Accomplished real journalist and aspiring pajama-clad blogger (I know own two pairs of pajama pants) Steve Coll makes the provocative argument that we already have large-scale industrial policy in the United States and it’s called “defense procurement”:

Why does the United States have one of the most robust aircraft-manufacturing industries in the world? The answer is not that pure free markets have, through the workings of a natural law, granted us such a bounty. Yes, Boeing has been disciplined and strengthened by global-market competition, particularly with Airbus, but large-scale federal spending on defense contracts has crucially strengthened Boeing’s position as a locus of human capital, design experience, and innovation. In 2006, the federal government spent more than sixty billion dollars on aircraft manufacturers. Boeing received $20.8 billion, according to Government Executive magazine. (Lockheed-Martin received $27.3 billion, and Northrup-Grumman $16.7 billion.)

Why does the United States have one of the most sophisticated, innovative electronics industries in the world? Raytheon’s take from the Pentagon in 2006: $10.4 billion; Computer Sciences, $2.7 billion. And so on. General Motors received $806 million dollars that year, mostly from the Army, enough to make it the fortieth largest defense contractor on the list, just ahead, startlingly, of Johns Hopkins University, which received more than seven hundred million dollars, most of it from the U.S. Navy. (Note to self: Why?)

So we have an outsized industrial policy, centered on our national-defense strategy. General Motors receives a lot less than Boeing because our current strategy favors aviation over ground transportation. This strategy has shaped our patterns of employment and innovation—the subsidies do not remain only within the military, but spill across the civilian economy as well. Our industrial policy has also given us less inspirational national capabilities such as world-beating personal-security and mercenary services (Blackwater).

Viewed through this lens, ambitious proposals for government-assisted efforts to build a green collar economy look less revolutionary and more like transformations of the long-existing American approach to policy and the market.

If reports are true and Barack Obama is really going to tap widely respected CBO Director Peter Orszag to head up the Office of Management and Budget (it’s like the CBO, but for the White House, so it makes sense) then I believe that would make him the highest-ranking blogger in the history of the United States of America. I was also going to say that he’d be the highest-ranking executive branch official who’s had the distinct honor of meeting Matthew Yglesias, but I actually met Obama twice so that’s out.

As a blogger, Orszag was only so-so, offering interesting content but not enough of it and presented way too sporadically. His CBO Director’s blog would have been a cutting edge public policy blog in 2004 or 2005, but by 2008 people have come to expect more from a blogger. But as an policy analyst, he’s first rate. And from his new, even more elevated position, perhaps he can organize some kind of interagency policy blog. Think CAPAF’s Wonk Room but with Senate confirmation.

I was rooting around in my bag a couple of hours ago looking for a nice pen I “borrowed” from the Mandarin Oriental in Geneva (very nice hotel — pushing US public policy in a more pro-Rolex direction is now my top priority) what did I find but a Swiss Army Knife that someone or other had put in one of my Switzerland gift bags. I didn’t really think much of it, but on reflection I carried the bag in question onto the plane for the Geneva-JFK leg of my return travel. And I cleared security for the JFK-DCA leg with the knife in the bag and only didn’t wind up boarding the flight because it got canceled.

In the latter instance, I was even singled out for special enhanced scrutiny, but they still let me take a knife on the plane — the precise thing all this security is supposed to prevent. But God forbid I’d tried to walk through security with a couple of brought-from-home Diet Cokes to drink while waiting — there are big markups and profits at stake in the liquids ban.

I wound up getting up earlier than I meant to on Monday or something and, with slightly more time on my hands than I’d anticipated, cooked myself a slice of bacon and an egg for an unusually indulgent weekday breakfast. Delicious! Emily Thorson makes the case for doing it every day.

I have no idea who’s going to do what in the 2010 midterm elections. The mere fact that Democrats hold most of the House seats suggests to me that the odds favor the Republicans picking some up. But this logic from Karl Rove predicting big things for the GOP seems badly flawed:

[T]he 2010 Census could allocate as many as four additional congressional districts to Texas, two each to Arizona and Florida, and one district to each of a number of (mostly) red-leaning states, while subtracting seats from (mostly) blue-leaning states like Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania and, for the first time, California. Redistricting and reapportionment could help tilt the playing field back to the GOP in Congress and the race for the White House by moving seven House seats (and electoral votes) from mostly blue to mostly red states.

But of course in the House we vote by Congressional District and not by state. Yes, New York will probably lose a House seat. But at the same time, the New York State Senate flipped from Republican to Democratic control. With the state overwhelmingly Democratic in its electorate, and the state government under total Democratic control, the lost seat will almost certainly be a lost Republican seat. And by the same token, the population growth in Texas, Arizona, and Florida is being driven by growth in the Democratic-leaning Hispanic population. In all these cases, you have to look at the demographics and the redistricting process in detail, not just ask whether it’s a blue state or a red state.

Again, the GOP was unusually unpopular in 2008 and so it seems likely they’ll be more popular and do better in 2010. But the main demographic trends are against the Republicans — they’re strong with old people and weak with minorities.