NYT Endorses Obama

So this is another reminder of why the NYT is the best newspaper in the United States.

The editorial endorsing Barack Obama for president does manage to point out his good qualities, but does a far more impressive job of burying the Bush administration in the sort of systematic, overarching way that drives home the depths, still unknown, of their corruption of the ideals of American government.

It's definitely worth reading. It's probably worth printing off and hanging on an office door.

Greenspan Hits Iceburg, All Feared Lost

In congressional testimony today, former Chair of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan lit the fuse on his own legacy, and blew out the foundations. See the story in The Newspaper of Record.

Greenspan stood athwart the American financial landscape like a Titan for the better part of two decades. Markets trembled at the whims of his occasional, generally convoluted, public statements. In one sense, seeing him admit that the philosophy of deregulation that had informed his professional thinking for most of his adult life has proven deeply flawed feels tragic, the emperor revealed sans clothes.

On the other, it's impressive that he owned the failure. Many in the clips of the congressional hearings I have heard seemed eager to pile on, driving to skewer both the man and the ideology as completely as possible. That hardly seemed necessary- Greenspan was more than ready to admit that in his own eyes he had erred, and to place blame on his own policy decisions. That says a great number of positive things about Greenspan's character, even if his economic model will probably not be guiding many economies in the future.

The Last Big Endorsement?

The story of the day, assuming that the rest of the evening will be relatively quiet, is Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama. See video and print in the NYT.

On the one hand, Powell retains a certain aura unique to him as a sort of post-partisan keeper of the national interest, not only from the length and breadth of his service to the nation, but to his ability to serve very different administrations in quite effective ways.

Powell's time with W. has done much to tarnish that reputation- few things undermine one's claim to expertise more severely than Powell's UN appearance.

Which brings us to this morning. Nothing about the material we have so far seen seems to suggest that Powell was anything other than calculating in turning on his party and personal friend, John McCain. At that level, he provides an eloquent example of what putting his country first actually looks like. More, however, is the extent to which this feels like Powell speaking as much to his own legacy as to any other audience. In fact, who other than future historians (or current ones) could he be talking to? Are there really still undecideds in the Washington defense community, and if so, will this decide them? I hardly think JTP will be particularly swayed by the endorsement of someone so obscure as a former secretary of state. Despite the eye-rolling of certain American historians whenever I broach this theory, I remain convinced that had some different choices been made, Powell could have mopped the floor with the entire Republican field back in 2000, crossing many of the lines Obama is crossing in this one, and putting American policy on a very different track today. Clearly, Powell is unimpressed by the achievements of his party over the last decade. Today is something of a nod toward that alternative past, and a hopfull vision for a very different future.

**update**

Of course, there are other interpretation. Mr. Limbaugh in this thoughtful piece suggests secretary Powell is a racist. Way to go, Rush.

A Certain Irony

If there was a respectable trick left in the McPalin campaign, the NYT pretty effectively steals it with this brief piece, detailing the numerous liberal political achievements of...the Mavericks.

Sound like interesting folks, actually.

with friends like these

So as the VP debate draws nearer and Sarah Palin's Saturday Night Live video becomes the most popular thing that has ever happened on my Facebook page by a considerable margin, Palin seems poised on the edge of becoming perceived as a national farce.

The NYT seems to be in general agreement that the stakes for McP seem to be getting higher, and when you have conservatives of no less stature than David Frum saying things like:

“I think she has pretty thoroughly — and probably irretrievably — proven that she is not up to the job of being president of the United States,” David Frum, a former speechwriter for President Bush who is now a conservative columnist, said in an interview. “If she doesn’t perform well, then people see it."

So...yeah. It's hard to imagine anyone offering a more biting critique than that. Guess that vetting thing kinda does matter after all.

*Update*

It also emerges that apparently there are unaired clips from the Katie Couric interview, including a moment when we discover that Palin can't name - not can't explain, but can't even name- any supreme court decisions other than Roe V. Wade. See this blurb here. So there may even be a chance that more pseudo-comedy is to follow at periodic intervals.

Not Doing Enough

After spending almost the entire editorial blasting Bush and McCain for their complicity in the financial crisis, and McCain’s manic swings from position to position, the New York Times editorial board throws this in:

Mr. Obama has been clearer on the magnitude and causes of the financial crisis. He has long called for robust regulation of the financial industry, and he said early on that a bailout must protect taxpayers. Mr. Obama also recognizes that the wealthy must pay more taxes or this country will never dig out of its deep financial hole. But as he does too often, Mr. Obama walked up to the edge of offering full prescriptions and stopped there.

This is almost as if they have to say something negative about Obama in an editorial that also lays (far more severely) into McCain. As best I can tell, what the NY Times editorial board is saying here is that, “Obama seems to understand what the problem is and how large it is, has long advocated our preferred cures for the current crisis and has been, in short, right on this before even the current crisis came about. But he hasn’t offered a specific, detailed plan.”

