Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Bush Derangement Syndrome is the sarcastic belief that liberals are so insane that they see George W. Bush as being ultimately responsible for even the smallest evil in the universe. Wingnuts made this term up and use it as often as possible as it allows them to more comfortably dismiss legitimate criticism of Bush and avoid logically discussing his problems. Just ignore the argument the liberal makes, then yell "You just hate Bush!" and bam, you win.

Needing a new strawman argument for the forseeable future, Obama Derangement Syndrome is apparently the sarcastic belief that liberals are so insane that they see Barack Obama as being ultimately responsible for even the smallest good in the universe. Wingnuts love this as it allows them to more comfortably dismiss legitimate praise of Obama and avoid logically discussing his merits. Just ignore the argument the liberal makes, then yell "You just love Obama!" and bam, you win.

To wingnuts, this is called "evolution."

Stimulus And Response

Me, ten days ago:

Why the hell is Obama going at this from a position of weakness? What makes him think the GOP has any respect for his position or his agenda when they just stopped publicly calling him all but a secret Muslim terrorist only two months ago? They will not stop until they get everything they want: another Bush trillion dollar plus tax cut for the rich and especially for corporations. If they don't get it, they will destroy the entire spending package and the economy along with it. If they do get it, they will destroy the economy and finish the most massive transfer of wealth in history and eliminate the middle class.

Obama's already playing like he's lost, and he's not even President yet.

LA Times, today: (h/t Hullabaloo)

President-elect Barack Obama's hopes of scoring significant bipartisan support for his stimulus package are fading, as the debate over the nearly $800-billion plan morphs into a classic Washington impasse: two rival parties in irreconcilable conflict.

Obama had hoped to induce Republicans to back his plan by putting forward a series of business tax cuts. But GOP support is peeling off as the party crafts alternative ideas that rely even more heavily on tax reductions.

Thank you folks, I'll be here all week, try the veal!

In all honesty folks, is anyone surprised? Give the GOP an inch, they take the whole playing field, the stadium, the parking lot, the concession stands, the bathrooms, the overflow parking, the streetlights, the little parking shuttle tram and the sports bar across the street. When you try to walk down the center of the highway, you get hit by the eighteen-wheeler. The only purpose Obama serves for the GOP is to be somebody to blame for this economy. They will do everything they can to destroy him on this. The more Obama gives in, the more the GOP is able to control the narrative (and the Village will help them every step of the way.)

In the end, Obama has two choices: act like he and the Democrats won an overwhelming majority in 2008, or cede control of the country to the obstructionist GOP minority.

Here endeth the lesson, Mr. Obama.

The Purpose Of The Village

The Village has decided its purpose over the next four years, and that purpose as John Cole has discovered is to dump as much of the blame of everything that has gone wrong in the last sixteen years on the shoulders of one Barack Hussein Obama.

I really need to stop watching cable news, but I had the idiot box on CNN last night and got to watch this spectacle:

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No.

But the reason, as you just heard Dana report, that Harry Reid, the Senate leader, wanted to schedule it sooner, rather than later, is, they believe, the longer it waits, as David just said, the more water the ship could take on when it comes to the TARP funding.

And—and David makes a key point, Anderson, because, politically, every day we get closer to that inauguration, and then, on Tuesday, this becomes Barack Obama’s economy. It’s Barack Obama’s bailout money. And it’s Barack Obama who is paying the price for the anxiety. He has a lot of goodwill. He has high public approval.

Even many people who didn’t vote for him want him to succeed. But guess what? They’re still mad about the economy, still don’t think this bailout is a good idea, don’t know where the money is going, and don’t think it’s getting to them on Main Street USA or to the bank on the corner of their street.

And that is now becoming increasingly—and is about to become completely—Barack Obama’s political problem, not John McCain’s, not George W. Bush’s, not the Republican Party’s.

Got it? Obama OWNS the economy the day he becomes President. His fault. That growth during the Clinton years- that was due to Reagan. The bad stuff from 2000 on, that was the Clinton economy, until, of course, the 20th, when it becomes Obama’s.

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled off was to convince the world he didn't exist. The second greatest trick was to convince the world that Barack Obama is already responsible for George Bush's failed legacy (except for all the problems that Clinton and Carter created.)

