Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere: BitsBlog’s Nightly Ramble.
Lots of snow up here the last couple days… and most of it coming from Washington, DC. Let’s have at it.
- Over at US News, James Pethokoukis says he thinks Obama will “Own” this resession.
Now today’s Obamacrats are apparently going to try and Hooverize President Bush in an effort to shield themselves from the potential political fallout of a prolonged recession. It will take years to fix the American economy, Obama says, and years of trillion-dollar budget deficits to do it. And everyday it seems that Team Obama tries to lower economic expectations, such as bearishly predicting that unemployment would hit double-digits.The not-so-subtle message in the middle of all these pessimistic prognostications: When ya’ll go to vote in 2010 and 2012 and a) unemployment is still as high as it’s been in decades, b) income growth is sluggish at best, c) the budget deficit is running at a trillion bucks a year, and d) stock prices remain stubbornly low — hey, don’t blame us, you can’t rebuild Rome in a day or even in a first term. Remember, Bush really left us a mess.
I think that’s correct. The policies Obama’s been touting… including that supposedly major speech today… will do nothing but serve to lengthen and deepen the recession. Indeed, given his lack of commitment to a free market economy, Obama has a better chance of making an outright depression of all this, than a recovery with what he’s offered up. And the American voter will be figuring that part out. Democrats are already worried about losing at least 50 house seats and possibly more in the next mid-terms. they know already who is going to get the blame. Rightly so. Mikey Kaus meanwhile, points to yet another reason for resentment aganst Obama and the Dmeocrats… and I suspect this is one that’s going to build till it blows up in their faces.
Oil went up a bit over the last couple days, resulting in some price spikes at the pump… the wholesale club gas price around here went up a dime or so yesterday. But then the price turned around and went down by the largest percentage in seven years, yesterday. I wonder what I’ll see on the BJ’s sign in the morning? (And, yeah, that’s an old picture.)- Global warming, meanwhile, strikes again: They cancelled the sled dog race in Minnesota because of too much snow.
- Bill Clinton has a special place in his heart for a White House rug. You can’t help but think you know why. TMI! TMI! Like we needed THAT reminder.
- A great article I meant to get to in last night’s Ramble, from the Wall Street Journal, and Karl Rove:
Mythmaking is in full swing as the Bush administration prepares to leave town. Among the more prominent is the assertion that the housing meltdown resulted from unbridled capitalism under a president opposed to all regulation.
Like most myths, this is entertaining but fictional. In reality, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were among the principal culprits of the housing crisis, and Mr. Bush wanted to rein them in before things got out of hand.
Rather than a failure of capitalism, the housing meltdown shows what’s likely to happen when government grants special privileges to favored private entities that facilitate bad actors and lousy practices.
Indeed. And here’s the thing about that; Rove is correct as regards F&F, but that also applies to other governmental agencies… for example, school districts:
- We keep hearing about how Government schools are doing so poorly. Example, Detroit government schools struggling to keep toilet paper and lightbulbs in the place. Yet, we keep seeing items like this bit with Chicago where they spent on the order of $70,000 of educational funding on cappuccino machines… . Bill Ayers had nothing to say on this suject? He’s such a hero in Chicago, and such a supposed expert on educational matters…. Let’s hear it, Bill…
- Uh-ohh… word on the democrat corruption front now is that Blago gave money to Bill Richardson. There seems no end to this corruption… and they’ve not even been sworn in, yet.
- Gotta love her. We mentioned Ann Coulter here yesterday, and how she got banned form NBC for life. Amazingly, NBC invited her back, apparently for a little damage control.
MATT LAUER: Let me just get to this little controversy. You’ve been all over the blogs in the last day or so. We cancelled your appearance here on Tuesday. And from what I’ve been reading you thought you were banned for life from the show. Did, were you behind that report?ANN COULTER: No, I didn’t say that. That was from a reliable news report that, by the way, had never, has never had to retract a report on exploding GM trucks
(Snicker) It gets better from there. Go and read.
Finally, since my first article went up over at Pajamas Media, I’ve gotten a lot of really great feedback. Thanks for that, all of you, and a BBCT to Rick Moran, who is the Chicago editor of PJM, as well. I had a lot of fun doing it, and will do so again. Even for that minimal involvement with PJM (thusfar), I admit to taking a certain pride when I heard the news yesteday, that Joe the Plumber is now doing work for PJTV. Good show, PJM. This pleases me no end. Among other things, it lets me know I’ve fallen in with people I can appreciate.
