"Things would have sucked worse if it wasn't for me"

Obama's economic slogan. As expressed by the irrepressible Rep.Barney Frank :-)

Frank is my favorite elected official to watch on TV. He is articulate, well informed, pugnacious, and doesn't have much tolerance for bullshit. His appearances on right wing Fox shows (being redundant here) are priceless!

Here he is holding forth on the difference between recovery and stimulus on the Tonight show:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Barney Frank Pt. 1
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Piyush (call me Bobby) Jindal - Face of the Future?

Bobby Jindal's response to Obama's not-quite-State-of-the-Union has generated its share of scorn and criticism - not the least of Bobby's problems being his made-up story about Sheriff Harry Lee during Hurricane Katrina that his staff has had to backtrack in numerous ways.

Nevertheless it's clear this has catapulted him to the forefront of a party that is increasingly on the ropes and impoverished for new faces and fresh ideas (failing which it has shown that it will settle for new faces with stale ideas).

Bobby's 15 minutes of fame has included a segment on 60 minutes in which I found the following interesting observations:

But that sunny "Leave it to Beaver" optimism is classic Bobby Jindal, a man so determined to be true blue American, he changed his name.....

When he was born, Jindal was named Piyush. Asked where the name Bobby came from, Jindal told Safer, "Every day after school, I'd come home and I'd watch 'The Brady Bunch.' And I identified with Bobby, you know? He was about my age, and Bobby stuck."....

But much of his Indian heritage didn't stick. In high school, he converted from his parents' Hindu faith to Catholicism, and he rejected their political party as well.....

"When we sent a reporter and photographer to India to write about his family and their origins, the Jindal family was very queasy about that undertaking," Amoss said....

He's also religious and conservative. He supports the teaching of intelligent design, wants to get tough on illegal immigration, is against stem cell research and abortion rights, and yet continues to challenge his own party.....

Whatta guy! Makes every Indian proud, doesn't he?

The last eight years

A picture is worth a thousand words ...

Obama's governing style

President-elect Obama seems to be receiving bountiful praise from news reports, analysts and pundits about how he is approaching the financial stimulus and navigating the political minefields around getting the stimulus passed.

Although some influential voices like Paul Krugman have expressed concern about the tax cuts and about whether the package will be big enough, these voices have been few and far between so far, other than in the wingnut media.

However my concern is that this package will end up being a grab bag of varied proposals and expenses, many of them made for politically expedient reasons. Obama's latest response to Krugman's criticism (we'll throw what you want in there too!) does nothing to convince me otherwise.

All of which leads me to my biggest concern about Obama's coming presidency - he can obviously deal with a lot of adulation (who can't?), but is he willing to be unpopular? Is he willing to tick some people off to stay true to his principles? Is he willing to play hardball to get the right thing done?

Or will he always strive to be the most popular boy in the class, and will that be his undoing as it was with Bill Clinton (aside from his inability to keep his pants on, of course) ...