Informed Speculation

…a story comes along that is right up Mickey Kaus’s alley, and he just destroys it.  So it has been with President Obama and his inept handling of the health care reform debate.  Case in point: Obama at a town hall today: “Here’s my promise. …[snip] We will not sign … I will not sign [...]

When a politician who has everything to lose attacks career professionals who are doing their job, it’s bad enough. When that politician is the President of the United States, it is inexcusable. The Congressional Budget Office is independent and nonpartisan, and it should stay that way. When a president attacks the agency in public, he [...]

…for President Obama.  The Senate acknowledged there will be no vote on health care before the August recess, and the president managed to get himself embroiled in a racial controversy by inadvisedly opining on the Gates matter before all the facts are in.  That led to a rare presidential apology, sort of: President Obama tried [...]

Obama is ratcheting up the pressure, and what’s the result?  More and more prominent Democrats are backing away: “Members have concerns, and they’re not just Blue Dogs,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters today, referring to the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats. “I want to make it very clear that [...]

We know one reason President Obama is desperate to get a vote on healthcare reform before the August recess – the reforms he is proposing are increasingly unpopular and likely to die when representatives hear from their constituents (so much for democracy). Now we know another reason – he is sitting on a budget update [...]

Well, I know the health care reform proposals are sinking fast now – Paul Krugman, cheerleader-in-chief for the Obama administration, has resorted to calling the moderate Democrats who have asked for more time to consider reform “the six deadly hypocrites”. Raise your hand if you think that’s behavior fitting a Nobel Prize winner.  Really, now [...]

The latest signs that the Democratic health care reform push is coming up short are two: (1) the public option is being increasingly thrown overboard, and (2) there is a growing tendency to engage in plain fantasy regarding funding.  The phrase of the day is ‘soak the rich’, but it’s a complete lie, and it’s [...]

I think I detect a theme here.  Michael Gerson: The jobs report last week opened a long gash beneath the waterline of President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda. Few yet realize it, but a scramble for lifeboats is about to begin. On closer inspection, the economic news, which seemed bad, is even worse. Not only did [...]

See, here’s the deal – I will probably never convince those of you on the left that my opposition to Obama’s domestic agenda is not partisan (well, okay, partly partisan, but not in the main). I really DO wish we could offer universal health care, and I acknowledge the seriousness of climate change (while remaining [...]

Perhaps it’s the thin air in the lofty atmosphere of the Nobel Prize, but Paul Krugman has a most peculiar trait for an economist: he seems to live in a world where the basic economic unit (money) has no intrinsic value to it. How else do you explain his constant cheerleading for more and more [...]

There’s a headline that’s sure to upset both sides of the aisle!  But so says Megan McArdle, noting that while the Laffer Curve had some validity at one point, it was used far past that point to push for things the right wanted, like tax cuts.  Now, a similar dynamic is rising among the left, [...]

John Dickerson says it’s reluctance to jeopardize diplomacy aimed at solving the nuclear issue, a sentiment Robert Kagan echoes…but Fred Kaplan says enough: Given the near-certainty that Iran’s election was fixed and the documented fact that protesters are being brutalized, there is no way that Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could go to [...]

I’ve been riding this horse for a while now, and I’m going to keep on riding it until I see some indication that the Obama administration and Congress are taking it seriously.  Forget a massive new health-care benefit – forget cap-and-trade.  Those are programs for a prosperous economy.  If Washington doesn’t convince the bond markets [...]

What do you suppose a responsible politician would do, in the face of a struggling economy reeling under massive amounts of personal debt and a government deficit running wildly out of control and sparking still nascent but unmistakable fears of the return of crushing inflation? We’ll never know, because we’re not governed by responsible politicians. [...]

First of all, it was a major speech, obviously.  Some notable bullet points: (1) Obama did not use the word terrorism or any variant in the entirety of the speech.  That can only be deliberate, one presumes to avoid fanning the flames considering the primary audience was intended to be the Arab public. (2)  The [...]

I’ve expressed my misgivings many times about the direction of our monetary policy – it now appears that these misgivings are very widely held.  Yesterday, the Fed Chairman warned of the need to control the exploding deficit: The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said on Wednesday that the United States needed to develop a [...]

Regarding yesterday’s post, Martin Feldstein weighs in on cap-and-trade in the Washington Post: The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the resulting increases in consumer prices needed to achieve a 15 percent CO2 reduction — slightly less than the Waxman-Markey target — would raise the cost of living of a typical household by $1,600 a [...]

For my older readers, that’s gangsta for kill this dog.  In an earlier post, I rightly ridiculed Paul Krugman for laying down his credibility in an incredibly transparent attempt to shill for the Obama administration’s upcoming cap-and-trade debacle.  Krugman’s piece was remarkable mainly for one reason – he made no attempt to justify the cost [...]

The Washington Post reports that – as has seemed fairly certain for a few months now – General Motors will enter bankruptcy next week – ironically, perhaps at nearly the same moment Chrysler is lifted out: The Obama administration is preparing to send General Motors into bankruptcy next week under a plan that would give [...]

Marc Ambinder has an interesting take on the revolt of the Senate when it came to closing Gitmo: As usual, administration officials won’t concede that the overwhelming Senate vote against funding to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay was a defeat for the president’s agenda.  In Obama World, every short-term defeat is a long-term opportunity. [...]