"I have no idea what they believe," a leading House Democrat and Obama ally told me recently when I asked if he could define the administration's governing philosophy. "I know that their governing strategy seems to be, `Don't worry, the big guy will make it all right in the end.' They have the sublime sense that they don't have to do all that much to plan events, or to come up with the message for what they're doing, or to line up support, because whenever they need to, they can just put Mike Tyson in the ring. And I think (a) it's wrong, and (b) it's a bad way to run a White House."

The limits of that approach will be sorely tested in the period now about to unfold before us. Starting this week, Obama will unveil or have forced upon him a series of pivotal decisions--on Afghanistan (with his big speech set for Tuesday night), health care, the economy, and the deficit. The choices entailed will be hard and clarifying, doing more to define his tenure than any he has confronted so far. And he will make them while skating on thinner ice with both his party and the electorate at large than hardly anyone imagined possible on that frigid and fantabulous January day when he was sworn in. The political perils of this period will be immense, but so will the opportunity: for the president finally to erect on the foundation of the Obama brand something more vital--a working vision of Obamaism; for him to right the ship, recapture the magic, reinflate the balloon; and in the process, to reaffirm the reasons why so many of us invested such hope and faith in him in the first place.

As you can see in our new feature post, a group of conservative and not-so-conservative Democrats in the senate pushing to use the upcoming need to up the national debt ceiling to insist that a commission be formed -- perhaps on the model of the old base closing commission -- to rein in spending and get the national finances under control. Anyone who looks at the national budget knows that if you start with the assumption that deficits are a critical problem right now that there are two big levers to get them under control -- cutting social insurance programs like Social Security, Medicare and so on or raising taxes.
...
I suspect you'll find a White House, if not eager to go along with the idea of a commission, ready to pivot fairly dramatically from a 2009 focused on economic stabilization and reform into a 2010 focused heavily on budgetary retrenchment.
TPM

Great idea. And please start a football handicapping contest as well.

I think you're a great picker and would like to try to best you.

Did you know Cinncinati football coach (and maybe the next Notre Dame coach) Brian Kelly worked for the Gary Hart presidential campaign

And to answer earlier questions...

Woods and his wife are not required to give a statement to police about the accident, but if either does it must be truthful, Florida legal experts said. If not, they added, there is a slim chance they could be charged with resisting arrest without violence, a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $1,000 fine