It's impossible for a Republican President to be wrong, bad, or even responsible in any way to our "liberal" media. At the same time, it's impossible for a Democratic President to ever do anything other than to reach various levels of failure in a futile effort to be absolved of the Great Original Sin of Democrats...being a Dirty F'cking Hippie.

You see, a Republican can ignore every miscue of Hoover, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Poppy Bush. But a Democrat will never be able to escape the shadow of that most hated and most infamous miscreant of the 20th Century, that foul miasma known as FDR. Obama is no different. The transfer of wealth the GOP engineered over the last eight years will pale in comparison to the transfer of blame over the next four.

And this is why I hate the Village so very, very much. Well, this and those Subway $5 footlong commercials.

Defending Geithner

If the GOP wanted Obama's new Treasury Secretary gone, they could take him down in a heartbeat. But the fact of the matter is the GOP loves the guy.

Was he cheating on his taxes or just sloppy with his finances? Lawmakers vetting the nomination of Timothy F. Geithner to serve as Treasury secretary say they may never be sure. But leading Republicans nonetheless joined Democrats in leaping to his defense yesterday, calling Geithner's tax gaffes small potatoes compared with his qualifications for saving the global economy.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), the second-most senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which is charged with reviewing Geithner's nomination, called him "brilliant" and "honest" and said that, despite his tax errors, "I don't think we can get a better person for this position. . . . He has the kind of background that should be very helpful to us at this time."

Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah), a close associate of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said: "If I was a traffic officer, I'd say he may have exceeded the speed limit, but he wasn't weaving out of lanes, he wasn't drunk and he wasn't endangering anybody. He may have some explaining to do, but in the end, I think he's going to be just fine."

As a matter of fact, everything you need to know about Tim Geithner in general is that his situation has caused Hugh Hewitt to defend Obama on the grounds that "A president deserves his cabinet choices because he has won the election and been charged with executing the laws".

If Hugh is making actual logical sense in a column, there is something fundamentally wrong in the universe. The reason the GOP want Geithner around is because they honestly believe he's Hank Paulson with better press.

You Think I'm STILL Depressing?

I'm a veritable font of puppies and rainbows and crap compared to this guy.

Societe Generale said on Thursday that the United States' economy looks likely to enter a depression and China's could implode.

In a highly bearish note, veteran cross asset strategist Albert Edwards said investors should now cut equity exposure after a turn-of-the-year rally and prepare for a rout.

He predicted that the S&P 500 index of U.S. stocks could be set for a fall of around 40 percent from recent levels.

Edwards also raised the danger of a global trade war with China.

"While economic data in developed economies increasingly reflects depression rather than a deep recession, the real surprise in 2009 may lie elsewhere," Edwards wrote.

"It is becoming clear that the Chinese economy is imploding and this raises the possibility of regime change. To prevent this, the authorities would likely devalue the yuan. A subsequent trade war could see a re-run of the Great Depression."

Edwards has long been one of the most bearish analysts in London, first with Dresdner Kleinwort and then with SocGen.

If Edwards is right, China's economic collapse will knock us square into the ten-year stag-deflation nightmare. Without the ability to purchase our debt, China devaluing the yuan would almost immediately cause the US to go belly up and take the global economy with it. China has become the world's third largest economy now, but that has all but fallen apart in 2009.

The central government has believed that as the demand for exports softened recently due to the global recession, the country's new middle class would continue to help GDP growth through consumption.

The plan has fallen apart like a cheap watch. According to The Wall Street Journal, "China's exports in December fell 2.8% from a year earlier to $111.16 billion, while imports in the month fell 21.3% to $72.18 billion."

What was unimaginable a year ago has now happened. China has entered a recession and it may end up being deeper than the one in the U.S. It is not clear that the government can mount and manage a plan to create about 10 million new jobs. This will be an even more difficult task if exports continue to fall sharply. China does not have a service industry which is anywhere close to being as large a part of the GDP as it is in the U.S.

The illusion developed over the last decade was that China had become an independent power with a population which could make and consume goods at levels which have never been seen before. During the last two quarters, it has become clear that the the opposite is true. China's economy may be the most dependent large economy on earth.

