The Morning Plum
* Obama to offer “exit ramps”? The President has no intention of heeding those who argue that a timeframe for withdrawal from Afghanistan is a sign of American lack of resolve, The New York Times reports:
President Obama plans to lay out a time frame for winding down the American involvement in the war in Afghanistan when he announces his decision this week to send more forces, senior administration officials said Sunday…
“It’s accurate to say that he will be more explicit about both goals and time frame than has been the case before and than has been part of the public discussion,” said a senior official, who requested anonymity to discuss the speech before it is delivered. “He wants to give a clear sense of both the time frame for action and how the war will eventually wind down.”
But: It remains to be seen how specific and firm these timetables are and whether they are tied to anything tangible or measurable.
* Carl Levin: I favor “an Afghan surge, not an American surge.”
* Interesting new poll: While Republicans are united in their opposition to Obama, only minorities of GOPers think their leaders are taking the party in the right direction and are satisfied with the party’s policy proposals.
* Interesting stuff from the poll’s internals: Nearly half of Republicans, 46%, think Sarah Palin has had a good effect on the GOP, and a whopping 87% think the media’s been unfair to her, suggesting Republicans are really grooving on Palin’s grievance-mongering.
* Also amusing: Palin beats all other GOP leaders on the question of who best represents the core values of the GOP.
* Is the week ahead a critical one for Obama? Top White House advisers keep urging the media to stay focused on the big picture.
* In the above link, Rahm Emanuel defends the administration’s “Big Bang” approach to taking on so much: “We’re in a better position than we were when we began. Is this a historic week? Yes. It’s a historic week within a historic year.”
* The Secret Service interviews the gate crashers.
* One big hurdle to a climate change deal in Copenhagen: How much money the United States will cough up to help developing nations deal with global warming and curb emissions. In that link, John Kerry says the U.S. is falling short.
* And here’s the shocker of the day. Senator Jon Kyl, on the health care reform proposal: “There’s no way to fix this bill.” When was that decision made exactly?
What else is happening?
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You link to the WaPo polling article by Cohen and Balz. Can you get the internals and the crosstab of the poll respondents who “watch Fox News” vs. their views on other topics?
This is key to understanding the poll results. Another key datapoint is the decline of the GOP over time to 22 percent of electorate.
Krugman on need for jobs program… http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/29/AR2009112902935_3.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009113000012
Greg, You should also find the “Word Cloud” graphic that appears in the Post (on page A4 in my print edition). There is an enormous “conservative” and a miniscule “Bush”.
The picture, in this case, is worth considerably more than 1000 words.
Unfortunately, the Post hides the link to their graphics so well that I cannot post a link.
grooft, I’m getting the internals…more coming.
Greg: How good is the reporting on polls. What are the highlights, and what lies hidden from general view. Since we are seeing polls every day how can they be a measure of anything?
From staff at Dem Strategist:
“Best First Year Since FDR
by staff, November 30, 2009 07:23 AM EST
The knee-jerk cynics, Obamaphobes and comedians have gotten lots of play lately, dissing the President for what they see as his lack of accomplishments during his first year. But over at SLATE.com, Jacob Weisberg takes a more thoughtful look at Obama’s first year and sees something very different:” http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/ (link to the Slate piece inside)
The only time I feel a need to express my dissatisfaction with Obama’s embrace of right wing policies is when legitimate critics are dismissed as “knee-jerk cynics”.
For instance, Obama’s shameful choice of Larry Summers is getting some more scrutiny:
“Harvard ignored warnings about investments: Advisers told Summers, others not to put so much cash in market; losses hit $1.8b.”
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/11/29/harvard_ignored_warnings_about_investments/
Obama’s embrace of the elite financial gamblers that screwed up the economy has severely hurt millions of regular, working Americans that voted for him.
OK. What is the deal with the link between yahoo homepage and the fluff stories out of Politico about Obama.
Last week they headlined Obama’s use of the word unprecedented. Now they are headlining the Politico piece on seven stories Obama doesn’t want told about ridicules meme’s that I haven’t even heard of unless they are coming from Republican strategists.
