And Now, Humorous Credit-Taking

Earlier I watched a truly great politician moment: "Gang of 14" Senators going to the Senate floor and congratulating themselves for working out an agreement to re-open the government and raise the debt limit. Not the agreement; the actual deal was apparently only tangentially related to the Gang's. But an agreement, nonetheless. They are immensely proud of having participated in a process which had little or nothing to do with ending a shutdown almost three weeks in, and raising the debt limit at the last minute.

There are basically two ways to take this.

One of them, and the one I try to be in favor of most of the time, is to just enjoy the spectacle of politicians being politicians. Of course they want to present themselves as full of spirit of bipartisanship, not to mention can-do efficacy. Of course they want to present themselves as part of the Good Washington. It's silly, but it's what politicians do, and we need politicians, so why complain?

The other one, when I'm in a less charitable mood...start with the Republicans. Some of them (John McCain, in particular, whatever his petty, personal motives; sorry, can't help that) have been pretty good about fighting back against the radicals. Others? Not so much. And while obviously the first blame for all of this has to go to the radicals, the truth by all accounts is that the radicals were dramatically outnumbered in both the House and Senate Republican conferences. And yet those sane Republicans too often hid their beliefs, voting to go along with most, if not all, of the craziness that they themselves said was doomed. Don't forget: these seven Gang-sters voted unanimously over the weekend, with the rest of the Republicans, to kill a clean debt limit bill by filibuster. Granted, what the Senate did wasn't very important in the grand scheme of things, but they could have provided a bit of cover House Republicans. They did not.

Then there are the Democrats. Maybe they deserve a break; one way of reading the entire thing (and Brian Beutler has been good on this) is as a process of producing tough votes for Democrats to take. Still: these moderate Democrats, by predictably clinging to whatever Republicans they can find in order to constantly prove their distance from Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and all, help to enable those sane Republicans to actually act as irresponsibly as Tail Gunner Ted and his group.

The true humor in all of this was that the Senators actually finishing up the deal and how it was going to be handled were off the Senate floor because they were busy working on it; the Gangsters were congratulating each other for working together to reach a deal precisely because they had time on their hands while the real work was going on.

At any rate, as I said, pretty much this is just what politicians do, and if you want to have a functioning democracy, you're going to need some politicians, and no question about it but that even the best of the workhorses will still take the opportunity when available to show off in the winner's circle.

Elsewhere/L'Shana Tova

L'Shana Tova to everyone who is celebrating the holiday. And with that, I'm off for two days. First Rosh Hashanah with the oldest daughter off at college....ah well. Weekend posting should be according to regular schedule, and in the meantime I should have a column or two showing up in the usual places. At least if I get the edits done before sundown.

Meanwhile, a few things that I've done elsewhere this week:

I said that time is a luxury the House does have; everyone should stop accepting the idea that the nine legislative days they have scheduled this month is some sort of external constraint.

The "McCain Docrtrine" (that Congress should never turn down a president who wants war) is anti-constitutional nonsense.

It's important to blame Congress, not presidents, for "presidential overreach" on war powers. Congress is perfectly capable of restrain presidents; if they don't, that's on them, not on the White House.

And I stopped short of a "ignore those polls" on Syria, but I did advise extreme caution in using them to predict future opinion.

Question for McCainologists

My PP post yesterday was about "How Ted Cruz got Richard Cordray confirmed." It's about Republican overreach in general, but it's also about one particular possibility: that a big part of what happened had to do with John McCain getting upset with Ted Cruz.

Which is, in turn, based on the idea -- familiar to McCain watchers -- that most of his career can be interpreted as basically a series of temper tantrums. Do note: there's another plausible interpretation, which is that it's all straightforward opportunism (Left to save his career after the Keating 5! Still left to occupy vacant ground in 2000! Right to win the 2008 nomination! Even farther right to beat off a Tea Party challenge! Left again to regain his reputation with the national "neutral" press!). But while I certainly can't prove it, I tend to believe the tantrum explanation. Or at least emotion-based explanation. He gets wound up on things...they are usually at least compatible with his immediate electoral interests (as is the case with almost all politicians and their actions), but I don't really see good electoral reasons for his actions during Bush's first term, or for that matter right now.

