Voice of reason

That would be, perhaps, Daniel Gross writing at Slate, that it is not time to party like it’s 1929, because it isn’t 1929. Many of the institutions that exist now (as a result of the Great Depression), such as FDIC and Social Security, serve as ultimate economic shock absorbers, and further, unlike the 30’s, when in one year alone over 4,000 banks failed, things are bad, but not like that. (Mr. Gross fails to mention the perennial economic demand machine known as “the military industrial complex,” so I will, though of course, spending on the refurbishment of the bridge of an aircraft carrier is spending not available on refurbishment of a bridge on an interstate highway… but I digress.)
Anyway, the point is that in matters economic (most unlike, say, matters military… again, I digress!), attitude and “confidence” really do matter because (again, unlike military matters), individual decisions do add up to economic activity, one way or another. His point is that we can expect President Obama to have a tough economic hand, but as with his election, quite a few “roads to victory” that may have not been available to FDR in the 1930’s, because things aren’t quite so bad as the hyperbole suggests (though they are plenty bad, to be sure.)
Not that this minor proto-Depression we are in is any reason whatsoever to take away from the only important story now (and most important story in the history of the world), that being Hillary, and now, the fact that some of Team O may be questioning the boss’s judgment.
Don’t know. I spoke to a colleague who noted that my phrase, “Well, Barack seems to know what he’s doing; who am I to question his judgment?” had been repeated to her three times in the same day, causing her, also an Obama supporter, to ask “What kind of cult does Barack have going?”
Of course… what if that’s the point? Getting the press and the right wing’s bile all up over Hillary and the ongoing Familia Clinton psycho-drama, so that Obama can quietly take the grand, dramatic and strategic steps necessary to restore the economy to health and the public fisc to soundness (national singlepayer health care, for example) while everyone’s focus is on the Foggy Bottom Soap Opera (all while the real foreign policy is managed by himself and Joe Biden.) Surely… Obama is too much of a political naif to do anything so boldly and insanely Macchiavellian… isn’t he?
Update (thought balloon): Of course, one of the names swirling around as a possible appointment to replace Senator Hillary Clinton is none other than former President Bill Clinton; such an appointment would be sheer poetry as Clinton would then join Andrew Johnson as not only the only other impeached President, but the only other President to have served in the Senate after the White House. For added fun, there would be a special election in 2010 to complete the last two years of the term… might then thirty year old Chelsea Clinton take a run at the seat? Just saying…