These three statements can all be true at the same time:

1. An annual income of $250,000 does not make you rich.
2. An annual income of $250,000 leaves you better off than most other families, by a long shot.
3. The Politico's Roger Simon is an idiot.

The 'splodin pie chart under the thumbnail below provides data on the incomes of tax filing units -- households in the common parlance -- for 2007. Source is the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. The data is here. It should be clear that $250K puts you well above most others -- above 96 frakkin' percent, to be more specific.

On Hardballs the other night, Simple Simon was wringing his hands over how "low" the $250K cut-off is. He imagines this to be a middle class income. But middle of what? Chevy Chase, Maryland?

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We had Citigroup Rescue III today, in which the taxpayers got another bad deal as we somehow managed to exchange a substantial portion of $45 billion of preferred stock for less than $3 billion in common stock. (I don't have the details, but it's clear the deal was much less than dollar for dollar.) Citigroup Rescue IV cannot be far off.

Let's put an end to this sad saga already. Here's the deal. We make the banks' unsecured creditors (bond holders) the taxpayers' friends. We set a deadline for the banks to own up to their bad assets. June 1 sounds about right to me. We will review the debts of the banks that go under by this date and honor as large a portion of the debt as seems reasonable.

Now for the fun. The policy is that the debts of any banks that subsequently go bankrupt will only be honored at half the rate as the payback of the pre-June 1 group. In other words, if the June 1 group get 90 cents on the dollar, the creditors of the banks that subsequently go bankrupt will just get 45 cents on the dollar.

This simple measure can quickly make Wall Street fun again.

I knew the neocons would strike back although, deep in my heart, I feared that they don't even know I exist. I thought I was flying below their radar. But I'm not.

Today one of them, Jonathan Tobin, called me out big time. I don't know Tobin and I'd rather be noticed by a Podhoretz, a Kristol, a Krauthammer, or a Peretz but I'll take what I can get.

So why is Tobin so mad at me.

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In his CPAC speech this week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted that conservatives are more "interesting" and "fun" than liberals. Here's his proof: "who wants to hang out with guys like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich when you can be with Rush Limbaugh?"

President Obama traveled to Camp Lejeune today to announce the eventual drawdown of combat troops in Iraq. There's sure to be a lot of discussion about the details of the timeline, and a lot of politics getting in the way of any coherent military analysis.

But whether it is 16 months or 19 months or 23 months, whether the residual force is 10,000 or 50,000 troops, the President's new plan will create a surge of new veterans coming home in 2009 and 2010. We need to be ready.

Our duty to these brave men and women doesn't end when they leave the battlefield. Military families have borne a tremendous strain through more than eight years of conflict, and our troops are returning to the worst economy we've seen in decades. No veteran's 'welcome home' should come in the form of an unemployment check.

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I've really enjoyed reading all of your terrific posts. I agree that George W. Bush doesn't meet the definition of a demagogue. Just because he undermined America's image in the world, weakened America's commitment to human rights, and failed to be a sound economic steward and a competent wartime commander in Iraq doesn't necessarily make him a demagogue. Moreover, the concept of "demagogue" doesn't, in my view, capture and fully do justice to Bush's legacy--whether we're talking about his supply-side economic policies, positions on abortion or civil rights, and crusading post-nine-eleven policies in waging the war on terror.
What most interests me about this discussion is the idea, which Heather's post touched upon, that fear is a political force coursing through the country's post-nine-eleven economic and national security debates. Fear has been featured in our political debates in recent months and years.

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Keep your eyes on the gap between what the economy could produce at full employment and the paltry level of aggregate demand (consumers plus businesses plus exports). That's why the stimulus is too small -- and why my bet is the President will be back for more stimulus. The Commerce Department reported today that the economy contracted in the 4th quarter of 2008 more sharply than initially estimated. Consumers cut spending the most in over 28 years. Businesses cut way back as well. Exports were dead in the water.

All told, according to the new data, the nation's economy shrank at an annual rate of 6.2 percent. Last month, the government's preliminary estimate of the drop in fourth-quarter GDP was only 3.8 percent. Roughly half the Commerce Department's revision was due to a sharper drop in business spending than had been anticipated. As a result, business inventories -- the amount of stuff they they have on hand to sell -- have dropped. That's good news because eventually businesses will have to replace their inventories, in anticipation of at least some consumer buying, and such replacement spending will spur the economy. But here's the bad news: Inventories still aren't dropping as fast as sales are dropping, suggesting even less business spending and investing coming up.

There's no reason to suppose the 1st quarter of 2009 will be any better, and lots of reason to think it will be worse. Government is spender of last resort. We're at the last resort now. $787 billion over two years, and only two-thirds of it real spending, is way below what will be needed to get the economy moving back toward full capacity. Do Republicans know this? Is this why they're continuing to bet that the economy won't be recovering by November, 2010, and why they're going to continue to say no?

