Archive for March 2009
Reading the Sunday Paper
Tom Fetzer is a smart guy. Iâm thinking of endorsing him for state Republican Chair. Thatâs because he would be good, and I donât want a good GOP chair. I figure my endorsement would be the kiss of death. Tom has a gimmick in his campaign: help put The News & Observer out of business.…
Read MoreBowles Rolls
How confident is Erskine Bowles of his standing in the legislature? Confident enough to tell the Appropriations Committee that Governor Perdue’s UNC budget is “ludicrous.” Bowles’ bluntness raised eyebrows around Raleigh. The Governor said she was “miffed,” but then assured us that she and Erskine talked and that love is in bloom again. Bowles knows…
Read MoreMarching in the Wrong Direction
Well, I’d say Obama did pretty well at his press conference the other night – so he must just have been off his game a couple of weeks ago at his first press conference. Right now Obama’s going through the part of his presidency where folks are taking a good look at how he does…
Read MoreDefending FDR
Right-wingers are so mad at President Obama for trying to fix the economy they’re renewing a war they lost 75 years ago – against FDR and the New Deal. The Fox mantra has been that the New Deal didn’t end the Depression, but only made it worse; that only World War II ended the Depression.…
Read MorePass to Play
State Senator Charlie Albertson has a bill guaranteed to get people talking. It’s simple. Just one page. It prohibits any participation in athletic competition by “schools in which a majority of the students are below the 50th percentile on end-of-course and end-of-grade tests for two or more consecutive years.” In other words, if schools don’t…
Read MoreBudget Cuts?
It’s right there on the front page of the newspaper: The governor’s got a $3.4 billion hole in the budget to wrestle to the ground and fill – so she’s cut spending $1.3 billion a year. But there are two other numbers in the newspaper that are peculiar. $21.4 billion – which is what the…
Read MoreWhere Were Axelrod and Gibbs?
The blabbering classes are taking up pitchforks and torches over the AIG bonuses. The AIGate question now becomes: What did the President/Secretary of Treasury/Fed/Congress know and when did they know it? My question: Why didn’t David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs see this coming? Team Obama would not be the first winners to go to the…
Read MoreA.I.G., Alcoa and Taxes
Well, Obama’s after A.I.G. hammer and tongs. Which is fine. More than fine. But there’re also a couple of overlooked questions worth considering: Like why didn’t the Washington genius (and it’s beginning to look like it was Treasury Secretary Geithner) who poured $170 billion into A.I.G. have the good sense to tell A.I.G. up front,…
Read MoreBev’s Budget
I give Governor Perdue and her staff an A+ on message management. They pulled off a neat three-step strategy: Spend weeks warning people how awful the budget cuts are going to be. Then devote her State of the State speech – and the next week’s media events – to saying education would get more money.…
Read MoreObama’s Stock
I could never predict what will happen to the stock market. But I can predict that President Obama’s numbers will go down – soon. It’s inevitable. And it’s no reason for Democrats to panic. They just need to prepare themselves. Here’s why he is headed for a drop – maybe a precipitous one – in…
Read More