Can it be true that the media now don't have Sarah Palin to kick around? At least not Governor Palin. She's officially outta there. Some of her final tweets were ridiculous.

Last state twitter. Thank you Alaska! I love you. God bless Alaska....

So it's, I love you, but it's best that I leave you. That's just like a bad break-up. ("It's not you, Alaska, the problem is me....") And there was this one:

W/ kids in camper...AK is BIG/WILD/GOOD LIFE;feel freedom here

As if Palin had gone Kerouac or Merry Prankster: drop out, work is for suckers.

In any event, it seems doubtful Plain will really be gone--as in silent. As she writes--or oversees the ghostwriting of--her book, she'll certainly make various pronouncements that can fuel cable chat about her and her possible presidential ambitions. She might campaign for GOP candidates, if she can find one or two who will accept her assistance.

I wonder if she will continue to be an anti-media crusader. Bashing the elite press used to have a lot of salience with the world of conservatives and Republicans. Jesse Helms went after CBS News (and Dan Rather) for years. These days, though, the elite media just ain't what they used to be. Can anyone argue with a straight face that the United States will lose the war in Afghanistan because of how CBS reports on the war? (Much of the conservative case against the media in the 1970s and 1980s flowed from the notion that the lilly-liver liberals in the media undermined the US military effort in Vietnam.) But suggesting today that CBS News's reports on Afghanistan will affect the outcome would probably get you laughs in most quarters. (Sorry, Walter Cronkite. RIP.)

The big media has lost power and influence, and it's not the foil it once was. Palin's anti-media rants will win over those conservatives who believe that Fox News is the only accurate depiction of reality. There are millions who fall into this category, but it's not an expanding slice of the population. And it's not likely sizeable enough to support a national political effort.

Meanwhile, there surely are Paliniacs who will stand by her. Look at this message put out by TeamSarah.org:

"Sarah Palin has always been an intensely independent woman-- always true to her faith, her family and call to public service. She has provided women with a new political role model, offering a positive example of grace and poise as she deflected the barrage of baseless personal attacks on her family," said Team Sarah Co-Founder Marjorie Dannenfelser. "Her entrance onto the public stage has attracted massive numbers of Americans new to the political process. We have every confidence she will have an equal and profound impact in whatever projects she undertakes as a private citizen."

True to her "call to public service." Didn't she just bail on public service? The statement continues:

"Team Sarah members anxiously await Palin's next decision on how she believes she can best serve our nation. Governor Sarah Palin is the real deal. She is smart; she is articulate; she is strong; she is compassionate and she walks the talk. I believe the ongoing personal attacks on both Governor Palin and her family indicate that she remains a real threat to the liberal feminist political establishment," said Team Sarah Co-Founder Jane Abraham. "Despite the criticism, Governor Palin's success will endure. Team Sarah's thousands of members remain as engaged as ever on TeamSarah.org. The Governor has inspired millions, and her audience of enthusiastic support will only grow in the future."

Yes, when the economy is on its knees, the climate is changing, two wars are waging, and the health care system is sick, the most important job for Palin is to destroy "the liberal feminist political establishment." If Palin plays to this political crowd, she'll make a ton of money--books, speeches, the like--but her political career will be deader than it is at the moment.

*****
THE COWBOYS OF KABUL. Reporter Dan Schulman, my colleague at Mother Jones, has a kick-ass story out about two Texan grandparents who went from bankruptcy to raking in millions as contractors in Afghanistan. There was one little problem, though. According to the US government, they did so by fraud, using phony receipts and ghost employees. This is a twisted tale (and a solid piece of journalism) detailing a vivid example of what can happen in the Wild West bonanza of private contracting in Afghanistan. Read it here

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Are Sarah Palin's true-believers crying, "Say it ain't so"? No, abiding by the spin-is-all rule of modern politics, they are praising Palin's decision to quit as yet more evidence of her leadership abilities.

Team Sarah, a group of conservatives who fancy the soon-to-be-ex Alaska governor, released this statement on Friday night:

WASHINGTON, July 3 -- Today Team Sarah commented on the announcement that Sarah Palin will step down as Governor of Alaska on July 25, 2009: "Sarah Palin has always been an intensely independent woman -- always true to her faith, her family and call to public service. She has taken vast numbers of Americans to a new place: politics without cynicism. And she has provided women with a new political role model," said Team Sarah Co-Founder Marjorie Dannenfelser. "Her entrance onto the public stage has had an immensely positive effect, drawing in massive numbers of Americans new to the political process. We have every confidence she will have an equal and profound impact in whatever projects she undertakes now."

"Team Sarah members anxiously await Palin's next decision on how she believes she can best serve our nation. Since the 2008 Election, the continual presence of personal attacks on both Governor Palin and her family indicate that she remains a threat to the liberal feminist political establishment," said Team Sarah Co-Founder Jane Abraham. "Despite criticism, Governor Palin's success will endure. Team Sarah's thousands of members remain as engaged as ever on TeamSarah.org. The Governor has inspired millions, and her audience of enthusiastic support will only grow in the future."

Team Sarah is a coalition of Americans dedicated to advancing the values that Sarah Palin represents in the political process. Its political networking website, www.teamsarah.org, has grown to over 70,000 activists. Co-Founders of Team Sarah include Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the Susan B. Anthony List, and Jane Abraham, the organization's General Chairman.

