I'm afraid Frank has missed the point

I like Frank Rich - the way he steps back to afford a view of the bigger picture - but this article, as good as it is, fails to call the Obama administration on its more fundamental failure: it's manifest betrayal of the principles it was put in power to advance. For moderates and progressives, Obama's policy initiatives (or lack thereof) have been extremely disappointing - far more a continuation of the previous administration's ruinous course. Instead of throwing down a clear marker signalling a break with the egregious past, Obama only nibbled at the edges of such things as civil rights and torture, especially in his wilful failure to hold perpetrators accountable, and outright embraced certain other Bush-era policies, like offshore drilling - despite the manifest corruption of the Minerals Dept.

In introductory courses on administrative law, budding young lawyer-wannabes learn all about "capture theory", which posits that for a variety of obvious reasons regulatory agencies quickly become "captured" by the industries they regulate. Lack of effective oversight of such agencies becomes, axiomatically, fatal. Obama went to a pretty good law school, and yet we seem to need to experience - catastrophically - this axiom put into practice.

This - thus far - is the signal failure of the Obama presidency and, unlike Bush, he knew better.

Ted Hearts Bison

On balance I think people should lighten up and let Ted continue with this - I think it's pretty cool and should be encouraged. The idea that bison should be confined to the Park and kept entirely off limits as if they are museum relics once they cross the park boundary is ridiculous. Ted is paving the way to acceptance by a paranoid ranching community that just needs to get over the fact that their industry is contracting.

Me like what me see . . .

While some aspects of her oeuvre are not great (e.g., I worry that her rejection of judicial activism won't extend to the masturbatory rantings by nutcases like Scalia since it's become conventional wisdom that conservatives by definition can't be judicial activists, which is completely ridiculous), this is pretty good stuff:

During Ms. Kagan’s confirmation for solicitor general, she was asked whether the president has the authority to order wiretaps without a warrant from a court.

She cited a three-part analysis established by the Supreme Court in a 1952 case, Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company v. Sawyer, which struck down president Harry S. Truman’s authority to seize the nation’s steel mills in the name of national security. (The Justice Department cited the same analysis in 2006 in justifying President George W. Bush’s power to order the National Security Agency surveillance program, as did Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings.) The analysis notes that “when the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress,” presidential “power is at its lowest ebb” and these circumstances should be rare.

Obama picks a uniter, not a divider

Interesting track record at Harvard - Obama's tacking to the middle. Not sure she'll be able to do much to forge a consensus among the Supremes when one is a raving lunatic and another may as well be in a coma.

What in the world is the Guardian smoking?

It's so over for Gordon, I don't care what drugs are making the Guardian suggest it isn't.

I, too, recently believed that the Lib-Dems HAD to find a way to make a coalition work with Labour if they wanted any prayer of electoral reform that approximates proportional representation (and basic notions of fairness), but the gap is too wide, and they are going to be screwed by the Tories, plain and simple. The Lib-Dems just don't have the numbers to make it work the way they want. It's going to be a mess here in the UK for the foreseeable future.

This parliament will not "hang" well (cue the porn jokes), anyway you look at it.

True to my investment prowess, the prospect of continued aimless dithering in the UK while Greece burns compelled me to cash out of my money market fund in the U.S. and invest in the markets. Timing is everything! Oh well: Warren Buffet I ain't.

These are starting to resurface

It was the taxi-driver's story that made me sick . . . let's see if Obama's Justice Department continues its campaign to keep justice out of the play-book.

Late update:

Here's a film worth seeing about what happened to that poor taxi-driver, and the inevitable cover-up which followed.