Which leaves me, however, with one question that I don't have an answer to: are McCain's passions easily manipulable? Or are they all internally driven, and basically just something the rest of the political world has to navigate around. I suggested otherwise yesterday; I said that "a little more focus on Obama as a Kenyan socialist and a little less on nutty accusations of treason against Hagel might have gone a long way with the senator from Arizona." But I have no idea whether or not that's actually true. Hey, McCainologists: what do you think?

Explaining John McCain

Jonathan Chait considers John McCain's career, on the occasion of McCain's recent Tea Party bashing and immigration bipartisanship, and concludes that it's all about national security:

The basic way to understand McCain is that neoconservative foreign policy is his ideological core. Everything else about his ideology can shift radically depending on his ambitions, circumstances, and whom he’s most angry with at any given moment. He favored immigration reform under George W. Bush, abandoned it to refashion himself as a “build the dang fence” border hawk, and, in the wake of last November, embraced it again...

But the foreign policy hawkishness has remained constant. 

Perhaps. I personally subscribe to the other theory: it's a combination of electoral incentives and personal vendettas.

What we need is for a neocon to pick a fight with McCain (to see if he'll go dovish as a reaction) or for some electoral situation in which hawks are at a disadvantage. I don't think either of those has ever happened in his career, or at least I don't think he's perceived belligerence in foreign affairs to be an electoral negative.

What both theories have in common is the idea that McCain is largely indifferent about policy at least of outside of national security and foreign affairs. Well, indifferent isn't quite right...McCain can be quite passionate about all sorts of issues while he's engaged in them; it just doesn't seem to be based on any kind of consistent ideology, or even a consistent view on the specific issue.

I am wondering how McCain's push for reconciliation with Vietnam counts here. I'd argue that it cuts against Chait's theory and in favor for everything being either electoral or, in this case, personal. I'd also argue that his relatively moderate position on the Chuck Hagel nomination fits my theory better; McCain opposed the first cloture vote and final confirmation, but he provided the key vote for cloture in the second cloture vote. Perhaps because he was more annoyed with Ted Cruz than he was loyal to the neocons. But neither of these is anywhere near conclusive.

Anyone else have examples that can help resolve this one?

Sunday Question for Conservatives

A bunch of liberals are complaining again about John McCain showing up on the Sunday shows all the time. I've said in the past that it's not up to liberals or Democrats to decide which Republicans are on those shows (it's a valid complaint if liberals are underrepresented, but that's a different question). But it is a valid complaint if conservatives don't want him on those shows. So: do you like it or not that John McCain is on the Sunday shows all the time, and is generally still, four years after his presidential campaign, probably ones of the most visible Republicans out there?

The Missing Famous Town Hall Debate Moment

The most famous Town Hall debate moment, as far as I can tell, came from the first time the format was used; it was the woman who asked George H.W. Bush how the deficit affected him personally (Adam Serwer talked about it today, thus providing proof that it's famous).

But the other famous Town Hall debate moment should have been the startling one just four years ago, well into the age when you would think that nothing like this could happen unnoticed on TV with everyone watching. I've mentioned it before, but I bet you don't know what I'm talking about, do you? It's about John McCain.

Here's what happened:

The first question of the debate was asked by an older white guy named Alan who asked a general question about the economy -- nothing about his personal situation at all, just a general question about how the candidates would help the economy. Both candidates answer. The follow-up from the moderator, Tom Brokaw, asks the candidates for their choices for Treasury Secretary. So there's been a fair amount of talk since the first question. The second question, then, is asked by a young African American man, who asks how the "bailout package" -- TARP -- would actually help people. McCain launches into an answer on Freddie and Fannie, but eventually gets around to this:

So this rescue package means that we will stabilize markets, we will shore up these institutions. But it's not enough. That's why we're going to have to go out into the housing market and we're going to have to buy up these bad loans and we're going to have to stabilize home values, and that way, Americans, like Alan, can realize the American dream and stay in their home.

