Bernie Madoff claimed he was on the “short list” to be appointed chairman of the SEC. Maybe just a boast to keep SEC investigators off his trail, but a scary thought anyway.
The press secretary for the Florida GOP, which sent out a press release calling an Obama address to schoolchildren nationwide an exercise in socialist indoctrination, piles on in an interview with TPMDC:
Well, I know that a lot of the President’s ideas don’t reflect my values and don’t reflect the values that I would be teaching my children. And to be quite honest, there are a lot of the President’s ideas that I wouldn’t want my children discussing in a public school. It’s not appropriate, the place for that is in the home.
Eric Kleefeld has more.
There’s a lot of commotion and confusion right now on where the state of play is on health care reform, especially with the news emerging over the course of the day that the president will start a new roll out next week.
First, literalism in a situation like this will only get you so far. Sen. Blanche Lincoln appeared to say yesterday that she was ruling out a public option. Politico and others reported it that way. What she actually said was: “I would not support a solely government-funded public option. We can’t afford that.”
The only problem with that is that there’s no version of the public option that is “solely government-funded.” It’s fundamentally premium-based, with more or less subsidies either at the front end to get it started or to defray costs for middle and lower income consumers. So on the face of it, it’s a nonsensical statement — like, I’ll vote down every death panel. Read More
U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke waves off the “irregularities” in the Afghanistan election as similar to the protracted Minnesota Senate election.
Guess that makes the incumbent Karzai, our ostensible ally there, the Norm Coleman of Afghanistan.
Coleman, um, lost.
TPM Reader SG’s Lament …
This “outrage” over Obama speaking to schoolchildren is the last straw. The Swiftboating — and that’s what this is — of Obama must be dealt with.
Tom Ridge on when untrustworthy book covers happen to trustworthy books.
There aren’t many current affairs or memoir type books I’m really eager to read. But I really can’t wait to read the Kennedy memoir. The folks at the Times have a copy.
Sen. Schumer’s statement …
“The President is clearly not running away from this battle, but rather confronting the challenges we’ve encountered these last few weeks head-on. He’s pulling out all the stops, and this level of involvement from the President could well be a game changer. There is no better way to turn public opinion around than to have someone as popular as President Obama addressing the American people directly, without intermediaries interpreting – or misinterpreting – his ideas.”
Department of Education removes “Help The President” language from classroom materials for Obama speech.