Many Shorters

little foreplay.

One Small Step For Man...:

One odd right wing meme that the Bush Admin's decisions regarding the space program somehow reflect a lack of vision on Obama's part.

What Did the American Taxpayer Get for its Billions?:

I try not to quote people by name if the conversation wasn't clearly on the record, because sometimes people get upset.

Apparently Megan relies on super secret high placed inside sources to be able to say people are telling her things that coincidentally always serve the interests of certain rich people, and if she named them she'd have to come up with propaganda on her own. Or we'd be able to recognize her sources as paid flacks, one or the other.

Waiting for the Mid-Session Budget Review:

Sure, Good Daddy Bush did the exact same thing, but Obama is delaying a report maybe in part because it has bad news. Good Daddy Bush ruthlessly suppressed bad news, Obama must be weak if he's going to let it come out eventually. But Megan isn't saying any of that, she's just wondering aloud.

How Much Does Central Bank Independence Matter?:

If we just let rich people get on with the business of being rich, wethey'll be happier and maybe give us more crumbs.

Why Health Care Reform Is So Troubled:

The commenters in Mark Thoma's threads seem to think that the administration erred in trying to modify the plan in order to buy votes in Congress. I take this as symptomatic of how the debate played out on progressive blogs, magazines, and columns; Paul Krugman is exhibit A. People were led to expect that Obama could pass a plan through mere force of will, "cracking heads" and bulldozing Congress into something close to the left-wing technocratic version of health care reform.

Or because health care reform was a major, primary part of the platform that won Obama a resounding mandate from the American electorate, and the Dems hold both Houses of Congress, now including a supermajority in the Senate.

This was never, ever going to happen. The Democratic conventional wisdom, true or not, is that Bill Clinton lost because the overwhelming majority of folks who have insurance, and are basically satisfied with their health care, freaked out when they realized that their coverage was going to change.

Who the fuck thinks this? The common wisdom I, a putative Democrat, have received is health care reform died because Clinton's Admin both underestimated the structural opposition to it in the political system and did a poor job managing the actual nuts and bolts workings of the political process. Megan means the conservative conventional wisdom, I guess. Or she's deliberately, if perhaps unconsciously, misstating what she's reading in a single comment thread to provide herself with an easily won argument. Six to one half dozen.

Department of Awkward PR Moments:

There is no inherent partisanship to my highlighting one honest if uncomfortable answer from Obama, but there is in me joining in the idea that health care reform is about Obama, personally. Honestly, I'm so self-blind I don't recognize that I let others determine how I'll frame an issue for me.

Reasons to Want to Be Rich:

I don't actually think there are that many; I'm pretty content on a two-journalist household income.

Is that the funniest thing she's ever written?

Stuff the Beast:

The failures of conservative economic theory and tax policy prove reforming these mistakes can't possibly work.
Also,

Thus I think that honest pundits, and voters, have to answer the question: is this program a good idea if it provokes a crisis, instead of much needed change? In the case of tax cuts, I think the answer is clearly not, which is why I think Republicans should lay off them unless they're planning to pay for them by cutting spending now. I also think expanding health care without a clear and immediate plan for costs is a huge mistake--but then, I don't like it anyway, so you'd expect me to say that.

How do I make fun of that? It's like she wrote it with her fingers and own poo instead of a computer.

And we're done.