Well, that didn't take long.

Top Jewish leaders have now turned on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for daring to criticize Israel over the humanitarian aid to Gaza issue. She's not the Hillary we knew, they say.

Unfortunately for them, she is. They just got her mixed up with Tzipi Livni. Hillary is the Secretary of State of the United States, not Foreign Minister of Israel, or, let's be frank, a senator from New York.

Her job is to do what is right for America. And she understands, even if these "leaders" don't, that pursuing a policy that is good for America, that strengthens America, is good for Israel too.

One more thing. Hillary is a mother. She has to be forgiven for being utterly heartsick about the suffering of the kids in Gaza, 400 of whom were killed in the war.

Everyone should be although clearly everyone is not.

MORE. Jeff Goldberg tells the "leaders" to chill. (He had better explain the term to them. They are in a permanent state of outrage over the "betrayal" of Israel by its best friends).

Ok, Katulis, you got me. The experience of the last eight years shows that a leader can inflict enormous damage on American institutions, American civil society, and indeed the global polis without meeting the formal definition of demagogue -- which, I would argue, Bush (and Cheney) do not. They gained and retained power not so much by building and exploiting a popular movement outside our system but by cleverly gaming our system from inside at every turn, then engaging segments of the public just enough (and, opportunistically exploiting fear when 9/11 gave them the chance to make use of it) and actively trying to shut down the public the rest of the time.

This suggests that the political science construct Mike is working with is either:

not updated to the ways that the societal-technical changes I wrote about in my previous post make demaoguery both more and less of a threat to us; or

only one of a number of paths by which democracy can be undermined from within.

To Brian's questions about accountability, I think there's an answer that comes straight from the pages of Mike's book. Can we hold our leaders and institutions accountable in ways that actually strengthen the institutions going forward, without degenerating into a media circus of accusation and counter-accusation that actually winds up weakening them?

I had the privilege of listening to Ted Sorensen walk through the pros and cons of accountability last night. (He's on the advisory board of the National Security Network, which I run; neither he nor we has taken a position on the various proposals circulating.) The challenges he laid down were formidable ones: can an accountability process be made bipartisan or non-political; can it avoid draining energy from the President's forward-looking initiatives; and can it lead to actual institutional change? In Michael's words, can it become a seminar in advancing constitutionalism, or is it inevitably a circus that actually leaves the parameters of constitutionalism more in doubt?

Interesting discussion so far, but I must say there's an air of unreality here. And I smell more than just a whiff of collective amnesia that makes me want to shout out to my friends here - "Wake up! Are we forgetting what just transpired in our beloved land of the free and home of the brave during the George W. Bush era?"

I'm really surprised that the question of whether or not George W. Bush was a demagogue hasn't been explored in-depth. Matt asked, "Why America today hasn't seen more support for the sort of demagogues that Mike so nicely describes in his book;" and Heather outlined some arguments as to why demagogues don't do better in America. But what about the disastrous train wreck that America just experienced for the last eight years, the administration of George W. Bush?

In the wake of 9/11, didn't we have a leader who in essence became a demagogue and used the popular support he garnered in the wake of those devastating attacks to run roughshod over our cherished constitution and take America into an unnecessary war of choice in Iraq on false pretenses and bad information?

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It's a new day. For the first time in years, a President has rebuffed the neocon/rightwing lobby on an issue dear to their hearts. He informed the Senate that he will make Charles Freeman head of the National Intelligence Council despite the full-court press led by the neocons and the rightwing of the pro-Israel lobby against him.

Read all about it here.

Here is my post from earlier today about the push against Freeman. I was wrong about one thing. Steve Rosen was only the public face against the appointment. Quietly, behind closed doors (including doors in the White House), a major effort to block Freeman was made. And it didn't just come from the fringes.

Obama did not back down. In fact, I hear, he never considered backing down.

In nine short words, Joseph Stiglitz summarized much of what's wrong with most economic reporting and pundrity these days: "The stock market is not a good metric here."

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I'm pleased to have a chance to take part in this discussion of Mike Signer's book, which is not only a rewarding meditation on politics in its own right but also a timely intervention in the public debate following the collapse of the neoconservative attempt to identify U.S. foreign policy (at least in rhetoric) with democracy promotion. Let me begin by defending Mike's roundly-criticized reference to Hugo Chavez as a demagogue. If Chavez is not a demagogue, then neither was Juan Peron or Huey Long or any number of other populist politicians who bent or broke the law in the name of defending the people against exploitative elites or foreign nations.