Perhaps once you've found your dream gal it's hard to let go.

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Why did Willie Sutton rob banks? Because that's where the money is. Why do Democratic politicians go to Los Angeles? Same reason. A source involved in Democratic fundraising in the City of Angels tells me that by his count there have been eight Democratic senators working Tinseltown this week, while Congress is on a break. He says that may set a record for senatorial money-grubbing in a given week--and that traffic has never been so bad on the West Side.

That was particularly true, he adds, when President Barack Obama was in LA on Wednesday for a Democratic Party fundraiser at the Beverly Hills Hilton that was expected to bring in up to $4 million. (The hosts included Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katezenberg, and David Geffen; top ticket was $15,200.)

Is Hillary Clinton playing Barack Obama? Does she have a secret political plan? Are the Clintons up to anything? We discussed this all on Tuesday night on Hardball:

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At a recent speech in Alaska before a Republican crowd, Governor Sarah Palin complained that during the presidential race last year she had no one on the McCain campaign with whom she could pray at a crucial moment. (And in a big shocker, she slammed the media for treating her unfairly.) Then there's GOP chairman Michael Steele, who says he might consider running for president--that is, if God gives him a sign. What's with all this God-talk from GOPers with less-than-impressive track records as political leaders? On Thursday night, we hashed it out on Hardball:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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On Wednesday morning, Senator Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat, announced he has formed a bloc of centrist Democrats in the Senate who meet every two weeks, and soon after that I was asked to appear on Hardball to discuss the rise of the Blue Dogs of the US Senate. The clip is below. But here are some thoughts.

* Though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has played down Bayh's move, it was certainly something of a disloyal action, a dissing of Reid. In announcing the formation of the group on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Bayh brayed, "We want to make sure legislation is crafted in a practical way that will actually solve people's problems." Doesn't that imply that Reid--and President Barack Obama, too--aren't trying to do that? At a time when the economy is in the middle of various economic crises and the White House is working with Democrats in the House and the Senate to develop policies, did Bayh really have to declare that he was concerned his fellow Democrats were not getting it right? Also, he could have informally convened a group of like-minded legislators for periodic gab sessions. Nothing wrong with that. But by unveiling this bloc as a bloc, he suggested he was going to lean on the White House and the Senate's Democratic leadership.

* This may have more to do with politics than policy. Bayh is up for reelection in 2010. He shouldn't have a tough reelection contest. But shoring up his middle-of-the-road credentials probably won't hurt him in the Hoosier state. Moreover, Bayh is a fellow who has considered going for the big prize--the White House. If the president's economic agenda ends up crashing and burning, Obama could be vulnerable to a Democratic primary challenge. Bayh has been positioning himself as a Democratic deficit hawk worried about government spending. (He was one of three Dems to vote against the earmarks-loaded omnibus spending bill that Obama recently signed.) And there's always 2016. He'll only be 60.

* MOR is always popular. Lots of politicians like to show off centrist credentials--whether they are or not. The Democratic Leadership Council started off as truly a bunch of more conservative Democrats. Then lots of Ds joined, and the group became less ideologically defined as it had once been. The senators who have jumped on Bayh's bandwagon include those who are indeed conservative--for Democrats--such as Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, but others might be going along mostly for the ride.

* What's a centrist these days? The political center has shifted so much this past year. Dumping the Bush tax cuts, getting out of Iraq, spending trillions on bailouts and stimulus--that's all middle-ground politics now. So what will Bayh and his Senate Blue Dogs bark about? Perhaps card check. Maybe they'll grouse about some of the spending, though they did vote for the recovery package.

* Bayh is no Mr. Excitement. It's true that political reporters relish conflict and will gobble up any soundbite from Bayh that contains a hint of a jab against Obama or the Senate Democratic leaders. But he's hardly a rousing personality who can inspire millions across the country to question the president's decisions.

Jim Hightower likes to say that all you find in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead armadillos. To that not-so-stirring list, add Evan Bayh.

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Former Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, has weighed in on his party's Rush wars.

Rush Limbaugh is "the center of gravity" of the Republican Party, and "we need a new center of gravity," Hagel told me on Tuesday night.

That evening, Hagel was taping an interview with Rachel Maddow for her MSNBC show. Now cochairman of the Commission on United States Policy Toward Russia, he discussed Russian President Dmitri Medvedev's announcement that Russia would begin a "large-scale rearming" and the news that Russia might be putting long-range bombers in Cuba and Venezuela. On the segment, Hagel, who was a foreign policy leader in the Senate, talked about his recent trip to Moscow and called for moving the US-Russia relationship back to a "smart" track. He also criticized former Vice President Dick Cheney for claiming that the Obama administration has placed the nation in danger and noted that Cheney was partly responsible for the "mess" the Bush administration left behind.

On the show, Hagel took a shot at new Republican Party chairman Michael Steele. Asked about Steele's threat to support primary challengers against Republican Senators Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe, who each defied GOP leaders and voted for Obama's stimulus package, Hagel called it "a very foolish, foolish move," commenting, "there's no room for that kind of silliness." He added, "People expect serious people to deal with serious issues and to govern seriously. And when you don't do that, you become irrelevant."

