Cato’s Chris Edwards offers his proposal for warding off depression: “What Obama should do is a pass a large corporate tax rate cut, which would spur long-run growth.” Yes, neo-Hooverism taken to new and exciting heights allowing everyone to dust off the Keynes line about how in the long-run we’re all dead in an appropriate context. Long-run growth is important, but it’s not going to be worth anything unless we get out of the downward spiral that’s facing us immediately.

Meanwhile, what we actually need is corporate tax reform — close loopholes, grow the tax base, and lower the tax rate.

Ed Kilgore has a really interesting post on Southern political history that gets into the winding and complicated manner in which racial politics has interacted with other issues in Dixie:

But there any “seamless web of reaction” theory about the South begins to break down. The two decades after the Compromise were characterized by savage political warfare across the region between supporters and opponents of capitalist development and corporate subsidies. And no one embraced the Lost Cause of the Confederacy myth more than the southern Populists, who viewed antebellum southern “civilization,” accurately, as anti-capitalist. The great southern Populist Tom Watson of Georgia, who once called himself a “red socialist through and through,” and who did actual jail time in opposing U.S. entry into the “imperialist” World War I, was a disciple of Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens and an unequalled romaniticizer of the Lost Cause.

This period also illustrated the highly ambiguous nature of the race issue in the South. The Populists initially appealed to African-American voters, but eventually championed disenfranchisement of blacks as the only way to build a class-based political movement among whites. And while hardly any notable white political figure in the South in this era was anything less than a thoroughgoing racist, the “New South” apostles, and the “Bourbon Democrats” who succeeded them and characterized one element of the Southern Democracy right on up to the Civil Rights Movement, often postured as paternalistic defenders of African-Americans against the violence of redneck populists.

One thing I might add is that perhaps the defining picture of contemporary southern politics is that this sort of thing has ceased to be the case. Overall, the region is clearly — like the rest of the country — much more progress on racial matters than it was during Watson’s time. But unlike in the past, basic left-right economic issue disputes are now very closely aligned with people’s attitudes toward racial questions. In general, over time American politics as a whole has shifted from a two-dimensional conflict to one-dimensional conflict and this has had particularly acute consequences in southern states where racial polarization in attitudes is higher-than-average and where you often see an unusually large black population. But this world is actually a consequence of the Civil Rights era that replaced an earlier, more complicated dynamic.

What’s on your mind as we hurtle toward the inevitable drunkenness of tomorrow?

Spencer Ackerman asks the tough questions:

Is comparing Bush to Sarah Palin more insulting to Bush or to Palin?

I’m going to say “more insulting to Palin.” Palin’s something of a laughingstock, but Bush is a villain. I mean, he wrecked the world economy, he led to millions of Iraqis being forced to flee their homes, he’s a total disaster and a disgrace. Palin gave bad answers in TV interviews. There’s no real comparison.

Turning the microphone over to Matt Duss:

Of the various premises on which the U.S. invasion of Iraq was sold to the American people, one of the most bizarre was that a post-Saddam Iraqi government would be friendly to Israel. As with claims about WMD and Al Qaeda connections, this one has proved to be a work of imagination.

Just as they did during Israel’s 2006 war against Hezbollah, Iraq’s leaders are now showing where their true sympathies lie. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Da’wa Party “issued a statement condemning the attacks and calling on Islamic countries to cut relations with Israel and end all ’secret and public talks’ with it.”

He’s got more in this vein. It’s always been a bit odd that those most inclined to tout their credentials as would-be spreaders of democracy throughout the Arab world are also those least inclined to be at all sensitive to actual Arab public opinion.

Wow. Despite requests from essentially everybody to avoid appointing a senator to fill Barack Obama’s senate seat, Ron Blagojevic has decided to tap Illinois Attorney-General Roland Burris to the seat. Back in 2002, Burris ran against Blagojevic in the primary with Obama’s support. The Senate Democrats aren’t happy:

The Democratic leaders of the Senate repeated that view on Tuesday, issuing a statement saying it was “truly regrettable that despite requests from all 50 Democratic Senators and public officials throughout Illinois, Governor Blagojevich would take the imprudent step of appointing someone to the United States Senate who would serve under a shadow and be plagued by questions of impropriety.”

The statement continued, “We say this without prejudice toward Roland Burris’s ability, and we respect his years of public service. But this is not about Mr. Burris; it is about the integrity of a governor accused of attempting to sell this United States Senate seat. Under these circumstances, anyone appointed by Gov. Blagojevich cannot be an effective representative of the people of Illinois and, as we have said, will not be seated by the Democratic Caucus.”

The leaders concluded by saying the appointment was “unfair to Mr. Burris, it is unfair to the people of Illinois and it will ultimately not stand.” They called on the governor once again to resign.

What a weird development. Part of the shame of it is that Burris seems like a perfectly well-qualified choice, but the circumstances put him under an unavoidable cloud of suspicion.