On the Sunday shows yesterday it was all Blagojevich and the failed auto bailout. Plus a bonus teaser of an unusual occurrence at a presidential press conference in Baghdad…
Full-size video at TPMtv.com.
One of the key details behind the prosecution of the Duke Cunningham case was that Mitch Wade went straight to the authorities on like Day One of the scandal. I’d need to go back to my reporting notes to get the exact timeline. But basically from the moment it was clear that Duke had some serious explaining to do, Wade was there at the US Attorneys office, ‘fessing up and asking what he could do to help.
That’s got to be the best practices approach to how to come out of one of these scandals without spending a good chunk of the rest of your life in prison. But I’d say he did about as well from this sentence as you could possibly imagine. Wade flagrantly and repeatedly bribed a sitting member of Congress and he’s going to do 2.5 years in prison.
Reacting to today’s WSJ story, the Obama team tells TPM Election Central that his commitment to net neutrality has not softened.
Time‘s Jay Carney to become Joe Biden’s communications director.
Former RNC oppo research director turned Rove aide turned U.S. attorney scandal appointee Tim Griffin considering U.S. Senate run in Arkansas.
Paul Krugman’s bookclubbing with us this week at TPMCafe on his latest book, The Return Of Depression Economics And The Crisis Of 2008.
From Paul’s first post:
“Right now the world economy is in a nosedive, and understanding what I call “depression economics” — the weird world you get into when even a zero interest rate isn’t low enough, and a messed-up financial system is dragging down the real economy — is essential if we’re going to avoid the worst.”
Examining that weird world along with Paul are Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research; Brad DeLong, professor of economics at UC Berkeley, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Treasury in the Clinton Administration; Robert Reich, professor at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, and former U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997; Dana Chasin, Senior Policy Advisor at OMB Watch; Jo-Ann Mort, the founder and CEO of ChangeCommunications, Randall Wray, professor of economics and research director at the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability at the University of Missouri-Kansas City; Mark Thoma, associate professor of economics at the University of Oregon; and Susan Feiner, professor of economics and women’s and gender Studies at the University of Southern Maine.
That will be quite a book. David Remnick is writing on Obama, race and American politics.