Archive for 2012

THE HILL: Republican lawmakers begin pushback against Obama recess appointments. “GOP lawmakers are still steaming over the White House decision to ignore brief pro forma Senate sessions to single-handedly name three members to the National Labor Relations Board and Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Republicans have almost unanimously criticized the move as an unprecedented power grab that upturns nearly a century of precedent. But beyond irate statements, lawmakers are taking varied approaches to actually challenging the appointments.”

K.C. JOHNSON: Will The New York Times Apologize to Patrick Witt? “The denouement of the Times‘ coverage of Duke lacrosse came when then-sports editor Tom Jolly apologized for the paper’s guilt-presuming, error-ridden articles on the case. Will the paper ever get around to giving former Yale quarterback Patrick Witt an apology? With a few days perspective, it’s become clear that the Times’ mishandling of the Witt story was, in two specific ways, even worse than originally believed.”

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Once And Future Liberalism. “The blue model is breaking down so fast and so far that not even its supporters can ignore the disintegration and disaster it now presages. Liberal Democrats in states like Rhode Island and cities like Chicago are cutting pensions and benefits and laying off workers out of financial necessity rather than ideological zeal. The blue model can no longer pay its bills, and not even its friends can keep it alive. Our real choice, however, is not between blue or pre-blue. We can’t get back to the 1890s or 1920s any more than we can go back to the 1950s and 1960s. We may not yet be able to imagine what a post-blue future looks like, but that is what we will have to build. . . . There are a lot of reasons to be nostalgic for the old days (especially for the white males who were, far and away, the biggest beneficiaries of the old system), but there are also good reasons to bid the blue model good riddance.”

NICK GILLESPIE AND MATT WELCH: Learning From Kodak’s Demise: What the end of a blue-chip company can teach us about the 2012 election. “When given real choice, especially the choice to go elsewhere, consumers will drop even the most beloved of brands for options that enhance their experience and increase their autonomy. We have all witnessed and participated in this revolutionary transfer of loyalty away from those who tell us what we should buy or think and toward those who give us tools to think and act for ourselves. No corner of the economy, of cultural life, or even of our personal lives hasn’t felt the gale-force winds of this change. Except government.”

LEGACY OF TODAY’S CULTURE: Fear of Men?

SALENA ZITO: Populism Elusive For Dems. “The one theme (independents) have that is Jacksonian is to get the federal government off their backs and out of their pockets — hardly what Obama or Occupy have in mind.”

JAMES Q. WILSON: Angry About Inequality? Don’t Blame The Rich. “We could reduce income inequality by trying to curtail the financial returns of education and the number of women in the workforce — but who would want to do that? The real income problem in this country is not a question of who is rich, but rather of who is poor. Among the bottom fifth of income earners, many people, especially men, stay there their whole lives.”