We received a Google+ invitation last night from a Stinquer, which was very kind, but since Google won’t yet allow Google+ participation from Google-managed domains like stinque.com, we had to decline.

We probably would have declined anyway, since Google+ also doesn’t allow pseudonyms, like “Nojo”. Instead we would have to use a Real Name, which takes all the fun out of it, unless we chose a real name like, oh, “Mike Lee”, which could be a lot of fun, especially since we’ve long said that Mike Lee is a Fucking Asshole, and we’re really looking forward to the defamation lawsuit.

Read more »

Silent Creative Partner doesn’t follow politics and pays little attention to news, which makes him a far more typical American than we’ll ever hope to be. He’s solidly liberal in outlook — something we used to think was typically American — although we doubt he would label himself as such, because he doesn’t see himself in those terms.

(Not that we care for labels either — if forced to declare, we’d sign up for the Cannibal Anarchist Party — but obviously we travel with progressives, even if we don’t wear the uniform.)

Living in Southern California, the economy hasn’t really touched him, and while you can find teabaggers if you go looking for them, they’re not part of our daily landscape. Even government itself, which here as elsewhere permeates and underwrites our existence, isn’t quite visible — yes, we have cops and streets and garbage collection and an airport and even a military base up the road, but you can go very long stretches without quite being aware of what enables your bliss.

Which is, really, the Genius of America — at least for us Left Coast white males who benefit from it. Like Steve Jobs says, it just works.

Read more »

There are, by our count, three competing explanations for Barack Obama’s negotiating strategy.

The first, what we’ll call the Cave Analogy, posits that Obama tends to give away the store even before the customer walks in. We’ve been partial to that thesis.

The second, offered by Practical Realists, claims that Obama is a victim of circumstance: The Republicans really were going to shoot the hostages, which tends to limit your options.

And the third, promoted very strongly by Glenn Greenwald, suggests that Obama always gets what he wants — only what he wants is very different from what we think he wants. After all, he was offering social-service cuts that even the Republicans feared to demand. And he never really cared for the Public Option a few crises ago.

We’re not going to render a verdict, although Greenwald’s winning on points by our score. Rather, we’re curious about the Circumstantial Presidency. Obama’s (remaining) supporters like to undermine the Cave Analogy by mentioning his decisive action on things like killing Bin Laden, killing the Somali pirates, and killing Libyans.

No, wait. Nobody’s mentioned Libya. But that’s the telling comparison.

Read more »

Mitch McConnell, speaking Monday night to CNBC’s Larry Kudlow before heading off with John Boehner for some celebratory hookers & blow:

What we have done, Larry, also is set a new template. In the future, any president, this one or another one, when they request us to raise the debt ceiling it will not be clean anymore. This is just the first step. This, we anticipate, will take us into 2013. Whoever the new president is, is probably going to be asking us to raise the debt ceiling again. Then we will go through the process again and see what we can continue to achieve in connection with these debt ceiling requests of presidents to get our financial house in order.

They’re now three-for-three: extending the Bush tax cuts, exacting a pound of flesh for keeping the government open, and turning a formerly pro forma debt-ceiling vote into an opportunistic crisis. Why on earth wouldn’t they think they can keep their winning streak going?

We’re reminded of another supposedly idealistic Democratic President, faced with fierce Republican opposition, who caved on a key issue early in his term. We forget the circumstances, and cannot find a precise reference online, but we’ve always remembered the quote attributed to a Republican lawmaker about Bill Clinton: “He can be rolled.”

Adventures in TV Land [Jared Bernstein, via Ezra]

Jonathan Bernstein, trying to make us feel better when we’d prefer to just wallow in misery, writes:

I think a lot of what’s hitting liberals over the last couple of weeks is a delayed reaction to the severity of the Republican landslide of 2010. And I’m not at all convinced that the policy changes so far this year are any worse for Democrats than the policy changes in 1995-1996.

We still haven’t forgiven Bubba for that, so let’s not go there.

And never mind 2010 — we’ve spent our entire adult life suffering a delayed reaction to 1980. We’ll never forgive Our Fellow Americans for that.

So our baseline in all this is a very dark, deeply cynical judgment about the immortal souls of a significant portion of the citizenry. This is the latest chapter in a very long, very sad story. And the deity overlooking our human comedy is Sisyphus. (Yes, we know, Sisyphus was mortal. Work with us, people.)

Read more »