What Presidential Leadership?

This Week in Blogs: my contribution to the effort to subvert the dominant link hierarchy:

Over at Blog Reload, Lee Rosenberg has a great post on the origins of South Park Republicans. See also Billmon on libertarianism.
Stirling Newberry has the definitive breakdown of the UK Election.
Peter Levine, my Favorite Blogger Who No One Reads, talks about the rise in liberal sentiment in favor of federalism. I'm not surprised: calls to change the seat of power are usually calls to move decision making power to a more ideologically friendly venue.
Steve Clemons and Laura Rozen are your go-to sites for all things John Bolton related.
Emily talks about her twenty-something crisis, which is apparently a different animal from the quarter-life crisis I experienced. It's true that both involve a desire to be older than one's actual age combined with frequent yearning for the days of college and high school, despite the knowledge that those days can never return and are not really what you're looking for anyway. My quarter-life crisis, half of which is covered by the 8 month gap in my blog archives, was mostly a response to the anti-climax of life immediately post college, which in and of itself is a two thousand word blog post.
The correct order is "quad grande no whip iced mocha".

Are we starting a pool? If so, I'm going to put my money on "never". The modern Republican party has shown very little interest in policy and an awful lot of interest in rewarding campaign contributors and scoring political points. The Bush Social Security pseudo-plan is the latest in this long line that includes the energy bill, placing the Iraq War vote before the midterm elections, criticism of NATO's intervention in Kosovo, Monica Lewinsky, shutting down the government, filibustering the Clinton health care plan, and Whitewater.

Ratajczak also swallows the right-wing claim that promised benefits exceed projected revenues and that it's finances are getting worse, when in fact they're getting better. A shortfall exists in Social Security's financing only if you assume the trustee's projections of economic growth, immigration, and life expectancy are accurate. What's more, the media focus on the medium-cost projection overstates social-security's long term fiscal health; historically, the low-cost projection, which forecasts no trust fund shortfall, has been significantly more accurate.

What Presidential Leadership? Now Playing: Sleater-Kinney / The Hot Rock / God is a Number

What Presidential Leadership?
Now Playing: Sleater-Kinney / The Hot Rock / God is a Number