If GDP in the U.S., E.U., and Japan contract at 5% this year, China's economy is very likely to shrink faster. It will be faced with a sharp drop in what it makes and exports. More importantly, large numbers of Chinese are leaving the huge new industrial cities and going back to rural regions where they can at least find work growing their own food. What is more than a trickle now could become a flood. Those who have gone back to non-industrialized sections of the country will not be net consumers at all.

With a short-lived and dwindling middle class, China no longer has the economic core to continue the "miracle." China has just become another big country in trouble.

In other words, China's raging dragon of an economy has burned itself out. It's going to have to take (fittingly) draconic steps in order to right the sinking ship, and the fact of the matter is China is going to call in the trillions of debt we owe it in order to help it out.

And when we can't pay up, we lose. As Roubini will tell you, our choices at this point are a nasty 24-month or more "U-shaped" recession, or a decade-long "L-shaped" depression, Japan-style. The jury's still out on which one we're facing. Keep in mind the 2-year recession is in fact the best case scenario at this point: we still have another 12 months to go of truly bad economic conditions, millions of lost jobs, thousands of businesses going under and probably a few hundred more big companies.

For a few weeks since late November equity markets ignored the onslaught of much worse than expected macro news (and all the new were really worse than awful) and had a nice 25% bear market sucker’s rally. But the drumbeat of terrible – and worse than expected - macro news and earnings news and financial news has finally taken a toll on the delusional market belief that the worst was over for financial markets and for equity markets and that the US and global economy would recover in the second half of 2009. So equity prices have already reversed more than half of their most recent bear market rally as the lousy macro news have finally shocked in the last week the wishful thinkers.

Indeed, the retail sales figures published today confirmed a shopped-out, saving-less and debt-burdened US consumer is now faltering as job losses, income losses, fall in home wealth, fall in equity wealth, high and rising debt and debt servicing ratios and a severe credit crunch take a severe toll on the ability of consumers to spend. And reduction in spending and deleveraging of the US consumer will take years to rebuild the savings rate of a household sector now hit by a severe shock to its net worth (as equity and home values fall while debts have been rising) and shocked in its ability to generate income as job losses mount and the unemployment rate surges.

In other words, we're in no shape to help out anyone. Like a group of massive dinosaurs who have wandered into the tar pits at the same time, there's not going to be anyone on the outside big enough to pull us out of the muck.

The only option left is to sink.

Dear America:

"You poor Obamabots have no friggin clue about the problems we've left you. None. You'll have some idea of course when you get blamed for it and we're back in power in 2012, cause I know where all the bodies are buried and I'll be damned if I'm going to let you sweep anything under the rug. You guys are completely screwed. Four years from now, I'll be heralded as a genius AGAIN. Good luck, you miserable assholes. You'll need it."

--Karl Rove, WSJ

Turd Polishing For Dummies

The fiction writing contest that is the unbridled lying at the heart of the World Dubya Hagiography Tour continues with British historian Andrew Roberts, declaring Bush to be merely misunderstood by so many idiotic Americans who refused to appreciate the greatness of the man, including erudite and positively eloquent delusions such as:

At the time of 9/11, which will forever rightly be regarded as the defining moment of the presidency, history will look in vain for anyone predicting that the Americans murdered that day would be the very last ones to die at the hands of Islamic fundamentalist terrorists in the US from that day to this.

Boy that sure feels good, no additional Americans on US soil murdered by Islamists! It almost makes up for the nearly 4,500 US troops murdered by Islamists in Islamist countries, and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans we murdered over there!

There are Americans alive today who would not be if it had not been for the passing of the Patriot Act. There are 3,000 people who would have died in the August 2005 airline conspiracy if it had not been for the superb inter-agency co-operation demanded by Bush
after 9/11.

There are 4,000+ troops dead because we invaded the wrong country, but that's besides the point.

Similarly, the cold light of history will absolve Bush of the worst conspiracy-theory accusation: that he knew there were no WMDs in Iraq. History will show that, in common with the rest of his administration, the British Government, Saddam's own generals, the French, Chinese, Israeli and Russian intelligence agencies, and of course SIS and the CIA, everyone assumed that a murderous dictator does not voluntarily destroy the WMD arsenal he has used against his own people. And if he does, he does not then expel the UN weapons inspectorate looking for proof of it, as he did in 1998 and again in 2001.

