RNC chair says Iraq was Bush's greatest failure

From Ben Smith:

The Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Mike Duncan, said President Bush's early prosecution of the Iraq war was his biggest failure in two terms in office.

“I think we failed in the way that, originally, we were prosecuting the war," Duncan said at a debate with five rivals for the chairmanship.

Of course, not to be outdone, one of the lead candidates for the RNC chair job, former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele, said that Bush's biggest failure wasn't the war, Katrina, and the economic mess, but rather the "failure to communicate on the war, Katrina, the bailout."

Yes, if only Bush had written better press releases about Katrina, Iraq and the economy, everything would have gone so much better. Read the rest of this post...

More from Josh on the tax cuts

From TPM:

First, there seems to be a decent consensus that the tax rebates from last year had little stimulative effect on the economy....

Second, the amount of the bill that comes in tax cuts leaves the spending side of the bill really small -- judged by the standards of what most economists seem to think is necessary, like $400 billion over two years. So it's not just the logic of the tax cuts on their own merits but the degree they're beggaring the spending side of the ledger....

Obama seems to be telegraphing that to a significant degree the fundamental structure of the legislation is being built around accommodating the concerns of Republicans -- members of a political party that are about as unpopular and weak as you can get at the moment. And that sounds a lot like he's negotiating with himself, something that will embolden opposition and invite Republicans to up the ante even further.

Read the rest of this post...

Jewish left divided over Israel's attack on Gaza

Ben has an interesting look at how the Jewish left in America is quite publicly divided over Israel's actions in Gaza. Read the rest of this post...

Lots of Al Franken updates, starting with: He won

Democrat Al Franken was finally certified as the victor today in Minnesota:

The state Canvassing Board certified the results of the U.S. Senate recount this afternoon, showing Democrat Al Franken with a 225-vote advantage over incumbent Republican Norm Coleman.

Also, Jed has a great, and lengthy, summary of the latest news on the Al Franken vs. Norm Coleman Senate race in Minnesota. Rather than try to excerpt it, just read what Jed has. Read the rest of this post...

Gay leaders urge Obama to replace Richardson with an openly gay appointee

From the Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay civil rights group in the US:

"With the vacancy of Governor Bill Richardson as the nominee for Secretary of Commerce, President-elect Obama is presented with yet another opportunity to make good on his promise of equality for all LGBT people," said HRC President Joe Solmonese.

It's all well and good to claim that Obama is post-partisan, but he went out of his way to try to make his Cabinet look like America. But it doesn't. It looks like straight America. Now it's time to make it truly look like America. Someone in Obama-land could make up for Rick Warren, and more, in one fell swoop. Read the rest of this post...

Palin's son-in-law gets job that may be illegal nepotism job

The Alaska Hillbillies just keep giving and giving.

How is it possible that the governor's soon-to-be son-in-law, Levi Johnston, is working as an apprentice on the North Slope?

The governor, in trying to dispel rumors the father of her grandchild is a high school dropout, released this statement this past week,

"Levi is continuing his online high school work in addition to working as an electrical apprentice on the North Slope."

But federal regulations require all members of apprentice programs, union or otherwise, to first obtain a high school diploma, something the governor's soon-to-be son-in- law does not have. Some apprentice programs even require the completion of high school level algebra or the post-secondary equivalent.

Apparently, there's also a long waiting list to get these jobs, and Levi appears to have jumped to the head of the line. Palin seems to think she's running the Chicago Park District, circa 1975, where the jobs were aplenty if you knew the right guy. Read the rest of this post...

Hispanic leaders demanding "another Hispanic" in the Cabinet (they already have two)

There were three Hispanic Cabinet appointees (Richardson, Solis, Salazar). With Richardson dropping out, there still are two.

Obama made sure that his cabinet reflected America, including African-Americans, women, Asian-Americans and Latinos. And good for him. Gays, however, were the only major Democratic constituency excluded from the Cabinet (well, along with Jews). Either we are for diversity, or we're not. But it is simply not tolerable for the Democratic party to embrace diversity when it comes to every other constituency, then to suddenly claim we don't have litmus tests for Cabinet jobs (or anything else) when the nominee happens to be gay. Obama had no problem reaching out to evangelicals with the Rick Warren pick. It's time to reach out to gay and lesbian Americans too.

Unless the next Cabinet appointee is openly gay, I think there's going to be additional damage between Obama and the gay community. It's looking as if we have overt "quotas" for Cabinet secretaries that explicitly exclude openly gay and lesbian Obama supporters.

Not to mention, why aren't gay community leaders demanding an appointment? Especially after the Rick Warren fiasco. Fred Hochberg, for example, would seem an obvious choice for Commerce. Read the rest of this post...

Bush Obama now talking $300 bn in tax cuts

Plus ça CHANGE...

But don't worry, if we just appease the Republicans this once, they'll stop being mean to us.

President-elect Barack Obama plans to include about $300 billion in tax cuts for workers and businesses in his economic recovery program, advisers said Sunday, as his team seeks to win over Congressional skeptics worried that he was too focused on government spending.

The legislation Mr. Obama is developing with Congressional Democrats will devote about 40 percent of the cost to tax cuts, including his centerpiece campaign promise to provide credits up to $500 for most workers, costing roughly $150 billion.