Maddow did not ask Hagel about Limbaugh. But prior to the taping, Hagel was not shy about bemoaning Limbaugh's drag on his party. He told me that Limbaugh was the opposite of what the Republican Party needs now. "We blew eight years of governing," Hagel said, excoriating GOPers for having "run up" the national debt. "You can only blame Ted Kennedy for so much," he remarked.

Hagel's comments about Limbaugh were not surprising. Before he left the Senate last year, after serving two terms, Hagel developed the reputation of an independent Republican. He flirted with a presidential run in 2008 and then backed off. Last summer, he practically endorsed Obama, traveling to Iraq with him, when John McCain's campaign was attacking Obama for being soft on defense and accusing him of wanting to lose the war there.

The Rush wars, though, have abated in the past week. Steele has moved on, after apologizing to Limbaugh for calling his broadcasts "ugly" and "incendiary." Pro-administration groups have throttled back on the anti-Limbaugh ads. The mini-uproar over Limbaugh's offensive reference to Ted Kennedy's possible death has subsided. (The new GOP cat-fight is a three-way dust-up involving Laura Ingraham, Meghan McCain, and Ann Coulter.)

But Limbaugh's not fading away, and Republicans will continue to have to figure out their party's relationship to the radio provocateur. And Hagel, for one, does not want his party--he still calls himself a Republican--to be fall prey to Limbaugh's gravitational pull.

Here's Hagel on The Rachel Maddow Show:

This was first posted at MotherJones.com....You can follow my postings and media appearances via Twitter by clicking here.

Talk about an odd couple.

It was only days ago that an irate John McCain took to the Senate floor to chastise President Barack Obama for signaling he would sign the gargantuan spending bill now being considered by Congress that contains a boat-load of earmarks. "Some much for the promise of change," the defeated Republican presidential candidate declared, his voice dripping with anger and sarcasm--and perhaps a touch of bitterness.

On Wednesday morning, though, there was McCain standing elbow-to-elbow with Obama, as the president unveiled a presidential memorandum that will reform government contracting, particularly Pentagon contracting. (A White House fact sheet released in conjunction with Obama's remarks notes that a General Accounting Office study last year of 95 major military programs found costs overruns on 26 percent, totally $295 billion. You can bail out a lot of banks with that kind of dough.) And Obama was praising McCain's efforts to reform military procurement:

I'm so pleased to support the goals of the bipartisan effort on procurement reform that has been led by our own Carl Levin and John McCain in the Senate. They have done extraordinary work trying to push this issue to the forefront. We want to see if we can partner with Senator McCain and Senator Levin to get this done as soon as possible. And thanks to Secretary Gates, some of the reforms that they've talked about are already beginning to take shape. And I've asked him to work with Senators Levin and McCain on developing this legislation as it moves forward,

Obama has played the magnanimty card well. When last month he held the financial responsibility summit at the White House, Obama conducted something of a seminar, calling on the major players in the room and asking for their thoughts. The first person he selected was McCain. And the night before his inauguration, Obama held a bipartisan dinner for McCain. Now, even after McCain kicked Obama in the teeth over earmarks, Obama hailed his past rival as a champion of military procurement reform.

Of course, this is good politics for Obama. Whenever Obama can drape some McCain-ess over an initiative or policy, it will help Obama, as well as indicate that Obama is making good on his vow to encourage bipartisan action in Washington. But plenty of presidents in the past have not been able to resist the temptations of vindictiveness. Obama is indeed showing that he can rise above petty politics. Cynics will say that he's doing so only to serve his own ends. (And, no doubt, some conservatives will be upset with McCain for allowing himself to be used by Obama in any fashion.) But sometime doing what's right politically is the same as doing what's right, period. Obama has demonstrated he can be generous and savvy simultaneously. That's a pretty damn good combination for a politician--and a leader.

Rightwing activists gathered at a Washington hotel this week for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, where they listened to party leaders bash Barack Obama and George Bush and make excuses for the sad state of both the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Various speakers blamed the liberal media, the spending excesses of the Bush administration and congressional Republicans, and John McCain's lousy performance as a candidate for their movement's woes. What they neglected to do was consider whether the bedrock principles of conservatism--fetishizing the free-market and demonizing government--were no longer operative and out of sync with the present reality. I discussed this on Hardball:

By the way, if you haven't seen it yet, check out this story on how former UN Ambassador John Bolton jokingly suggested at CPAC that a nuclear attack on Chicago would teach Obama a much-needed lesson about national security. And the audience responded with laughter and cheers.

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Two weeks ago, the major national political narrative was congressional Republicans taking on the new president regarding a stimulus bill they decried as wasteful and ineffective. But that has shifted. The big-news story now is Republicans bickering among themselves. I was on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show on Monday night to discuss the take-the-money-or-not-debate that is weighing down (and perhaps further ruining) the Republican Party:

Meanwhile, there's more evidence of a snark-ridden riff within the GOP.

Where's Sarah Palin?

The Alaskan governor apparently will not be appearing in person at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual gathering of rightwing gurus and grassroots activists. She's going to phone it in--that is, speak by video to the hundreds or thousands (are there still thousands of conservative activists?) assembling later this week in a Washington, DC, hotel.

CPAC is a traditional weigh station for Republican presidential wannabes eager to suck up to the base. They try to wow (or appease) the activists and hobnob with the leaders of the national conservative movement. Last year, John McCain, on his way to bagging the GOP presidential nomination, was compelled to attend the meeting and make nice with the wing of the party that has tended to despise him. And CPAC is ground zero for the GOP's cultural war generals and foot-soldiers. Where else can Phyllis Schlafly get a standing ovation?

