Well it further confirms that Ray LaHood sucks.

And now that I venture away from here, I see Gregg is leaving the Senate in 2010 anyway. Maybe he'll run for Governor of New Hampshire or something.

Thinking more about it, I think its great. If Gregg wasnt 100% committed then its best he withdraw before time is wasted confirming him. Now they can find a replacement and hopefully avoid the circus down the road

FTN wrote:Thinking more about it, I think its great. If Gregg wasnt 100% committed then its best he withdraw before time is wasted confirming him. Now they can find a replacement and hopefully avoid the circus down the road

Pretty close to my take. I can appreciate his concluding that a fundamental difference of philosophy between him and his boss would serve neither.

This I guess is the thing about "bipartisanship," in whatever form: most of us want them to get along and find common ground, and never disagree just from pique or spite or solely because of political considerations, but there has to be a place for principle.

Yeah, I also agree this was good from an avoiding future controversies point as well. Reading silly, anonymously sourced articles in the Washington Post or New York Times a year from now with Gregg and his folks lobbing bombs and Obama's administration and vice versa wouldn't serve anyone well.

Not that this whole thing has reflected well on Gregg at all, but I wonder if he somehow manages to take a leading fiscally conservative voice in the Senate if he isn't a viable candidate in 2012.

Judd Gregg would be a great direction for the GOP to take nationally.

I just put thisinto my weekend gym reading: an excerpt from a forthcoming book by James Mann (who wrote Rise of the Vulcans, an excellent look at the previous careers of George W. Bush's "war cabinet" of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Wolfowitz and Armitage) about Reagan's diplomacy in the last years of the cold war.

jerseyhoya wrote:Not that this whole thing has reflected well on Gregg at all, but I wonder if he somehow manages to take a leading fiscally conservative voice in the Senate if he isn't a viable candidate in 2012..

Dunno about the "fiscally conservative" part, but lotteryboi's not making much of a case for the "leadership" part

Gregg was probably not that happy with the President's apparent wish to take the Census project from Commerce and have it go through Rahm Emanuel, instead, something that hasn't ever been done, to my knowledge. how much it really matters might be debatable, but to start off with, it makes Gregg's appointment look symbolic and not much more, as if the administration is saying it put an R in charge but not trusting him with the department's cornerstone project.

gr wrote:Gregg was probably not that happy with the President's apparent wish to take the Census project from Commerce and have it go through Rahm Emanuel, instead, something that hasn't ever been done, to my knowledge. how much it really matters might be debatable, but to start off with, it makes Gregg's appointment look symbolic and not much more, as if the administration is saying it put an R in charge but not trusting him with the department's cornerstone project.

i think this was a major problem, and a major impetus for gregg leaving. just imagine if karl rove or josh bolton ever got a chance to run a census. wyoming would end up with 7 electoral votes, i'm sure.

anyway, i think the appointment was a genuine attempt to bring together two ideologies, but it was the wrong place and the wrong time to do it.

Is there any reason why we can't take the decennial Census out of the hands of political appointees? Create a permanent bipartisan or nonpartisan body to run it, appropriate them money, and forget about it.

Other than everyone wanting to skew it their chosen way, and just hoping that they happen to be in office at the right time, that is.

dajafi wrote:Is there any reason why we can't take the decennial Census out of the hands of political appointees? Create a permanent bipartisan or nonpartisan body to run it, appropriate them money, and forget about it.

Never happen... because it makes sense.

Redistricting and the census, interwoven as they are, really should be handled by a permanent assemblage of known demographers, and properly implemented. No more undercounting, no more political infighting, etc. It's almost too simple.

pacino wrote:Redistricting and the census, interwoven as they are, really should be handled by a permanent assemblage of known demographers, and properly implemented. No more undercounting, no more political infighting, etc. It's almost too simple.

That approach worked really well with the SEC.

So I've been catching up on my reading;

A. Dodd snuck a stricter pay cap clause into the Stimulus package....dumb

B. The government needs to nationalize Ford, GM and Chrysler and gut the management. Time to re-organize since they dobt want to do it in a timely fashion

C. Allowing banks to give back TARP money without replacing it (also in the stimulus plan) is a really dumb idea

FTN wrote:So I've been catching up on my reading;

A. Dodd snuck a stricter pay cap clause into the Stimulus package....dumb

B. The government needs to nationalize Ford, GM and Chrysler and gut the management. Time to re-organize since they dobt want to do it in a timely fashion

C. Allowing banks to give back TARP money without replacing it (also in the stimulus plan) is a really dumb idea

Why call for the gutting of the management of the Big 3 (especially considering Ford has yet to take gov money) and not call for the same thing for the big banks?

Chrysler may be bought out by Fiat. This might be the worst idea ever.

The key distinction is that the banks seem willing to listen, they seem receptive to fixing the issues facing their industry, and they seem eager to repay the money they borrowed. GM just wants to drag their feet with the re-structuring and wants to hold a gun to the government's head by threatening bankruptcy. I was supportive of helping the auto industry out months ago, but that was under the assumption that they had a plan to fix their industry and re-organize. Months later, it seems they don't really have any ideas.

I think the auto industry is worth saving, but Rick Wagoner is the problem, not part of the solution.

FTN wrote:The key distinction is that the banks seem willing to listen, they seem receptive to fixing the issues facing their industry, and they seem eager to repay the money they borrowed. GM just wants to drag their feet with the re-structuring and wants to hold a gun to the government's head by threatening bankruptcy. I was supportive of helping the auto industry out months ago, but that was under the assumption that they had a plan to fix their industry and re-organize. Months later, it seems they don't really have any ideas.

I think the auto industry is worth saving, but Rick Wagoner is the problem, not part of the solution.

I agree pretty much with your characterization of the auto industry, though I obviously don't share your assessment of the financial industry. However, it probably varies a lot from financial institution to financial institution.

I think it bears noting that all the car firms, including Toyota and Honda have big problems. Toyota and Honda (as well as Ford) have better balance sheets than GM, so they don't have the same urgent needs for government money. Of course, whatever the government does, GM will get a lot less than the financials will.

It's pork when it's in your district, but when it's in my district, it's project vital to our nation's interest.

I love this quote:

"Being supportive of one portion of a trillion dollar bill, but voting against the entire trillion dollar bill, is perfectly reasonable," Steel said.

Yes, it's true. Hypocrisy is really easy. All you fatties should lose some weight. Now give me those cheetos.

Who could have foreseen the man appointed to the Senate by the great Blago would run into problems this quickly?

jerseyhoya wrote:Who could have foreseen the man appointed to the Senate by the great Blago would run into problems this quickly?

The guy's a buffoon. Hopefully he quits now that he can chisel SENATOR on his mausoleum.

But I think Obama was the exception of all the people who've held that seat the last couple decades: Carol Moseley Braun, whom I personally kind of liked but had very questionable judgment on a few points, then Peter Fitzgerald whose mission evidently was to aggravate as many other state and federal officials as he could--not that there isn't something admirable about that--then Obama who was the beneficiary of astounding good fortune in his race, and now Burris.

Actually, Fitzgerald has exerted an Obi-Wan Kenobi-like power from beyond the political grave: he got Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation) appointed, and he's since cut a swath of bipartisan destruction through political Illinois.

Venezuela sure is an interesting place to think about. The majority apparently approves of Chavez, albeit narrowly, but I guess something like that is more easily achieved when you have consolidated the organs of the state behind you and quieted all unfriendly media voices.