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David Broder, appearing on Andrea Mitchell's MSNBC program this morning, wants the public to know that "bipartisanship" is all the rage inside the Beltway these days -- as indeed it has been for as long as we can remember. What does "bipartisanship" mean? It means believing right-wing nonsense and treating it as credible:

Mitchell: I've read a lot, and talked to a lot of people, and heard a lot of debate about the stimulus package, and reasonable people on both sides -- conservatives, liberals, Democrats, Republicans, economists -- aren't really sure what's gonna work and how it's gonna work. What are the risks here in taking it all on? I mean, Alice Rivlin, who created the Congressional Budget Office, has written, importantly, that she would separate out what is job-creating, what is stimulus, and look at the bigger-ticket items down the road. Um, how do they know? How does the president know what he's getting into here?

Broder: Ah, nobody knows, because this is uncharted territory. There are plenty of smart people who purport to understand the dynamics of the economy, but as we know, the first effort at stimulus did not achieve the expected results. So this is a gamble. It's a big gamble for the country, it's much better off if it includes the best thinking that's available in both parties, not just one party.

As dday astutely retorts:

Um, sir, WHAT DO YOU THINK THE FIRST STIMULUS WAS? It was a 100% tax rebate along the lines of the sum total of the thinking of one party. In fact, the "best thinking" of those people now is to weight the stimulus down with - wait for it - tax cuts, which would cost three times as much as the current plan because they want the tax cuts to be permanent, which is an even worse stimulus (There's also the point that the Republicans would push more people onto the Alternative Minimum Tax and actually RAISE taxes for the middle class while dropping them for the rich, but that's normal and besides the point I'm trying to make).

So, according to Broder, because a 100% tax rebate didn't work, we have to come up with a "bipartisan" approach that includes the ideas of those who prefer what amounts to a... 100% tax rebate.

This is idiocy, and suggests one of two things: either most of the Beltway is trying to protect the assets of the rich, or they actually don't know the meaning of the word "stimulus." And we are seeing this kind of confusion all over the media. If it's the latter, that's at least partially the fault of the Administration, who isn't doing the best job of explaining why exactly we need fiscal spending to make up the shortfall caused by plummeting consumer spending and private investment.

I can't wait for Broder to start pontificating, as he always does, about how he listens regularly to "ordinary taxpayers." Uh-huh. Sure.

Broder's just repeating the right-wing talking-point du jour, a skill he's perfected over the years. It's vintage Villagespeak: "bipartisanship" means "pretending we're neutral while advancing right-wing tropes."

After all, why shouldn't we incorporate the wisdom inherent in the right-wing geniuses who made this mess? When it comes to the Republican Party, the "best thinking available" -- that is, the thinking enforced by party poobahs and pundits -- can be found from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Grover Norquist.

Maybe David Broder can remind us again exactly why we should listen to them.

After all the Repubican whining over Holder, he finally was confirmed 75-21

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy called the vote historic. He noted that Holder's confirmation hearing was held while America was celebrating the 80th birthday of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Welcome to the next exercise in throwing money and guns out of airplanes. The AP reports on an assessment delivered to the Wartime Contracting Commission that says Afghanistan is headed along the same path as Iraq: rampant corruption and waste via mismanagement of tens of billions of dollars in US taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects.

There are 154 open criminal investigations into allegations of bribery, conflicts of interest, defective products, bid rigging and theft in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, said Gimble, the Pentagon's principal deputy inspector general.

...Gimble's office found that a small number of inexperienced civilian or military personnel "were assigned far-reaching responsibilities for an unreasonably large number of contracts."

He cited an account tapped frequently by U.S. military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan to build schools, roads and hospitals. More than $3 billion was spent on these projects, which were not always properly managed.

"In some instances, there appeared to be scant, if any, oversight of the manner in which funds were expended," Gimble said. "Complicating matters further is the fact that payment of bribes and gratuities to government officials is a common business practice in some Southwest Asia nations."

In "Hard Lessons," Bowen said his office found fraud to be less of a problem than persistent inefficiencies and hefty contractor fees that "all contributed to a significant waste of taxpayer dollars."

The most senior American official or officer so far indicted in these investigations has been a Leiurenant Colonel who was one of General Petraeus' closest aides during the period when he was in charge of training and re-arming the Iraqi security forces. During that period, 110,000 assault rifles and other arms, valued on the black market at up to $800 million went missing, partly to turn up in the hands of Kurdish terrorists in Turkey, and Petraeus' aide is believed to be involved in at least some of that trafficking. During the same period, half of the entire Iraqi defense budget for a year was stolen. We already know from previous reports that the Bush administration turned a willing blind eye to much of this corruption and if you believe a Lt.Colonel is as high as the baksheeh rose then you're smoking the good stuff in your hookah.

No wonder the generals are plotting to slow down any Iraq withdrawal while advocating escalation in Afghanistan.

The best line in today's report is this one:

"Before we go pouring more money in, we really need to know what we're trying to accomplish (in Afghanistan)," said Ginger Cruz, deputy special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. "And at what point do you turn off the spigot so you're not pouring money into a black hole?"

When all the right pockets are filled to overflowing, of course.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Morrissey's new album comes out on the 17th of this month, and if the rest of it matches the first single, "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris," it will signal a return to form displayed on 2004's You Are The Quarry, where Moz proved he is the only singer who can use the word "hamburger" convincingly in a song.

Coachella counts Morrissey, Bob Mould, and a host of other great acts that fall into the excellent-and-crotchety category among this year's performers, which is perfect for getting fans of similar crotchetiness, usually loathe to spend three days at an outdoor festival in the desert, to actually go this year. Have a glance at the lineup, it's a good one.