Mr Bush assumed that the Coalition forces would find mass graves, torture chambers, evidence for the gross abuse of the UN's food-for-oil programme, but also WMDs. He was right about each but the last, and history will place him in the mainstream of Western, Eastern and Arab thinking on the matter.

Because like the US, France, China, Israel, and Russia came to the same exact conclusions we did about Saddam's hideous evil terrible nasty lies about WMD then invaded Iraq like we did and are still stuck there after almost six years. Wait, they didn't invade? They're not stuck there with hundreds of thousands of troops in a quagmire?

Instead of Al Franken, history will listen to Bob Geldof praising Mr Bush's efforts over Aids and malaria in Africa; or to Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India, who told him last week: "The people of India deeply love you." And certainly to the women of Afghanistan thanking him for saving them from Taliban abuse, degradation and tyranny.

Yes, the people of Afghanistan continue to thank us daily.

When Abu Ghraib is mentioned, history will remind us that it was the Bush Administration that imprisoned those responsible for the horrors. When water-boarding is brought up, we will see that it was only used on three suspects, one of whom was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaeda's chief of operational planning, who divulged vast amounts of information that saved hundreds of innocent lives. When extraordinary renditions are queried, historians will ask how else the world's most dangerous terrorists should have been transported. On scheduled flights?

And when those same historians ask "When did the American Empire become truly morally bankrupt on its way into collapse," they'll be too busy laughing at articles like this to respond. But here's my favorite line:

The credit crunch, brought on by the Democrats in Congress insisting upon home ownership for credit-unworthy people, will initially be blamed on Bush, but the perspective of time will show that the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac started with the deregulation of the Clinton era. Instead Bush's very un-ideological but vast rescue package of $700 billion (£480 billion) might well be seen as lessening the impact of the squeeze, and putting America in position to be the first country out of recession, helped along by his huge tax-cut packages since 2000.

Got that? It's all Clinton's fault. Bush's massive tax cuts, $3 trillion wars, massive deregulation at the executive branch level, and Alan Greenspan's artificially inflated housing mega-bubble to get us out of the post-9/11 doldrums had nothing to do with our current economic crisis. It's all Democrats forcing poor people to take mortgages and the media's fault. Why, Bernie Madoff would be fine right now if it wasn't for those goddamn poor minorities.

Yes, Clinton was responsible for the end of Glass-Stegall. He opened the door for Bush, who promptly burned the door down, urinated on it, and then sold the ashes back to us for a profit.

Iraq has been a victory for the US-led coalition, a fact that the Bush-haters will have to deal with when perspective finally – perhaps years from now – lends objectivity to this fine man's record.

Yay we have won in Iraq. Bush is a genius! Pay no attention to stuff like this, we've won!

So, after the last eight years...was it good for you? Do you think Bush is one of the greatest Presidents we've ever had and a guy who just had bad luck on stuff like Katrina and 9/11 and Iraq and the economy? After all, Bush's only problem was that he was too humble.

I leave you with this.

With his characteristic openness and at times almost self-defeating honesty, Mr Bush has been the first to acknowledge his mistakes – for example, tardiness over Hurricane Katrina – but there are some he made not because he was a ranting Right-winger, but because he was too keen to win bipartisan support. The invasion of Iraq should probably have taken place months earlier, but was held up by the attempt to find support from UN security council members, such as Jacques Chirac's France, that had ties to Iraq and hostility towards the Anglo-Americans.

If that paragraph didn't cause you to throw anything at the monitor...congratulations. You've either stopped giving a damn or the Bushies will be contacting you to write a similar piece. Either way, you're doing better than I am after reading this.

StupidiNews!

• The UN compound in Gaza City is burning as Israel steps up its attacks in Gaza.
• The Big Three world economies are now US, Japan...and China.
• Obama's EPA chief vows to put science ahead of politics.
• The Senate takes up what could be a tough vote today to release the second half of the TARP funds.
• A new year, the same old bad video game legislation from states that faces Consitutional challenges.

Final Score

Dow down 248 to 8,200, NASDAQ under now 1,500, S&P under now 850. Citigroup under the $5 mark again. Not a good day...and it's only Wednesday.

