 Twitter roundup (5/18-5/24)May 24, 2011 at 1:54 PM | |
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 | Implausible @jpodhoretz claim -- "Why They’re Not Running: $1 Billion Is Why" http://j.mp/jp2KGk So they would have run if Obama had $500M? |
 Why They’re Not Running: $1 Billion Is Why « Commentary Magazine Mitch Daniels's announcement that he's not running for president, along with so many other plausible Republican candidates, indicates how unusual an election cycle this is. People used to crave ... | |
| May 24, 2011 at 1:44 PM | |
| Um, no: "elites harmoniously resolving their differences... is exactly what already drives American policy & politics" http://j.mp/mvibzR |
 Glenn Greenwald David Brooks flew to London so now he's an expert on British politics, and in his New York Times column this morning, he explains why "the British political system is basically functional while ... | |
| May 24, 2011 at 1:35 PM | |
| Obama adviser: "Through process of winning that nomination, [GOP nominee] will achieve stature and...be competitive” in $ http://j.mp/kFmKyZ |
 With Daniels out, GOP presidential field takes clearer shape Lubbers said reaction to Daniels's decision has been one of sadness by many who were urging him to run, especially among those who saw in the governor someone who "was on to something and was ta... | |
| May 24, 2011 at 11:31 AM | |
| .@davidfrum on Ailes: "confrontation sells...hard to resist the thought that... Christie must therefore be the solution" http://j.mp/mJj6K3 |
| http://j.mp/mJj6K3 How Mitt Romney handles Fox News president Roger Ailes will tell a lot about whether he has the cunning and the toughness to be a successful president. | |
| May 24, 2011 at 1:07 AM | |
| RT @mattyglesias: Reporters need to do more to help us understand the emergence of strong party discipline in the GOP: http://ygl.as/k5Pu5U |
| Yglesias » House GOP Embraced Politically Suicidal Medicare Repeal Plan With Eyes Wide Open To Its Unpopularity Glen Thrush and Jake Sherman have a very interesting Politico article noting that House Republicans weren't confused about the unpopularity of the budget plan they voted for earlier this year. | |
| May 24, 2011 at 12:53 AM | |
| RT @SteveKornacki: Not reading much into Mitt's NH #s. McCain got 49% in NH in 2000, fell as low as 5% in summer of 07, won w/ 36% in 1/08 |
| May 23, 2011 at 11:57 PM | |
| What about 2020? MT @CitizenCohn: @MikeGrunwald considers how Daniels exit will affect GOP ... in 2016 http://t.co/o49l8fx |
 Reality Bites: The GOP After Daniels, and After 2012 | Swampland | TIME.com The most important political story of the Obama era has been the Republican Party's growing defiance of reality-its denial of climate science, its denunciations of Medicare cuts while proposing ... | |
| May 23, 2011 at 6:48 PM | |
| .@joshuagreen on "the unlikely spectacle of Brooks and Shields analyzing the death of Randy 'Macho Man' Savage http://j.mp/lJA8dD |
 David Brooks Responds to BrooksMeme - Joshua Green - Politics - The Atlantic Joshua Green - Joshua Green is a senior editor of The Atlantic and a weekly political columnist for the Boston Globe. More Joshua Green is a senior editor of The Atlantic and a weekly political ... | |
| May 23, 2011 at 3:52 PM | |
| DNC web ad distorts Pawlenty not knowing *when* he decided to run as him not knowing *why* http://j.mp/iOz4NA Source: http://j.mp/kA3vPk |
| http://j.mp/iOz4NA | |
| Pawlenty Makes GOP Bid Official: Is He Too Nice For His Own Good? -- Printout -- TIME It was after 8 p.m. at the public library in the quiet town of Adel, Iowa, and staffers were folding up the metal chairs. Tim Pawlenty's question-and-answer session had wrapped up some 30 minute... | |
| May 23, 2011 at 1:19 PM | |
| RT @PeterHambyCNN: DNC distortion RT @CrowleyTIME: A transcript of my exchange w/ Pawlenty about when he got serious about running for pres http://t.co/HEYq27V |
| What Pawlenty Said | Swampland | TIME.com The Democratic National Committee has been having fun with my recent profile of Tim Pawlenty--specifically by bashing him, as this video does, for allegedly responding "I don't know, I wish I ha... | |
| May 23, 2011 at 6:53 PM | |
| Reminder to panicking Republicans -- 1991 NYT: "Political Memo; Democrats' Distress Grows As Presidential Field Shrinks" http://j.mp/ieMFV4 |
| http://j.mp/ieMFV4 Democrats struggled today to adjust to the last thing they needed six months before the Iowa caucuses: an already tiny Presidential field that keeps shrinking.As expected, Senator John D. | |
