Debatable point

Pelosi: 'We Didn’t Lose Because of Me'  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she has the “overwhelming support” of fellow Democrats in her bid to become minority leader in the next Congress, and says she’s not to blame for the Democrats’ mid-term debacle. She might be technically correct, but when a team loses badly the manager gets fired. She should step aside.

Dealing with the deficit

Paul Krugman is not impressed with the Commission, in the least.

Count me among those who always believed that President Obama made a big mistake when he created the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform — a supposedly bipartisan panel charged with coming up with solutions to the nation’s long-run fiscal problems. It seemed obvious, as soon as the commission’s membership was announced, that “bipartisanship” would mean what it so often does in Washington: a compromise between the center-right and the hard-right.

And:


It’s no mystery what has happened on the deficit commission: as so often happens in modern Washington, a process meant to deal with real problems has been hijacked on behalf of an ideological agenda. Under the guise of facing our fiscal problems, Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson are trying to smuggle in the same old, same old — tax cuts for the rich and erosion of the social safety net.

Gerald Seib, of the Wall Street Journal (wherein he qualifies as a moderate), called it differently: Deficit-Cutting Chairmen Call Washington's Bluff.

Matt Miller, who writes a column for the Washington Post (I have an email subscription to his column; I think I first read him on the Daily Beast), opines on the Simpson-Bowles Commission, also. Miller fancies himself "a Radical Centrist." I suppose he does not want to be tarred as a Liberal. Or call himself a Progressive.

21 versus 22. As I wrote in The Post a few months ago, the Bowles/Simpson plan to hold spending to 21 percent of GDP as the boomers age is a dangerous fantasy. All you need to know is that Ronald Reagan ran government at 22 percent of GDP when 76 million baby boomers weren't retiring. Today we're on the verge of doubling the number of folks on Social Security and Medicare. The Bowles/Simpson size of government goal is a fantasy -- it will not happen. Unfortunately, this wrongheaded goal undermines much of what they propose, since it's the organizing feature of their proposal.

2037. The co-chairs don't balance the budget until 2037! The outer limits of the ambition of a commission set up to get our fiscal house in order is thus a 27-year plan to balance the budget? Oy. The most you can say is that it's faster than the plan offered by that other falsely-hailed fiscal conservative, Paul Ryan, whose "Roadmap" wouldn't balance the budget until the 2050s!

He also criticizes them on health care, social security and gas taxes.

China to top US

Here’s a finding that will have any red-blooded American spluttering into his cornflakes. According to the Conference Board, a highly respected economic research association, China will overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy by 2012, or within two years.

Any? Point taken, nonetheless. That fact, and this picture, surely will infuriate many.

.Many people, especially those who already dislike Barack Obama, will take umbrage at the sight of the US president bowing to the Communist (or to a sheik or emir), ignoring the picture of George W Bush holding hands with the King of Saudi Arabia.

And this will add fuel to the fire:  Wednesday, Obama was in Jakarta, the capital of the world's most populous Muslim nation, issuing a call for trust and cooperation. He lived in Indonesia as a boy from 1967 to 1971 and found himself flooded with memories. "Let me begin with a simple statement: Indonesia is part of me," he said in Indonesian language, drawing cheers from the audience of more than 6,000 mostly young people at the University of Indonesia. Obama took care in his remarks to note that he is Christian; back home in the U.S., he continues to fight erroneous perceptions that he is Muslim..

Joltin' Joe

Love that Biden, if it is Biden.

Steele be gone

Could anyone not have anticipated this? From the very beginning of his tenure, it was clear he was a caretaker.

Turning their attention to the 2012 presidential election, Republican leaders are digging in for a battle over control of the Republican National Committee, judging that its role in fund-raising, get-out-the-vote operations and other tasks will be critical to the effort to topple President Obama.

So far, the effort has been tentative, with Mr. Steele’s most ardent opponents working behind the scenes to persuade an alternative to run against him — fearful that any overt moves will create a backlash in Mr. Steele’s favor among those committee members who tend to view the establishment in Washington with suspicion.

Of course, as long as Steele in chairman he, also, is part of the establishment, as are those teabags that propose they are not. Nonetheless, McConnell and Boehner are trying to play both sides of the field, establishment and teabags.

After the elections

Pelosi will run for leader She should not run, but should bow out gracefully.

Debunking the myths of the Midterm Every one seems to be repeating the same words, with little original thought.

Olbermann suspended schmuck

Black and Republican and back in Congress Even the New Mexico governor is a Latina.

Tea party's fervor Zealots.

Latino milestones

GOP senators fight over failure

As I said below, let the civil war begin.

Long-simmering tensions within the Republican Party spilled into public view Wednesday as the pragmatic and conservative wings of the GOP blamed each other in blunt terms for the party’s failure to capture the Senate.  The back-and-forth following an otherwise triumphant election amounted to a significant ratcheting up of the internecine battle that has been taking place within the GOP for the past year.