I wrote about Sean Bielat yesterday. He’s Barney Frank’s opponent, and he’s got a chance to win.
But when I wrote it I hadn’t yet seen two videos that Ace posted later in the evening. They are so fine that I thought I’d reproduce them here:
If you’ve got any discretionary money to spend, Bielat could use some.
The White House has announced that economics adviser Larry Summers is leaving.
I’ve been anticipating this move for quite some time (see this), and I’m certainly not the only one (see this). The real question is: why is Summers leaving? Don’t think you’ll find the answer in the formulaic articles about his wanting to return to Harvard before he has to reapply for tenure.
Was Summers’s ego not fed enough by the position, and was he also hurt by Obama’s failure to nominate him as Treasury Secretary? Was there a personality clash between the two? An ideology clash? Both? Neither? Will he write the tell-all book, or keep silent?
And who will replace him? Rumors are that Obama would like it to be a woman CEO. I have no quarrel with the CEO part—Obama’s financial advisers are predominantly academic types, and it would be nice to get the perspective of someone who’s been out more in the real world of business. But seeking a woman in particular bothers me.
It’s not that I’d mind at all if a woman were to be appointed (I have nothing against women; some of my best friends…). But to specifically look for one is PC offensiveness. Of course, that’s the way it goes these days. And of course, the Obama administration has said it will hire the best person (“Administration officials emphasized there’s no litmus test for the job and they will hire the most qualified person they can find.”) But it’s a good guess that that “best person” will somehow turn out to be a woman, perhaps this one.
The departing Summers is famous for rubbing people the wrong way (abrasive, like sandpaper), and his tenure as Harvard’s head featured fuming faculty members and a controversy over remarks he made about the scarcity of women in the most upper echelons of science (see this and this for my take on the matter).
Now that Obama would like to get some fresh blood into the administration, Summers will be on his way back to Harvard in a few months. And what does Harvard think of the return of the prodigal? Fine, as long as he doesn’t want to be President again, or hold any position of power and influence, according to this professor:
“Larry is always a source of lively argument and ideas,” said Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology who had been one of Mr. Summers’s toughest critics, adding, “The Summers presidency ended quite a long time ago, and everybody at Harvard has long since moved on.”
Ouch.
Who’s Sean Bielat? Why, Barney Frank’s opponent, that’s who.
I’m a little late to the game, but apparently there’s a chance (see this and this) that Frank could be defeated.
Just let that sink in: Barney Frank’s tenure in the House could be over come January 2011.
Help make it happen by donating. And here’s Bielat’s website.
Please spread the word.
Separated at birth?
Julia Louis-Dreyfus:
Christine O’Donnell:
[NOTE: for those who don’t get the reference in the title of this post, see this.]
Back in June, Barack Obama was seen as much more qualified than Sarah Palin for the presidency, if this Rasmussen poll of likely voters is any guide. Fifty-one percent considered him qualified, but only twenty-six percent said the same of her.
That’s quite a difference, although you may not agree with it and you may not like it. Personally, I don’t think either of them is especially qualified, although I think Palin has more qualifications for the job than Obama due to her previous executive experience.
Nor do I think Hillary Clinton is particularly qualified for the office she so covets, despite the fact that she beat them both on that score, with 57% of voters considering her qualified. Mitt Romney was the Republican closest to Obama’s rating (49%, which is within the margin of error) among the three queried about (Palin, Romney, Gingrich) by the pollsters. Although I’m not wild about him as a candidate, he does seem pretty well-qualified to me.
The poll was mum on the question of why Palin was seen to be unqualified: was it her lack of experience on the national scene, which could be remedied over time? Or was it something deeper, some perceived characterological flaw?
It was with Independents that Palin’s scores were especially telling on the dimension of qualifications: two to one of Independent respondents said Palin is unqualified, and it’s Independents who usually swing elections. But even Republicans were only equally split on the matter, while Democrats were very strongly in the “Palin-unqualified” camp.
A new Rasmussen poll presents an interesting contrast, although one that is not necessarily in opposition to the June poll results. The question was a different one: “Who’s [sic—Rasmussen, for shame!] views are closer to your own”¦Barack Obama’s or Sarah Palin’s?” Fifty-two percent said Palin versus forty percent for Obama. What’s more, Palin showed strength among Independents on this question, with 59% answering that her views were more like theirs than the President’s are.
I can only conclude that, so far, it seems that people like Palin (unless those people happen to be Democrats) and think that she represents their viewpoints quite well. She’s a populist with the common touch—unlike elitist Obama, who seems to have never had one.
But that’s not the same thing as wanting to vote for her over him if it came to a showdown. Her strength at the moment still appears to be as spokesman (woman?), rallier, gadfly, thorn in Obama’s side, and candidate-endorser. And at those things she’s doing very well indeed.
…all your money really belongs to us anyway, so why not just skip the middleman: you!
Perhaps it’s only a matter of time, although for now the proposal is still considered “radical:”
The UK’s tax collection agency is putting forth a proposal that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, after which the government would deduct what it deems as the appropriate tax and pay the employees by bank transfer.
