Michael Tomasky's Blog, page 72

Michael Tomasky: Michael Steele is in tuh-rubb-ull

I thought this was pretty big when I read it this morning, when Michael Steele said the war in Afghanistan was "a war of Obama's choosing" to a Republican group in Connecticut. The Republican National Committee spokesman stepped in quickly to try to clean this poo off the sidewalk, saying the following (via Ben Smith, and if you click through, note Smith's droll headline):

The Chairman clearly supports our troops but believes that success of the war effort in Afghanistan requires the ongoing...

Michael Tomasky: Jobs and Congress

Well, the jobs report is bad today, just 80,000 private-sector jobs gained, and economists are all warning that this is how it's going to be for a while. You'd think, as Jonathan Cohn notes in his new blog at TNR, that there would be calls in this case for more stimulus:

But most of the economists I know and trust think numbers like these are proof that we need a major new stimulus package, in order to create jobs and--oh, by the way--help everybody who's out of work. Meanwhile...

Michael Tomasky: Friday quiz: row that boat ashore

This week, we take a look at folk music – the music of the people, as opposed to the music of court and crown, although the material I've been looking through indicates a certain amount of crossover, such as a tavern song that Henry VIII particularly liked and took care to make popular.

As the mention of Henry suggests, there's a lot of history to cover here, and many variants. I originally intended to combine the blues in to this quiz, but I think African American folk music needs its own...

Michael Tomasky: The little-know but sinister link between socialism and fear of opposable thumbs

Despite America's ignominious exit from la Copa Mundial, we're still kicking around, so to speak, the nature of the unhappy relationship between "soccer" and our glorious nation. There was the already famous New York Post headline from last Sunday, which you may have heard tell about it.

But now comes this theory, from former George Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen:

Many years ago, my former White House colleague Bill McGurn pointed out to me the real reason soccer hasn't caught on in the good...

Michael Tomasky: Obama's immigration speech

Let's state the obvious and note that the president's immigration speech is partly driven by politics, specifically the desire to demonstrate to a key Democratic voting bloc that he has not forgotten its chief issue. Okay? Okay.

That said, it's an interesting commentary on the state of the immigration debate that the new Obama plan is almost exactly the old Bush plan that nearly became law five years ago, before the volcanic eruptions from winguttia that gave the name "amnesty" to a 12-year...

Michael Tomasky: GOP: full-on healthcare repeal

To this point in our story, the House GOP has been dithering about the details of the healthcare reform repeal effort. Flat-out repeal, the more extreme version, or repeal and replace, the somewhat moderated version in that it would require the GOP to substitute its own version of reform, thereby showing that they could actually do something constructive and actually sorta-kinda cared about things like people being denied coverage because of preexisting conditions?

Well, yesterday, they...

Michael Tomasky: The America John Boehner grew up in

In his comments that have attracted wide attention because he said financial reform regulation was like taking a nuclear weapon to an ant, Republican House minority leader John Boehner also noted that today's Democrats "are snuffing out the America that I grew up in."

Boehner was born in November 1949. Let's take a look at the America he grew up in.

In the America John Boehner grew up in, the top marginal tax rate on wealthy earners was 90%. It had gone up there during the war, and five, 10...

Michael Tomasky: Feingold, get it together

Russ Feingold, Democratic senator of Wisconsin, is, as I mentioned, threatening to wreck finreg reform.

The rules: a bill that comes back to the Senate after the House-Senate conference does not have to pass the hurdle of a cloture vote, a vote to cut off debate and proceed to final passage, which is the one that requires 60. Doesn't have to. However, the minority may request a cloture vote after the conference bill returns, and obviously in this case the GOP will.

Here's where things stand...

Larry King, pioneering cable showman | Michael Tomasky

I was never a big fan of the CNN star, but King was popular and ubiquitous, if sometimes cheesy: the McDonald's of talk show TV

I never really watched Larry King's show. I've typically downshifted from politics and debate by 9pm and am checking the movie or sports channels. But as soon as I say that, and think back over the last 25 years of my life to test the hypothesis, I suppose I have to add: who am I kidding?

Everybody watched it at some point or another. He was about as avoidable as...

Kagan hearing check-in | Michael Tomasky

As we established back in the Sonia Sotomayor days, none of us is consumingly fascinated with these kinds of confirmation hearings. If a conservative leaves the court and Obama can replace him with a liberal, shifting the balance of power, that will be interesting and much more intense. But the current business seems pretty pro forma, and the reviews so far say that Elena Kagan is handling herself with aplomb.

The interesting exchange took place between Kagan and Oklahoma Republican Tom...