It was absolutely shocking, or at least I found it shocking (if you want a more complete retelling, I got my brother to write about it at the time in my pre-blogging days; the NYT transcript is here).

There's simply nothing at all in either question to indicate that "Alan" but not the black guy (Oliver) would want to "realize the American dream and stay in [his] home." Neither even asked about housing, much less talked about their own situations. And yet McCain, while looking at Oliver and answering his question, referred back to the white guy when he wanted to talk about the American dream and home ownership. (If you want to see it on the video, the question is at the 10:00 point and "Americans, like Alan" is at about the 12:00 mark -- more than nine minutes after Alan had sat down after asking his question). It's worth seeing; McCain begins by answering the question directly to Oliver, then starts moving around the debate area while he's talking generally about housing and attacking Obama, and then returns to speaking directly to Oliver when he gets to this bit (and gestures back to Alan; he's clearly not just confusing the names) -- there's really no other way to read it than that he's specifically telling this African American man that the American dream is the property of white guys.

Forget about what it says about John McCain; I'm still shocked, four years later, that the press didn't pick up on it. Did reporters notice and just not care? Did they not think it was significant? Did they not notice?

As I said, this really should be a famous debate moment.

(Updated to include that McCain was clearly not confusing the two names)

Catch of the Day

To Ed Kilgore Paul Glastris*, who notes that WaPo's Richard Cohen does an impressive job of establishing false equivalency despite having a one-sided set of examples of Palin-like candidates who have succeeded on the national level.

As someone who doesn't care all that much about that particular press bias, what bothered me far more about the column was that for Cohen the Sage of Wasilla appears on the scene "With her selection as John McCain’s running mate" and that, at the end, "Sarah Palin changed the game." That's wrong. Sarah Palin didn't change anything. There have always been unqualified presidential and vice-presidential candidates out there. Hundreds of millions of them, in fact. What changed (if anything did; I'm not as sure about that) was that John McCain selected her, without having bothered to find out whether she was a qualified candidate or not. The passive "with her selection" will not do.

What happened in 2008 was that John McCain chose someone who should not have been on a national ticket; that Republicans of all stripes pretended he hadn't done that through election day; and that all too many Republicans defended the choice not with the white lie of claiming her competence, but by declaring that her apparent weaknesses were actually strengths, thus setting the party up to reward such weaknesses in the future.

Palin is, of course, responsible for her own actions. But no more than that. Her selection in the first place, and the way she was defended before and especially after the election, isn't her doing, and John McCain and various high-visibility Republicans are the ones who deserve the blame for it.

At any rate: nice catch!


*UPDATE and mainly CORRECTION: Very sloppy on my part; I assumed that the post was by Ed Kilgore,  regular WaMo blogger, but it was in fact by Paul Glastris, occasional WaMo blog contributor (and Editor in Chief of the Washington Monthly). My apologies to everyone.

GOP War On Budgeting Update

Via Brian Beutler, a wonderful quote from John McCain, showing exactly how Republicans think about budgeting:

Let’s not let a domestic issue such as tax increases interfere…with our nation’s security.

That, in a nutshell, captures exactly how Republicans deal with the budget, and it explains almost all of the structural deficit. I have no idea whether they really believe it or if it's just the way they talk for political reasons, but it's as if there's just no recognition at all that revenues and expenditures have anything to do with each other. Which in and of itself is tough enough to defend -- but from a group of politicians who claim that "the deficit" is important, it's, well, breathtaking.

