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Politics

With Recession Looming, Bush Tells America To ‘Go Shopping More’

By Amanda Terkel on Dec 20, 2006 at 12:56 pm

Today, President Bush held a news conference where he discussed the “way forward” for the economy in 2007. Renowned Morgan Stanley economist Steven Roach says the the “odds of the U.S. economy tipping into recession are about 40 to 45 per cent.” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman notes that “the odds are very good — maybe 2 to 1,” that the U.S. will teeter toward a recession in 2007. Bush’s solution? “Go shopping more.” Watch it:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2006/12/bushshopping.320.240.flv]

Similarly, after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush simply asked Americans for their “continued participation and confidence in the American economy.” From the Internationald Herald Tribune, 1/14/03:

Bush did nothing to mobilize public opinion to accept the sacrifices that war implies — the first thing a leader would do. Tax cuts could go ahead as planned, and energy saving was dismissed out of hand. “Go shopping” was the administration’s message.

Bush added today that 2007 will “require difficult choices and additional sacrifices” from the American people.

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Transcript: Read more

Culture

A Good Answer

By Matthew Yglesias on Dec 20, 2006 at 11:59 am

Bill Simmons gets a good question. If the problem is that Allen Iverson’s never had adequate teammates, then “which four players in your opinion would be a perfect match (and perfect teammates) for Allen Iverson?” The proviso is that it needs to be semi-realistic, “be aware of the salary cap limitations — i.e., no five superstars could be on one NBA team so forget about Jordans, Magics, Birds, Hakeems, etc.” Simmons replies:

You’d need a shot-blocking center who could protect him on the defensive end, handle the boards, set picks and not care if he doesn’t get a ton of shots (like Emeka Okafor). You’d need a big point guard who could bring the ball up (allowing Iverson to play like a 2-guard), make open 3-pointers and defend 2-guards on the other end (like Shaun Livingston, only if he had a reliable outside shot). You’d need a small forward who couldn’t be left alone from 3-point range (like Rashard Lewis). And you’d need a power forward who could protect the rim, score on the low post, set picks and run the floor (like Elton Brand).

I completely agree: A team like that would be really good. I would only point out that, by the same token, there are several high-scoring guards who, playing alongside Okafor, Brand, Lewis, and super-Livingston would make for a really good team. Dywane Wade, Kobe Bryant, Gilbert Arenas, Vince Carter, Joe Johnson, or Ray Allen all come to mind. Those are all very good players, but they can’t all be top-30 all-time guys. It’s important to realize that if Livingston had a reliable outside shot he’d be a fantastic basketball player — the 6’7″ point guard with a reliable outside shot is the genuinely rare commodity on that team, followed by the “power forward who [can] protect the rim, score on the low post, set picks and run the floor” high-volume perimeter scorers are relatively common compared to those assets.

Politics

Bush and Inhofe’s Home States Scorched By Wildfires And Droughts

By ThinkProgress on Dec 20, 2006 at 11:39 am

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the outgoing chairman of the Senate environment committee, calls climate change “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” But the facts about global warming are clear, and as ClimateProgress notes, the evidence is right in Inhofe’s backyard.

A record-high 9.5 million acres have been burned by wildland fires in 2006, according to the National Climatic Data Center. As the U.S. Drought Monitor shows below, the northern part of Inhofe’s home state of Oklahoma is “currently experiencing the most severe levels of drought in the U.S.,” while “nearly all of Oklahoma is at least experiencing ‘abnormally dry’ (yellow) conditions.” President Bush’s home state of Texas is also undergoing critical drought conditions.

Data from more than 50 climate models have revealed a direct link between rises in global temperature and damage to ecosystems, including higher risks of “forest fires, droughts and flooding.” Almost 45 percent of the contiguous U.S. experienced “moderate to extreme droughts” this year, while “some areas, such as the Northeast of the country experienced record rainfalls and severe floods.” Researchers announced in May that deserts in the American Southwest “are creeping toward heavily populated areas as the jet streams shift,” meaning areas “already stressed by drought may get even drier.”

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Media

Lowry Sells Out

By Matthew Yglesias on Dec 20, 2006 at 11:19 am

lowrywinning

National Review editor Rich Lowry must be drinking the Beltway kool-aid or angling for a gig on The New York Times op-ed page because here he is selling out to the traitors in the MSM:

Most of the pessimistic warnings from the mainstream media have turned out to be right — that the initial invasion would be the easy part, that seeming turning points (the capture of Saddam, the elections, the killing of Zarqawi) were illusory, that the country was dissolving into a civil war.

