Just enought time to gloat a bit. The President and I may have messed up the rest of our brackets, but we did pick the ultimate winner. It was a great ride for Michigan State, but in the end it was North Carolina 89, Michigan State 72.
Here is Tyler Hansbrough celebrating in this picture from the New York Times.
How’s he doing? I thought the press conference last night showed a more subdued President Obama. David Biespiel said on Politico’s Arena
Overall: Professor in chief. I saw the news conference on CNN from my hotel room. Will cable TV present every Obama news conference as if it’s the last night of Yalta? I disagree with the interpretation that these night time press conferences should be for dramatic events only. Meeting with the press monthly on prime time is good for democracy–whether the climate is dramatic or not.
I tend to agree with him. I don’t think the President is at his best with press conferences – he seems to do better with town hall meetings – but they are informative. Maybe he should think about a prime time town hall meeting.
Thomas Mann from Brookings said on Politico’s Arena
What struck me about last night’s press conference was how the President managed both to maintain his signature leadership style — cool, intelligent, knowledgeable, and reasonable — and to forcefully advocate his position that his economic recovery program and his budget are inextricably linked. He also signaled clearly, especially in his closing remarks, that he fully understands the obstacles he faces and that some of his priorities will take years to accomplish. It appears he will continue to aim high with an ambitious agenda in spite of the clamor of critics for cutting back on his objectives. In a world in which an exclusive focus on short-term gains has dominated behavior in government and in the private sector, Obama is planning an eight-year program of governance that aspires to grapple seriously with long-term challenges.
Which leads me to talk about the Republican opposition. Several Republicans posted on the Arena their disappointment that there was no real opposition agenda. I believe that the President has also pointed out that there is no alternative budget so there can be a real discussion.
Eugene Robinson wrote in today’s Washington Post
Some listeners thought they heard flexibility or even retreat on the president’s ambitious agenda of health care, energy and education. I heard the opposite — a single-minded focus on these three initiatives, which Obama maintains are vital if the economy is to be put on sound footing. His strategy is to let Congress work out the details, but he was clear that he expects all of the Big Three to be reflected in the budget. One thing we’ll learn about him, the president said, is that he’s persistent. I’m going to take him at his word.
If you recall, Barack Obama stuck to a consistant message throughout his campaign. He never let himself get sidetracked to drawn into debates he didn’t want to have. I think last night showed he is still the same person, that what we saw during the campaign is what we got as a President.
One negative note to my evaluation of his first 60 days. I am still worried about some of his appointments, particularly in the economic area. As I have said before I am very very skeptical about Larry Summers in particular. Christopher Hayes gave this piece of advice back in January and I think it is still relevant.
But as the Obama administration continues to fill thousands of government positions, they’d do well to heed the words of a wise man who once said that “tallying up your years in Washington is no substitute for judgment.” That was President Obama, whose primary campaign was largely predicated on the principle that having gotten something crucial, like the Iraq War, right when other people got it wrong was of such overwhelming importance that voters should elevate someone who’d been a state senator just a few years earlier to the highest office in the land over a competitor with years in Washington under her belt.
The voters agreed, and I continue to think they got it right. Maybe the president should go back and read some of his old speeches the next time there’s an opening in his administration.
And not to beat a maybe dead horse: where is a job for Howard Dean?
It is no secret that I’m not an economist. I have long depended on Paul Krugman to help me understand what was going on. And given the current state of the world, I seem to be blogging about economics a lot.
So is the Tim Geithner toxic assets plan viable or not? Larry Summers (against whom I have a grudge because of what he did to Cornel West while president of Harvard) took at slap at Paul Krugman’s op-ed piece saying “I wish he waited for the plan to be announced before he wrote his column.”
What exactly did Paul write?
And now Mr. Obama has apparently settled on a financial plan that, in essence, assumes that banks are fundamentally sound and that bankers know what they’re doing.
It’s as if the president were determined to confirm the growing perception that he and his economic team are out of touch, that their economic vision is clouded by excessively close ties to Wall Street. And by the time Mr. Obama realizes that he needs to change course, his political capital may be gone.
Let’s talk for a moment about the economics of the situation.
Right now, our economy is being dragged down by our dysfunctional financial system, which has been crippled by huge losses on mortgage-backed securities and other assets.
As economic historians can tell you, this is an old story, not that different from dozens of similar crises over the centuries. And there’s a time-honored procedure for dealing with the aftermath of widespread financial failure. It goes like this: the government secures confidence in the system by guaranteeing many (though not necessarily all) bank debts. At the same time, it takes temporary control of truly insolvent banks, in order to clean up their books.
If I understand him correctly, what Krugman is worried about is 1) should we have just gone ahead and nationalized the banks temporarily and gotten it over with and 2) if the plan doesn’t work does it will Congress vote more money to nationalize.
