Warszawa wrote:

Mr Bush, who was president from 1989-93, said on Fox News that Jeb Bush, a former Florida governor, was well qualified to rise to the highest position in the land.
"I'd like to see him run," said Mr Bush. "I'd like to see him be president one day, or senator, whatever, yes I would."
However, acknowledging that the family have controlled the White House for 12 of the past 20 years, he said: "Right now is probably a bad time. We've had enough Bushes in there."

I don't know whats funnier, his first statement or his second

Even without the benefit of hindsight... we would have been much better off with Jeb than Dubya.

jerseyhoya wrote:I kind of like Dianne Feinstein. She's one of the few Dems on Judiciary that ever considers voting for our judges. I think she's screwing up on this one from a political perspective, but probably not from a legal/Senate rules perspective.

I really don't get Bakestar's comment though. Obama was with Reid on this one. Feinstein's move was the one that shook this loose.

I think the point is that Feinstein is head of the Senate intelligence committee and Obama specifically let her out of the loop to piss her off (she supposedly found out about the appointment the same way you or I did). She was the one of the most visible Dems out there the past 4 years when it came to oversight of the Bush "administration". Another reason why Obama would try and annoy her? See:

jerseyhoya wrote:I kind of like Dianne Feinstein. She's one of the few Dems on Judiciary that ever considers voting for our judges.

Something else to keep in mind is that this is the first time Democrats have had unified control of the federal government since the baseball strike.

Last time this happened, things didn't go very well. Part of the problem had to do with the nature of the Democratic coalition in Congress back then: they still had a lot of southerners who were deeply conservative, and were Democrats pretty much only because their granddaddies were Democrats. (As to why those guys were Democrats, you know the answer to that one.) All those guys have either lost, retired, or switched parties since then.

But the other issue was that Bill Clinton allowed himself to get rolled by the Democratic leaders in Congress at the start, and then spent the next two years getting almost as trouble from his allies as from his opponents. He erred in doing NAFTA before health care, and health care before welfare reform; when they did health care, they delivered essentially a finished product to legislators who wanted to write the thing themselves and had no investment in what Hillary's group had come up with. (Which is a shame, because on substance that was a damn good proposal.)

I don't think this is going to happen to Obama, for a few reasons. One, he was there for four years; he knows how Reid et al think much better than Clinton did with George Mitchell et al. Two, he's a majority president who almost certainly dragged a few of the new Dem Senators over the finish line and is probably more popular in the home states of some of the big shots--Reid and Feinstein for two--than the Senators are. Three, Clinton had to deal with Democratic congressional leaders who were deeply entrenched in the majority, had been there for decades in the case of the House, and sincerely believed they'd still be there after he went home to Arkansas. Not a problem this time; Reid and Pelosi know they're tangled up with the new president.

Still, I think this is a shot across the bow of some of the more entitled-seeming Dems, one of whom is Feinstein. For their part, they experienced Obama as a very junior Senator; it's probably human nature that this would color how they deal with now at least a little. He's sending a message about who calls the shots.

dajafi wrote:Something else to keep in mind is that this is the first time Democrats have had unified control of the federal government since the baseball strike.

Last time this happened, things didn't go very well. Part of the problem had to do with the nature of the Democratic coalition in Congress back then: they still had a lot of southerners who were deeply conservative, and were Democrats pretty much only because their granddaddies were Democrats. (As to why those guys were Democrats, you know the answer to that one.) All those guys have either lost, retired, or switched parties since then.

But the other issue was that Bill Clinton allowed himself to get rolled by the Democratic leaders in Congress at the start, and then spent the next two years getting almost as trouble from his allies as from his opponents. He erred in doing NAFTA before health care, and health care before welfare reform; when they did health care, they delivered essentially a finished product to legislators who wanted to write the thing themselves and had no investment in what Hillary's group had come up with. (Which is a shame, because on substance that was a damn good proposal.)

I don't think this is going to happen to Obama, for a few reasons. One, he was there for four years; he knows how Reid et al think much better than Clinton did with George Mitchell et al. Two, he's a majority president who almost certainly dragged a few of the new Dem Senators over the finish line and is probably more popular in the home states of some of the big shots--Reid and Feinstein for two--than the Senators are. Three, Clinton had to deal with Democratic congressional leaders who were deeply entrenched in the majority, had been there for decades in the case of the House, and sincerely believed they'd still be there after he went home to Arkansas. Not a problem this time; Reid and Pelosi know they're tangled up with the new president.

Still, I think this is a shot across the bow of some of the more entitled-seeming Dems, one of whom is Feinstein. For their part, they experienced Obama as a very junior Senator; it's probably human nature that this would color how they deal with now at least a little. He's sending a message about who calls the shots.

Obama is also way better than Clinton at lots of things--far more disciplined and organized, with a much, much savvier team around him. He's probably also smarter.

On the other hand, he's got a number of really big issues to deal with that will resist easy solutions. It's probably a good time for everyone to go and review the first 2 years of Reagan's first term. Tough recession cost the Republicans a lot of seats in Congress. But Reagan was usually able to make strategic compromises, something neither Bush nor Clinton could do. Of course, part of the problem is the hard core Republican right probably wouldn't have let even a Reagan make those compromises today--he'd be blasted by talk radio and the blogosphere. But I don't think at least at first Obama is going to have that problem--the blogosphere isn't really all that effective, and there's no left-wing equivalent of talk radio.