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Glenn Beck's Sunday program was fetid little cauldron of wingnuttery featuring Michelle Malkin and that Ayn Rand fan, Stephen Moore. Fortunately, the blonde Fox political analyst, Kirsten Powers, managed to work in the only voice of sanity.

Beck has already gone off whatever rails Fox might have had in mind for him this week, but on Sunday he made a special effort to weave it all together for us: America is doomed because liberals are going to destroy the economy now and Mexico is going to invade us or something.

Beck: Let's say Mexico collapses. All right, now you've got out-of-control Zetas on our border, you've got Texans who are already -- we're missing 70 of them that have been kidnapped on the border, most people -- you don't know, do ya?

Powers: I think you sound like coocoo for Cocoa Puffs.

I mean, what are you talking about? We're going to be invaded by Mexico?

Beck then puffs himself up and condescends to Powers for the rest of the segment, while Malkin swoops in with a sneer or two, and Moore actually sides with Powers.

Well, as we already mentioned, Mexico is indeed having serious problems with the power of drug lords, but it is not on the verge of collapse -- particularly not, as Beck argued earlier in the week, because of the decline in remittances from America (which only constitute about 2% of the Mexican GDP).

Beck may raise some eyebrows over his first few weeks on Fox, but the impending-apocalypse schtick -- which is clearly where he's taking the show -- gets real old real fast. Especially because the people who rely on them constantly have to dream up new looming apocalypses and try to make you forget the last one that didn't pan out. Problem with that is, audiences always remember.

(I can't imagine what it would be like now!)

Six years after FDR took office in his first term, he gave an evaluation of where The New Deal was going and what it had done. In the time (from 1933 to 1939 when this address was given) a number of changes took place, not the least was a Recession in 1937 and various court challenges to the NRA, which eventually put it out of existence. And then there was the issue of "Court Packing" in 1937. A lot going on in a comparatively short period of time

But the bottom line was, the New Deal was working and America was slowly getting back on its feet. There was a war looming in Europe, the dress rehearsal being the Spanish Civil War in 1936. The reminder - then as now, is that recovery isn't an overnight thing, the detractors nay-sayers and illusionists were as prevalent then as now. Further evidence some aspects of history don't change at the drop of a hat or change of a phrase.

(Fiscal Policy Address of May 22, 1939 - excerpt)

Another Nobel Prize-winning economist checks in! Joseph Stiglitz echoes Krugman on the idea of establishing a so-called bad bank, in which the federal government would subsidize toxic assets:

Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz said any decision by President Barack Obama to establish a so-called bad bank to rid financial companies of toxic assets risks swelling the national debt.

Obama’s administration is moving closer to buying the illiquid assets currently clogging bank’s balance sheets and preventing them from boosting lending, people familiar with the matter said this week.

That amounts to swapping taxpayers’ “cash for trash,” Stiglitz said yesterday in a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “You shouldn’t chase good money after bad. We’re talking about a national debt that’s very hard to manage.”

Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University in New York and a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, says the plan would leave taxpayers paying for years of excess lending by banks. It would also deprive the government of money that would have been better spent shoring up Social Security, he said.

Last week we found out that Republicans dominated the cable news TV shows over Democrats by a 2-1 margin as the House debate raged on. So it wasn't surprising that the media began to adopt Right Wing talking points to frame the debate against Democratic members of Congress supporting the stimulus bill.. The media gave the people most responsible for the state of the economy and who got destroyed in the November election an overwhelming edge in exposure and message control to the American people. Obama did what very few presidents have done in recent decades. He went to the hill to try and spread his bipartisan love around.

Unfortunately, even after the Dems caved on an item the Republicans targeted because Obama wanted some Republican votes, President Obama still didn't receive one vote from the HOUSE republicans for the plan. You would think the media might focus on the fact that the Republicans would not be supporting the bill because of ideological reasons, tactical issues, or maybe even highlight the fact that they were at the helm when our economy collapsed, right? Wrong. Matt Lauer's questions to Robert Gibbs on the TODAY Show were more in the line that it was Nancy Pelosi's fault that republicans didn't vote for it. Just more right wing clap trap...

Mark Halperin even blamed President Obama for not being partisan enough if you can believe that.

My question to the media today is, will you cover the debate that takes place this week in the Senate fairly or will you act as you did during the House debate and side with the Republicans?

Things are too bad in the country for this behavior to continue. I'm not saying don't do your jobs, I'm saying stop acting like part of the RNC.

President Obama is keeping his campaign promises so far which included reaching out to Republicans. He did WIN for a reason. The American people are looking for change and rejected the "tax cut" mentality of the republican party.

Or will they be coocoo for Cocoa Puffs?

Our eyes will be on you all week and we will call out the garbage and let you know. Your switch board operators will not be happy either if it's not a fair representation of what takes place up on the Hill.

Mitch McConnell press conference on the stimulus bill Jan. 2, 2009.

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On Face the Nation Mitch McConnell says the GOP is going to require sixty votes for the stimulus bill to pass, but doesn't want to call it a filibuster. Since the Democrats cave in and never actually make them filibuster anything, his response is not surprising.

Schieffer: If it came to it, would Republicans filibuster this bill if it was not to your liking?

McConnell: Well that term is thrown around a lot. In the Senate it routinely takes sixty votes to do almost everything. It doesn't necessarily mean you're trying to slow a bill down. But a super-majority is required for virtually everything in the Senate and certainly for something close to a trillion dollars for a spending bill, it will.