jerseyhoya wrote:Christie has been pretty arrogant how he's doing it so far. I'm pretty convinced his heart is in the right place, and he's targeting important reforms, but he's alienating the Dems in doing so much of this through the executive. I think Steve Sweeney's a pretty reasonable guy, and hopefully Christie can find a way to smooth things over with him. I don't know if I have much confidence in the Dem Assembly leadership. Joe Cryan is an asshat, and I don't know much about Oliver. Anyway, more like how he's tackling pension reform, and less of the emergency spending powers, and he'd probably be better off. It's still exciting that someone taking a hatchet to things and doesn't appear to care about being popular.

I haven't been following it very closely--most of what I know about it is from here--but it seems like battling against the entrenched Democratic legislature would be a good political story for Christie to tell.

More generally, I like the idea of new officials doing the "right but unpopular thing" at the outset of their terms. Pretty much everything Bloomberg did in 2002 after taking office got him pushback and bad press; his approval IIRC was down in the 30s by the time he'd been in for a year or so. Didn't hurt him by 2005, though.

jerseyhoya wrote:and doesn't appear to care about being popular.

He probably realizes that if he has a middling-to-bad governorship, he'll be a one-termer, either because of failure or because demographics are against him and there's no incompetent Democratic incumbent to make him look good by comparison. So, might as well swing for the fences.

here's a thought--maybe Christie is doing this because he believes it has to be done to secure NJ's future. He is a lifetime public servant.

TenuredVulture wrote:here's a thought--maybe Christie is doing this because he believes it has to be done to secure NJ's future. He is a lifetime public servant.

This is what we're all saying it, isn't it?

Text of Christie's Speech

I'm embarrassed I didn't do more to get this guy elected.

Cheney being interviewed by somebody on some sunday talk show

he remains a vile weasel

the combination of spineless and vicious is unusual, but has a distinct sound; the sound of weak-hearted, power-fixated, manipulative evil; the sound of dick cheney's voice.

drsmooth wrote:Cheney being interviewed by somebody on some sunday talk show

he remains a vile weasel

the combination of spineless and vicious is unusual, but has a distinct sound; the sound of weak-hearted, power-fixated, manipulative evil; the sound of dick cheney's voice.

From: http://twitter.com/DRUNKHULK

IT NO THAT CHENEY REWRITE HISTORY! IT JUST THAT CHENEY HISTORY BOOK HAPPEN BE CHOOSE YOU OWN ADVENTURE!

drsmooth wrote:Cheney being interviewed by somebody on some sunday talk show

he remains a vile weasel

the combination of spineless and vicious is unusual, but has a distinct sound; the sound of weak-hearted, power-fixated, manipulative evil; the sound of dick cheney's voice.

How do you survive in a world that contains so many super-villans?

I was digging that Christie speech right until he called Reagan a great president. Then I clicked the close window button very angrily.

Good point

Yep.

VoxOrion wrote:

drsmooth wrote:Cheney being interviewed by somebody on some sunday talk show

he remains a vile weasel

the combination of spineless and vicious is unusual, but has a distinct sound; the sound of weak-hearted, power-fixated, manipulative evil; the sound of dick cheney's voice.

How do you survive in a world that contains so many super-villans?

Whether one thinks Reagan was a "great" president, there's no doubt in my mind he was a successful president. He accomplished most of what he wanted to do, and the country was in better shape when he left office than when he started. Are there other criteria for presidential success? I guess one could make an argument for "lasting impact"; Reagan's pretty good on that score too, what with historians referring to the "age of Reagan" and all.

I'll try (no doubt unsuccessfully) to pre-rebut PtK by noting, again, that I'm just talking about effectiveness in office, not the underlying merit or lack thereof of Reagan's policies and politics. I still personally find his support for the dirty wars in central America deplorable, as well as his pandering to American racism (kicking off his '80 campaign in Philadelphia, MS; references to "welfare queens" and "strapping young bucks," etc). But there's no question that he was singularly successful and effective among modern Republican presidents; Bush I and Nixon were political failures, Bush II was a policy disaster, Ford was a non-entity.