In most cases, the evils that demagogues claim to oppose on behalf of the people are real, even if the demagogue exaggerates them. We shouldn't assume that, because demagogy is a bad system, the groups that oppose the demagogue are necessarily virtuous. On the contrary--societies that produce electoral or extra-legal rebellions led by demagogues almost invariable are deeply flawed societies in need of reform. The goals of the demagogic leader's movement may be perfectly legitimate--an end to colonial rule or foreign economic domination, the concentration of wealth and power in an aristocracy, plutocracy or self-perpetuating political class. The problem lies with the methods, not the goals. Populism channeled through constitutional democracy has a chance to produce lasting reform. Populism channeled against constitutionalism all too often replaces one form of lawless misrule with another.

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Marc Ambinder just wrote a short post raising alarms about how Social Security is going to cause the national debt to explode over 10 years, even though the numbers he's looking at show no such thing. He writes that "the budget projects the national debt will increase nearly two-fold over 10 years, from $8.3 trillion in 2009 to $15.3 trillion in 2019." But as a share of gdp, that increase is only from 58.7 percent to 67.2 percent. And all of that increase occurs between 2009 and 2011, when the share of the debt held by the public will be 67.3 percent. That increase is mainly attributable to the added spending connected to the stimulus package and the reduced taxes collected during the downturn. Social Security taxes will continue to exceed Social Security benefits throughout most of the period. So don't blame SS.

There is nothing inherently wrong with convertible preferred stock. In Silicon Valley, for example, venture capitalists almost always invest by buying convertible preferred. The idea is that in the case of a bad outcome, the VCs are protected, because their shares have priority over the common shares held by the founders and employees. Say the VCs put in $10 million for 1 million shares, and the founders and employees also have 1 million shares, so the company immediately after the investment is worth $20 million. If the company liquidates for $15 million, the preferred shares have a "preference," which means they get their $10 million back (often with a mandatory cumuluative dividend as well) first, and the common shareholders take the loss. However, in a good outcome, the VCs can exchange their preferred shares one-for-one for common. So if the company gets sold for $100 million, the VCs convert, and they now own 50% of the common stock, so they get $50 million.

When I heard that the government was going to give future capital as convertible preferred stock, and perhaps change some of the previous capital injections to convertible preferred, I thought this was a good thing. It would give the taxpayer more upside potential, and it would also give the government the option to take over the banks simply by converting its preferred stock to common whenever it wanted.

But the key in the Silicon Valley example is that the VCs have the option to convert or not. The Treasury Department's new Capital Assistance Program has this precisely backwards.

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President Obama’s new budget is, well, audacious -- not just because it includes several big, audacious initiatives (universally affordable health care, and a cap-and-trade system for coping with global warming, for starters) but also because it represents the biggest redistribution of income from the wealthy to the middle class and poor this nation has seen in more than forty years.

In order to see the whole, you need to look both at where revenues will come from and at where they’ll go:

Come from: By allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, the marginal income tax on the highest earners goes back to 39.6 percent (from 35 percent, now), and capital gains rates to 20 percent (from 15, now). The budget also limits the amount highest earners can claim for mortgage-interest and charitable deductions (from 35 percent now down to 28 percent), raising an estimated $318 billion over ten years. Finally, wealthier Medicare beneficiaries will have to pay higher premiums for prescription drugs.

Come from, and go: Revenues from a cap-and-trade auction -- the costs of which will presumably will be passed on to all consumers -- will finance a continuation of the middle-class and lower-income tax credits now in the stimulus bill at a slightly higher rate ($500 per individual, $1,000 per couple, phasing out above $75,000 per person).

Go: Although we don't have details as yet, the President's health-care proposal is likely to include substantial subsidies for lower-income families. In addition, let's hope the expanded Earned Income Tax Credit now in the stimulus bill will continue beyond 2010, as well as the refundable Child Tax Credit, enlarged Food Stamp program, larger Title I for poor school districts, and expansion of Pell Grants. (So are, no clear signal on this.)

Presidential budgets are aspirations. They're not real, in the sense that no one really has to adhere to them. Obama's budget now goes to Congress, where budget committees will draw up their own versions. Even these congressional budgets are mere guidelines for appropriations and tax-writing committees. Lobbyists will be swarming. So don't expect the final sausage to look exactly like the meat the President is putting into the grinder. On the other hand, the sausage is likely to bear more than a passing resemblance. Remember: This president's approval ratings are well over 60 percent -- substantially higher than Congress's overall approval rating, and far far higher than Republicans in Congress -- and the nation is still looking to Obama to lead the way out of our troubled times. And it's a Democratic congress, with a Democratic Senate that could be (if Franken is seated) one vote short of being able to cut off a filibuster.

