You’ll be happy to know that the Los Angeles US Attorney’s office, where the (endlessly) on-going investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) is being handled, has decided to shut down its public corruption unit.
That topic was getting a bit too much attention.
The initial responses to my post below about what kind of pressure the Fed could have brought to bear on Bear Stearns to sell at vastly under its market value, if that in fact was the case (a proposition that I find difficult to believe from my vantage point of complete ignorance), suggest that there’s no obvious answer to the question that everyone agrees on.
In other words, we’ve received no emails telling us about the little-known ‘sell your $%&#& company for what we say or it’s off to Gitmo’ law being invoked.
But here are some possibilities. Berkeley economist and reality-based blogger Brad DeLong suggests two possibilities. One, that Bear Stearns execs were unwilling to go into bankruptcy because of a various forms of criminal liability they would face — and that everyone would be so pissed about the collateral damage of the bank’s collapse that everyone would want to not only execute them but also have them drawn and quartered (in case you only know the phrase and not what it actually means: not pretty). Two, there’s so much crap on Bear Stearns’ books that $2 per share is just a fair price, even with the Fed assuming a lot of the potential liability. Let’s call this the Atrios option.
Brad says the market seems to believe two while he’s leaning toward one.
More generally, a lot of what I’m hearing suggests that the some part of the answer may be that the Bear Stearns board and execs may have pursued interests not perfectly in line with their shareholders on this deal, whether that be to avoid criminal liability or protect their own compensation not directly tied to stock price.
From McClatchy: Cheney Praises “Phenomenal” Progress as Bomber Kills 39
For the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, we’ll be discussing Greg Mitchell’s new book, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits â and the President â Failed on Iraq, this week at the TPMCafe Book Club.
Mitchell, editor of Editor & Publisher, will be joined by military historian Robert Bateman, McClatchy military columnist Joe Galloway, Executive Director and Founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Paul Rieckhoff, Washington Independent reporter and TPM alum Spencer Ackerman, and media critic and NYU professor Jay Rosen.
Mitchell opens the discussion with an overview of his book, which tracks media coverage from the run-up to the invasion all the way through last fall’s debate on the “surge.”
Ackerman, fresh off covering the Winter Soldier Conference, complains that the deficient coverage continues apace, noting that few major media outlets covered the conference, let alone gave it prominent placement.
Given the vast sums or money Bill Clinton has raised and made since 2001 and the fact that the couple loaned $5 million to Hillary’s campaign, I don’t think there’s any question that Hillary should release the couple’s tax returns. But how is it exactly that this very reasonable point has become a staple of the political conversation while no one has even raised the point that John McCain hasn’t released his either?
Remember, McCain’s the one running as John Q. Ethics. And not to put too fine a point on it but his substantial wealth comes from his heiress wife who only a few years ago was revealed to have been skimming pills from her own charity to feed her drug addiction.
I highly doubt that last episode has any direct relevance to their current financial standing — but the efforts to cover it up and help her escape legal jeopardy do show a tendency to avoid playing by the rules. So let’s not pretend McCain is so squeaky clean that he doesn’t need any scrutiny too.
Sworn in today, New York Gov. David Paterson (D) has admitted in an interview that during a rocky period in his marriage to his wife Michelle, between 1999 and 2001, he carried on an affair with another woman — probably a wise admission given the circumstances surrounding his predecessor’s political demise.
But I have to say that Paterson will have to do better than this thin gruel to make his mark on the landscape of tri-state governors. In fact, the competition seems to be escalating even in recent days.
In 2004, Jim McGreevey resigned as Governor of New Jersey after admitting to an affair with his dubiously qualified homeland security advisor, Golan Cipel, and coming out as a “gay American.” Then last week former Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-NY) significantly upped the ante by admitting to being a habitual user of extremely high-priced prostitutes. But over the weekend, despite having left the political game, McGreevey engineered the revelation of the fact that, while still professedly heterosexual in the years just before winning the governorship, he and his wife, Dina Matos McGreevey, routinely engaged in threesomes with a young McGreevey staffer. Still more lurid, the trysts usually began with Friday night dinner at TGI Friday’s.
This most recent news would seem to put McGreevey back firmly in the saddle in the regional gubernatorial shagstakes. And Patterson appears to realize he simply cannot compete.
Despite the White House effort to gin up a terrifying sense of urgency, the surveillance bill has stalled in Congress and may not move any time soon.
Sen. Obama is giving his major speech on race now in Philadelphia. We have the text posted here.
It is remarkable for its nuance, for its long view of history, and for its decency.
I am not sure, on first take, how effective it is politically. Your thoughts?
Late Update: The text is one thing. Delivery is another. And Obama doesn’t seem to have his A game today.
Later Update: TPM Reader DW:
He found his A game towards the end, I think.
Had to watch on Fox, due to some DirecTV weirdness on CNN and MSNBC.
I think it’s a great speech, but it’s nuance. There are too many soundbytes that will be taken out of context, and Fox already got one.
“Obama: Rev. Wright is family to me”
That’s all the wingers need, and all the Foxwatchers need, to perpetuate what they already believe.
I agree with DW. Obama picked up the pacing and spoke with more energy toward the end. At his best, Obama doesn’t just read the text of his speech, but delivers a speech. Overall today, he seemed flat.
TPM Reader HC says:
Just scrolled through Obama’s speech and I think it does all the heavy lifting it needs to — his disavowal of Wright’s inflammatory statements while refusing to reject the man altogether bolsters, rather than diminishes, the whole philosophy of his campaign. At first blush I wonder if it’s too smart for most Americans, especially those easily swayed by Atwater/Rove race-baiting, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. In any event, it seems to me to be an extremely important speech, one rich in history and nuance but pointing the way past the Bush-Clinton era. I’m on board.
Still Later Update: TPM Reader PT is looking for the same things I am:
In my eyes, the question going forward is this: what is the bite-sized take-away? What sorts of things can supporters and campaign representatives now say when asked questions like, âHow come he didnât leave the church after hearing those things?â âHow could he expose his children to that?â âIn 20 years, he never noticed?â Maybe Obama can answer the question by reframing it and throwing it into the biggest possible context, but can his noisy and undisciplined supporters on DKos do it? Can Durbin do it? Can Sebelius do it? Can media types summarize it on his behalf? And if they canât, doesnât that just return us to the old, unsettling gotcha questions? Thatâs what Iâll be waiting to see.
This was after all a campaign speech. Ultimately it has to be judged on whether it achieved its purpose.
Key neoconservative and AEI scholar Michael Rubin accuses Nancy Pelosi of trying to engineer “Rwanda-like genocide” in Iraq.