I think you underestimate Ford. Just a little though.

VoxOrion wrote:

drsmooth wrote:Cheney being interviewed by somebody on some sunday talk show

he remains a vile weasel

the combination of spineless and vicious is unusual, but has a distinct sound; the sound of weak-hearted, power-fixated, manipulative evil; the sound of dick cheney's voice.

How do you survive in a world that contains so many super-villans?

vile weasel <> super-villain

evil <> scary

there, see? Interested in the count of my super-villians, since you're apparently keeping track

dajafi wrote:Whether one thinks Reagan was a "great" president, there's no doubt in my mind he was a successful president. He accomplished most of what he wanted to do, and the country was in better shape when he left office than when he started. Are there other criteria for presidential success? I guess one could make an argument for "lasting impact"; Reagan's pretty good on that score too, what with historians referring to the "age of Reagan" and all.

I'll try (no doubt unsuccessfully) to pre-rebut PtK by noting, again, that I'm just talking about effectiveness in office, not the underlying merit or lack thereof of Reagan's policies and politics. I still personally find his support for the dirty wars in central America deplorable, as well as his pandering to American racism (kicking off his '80 campaign in Philadelphia, MS; references to "welfare queens" and "strapping young bucks," etc). But there's no question that he was singularly successful and effective among modern Republican presidents; Bush I and Nixon were political failures, Bush II was a policy disaster, Ford was a non-entity.

Some people might take issue with the notion that anything much that happened while he was in office was necessarily what "he" wanted to do. Those people would suggest he was the ultimate sock-puppet POTUS: successful, certainly, but not the foundry of that success.

And is there anything to substantiate the case for him truly forming a coherent political philosophy under his own steam, rather than having it poured into him? If so, I'm unfamiliar with the credible evidence, and would welcome sources.

drsmooth wrote:

dajafi wrote:Whether one thinks Reagan was a "great" president, there's no doubt in my mind he was a successful president. He accomplished most of what he wanted to do, and the country was in better shape when he left office than when he started. Are there other criteria for presidential success? I guess one could make an argument for "lasting impact"; Reagan's pretty good on that score too, what with historians referring to the "age of Reagan" and all.

I'll try (no doubt unsuccessfully) to pre-rebut PtK by noting, again, that I'm just talking about effectiveness in office, not the underlying merit or lack thereof of Reagan's policies and politics. I still personally find his support for the dirty wars in central America deplorable, as well as his pandering to American racism (kicking off his '80 campaign in Philadelphia, MS; references to "welfare queens" and "strapping young bucks," etc). But there's no question that he was singularly successful and effective among modern Republican presidents; Bush I and Nixon were political failures, Bush II was a policy disaster, Ford was a non-entity.

Some people might take issue with the notion that anything much that happened while he was in office was necessarily what "he" wanted to do. Those people would suggest he was the ultimate sock-puppet POTUS: successful, certainly, but not the foundry of that success.

And is there anything to substantiate the case for him truly forming a coherent political philosophy under his own steam, rather than having it poured into him? If so, I'm unfamiliar with the credible evidence, and would welcome sources.

Full disclosure- I'm a huge Reagan fan. Read Lou Cannon's two volume biography of Reagan. It's a balanced biography, and the first volume describes how he formulated his philosophy working for GE in the early 60's, and also provides interesting insight into his time as Governor of California. His approach was to provide the overarching philosophy, and then putting the people in place to craft and execute the details. I think a valid criticism is that he was often too detached from the details - but he certainly wasn't a sock puppet for most of his presidency, although in 87-88 who knows how healthy he really was.