It's about time a presidential budget uneqivocally redistributed income from the very rich to the middle class and poor. The incomes of the top 1 percent have soared for thirty years while median wages have slowed or declined in real terms. As economists Thomas Piketty and Emanuel Saez have shown, in the 1970s the top-earning 1 percent of Americans took home 8 percent of total income; as recently as 1980 they took home 9 percent. After that, total income became more and more concentrated at the top. By 2007, the top 1 percent took home over 22 percent. Meanwhile, even as their incomes dramatically increased, the total federal tax rates paid by the top 1 percent dropped. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top 1 percent paid a total federal tax rate of 37 percent three decades ago; now it's paying 31 percent.

Fairness is at stake but so is the economy as a whole. This Mini Depression is partly the result of a widening gap between what Americans can afford to buy and what Americans when fully employed can produce. And that gap is in no small measure due to the widening gap in incomes, since the rich don't devote nearly as large a portion of their incomes to buying things than middle and lower-income people. The rich, after all, already have most of what they want.

Steve Rosen, the AIPAC guy who the organization dismissed after he was indicted for espionage, is now working full-time to defeat Ambassador Charles E. Freeman's appointment as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Laura Rozen has it all here in her terrific Foreign Policy blog.

The neocon crazies are all beside themselves about Freeman's likely appointment. The rap on him (see the links Rozen provides). is that he has spoken out against the occupation and is too close to the Saudis. Of course, as Aaron Miller pointed out yesterday, the Israelis and the Saudis are pretty much on the same side these days. The Saudi Ambassador told me that personally - just as he tells it to everyone he meets who is close to Israel. His mantra: the same people who want to destroy Israel and who hate the United States want to destroy us. The Israeli government feels the same way and is eager to have good relations with Saudi Arabia. In fact, to a large extent, it already does.

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I share Matt and Rachel's enthusiasm for Mike's writing, but bring a little more skepticism to the idea that our own constitutionalism is so strong that we are safely inoculated from an individual or small cabal coming to power through demagoguery. Here's why: a set of socio-cultural trends at home that have made the hill steeper for demagogues to climb have also, I think, undercut the foundations of our constitutionalism. I'll focus on the domestic questions here and take up the issue of democracy promotion in a subsequent post.

Matt asks a question that Mike also discusses in some detail in the book: why don't demagogues do better in American society? I want to suggest some societal changes that have taken place since the days of Father Coughlin and Joe McCarthy.

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Over at the TPM mothership, Eric Kleefeld has flagged a rather amazing quote from House Minority Leader John Boehner:

We have a tougher job than our friends across the aisle. They've been offering Americans a free lunch for the last 80 years, rather successfully . . .Those of us that believe in a smaller, more accountable government, we have a tougher time making our principles relevant to the American people. But it's our challenge, and we've got to do it.

Whatever one thinks of the Democratic party, it is nothing short of astounding that a Republican party leader could make such a comment. What have the last 30 years of American politics been, if not, a free lunch. Broad-based income tax cuts, huge spending increases, more money for the military and all backed by deficit spending. The Republican party has been the ultimate guns and butter party, trying to convince Americans that we can spend billions on our military - and decry any limitations on American global dominance -- all the while cutting the tax revenues that pays for it.

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This is a wonderful discussion that reflects the tensions in our pursuit of democracy today. Rachel has brought up trenchant thoughts on the value of culture and power in democracy, Matt has raised provocative questions about whither demagogues in America today, and Brian asks how we go about building democracy in Afghanistan in light of the perils there today.

All good questions that I urge you to look into and comment about.

But I'd like to concentrate instead here on two posts by readers.

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1 - These thing are always a Rorschach test, but in our household Obama was king of the world last night. In fact, my wife Jody (as usual) had the best quick take when he was done. "After he does eight years as president," she said, "he'll clearly go on to be president of the world." She meant that since we'll increasingly be looking for new forms of global governance to deal with all the important stuff that can only be dealt with across borders, Obama will create or lead whatever premiere institution has emerged or is being set up in this regard. Yes, I know, we've got a recession to conquer and health care, energy and education to fix first. Still, sounds like a plan!

2 - During the always amusing cutaway shots I couldn't help noticing the wistful looks on many of the presidential wannabes in the audience, all of whose faces had the same sentiment grudgingly etched in italics: "I really wanted this, but this guy's got the goods in ways I never will." On my list that captured John Kerry, Evan Bayh, John McCain and Jay Rockefeller. Maybe I missed some.

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President Barack Obama's speech Tuesday night was laced with phrases and ideas that emphasized his view that government has a responsibility not only to foster a strong economy, but also to insure that ordinary people benefit from that economy. He hasn't yet fully articulated his economic philosophy, nor given it a name. But we can see in that speech the outline of a new approach that might be called "responsible capitalism" in contrast to the "crony capitalism" of the Bush era.

