Matt Yglesias has a contrary, but somewhat overlapping, take on the 2010 senate battles that I looked at a few days ago. Rather than the issue being poor picks to replace senators dislodged by the 2008 election, Matt sees a larger context: too little attention to how much the need to play offense in 2010 would be critical to the success of Obama’s legislative agenda.
So, in Matt’s thinking, it’s not so much poor appointments, it’s why Obama pulled sitting senators (Clinton & Salazar) into his cabinet and — perhaps even more important — took a number of governors or ex-governors (Napolitano, Sebelius & Vilsack), who were well positioned for senate runs, into his cabinet as well. Add to that the fact that Obama and Biden themselves opened up seats and you’ve got a decent number of senate seats in play. The further point Matt makes, and I think it’s a good one, is that it’s not simply that Napolitano, Sebelius and Vilsack might have won their races. Their running also would have created political pressure from the left that would have been a factor in the legislative battles going on today.
Hindsight is 20/20. And a lot has changed in the last twelve months. But not necessarily that much that could not have been predicted.
Who could have predicted that building a fully-enclosed ski resort on the edge of the Persian Gulf might be a sign of a bubble economy?
Do our beliefs form the basis of our partisan and ideological affiliations? Or is it vice versa?
There’s been a lot of recent evidence not only that Republicans disproportionately disbelieve the evidence for man-made global warming but that their skepticism is growing. I think that trend is fairly classed under the general heading of Republican/conservative hostility to science. But the other point interests me no less. Read More
Sen. Bayh (D-IN) says the Salahis, the White House crashers, should probably be charged criminally for their stunt last Tuesday.
As a general matter, I think there are far too few uses of executive clemency, commutation and pardon in our current criminal justice system. But here’s a case of one gone awry that may end up having real political ramifications.
You may have heard that four police officers were murdered in what under different circumstances would look like a mob assassination in Washington state coffeehouse this morning.
The man local police are seeking for questioning is Maurice Clemmons, 37, a man with a lifetime history of violence, burglary, aggravated robbery, theft and rape. Clemmons was serving what was essentially a life sentence in Arkansas before having his sentence commuted by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee.
“This is the day I’ve been dreading for a long time,” Pulaski County prosecutor Larry Jegley told the Seattle Times when told Clemmons was a suspect in the quadruple murder. Read More
TPM Reader GB has some advice for us as the senate debate on health care reform gets started tomorrow …
As a long time reader, and occasional correspondent, I’m writing to urge you not to get misled into an obsession with the “public option” as the key element of the senate debate or the final version of the bill. Not because its unimportant but because its a semantic issue that in the end will not make a huge difference in the bill. As you yourselves have reported, the “public option” will not in any event be a significant part of the health care landscape even if the version in the Reid bill is passed into law.
Floor debate on the health care reform bill starts today in the Senate. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
The holiday weekend probably disrupted your usual TPM reading pattern, so let me flag a few items you might have missed:
* We couldn’t do what we do without the super well-informed readership we have, which funnels us a wealth of tips, insights, and local news reports. Zack Roth has the top 10 reader tips we’re most thankful for.
* Christina Bellantoni read David Plouffe’s new book so you don’t have to. She pulls out the top 10 Obama campaign revelations in Audacity to Win. Read More
Family Guy had some fun with a certain MSNBC host last night. No, that’s not a hydrocephalic newscaster; it’s Chris Matthews. Watch.
Last evening in a meeting with his national security team, President Obama issued the orders to begin implementing his new plan for Afghanistan, including the deployment of more than 30,000 troops to the country.