So it would seem a natural stop for Palin. But she's taking a pass.

There are at least two plausible explanations:

I attended Robert Gibbs' first (and very crowded) White House briefing as press secretary and asked whether President Obama--when he earlier signed an executive order banning torture--had not used the phrase "war on terror" purposefully. (Instead, the new president had referred to the "ongoing struggle" against violence and terrorism.) To find out what Gibbs said, click here.

Many of the queries at the briefing were about that executive orders and another one setting a one-year deadline for closing Gitmo. Gibbs made no news explaining and defending those orders. There were several questions about Wall Street Bailout II, and Gibbs patiently repeated the Obama claim--which seems credible--that he will handle and disburse the bailout funds in a more effective and more transparent manner than the Bush crowd did last year.

There was only one question on Iraq, and nothing on Afghanistan. (Ann Compton of ABC News asked if the military commanders with whom Obama spoke the day before had expressed any "reservations or concerns" about his plan to pull out combat troops within 16 months. Gibbs essentially--and unsurprisingly--said no.) The most buzzy topic was the second swearing-in conducted at the White House the previous night. The press corps dwelled on that a bit much. And then every journo in the room started scribbling furiously when Gibbs disclosed that Obama will keep his BlackBerry, while only using it for limited communications with a limited n umber of senior--make that, very senior--aides. Thinking of those possible millions of missing Bush White House emails, I threw in a follow-up: will Obama's BlackBerry messages be preserved and archived in accordance with the laws governing presidential records. Yup, Gibbs said.

One of the more intriguing questions of the sessions concerned a standard White House procedure: background briefings. This happens when administration officials talk to a group of reporters about a particular issue, and the reporters can use the information provided, but only by citing unnamed White House aides. They cannot ID these officials. The practice is useful for reporters. They get more information. And it's often no big secret in Washington who the unnamed officials are, given that a bunch of journalists know. But in a White House led by a man who has pledged greater transparency, should background briefings be continued? One reporter asked:

My take on President Obama's first speech, first posted at MotherJones.com....

With over a million exhilarated Americans filling the space between the civic shrines of the Capitol and the Washington Monument on the National Mall, President Barack Obama, in the first American inaugural address delivered by a black man, acknowledged the enthusiasm and hope he and his victory have inspired, but his speech was not overly celebratory. Instead, he attempted to guide the nation into what promises, due to circumstances heretofore beyond his control, to be a somber time and a trying presidency.

Underneath clear skies on a crisp, slightly-colder-than-usual day, the 44th president began, "I stand here today humbled by the task before us." He noted that he had just become one of the few presidents who takes office "amidst gathering clouds and raging storms." He outlined the obvious problems his administration faces: war, a weak economy (partly due to the "greed and irresponsibility" of "some"), job losses, businesses closed, homes lost, a broken health care system, and failing schools.

Vowing to meet these daunting challenges, the new president offered not policy details but, yes, hope. He praised the unsung workers (including slaves) of America's past, "obscure in their labor," who built this country. But, he added, the current challenges "will not be met easily or in a short span of time." He maintained that Americans "must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America." And that renewal, he said, would demand "bold and swift" action, including the building of roads and bridges, electric grids and digital lines. It also would entail reforming health care, developing alternative energy, and revitalizing schools. He acknowledged this is a big job.

Obama portrayed his response to the moment at hand as ideology-free: "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them--that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works--whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified." Obama can try to depict his agenda as post-ideological, but these words do convey the opposite sentiment of Ronald Reagan's first inaugural address: "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." And Obama did challenge another fundamental precept of conservatism when he noted that the free market cannot always be trusted: "without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control." This was a speech of progressive notions--without explicitly championing them.

'Tis the season, so....

I was on Rachel Maddow's show on Friday night, discussing the Rick Warren wrangle. What a surprise, we agreed--mostly. But she seemed to think that the Warren controversy could remain the story of the inauguration from now until January 20. I noted that it was clear to me that the Obama crew had calculated that the current dustup is not nearly as big as the holy war that would ensue should the president-elect rescind his invitation to the super-pastor. Unless the present outrage widens, I observed, the controversy could fade.

But before it does, I'd like to take one more (polite) shot at Warren. I do find him an intriguing fundamentalist, given his interest in climate change and poverty alleviation. And he has certainly tried to oppose gay marriage without appearing like a hate-monger. I suppose that's worth something. But while campaigning fervently against gay marriage, he recently said:

The issue to me is, I'm not opposed to that as much as I'm opposed to the redefinition of a 5,000-year definition of marriage. I'm opposed to having a brother and sister be together and call that marriage. I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.

Warren's critics have pointed to this quote as evidence that he equates gays and lesbians with incest-lovers and pedophiles. (Indeed, when asked if he thought these other examples are "equivalent to having gays getting married," he said, "Oh, I do.") But I'd like to note Warren's adherence to this 5000-year definition of marriage.

Why doesn't Warren know his Bible better?

I'm no biblical scholar. But I can use Google. And I found BibleGateway.com, a searchable version of the Bible. I plugged "wives" into the search box and came up with the following results:

Bloomberg has one of my favorite perennial Washington pay-to-play stories:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s political action committee contributed the maximum $10,000 to Connecticut Republican Christopher Shays's effort this year to keep his House seat.

