Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up
January 19, 2009 by
Filed under Bush Powers, Capitol Hill, Clueless, Deserved, Double Standards, Idiot Ideas, Legal Ramblings, Money, Uncategorized
Soon. Soon now. Your national nightmare ends soon.
BlueRidgeNow.com: Rosa Parks sat so that Martin Luther King could walk.
“Martin Luther King walked so that Barack Obama could run,” said one boy. “Barack Obama ran so that all children could fly,” added another, standing a few feet away from the first African-American ever elected president.
William Kristol: [shorter kristol]: I know it’s a waste of time amd space (like most of my columns) but let me make a case for why Bush deserves better. As he goes, I go. His validation is my validation. And I’m feeling… rejected. So it goes.
Old-fashioned voodoo economics — the belief in tax-cut magic — has been banished from civilized discourse. The supply-side cult has shrunk to the point that it contains only cranks, charlatans, and Republicans.
but the exorcism is incomplete.
But Obama is banking on the belief that politically attuned conservative evangelicals in the under-40 generation are more interested in issues like human trafficking, genocide in Darfur, the environment, and crime and education in their own communities than the previous generation’s issues of abortion and same-sex marriage. Like their secular peers, they are Internet-savvy and “more globalized than their parents,” Wallis said. “They care what’s going on around the world, and they want to do something about it.”
Gary Langer: Strong ratings, deep discontent for Obama.
Support for change, moreover, is in the air, with seven in 10 Americans in this ABC News/Washington Post poll saying Obama has a mandate for “major new social and economic programs.” Vastly fewer saw a mandate for George W. Bush eight years ago.
CNN:
“Barack Obama’s plan to reach out to Republican members of Congress with a tax-cut component to his stimulus package seems to be working with the GOP rank and file,” CNN polling director Keating Holland said. “Most Republicans nationwide oppose a stimulus plan that only has increased spending in it. But support for a stimulus plan with tax cuts climbs to 70 percent among Republicans.”
McConnell acknowledges that Obama will be able to push most of his agenda through Congress without the support of Republicans. But if he does so, he risks looking like he’s been “co-opted” by the leftwing of his party–not a good result for someone who campaigned on bridging partisan divides.
But not a bad result policy-wise.
