defending the package the president negotiated with Republicans. Berkley confirmed the incident, although she declined to name the specific lawmaker....

--Roll Call

Basically, here's where we stand. Obama thought he negotiated a tough bargain with Republicans. Congressional Democrats now think they're revolting against what they think was a lousy bargain with Republicans. They both think they're taking on the plutocratic extremism of the GOP, but really all they're doing is getting tough with ... each other. Neither side has the firepower to actually put any hurt on the GOP. So each side kicks the dog, except what we really have is two dogs kicking each other.

The master -- the GOP -- isn't getting kicked. The master is just laughing at how pathetic it all is.

SELF-IMAGE-REINFORCING PALIN TRIP TO INCLUDE EXPLOITATION OF IMPAIRED OCTOGENARIAN

Besides the obvious -- that this almost certainly means she's running for president -- let me note that Sarah Palin's upcoming overseas trip is all about Sarah Palin reminding herself how terrific she herself is:

The Daily Beast has learned that Sarah Palin will be traveling overseas in the new year. At the top of the list: Israel and England, both countries she has said she wanted to travel to in the past. The schedule and itinerary is still fluid, but an overseas trip in 2011 will boost her foreign policy credentials, something she can turn to in a potential 2012 presidential run....

Palin has long wanted to visit Israel, and in a recent Facebook post wishing the Jewish community a Happy Hanukkah she reconfirmed her support for the Jewish state: "Today we should all recommit ourselves to ensuring that the miracle of a Jewish state endures forever. The dreidel is one of the most familiar symbols of Hanukkah, with Hebrew letters on it representing the phrase Nes Gadol Haya Sham -- 'a great miracle happened there.' Indeed a great miracle is still happening there."

Last June, Palin announced on her Facebook page that she had been invited to visit London and have a meeting with one of her "political heroines," Margaret Thatcher. She also wished the "Iron Lady," who suffers from dementia, a happy birthday in October....

I'm going to ignore Vanity Fair's claim that during the '08 campaign, according to unnamed McCain World sources, Palin "had no idea who Margaret Thatcher was"; since then, she's gotten up to speed ... or at least sufficiently up to speed to arrive at the conclusion that Thatcher was, well, just like Palin. Her June announcement of the planned visit to Thatcher was so ego-affirming that she leaked the Facebook post to Politico before posting it (because, y'know, there's such a long lag time when you post at Facebook). Think I'm exaggerating about Thatcher-worship-as-narcissism? Read what Politico wrote:

In a Facebook post scheduled to go up Monday, Palin writes: "I have received an invitation for a visit to London, and part of that invitation included the offer of arranging a meeting between myself and one of my political heroines, the 'Iron Lady,' Margaret Thatcher."

... "As I wrote last year when I offered her birthday wishes, Baroness Thatcher's life and career serve as a blueprint for overcoming the odds and challenging the 'status quo,'" Palin continues. "She started life as a grocer's daughter from Grantham and rose to become Prime Minister -- all by her own merit and hard work. I cherish her example and will always count her as one of my role models....."

... Palin recently touted Thatcher during a speech at a fundraising breakfast for the Susan B. Anthony List in Washington -- a speech in which Palin highlighted many of the "mama grizzlies" she believes are reshaping the Republican Party.

"Mrs. Thatcher, she never set out to be a woman prime minister, just a prime minister," Palin said. "Mrs. Thatcher used to say about politics 'You want something said, ask a man. You want something done, ask a woman.'"

And, regarding Israel, recall that Palin was being sold as a great friend of that country back in September '08:

Voters should feel confident in Sarah Palin support of Israel, Republican Jewish leaders and other GOP figures argued on Tuesday. Not because of the Alaska Governor's policy statements, a proclaimed understanding of the Middle East, or relationships with regional leaders. But because she keeps a small Israeli flag in the corner of her office window....