As I've argued several times, the way to square the circle is to assume that what they mean by "the deficit" has nothing whatsoever to do with, you know, the difference between federal government revenues and spending, and that in fact those two totals have nothing to do with each other. Read through Beutler's story; he gets Jon Kyl to admit that the spending cuts they support to pay for a payroll tax cut are simply spending cuts they support, regardless. Which is really what every budget argument I've heard Republicans give in the last few years boils down to: they have plenty of spending they're for and plenty they're against, and taxes they're against and more-or-less taxes they're for, but they just reject the idea of trade-offs designed to bring revenues and expenditures together. Even for someone such as McCain who presumably really cares a lot about military spending, it's as if he's entirely unaware that taxes have anything at all to do with how much spending is available. 

Palin Out

The 1972 Democratic National Convention was, by all reports, chaotic. George McGovern had a solid delegate lead coming into the convention, but didn't seal the deal until he won a couple of hotly contested test votes at the convention. He then turned to the question of a running mate, only to be rebuffed by his first choice -- Ted Kennedy -- and at least a couple of other choices. Eventually, he settled on Missouri Senator Tom Eagleton; it was hardly a carefully vetted selection and it soon turned into a fiasco, but again McGovern was operating in relatively difficult circumstances. Also in McGovern's defense: Eagleton went on to continue to have a perfectly respectable Senate career. As near as I can tell, he retired with an excellent reputation.

In 2008, John McCain basically won the nomination on Super Tuesday, which was February 5, but Mike Huckabee fought all the way to March 4, when he withdrew and McCain clinched it. The deadline for selecting a running mate was the Republican National Convention, scheduled for September 1. Oh, sure, perhaps you would want the veepstakes to be concluded at least a few days before the convention, but the hard deadline was September 1.

Which means that McCain's campaign had almost all of March to select and vet a running mate. And all of April. And all of May. And all of June. And all of July. And all of August.

And they -- and he -- selected someone who, whatever her many, many, many other flaws, was currently under an ethics investigation in her state. I mean, how do you do that? It's really hard to believe the level of irresponsibility, and really I don't see how Republicans have ever forgiven McCain for it.

The other notes...it's been clear for some time, of course, that Palin wasn't really capable for whatever reason of running a proper campaign, and it's certainly possible she never had any intention of contesting the primaries, but by my standards I'm still going to say that she (like Christie, and Barbour, and the rest) ran and lost. Pending further reporting, we'll never know for sure what her goals have been these last three years, but when you're the recent VP candidate and you spend your time doing things that presidential candidates do, then in my book you're a presidential candidate. Just, in this case, a spectacularly inept one.

At least this simplifies things a bit. I've been saying for a while that the field is set, but hadn't quite wanted to definitely rule a Palin nomination out...it seemed increasingly unlikely, but I didn't know exactly where to draw the line between unlikely and entirely implausible. At least that's done with now. It's gonna be Rick Perry or Mitt Romney, unless something wildly implausible happens. Hey, for Republicans, it certainly could have been a whole lot worse -- I doubt if either of them will embarrass the party as badly as John McCain did, and they both would probably be much better presidents than George W. Bush. My line for a while has been that the GOP is increasingly unlikely to nominate someone crazy, but is increasingly certain to nominate someone who has had to say crazy things to get the nod, and that's pretty much how it's turning out.

Sunday Question for Conservatives

How do you feel about having John McCain as your main voice on foreign policy and national security? This is primarily addressed to mainstream conservatives (in other words, people who were more or less okay with the main thrust of George W. Bush's foreign policy, regardless of the particulars. Feel free to say Ron Paul or someone else outside of the GOP mainstream on these issues if you want, but I'm more interested for this one in what mainstream conservatives think). Most liberals believe that McCain is not only wild and impulsive, but not particularly well-informed on these issues. Do you agree?

If not McCain, who would you rather have speak for Republicans on these issues?

Catch of the Day

Andrew Sprung reads John McCain's "civility" op-ed carefully, and isn't impressed; he sees it at least in large part as a "pander to Palin." 

