Archive for March 14th, 2008
I don’t know if you all have been following the FISA debate on the Hill, but today the House voted for a surveillance bill that, for the most part, doesn’t grant immunity to the telecom companies. It’s a pretty remarkable turnaround from what was a very unlikely outcome just weeks ago. Many progressives see this as a sign of great things to come. I’m skeptical, but if Congress is going to start standing up to the President, we could be in for a fun few months.
Pelosi and the House Leadership did a great job of “shepherding” freshman Democrats, as mcjoan puts it, and keeping them from getting scared by Republican robocalls in their districts and Department of Defense ads saying they are supporting the terrorists.
This victory didn’t come without the support of a crucial Republican; one Ronald Paul. He was the only member of his party to back the bill. To be fair to Paul, though, he thought they were voting to bring back the gold standard.
March 14th, 2008
Economist Dani Rodrick points out what I had been feeling about The Economist for a while. It’s a bit too ideological, but you read it because they act so knowledgeable about the whole world. But when you read articles on issues you are familiar with, you are less than impressed with their representation of the facts, and it makes you wonder about their reporting on all those nooks and crannies in the world you don’t know about. Ezra Klein concurs, having this to say:
I had the same experience. The Economist is wry and knowing and worldly and made me feel very smart. Except on issues that I actually knew something about, in which case it made me feel very annoyed. And eventually, made me very worried, as The Economist is one of those magazines that’s read aspirationally, by people who want to be wry and knowing and worldly, and is thus taken more seriously than most publications. A lot of the folks I knew who read The Economist seemed to be reading it in order to learn how to have The Economist’s opinion on things…
I agree completely. I knew a girl with a subscription to The Economist who mentioned how often people are impressed when they see her reading it. She is exactly the kind of person who would enjoy showing off her hip rag, while at the same time being genuinely awed at what a great magazine it is! I think people view The Times in much the same way. That is, it is read with the assumption that this is what the clever experts have to say, so there is little need to second-guess their opinion, one should merely either attempt to pass it off as one’s own, or name-drop the source to show how learned and well-read one is. I still think The Times is a great paper, but they damn well know they have this reputation and they use it as an excuse to be lazy and arrogant.
I also notice that other bloggers keep beating me to the punch on stuff like this (Rodrick’s Post). Then I have to feel guilty about posting on what was supposed to be an original discovery.
March 14th, 2008
I was going to start this post off with another of my favorite boring clichés like, I wonder what’s gotten into the water on Capitol Hill, but it turns out we know what’s gotten into the water there. Anyway, perhaps because she realizes Democrats will need to do something to distinguish themselves from Republicans, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has started to do a little bit of truth-telling.
A few days ago she rightly pointed out that Hillary questioning Obama’s readiness to be commander-in-chief probably kayoed hopes of a “dream ticket†between the two. Now she’s saying that just as Bush was wrong about having a good reason to bomb Iraq and knew it, he’s wrong to say that stripping telecom immunity from the House surveillance bill will make America less safe. And he knows it. That’s almost the kind of toughness and honesty one would like to see from the House leadership.
It’s important not to get too excited about these signs of life, but having Democratic majorities in Congress offers tremendous opportunities to control what is debated coming up to the election, and bring Bush and the Republican’s mistakes to the forefront.
March 14th, 2008