How insidery?

None more insidery!

I really need to stop reading TPM.

This "article" from TPM is a classic of anonymously-sourced insidery bullshit. Here, just take the first couple "lede grafs" (as the insidery journamalists like to say):

The unlikeliest of alliances forged between two once-bitter rivals stands to upend the status quo of congressional gridlock and potentially resolve a bitter partisan chasm that has characterized the modern era of crisis governance.

Yes, President Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) are essentially working together against GOP leadership and the tea party to break the Senate out of its current situation and resolve major budget rifts that have plagued Washington for years.

Of course, if you actually read the rest of the shitty article, it's all just the typical beltway "oh, if only the two sides could just talk to each other and work out a compromise bipartisan agreement that just so happens to be exactly what conservatives want, we'd finally all get our magic tax-free rainbow sparkleponies!" Well that, and it turns out that all McCain actually cares about is the military, as usual.

But hey, it's almost August, just about time for a series of these shitty articles, D.C.'s equivalent of "Shark attacks on the rise!" and "OMG Weiners with wieners!"

Yay. I can hardly wait.

Headline

Teaser headline in TPM's "Daybreaker" e-mail this morning:

It's as if the headline is missing a certain something... Something like:

Position On Incest Remains Firm.

Yeah, that'd work.

Not Different Enough

I don't like Ezra, so no surprise I don't like his latest.

The cool kid mostly glosses over TARP and "too big to fail" whereas I think it was kind of notable that Bush and congress wrote a basically blank check to bail out the banks, with no oversight and nearly no discussion. TARP/TBTF was then pinned entirely on the Kenyan Usurper (who admittedly was for it), and: OMG soshumalism! We now know it didn't end up costing what the stimulus did, but we thought it was going to be $700 billion at the time. He also doesn't discuss how easy that was to do, where the blame has been placed for it, and the backlash it caused. After that, try to get any sort of real stimulus passed. Good luck. I'm fairly amazed they got what they did.

He doesn't discuss what might have been if use of "too big to fail" funds would have been spent or controlled differently, perhaps they could've been tied to some real reform or items that might actually stimulate the economy rather than just being sure that some 1%ers could afford a third yacht. A discussion of how some of those items could've changed the initial debate of the stimulus, or even if anybody in DC had thought about any of that stuff would've been nice. You know, some stuff a beltway insider might've been able to get access to.

Teh coolest kid in DC also seems rather obsessed about OMG BIGGEST $TImULOUS EVAR!!one! like that means anything. Not mentioned: the 1.3 trillion we've spent in Afghanistan and Iraq so far, and the money we'll spend on everlasting war and "defense" this year, and next year, and next year... And no, sssh, we can't talk about that.

The stimulus should have been a lot bigger, but at least we got what we did at the time, as meager and misdirected (yay moar tax cuts!) as that was.

Could it have been different? Could you ask a dumber or more open ended question next time, Ezra?