So Obama is talking tax cuts because it will help us avoid another Great Depression, because it was a campaign promise (and for some unexplained reason those must be implemented immediately), or because we're trying to buy off the Republicans? Two of those three reasons have nothing to do with the purpose of this legislation. (Joe discovered a fourth reason for including more tax cuts: "To get 80 votes in the Senate." It's also not clear what that has to do with saving the economy from a Depression.)

PS I wonder if upper middle class Obama voters in big expensive cities will see a dime of these ever-expanding tax cuts?

UPDATE: Okay, I just visited Josh Marshall's "Talking Points Memo" and saw that Josh had posted about this story late last night. Here is what Josh had to say:

Can someone help me come up with an argument for why the Obama stimulus plan isn't turning out to be a painful joke?

A painful joke? Ouch. As I've written before, when Josh gets snarky about Democrats it makes for an interesting bellwether - especially when the Democrat is Barack Obama. Here is what I wrote about Josh, and his concerns about Obama, back in August:

When Josh exhibits this kind of frustration publicly, we take notice. Josh is one of the cooler heads in the blogosphere. He's not as prone to fits of temper as, well, I might be. And he has a solid background in journalism that gives him a certain gravitas that the corporate media respects. So when Josh starts to blow a gasket, even in his typically subdued way, it means something.

All the effort going into getting Republicans on board. I wonder if anyone will try to get actual Democrats on board as well. Read the rest of this post...

Krugman expressing doubts about Obama massive tax cut plan

Paul Krugman weighs in:

[T]here’s a reasonable economic case for including a significant amount of tax cuts in the package, mainly in year one.

But the numbers being reported — 40 percent of the whole, two-year plan — sound high. And all the news reports say that the high tax-cut share is intended to assuage Republicans; what this presumably means is that this was the message the off-the-record Obamanauts were told to convey.

And that’s bad news.

Look, Republicans are not going to come on board. Make 40% of the package tax cuts, they’ll demand 100%. Then they’ll start the thing about how you can’t cut taxes on people who don’t pay taxes (with only income taxes counting, of course) and demand that the plan focus on the affluent. Then they’ll demand cuts in corporate taxes. And Mitch McConnell is already saying that state and local governments should get loans, not aid — which would undermine that part of the plan, too....

I’m really worried that they’re sending off signals of weakness right from the beginning, and that they’re just going to embolden the opposition.

Like Barney Frank, I’m feeling a bit of post-partisan depression.

Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Back at it today. D.C. has been empty, just empty for the past couple weeks. But, everyone is back this week -- even the Obamas.

The focus over the next couple days will be all about the stimulus package. Last night we learned that 40% of Obama's plan will be tax cuts. That's not what most people expected. Apparently, the main goal is picking up Republican votes. According to Politico's sources, the goal is 80 votes in the Senate:

Obama strategists say he wants to get 80 or more votes in the 100-member Senate, and the emphasis on tax cuts is a way to defuse conservative criticism and enlist Republican support.

Going to be an interesting week.

Let's get it started... Read the rest of this post...

UK continues to roll out spying on citizens programs

It's not enough to have your every move videotaped nor is it enough to have your car movement tracked. British police need even more information and Europe seems ready and willing to join the party.

Police have been given the power to hack into personal computers without a court warrant. The Home Office is facing anger and the threat of a legal challenge after granting permission. Ministers are also drawing up plans to allow police across the EU to collect information from computers in Britain.

The moves will fuel claims that the Government is presiding over a steady extension of the "surveillance society" threatening personal privacy.

Hacking – known as "remote searching" – has been quietly adopted by police across Britain following the development of technology to access computers' contents at a distance. Police say it is vital for tracking cyber-criminals and paedophiles and is used sparingly but civil liberties groups fear it is about to be vastly expanded.

Remote searching can be achieved by sending an email containing a virus to a suspect's computer which then transmits information about email contents and web-browsing habits to a distant surveillance team.

Alternatively, "key-logging" devices can be inserted into a computer that relay details of each key hit by its owner. Detectives can also monitor the contents of a suspect's computer hard-drive via a wireless network.

Computer hacking has to be approved by a chief constable, who must be satisfied the action is proportionate to the crime being investigated.

Last month European ministers agreed in principle to allow police to carry out remote searches of suspects' computers across the EU.

Read the rest of this post...

Microsoft to announce job cuts

This is not exactly the happy new year news that anyone was looking for out there. In theory the cuts are supposed to be the typical cuts in contractors and retirements, so let's hope for the best.

Microsoft will embark on a significant cost-cutting initiative in 2009, which might begin as early as this month, to offset a global slowdown in sales.

However, sources tell me the cuts will largely be handled through attrition and the non-renewal of contract employees, rather than through a rumored, sweeping layoff.

Rumors of a broad workforce reduction at the world's largest software maker have been swirling since a blog post last week purported to show that Microsoft was preparing to lay off as many as 15,000 employees, or 17 percent of its workforce.

A Microsoft source tells me that the speculation is "grossly exaggerated," but added that "any company not paying careful attention to headcount in a climate like this is nuts."

Read the rest of this post...