| May 22, 2011 at 3:31 PM | |
| Useful reminder of why Perry is not marketable like GWB RT @davidfrum: With Daniels out, is Rick Perry the answer? No. http://bit.ly/kMYjXy |
| With Daniels Out, Is Perry the Answer? No | FrumForum With Mitch Daniels announcing that he will not seek the party's nomination, conservatives are once again looking for a white knight to save the Republican field. The newest name being promoted i... | |
| May 22, 2011 at 2:03 PM | |
| RT @pourmecoffee: In terms of media covering things that were never going to happen, Rapture still ranks behind Trump candidacy. |
| May 22, 2011 at 12:28 AM | |
| .@gregamarx interviews John Sides of @monkeycageblog on "what we can—and can’t—learn from early polling" http://j.mp/mEgMEM |
 Q&A: Poli-Sci Blogger John Sides : CJR Greg Marx is a writer based in Jersey City, N.J. The GWU professor on what we can-and can't-learn from early polling The 2012 election is almost eighteen months away, but politics junkies are al... | |
| May 20, 2011 at 5:19 PM | |
| RT @msnbcTomCurry W/ #NY26 in mind, when do special House elections predict one party will gain seats? http://j.mp/jMtpc2 (via @loujacobson) |
 Will special elections predict House power shift? Traxler did get a boost from the 1971 reapportionment that put a heavily Democratic county in the district. But pundits saw his win as a sign of doom for Republicans. "No Republican should assum... | |
| May 20, 2011 at 4:00 PM | |
| MT @CookPolitical why the Pres hasn't had more of a bump in the polls since death of bin Laden http://njour.nl/k9WczD (via @loujacobson) |
 The Cook Report: A Brief Bounce More than two weeks have passed since the successful SEAL team raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and, as expected, about half of President Obama's ratings bounce has disa... | |
| May 20, 2011 at 3:54 PM | |
| Hillary's mileage-very important! MT @GrahamDavidA: Where are the "facts" being "checked" in this "Fact Checker" column? http://j.mp/m2Chux |
| http://j.mp/m2Chux Obama’s speech is an attempt to put the Arab Spring into context and to hit the “reset button” on U.S. policy in the region. | |
| May 19, 2011 at 7:35 PM | |
| RT @samsteinhp: this is so weird and random though it would be great if, say, kucinich would read wu-tang lyrics from house floor: http://bit.ly/liIOOc |
 Sen. Republican Leader Christine Radogno Knows Cash Rules Everything Around Her Illinois Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno reads a letter from The Chef in response to the state's budget crisis, because as we all know, Wu-Tang is for | |
| May 19, 2011 at 7:33 PM | |
| Gallup: "Anti-Incumbent Mood... Persists" http://j.mp/klChI2 But as Alan Abramowitz notes, 2010 was anti-Democrat mood, not anti-incumbent. |
 Anti-Incumbent Mood Against Congress Persists in 2011 PRINCETON, NJ -- Twenty-eight percent of U.S. registered voters say most members of Congress deserve re-election, tying the low point in the trend set last year, according to a new USA Today/Gal... | |
| May 19, 2011 at 6:32 PM | |
| RT @SteveKornacki: With Perry/Christie talk picking up, the history of white knight WH candidates in the modern era http://bit.ly/m7qs95 |
 2012 Elections: Waiting for that magical Republican savior The news this week that Rick Perry, the longest-tenured governor in Texas history, may be eying a late entry into the presidential race has returned attention to what has so far been a consisten... | |
| May 19, 2011 at 5:49 PM | |
| Misperceptions abroad: "A new CSA poll finds 57% of French citizens think Strauss-Kahn is the victim of a plot." http://j.mp/m0u37e |
 IMF Chief Resigns Amid Sex Scandal Taegan Goddard's Political Wire -- News, polls and buzz | |
| May 19, 2011 at 5:08 PM | |
| Sentences you don't expect to hear on NPR: "If push comes to shove, I rep the streets, you know?" http://j.mp/kpf8Up |
 Is The L.A. Food Truck Bubble Ready To Burst? : NPR The gourmet food truck craze that started in Los Angeles may be reaching its peak. These days, hundreds of gourmet food trucks are roving the Los Angeles streets, selling everything from Korean ... | |
| May 19, 2011 at 2:50 PM | |
| RT @MoynihanPatrick: @BrendanNyhan Interesting trend from Fox: 22% say US safer w/OBL's death; in '04, 63% thought US would be safer if OBL captured/killed |
| May 19, 2011 at 11:30 AM | |
