Josh Marshall in this post seems to suggest that E.U. antipathy to Obama administration levels of Keynesian stimulus (as well as China's) should be dismissed as the ranting of one crazy right-wing Czech E.U. president.

I think he misleads his readers by doing that, it is a denial of reality that will not prepare them for what they are going to continue to hear from Europe, and the problems the Obama administration will be confronting in that regard.. It's not just a bunch of crazy Czechs who are thinking along those lines, it's also Germany and France.

James Surowiecki summarizes the situation well in this short column for the March 30 New Yorker,

....While the U.S. is devoting almost six per cent of its G.D.P. to fiscal stimulus, France and Germany are spending a barely noticeable twenty-six billion euros and fifty billion euros, respectively. Whereas the U.S. hopes that the upcoming G20 summit will lead to a global stimulus package, European policymakers have been warning against the dangers of "crass Keynesianism." The U.S. Federal Reserve has been flooding our economy with money, but the European Central Bank has cut interest rates slowly and reluctantly. Far from wild-eyed leftists, Europeans are looking downright conservative.

...Europe's caution also reflects important differences between its economy and ours, as well as a profoundly different attitude toward things like inflation and debt. If European and American policymakers seem, in their public statements, to be dealing with two very different financial crises, it's because, in some sense, they are....

Read the whole thing, it won't take long and it will give you a clearer picture of why you will not see strong support for large stimulus from the E.U. Yes, that will feed  U.S. "winger" arguments against Obama's plan, but your response to them is right in the article: they have hefty safety nets for and tolerance for high unemployment, we don't (not to mention, they have us to always be the growth guinea pig while they go for "stability.")

My title is just funning with M.J. Rosenberg's newest post (which I find to be almost humorous in its hyperbole) and is not serious. But I thought of "humorous analagies to McCarthyism" when I was reading this at the same time in today's paper:

Goldman's sudden urgency to return the money stems, in part, from the uproar over A.I.G.'s bonuses last week, and the criticism of Goldman over revelations that the firm had been the largest recipient of government money as a counterparty of bets placed with A.I.G. It's also paying a hefty 5 percent interest payment to taxpayers for that money.

"It's just impossible to run our business in this environment," said one senior Goldman executive who insisted on not being quoted by name for fear of crossing the Treasury Department.

from Dealbook: If Goldman Returns Aid, Will Others? by Andrew Ross Sorkin. The ruminations therein about what might happen with the competition among firms to get off the public teat first was intriguing. 

This was also very interesting:

....the administration also had a more careful plan in place to introduce the proposal, because neither Mr. Geithner nor Mr. Obama could afford another negative review.

"Did we do things differently? It's self-evident that we did," Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said in an interview.

With selective leaks to the media for the last several days, the administration had time to explain the complexities in advance, preparing the financial markets over the weekend for what was coming. Mr. Geithner and other administration officials spent days briefing crucial people on Wall Street and working to line up endorsements from prominent equity fund managers and other private-sector "validators," in particular two leading global investment management firms, BlackRock and Pimco.

In a White House meeting late last week, Mr. Obama personally admonished administration officials to join Mr. Geithner in the plan's public marketing....

The administration also paid close attention to the political climate. With the private sector increasingly wary of Congressional intervention in the business of those who participate in government bailout programs, Mr. Obama substantially dialed back the near endorsement he had given late last week to the House vote for a confiscatory 90 percent tax on bonuses like those A.I.G. doled out....

There was even good news by Monday evening on the matter of Treasury's much criticized understaffing. The White House announced the nominations of two Clinton administration veterans to top posts: Neal S. Wolin to be Mr. Geithner's deputy Treasury secretary, and Lael Brainard to be under secretary for international affairs....

from Rescue Plan, With Some Fine Print, Dazzles Wall Street by Jackie Calmes.