Big Old Roundup

Items of note from the last couple weeks:

• 5 Myths About an Election of Mythic Proportions: 1. The Republican Party suffered a death blow; 2. A wave of black voters and young people was the key to Obama's victory; 3. Now that they control the White House and Congress, Democrats will usher in a new progressive era; 4. A Republican candidate could have won the presidency this year; 5. McCain made a huge mistake in picking Sarah Palin


• Ex-Lobbyists Have Key Obama Roles. The political hypocrisy continues. Is this the change people were hoping for?


• So far the Big Three bailout has been a no-go, which is a good thing. Some thoughts from Cato. And good arguments against bailing out the Big Three automakers: Here, and here (in the later, David Brooks (temporarily!) remembers he's a conservative).


• Kathleen Parker still hasn't remembered that she's a conservative.
 

• Russel Roberts, brilliant as always, argues the "credit crunch" is due to a lack of certainty, not a lack of liquidity. (Related - last Sunday on 60 minutes, Obama indicated he wanted to take an FDR-like "try things until it works" approach to the economy; that doesn't seem like it's going to help with the uncertainty - and it probably won't help generally.)


• The Washington Post discusses liberal bias. Howard Kurtz appropriately asks aren't media people supposed to resist this kind of hyperventilating?. Deborah Howell, WaPo Ombudsman, admits that "some of the conservatives' complaints about a liberal tilt are valid" and lists a slew of examples. I still don't think she fully gets it though - her article is titled "Remedying the Bias Perception," it should be titled "Remedying the Bias Problem." We're percieving it because it's real, Ms. Howell.


• The best use yet for TARP's 700 billion.


• Clintonite Rahm Emanuel. Clintonite (and lobbyist) Greg Craig. Clintonite John Podesta. Actual-Clinton Hillary Clinton. This "politics of the future" looks a lot like the politics of the past - say 1992 or so. As of 11/14, Politico points out "Thirty-one of the 47 people so far named to transition or staff posts have ties to the Clinton administration." (Smarmily: "Thanks!")


• With the Clinton pick - Some hope I can believe in for actually finishing the job in Iraq. Jonah Goldberg notes: "Obama's signature issue in the primaries was his "good judgment" to oppose the Iraq war. ... [Clinton] may have experience, he'd charge, but she lacked the wisdom to oppose the war. ... So now Barack Obama is going to appoint Hillary Clinton to be the chief architect of his foreign policy. Moreover, he picked Joe Biden to be his running mate and 'partner' in the White House explicitly because of his foreign policy experience and judgment. But wait: Joe Biden, too, supported the war".


• The Left remains extremely hard to parody. Their outrage de jour yesterday was once again Sarah Palin, this time because she had the audacity to do an interview at turkey farm, where turkey-farm-activities actually occur. I guess they never knew where animal-based food comes from? More from John Hinderaker at Powerline.


• The H. in Barack H. Obama continues, for me, to stand for hypocrite:
  "We need to focus on fixing and improving our public schools; not throwing our hands up and walking away from them.”


• For all the talk of The Right being broken, it might also be worth looking at what's happening on The Left.


• Obama the Question Mark Man