Shays lost. Two weeks later, the PAC gave $5,000 to the winner, Democrat Jim Himes, whom it had shunned during the campaign.

New York-based Goldman Sachs, which declined comment, isn't alone. Other company PACs, including AT&T Inc. and Bank of America Corp., also began filling the campaign coffers of the freshmen who ousted their preferred candidates, federal records show.

"When an incumbent loses, donors naturally turn their attention to the new officeholder," said Rogan Kersh, associate dean of New York University's Wagner School of Public Service. "It's the American version of, 'The King is dead. Long live the King!'"

This happens after every election. Corporations that picked the losing candidate quickly turn around and dole out campaign cash to the victors. Why would they do this? Duh--to get access to these legislators so they can try to influence their votes on key matters. There's been plenty of chest-thumping in recent days about Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and the corrupt pay-to-play system in Illinois. Yet a well-established version of pay-to-play exists in the nation's capital. It may be that Senate seats are not bought and sold in Washington; they're just rented. Which brings me to.....

The main reason the $700 billion bailout bill failed in the House is that the Republican leaders, who were working with the Democratic leaders to pass the bill, could not count. They did not round up enough of their comrades for the bill; one hundred and thirty-three House GOPers said nyet to what some of them considered to be socialism. But the bill also failed because 95 House Dems would not go along with Hank Paulson's Billions-for-Bad-Paper plan, when alternative approaches were worth considering. (I refer to some of those options here.) And a leader of a subset of these Democrats--dubbed the Skeptics Caucus--has been Representative Brad Sherman.

Sherman attracted several dozen members to a series of meetings and briefings this past weekend, as the bill was being negotiated by others. As he left Congress after the vote on Monday, he told me that the most effective argument he made was that the bailout bill was darn weak when it came to recouping the taxpayers' $700 billion. He cited a memo he circulated among colleagues that pointed out that taxpayers were not likely to see that money--either in profits from a future selloff of the bad assets the Treasury would buy from Big Finance Firms or in a revenue bill (meaning some sort of tax on the finance industry). In other words, he challenged Paulson and his own party leaders on a fundamental of the bill: this is not a handout, but a timely investment.

What's going to happen now? The safe bet is that the D and R leaders in the House will tweak the bill or offer enough inducements to individual members (a bridge, anyone?) to win over 13 members to insure passage of the legislation. That is, there won't be a wholesale revision of the basics. So the revenue issue may remain hot. And Sherman expects to come back to Washington later this week to keep the battle going. Here's the memo he disseminated:

TAXPAYERS HIGHLY UNLIKELY TO RECOUP ANY OF THE COSTS -- Brad Sherman 9/29/08

We know that the Bailout Bill allows million-dollar-a-month salaries to executives of bailed-out firms, and it allows hundreds of billions to be used to buy toxic assets currently held by foreign investors. But we are told: "don't worry, this $700 billion bill won't cost us anything. We will get it all back next decade through a revenue bill."

I. Section 134 of the Bailout Bill merely says that the President must submit a revenue bill to Congress in 2013 that recoups from the financial industry the taxpayers' net losses.

a. If the President has any revenue ideas he actually likes, he would submit them to us anyway.
b. If the President submits revenue ideas only because he is forced to by Section 134, he will send it to us with a note saying that he believes they are bad for the country, and reserves the right to veto.
c. The Bailout Bill does not automatically enact any revenue increases, nor protect a revenue bill from filibuster or veto.

II. Congress is unlikely to pass a tax increase bill of hundreds of billions of dollars in 2013.

a. Tax increase bills are anathema to many.
b. 41 Senators can block the plan. We're giving Wall Street enough money to hire 4100 lobbyists.
c. In recent years, Wall Street has easily defeated every attempt to close every loophole that they exploit, no matter how pernicious-even the abusive use of Cayman Island tax havens by hedge fund managers, who thereby pay zero tax.

III. Any tax on the financial industry would make the good banks pay a huge tax so we can recoup what we gave to the bad banks.

a. Section 134 says the tax will be on "the financial industry." It does not provide for a tax on just those firms that received bailout payments.
b. A bank that doesn't get a bailout payment still pays the tax.
c. Community banks and perhaps credit unions will also be subject to the tax, so we can recoup what we gave to Wall Street.

IV. It is impossible to draft a tax that hits only those firms that received bailout payments, and even more impossible to draft one that taxes each bank in proportion to how much money we lost on its toxic assets.

a. There are no provisions to even keep track of losses on each asset purchased as it is managed over the years. Assets purchased from several
banks will be pooled, managed, and sold together, and we can never know how much we lost on assets purchased from any one bank.
b. If three banks in the year 2013 have the same income and size and operations, they will all pay the same tax-even if one got no bailout payments, a second got a million dollars, and a third got a billion dollars.
c. Many bailed-out firms won't exist in 2013.

1. Some will go under.
2. Some bailed-out firms are only shell companies. Example: Assume the Bank of Shanghai has $30 billion in toxic assets. It will sell these to the tiny subsidiary it has incorporated in California. The subsidiary will then sell these to the Treasury in 2009, and will be dissolved long before 2013.
3. Many bailed-out firms will still be unprofitable in 2013.
4. Some bailed-out firms will move offshore before 2013.

d. The whole purpose of the bill is to improve the balance sheets of the bailed-out firms. If particular bailed-out firms owe us the money they receive, they would have to list this as a liability, and the bill would fail to improve their balance sheets.

