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Breakfast Scramble

DavidL's Breakfast ScrambleGeithner [1]:

Administration officials were greeted with sarcasm and laughter Monday night when they briefed lawmakers and congressional staff on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s new financial-sector bailout project, according to people who were in the room.

The laughter was at its height when Obama officials explained that the White House planned to guarantee a wide swath of toxic assets — which they referred to as “legacy assets” — but wouldn’t be asking Congress for money

 

does Marx [2]:

What was it that Karl Marx said about historic events occurring twice, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce?

 Karl not  Groucho.

Obama throws Elkhart under the bus: [3]

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration on Tuesday overturned another Bush-era energy policy, setting aside a draft plan to allow drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

So much for getting us off of foreign oil.  So much for creating domestic wealth.

Brevity is the Soul of Wit, Walter Shapiro, New Republic [4]:

Through most of his inaugural primetime press conference, Barack Obama seemed like he was channeling a particularly loquacious combination of Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, and the ghost of Hubert Humphrey. The president’s response to the first question from the Associated Press about the risks of sounding too apocalyptic about the economy ran (or, to be more accurate, crawled) for nearly 1,200 words–and ended with Obama saying “Okay” with an implicit question mark as if he were requesting permission to keep on talking. A national poll from the Pew Research Center released Monday afternoon found that 92 percent of Americans described Obama as a “good communicator.” There is a suspicion that those astronomic numbers had dipped by the time that Obama exited from the East Room of the White House at 9 p.m. on the dot.

Chris Dodd on thin ice, Quinnipiac University [5]:

Connecticut voters split 41 – 42 percent on whether they think Sen. Christopher Dodd is honest and trustworthy and disapprove 48 – 41 percent of the job he is doing, his first negative approval rating in a poll by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University

 Charming Barry, Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal [6]:

Barack Obama has now been president for 21 days, following an inauguration that was supposed to have pressed the reset button on America’s relations with the wider world and ushered in a new period of global cooperation against common threats. Here’s what pressing reset has accomplished so far:

– Iran. Since President Obama’s inauguration, Iran has launched a satellite into space and declared (with an assist from Russia, which is providing the nuclear fuel) that it would complete its long-delayed reactor at Bushehr later this year. At the Munich Security Conference last week, Iranian parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani promised a “golden opportunity for the United States” in its relations with the Islamic Republic. He proceeded to make good on that opportunity by skipping Joe Biden’s speech the next day.

 Charm helps but it can not over come a lack of substance.

Joe who, Jimmy Orr, Christian Science Monitor [7]:

Question

FOX News reporter Major Garrett asked the president last night what Biden was talking about.

“Can you at least reassure them it wasn’t the stimulus bill or the bank rescue plan – (laughter) – and if in general, you agree with that ratio of success, 30 percent failure, 70 percent success?” he asked.

Answer

Here’s the chance for the president to set the record straight. To vindicate the vice president. After all, as Rod Blagojevich said, “The truth will set you free.”

Instead, the president offered, “You know, I don’t remember exactly what Joe was referring to,” he said to laughter. “Not surprisingly.”

“But let me try this out,” the president said valiantly trying to come up with something. “I think what Joe may have been suggesting, although I wouldn’t put numerical – I wouldn’t ascribe any numerical percentage to any of this – is that given the magnitude of the challenges that we have, any single thing that we do is going to be part of the solution, not all of the solution.”

 It’s back to Delaware for Joe.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s preconditions,Ian Black, Guardian [8](UK):

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s hardline president, used the final rally of celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the 1979 revolution to declare a readiness for talks with the US “based on mutual respect and in a fair atmosphere”.

Ahmadinejad told a crowd of hundreds of thousands in Tehran that change by Washington would have to be “fundamental and not tactical” – and attacked the former president George Bush, who included Iran in his notorious “axis of evil”.

 While BO grovels, Ahmadinejad snarls.

Dr. Michael Kamrava impregmamted [9]with Nadya Suleman all of her fourteen of herbabies.   So   Doc yhat about a some child support payments?