It appears whoever manages Yahoo’s home page is in bed with the Republican echo chamber.
Mike, I’d really be interested to know what kind of readership Yahoo has and how influential they are with insiders. I find them hard to categorize…
Senator Jon Kyl, on the health care reform proposal: “There’s no way to fix this bill.”
In other news today, the sun rose in the east.
“Harvard ignored warnings about investments: Advisers told Summers, others not to put so much cash in market; losses hit $1.8b.”
That was the front page story of yesterday’s Boston Sunday Globe.
One interesting and refreshing tidbit to come from the poll on how Repubs view their party is the fact that Dick Cheney comes out badly.
It’s a relief to know that even Repubs realize Darth Vader is a loser. Wonder how Liz will spin this?
It’s a relief to know that even Repubs realize Darth Vader is a loser.
True! Now if only The Village would get that, instead of feting him as royalty!
Just wanted to say thanks Greg, for your round-ups even over the holiday weekend. A true pro. Thx!
Hey Ethan — thx much for that. Appreciate it.
Biden is going on the offense this week as we enter the HCR debate in the Senate. It’s a pretty good video and I love the calm and measured argument he makes. He may not appeal to everyone out there, but I thinks he’s especially effective with seniors.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/biden-goes-on-the-attack-as-senate-begins-health-care-debate.php?ref=fpa
“Palin beats all other GOP leaders on the question of who best represents the core values of the GOP.”
Ignorance? Shallowness? Intellectual dishonesty? Yeah, I’d have to agree with that.
“The knee-jerk cynics, Obamaphobes and comedians have gotten lots of play lately, dissing the President for what they see as his lack of accomplishments during his first year. But over at SLATE.com, Jacob Weisberg takes a more thoughtful look at Obama’s first year and sees something very different:” http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/ (link to the Slate piece inside)”
Yes.
I posted a piece from Jacob Weisberg yesterday from Slate that said the same thing.
I found a short essay on FDR’s first 100 days and surprise, Obama’s look almost exactly the same.
In fact I was amazed at how similar the first 100 days were.
One thing in the essay on FDR’s first 100 days that I thought was particularly interesting is that it pointed out that Hoover had let 2 previous bank runs run their course without interference – you, he thought that “too big to fail” was BS. Well, the US lost millions of dollars doing that so FDR, like Obama, immediately acted to stop the bleeding.
AND shored up the banks with an infusion of cash, just like Obama did.
AND refused to follow the advice of the Keyensians and insisted that the money pumped into the relief effort not add to the deficit.
Just like Obama.
Like i said – it’s remarkable how similar those 100 days were.
Pay per view (sounds like pr0n) comes to news industry
“One of the UK’s biggest newspaper firms is to charge for access to online content from six of its titles.
The Johnston Press websites will either ask users to pay £5 for a three-month subscription to read the full articles, or direct them to buy the newspapers.
Johnston is the first regional publisher in the UK to trial asking readers to pay for its online news.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/business/8385342.stm
Great “news” ?
“Great “news” ?”
Great way to lose their readers, IMO.
Tena, WaPo and NYT used to require that you rpoived your e-mail before you access their “precious” pages. They don’t any more, probably because the hits fell. So, this pay per view is a non-starter.
Great way to lose their readers, IMO.
Isn’t that what happened to the New York Times when they tried that?
“They don’t any more, probably because the hits fell. So, this pay per view is a non-starter.”
Exactly. I almost asked how long the NYT made you pay before they gave up.
They keep trying because they hate giving away anything but it’s impossible online. The stories get read for free because someone with a subscription links to them like they did with the NYT.
(Never mind………..
Apologies for not reading to the end of the thread.)
re; Yahoo-
Maybe they are just lazy. All I ever see is a pessimistic AP headline that I’ve come to realize is almost always worse than the content of the actual article. I don’t know if the headline/synopsis is AP’s or Yahoo’s.