I think that's basically correct, although I'm not sure it's only Palin. Mainstream conservatives at least in large part saw themselves as secondary victims of Tucson, inflating real slights and ignoring more reasoned responses. This allowed conservatives to hear the president's injunction against incivility as directed against -- and only against -- their opponents. Conservatives are absolutely correct, in my opinion, that some liberals (and some members of the press) appeared eager to blame Tea Party rhetoric for the massacre in Tucson, regardless of what the facts would show. At the same time, conservatives are wrong to believe that such claims were unanimous or even typical -- and, in large part, mainstream conservatives have been just as eager to assume away any connection between violent rhetoric and violent actions, and to ignore other violent actions over the last two years which provided the context for some of the reactions they condemn.

All that said, it's good to see McCain take some responsibility for his own actions. However, in order for change to happen, what's needed is for people to specifically call out those on their own side who use irresponsible or false rhetoric. Not, as Sprung points out, defend them when their words are accused of contributing to a poisonous atmosphere. Even if those accusations are themselves over the top or otherwise inappropriate.

Stapling machine, Mr Clarke

John McCain is an embarrassment:

We send these young people into combat, we think they’re mature enough to fight and die. I think they’re mature enough to make a judgment on who they want to serve with and the impact on their battle effectiveness.

Does he really believe that?   Does he really believe that troops should get to choose who they want to serve with? 

Forget about civilian control of the military, and forget about the specific issue of DADT: does John McCain believe in in any notion of basic command structure?

The guy is lucky he didn't get hooted out of public life after his raw bigotry in the 2008 town hall debate.  He's a disgrace.

Still No Reason To Care About the Sunday Shows

Steve Benen continues to complain about John McCain dominating the Sunday shows; I continue to complain about his complaints. 

My main comment is that, basically, there are going to be Republicans on the Sunday shows, and it's not really up to liberals which ones get on.  If Harold Ford is asked to represent liberals, then liberals should (assuming they don't feel represented by him) make a fuss.  If John McCain is asked to represented Republicans, then it's really up to Republicans to complain if they're unhappy.  At the same time...who cares?  Sunday shows are watched by a relatively small group of unusually highly-informed political professionals and political junkies, and those shows neither set the nation's agenda nor have any chance of swaying undecided voters. 

All that said, Benen also says: "If there's a good explanation for bookers' obsession with the failed presidential candidate, I can't think of it."  So, while I don't think it matters much, I'll suggest some reasons.

Number one by far: regulars are regulars, whether it's who shows up as guests on the Sunday shows or which academics get quoted frequently in news articles, because...they're willing to do it.  Odds are that quite a few of what have been 41 GOP Senators just had no interest in spending their time appearing on Meet the Press, since few of their constituents -- and practically no swing voters -- watch that show.  Others may not be willing to talk about subjects outside a narrow area of expertise. 

McCain, obviously, is willing to claim expertise on every foreign policy/national security topic, and most domestic topics, whether or not he actually knows what he's talking about.  And he evidently likes doing these shows.  That accounts for most of it.

A second issue is that John McCain presumably is not running for president.  The networks try to avoid favoring any particular presidential candidate, mainly because it will spark complaints from the other candidates (I'd guess that McCain's dominance of the Sunday shows tailed off in 2007, during the primary campaign). 

Third, it's certainly possible that McCain gets higher ratings than would a generic GOP Senator; as a former presidential nominee (and after 2000 as a former serious candidate for the nomination), he at least is a lot better known than pretty much any other potential guest. 

Similarly, the Sunday shows also compete on prestige, and a former presidential nominee probably is, as they say, a bigger "get" than a no-name committee ranking Member.  At least in the next Congress the shows can turn to House committee chairs, but that wasn't available on the Republican side in 2009-2010. 

And, again, the biggest points are probably the first one here -- that he says yes to bookers -- and the absence of a negative, that conservatives don't complain about him being on. 