Say it ain’t so! And most of all what about the good news from Iraq? Lowry says “the opening of schools and hospitals is not particularly newsworthy, at least not compared with American casualties and with sectarian attacks meant to bring Iraq down around everyone’s heads in a full-scale civil war.” Damnit, Lowry, don’t you know that only four of Iraq’s eighteen provinces are violent? “True, but those provinces include 40 percent of the population, as well as the capital city, where the battle over the country’s future is being waged.” It’s madness. A veritable stab in the back, I say. Lowry, though, says “many conservatives lost touch with reality on Iraq. They thought that they were contributing to our success, but they were only helping to forestall a cold look at conditions there and the change in strategy and tactics that would be dictated by it.”

Fortunately, Stanley Kurtz is on hand to explain that . . . the media is to blame for conservatives’ failure to believe accurate media reports about conditions in Iraq. Fire Lowry! Kurtz for National Review Editor! Can’t we bring this Lowry back:

It is time to say it unequivocally: We are winning in Iraq. Even as there has been a steady diet of bad news about Iraq in the media over the last year, even as some hawks have bailed on the war in despair, even as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has become everyone’s whipping boy, the U.S. military has been regaining the strategic upper hand.

Take that, MSM!

Yglesias

Maybe!

By Matthew Yglesias on Dec 20, 2006 at 10:56 am

Unintentional comedy of the day award goes to Mickey Kaus: “Maybe I’m an old-fashioned Joe Kleinish Clintonian self-hating Dem.”

Maybe? Has he read Kausfiles, like, ever?

Politics

FLASHBACK: Bush Said Kerry Proposal to Increase Size of Military Would Make The Country ‘Less Safe’

By Judd Legum on Dec 20, 2006 at 10:20 am

Bush and KerryYesterday, President Bush announced his intention to increase the “overall size” of the Army, acknowledging that the current forces were “stressed.” The Washington Post reports he’s considering an increase of 50,000-70,000 troops.

On June 3, 2004, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) — campaigning for the presidency — proposed expanding the Army by 40,000 troops. Bush quickly slammed the proposal as unnecessary and counter-productive:

Bush’s campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld already has authorized 30,000 more troops through extended tours and new recruitment. He said the country would be “less safe” under Kerry’s approach.

In a news release, Kerry explained the problem with the Bush approach:

The Bush administration is relying on temporary solutions including “Stop Loss” orders, recalling the Individual Ready Reserve and extending tours to meet our commitments. These temporary measures have increased the burden on our troops and their families without addressing the underlying reality: we need more troops.

As recently as six months ago, President Bush was sticking to his guns. From a June 14, 2006, “Statement of Administration Policy“:

The Administration opposes increases in minimum active Army and Marine Corps end strengths in Title IV, because they could require DoD to maintain a higher personnel level than is needed. The restructuring of the Army and the Marine Corps, plus other initiatives, is enabling our military to get more warfighting capability from current end strength.

This “restructuring” was a central part of Rumsfeld’s efforts to make the military a “more modern force.” Bush cited those efforts as a key reason why he believed Rumsfeld was “one of the finest defense secretaries” in history.

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Culture

Albums: 2006

By Matthew Yglesias on Dec 20, 2006 at 9:48 am

The best thing about December is the year-end top whatever lists. Pitchfork’s Top Fifty Albums of 2006 list makes me realize that the time has come to stop complaining about the site and just recognize that Pitchfork and I have very different tastes and musical priorities. It’s gotten to the point (as with Scanners) where I can sometimes tell I’ll like a band just by reading Pitchfork slam them. At any rate, I hesitate to make transcendent aesthetic claims about music since tastes differ and so forth, but my ten favorite albums of an “indie rock” nature in 2006 were, in no particular order:

  • The Pipettes, “We Are The Pipettes”

  • The Decemberists, “The Crane Wife”
  • Belle and Sebastian, “The Life Pursuit”
  • Pretty Girls Make Graves, “Elan Vital”
  • Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Show Your Bones”
  • Rainer Maria, “Catastrophe Keeps Us Together”
  • The Futureheads, “News and Tributes”
  • Arctic Monkeys, “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not”
  • The Shins, “Wincing the Night Away”

One noteworthy trend in my listing habits is, as Tom Lee notes, the relative decline of Canada. Our neighbors to the north dominated in 2005 with releases by Broken Social Scene, The New Pornographers, Metric, Feist, and Wolf Parade. For ’06 I’m Canada-free with Malajube, Emily Haines, and Pony Up! all releasing albums I liked but didn’t top-ten like. We can also see that I’m getting old and set in my ways as only two of the albums I listen for ’06 are from new bands. Last, I’m becoming increasingly un-cool, since as best I can tell the most widely-praised album of the sort of music I like was The Hold Steady’s Boys and Girls in America which I found okay, but not incredibly impressive.

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