"I think it is extremely telling," said Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, "that if you are looking to get some insights into how people think, we came across a video of an interview that was done in Alaska, some sort of outdoors program. Some guy interviewing her as she was climbing up glaciers or something like that. Part of the interview took place in the governor's office in Juneau. What was really telling is that in one point in the interview there was a close up of her and you can see over her shoulder there was a flag of Israel in her window. I can assure all of you that is not done to appease the extraordinarily large Jewish community in Juneau. The fact that she has chosen to keep a flag of Israel on her wall tells her she has Israel in her heart."...

She also met with Shimon Peres that month and brought up the flag herself. So she's been working this angle for a while.

I'm intrigued by the Daily Beast's assertion that Palin's "schedule and itinerary [are] still fluid." Who else do you think she'll try to hit up for a photo op? Angela Merkel? The pope? Geert Wilders? Or will she just try to shoehorn in a visit to some troops, just so she can say they love her more than they do Obama? (Yeah, he got a pretty good reaction from some of the servicemembers who got to see him on his Afghanistan trip, but I bet the troops cheering Palin will be a lot whiter.)

BRING IT ON

Everybody draw weapons and form a circle:

Defying President Obama, House Democrats voted Thursday not to bring up the tax package that he negotiated with Republicans in its current form.

"This message today is very simple: That in the form that it was negotiated, it is not acceptable to the House Democratic caucus. It's as simple as that," said Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen.

"We will continue to try and work with the White House and our Republican colleagues to try and make sure we do something right for the economy and right for jobs, and a balanced package as we go forward," he said.

The vote comes a day after Vice President Biden made clear to House Democrats behind closed doors that the deal would unravel if any changes were made.

"Wow did the [White House] mishandle this," a senior House Democratic Source told CNN. "Breathtaking. Members have major substantive concerns and they should have gently guided people to the finish line." ...

I'm not the president. I don't think like the president. It's not his style, but right now I think he should go on national TV with a sheaf of papers (real or symbolic) representing the deal he made with the Republicans and say, to everyone who's pissed off:

"Look, I did what I thought was best for the country, and obviously a lot of you didn't like it. Well, fine. [He tears up the papers.] The deal is off. You can hammer out a better deal? Great -- I will back the best deal you can get. I did what I could. Now, show me what you can do."

The hell with it. The hell with dignity and keeping intraparty disputes out of the limelight -- Sarah Palin and the teabaggers don't bother with any of that, and they've been the flavors of the month for nearly two years now.

I guess I'm saying this because it's what I want. All of you who think backing this deal, or even just begrudgingly accepting it, is the worst possible act of betrayal? I would absolutely love it if you and angry legislators and angry activists could make a better deal happen, regarding this tax package and every other bit of business the GOP is holding hostage to it. I would love it if you could rally a sleeping public against the GOP's monomaniacal determination to lavish more money on the rich, and do so in such a way that the party suddenly stops voting the way North Korean soldiers march.

I want you to do better than Obama and get your deal over the finish line. I want to eat crow. I hope you get your chance and I hope you make my pessimism look entirely unfounded.

And I'd be delighted what you're doing to take advantage of this opening.

SKY IS BLUE, POPE IS CATHOLIC, FOX NEWS IS PROPAGANDA

Least surprising exposé ever, from Media Matters:

LEAKED EMAIL: Fox boss caught slanting news reporting

At the height of the health care reform debate last fall, Bill Sammon, Fox News' controversial Washington managing editor, sent a memo directing his network's journalists not to use the phrase "public option."

Instead, Sammon wrote, Fox's reporters should use "government option" and similar phrases -- wording that a top Republican pollster had recommended in order to turn public opinion against the Democrats' reform efforts.

Try to contain your amazement.

The e-mail went out on October 27, 2009, after Foxsters were heard using the conservatively incorrect phrase on air, rather than phraseology that had been approved by pollster Frank Luntz. After the e-mail, that mistake wasn't repeated:

On the October 27 Special Report [with Bret Baier] -- unlike on the previous night's broadcast -- ... Baier referenced the public option three times. In each instance, he referred to it as "government-run health insurance" or a "government-run health insurance option" -- precisely echoing the first wording choice laid out by Sammon.

On the same show, correspondent Jim Angle referred to "a government insurance plan, the so-called public option"; "a government insurance option"; and "a government insurance plan." ...