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I have just some very quick reactions to the Obama speech tonight as I've been on Al Jazeera English Network tonight talking for more than three hours on it and don't want to really repeat the general patter of many other commentators and bloggers.

First, I thought that Obama's comments on the economy foreshadow some tough judgment calls that are going to be embedded in his budgetary request that will come out two days from now. I wasn't surprised by much in the speech -- except perhaps that any speech delivered by Barack Obama ends up far better listened to than read. I was a bit astonished that he included a carbon cap and trade request in his remarks. I think that given the state of the American economy right now, this may be a negotiations move and something he will probably scale back to win some greater goods -- but still impressive and surprising.

In walking Americans through the detail of the heart attack America's financial sector is going through, he did a good thing. He helped explain why huge resources must go into creating a baseline of solvency for the system and a commitment to renewed lending and down the road growth.

But I think he failed to really frame what a new social contract between government, the nation's firms, capital, workers, families and other stakeholders in our society might look like. He got pieces of it right -- and did zero in on his three big priorities: energy, education and health care.

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The President's speech tonight had a tone that was as insistent and impassioned as any I've ever seen from President Obama. Heck it was more impassioned then anything I've seen from a President in my lifetime. If the inaugural address and the election night victory speech had a dignified and austere feel, tonight was a no-holds barred address that laid out in no uncertain terms the President's agenda and above all, his vision for the country. Indeed, his vision for America and his agenda are one and the same.

"We are not quitters. These words and these stories tell us something about the spirit of the people who sent us here. They tell us that even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency, and a determination that perseveres; a willingness to take responsibility for our future and for posterity. Their resolve must be our inspiration. Their concerns must be our cause. And we must show them and all our people that we are equal to the task before us."

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Gov. Bobby Jindal sounds like a junior achiever shuffling Republican cue cards. I don't hear anyone Democrats need fear. (Yet.)

Is this a Saturday Night Live Routine? (it will be by Saturday). This guy's national career is over.

The sight of this new President before all of assmbled official Washington is, in its way, as extraordinary as the other standout moments of this past half year: Denver in Mile High; election night in Grant Park; the DC Inaugural. All of those showed Obama directly amidst throngs of the American people, yet even here, amidst the new official Washington, he speaks to -- and for -- the citizenry. Repeatedly in this speech, Obama presented himself as fighting for a people of goodness and resolve -- for a better, shared future for all Americans. This is a very effective way for him to marginalize political enemies and call elites as well as regular citizens to greater personal and social responsibility.

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President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to reform health care tonight. This will be a huge undertaking, which he clearly understands. But, he has repeatedly said that he would make this a top priority and he fully intends to move forward with this process. This is one of those cases where everything will be in the details, but it is very encouraging that he is prepared to devote his time and political capital to this task.

His discussion of the banks did not give the whole story. Yes, the public has an interest in keeping the banks alive, but it has zero interest in rewarding the shareholders of these banks or the executives who brought them and the economy to ruin.

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"He wailed against Wall Street," says Charlie Gibson on ABC News, as if clutching his personal portfolio.

Doesn't it seem odd for the Governor of Louisiana - a state that suffered the worst natural disaster in recent American history - to be complaining about volcano monitoring?

Visuals- The Dems seem spread throughout the room, so the aisle-like split between who is standing up and clapping and who is sitting on their hands is not so clear in the long shots. Looks like everybody is standing up.

Politics-This is the most populist Presidential address since Teddy Roosevelt ruled against "the malefactors of great wealth" in 1904.

It says a lot about the modern Republican party that the majority of the caucus was sitting on its hands when President Obama talked about expanding health insurance for children, raising taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year and cutting taxes for working class Americans.

I would imagine that more than a few Americans might notice that one.

This is one strikingly unsentimental speech. Talk about a change message; if you listen to President Obama you would think that this country's leaders - both Democrats and Republicans -- have been asleep at the wheel for the past generation: a failure of oversight, a failure of regulation, a failure of imagination. He is making one of the most direct cases for political change that any President has made in a very long time. And he is doing a great job of placing the current crisis in the larger context of this lack of action from Washington.

It's hard to disagree with Obama words, but I am taken aback by the starkness of his message and the assertiveness of his tone. He is laying down some serious markers and his greatest enemy seems to be inaction; the notion that somehow half measures will suffice. This is an impressive performance.

1. When was the last time a president said that universities were part of the solution?

2. Republicans sit on their hands as Obama chastises government's having lined the pockets of the rich.

3. Good fact: 55 police are on the streets tonight in Minneapolis because the stimulus averted their layoffs. We could use more of that.