I think Israel is mostly doing what it needs to do in Gaza. On the other hand, the prospects for any kind of resolution to those issues is growing ever more remote, and that is sad.

TenuredVulture wrote:I think Israel is mostly doing what it needs to do in Gaza. On the other hand, the prospects for any kind of resolution to those issues is growing ever more remote, and that is sad.

taking down a UN school though, sheesh. Israelis are hardcore

TenuredVulture wrote:I think Israel is mostly doing what it needs to do in Gaza. On the other hand, the prospects for any kind of resolution to those issues is growing ever more remote, and that is sad.

But if the possibility of resolving these issues is becoming more remote, then is Israel really doing what it needs to do in Gaza? IOW, shouldn't they be doing what's most likely to resolve these issues in the long term?

Monkeyboy wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I think Israel is mostly doing what it needs to do in Gaza. On the other hand, the prospects for any kind of resolution to those issues is growing ever more remote, and that is sad.

But if the possibility of resolving these issues is becoming more remote, then is Israel really doing what it needs to do in Gaza? IOW, shouldn't they be doing what's most likely to resolve these issues in the long term?

They might think that the current course of action is exactly that.

My read of the Arab-Israeli conflict over the last four decades at least is that generally when one side or another initiates a round of violence in a structured way (i.e. not just shooting a few rockets from Gaza into Israel), they've got a sound reason for doing so. Sadat started the Yom Kippur War in large part to break a deadlock, and arguably he resorted to force because the Israelis wouldn't negotiate. That war probably set up the Camp David treaty. Israel went into Lebanon in 1982 because the southern part of that country was so rife with PLO terrorists that the IDF referred to it as "Fatahland." That war was a mess in a lot of ways, but it did uproot the PLO and eventually pushed Fatah toward (relative) conciliation. The first Intifada eventually helped move Israel in the same direction, leading to the Oslo treaty and Israel making peace with Jordan.

Things there generally get worse before they get better. Unfortunately, they also sometimes just keep getting worse.

Oh, I was just looking at TV's logic, not Israel's. I imagine they're doing what they think they need to do, though I have to wonder if it would be happening if we actually had a president right now. Bush has been the invisible man ever since the economy went belly up.

BTW, did anyone else see that Bush is allowing Howard, the former prez of Australia, to stay in the house (I forget the name of the house) instead of Obama, forcing Obama to stay in a hotel, which is costing taxpayers tons of extra $$ in security. And I doubt that hotel is as safe, so if something should happen, look out.

My logic is this--I don't know if you can negotiate a peace settlement at all. So, for Israel to exercise restraint (though arguably they do so already--name another country that would endure shelling and rocket attacks for months before responding?) in the face of being regularly shelled indefinitely simply makes no sense.

Part of the reason Israel shows restraint is that they can't really sustain an invasion, they just don't have the forces to do it, especially since a sustained invasion would probably eventually draw in other Arab nations.

But I agree that they've shown restraint in this case.

I've honestly had it with both sides. I couldn't care less what happens to either one of them. The only reason we care is because of the oil and because Israel is seen as some island of the western world. The oil is an albatross that's keeping us from moving on to other alternatives sources of power, so I wouldn't mind losing access to it, at least in the long term. And Israel doesn't really act like any western nation I respect so I don't much care about them either. Most importantly, I resent every single penny that we waste on that region because we need it here at home, even before the economic crisis hit hard. I'm sick of being the world's police force at the expense of good schools, adequate healthcare, etc. The middle east is a money pit and I say good riddance, let them figure it out for themselves, or at least it's time for the rest of the world to share the burden more evenly. Besides, they'll never stop the violence...never.

Kit Bond won't run for reelection in 2010. It's like these guys don't like being in the minority or something.

I hope Talent runs again. I love Jim Talent.

So I guess Chris Matthews isn't running for Senate. Oh well. That would have been entertaining.

would have been another feather in my "Chris Matthews went to La Salle (High School)" cap

Barry Jive wrote:would have been another feather in my "Chris Matthews went to La Salle (High School)" cap

Hardball came to Georgetown back before the Iraq War started with a pretty decent program with Barry McCaffery and a few other military folks. It was pretty cool to be in the audience. During a commercial break, he asked if anyone there went to St. Joe's Prep. Probably a dozen kids started yelling. He said, "I'm sorry." Then he asked if anyone went to LaSalle, and one kid started making noise.

Prep 1, LaSalle 0.

haha. i'm not arguing with results here. one of my best friends went to the Prep.

is there a reason Obama can not be president like a month ago? why does this wait period exist? shouldn't there be exceptions in times of national emergency?

Warszawa wrote:is there a reason Obama can not be president like a month ago? why does this wait period exist? shouldn't there be exceptions in times of national emergency?

It's a tough thing and it really sucks in times like this. OTOH, if he'd come in a month ago, that would have given him something like a month to put his whole team together. The learning curve is steep enough.

Until sometime in I think the '50s, the waiting period was four months. I believe the original idea had to do with how long it took the Electors to come together and cast their votes, back when they traveled by horse. Similar to how election day is on a Tuesday because 200-plus years ago people would come to town to market (or something like that).

Anyway, we venerate our traditions by forgetting why they started.

Brooks interesting today.