Funniest thing about this? The fact that the people at Fox were actually worried about the possibility that a public option would actually become part of the health-care law. (Sammon has a hell of lot more faith in the ideological purity of elected Democrats than is actually warranted.)

Second-funniest thing? The fact that this might actually be surprising to readers of, say, Howie Kurtz, who devotes a Daily Beast column to carefully examining the evidence pro and con, in order to determine whether the charges of bias are, in fact, valid:

Some Fox staffers are concerned about Sammon’s role because he leans right in his on-air analysis and is the author of such books as Strategery: How George W. Bush Is Defeating Democrats, Outwitting Opponents and Confounding the Mainstream Media, and At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election.

Hmmm ... suggests possible media bias ... however ...

Sammon said in the interview that he was a newspaper reporter for 25 years and his record demonstrates that he hasn't favored either side. "Have I said things where I take a conservative view? Give me specifics," he said.

See? Maybe it's debatable!

Kurtz actually takes Sammon's challenge literally and provides several Sammon soundbites with a clear ideological bent. Boy, I bet that took a lot of digging, don't you?

What is wrong with our political culture that we still have to debate this? It's like debating whether a well-used, infrequently emptied Porta-Potti in the desert in July smells bad.

One detail I find interesting: a few months prior to Sammon's memo, Luntz himself discussed the issue with Sean Hannity on Hannity's show:

Two months prior to Sammon's 2009 memo, Republican pollster Frank Luntz appeared on Sean Hannity's August 18 Fox News program. Luntz scolded Hannity for referring to the "public option" and encouraged Hannity to use "government option" instead.

Luntz argued that "if you call it a 'public option,' the American people are split," but that "if you call it the 'government option,' the public is overwhelmingly against it." ...

"You know what," Hannity replied, "it's a great point, and from now on, I'm going to call it the government option."

This shows how thoroughly trained the Fox audience is. Not only do they respond to the day-to-day propaganda with Pavlovian predictability, but they'll also sit and happily watch as these guys openly discuss the very techniques used to keep them stupid.

(Via Steve Benen.)

HOW YOU PLAY THE LONG GAME

Jonathan Chait, after reading Karl Rove's latest Wall Street Journal op-ed:

Karl Rove today again signals that the Republican line is going to be that President Obama has adopted the Republican Party's economic agenda:

failure would imperil $400 billion in tax cuts that would be a more effective economic boost than Mr. Obama's justifiably ridiculed stimulus.

I think he's setting the stage to give Republicans credit if the economy improves and Obama wins reelection. Still, I really wonder if that's the line Republicans are going to settle on. After all, the Bush tax cuts have been in effect all along. If it was a "more effective boost" than Obama's stimulus, then why didn't it work? Is this really what they're going with? I have to think they can do better.

Oh, Jonathan, Jonathan, Jonathan. Do you really believe that, if the economy recovers soon, swing voters and their Foxista friends at backyard barbecues are going to get on this subject and think through the entire timeline? That's not how it works, and Rove knows it. Here's how it works: "Y'know, Bill, I can't believe I'm sayin' this, but I might vote for Obama -- things seem to be looking up around here with the job situation." "Well, Don [says Bill, parroting a line of argument he heard the night before on Hannity], you know that the only reason things are better is that Obama didn't get rid of those Bush tax cuts. Hey, how are those burgers doin'?"

Simple and digestible -- who cares if it doesn't make any sense? It sounds as if it does. And, of course, it doesn't have to persuade everyone, or even be fully believed by everyone who takes it seriously -- as long as you float the idea that, for instance, Gingrich (or even Reagan) was responsible for the economic recovery in the Clinton years, you reduce the chances that Republicans will be thoroughly discredited during those years even among people inclined to give primary credit to Clinton. And then if, years later, the economy is bad in a Democratic era (as it is now), you pull this argument off the shelf and, to some in the middle (in addition to the usual folks on the right), it actually starts to sound reasonable.

The point is, Karl Rove is already thinking about what GOP messages will be two years from now -- or whenever the economy recovers. He's already laying the groundwork. I'm not sure there are any Democrats who are thinking yet about what their message is going to be next month.