It’s not the job of presidential candidates to offer specific, detailed plans. In fact, I think it’s foolish to do so for a couple of reasons, not least of which being it has no chance of becoming law. Obama (and, lest we forget, McCain) are not on the relevant committees to deal with this crisis and the bailout deal. Sen. Dodd seems to be doing a fine job without either of them, and I think it would be best if they both avoided getting involved and trying to blatantly take credit for a plan that they A) didn’t write and B) aren’t in charge of.

Obama, should he be elected, won’t be president until January. He’s currently a senator, but he isn’t on any of the right committees. Offering his own plan on this would be entirely presumptuous and would open himself to attack by Republican surrogates of McCain, as well of McCain’s campaign itself. There’s no reason for Obama to go stepping on the toes of Chris Dodd or Barney Frank. The best thing he could do is exactly what he has done: outline what he feels like the major problems are, the things he’d like to see the bailout address and then step back and let the rest of his colleagues in Congress hash out the details.

Frank Rich and the Mystery of Hyperlinks

Frank Rich and the Mystery of Hyperlinks

Frank Rich has a pretty thorough destruction of McCain’s Palin pick in today’s Times. It’s worth a read – especially since, as Matt Yglesias often points out, Rich actually includes hyperlinks to the articles that he discusses. It’s amazing the extent to which something as simple as that can help make an editorial so much more readable. One of the great features of the Internet is the ease with which you can send people to all sorts of information. I’m glad to see at least one writer from the Times following up on this potential. It makes his editorial a great round of on just why McCain’s pick is so disturbing.

She didn’t say “no thanks” to the “Bridge to Nowhere” until after Congress had already abandoned it but given Alaska a blank check for $223 million in taxpayers’ money anyway. Far from rejecting federal pork, she hired lobbyists to secure her town a disproportionate share of earmarks ($1,000 per resident in 2002, 20 times the per capita average in other states). Though McCain claimed “she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities,” she has never issued a single command as head of the Alaska National Guard. As for her “executive experience” as mayor, she told her hometown paper in Wasilla, Alaska, in 1996, the year of her election: “It’s not rocket science. It’s $6 million and 53 employees.” Her much-advertised crusade against officials abusing their office is now compromised by a bipartisan ethics investigation into charges that she did the same.

In the original piece, this paragraph is chockablock with links to relevant articles so that one my inform oneself as to what Rich is talking about (I’m too lazy to put them all back in, so you’ll just have to head over there). I really can’t understand why the NY Times doesn’t simply make this standard for their articles and (especially) their editorials and opinion columns. If nothing else, it should make William Kristol’s columns a bit more entertaining. But good for Frank Rich for going the extra mile.

The Way the Wind Blows

William Kristol, today in the NY Times:

And Obama supporters can’t get too indignant about Palin’s inexperience. She’s only running for the No. 2 job, after all, while their inexperienced standard-bearer is the nominee for the top position. And McCain doesn’t need a foreign policy expert as vice president to help him out.

[…]

The Palin pick already, as Noemie Emery wrote, “Wipes out the image of McCain as the crotchety elder and brings back that of the fly-boy and gambler, which is much more appealing, and the genuine person.” But of course McCain needs Palin to do well to prove he’s a shrewd and prescient gambler.

I spent an afternoon with Palin a little over a year ago in Juneau, and have followed her career pretty closely ever since. I think she can pull it off. I’m not the only one.

William Kristol, last week in the NY Times:

If not Pawlenty or Romney, how about a woman, whose selection would presumably appeal to the aforementioned anguished Hillary supporters? It’s awfully tempting for the McCain camp to revisit the possibility of tapping Meg Whitman, the former eBay C.E.O., Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. But the first two have never run for office, and Palin has been governor for less than two years.

William Kristol is not obliged to keep consistent views of the things he discusses. He’s a man very committed to conservative ideas, and it would make sense that he try and spin the narrative in the ways best suited for to the goal of ensuring conservative governance. He’s not required to hold the same belief from one week to the next – or even from breakfast to dinner. I do wonder, however, how the New York Times can justify giving one of their most prominent columnist jobs to someone with a nasty habit of false statements and who can’t hold a consistent opinion from one column to the next. The Times should obviously present opinions from all over the political spectrum – but I think they owe to their readers to pick columnists who aren’t simply presenting the most recent talking points, no matter how they may differ.

I’m also surprised that Kristol dismisses the idea that people would worry about the experience of a vice presidential pick by a seventy-two year old man with a history of cancer. Dick Cheney has certainly changed our views of the vice president’s office, but the primary responsibility of the office is still as a designated president-in-waiting. Obama never subscribed to the notion that he was inexperienced. That was and always has been a conservative talking point. The fact that McCain choice a woefully inexperienced running mate doesn’t reflect poorly on Obama.

And finally, perhaps this is just me, but doesn’t the phrase “fly-boy and gambler” signal dangerous recklessness and arrogance? Isn’t that the last kind of person we’d want in the White House?