Can’t those White House people see that this makes them (and Obama) look reactive, weak and dependent? If Bush’s legacy extends this deeply into the Obama administration, that makes him one of the most influential recent presidents, doesn’t it? All the blaming and finger-pointing just ends up giving Bush more power, not to mention making the finger-pointers look silly and weak. Bush’s relative silence only increases the effect and makes him look classy by comparison.

The proper strategy, if you want to diminish a former president, is to ignore him and don’t acknowledge or give him any credit when your policies happen to coincide with his. Let the pundits tussle over it, and don’t publicly show that you care too much about that either.

And yet, people who oppose ultrasound requirements likely approve of laws requiring citizens to be present when condemned criminals are executed–so representatives of the public can see what capital punishment means.

This is heartening.

This is a case where equal skepticism directed at both sides might not be a bad thing, in practical terms. You may think both sides are a pack of liars. But one pack of liars wants to leave things as they are, more or less; the other pack of liars wants to spend tens of trillions of dollars to upend the world economy and reduce everyone’s standard of living in Gaia’s name.

Not much here to help puzzle her out. Or is there?

“Today, the world is no longer threatened by the debts of banks but by the debts of governments, including debts which were run up rescuing banks just a year ago. The banking crisis has turned into a crisis of entire nations, and the subprime mortgage bubble into a government debt bubble.”

Especially interesting is this article’s exploration of the inflation “solution”:

“US President Barack Obama, in particular, is likely to be very tempted to fire up the money printing presses and, by devaluing the currency, to reduce the real burden of liabilities the United States has accumulated. Because foreign investors in China and Japan hold a large share of America’s debts, they would be more adversely affected by depreciation than the Americans themselves.

Inflation has other advantages from the government’s perspective. When prices rise, the government collects more revenue. This improves its ability to repay its debt, because the value of the debt also declines daily. For this reason, Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, advised the president to try using the tool of inflation before raising taxes or cutting spending. His recipe for the crisis consists of ‘vigorous growth and moderate inflation.’ “

Hope some of his media colleagues are reading.

Bottom line: The “simplicity” thought leaders want the rest of us to be poorer and have fewer choices so that they can feel good about themselves.

Reminds me of what one of Gandhi’s associates said. Three merchant princes subsidized Gandhi’s much-publicized “simple” lifestyle, and someone remarked, “It costs a great deal of money to keep Ganhiji living in poverty.”