You Really Can't Skip Iowa

John McCain is now advising presidential candidates to more-or-less skip Iowa just like he did (well...I should be fair.  He doesn't quite say that he skipped Iowa, or that Iowa doesn't matter at all, but as I read it that's basically his meaning).  Ed Kilgore basically has the goods on why this is a foolish strategy:

McCain might have added that this strategy works best if your main NH rival does run in Iowa, and loses there to an underfunded social conservative who goes on to split the vote against you in South Carolina and Florida. But then that would have involved acknowledging that his 2008 nomination was a crazy three-cushion shot that is unlikely to be replicated in the foreseeable future.

Kilgore, alas, misses one little detail that McCain sort of missed, too, so I have to do this item to correct it: John McCain did campaign in Iowa.  It's true that McCain devoted more resources to New Hampshire, but that's not the same thing as skipping Iowa.  I know someone was tracking campaign days, but I can't find it right now...I did find a useful November 20, 2007 article quoting candidate McCain:

But asked by reporters Monday if he was moving out of Iowa to focus on New Hampshire, McCain answered, "That's not true. We are not moving out of Iowa."

"We are just going to work harder in all three [early voting] states: New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Iowa."

So six weeks before the Iowa caucuses, McCain was denying reports he would pull out of Iowa...which implies that he had a campaign there to fold if he chose.  Indeed, McCain then surged in the Iowa polls, finishing basically in a tie for third with Fred Thompson. 

If McCain hadn't contested Iowa -- if he had really skipped it -- he almost certainly would have finished behind not only Huckabee, Romney, and Thompson, but also behind Ron Paul (who took 9% to McCain and Thompson's 13%).  That's not all!  McCain voters would have gone somewhere else...probably not to Huck, and almost certainly not to Paul or to 6th place finisher Rudy Giuliani.  Odds are they would have gone to some combination of Romney and Thompson.  Would that have affected New Hampshire?  There's no way to know for sure, but I suspect it would have.  McCain won New Hampshire (over Romney) by just five points...it would have taken only a handful of McCain voters thinking he was out of it and switching to Romney or Thompson.  And if McCain narrowly lost New Hampshire, would he have edged Huck in South Carolina later (given that Romney won the next two contests in Michigan and Nevada anyway)? 

Let me go back and make a more basic point.  One of the key reasons that it's important to do well in Iowa is that if you don't, and I'm going to emphasize it because it's important and oddly overlooked sometimes, someone else will.  Suppose that John Edwards had passed on Iowa.  Sure, he wouldn't have wasted his resources finishing third there, but someone else would have finished third, and might well have shifted some of the attention Edwards received in New Hampshire to Richardson, or Dodd, or Biden.  Wouldn't have mattered much on the Democratic side, since the two frontrunners were genuinely strong candidates, but on the GOP side?  Hard to predict.

McCain, in fact, got the best of both worlds  By clearly focusing more on New Hampshire, he was able to get away with finishing relatively far back in Iowa -- without actually finishing all that far back.  In short, what he did extremely well was playing the expectations game.  Given that, a genuinely weak candidate field, and a bit of luck, he was able to survive a weak finish in Iowa.  As Kilgore says, however, it's not something we should expect to see again any time soon.

Read Stuff, You Should

What not to read?  How about Sheryl Gay Stolberg's entirely content-free "news analysis" in today's NYT.  Sample: "But Mr. Obama’s legislative success poses a paradox: while he may be winning on Capitol Hill, he is losing with voters at a time of economic distress, and soon may be forced to scale back his ambitions."  This is not, strictly speaking, a paradox.  Or, you know, something that would count as "news" to the readers of the Times.  OK?  Enough said: on to the good stuff.
 
1. Political scientist roundup: John Sides knows public opinion.  Branden Nyhan knows presidential approval ratings.  Seth Masket knows about pols in elections. 

2. If you think this is a good year for Republican women, check in with David S. Bernstein.

3. Paul Waldman nails McCain-worship from the press.

4. Andrew Sullivan, on Iraq.

5. The ACA and the deficit; Jonathan Cohn translates from the CBO.

6. A double shot of Conor Friedersdorf: in full take-down mode, and why haven't more people linked to this one?  And a related nice post by E.D. Kain about conservatives, plus one from Timothy B. Lee about the culture of libertarians.


