Ezra Kelin: Financial Crisis Survivors
Andrew Ross Sorkin offers some unsettling insight into the psychology of the finance CEOs left standing:
The one thing I would say is, to the extent that some of these companies have come out the other side and exist today, many of the executives now consider themselves survivors. That's the word they often use. Like a cancer survivor. Maybe that's deserved for some, but I'm not sure they all appreciate that their survival was in large part paid for by taxpayers. My worry is that, longer-term, some of those who feel like survivors will be emboldened to take on additional risk in the future.
It's easy to mistake surviving for winning, and thinking it a reflection on your skill rather than the product of the trillions of dollars the federal government pumped into the system. The folks at Goldman Sachs are presumably feeling pretty good about themselves. But there was a time when the folks at Lehman and Bear Stearns were feeling pretty good, too.
GOP conducting its own foreign policy Oct. 5: GOP in Exile: Rachel Maddow is joined by Washington editor of The Nation magazine, Chris Hayes, to review the startling number of Republican members of Congress like Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC, who are travelling abroad in contradiction of the purposes of the U.S. government.
The AP analyzes Chicago's defeat in terms of top ten GOP talking points about Obama. Too overexposed, just a celebrity, etc.John Cole: A Morning Hoekstroika
Awesome:
In an interview with the Washington Post yesterday, former Ron Paul economic adviser Peter Schiff, who is now running as a Republican for Connecticut’s U.S. Senate seat, feigned modesty when asked about his candidacy, saying that he wasn’t “heroic” for running for office. However, he then compared himself to the heroes who fought in World War II against Nazi Germany.The actual quote is too good to believe- “I’m interrupting my career. It’s not like I want my new career in politics. But I’m willing to interrupt it the same way that somebody interrupted their career and joined World War II and went off to fight the Nazis.”
Just plain awesome.
Think Progress: In just one hour, Sotomayor asked more questions than Thomas has in years.
Yesterday was Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s first day on the bench, where she took an active role in oral arguments. Sotomayor “displayed no reticence on the first day of her first term on the court; in the two cases on the docket, she asked as many questions and made as many comments as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.,” reported the Washington Post. “The only sign of her newness was that she at times forgot to turn on her microphone before posing a question.” McClatchy also observed that in just an hour, she actually asked “more questions than Justice Clarence Thomas has asked over the course of several years.” Thomas has gone three years straight without posing a question during oral arguments.
sgw: Cut The Bullshit!
Why in the hell is Spencer Ackerman seemingly the only journalist pointing out the fact that General Stanley McChrystal did not try to call out President Obama in London which has now become conventional wisdom in the Village?!Bill highlights ridiculousness of anti-ACORN campaign Oct. 5: Rachel Maddow is joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, to talk about a newly proposed "ACORN bill" that makes a mockery of the anti-ACORN movement.
For goodness sake PLEASE spread this link around so people aren't fooled by the mainstream media promoting a civilian/military split!
Your one stop pundit shop.
...George Will, perhaps realizing that Republicans did themselves no favors with their anti-American cheers at the news that Chicago lost its bid to host the 2016 Olympics, decides to go a different route and attacks the speeches the Obama's gave last week in Copenhagen. Apparently, because Obama used pronouns "26 times in 48 sentences," he's an egomaniac. There was no comment on what Will thinks of pretentious gasbags.
- Steve Benen adds: Periodically, conservatives latch onto a new line of attack against President Obama. Apparently, the new one is "narcissism." Marty Peretz talked it up yesterday in a bizarre piece, and George Will endorsed the argument in his column today. ...
Putting aside Will's fondness for dramatic ellipses, his criticism is simply detached from reality here.
The speeches are online, and reading them, it's tempting to wonder if Will even read the remarks before using them as the basis for a cheap column.
The president told the International Olympic Committee, for example, "I've come here today to urge you to choose Chicago for the same reason I chose Chicago nearly 25 years ago -- the reason I fell in love with the city I still call home." It was a springboard for the president to reflect, not on himself, but on his hometown -- the diversity of the city, the "rich tapestry of distinctive neighborhoods," Chicago's history of hosting major events, and its ability to be "a bustling metropolis with the warmth of a small town."
Obama referenced the celebration in Chicago on Election Night last year, but he specifically said, "Their interest wasn't about me as an individual."
Will specifically noted that the president used the personal pronouns "I" or "me" 26 times in 48 sentences. What Will did not note is that Obama used the word "we" 26 times, "us" six times, and "our" 12 times.
Will is complaining just for the sake of complaining, talking up "narcissism" because it's the new thing for conservative cool kids to do.
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Atrios adds - Since Steve Is Too Polite To Say It I will. It's all just code for "uppity"...
Bob Herbert wants to see some big ideas coming out of the White House to deal with the unemployment situation:John Cole: Marty Peretz Auditions for the Weekly Standard
Americans need jobs now, and if the economy on its own is incapable of putting people back to work — which appears to be the case — then the government needs to step in with aggressive job-creation efforts.Cappy McGarr, although personally in favor of a public option, gives his .02 on how to make state-run "exchanges" work - based on the failure of them in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and California.
Jose Cancela on the Republican Party's ongoing quest to alienate Hispanic voters:
The calculus is clear: Base over expansion. The party bet on closing ranks with a shrinking and monolithic fringe instead of investing in inclusiveness. With all this loaded rhetoric, all they do is remind wise Latinos not so much who stood with us, but who stood against us.And I will forgive Cancela's praise of Ronald Reagan because of his phrase, "the Beck, Limbaugh & Dobbs axis."
...Richard Cohen seems to be unable to criticize President Obama without resorting to inane personal attacks. Today's subject; Afghanistan.
...
From the magazine that brought you such penetrating insights as “Sonia Sotomayor is mean,” we now have the latest bit of psychobabble:How long before Peretz is waving a tire gauge asking to see Obama’s birth certificate?
What I suspect is that the president is probably a clinical narcissist. This is not necessarily a bad condition if one maintains for oneself what the psychiatrists call an “optimal margin of illusion,” that is, the margin of hope that allows you to work. But what if his narcissism blinds him to the issues and problems in the world and the inveterate foes of the nation that are not susceptible to his charms?Joe Klein handles this quite nicely, and correctly notes the cause of this- Obama standing firm on Israeli settlements.
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