Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Sounds about right to me

Ezra Klein's idea on how the "centrist" stimulus cuts happened:
I'm half ready to believe that Rahm convinced Ben Nelson to ratfuck the Republicans. "Get them to cut school construction for poor kids," he (might have) told a visibly nervous Nelson. "It's schools for kids. You couldn't get more sympathetic unless all the kids had cancer. It's clear stimulus. It makes sense long-term. It's easy for reporters to understand and voters to remember. It undermines Republican attempts to paint the bill as a porkfest, completely discredit the centrists, and Nancy Pelosi will simply replenish the funds in conference committee." Then he bit the head off a bear, punched through a wall, and asked Nelson if he was sure he didn't mind helping out.
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The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.