In 2013 we will not pass a tax bill that imposes hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes on the financial services industry, including those banks that got no bailouts, community banks, and credit unions. A tax bill imposed only on those entities that got bailout payments is impossible to draft, and contrary to the purposes of the Bill.

If it were easy to pass a bill to recoup hundreds of billions of dollars through taxes to be imposed in 2013 and thereafter, then provisions imposing such taxes would be in today's bill.

Wall Street gets their money now, and we get it back never.

On a McCain campaign conference call with reporters on Tuesday, Senator Lindsey Graham and former POW Orson Swindle continued to bash retired General Wesley Clark for his recent statement that John McCain's military service did not qualify him to be president. Graham, who has become a lead attack dog for McCain, touted McCain's executive experience, citing his days as a squadron leader and his tenure in the Senate. And Exhibit A regarding McCain's spine-of-steel leadership, he noted, was McCain's criticism of Donald Rumsfeld's failed strategy in Iraq. This is a familiar refrain within the McCain camp: McCain was willing, even at political peril, to decry the disastrous Rumsfeld policy in Iraq. Supposedly, this shows McCain is a fellow of guts and grit.

Wait-a-second. It's not that gutsy when you scapegoat the Pentagon chief but let the commander in chief off easy. Moreover, why should McCain win points for denouncing a failure once it was widely perceived as a failure. Where was this former military man prior to the war. When informed experts--including General Eric Shinseki--were suggesting that the Rumsfeld plan for Iraq was inadequate (because a lot more troops would be needed inside the country after the invasion), McCain did not display prescience and courage by backing them up. I recall no sign of him questioning the planning of the war or the early post-invasion decisions of the Bush administration. Two weeks before the war, he said, "I have no qualms about our strategic plans."

After the invasion, McCain did stand by the administration and Rumsfeld for several years. In March 2004, he said, "We're on the right course." In May of that year, he was backing Rumsfeld, saying it was "premature" to talk of booting Rumsfeld from his job. "He's done a fine job," McCain remarked. In December 2005, he said, "I do think that progress is being made in a lot of Iraq" and called for staying the course. And into 2005, McCain insisted that there were the right number of troops in Iraq--that is, that no surge was needed. (You can find a list of McCain's everything's-going-well remarks here.)

Why award McCain a medal for eventually slamming Rumsfeld and backing a surge? Had he earlier--even before the war--pointed out problems and called for a more effective strategy, he would deserve kudos for both smarts and political courage. He did indeed break with Rumsfeld (not Bush) sooner than some other Republicans. But he rode the Bush-Rumsfeld Express for years. Which leads to this fair conclusion: had he been in charge, he would have made the same mistakes they did.

MSNBC's First Read put out a good guide to the starting place for the titanic clash between Barack Obama and John McCain:

About two months ago, we unveiled our early look at the electoral map. And this being the second official day of the general election, now's as good a time as any to see where we stand in the McCain vs. Obama race.

Base Obama: CA, CT, DE, DC, HI, IL, MD, MA, NY, RI, VT (153 electoral votes)
Lean Obama: ME, NJ, MN, OR, WA (47 votes)

Toss-up: CO, FL, IA, MI, NV, NM, NH, OH, PA, VA, WI (138 votes)

Lean McCain: AR, GA, IN, LA, MS, MO, MT, NE, NC, ND (84 votes)

Base McCain: AL, AK, AZ, ID, KS, KY, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, WV, WY (116 votes)

While both McCain and Obama get to 200 when adding up their base and lean states, it's clear to see that Obama has an early edge with the map. Not only does he have a stronger base than McCain does (153 votes vs. 116), but he also has more potential pick-up opportunities. When you add toss-up and "Lean McCain," Obama has the potential for another 222 votes outside his favored states. By comparison, McCain's toss-up and "Lean Obama" comes to 185. Of course, potential sometimes means just that -- potential. At the end of the day, Obama will likely win few, if any, of those Lean McCain states. But his reach right now seems much longer than McCain's.

It is indeed interesting that each candidate comes out of the gate with exactly 200 electoral votes from their best states. (You need 270 to win.) And in a CBS News poll out today, Obama leads McCain, 48 to 42 percent in a national survey, which is relatively close. It's always better to be ahead than behind, but what will matter on Election Day is not either candidate's national lead, but how they perform in those "lean" and "toss-up" states. As we've seen in the Democratic primaries, an election in any given state can trend far from the national numbers. Though Obama generally maintained an edge over Hillary Clinton in national polls during the primaries, the results in some states varied greatly from the national average (with each Democrat occasionally whupping the other).

It ain't going out on a limb to say that when the overall trends for the general election are in the Dems' favor McCain can still win by playing hard and tight in a few critical states. He does not have to buck the national tide from sea to shining sea; he has to do it in spots.