4. Republicans do rise to cheer entrepreneurs.

5. They're slower to rise to applaud Obama's dig at companies investing public funds in private jets for their CEOs.

6. "In a time of crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger." "It's not about helping banks, it's about helping people."

7. The economy will recover "slowly but surely."

8. "Reform our outdated and outworn regulatory system." Republicans rise for that. What have they been waiting for?

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I like the general tone - reassuring but conveying the seriousness of our situation. My guess is that the daily consumer spending numbers will be good tomorrow (unlike when George Bush tried to be reassuring on the economy in September 2008; consumption collapsed the morning after.)

But what exactly is the banking strategy? This is the critical piece that we haven't yet seen in meaningful detail.

Here's what the President just said,

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Watching the President's first joint session talk is to watch Democrats who are smiling-not only happy to be in power, but as if there is a collective sigh of our new reality, new leadership even in the midst of all this economic hardship.

But listening to the President is to listen to the seeds of building not only a governing majority, but a mature left.

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Thanks for the invitation to take part in this exchange. I've enjoyed reading the posts and the comments from TPMCafe's readers so far, and I wanted to offer my two cents.

Michael Signer's book is a worth the read for those interested in how to take political theory and relevant examples from history and apply them today's policy challenges. As I saw Michael develop his central thesis and ideas when we were colleagues at the Center for American Progress, the one question that I kept circling back to was: Can the United States actually translate these ideals into policy in 2009 and beyond, especially in challenging places like Iraq and Afghanistan?

I'm in favor of promoting democracy, human rights, and constitutionalism around the world, and I spent several years in places like Egypt, the Palestinian territories, and Iraq engaged in democracy promotion efforts, working with groups outside of the government. These experiences left me with a healthy sense of skepticism about how well the United States actually does in promoting these ideals of democracy and constitutionalism. I'm doubtful that the United States, particularly the United States government, is currently capable of doing a good job at this without implementing major reforms and policy shifts in its overall national security infrastructure, as I argued in this recent paper on democracy promotion efforts in the Middle East. This question of efficacy is particularly important at a time of economic crisis at home and reduced credibility globally, but I think it must be overcome if we are going to get to the root of some of the most pressing national security challenges.

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Terrific to be back on Talking Points Memo--thank you for having me. I really have to send out a special plug for this book. It's rare that we get a chance to read a new work of political philosophy, written for a mass audience. Demagogue is a very special, unique piece of work, and I really encourage readers not just to read our cliffs' notes version, but to buy the real thing.

I think the answer to Matt's question is very simple. Demagogue's thesis is that the reason we haven't seen the rise of a demagogue in the U.S. as this crisis unfolds is that we have developed, over 200 years, a very deep constitutional culture. It's the same reason that when the most powerful office in the world was up for grabs after the 2000 election, and again in 2004, no one ever imagined that the military might come out on the side of one of the candidates. Think about that: when elections are that close in Kenya, Albania, Zimbabwe, and all sorts of less powerful countries, we don't bat an eye when Parliament refuses to convene, or violence breaks out. But when the American presidency was so close that it came down to a few hundred hanging chads, it was over unthinkable that our military would get involved, or that Congress would refuse to accept the Supreme Court's ruling--even a very politicized ruling. I was in Bangladesh to monitor their elections this December, and one thing that impressed them about our elections was how quickly and graciously McCain accepted his defeat. That didn't happen in their own elections, or in many other countries the world over. That is the power of a constitutional culture.

I think Mike's point about the deep importance of culture is worth driving home, for two reasons. First, as we recover from the debacle of the Bush years, it suggests ways to strengthen our own democracy so such Presidential excesses are unlikely to happen again. And second, it points to important modifications in how we support democracy abroad.

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The new poll from the New York Times/CBS News proves that for all the right wing fulminating about the Recovery Act, the public is solidly behind the President. Limbaugh and Hannity may have a megaphone, but it is directed at a very small (18%) minority that almost doesn't pass the "who cares test". What is more, the public sees what's going on with Lindsay Graham and Eric Cantor.

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As President Obama prepares to address a joint session of Congress, what can we expect to hear?

The pundits will stress the nuts-and-bolts policy issues: the banking system, education, energy, health care. But beyond policy, there will be a vision of America--a moral vision and a view of unity that the pundits often miss.

What they miss is the Obama Code. For the sake of unity, the President tends to express his moral vision indirectly. Like other self-aware and highly articulate speakers, he connects with his audience using what cognitive scientists call the "cognitive unconscious." Speaking naturally, he lets his deepest ideas simply structure what he is saying. If you follow him, the deep ideas are communicated unconsciously and automatically. The Code is his most effective way to bring the country together around fundamental American values.