7. Do you know about the Radford-Moorer Affair?  You should, and it was back in the news recently.

Another Senator's Strings Cut? 2

A quick follow-up to my post about Bob Bennett, and how he'll behave if he loses his seat to a Republican this spring:

In case you're wondering, John McCain's primary isn't until August 24.  I can confidently predict that following that primary, win or lose, his voting record will not be significantly to the left of Bernie Sanders or significantly to the right of Jim DeMint.  Beyond that, you're guess is as good as mine. 

Whichever way he lands, it will be pretty late in the Congress, so it's unlikely to matter much. 

Translated, from the Obama and McCain

Behind the fun of the McCain/Obama back-and-forth today was something I find fairly interesting.  They both say that they want to change the way Washington works, but they mean completely different things.

John McCain wants to change the way Washington works.  What he doesn't like is a system in which various groups come together and, through their elected officials, bargain to reach a conclusion they can all live with.  Instead, he thinks that everyone should simply do whatever is in the public interest.

Barack Obama wants to change the way Washington works.  What he doesn't like is a system in which politicians mostly speak in spin and poll-tested talking points.  Politicians, he thinks, should just say what they mean.

Completely different things.  For what it's worth, I believe that both of these positions sound good to the American people, but both positions are wrong.  Spin is mostly harmless, and the stuff that McCain doesn't like is essential to democracy.  But, regardless of whether they're correct or not, that's what they mean.

McCain also seems to believe that since they were the two presidential candidates, Washington should now be doing whatever things either of them advocated in the campaign.  That, however, is another topic altogether.

Read Stuff, You Should

Before I start...a belated welcome to new readers, and many thanks to Ezra for the link.  Also, Happy Christmas to those who are celebrating today.  For the new folks, this is my version of the tab dump...I do it irregularly, more or less once a week.  Most of these you've seen links to before, but I try to include items you may not have bothered to read through at first, along with those that you may not have seen.  Also: I generally start with something that I wouldn't recommend reading.

And this week, it's Frank Rich's shark-jumping column from this past Sunday, the one about Tiger Woods.  Or something like that.  Hint to Rich: fraud existed even before the 21st century.  Really.

OK, now to the good stuff:

1. As TNC says, "The war is long. When you've outlasted Strom Thurmond, Joe Lieberman is cake."  Yup, I'm starting with some recent good items on health care, for those who aren't sick of the whole subject.  Begin with Ezra Klein on some hard-working Senators, and Matt Yglesias's follow-up on Harry Reid.  Matt also has a wonderful metaphor for those lefty kill-billers who have a narrow focus on the insurance industry (I just want to know if they're against COBRA).  Megan McArdle has something helpful to say about negotiations, although I think she's wrong to say that the bill is "hideously unpopular."  I also don't fully agree with Ed Kilgore, but his perspective on splits among Democrats is worth thinking about.  And Jonathan Caucus member Chait has a really nice summary of the bill, very useful for those who need talking points against their conservative or lefty friends and family over the holiday season.  


2. The Budget.  A little bit of fun from Kevin Drum, and a longer, interesting piece from Stan Collender.


3. I may not think it's a crime that he's always on the Sunday shows, but I do love a good McCain take-down.


4. John Sides, good as always, this time on independents.


5. I've mentioned that my brother is a terrific reporter.  He forced himself to read all the conservative best-sellers of 2009; the least you can do is read his entertaining reviews and the accompanying essay.


6.  I have no idea why this isn't getting more attention -- it's the fun story of the month.

More McCainmania

If it's Sunday, then it must be time for John McCain to be on one of the Sunday interview shows, Steve Benen to complain about it, and me to complain about the complaint.  Here's Steve:

And who, exactly, is John McCain? He's the one who lost last year's presidential race badly, and is now just another conservative senator in the minority. He's not in the party leadership; he has no role in any important negotiations on any issue; and he's offered no significant pieces of legislation. By all appearances, McCain isn't even especially influential among his own GOP colleagues.