[UPDATE] And tomorrow is going to be bad too in after hours news, with Apple CEO Steve Jobs announcing he's going on a leave of absence for health reasons until June, and Treasury announcing they're having to front Bank of America billions more to cover their massive losses from buying Merrill Lynch.

Apple stock off 10%, BoA stock off 5%, trading at a 52-week low. We could end up under 8,000 again before the end of the week.

We Need More Enemies

If you were worried that with Obama around we'd have fewer enemies to worry about and would have to actually -- *gasp* -- cut our massive military budget or something terribly sensible like that, don't worry. It turns out the Joint Chiefs think we've got a nice little unstable government next door that we have to keep an eye on.

Mexico is one of two countries that "bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse," according to a report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats.

The command's "Joint Operating Environment (JOE 2008)" report, which contains projections of global threats and potential next wars, puts Pakistan on the same level as Mexico. "In terms of worse-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.

"The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone."

That's right...Mexico's political instability is equal to that of Pakistan, apparently. The sound you're hearing is the ear-splitting moan of a thousand, thousand wingnuts fapping one-handed while simultaneously typing "BOMB MEXECO NOW11!!!1" with the other.

Maybe we can get those Minutemen dudes to go on cross-border raids. I'm sure the Mexican Army will appreciate it.

I wonder where those Mexican "narcoterrorists" keep getting their money from, anyway? Here's a hint: illegal drugs fetch a high price.

In all seriousness, invade Mexico? Mexico is Pakistan? Really? I mean shit, if we'll invade some country 6,000 miles away for oil, what about the one with oil six miles away?

Dear America:

"Will Obama do the right thing on Israel, or like I expect him to do will he surrender the Jewish state to the Beturbaned Brown Horde like the blood-drinking liberal terrorists in his party want him to do? Gosh, I'm not sure...and that alone should scare the hell out of you."

--Irwin Stelzer, The Telegraph

Bonus Dear America:

"The only way Gazans will embrace Western Democracy is for Israel to kill their democratically elected leaders and install a puppet government at gunpoint. Palestinians should be friggin' grateful for our help on this matter."

--Jeffrey Goldberg, NY Times

The 2009 Rally!

That 2009 Dow rally people were very excited about last week with the index reaching OVER NINE THOUSAAAAND has died quicker than the ratings of the last season of Moonlighting. For those of you keeping score at home, the Dow has lost nearly 600 points since January 6, and is down 300 here just today on that dismal December Retail Sales report.

So yeah, if that number holds we'll be down nearly 10% on the year in the second week of January.

Enjoy. It'll only get worse.

Cleaning Up After The Old Boss

The House at least continues to eagerly pass legislation that Bush vetoed over the last couple years in anticipation of Obama taking over next week. First it was the Ledbetter/Fair Play Act, and this week it's SCHIP that's back on the table.

The House is poised to give Barack Obama a quick legislative victory by approving a bill to expand a health insurance program for children, making a down payment on the president-elect's promise to provide coverage to every child in the country.

The bill, scheduled for a vote today, would expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, a popular initiative created during the Clinton administration that helps children living at or near the poverty line who fall outside the Medicaid system.

The House bill carries an estimated cost of $33 billion over 4 1/2 years and would extend coverage to an additional 4.1 million children, on top of the 7 million who are currently enrolled. It would be paid for primarily through a 61-cent-per-pack increase in the federal cigarette tax.

In 2007, President Bush twice vetoed similar legislation, objecting to its broader reach and its reliance on the tobacco tax hike. Bush's unwavering position was cheered by conservatives but caused political problems in 2008 for Republican candidates in more moderate states and districts.

Obama vowed as a candidate that one of his first acts in the White House would be to sign the long-stalled bill. It will not be ready on Inauguration Day, but congressional leaders hope to complete work well before the program's March 31 expiration date.

Republicans tried everything to kill this, ending in a pair of Bush vetoes that only made the GOP look more and more like a bunch of greedy assholes than usual. Cigarette taxes versus health care for all American kids? No brainer there.

It's nice being able to get this stuff done and passed, instead of turning everything into a two-year plus Very Special Episode of The West Wing.

Tanks A Lot, Guys

Holiday retail sales numbers are in from the Commerce department, and they're pretty dismal.