For supporters of the President, it is crucial to understand the Code in order to talk overtly about the old values our new president is communicating. It is necessary because tens of millions of Americans--both conservatives and progressives--don't yet perceive the vital sea change that Obama is bringing about.

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So says Prof. Steven Walt in his great new column in Foreign Policy which is must reading if you care, even a little, about the Middle East.

Happily Walt has happily survived all the stakes aimed at his heart by the neocons for writing "The Israel Lobby" with John Mearsheimer.

The main line attack on that book was that there is no such thing as the Israel lobby and, if there is, it is a weak, little thing with hardly any influence. Then, with Popeye like suddenness its key operatives used their nonexistent power and fanned out to destroy Walt and Mearsheimer by ensuring that the book was trashed by every reviewer and academic it could enlist in the cause.

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Lots of people I know are deeply depressed as they watch the Dow spiral down toward 7000 -- I'm no less gloomy when it comes to the market because we've been been riding it down, too. And I'm no stock market guru (if such a thing exists), so I have no idea when things will turn.

But I'll tell you what gave me supreme hope Monday: watching Obama conduct what amounted to a national teach-in at the end of his Fiscal Responsibility Summit at the White House. Find the clips on You Tube and watch them. (Start here, here, here, and here.) Obama led a conversation about our fiscal and economic challenges with a hundred or so assembled pols and other community and interest group leaders, and in its seriousness, civility, candor, and humor, it was a thing to behold.

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Tonight, State Department Acting Spokesman Robert Wood issued a statement that Dennis Ross was now officially "Special Advisor for The Gulf and Southwest Asia."

This is amazing news given early world and rumor from quite solid sources that Ambassador Ross, a very distinguished diplomat who promotes a hawkish posture on Iran, was going to be not only the President's special envoy to Iran but also basically a super envoy ranking above others for the entire Middle East region.

Without going into deep detail, this came "undone".

Zbigniew Brzezinski and I have both been suggesting that Ross, who served as Bill Clinton's deal maker in a number of rounds of Middle East peace efforts, not be made envoy on Iran as it would provide too much fodder for the populist campaign of President Ahmadinejad who is up for election in June and be seen by Iran as a sign that Obama was not serious about a strategic leap out of the current US-Iran relations mess into a different arrangement.

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Thanks, Mike, and thanks to Lila and the others at TPMCafe, for inviting me to participate in the discussion of Mike Signer's Demagogue. I want to pick up on some of the points Mike raised in his post, and raise an additional question that's related to Mike's book and the problem of demagoguery in President Barack Obama's America.

Mike argues that demagogues pose the greatest threat to democracy, but I'm wondering why, given economic turmoil at home and flagging support for two wars overseas, America today hasn't seen more support for the sort of demagogues that Mike so nicely describes in his book. In moments of chaos, when there's a sense that things are spinning out of control, one could argue that now is the opportune time for a demagogue to rise up, appeal to the disaffected masses, and gain a considerable following using talk radio and the blogosphere to gin up their followers. As far as I can tell, however, this hasn't really happened. We haven't seen anybody who's emerged that poses a serious threat to democracy along the lines of Father Coughlin in the 1930s or Joe McCarthy in the early 1950s. What's preventing the emergence of such a demagogue?

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The President's message on fiscal responsibility -- that he'll cut the current one by half by the end of his first term -- is smart politics right now, but it may be dumb politics by November of 2012, and doesn't make much economic sense regardless.

We're in a deepening recession, in case you hadn't noticed. The biggest challenge is to ramp up aggregate demand. Yes, we have to borrow lots from the Chinese and Japanese to do this, and, yes, it's costly in terms of additional interest payments to them. But there's no choice. In fact, if the slump gets worse -- and I have every reason to fear it will because that's the direction we're heading in as fast as you can imagine -- we'll probably have to have a second stimulus. And if the second isn't enough, a third. And so on. FDR's biggest mistake was doing too little until World War II. (No one should interpret this as a recommendation for more military spending -- I'm just saying Obama will probably have to think and do much bigger than the $787 billion stimulus so far.)

Can we continue to borrow and borrow and borrow? Yes, but eventually we'll have to pay higher interest rates to continue to attract global savings, mostly from the Chinese and Japanese. But that's not anytime soon. The Chinese and Japanese are not going to yank their money out of Treasury bills because the slump is worldwide and T-bills are about the best and safest place to park savings. Besides, the Chinese don't want the dollar to plunge. They'd be stuck with a lot of paper worth far less than they got it for, and their exports would be in even worse shape than now.

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Obama may be President. The Dems may run Congress. But the media is running scared of the GOP.

