I will probably come back to this. I think Greenwald was complaining that Lizza was kind of a boot kisser of Emmanuel and that other sources had to be considered.

Rahm is the ultimate politician ON MY SIDE FOR A CHANGE. I see him as being on my side. I really do.

I was reading something last month and then saw it played on CSPAN or PBS concerning Nader. Here Carter went out of his way and hired these Nader's Raiders. And old Ralphy boy just castigated every one of them. And a couple of them were testifying that Ralph would not give an inch on anything. And they were not being reined in by Carter, they had to take into consideration other factors in their deliberations.

What do I know.

Emanuel needs to tone it down and listen to Krugman.

We need to take a step back and look at the big picture. In less than a month, the Obama administration passed a historic and much needed bill that will help the economy in the short-term while simultaneously making strategic investments for the long-term. Funding amounts were historic for clean energy, efficiency, high-speed rail, health care IT, the sciences and other progressive causes. Some of the projects and systems that result from this spending will progressively transform our country for years to come.

The key point I want to make here, is that this legislation passed less than a month into the Obama Presidency. This is important because the stimulus needs to be in place as soon as possible so it can actually start to take affect. It's not a perfect bill, but it's a good bill. The perfect bill never had a chance, so why play DC negotiation games that would have delayed the bills' passage and delayed people from getting unemployment benefits, tax relief, new job opportunities, etc???

I don't see any benefit in spending political capital by negotiating the way Krugman and others wanted. You create a fight with congressional republicans that ultimately will result in Obama compromising. The repubs look like victors because they force the administration to compromise on some of the spending. Average americans see the fight on the surface and think, same old BS from washington.

Instead Obama came to the table with a $820 billion bill that was about 65/35 spending to tax cuts. He ended up with a $790 billion dollar bill that was roughly 65/35 and didn't compromise anything major. Some of the tax cuts help people who need it, some help small businesses who are hurting, and others are garbage. Still, he has a good but not perfect bill passed in record time and increased political capital on top of the legislative success. People see that he listened to republican ideas by inviting them to discuss the bill and incorporating some of their good/not so crappy ideas. They see that he got almost exactly what he wanted. People see that the congressional republicans are out of touch.

Obama spent a lot of political capital to get the bill passed, but he somehow managed to come out of it with even more political capital. His approval ratings are sky high and trending higher amongst independents. The stimulus bill's approval rating went up 8 points a week after his town hall tour.

Now the administration is in position to be aggressive and spend political capital on critical but controversial issues like healthcare and climate change and the second stimulus (it's inevitable). Moderate republicans will see the bad politics of the stimulus opposition and realize they need to start voting for critical legislation that benefits republican constituents as well as dems/indies.

I take the pov that much of what goes on is due to complicated processes we don't observe much and that part of the reason Krugman gets his soapbox at NYTIMES is because public intellectuals don't have much of a track record in swaying policy-making historically. If they want to keep their position of prominence, they gotta be willing to take the fall...

I think a more sustainable strategy is to push for the use of proportional representation in state legislative elections and, in tandem, the proliferation of local third parties that focus on contesting local elections and voting strategically otherwise and generally increase voter participation and political literacy, while keeping the two main parties accountable and more dynamic thru offering exit threat to groups of voters so more tails can wag the dog.

My views on election reform are at my blog "A New Kind of Third Party".

dlw

So the White House should have started at $10T, because unless the GOP could come to the table with negative numbers, meeting in the middle means the Stimulus would have been $5T given the meet in the middle principle. And if the Dems came with $1T the GOP could have came with -$1T so then the stimulus would have been $0.00.

Krugman might be the smartest man in the room, but Obama and his advisers are no dummies either. I have a feeling Obama got exactly what he wanted by playing the progressives against the Republican minority.

It stands to reason, then, that if the two starting points were different, we'd have ended up with a different number. Specter and the rest of the centrist gang weren't arguing for a particular number on principle; they just wanted to feel like a compromise had been reached.

The conclusion is obvious: if Obama had pushed a stronger stimulus bill from the beginning, the whole debate would have been shifted to the left. The center would have moved. And the centrists hashing things out at the end would have been haggling over different numbers.

The hell you say!

What stands to reason are the facts. ANd the facts are that not once did Krugman in any of his pearls of wisdom over the past few months propose much less pass ANY legistlation even in broad outline. He stated no maximum number. He stated no minimun. He didn't say which tax cuts he wanted in the stimulus if any, all he did was throw spitballs

Rahm acutally passed legislation.

Krugman took pot shots

By any measure, what Obama’s White House has achieved in passing the stimulus bill is historic. The last President to preside over a legislative victory of this magnitude so early in his Administration was Franklin Roosevelt

Why is noone commenting on how Rahm probably chewed Ben Nelson out. He came back like a cyborg and said he would vote for the bill.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall when Rahm Emanuel took Ben Nelson into the hallway!

Hey Folks! This post is about checkers and Obama is playing chess. When he offered the bill with compromises already in it, he guaranteed his perception would be that he was compromising. He was being bipartisan. No one knew whether any Republicans would sign up for it, but if none did, then he still had that good karma going for him.

Some Republicans came on board and they managed to talk him down $30 billion. As a percentage, it was not much. Although if I had $30 billion dollars I would have to admit that was a lot of money. Nevertheless, the Republicans received a good impression for making a difference.

This was a great sales job, too. First Obama came far below the trillion dollar threat by nearly two hundred billion. So no one perceives he went for the $299 mattress sales trick. Look! it's less then $300 dollars! Then, when he compromised, that trick is in effect. They took out $30 billion, but a shallow perception makes it appear to be $100 billion! The compromisers look like they were big players.

Republicans were forecasting a trillion. Now they are looking like Henny Penny. The sky is falling! the sky is falling! Then it winds up far from a trillion. The Right is appears foolish for overinflating the StimPack's cost.

But it't not a trillion dollars and Krugman ssays we need more! We're not done yet, either. Thank you Mr. Krugman for chumming te waters for Obama and the Dems to go back and do it again. If one is good, two is better and Krugman said there should be more. Always the thoughtful one, Obama will consider this and ask again. He shows flexibility and that he is open to the ideas of others. I wonder if that was the plan all along.

This was a big win. There are shovel ready projects in the bill. This turn around will be slow, but it has begun and this is a great beginning, IMHO. To me this was set-up and executed as good as it could be. It was a good beginning all the way around.