The Joe Biden motorcade of death almost gets Peggy Fleming.

cshort wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

dajafi wrote:Whether one thinks Reagan was a "great" president, there's no doubt in my mind he was a successful president. He accomplished most of what he wanted to do, and the country was in better shape when he left office than when he started. Are there other criteria for presidential success? I guess one could make an argument for "lasting impact"; Reagan's pretty good on that score too, what with historians referring to the "age of Reagan" and all.

I'll try (no doubt unsuccessfully) to pre-rebut PtK by noting, again, that I'm just talking about effectiveness in office, not the underlying merit or lack thereof of Reagan's policies and politics. I still personally find his support for the dirty wars in central America deplorable, as well as his pandering to American racism (kicking off his '80 campaign in Philadelphia, MS; references to "welfare queens" and "strapping young bucks," etc). But there's no question that he was singularly successful and effective among modern Republican presidents; Bush I and Nixon were political failures, Bush II was a policy disaster, Ford was a non-entity.

Some people might take issue with the notion that anything much that happened while he was in office was necessarily what "he" wanted to do. Those people would suggest he was the ultimate sock-puppet POTUS: successful, certainly, but not the foundry of that success.

And is there anything to substantiate the case for him truly forming a coherent political philosophy under his own steam, rather than having it poured into him? If so, I'm unfamiliar with the credible evidence, and would welcome sources.

Full disclosure- I'm a huge Reagan fan. Read Lou Cannon's two volume biography of Reagan. It's a balanced biography, and the first volume describes how he formulated his philosophy working for GE in the early 60's, and also provides interesting insight into his time as Governor of California. His approach was to provide the overarching philosophy, and then putting the people in place to craft and execute the details. I think a valid criticism is that he was often too detached from the details - but he certainly wasn't a sock puppet for most of his presidency, although in 87-88 who knows how healthy he really was.

This, pretty much. I haven't read the Cannon, but Richard Reeves' bio, Sean Wilentz' (also decidedly not a fan) "Age of Reagan" and the Rick Pearlstein books (which aren't "about" Reagan, but spend a lot of time with him) all pretty conclusively dispel the notion (which I grew up with) that he was an empty suit or Potemkin president or what have you. (That said, Haynes Johnson's "Sleepwalking Through History" rips him to shreds. I guess whether one gives Johnson more or less credit depends on inclination.)

The impression I got from this fairly substantial Reagan reading was that he came to the office as a finished product, intellectually speaking: he had an unmistakable and fully thought through political philosophy that, as cshort notes, he'd worked out over years of public speaking for GE as well as his gubernatorial career, previous presidential runs, etc. And though he wasn't an intellectual (few presidents are, if you think about it; they kind of don't have the time), he deeply respected learning and expertise; Reagan never would have made Bushian jokes like "Poindexter here might have a PhD, but this C student's the preznit heh heh heh!"

Of course, the current conservative worship of Reagan airbrushes out a lot: his willingness to deal and compromise with political opponents, the several tax increases after the big early cuts, the fact that the same Cheney/Rumsfeld crowd that fucked up so dramatically two decades later thought he was selling out to the Rooskies in his second term, the tax increases and most-liberal-in-the-nation pre-Roe abortion law he signed as CA Gov, and so on. I'd argue that his greater "successes" for the country were generally on the less conservative side of the ledger, though that doesn't change the basic fact that he was a successful conservative president.

Reagan also had a completely different attitude toward immigration. The 1986 immigration reform that he requested and signed, while not completely opposed to modern conservative opinion, is pretty darn different than what they want. I think the greatest change at that point was for family oriented immigration policies as opposed to skill based (what we see in most of the rest of the Western world). Aside from that, he was very interested in open boarders. I suppose an anti-immigration conservative would argue that Reagan would have a different approach in the day and age of domestic terror, but I think whenever you get into the realm of "what would they have done if things were different" you are wasting time and should just defend your position some other way without trying to imagine what George Washington would do. One of the last times I heard Hannity, probably around the 2006 elections, he was carrying on about St. Reagan and his idea of immigration reform in the same breath.