The proposal by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) stresses the need for employers to provide real-time information to the government so that it can monitor all payments and make a better assessment of whether the correct tax is being paid.
Please read the whole article. In it, the proposal is criticized, to be sure. But the main arguments seem to be whether it would really save the government money or cost money instead, and whether errors would be likely to be made. Liberty? Never heard of it.
[Hat tip: commenter Artfldgr.]
[ADDENDUM: If you believe that the same mentality doesn’t exist here, note Paul Krugman’s recent remarks:
And among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it.
Why, why, why—how dare they!
And lest you think that’s an isolated instance from Krugman, see his use of the word “giveaway” in the eleventh paragraph of this column.]
Here.
A few people are reporting that they’ve been getting a malware alert when they try to come to the site, and that it’s triggered by blogrolling. I’ve used blogrolling for my blogroll for five years, and there’s never been any problem before. I’ve been told that some other blogs that use blogrolling have been generating the same warning recently.
I just removed my blogroll to see whether the warning disappears. Please let me know whether you were getting a malware alert, and if so whether it has now disappeared.
…by a body-snatcher?
I wondered whether that might be the case when I read about his Jeffrey Goldberg interview in The Atlantic—you know, the one where he admonished Ahmadinejad to be nicer to the Jews and Israel, and said, “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.”
Here are a few other possible explanations I came up with, in case you don’t buy the one I’ve already offered:
(1) It’s part of some sort of very complex mysterious three-dimensional chess strategy we can barely fathom, where he says the opposite of what he means.
(2) He’s been put under a spell that compels him to tell the truth.
(3) He’s so old that he’s decided he needs to level with the world before he checks out.
(4) He actually died, and the interviewee is a Castro impersonator.
(5) Castro is being served by a rogue translator.
(6) We have entered into an alternate universe.
It’s not often that I agree with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, but their statement that Lisa Murkowski’s decision to run as a write-in candidate for the Senate after losing the Alaskan primary is “the latest example of the Republican Party cannibalizing itself” seems about right to me.
It’s a transparently selfish act masquerading rhetorically as selflessness. There is something truly and chillingly Evita-like about her statement:
As of last night, I was still wrestling with this,” she said. “I looked into my heart and I said, ‘Where is my heart?’ And my heart is Alaska. I cannot leave you. I cannot stop what we have started…
It’s got everything but the song, the balcony, and the blond bun.
Murkowski is from a political family in Alaska with a long history that includes a feud with Sarah Palin, who defeated Murkowski’s father and then supported Murkowski’s opponent Joe Miller in the recent primary:
Palin was one of a handful of candidates Murkowski’s father, Frank, had picked to replace him in the U.S. Senate when he became governor in 2002. In the end, however, he ended up choosing his daughter, Lisa, despite allegations of nepotism.
Palin beat Frank Murkowski in the 2006 gubernatorial race as his ratings tanked.
Just what the Republican Party needs right now: a revenge catfight. Hugh Hewitt suggests that the proper response to Murkowski’s announcement might be to donate to Joe Miller’s campaign. It’s not a bad idea.
And a novel one as well: Obama should diss Sarah Palin in order to fire up his base.
Now if that’s not a provocative title, I don’t know what is.
At issue: a tape of O’Donnell from 1996 that opponents dredged up and which was then aired by Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show. It features O’Donnell speaking out against masturbation, as part of an MTV program entitled “Sex in the 90s.” At the time she was president of a group called SALT, which lobbied “and focused on advocating chastity and other Christian values in the college-age generation.”
Take a look for yourself at the tape of the young (and 90s-coiffed) O’Donnell, and see what she was saying back then:
These may not be popular beliefs among voters. But they are certainly standard and not especially controversial stances for many of those who hold fundamentalist Christian views. The fact that they are considered ridiculous by so many opponents tells us how far our culture has departed from ideas that used to be fairly commonplace, and how little respect remains for that tradition.
There’s more. In an article written in 1998, O’Donnell made it clear that her focus was not on condemning or advocating certain specific sexual practices (loss of virginity vs. abstinence) so much as promoting and striving for a generally respectful and sacred attitude towards sex.
Funny that this article hasn’t gotten nearly as much publicity as the tape. Not surprising, though; it provides less fodder for gleeful mockery,
But why should anyone care what O’Donnell thought about masturbation in 1996 (I know, I know; it makes a great YouTube video)? After all, that was nearly a decade and a half ago, when O’Donnell was in her mid-twenties. Shouldn’t our interest be in her present positions, and only to the extent that they are likely to translate into public policy and political action?
O’Donnell is now forty-one years old. Fortunately, she has spoken up on the subject—although her many detractors probably won’t pay much attention or give what she says on the subject much credence:
These are questions from statements I made over 15 years ago. I was in my 20s and very excited and passionate about my newfound faith. But I can assure you, my faith has matured. And when I go to Washington D.C., it will be the Constitution on which I base all of my decisions, not my personal beliefs.”
Ah, but that’s so much more dull.
[ADDENDUM: I wonder what the left will do with this information: O’Donnell was promiscuous before she was chaste.]