Sales at U.S. retailers fell at a steeper-than-expected rate in December, government data showed on Wednesday, as a deteriorating economic environment forced consumers to cut back on spending during the key holiday period.

The Commerce Department said total retail sales fell 2.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted $343.2 billion last month following a revised 2.1 percent drop in November, previously reported as a 1.8 percent decline.

December's drop was the biggest since October last year when sales fell 3.4 percent. For the whole of 2008, sales eased 0.1 percent, the department said.

Excluding motor vehicles and parts, sales were down a record 3.1 percent after a revised 2.5 percent decline in November, previously reported as a 1.6 percent drop, the department said. Total sales, excluding autos, rose 3.0 percent in 2008.

Needless to say, that level of precipitous drop in retail sales during the three busiest shopping months of the year all but guarantees a bloodbath in the retail industry in 2009.

A lot of people are about to lose their jobs as stores will go under during the year in 2009. Count on it. Dow immediately opened up down 150 or so on this news, and it's going to get worse.

StupidiNews!

• Osama bin Laden has reportedly weighed in on the Gaza conflict.
• The House and Senate are getting their own YouTube channels.
• The second half of the TARP fund looks to be go for Obama, despite reservations from Congress.
• While mortgage rates are down and refinancing is jumping, new mortgages are all but dead.
• The Obama team's requested delay in the digital TV changeover may mask a conflict of interest on his staff.

Naked Lunch (Or Dinner)

In the battle of left versus right, we often forget the Village rules all...even Obama, as the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder reminds us. A dinner party at George Will's house, you say?

It's true.

He motorcaded to a house in Maryland this evening, and if the press pool report is accurate, he is breaking bread with William Kristol and David Brooks. (If Brooks and Kristol seem to be unusually briefed about Obama's thinking, you'll know why.)

CBS News's Dan Raviv tells the pool that the house, on Grafton Street in Chevy Chase, belongs to George Will. (Unless he's moved.)

Tomorrow, I hear Obama has another private meeting with non-Republican opinion columnists.

Ellen Moran, the incoming White House communications director, set these meetings up.

Again -- establishment opinion matters to the Obama communications team.

Which is fitting, because the Village could give a damn about Obama's opinions. He's just the incoming President, after all. Obama has his priorities straight, it seems he knows just which rings to kiss.

It's going to be a damn shame when these same folks are the ones who will turn on him in less than three months.

The Next Act In The Play

Lest you believe everyone in Washington is all on the same page of sweetness and light with this "Obama closing Gitmo" thing, rough men stood ready to give press conferences urinating all over America's cornflakes.

Terrorism suspects who have been held but released from Guantanamo Bay are increasingly returning to the fight against the United States and its allies, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Sixty-one detainees released from the U.S. Navy base prison in Cuba are believed to have rejoined the fight, said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, citing data from December. That's up from 37 as of March 2008, Morrell said.

The new figures come as President-elect Barack Obama prepares to issue an executive order during his first week in office to close the controversial prison. It's unlikely, however, that the Guantanamo detention facility will be closed anytime soon as Obama weighs what to do with the estimated 250 al-Qaida, Taliban or other foreign fighter suspects still there.

Just in case you believed the Pentagon was actually going to work with the President on this thing, let's get reality straight here. Obama is not the defense community's pal. He's nearly as much the enemy as our guests in Gitmo are to the Pentagon, the CIA, or the FBI. These boys play hardball, and the message to Obama is clear: closing Gitmo is going to be as ugly, painful, and embarassing for Obama as Obama chooses to make it for the Pentagon.

It took less than 24 hours for the Pentagon to completely undermine the entire "close Gitmo" scenario, and you can bet we're going to see the GOP line up behind the Pentagon and say that Obama can't do it or he's "soft on terrorism". If anything, they are going to argue that Obama now has no choice but to keep Gitmo open indefinitely.

It will be a good test of just how much muscle the Bushies have left. "Keep Gitmo open" is going to be a no-brainer position for war hawks from both sides of the aisle to take in Congress. If they can gain broad support, Obama's entire agenda is in real trouble.

On the other hand, if the usual suspects don't back the Pentagon's message, Obama will have won a huge victory.

Either way, the fight to close Gitmo has just started.