Best of all, tomorrow's "Fox News Sunday" focus is on health care reform -- a subject McCain doesn't even pretend to know anything about.

C'mon.  McCain has been one of the Republicans most frequently speaking from the Senate floor during the health care debate, and has offered two of the major GOP motions. Republicans selected him to deliver their Saturday radio address (on health care) this weekend. 

Now, I grant that we're talking about John McCain, here, so it's not as if he's apt to actually know policy details or anything like that, but that's not up to the networks to decide.  In fact, what I don't understand about Steve's campaign here is why anyone except for rival Republicans should care.

But just for the record, I'll go through his argument.  First, McCain is "just another conservative Senator."  Well, no; he's the most recent presidential nominee, the only person around (well, him and Palin) who has been selected to lead the Republican Party.  I'm not sure if they still use the phrase "titular head of the party," but they used to, and while one could stretch it too far, it does separate McCain from the Cornyns and DeMints.  Second, he's not in the leadership.  True.  They certainly could invite Kyl or McConnell.  If they don't -- or if Kyl and McConnell aren't really interested in wasting their time on the Sunday shows, which no one but a few Washingtonians and political junkies watch, then what's it to anyone else?  I certainly haven't heard Kyl or McConnell complain.  Next: he's not involved in negotiations on this issue.  Well, when it comes to health care, that's pretty much all Republicans except for Snowe and maybe Collins, and neither is representative of the party.  Certainly, the talk shows should have a regular, conservative, Republican as a guest, no?  And, last, he hasn't offered legislation on the subject.  But in fact he has offered two important motions on the Senate floor...and they can't have the author of the Republican alternative, because there is no Republican alternative.

Really, however, it comes down to this: the Sunday shows are going to have Republicans on, and the only fair complaints from Democrats would be if there are too many Republicans.  Which Republicans are invited is the GOP's business, and they're the ones who should be complaining if they see something wrong.

[Update: Spelling corrected]

Do Dreams Ever Die?

Kevin Drum has a fun bit of McCain-bashing today, and longtime readers will know that I do like McCain-bashing as much as the next person, but I wonder if this is right:

When McCain is running for president or thinking of running for president, he's a bipartisan maverick. When he's not, he's a conservative die-hard. And now that the presidency is plainly out of reach forever, he's taken his non-campaign mode to its natural extreme and become a snarling right-wing pit bull. This was entirely predictable, since McCain's public persona has always shifted with the political winds, and the political winds have finally spoken decisively about his future.

And yet, somehow he's managed to maintain his reputation for maverickiness through it all. I wonder if the press will ever figure out just how badly they've been played by this guy over the years?

First, I don't think that's empirically correct: McCain's peak period of maverickiness was during Bush's first term, while he returned to the conservative fold during Bush's second term, when he was closer to his next WH run. I'm don't think it's (primarily) political winds that move McCain -- just as with his buddy Joe Lieberman, McCain appears to me to be moved more by personal resentments and vendettas.

Second, though...I wonder. Yeah, he got clobbered, and yeah, he's way old, but I'm sure that John McCain believes that everything that has happened since January 20 has confirmed that John McCain was right about everything. I don't know; I've had a lot of the health care debate on in the background this week, and I keep hearing from John Kerry, Tom Harkin, Chris Dodd, Lamar Alexander, and John McCain, and my guess is that none of them are cured: they all still see the President of the United States when they look in the mirror. I think my rule of thumb is that until they cut their first Viagra ad, every former presidential candidate still thinks that he or she still could make a comeback. I'm not saying that John McCain will run again, or even that he's currently actively thinking of running again...but I'm guessing that the guy in his mirror hasn't changed, and that it's occurred to him more than once that he beat Romney and Huck already, and Palin can't really be serious, and no one has ever heard of Pawlenty, and he's John McCain, isn't he?