I guess it's not just in the US that Bush has become the invisible man...


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6Y_ncOVlDw[/youtube]


Where the heck is he anyway? He's become our Nero, fiddling while his country burns.

Werthless wrote:People are obviously better off being paid more. But if you make a law saying everyone has to get paid a lot, then there will be unintended consequences. (The people who retain jobs will be decidedly better off, which is what you're seeing)

I understand what you're saying, but part of my point is that instead of one person using public assistance, with the lower wage, you have three (or whatever the numbers add up to). So it's not just the individuals who are better off.

Lot of Cabinet type leaks today: Hillary evidently will get State, Tim Geithner Treasury, and Bill Richardson might be in the mix for Commerce. I can't say any of these thrill me: Hillary isn't exactly a great manager and State is a huge, unwieldy bureaucracy, while Geithner swung and missed on the Lehman question and Richardson is, well, Richardson.

Maybe of more interest given recent discussion is this piece by Matt Miller, in which he learns to love deficit spending:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/19/news/ec ... /index.htm

I don't like Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security as I think she's too valuable in elected office, and she's probably the only Arizona Democrat who could take McCain down in 2010. However, based on her age, she's not really a candidate for Pres/VP in 2016, so might as well take the cushy Cabinet post, as she's pretty much reached her ceiling.

Napalitano is probably booking out of state in the face of a (like safeco) budget deficit.

Market closes over 8000! Happy days are here again!

Bakestar wrote:I don't like Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security as I think she's too valuable in elected office, and she's probably the only Arizona Democrat who could take McCain down in 2010. However, based on her age, she's not really a candidate for Pres/VP in 2016, so might as well take the cushy Cabinet post, as she's pretty much reached her ceiling.

She's 51. Are you maybe thinking of someone else? I've always believed she'd be a great national candidate: law and order background, not a far-lefty by any stretch but solid pragmatic progressive.

edit: also, if any Cabinet job is far from "cushy," I think DHS is it. That place is a nightmare, it seems to me.

We could have our first lesbian in a cabinet!

jerseyhoya wrote:We could have our first lesbian in a cabinet!

Ashcroft?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woLQI8X2R6Y[/youtube]

jerseyhoya wrote:

We could have our first lesbian in a cabinet!

Wow. She's not a babe or even sort of older-woman foxy as Sebelius kind of is, but I'm pretty sure I've seen better pics than that.

IIRC she's not out, right? Maybe more like a Mikulski or Dreier or Lindsay Graham "everyone knows it, no one says it" thing.

She actually publicly said she's not a lesbian. But she's single.

I thought Dreier was out, but I could be wrong.

COUGHkenmehlmanCOUGH

The only GOP member who was openly gay was Jim Kolbe. He retired back in 2006.

If you want to have a laugh, see if you can track down the audio from voicemails of Fmr. VA Congressman Ed Schrock calling trying to get a male hooker.

Hard to believe what I'm about to post actually raises the level of discussion from the WHOZE GAY (which, of course, I engaged in too; it's Friday afternoon), but here's a good WSJ article about that Zogby/Ziegler poll that Nate Silver got into a fight over a few days back:

http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/zogbys- ... oters-459/

Again (and again and again)... there's no more irritating and ultimately pointless pissing-contest argument than the one about "media bias." At least this one had some yuks value.

Yeah, your "play along" to "guilt" conversion was like 10 minutes.

Bakestar wrote:Yeah, your "play along" to "guilt" conversion was like 10 minutes.

Truth. That's about my average, I think.

The Napolitano appointment may be part of a political strategy to do something on immigration. She's a clear and consistent advocate of enforcement, so it provides some cover for a reform bill.

More germane than her potential lesbianocity (and not the cool hot kind either), apparently Arizona doesn't have an Lt. Gov, so we're gonna "pick up" a Governor's mansion if Obama goes through with appointing Napolitano to his cabinet.

gr wrote:Napalitano is probably booking out of state in the face of a (like safeco) budget deficit.

From that article:

Napolitano, a Democrat, wants to use debt financing to pay for school construction instead of the usual state practice of paying for cash. She also wants to put traffic surveillance cameras on state highways and bring in $90 million in extra revenue from speeding fines.

It's unclear whether she'll resort to other measures, like putting toll booths on sidewalks.