How To Disqualify Yourself

If you're up for Secretary of the Treasury and your background pulls up stuff like this:

According to people familiar with the matter, Mr. Geithner employed a housekeeper whose immigration papers expired during her tenure with Mr. Geithner, currently president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The woman went on to get a green card to work legally in the country and federal immigration authorities didn't press charges against her, these people said.

The second issue involved taxes due while Mr. Geithner worked for the International Monetary Fund between 2001 and 2004. As an employee, Mr. Geithner was technically considered self-employed and was required to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for himself as both an employer and an employee.

He apparently failed to do so, resulting in Internal Revenue Service audits his last two years at the IMF. As soon as the IRS brought the issue to his attention, he paid the taxes with interest, these people said.

Then you have basically completely disqualified yourself for the job...period. The dude responsible for fixing our multi-trillion dollar septic tank of an economy apparently welched on his friggin' taxes.

Now it's no secret that I don't like Tim Geithner at all, as far as I'm concerned he's one of the guys responsible for this mess. But this is ridiculous to the point of being insanity.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Tim.

In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

Over at MoJo, Kevin Drum takes a look at yesterday's story about Ehud Olmert running Bush's foreign policy and asks the Burning Questions:

There are, of course, many things you could say about this. But the question that most piques my curiosity is: Why? Why would Olmert tell this story? Sure, he's bragging for a local audience, but what's the point? It's not as if he's running for anything these days. And he has to know that a story like this will embarrass the American government on a whole bunch of different levels. So why do it? Is he an idiot? Does he just not care anymore? What's the deal?

In which my reponse is "You're asking the wrong question, KD."

The question you should be asking is why both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are silent when given a perfect opportunity to turn around and tell the wildly unpopular outgoing Israeli PM and the entire world that "This kind of thing won't happen in our State Department" with Obama's bully pulpit and Hillary's confirmation hearing. If there was ever a better opportunity to say the next administration would be different from Bush on Israel, this would be it. "With all due respect to the Prime Minister..." would be the response Obama or Hillary would be giving to ANY other world leader who bragged like Olmert did.

But there's nothing out of the Obama's camp about Olmert's comments. And the answer to both Kevin's set of questions and my own in response is the same: AIPAC has bought and paid for Washington, both the left and the right. And that includes our new President and his foreign policy team.

It's the worst kept secret on Earth. It's the main reason why the United States can never be an agent of peace in the Middle East, because we're nothing more than the armed adjunct of Israel. And until we detach ourselves from Tel Aviv, there will never be any improvement there.

Welcome To Our World

Wingnuts are fuming today at the complete failure of GOP Senators to take any shots at Hillary Clinton today during her confirmation hearings, despite the "liberal media" dredging up all kinds of dirt on her today. Not one peep from the Hill-haters in the GOP where she's been an open target since 1993, and that's got BooMan convinced the GOP is scrambling to stay relevant.

As I have long argued, the behavior of politicians is driven far more by the dynamics of power structures than by ideology. The Democrats were not uniquely spineless during the Bush years. They behaved the way they did largely because their cost/benefit analysis led them to limit their fire in battles they knew they could not win. This isn't an apology for the Democrats, it's just an observation about human nature. If the Republicans had the votes to kill Hillary Clinton's appointment, they might very well go after her with everything from today's AP piece to the 'murder' of Vince Foster. But, without the votes, it's all about how great she is, how smart she is, and how fantastic it will be to work with her.

This is just a small example of a larger point. The sheer numbers of Democrats on the Hill creates a power dynamic that it is impossible for the old GOP to navigate using their old tactics. They cannot maintain unity and discipline while in the minority, nor can they bully through the terms of the debate. For the foreseeable future they will be weak and ineffective. (emphasis mine)

I'm gonna say this is wishful thinking right there. I'll believe this when I see much more progressive members of Obama's cabinet get confirmed without a hitch. Hillary on the other hand is exactly the person the GOP want as Obama's SecState to the point she might as well be a Republican. On everything that matters to them, Iran and Israel especially, she's a blood red hawk.

The combination of Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton assures there will be no real deviation in our foreign policy in the Middle East other than the excuses Obama gives to why it's failing. The GOP is more than happy to have Hillary around because it means continuity on GOP policy. Why would they object?