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February 24th, 2009

The cool presidency
An inquiry into Obama's hipness.
By Michelle Cottle
If one were to gather together a dozen of our society's key arbiters of cool -- ad execs, movie stars, fashion designers, music critics, pollsters, suburban tweens -- and instruct them to generate the profile of a "cool" politician, what are the odds that their efforts would result in a gangly, jug-eared, overeducated, workaholic with a fondness for Scrabble? Not to denigrate our freshly minted president, but, when you tick through some of the basics, Barack Obama comes across as an inveterate dork. It's not just that the guy is a double-Ivied academic; he is painfully wonky with hard-core professorial tendencies. If what we've witnessed thus far of his dancing is any indication, he is somewhat rhythmically challenged. His favorite book is Moby-Dick. His favorite TV program growing up was "MASH," though "The ...

February 24th, 2009

THE NEW REPUBLIC BUDGET
The following are selected articles from THE NEW REPUBLIC -- since 1914, America's foremost weekly journal of opinion.
FROM THE ISSUE OF March 4, 2009:
TRB -- FROM WASHINGTON: Hurry up and waste
Why Obama should have built more crap.
By Jonathan Chait

Small change
Dick Cheney has -- surprise! -- a paranoid view of Obama's war on terrorism.
By Eli Lake

The cool presidency
An inquiry into Obama's hipness.
By Michelle Cottle- - -

February 24th, 2009

Small change
Dick Cheney has -- surprise! -- a paranoid view of Obama's war on terrorism.
By Eli Lake
Dick Cheney is never known for his good cheer, but when Politico interviewed him recently, he sounded especially dour on the subject of Barack Obama's intentions vis-a-vis counterterrorism. In what seemed like a direct slap at the new president, Cheney warned that national security is "a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business ... and we're not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek."

While Cheney didn't come out and say so, he sounded pretty convinced that Obama was planning a civil-liberties bender. And, based on Obama's inaugural address ("we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals") and his initial executive orders on Guantanamo, interrogations, and CIA secret prisons, it certainly did seem like the new president was initiating a major departure ...

February 24th, 2009

Hurry Up and Waste
Why Obama should have built more crap.
By Jonathan ChaitRepublicans like to accuse Democrats of wasting taxpayer dollars and being condescending eggheads. But if President Obama's economic stimulus fails to prevent a depression -- and I'm not saying it will -- it will be because he didn't waste enough money, and didn't spend enough time being a condescending egghead.

Let's start with the egghead part. The stimulus bill is based on Keynesian theory, which I'll briefly explain in the condescending manner we liberals so enjoy using. When we're in a severe recession, good productive capacity goes to waste. Autoworkers sit home unemployed because nobody has money to buy cars, and cooks sit home unemployed because nobody has money to go out to dinner. The first thing for government to try is to reduce interest rates, to encourage busi ...

February 17th, 2009

THE NEW REPUBLIC BUDGET
The following are selected articles from THE NEW REPUBLIC -- since 1914, America's foremost weekly journal of opinion.
From online selections:

The Art of the Withdrawal
Learning from Daschle, Richardson, Kennedy and Killefer the right and wrong way to bow out.
By Jason Zengerle

Going Down
Why deflation is such a threat to our economy.
By Joshua Rosner

The Movie Review: 'The Pink Panther 2'
Steve Martin sinks to a new depth.
By Christopher Orr

February 17th, 2009

The Art of the Withdrawal
Learning from Daschle, Richardson, Kennedy and Killefer the right and wrong way to bow out.
By Jason Zengerle

I come to praise Nancy Killefer, not to bury her. Yes, it's certainly ironic that the hotshot McKinsey consultant whom Barack Obama tapped to become our federal government's first-ever chief performance officer did such a bad job managing her own performance that she failed to pay employment taxes on her household help. Because of that, she made the right decision to withdraw her nomination as Obama's performance czar. But there was one performance in which Killefer did do a masterful job: the performance art of the withdrawal.

By announcing that she was pulling her nomination on the same morning that Tom Daschle announced his own tax-induced withdrawal, and by making the decision before her tax problems took the spotlight, Killefer made sure tha ...

February 17th, 2009

THE NEW REPUBLIC
The Movie Review: 'The Pink Panther 2'
Steve Martin sinks to a new depth.
By Christopher Orr
What is the clue that enables Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Steve Martin) to uncover the identity of the Tornado, a notorious international thief, at the conclusion of "The Pink Panther 2"? Well, I'll tell you. (Is this a spoiler? In the technical sense, yes, though anyone who imagines that this "mystery" is in any way mysterious is already displaying more imagination than the screenwriters. Still, those wishing to retain their innocence might want to skip the next paragraph.)

While moping around a celebratory banquet to which he has not been invited, Clouseau notices the license plate of the as-yet-undiscovered thief's car and realizes that he'd given that same car a parking ticket two days before the thief claimed to have arrived in Paris. Voila! Case closed. The only problem is that ..

February 17th, 2009

Going Down
Why deflation is such a threat to our economy.
By Joshua Rosner
A stroll through any large shopping mall will reveal that America is undergoing the sale of the century. Luxury men's stores are offering three-for-one suit sales; airlines are dishing out record-low fares; there was even an auto dealer in Idaho who dreamed up a "buy one new truck, get a new car free" special.

But what might seem like great news for bargain hunters is actually evidence of a worrisome phenomenon -- deflation -- that threatens to wreck the American economy for years. If policymakers don't act swiftly, a startling number of retailers will fail, unemployment levels will rise, and we'll be staring down the worst period of price instability since the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Here's what's happening: After an historic run-up in the middle part of this decade, consumer prices have fallen rap ...

February 10th, 2009

The right man
David Frum breaks ranks over cocktails
By Barron YoungSmith
On the evening of Jan. 20, as Washington's liberals were toasting the inauguration of Barack Obama, some of the city's most prominent conservative intellectuals escaped to the elegant Northwest Washington home of David Frum. In one room, Richard Perle -- dressed in a jacket and royal-blue shirt, open at the collar -- leaned against a fireplace as Norah Jones crooned softly on the stereo and tea candles flickered from the bookshelves. In the kitchen, ideologically themed drinks were arrayed on a table: Obama enthusiasts -- both right-wing apostates and Frum's liberal guests -- could drink Blue Hawaiians; Palinphobes could drink cosmopolitans; and, for supporters of the Alaska governor, there was (of course) beer. Even though the conservative movement had just suffered a total political meltdown, few guests ...

February 10th, 2009

THE NEW REPUBLIC/TRB
Spare the Rod
In defense of Blagojevich (kind of)
By Jonathan Chait
I fully realize that few complaints are more tiresome than "your party's scandal is worse than my party's scandal." But indulge me for a moment. I can't think of a good reason why Rod Blagojevich has become the most hated man in America while Norm Coleman still walks the streets with his head held high.
What, you say -- Norm Coleman? Yes, Norm Coleman! Let me explain. The soon-to-be-former senator's scandal is pretty simple. Nasser Kazeminy, a wealthy businessman and close Coleman friend, allegedly paid him $75,000 under the table.
And by "allegedly," I mean "almost certainly." Here's how the almost certainly true alleged scheme worked. The payments to Coleman came in the form of what Tony Soprano would call a "no-show job." One of Kazeminy's companies is called Deep Marine Technology. Kazeminy allegedly ...