| Ouch - Kristof: "economists are shaping national debates...political scientists often seem...theoretical and irrelevant" http://j.mp/mJyc1t |
 Getting Smart on Aid - NYTimes.com For decades we’ve had a lot of hot air about how best to help fight global poverty. Now we have field-tested results. | |
| May 19, 2011 at 11:28 AM | |
| Fox finds 15% think there is a chance bin Laden is still alive, 6% don't know http://fxn.ws/iPYQ2j (PDF; via @fivethirtyeight) |
| http://www.foxnews.com/project s/pdf/051811_bin_Laden_web.pdf | |
| May 19, 2011 at 12:58 AM | |
| RT @MoynihanPatrick: "Any chance" is low bar; CBS '02: 7% possible Elvis alive, 5% DK; MT @BrendanNyhan Fox 15% chance OBL alive, 6% DK http://fxn.ws/iPYQ2j |
| http://www.foxnews.com/project s/pdf/051811_bin_Laden_web.pdf | |
| May 19, 2011 at 11:30 AM | |
| RT @MoynihanPatrick: @BrendanNyhan Interesting trend from Fox: 22% say US safer w/OBL's death; in '04, 63% thought US would be safer if OBL captured/killed |
| May 19, 2011 at 11:30 AM | |
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May 24, 2011
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About Me
I am the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Duke University and have served as a RWJ Scholar in Health Policy Research and a faculty member in the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. I am a co-director of Bright Line Watch. Previously, I contributed to The Upshot at The New York Times, served as a media critic for Columbia Journalism Review, co-edited Spinsanity, a non-partisan watchdog of political spin, and co-authored All the President's Spin. For more, see my Dartmouth website.
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I see two problems with Yglesias's statement that the Republican vote for a Medicare reform bill they know is unpopular is "...a fascinating picture of the emergence of very strong party discipline of the sort that hasn’t traditionally existed in the United States and continues not to exist in the Democratic caucus."
1. Yglesias's assertion that the Dems haven't shown comparable unity is contradicted by their suicidal support for Obama's Health Reform bill.
2. Yglesias assumes that popularity and party discipline are the only reasons a Republican might vote for a bill. IMHO some Reps were motivated by a sense of responsibility. After all, on May 13, 2011, the Annual Report of the Social Security Trustees, for the sixth straight year, warned that Medicare and Social Security are on an unsustainable, insolvent path, and without swift attention will leave future generations with broken promises.
(BTW this point runs into a myth. The evidence of Medicare's and Social Security's unsustainablity is at least as strong as the evidence that there were no WMDs in Iraq just before the war. After all, the SS actuaries, who should know, say that these programs are unsustainable. Furthermore, I've seen no responsible argument contradicting them. Yet, many liberals continue to promote the myth that these programs are not unsustainable.)
Posted by: David in Cal | May 24, 2011 at 11:29 AM
The WaPo Fact Checker (sic) writes:
Obama comes close to calling for the ouster of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, but does not quite do it: “President Assad now has a choice: he can lead that transition, or get out of the way.” This is similar to language Obama used about Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi — before telling them to step down. So he is clearly moving in that direction.
The language may be similar, but not its impact. Mubarak was a friend of the US. He was more-or-less a client of ours. He faced a more popular uprising than Assad does. And he did not use the most harsh methods to retain power. As a result, Obama's call for Mubarak to step down led to Mubarak stepping down.
Gaddafi also faced a popular, semi-successful uprising. Although he was not an American ally, he had agreed to give up his nuclear program after the overthrow of Saddam.
The Syrian regime is ruthless in retaining power. They have been shooting into crowds of unarmed demonstrators. Assad is our country's enemy. His leadership owes nothing to the US. Given the mess in Libya, IMHO Obama will not go to war in Syria. So if Obama were to call for Assad to step down, his statement would have no impact.
Note that this comparison is an example of Obama treating America's friends worse than America's enemies.
Posted by: David in Cal | May 24, 2011 at 11:55 AM