Booman writes:

What I know is that we haven't had a president this progressive since Franklin Roosevelt, that we've never had one from our background who instinctively reflects our values, and that we desperately need him to succeed or we won't only lose the White House to Palinesque thugs, but we'll lose the internal battle within the Democratic Party. Are we going to be the party of tomorrow, filled with all races, religions, sexual-orientations, based in social justice and international cooperation? Or are we going to be the socially conservative, business-first, hawkish, Third-Way party that was wiped out between 1994 and 2006?

Let's consider that statement in parts. First is Obama really the most progressive President since FDR? What does that statement even mean? Clearly on civil rights issues, FDR did not exactly demonstrate governing bona fides on civil rights. On that issue, thank Gawd, every Democratic President, and most Republicans, were "more progressive" than FDR. But that makes the point -- you can not judge a President's "progressiveness" outside of the times they governed in. More.

Kevin Drum points to Dan Drezner's entertaining piece on the "political lessons of Passover. Here is a taste:

Nate Silver writes about the Pew poll showing President Obama with the widest partisan divide in recent years:

These are highly partisan times in America. "Bipartisanship" (or, in the Obama nomenclature, "post-partisanship") makes for a catchy campaign slogan, but is difficult to execute upon in practice.

Knock me over with a feather. Who could have predicted that? I guess politics has not changed forever. Can we concentrate on the policy changes now?

Speaking for me only

Al Giordano writes about why he is criticizing President Obama's online town hall answer to a "legalizing marijuana" question:

Day in, day out, I defend the President from stupid attacks, so often that it's common that they respond by calling me an apologist for him. But, excuse me, while the substance of what he said was certainly informed by what he's heard in his cross-country journey, the mocking and mean-spirited tone of it is what I take issue with.

Some think critiques like Al's are "stupid attacks." More . . .

The reactions of Atrios and Thers to Harry Reid's statements about "the Left" and Senate "moderates" perplex me. Harry Reid is the Majority Leader of the Senate, the leader of the Democratic Caucus. Whatever he really thinks about Bayh and Co., in public he has to support his caucus members. It reminds me of when now-President Obama attacked "the Left" for criticizing Democratic Senators who voted for John Roberts. I wrote a comment then:

As opposed to politicians, progressives should care about issues, not elections. Of course one follows the other. But pols are pols and do what they do. Matt Yglesias writes a confusing post, but he gets it right in the end:

If we succeed in achieving major progressive reforms in 2009 and 2010, we’re going to create a situation in which the existence of a workable national health care system deprives the Democrats of a winning electoral issue. A certain number of voters who have conservative views on some other topics but who liked progressive ideas on health care will vote for more Republicans. If progressives succeed in increasing economic mobility and decreasing inequality, that will probably increase the number of middle- and upper-class Hispanics who decide they want tax cuts. The goal, however, is to achieve the goal of a more just society, not to win a bunch of elections.

(Emphasis supplied.) Correct. It is why I wrote:

Daily Kos gives us this video of Dick Cheney upon his triumphant return as the face of the Republican Party

To dignify Cheney as a serious person on policy is something I will not do. This is without saying the man should be, by all rights, in jail. But as the de facto leader of the worst Administration in history, Cheney is not someone whose views should be taken seriously. I certainly will not. I will point out that it is political suicide for the Republican Party to allow Cheney to reemerge as the face of the GOP.

Speaking for me only

In a rather ridiculous article, the WaPo front pages an opinion as news. The opinion forwarded is:

In his inaugural address, President Obama proclaimed "an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics." It hasn't taken long for the recriminations to return -- or for the Obama administration to begin talking about the unwelcome "inheritance" of its predecessor.

. . . Upon entering the White House in 2001, Bush pinned the lackluster economy on his predecessor, using the "Clinton recession" to successfully argue in favor of tax cuts that won some Democratic support. But for Obama, who built his candidacy on a promise to rise above Washington's divisive partisan traditions -- winning over many independent voters and moderate Republicans in the process -- blaming his predecessor holds special risks.

This is particularly puerile nonsense. I remind the WaPo of one Bush 2000 phrase - "I am a uniter, not a divider." That said, Obama did engage in the post partisan unity schtick, thus inviting this nonsensical line of attack. More . .

Another Republican governor does not want the money for his state's unemployed -- this time it is Texas Governor Rick Perry:

Gov. Rick Perry will announce today that he is blocking the state from accepting $550 million for expanded unemployment benefits as part of the federal stimulus package. With an upscale Houston hardware store as his backdrop, he will paint the expansion as a burden on small business.

How much this is related to a possible GOP primary challenge by Kay Bailey Hutchinson is easy "impossible" to say. I venture to guess it is about 100% related to it. Playing politics with the struggles of the unemployed. Just terrible.

Speaking for me only

. . . then he should put his principles where his mouth is. He should sue to have the stimulus money NOT sent to South Carolina. Yesterday, the South Carolina Governor insisted again that he will refuse federal stimulus money. The problem is the federal stimulus legislation provides for the South Carolina legislature to bypass him and take the money on South Carolina's behalf. But, according to Jack Balkin, Sanford has a strong case that that provision in the federal stimulus bill is unconstitutional. If Sanford REALLY believes what he is saying, he should challenge the provision in the federal stimulus that renders him powerless to stop South Carolina from becoming Zimbabwe. Balkin writes:

In describing a view that is often excoriated as "anti-semitic," Glenn Greenwald writes:

[T]here are powerful domestic political forces in the U.S. which enforce Israel-centric orthodoxies and make it politically impossible to question America's blind loyalty to Israel. . . . In the U.S., you can advocate torture, illegal spying, and completely optional though murderous wars and be appointed to the highest positions. But you can't, apparently, criticize Israeli actions too much or question whether America's blind support for Israel should be re-examined.

Of course there are such "powerful domestic political forces" (as for Glenn's characterization of such policy as "blind loyalty," to me that is beside the point for this discussion.) And there is such a "powerful domestic political force" on Cuba policy. And agricultural policy. And so on. That is politics. These are "political forces" after all. That is the way it works. And that is not a bad thing. More . . .

Krugman, citing Media Matters, writes:

One major sin of news coverage, especially on TV, is the way certain points of view just get excluded from consideration — even if many of the best-informed people hold those views. Most famously and disastrously, the case against invading Iraq was just not heard in the months before the war.

And still it happens. According to the invaluable Media Matters, the idea that the Obama stimulus plan might be too small — a view held by many well-known economists — basically went unreported on broadcast news during the stimulus debate. . . . Meanwhile, it’s rapidly becoming clear that yes, the plan was too small.

More . . .