Steve, as a blogger, you must know that sights set on 2012 or otherwise, Republicans haven't been interested in honest debate for years. Look at their apologists in your own comments section, for crying out loud.

The next bill designed to turn the economy around...forget Denver. Obama should sign it at Appomattox Court House.

The Pattern:
1. Discuss honestly.
2. Entreat magnanimously.
3. Shake head sadly at GOP antics.
4. Steamroll.

I'm looking forward to Part 5 - Take Credit, Bask In Adulation.

This site is becoming extremely annoying.

Steve relentlessly critiques every republican misstep and mistake. Yet has only praise for Obama. Yet on the whole financial bailout issue, not one word of criticism, despite the fact that Obama clearly is not doing anything substantially different then Bush did. Big, politically connected New York money center banks are receiving preferential treatment at tax payer's expense. Obama's press spokesman on Friday claims that the banking industry should stay private, yet 14 banks this year have been put into receivership by the FDIC. Why aren't clearly weak and most likely insolvent banks such as citigroup and B of A receiving the same treatment?? Why are my tax dollars going first to prop up shareholders of these failed institutions??

Shame on you Obama for being completely and totally captive to the same banking interests that Bush was. Shame on you Steve Benen for failing to even come close to pointing this out.

If we agree on 90 percent of this stuff, and we're spending all our time on television arguing about 1, 2, 3 percent of the spending in this thing, and somehow it's being characterized in broad brush as 'wasteful spending,' that starts sounding more like politics. And that's what right now we don't have time to do.

MSNBC just played a clip with this quote. Jeff Zeleny of the NYT translated it as, "I won the election. Get over it." Oy veh, such insight.

OK, who is harald b a parody of?

Cazart: Step 5: profit.

Danp - from the olden times, "swan"? A concern troll... TAIO? "grin".

Recall the Orange Revolution! Vive l'orange!

sduffys - Nah, Swan would have had multiple typos followed by multiple posts correcting them, and he would have called someone an asshole.

There is still confusion about Social Security among the Cable Pundits. Here is what could be learned by listening to the introductory comments to today's summit:

1. All of the entitlement problem is about increasing health care costs.

2. The Obama Admin will focus on reducing the growth in health care costs to close to the rate of overall inflation.

3. Medicare inflation cannot go down as long as the private health care system continues high inflation.

4. Social Security covers about 39% of pre-retirement income. Medicare premiums are subtracted from Social Security, which will over two decades reduce the take-home. (Medicare will become a larger share of overall income, so less for other stuff.)

5. Social Security increases with the cost of living. If health care inflation continues at a much higher rate than general inflation, Social Security benefits will go up faster than with lower inflation.

6. ==> Everyone gets screwed with higher health care inflation.

7. ==> Fixing health care inflation will probably fix Social Security all by itself.

"...that starts sounding more like politics."

Does Obama believe there is a politics beyond "mere" politics?

Politics is the realm wherein often difficult decisions about the common good and resource allocation are negotiated and made. Does the "honest politics" vs. "mere politics" gambit help? On the one hand, how clean a distinction is this? On the other hand, when someone's clearly grandstanding, say, do you really need a careful distinction?

Wouldn't it be more to the point to just do the politics and dispense with the gambit?

Just keep talking about Jindal, Sanford and Barbour. Way to ignore the elephant in the room: Rod Blagojevich. Anything to avoid discussing him, eh?

"7. ==> Fixing health care inflation will probably fix Social Security all by itself."
Posted by: tomj on February 23, 2009 at 2:13 PM

Krugman makes the same point on his blog today.

Entitlements on the back of an envelope

So if excess cost growth in health care can be brought under control, the entitlement problem is manageable. If not, even savage cuts in Social Security will make little difference.

Just keep talking about Jindal, Sanford and Barbour. Way to ignore the elephant in the room: Rod Blagojevich. Anything to avoid discussing him, eh? Posted by: dead weight mike on February 23, 2009 at 2:36 PM

BORING. Why give him any more bandwidth?

Just keep talking about Jindal, Sanford and Barbour. Way to ignore the elephant in the room: Rod Blagojevich. Anything to avoid discussing him, eh?

Good point, so you'd like to impeach them?

I'd support impeaching Jindal, Sanford, and Barbour too, but it's really up to the state legislature.

to dead brain mike-For crying out loud are you completely insane. Blago was impeached. what's to discuss. He was dispensed with quickly. Unlike Bush, Cheney and co. Jesus do you morons have one iota of anything at all to add to the subject at hand or do you always just stand on the street corner screaming and blathering about every unimportant fleeting thought that rattles around your empty heads?

Gandalf - Tell them how you really feel.

This place is funnier than MadTV.

Zing!

So important for Obama to speak to this crap that's been circulating.

24/7 Cable T.V. (along with hate talk radio) HAS changed everything. I've never seen this much destructive misinformation coming out so fast and so furious ever before.

And yes, the droning and whining that comes out of these these clowns who babble on all day long to keep their job is often very dishonest--and that's putting it mildly.

Rod Blagojevich. Anything to avoid discussing him, eh?

this must be a parody troll.

Great points:
going first to prop up shareholders of these failed institutions??
Make a bid; propping up, according to Bloomberg today, means $2.25/sh, a 1 year return of -90.6% for Citi. BAC is only down 89.4%.

yet 14 banks this year have been put into receivership by the FDIC.

Similar to complaints about the stimulus bill. Those 14 banks represent a miniscule proportion of the more than 9,000 commercial banks in the US.

There is still confusion about Social Security among the Cable Pundits.

No, there's no confusion; there's flat-out lying.

this must be a parody troll

Think "dead freight mike" rhymes with...well, someone who's pretty much already a parody as it is.

Come to think of it, the same applies to all our trolls.

Hey, I thought 'Dead Freight Mike' was going to change his name to 'Dead Weight Mike'!

You promised in the previous thread.

Bastard!

That was so cool of Obama. Honest and illustrating his concern for the American people first...above politics. Like throwing pearls before swine though when it comes to Jindall and the others for so many 'obvious' reasons.