Stuff to Read

Word is that President Obama is telling Congress, pass the whole jobs bill. Or nothin’. I hope he sticks to that. See also E.J. Dionne, “Obama Goes Big — and Should Stay Big.”

The headline on Dana Milbank’s column is “The irrelevancy of the Obama presidency.” However, it’s not so much about the Obama presidency as about Congress.

President Obama gave one of the most impassioned speeches of his presidency when he addressed a joint session of Congress on Thursday night. Too bad so many in the audience thought it was a big, fat joke.

“You should pass this jobs plan right away!” Obama exhorted. Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) chuckled.

“Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary — an outrage he has asked us to fix,” Obama went on. Widespread laughter broke out on the GOP side of the aisle.

“This isn’t political grandstanding,” Obama said. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) guffawed.

There was some unseriousness among the Dems as well. But I would love to see a video that cuts back and forth between the President talking seriously about jobs and the Republicans laughing. See also Steve M.

The New York Times uses graphics to show the real cost of the reaction to the 9/11 attacks. Staggering.

The smirk returns — and the pissant little creep thinks he deserves credit for the death of Osama bin Laden.

Alexander Cockburn looks at a decade of Trutherism. Thank you, Mr. Cockburn.

Critiques of the Jobs Bill

Paul Krugman generally approves of the President’s jobs proposal, and you know that Krugman is not easy to impress.

I was favorably surprised by the new Obama jobs plan, which is significantly bolder and better than I expected. It’s not nearly as bold as the plan I’d want in an ideal world. But if it actually became law, it would probably make a significant dent in unemployment.

Of course, it isn’t likely to become law, thanks to G.O.P. opposition.

My sense of things is that the President offered the boldest plan that he thought he could sell to the American people. Had he not thrown in some twinkle and glitter about deficit reduction it would have been political suicide for him, and the entire proposal would have been buried under scorn and ridicule as soon as it left his lips, no matter if Krugman loved it.

And yes, Republicans in Congress will try to bury it under scorn and ridicule, anyway, but as Nate Silver suggests, the plan as it is could be salable to the American people. And here is something Nate said that progressives who are trashing the plan need to get in their heads — while the American people like to hear about job creation, when they are presented with the choice between deficit cutting and stimulus spending —

In polls that employ the term “spend” or “spending” in describing the additional stimulus, its support drops to an average of 44 percent, with 50 percent saying that deficit reduction is the higher priority

Whether we like it or not, the people have been well conditioned to think that out-of-control government spending is the source of all our ills and must be fixed before anything else can be put right. And UN-conditioning them of that mistaken idea, even if possible, would take years. We don’t have years.

The President, I suspect, realizes as much as anyone that Congress will obstruct this. But if he can sell the plan to a large part of the American electorate and persuade them that the obstructionist Republicans are the ones standing between them and jobs, this will change the political landscape in the upcoming election year.