Still, there's something rather poetic about a clean and even start to the general election. In the past day, Obama and McCain have discussed holding joint town hall meetings or Lincoln-Douglas-style debates. How grand that would be. I've always thought that rather than mount formal and stuffy debates, we ought to put the two nominees in a room with a television camera and ask them to talk. How they handle each other, how they ask questions, how they respond to questions, how they hold themselves--all that would be useful information for voters. If either talked too long, interrupted too much, avoided issues, relied on spin rather than substance, rudely violated the basic rules of the event, he or she would risk the wrath of voters. So I say, let 'er rip: McCain and Obama, one table, two chairs, a set of television cameras, no moderators, no YouTube or email questions--and the American public watching. That would be Must See TV.

Pennsylvania? Predictions? I don't do predictions. But I will hazard this guess: the race will not be over after the Pennsylvania results are posted. In fact, I think Hillary Clinton is in the race--no matter what--until at least the end of the primaries in early June. And perhaps longer. If she does not fare well in Pennsylvania and the next primaries, the call for her to quit will get louder within the Democratic Party. But my hunch is this: she won't listen. Now on to today's posting....

On Monday, John McCain tried to expropriate the glory of a civil rights hero. On Tuesday, he stuck his head in the sand.

As part of his so-called "Time for Action" speaking tour, McCain on Tuesday rolled into Youngstown, Ohio, to give a speech at a local university. In the address--according to a text released before the event by his campaign--McCain tried to empathize with the displaced workers of the Rust Belt:

We hear people talking a lot these days about new industries on the rise and new skills in demand. But they're not the industries you grew up with, and they're not the skills many workers have spent twenty or thirty years learning on the job. People in the know like to discourse about the new global economy -- it's always "global" this and "global" that. But sometimes it seems that the map of the world they are using has only capitals, financial centers, and port cities. And where are the places like Canton, and Lima, and Akron, and Youngstown? Where's the heartland, where men and women know how to make things, and how to do the job with pride?

So what's he gonna do? McCain talked about the usual Republican fare: cutting taxes. He also touted his plan to make health care "more portable and affordable with generous tax credits." (Jonathan Gruber, a professor of economics at M.I.T. says that McCain's proposal is "fine except for the poor and the sick.") And McCain hyped his modest plan for helping "responsible sub-prime borrowers who played by the rules." He declared he would cut wasteful government spending and go after corporate welfare. He mentioned reforming the unemployment insurance system and job training programs.

But he ignored one critical matter: trade. There was not one word in the speech about trade agreements. He tried to sound the populist, bashing those who use the word "global" without paying attention to Middle America. But McCain said nothing about job dislocation caused by trade deals. Nor did he say anything about outsourcing and runaway factories. There was little in his speech that would discomfort the corporate class. Sure, tax cuts and better job-training programs. Who's against that?

McCain's speech was artfully crafted. But when he has to go up against a Democrat who does recognize that trade deals, overseas outsourcing, and runaway factories are part of the problem, McCain, with this narrow approach, is going to look more like a corporate-class Republican than a heartland populist. One wonders why McCain even bothered trekking to Youngstown to woo "the men and women of Youngstown [who] know what it feels like to be counted out," if he counts out big chunks of the crisis they face.

On Monday morning, John McCain traveled to Selma, Alabama, to give a speech about patriotism and courage--that is, to expropriate the patriotism and courage of a Barack Obama supporter.

Speaking at the site of a critical civil rights clash. McCain described in detail that turning point in America's history:

Forty-three years ago, an army of more than five hundred marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge; an army that brought with them no weapons, which intended no destruction; that sought to conquer no people or land.

He went on to cite, in much detail, the heroic actions of John Lewis, who led that protest and who today is a Democratic congressman supporting Obama:

At the head of the column, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, tie and tan raincoat, marched a twenty-five year old son of Alabama sharecroppers, John Lewis. They had planned to march from Selma to Montgomery, but they knew they would never reach there. They had been warned they would be met with force, and at the crest of the bridge, they were. Until then, they had marched in silence, with dignity and resolve, men, women, children and old people. All was quiet, even the angry crowd that watched the marchers. But everything was alive with apprehension, with the expectation that something momentous and terrible was imminent.

On the other side of the bridge, row upon row of state troopers in blue uniforms and white helmets, many on horseback, prepared to charge and stop with violence the peaceful army, intent only on conquering injustice. John Lewis took the first blow, a baton thrust to the stomach that shoved him back on the marchers behind him. He took the second blow, too, a hard swung club to his head, leaving a permanent scar where it struck. Blood poured from the wound, darkening his raincoat. He tried to struggle to his feet, and then collapsed unconscious, his skull fractured.

McCain went on to note that millions of Americans "watched brave John Lewis fall." He referred to Lewis and his comrades as "the best kind of patriots." He quoted Lewis. ("When I care about something, I'm prepared to take the long, hard road.") He cited Lewis' adherence to Martin Luther King Jr.'s concept of the "beloved community."

All this was to make a political point for McCain: "I will be traveling to places in America that aren't enjoying the prosperity many other parts of America enjoy, but where people are walking a long, hard road to make sure that their children will know the opportunities that other American children possess." McCain noted he would listen to these Americans "and learn from them about what government is doing to help their efforts and what it does to hinder them."

But what about McCain's own ideas? He had nothing specific to say about what he would do to help these people. But he had more to say about Lewis:

In America, we have always believed that if the day was a disappointment, we would win tomorrow. That's what John Lewis believed when he marched across this bridge. That's what he still believes; what he still fights to achieve: a better country than the one he inherited.