Read this about the new CBS Vice-President, a right-wing extremist, a supporter of the craziest settlers on the West Bank and all out opponent of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

It sounds crazy but it's not. Check it out.

I guess you won't be seeing any more reports from Bob Simon on settler pogroms in Hebron. No wonder the networks are dying.

IT GETS WORSE. READ THIS.

First, thanks to TPM for hosting this forum on Demagogue. It's an especially rough time for books, especially with the Post's tragic decision recently to close Book World as a stand-alone section. It's especially urgent that we have forums like this where books can be discussed seriously.

Thanks also to my great partners here -- we will all benefit from having the great minds of Lind, Katulis, Kleinfeld, Hurlburt, and Dallek trained on this topic of democracy, constitutionalism, and the future direction of American national security policy.

This book emerged from a longstanding fascination of mine about why democracy can prosper, on the one hand, and disintegrate, on the other. It's therefore a book not only about demagogues -- who can cause democracy to collapse -- but about freedom itself. And this is a particularly American story.

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Hugo Chavez, Moqtada Al-Sadr, Sen. Joe McCarthy, George W. Bush: charismatic mass leaders, and democracy's most dangerous enemies? This week at Cafe, we have a Book Club discussion on Michael Signer's Demagogue: The Fight to Save Democracy from Its Worst Enemies. In it, he explores the history of the rise of popular leaders and the threats they pose to the democracies that produce them.

Signer was Foreign Policy Advisor on Sen. John Edwards presidential campaign and he is Senior Policy Advisor at the Center for American Progress and Senior National Security Policy Fellow at Third Way.

Joining him are Rachel Kleinfeld, co-founder and Executive Director of the Truman National Security Project; Heather Hurlburt, speechwriter and policy advisor in the Clinton Administration; Michael Lind, Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation; Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress; and Matt Dallek, professor at the University of California Washington Programme. See you there!

I am not a film reviewer and don't pretend to be. Alas, I haven't even seen all the films that were nominated for Oscars last night, but one film I did see-Waltz With Bashir--is a mind blower and I simply can't understand why it lost out for Best Foreign Film to a Japanese film that I suspect few filmgoers have seen and will not see. Waltz is one of the most important films to come out of Israel and to hit the world stage. A fierce anti-war film it shows the internal, psychic trauma faced by Israeli soldiers decades after a war; this one the first war with Lebanon.

Some columnists are suggesting that Hollywood prefers its Jews as victims, even as Holocaust stories--if so, that's tragic.

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It's weird. Steve Rosen, the indicted-for-espionage former AIPAC staffer, has organized a powerful campaign to defeat the President's nominee for chief of the National Intelligence Council, which synthesizes intelligence information and presents it to the President. Check it out.

Laura Rozen was first to report that the Obama administration wants to appoint Charles Freeman, former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, ato the post. .

Jim Lobe explains why the job is important and why Freeman is a good choice for it.

But here's the problem. The right-wing of the lobby HATES Freeman. It considers Freeman anti-Israel because he has repeatedly indicated that he believes that successive Israeli governments deserve their share of blame for sinking the peace process. He does not toe the line.

So they have to stop him. And Rosen has volunteered to do the job. This was his first salvo . Then the JTA (the authoritative Jewish Telegraphic Agency) gave the more-or-less official view of Freeman. And now another hit from Rosen saying that Freeman is on the take!

Now Jeff Goldberg, not part of the lobby but with a similar world view, weighs in.

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Peter Peterson is out to get your Social Security and Medicare. For those who don't know him, Peterson has long been in the public limelight.

He was the Commerce Secretary in the Nixon administration. He then went on to make billions of dollars as one of the top executives at the Blackstone Group, a private equity fund. Mr. Peterson is known as one of the top beneficiaries of the fund managers tax break, through which he personally pocketed tens of millions of dollars.

Mr. Peterson has been using his Wall Street wealth to attack Social Security and Medicare for decades, but he recently stepped up his efforts. Last year he spent $1 billion to endow the Peter G. Peterson Foundation to further his efforts.

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There is a phrase on Wall Street--"talking your book"--which essentially means you are spreading information that would help the positions you have in the market. The most obvious example is shorting a stock and then saying the company is heading to bankruptcy. A lot of people are talking now about a new great depression or are saying that the Recovery Act is just a waste of Tax payer money. A lot of them are "talking their book". Take George Soros and Newt Gingrich for example. Here's Soros.

Renowned investor George Soros said on Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated, adding that there is yet no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis.

Soros said the turbulence is actually more severe than during the Great Depression, comparing the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union.

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"Can't you understand simple arithmetic? Why, the very point of [our] program is to have as much land as possible and as few Arabs as possible!"

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