Tuesday, February 03, 2009 - Posts
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Tuesday, February 3, 2009
What, exactly is the scandal said to be endangering Hilda Solis, Obama's nominee for Secretary of Labor? Solis supports "card check"--a profoundly misguided view, but her view nonetheless. As a member of Congress she presumably lobbies her colleagues to come around to her position. She is also an official in a group, American Rights at Work, that lobbies Congress to come around to the pro-"card check" position. How is that a "conflict of interest"? Seems like a confluence of interest. ... This isn't even a "why buy the cow when you're getting the milk for free" situation, which it would be if Solis had been paid to lobby for what she obviously already believed in. Solis wasn't paid. It's a more a "cow gives away milk for free, then joins group that gives away some more milk for free" situation. Who cares? Why should that be a problem? Am I missing something? ... 12:58 P.M.
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Yesterday's CW: This Daschle business stinks. He has to withdraw!
Today's CW: He sure withdrew easily. Weird.
Tomorrow's CW: Obama sure gave up on him easily. Wimp!
It's like the media's version of the Madonna/Whore complex. If you give in too quickly, they lose respect. 12:56 P.M.
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We were all just too stupid and unsophisticated to appreciate him: "BMW design boss Bangle quits auto industry." You can come out now. The long planetary aesthetic nightmare is over. He wants to make wine in Tuscany. Endlich zum Teufel! . ... Note to career obit writers: That other carmakers imitated Bangle's pretentious, overthought design "cues" did not vindicate him. It only magnified the swath of destruction to the visual landscape! ... Also: BMW sold lots of Bangle cars (though the Gehry-imitating Z4,** flopped). BMW builds the best cars in the world. Imagine how well they would have sold if they hadn't been, you know, ugly. ... Backfill: "I can't help hating Chris Bangle." He demanded that his designs be seen in their grand intellectual context. There was a reason for that! ...
**--With characteristic unpretentiousness, Bangle called the Bilbaoesque Z4 "as big a jump in terms of aesthetic value systems as there was between an Eve before the fall, where she was innocent and pure, and the sexiness that she had was an animalistic pureness that radiated out of her, and an Eve after the fall." Well, all right! Still ugly! ...
***--Raines: gone! Edwards: disgraced! Jim Johnson: radioactive! Richardson; in deep trouble! Reich: outside looking in! Burkle: National figure of fun! ... Only Toobin is left. ... [And Pinch-ed The night is young.] ... 11:50 A.M.
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Daschle Out: 1) Bad precedent for Obama to get stampeded by the prissy, occasionally hysterical N.Y. Times ed board. 2) Daschle died for Geithner's sins, which seem worse in my book;** 3) Excellent Ben Smith fill on Daschle's owner patron, Leo Hindery. A big John Edwards backer, it turns out. Made his money in cable. That's two risk factors right there! ... Also this: "Hindery had set himself up in opposition to Obama's top economic advisors, many of whom were associated with The Hamilton Project, an economic think tank that was the inheritor of former Treasury Secretary Rubin's generally pro-trade position." ... 4) Somewhere, Hillary is smiling, no? ...
**--Update: And Kinsley's .... 11:18 A.M.
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