I think Krugman is a great economist, but he maybe underestimating the larger political situation. I think President Obama believes that health care reform and, to a less extent, eduational reform are additional keys to turning the economy around. Obama is already hearing the footsteps of those in Congress who are looking at the deficit and wanting to put the breaks on. Obama wants to pass his budget. Therefore he didn’t want to pick my option 1 and nationalize the banks. If the plan doesn’t work, option 2 is an unknown.
One thing I do know is that while the market did go up today and that Tim Geithner did do marginally better that his first disasterous press conference, I love Jonathan Mann of Rock Bottom Cookie’s new song, “Hey Paul Krugman”. Mann extoles Krugman while putting Geithner down. Great catchy song. Listen to the song and sing along with the refrain.” When I listen to you it seems to make sense, when I listen to him [Geithner] all I hear is blah, blah, blah.”
At this point all we can do is hope that the Geithner gamble works out. I’m sure that Paul Krugman will be the first to be happy if it does.
Why have I picked the wrong upsets in the first round? I picked Cornell over Missouri and VCU over UCLA for example and totally didn’t see Dayton beating West VA.
Why is everyone so focused on the President’s Special Olympics “gaffe”? I thought his dancing around the Tim Geithner question was much worse. Besides all those special olympians are now going to get to bowl at the White House.
Why hasn’t Norm Coleman surrendered yet? I have read that it is expected that Al Franken will likely pick up some votes as the court studies some more ballots. Then Coleman says he will appeal. Franken is asking Coleman to pay his legal costs. I think Minnesota needs an second Senator and let’s just certify the election and let Al take his seat.
Why is is always so cold on the first day of spring in Boston? At least this year it isn’t snowing.
I wonder what criticism the Republicans will come up with about the White House vegetable garden? Marion Burros had a lovely story in the New York Times yesterday. Seems everyone will have to pull weeds, including the President. I guess that will be more time he is wasting when he should be focused on the economy.
Will President Obama and Barney Frank acually suceed in rewriting the regulations concerning financial institutions? Does anyone else remember when stock brokers were separate from banks and the twain was never supposed to meet? Maybe we need to go back to those days?
The cats are gathering and telling me it is time to stop having random thoughts and focus on their dinner.
There is a new sheriff in town and his name is Barack Obama. I think he made that clear yesterday when he told the Republican Congressional leaders (after listening to their laundry list of what was wrong with his Recovery Act proposal), “I won.”
So far President Obama seems to listen to lots of points of view and then make a decision. I saw an interview with General Powell recently in which he described Obama’s leadership style: Lots of internal discussion and disagreement. Then Obama makes a decision and the drama is over. At least this is what happened during the Transition and the campaign. There is no reason not to think this will continue. So “no drama Obama” seems to apply only to what we see in public and there are lots of dissenting voices before decisions are made. There is nothing like former President Bush’s (I love writing that!) way of decision making. In one of his exit interview, Bush was asked if he called people like General Powell before he made a decision after 9/11 and he basically said, “no. I knew what they thought.” I can’t imagine this happening with President Obama. A change.
People can quibble about whether he’s going far enough to end torture and certainly whether his immediate waiver of this lobbying executive order for a former Raytheon lobbyist was a good thing, but I say, so far so good.
I am on the side of those who would like to see prosecutions of those who ordered torture. But I think (I hope) I see the tactic. Don’t come out and say you are going to prosecute before Congressional investigations are completed and before there are reports about what Justice, Defense, the NSA and CIA find in internal memos. Collect the evidence first.
David Sirota wrote
Cut through the meaningless platitudes describing our new president as a post-partisan, post-racial pragmatist, and you find an inspiring leader who organized us around optimism. Then consider that leader’s behavior since the election, and you run into that nagging speck of doubt. His less-than-inspiring Cabinet appointments, his support of Bush’s Wall Street bailout, his embrace of nonsensical corporate tax cuts – these moves raise questions about whether Obama is willing to differentiate between his two campaign themes: hope and change.
While both those things have lately been in short supply, the distance between them on policy is the gulf separating ambition and realization. Hope is a bill peppered with “may” – the word that merely asks banks or polluters to regulate themselves. Change is a statute teeming with “shall” – a term forcing its targets to comply. Hope is telegenic glamour, winning smiles, and poignant one-liners. Change is all the grinding work and uncomfortable confrontations that come with challenging power and enacting transformative laws.
The reason so many cried this week is because we can finally glimpse that change in the distance. And yet, those pangs of concern linger. They don’t undermine the euphoria or diminish Obama’s promise. But they do recognize that we worry about hope’s mirage – and pray there are no illusions this time.
Amen.
FortLeft 