If you want to understand Obamanomics one year out, look at the demand-side hole we’re still in, the gargantuan boomer deficit we’re heading for, and the mad-as-hell party these bad times have spawned. How Obama deals with all three will be the real economic test of his presidency.
Pink Floyd vs. Carly Fiorina, “Demon Sheep”
What would our political situation be like, what kind of leaders would we elect, if parliamentary-style debate was par for the course? Obama speaks to the House GOP retreat:
and takes questions:
CSPAN coverage (video) here.
Listening to Garry Wills talk with Terry Gross about his new book Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State, it occurred to me how quaint the words “mobilize” and “demobilize” have come to sound—dusty, steam-powered, telegraphed to generals on horseback from pre-autobahn Berlin and Paris before the first Coco cut the first little black dress. Quaint because here in the U.S. we have never truly demobilized from World War Two (the National Guard is called up, but the security apparatus never stands down). This is of course not news, and as Wills says, it’s largely a settled affair. It still unnerves me to see it reflected in our language.
newsweek: Downfall, Scott Brown edition
This—via alexbalk, who notes “some flaws in the logic, but mostly yes”—is more worth reading than all the post-Scott Brown punditry put together (with the exception of TNR’s excellent Jonathan Chiat).
Come on, Dems. The GOP does not want to cuddle in your Snuggy, not even if you let them choose what to watch tonight.
So the Massachusetts election reminds me of that point in Monopoly when, if you’ve been luckier than your opponents, you’ve gotten the first monopoly of the game, put some houses on your properties, and had your opponents land on your monopoly once or twice, and you compare your assets to theirs and you think alright. The game isn’t won yet, but you’re safe and you can sit back. Relax. Enjoy it. Then one of your opponents gets Boardwalk and Park Place and mortgages his or her other properties to buy houses. And you land on Boardwalk and you think, how bad could it be? All his or her other properties are mortgaged. I still have this fine monopoly. I am safe. And you pay in cash, because you can, and you like the idea that you can pay in cash, because you have such a good monopoly. But this leaves you without the cash to buy more houses, and when your opponent goes around the board once or twice without landing on your monopoly, he or she has the cash to put more houses and then hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place, and when you land on one of them again—it doesn’t matter which one—you have to mortgage your monopoly and you have no means of income and no more cash, and you realize that there is no gradation between winning and losing and the moment you lost your monopoly on monopolies was when you lost. And you think why didn’t I take this more seriously? And fortunately it’s only a board game, and you run out to the kitchen so the winner has to put away all the money and the little houses and hotels, and you make popcorn and then it’s time for dinner and after that bed and TV.
Today was my first time voting outside New York City since the days when Bill Clinton had yet to read Vox. Ah, those massive NYC machines (the voting gizmos, not the parties); the little switches and enormous levers—now that’s voting. Steampunk voting!
This afternoon the polls were quiet, the poll workers all incredibly chipper. Out in front, a lone, soggy Coakley supporter held his sign high.
(ridiculous Boston Globe pollwatcher reports via The Awl: Wonkette)
Filmmaker and Iranian exile Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s “The Secrets of Khamenei’s Life” has been translated from Farsi:
Khamenei usually listens to 20 minutes of recorded conversations against himself, between opponents or even officials, every night before sleeping[…]
[His wife] Khojasteh, who has sometimes listened to these recordings, has little patience for the daily groveling of many people. More than anyone, she says that the Iranian people are fawning liars and traitors.