It was as if McCain was trying to wrap himself in the bloody shirt of John Lewis. McCain, of course, was not part of the civil rights movement. In fact, in 1983, he was one of 77 Republican House members to vote against the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. He has never been close to Lewis, according to an associate of Lewis. He did not tell Lewis he would be making this speech, and he did not invite Lewis to attend the event. Lewis learned about the speech from reporters. (And, as of this writing, Lewis has yet to comment on it.) Given Lewis' high-profile support of Obama, McCain's speech--which was far more about John Lewis than John McCain--was rather odd. After all, the "better country" that Lewis now fights for would be led by a President Obama.

Yet McCain dissed Obama:

Hope in America is not based in delusion, but in the faith that everything is possible in America. The time for pandering and false promises is over. It is time for action. It is time for change; the right kind of change; change that trusts in the strength of free people and free markets; change that doesn't return to policies that empower government to make our choices for us, but that works to ensure we have choices to make for ourselves.

That's hardly John Lewis' vision of America (let alone Obama's). By the way, the goal of Lewis' civil rights movement was to pass federal legislation to protect the rights of oppressed Americans--yes, to expand and empower government. So Selma is hardly the appropriate locale for McCain to be strutting his libertarian stuff.

Toward the end of his speech, McCain said,

I am here because it is a place where great Americans once fought to do just that, and I'm going to places where they are still fighting for change; to make us a better country. I am going to meet and learn from patriots.

Maybe he can learn a little history from them--and also learn that he ought to be selling his own exploits to bolster civil rights and social justice in the United States (if he has any), not exploiting those of others.

Like everyone else in New Hampshire--reporters, campaign workers for Hillary Clinton and for Barack Obama, and ski lift operators--I thought Obama was schussing toward victory (perhaps even a double-digit--victory) in the Live Free or Die state. Howard Kurtz slaps the media silly today for calling the race so wrong. (Sometimes, Kurtz really has it easy.) But to explain--not excuse--let me note that on Election Day, all the Clinton folks in New Hampshire had the look of death on their faces. They were telling reporters that the campaign was not working. They were saying that it would have to be retooled. We were all fooled by the data that was available: the polls, the obvious passion and attendance gap between Obama's events and Clinton's. The media's big error was not misreading this information, though that was a mistake; it was overhyping the collective conventional wisdom. But that's what the media tend to do in order to win attention. Will a cable talk show host who plays it calm and cool ("we don't really know what's going to happen; the front-runner could win again; then again, another candidate might triumph") bag a bigger audience than one who bangs a drum loudly, playing up the drama and sharing sharp opinions? The same goes for bloggers and the tabloids.

In any event, I wonder how much--if at all--the media coverage of the race affected the results. Did Iowa voters decide who to vote for on the basis of what was said on Fox News or MSNBC? Did those legendary independent-minded voters of New Hampshire take their cues from the political coverage of The New York Times, Washington Post, or the New York Post? In both states, voters can obtain their information and impressions directly from the candidates. I doubt media coverage was a significant factor--though some analysts now wonder if anti-Clinton coverage motivated female voters to come to the rescue of this damsel in distress. (That is, blame Chris Matthews.)

Now for my own mea culpa. I was carried away by hope. I try not to make political predictions and mostly resisted the urge this week. But when asked, I did say a double-digit victory was possible, if not likely, for Obama. Whoops. I should have stuck to my previous, pre-Iowa skepticism. Months ago, I did the math. Women, I noted, tend to vote in greater numbers than men. If Hillary could lock up a decent-sized majority (or plurality) of the women vote, she could be unstoppable. The math was simply overwhelming--particularly in a race involving her and multiple male candidates. Obama was facing a double gender-gap: more Democratic women voting in general, and more of those women supporting Clinton. I repeated this back-of-the-envelope analysis to Obama fans. No, I was told, hope will win out.

It did in Iowa. Obama did play well there among women. But then the women came home. Why? Partly because the Clinton campaign mounted an efficient get-out-the-gals organizing campaign in New Hampshire and made sure their appeal was just right for Democratic women. And perhaps because Democratic women did not want to see Hillary Clinton, the first woman with a shot of becoming president, so easily dispatched. (I'm not going to try to factor in--or out--the near-crying episode.)

To understand Clinton's appeal to Democratic women, several male reporters I know have turned to a very particular focus group: their mothers. Several colleagues have told me that they have heard from their moms on the subject of Clinton, usually with the mother sharing a positive view of the candidate. (In other words, treat her fairly!) After the results came in on Tuesday night, my mother weighed in. She emailed me, "I sort of wanted Obama to win, but was happy that she won." But Ma was also pleased that Clinton had not won "by a landslide." See the conflict? Democratic women do have a tough choice: between that reliable warhorse (of whom they may have mixed feelings) and that inspirational new guy. In South Carolina, African-American woman will be confronted by the same--and maybe more so.

Earlier in the race, it did seem rather noteworthy that the Democratic contest could produce either the first female nominee or the first black nominee of a major party. While that remains true, the contest appears to have hit the shoals of identity politics. And, boy, there's not much more than race and gender matters that commentators and pundits like to chew on (except, of course, sex). So in the next few weeks, as gender and racial politics overtly shape and perhaps define the presidential race on the Democratic side, there ought to be plenty of opportunity for us journalists (particularly us white-guy journalists) to get something wrong again.