The Fix:

He had also begun to build a national consulting team that included John Weaver, a former senior strategist to Arizona Sen. John McCain.

In an interview with the Fix last December, Huntsman urged bipartisan cooperation — an early indicator, perhaps, of his willingness to sacrifice his governorship for a spot in a Democratic Administration.

“People work with people,” said Huntsman. “Most Americans are fed up with the idea that partisanship has stood in the way of progress.”

It’s hard to imagine how Huntsman could pivot from a job within the Obama Administration to taking on the president in the space of three years. His decision to accept the China post then seems to come at the cost of his 2012 aspirations.

Huntsman may be looking at the long view politically, however. In 2016, he will have a resume steeped in domestic and foreign policy — with a specialty in a region widely regarded as an emerging superpower. And, he’ll only be 56 years old.

Politics Nation:

Secretary of State Robin Carnhan (D) leads two potential Republican opponents, Rep. Roy Blunt and former Treasurer Sarah Steelman, in a new Democracy Corps survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (April 28-30, 800 LV, MoE +/- 3.5%).

Carnahan 53
Blunt 44

Carnahan 54
Steelman 42

WSJ:

Slapping “dirty” Chinese imports with tariffs isn’t about protecting American jobs or industries that would be threatened if the U.S. starts tackling climate change all by its lonesome. Just two weeks ago, Mr. Krugman said that the costs of a cap-and-trade plan would be “modest” and in fact could be “just what the doctor ordered” for U.S. companies.

This is about prodding China into line, environmentally-speaking. Because, as Mr. Krugman notes in the column, China’s economic growth has led to a huge increase in emissions-from factory smokestacks, from coal-fired power plants, from millions of new cars. All the agonizing in the U.S. over how to tackle climate change will come to naught if China doesn’t act too.

The question is whether carbon tariffs-an idea already floated by the Obama administration-are the best tool for the job. Beyond fears of a tit-for-tat retaliation, and a resurgence of protectionism, what about the richer-is-greener argument? That is-as countries get richer, environmentalism automatically follows. By that argument, the worst thing the world could do to clean up China is slow down growth.

CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Picking on President Obama’s statement that he’s searching for a Supreme Court justice with “empathy” for ordinary Americans’ problems. Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele joked Friday that the president is “looking to put Doctor Phil on the Court.”

Addressing the National Rifle Association, Steele warned that “liberal Democrats could control every lever of every branch of government” if Obama picks a “young, activist, left-wing justice.”

“Supreme Court justices hold lifetime appointments,” Steele said according to his prepared remarks. “That is why it is imperative that President Obama take his time and search for a nominee with the wisdom and grounding to interpret the laws of our great nation - not one who will have a knee jerk desire to ‘empathize’ with the concerns of Americans. Sounds like instead of another Judge Roberts, the President is looking to put Doctor Phil on the Court.”

Elaine Chao:

Fifty years ago, Congress passed the landmark Landrum-Griffin Act to protect rank-and-file union members from malfeasance by union leaders. Senate hearings had uncovered serious corruption and other unethical practices inside the labor movement, and a bipartisan coalition emerged to shine the light of disclosure on union practices.

Nevertheless, Democrats in Congress and in the executive branch have often attempted to undercut that law’s financial reporting and disclosure requirements. Prior to reforms adopted in the George W. Bush administration, for example, one union could get away with reporting a $62 million expenditure as nothing more than “contributions, gifts, and grants to local affiliates” — with no further explanation. Unfortunately, the Obama administration is already showing that it wants to return to this nontransparent standard of financial disclosure.

CNN:

(CNN) - Some good news for embattled Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele: the national party said Friday it raised more than $5.7 million in April, and had $24.3 million cash-on-hand.

That’s more than double the roughly $9.8 million Democrats had on hand in March, the last month for which the party’s fundraising figures are available.

Source:

Although New York’s State Assembly today approved a bill to legalize gay marriage by a 89-52 margin, the measure faces longer odds in the State Senate, where Democrats hold a slim 32-30 majority and where several prominent Democrats are likely to oppose the measure.

Governor David Paterson’s bill requires 32 votes to pass — a 31-31 tie would ordinarily be broken by New York’s Lieutenant Governor, but New York does not currently have a Lieutenant Governor because Paterson ascended from that position to replace Elliot Spitzer.

The bill, S.4401, has 19 sponsors, all Democrats. A 20th Democrat, Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, is also committed to supporting the measure.

Beyond that, however, things get a bit dicey for the Democrats. Based on recent public statements and press accounts, we count 5 Democrats — Shirley Huntley of Queens and George Onorato of Queens, Ruben Diaz of the Bronx, Darrel Aubertine of Cape Vincent, and William Stachowski of Buffalo — as definitively being opposed to the measure. We also count 7 Democrats as undecided, one of whom — David Valesky of Oneida — we characterize as leaning toward a no vote.

WND:

Prompted by a complaint filed by the Texas Freedom Network, which calls itself “a mainstream voice to counter the religious right,” the IRS investigated the Houston-based Niemoller Foundation for organizing during the 2006 election season six pastors briefings, which included speeches from prominent politicians and training for pastors on urging and registering their congregations to vote.

Despite charges that the foundation had therefore engaged in political partisan activity in violation of its tax exempt status, the IRS investigation found “no evidence of political intervention.”

“This liberal attempt to intimidate pastors has backfired,” said Kelly Shackelford, chief counsel of Liberty Legal Institute, which represented event organizers. “There is now a clear IRS statement outlining these pastors’ events and approving them as valid under the law.”

The AP:

Bank of America said last week it was looking for new directors, but gave little detail. The announcement came as the government, after completing its stress test of the bank and 18 other financial companies, said Bank of America needed to raise nearly $34 billion. The bank has received $45 billion in government funds as part of the Treasury Department’s $700 billion financial rescue package.

The Journal said regulators including the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had previously signaled to the bank’s leadership that changes in the board would be well received by the federal government, the Journal report said.

Bank of America spokesman Scott Silvestri declined to comment on the report, but said every bank that participated in the recent U.S. stress tests was advised to review its board and management.

The AP on the case that brought a scolding by the office of Democratic Attorney General Steve Six:

Van Meteren, a GOP consultant in Topeka, raised the issue before the election and filed the complaint with the commission in September. In October, Umbarger repaid $4,400 to his re-election account for expenditures challenged by Van Meteren.

The list included purchase of a carport installed at the senator’s home, rental of a Topeka motel room and bills for “campaign fuel” from a gas station in Thayer.

The commission dropped the case against Umbarger and instigated a case against Van Meteren for violating confidentiality rules after he talked to the Topeka Capital-Journal for a story outlining Umbarger’s campaign spending.

The commission in February fined Van Meteren $5,000 for engaging in the interview and $2,500 for speaking about the same subject to the online publication Kansas Liberty. The attorney general’s opinion prompted the commission to reverse itself, but that might not be the end of the legal dispute because of Van Meteren’s legal fees.

Van Meteren’s attorney, Caleb Stegall, said his client would consider “further recourse in federal courts for this clear and admitted violation” of guaranteed rights to free speech. He labeled the commission’s fine an abuse.

Capital-Journal:

According to Kansas baseball, life on the bubble is pretty fun.

Right now the Jayhawks are in great position to make their first NCAA regional as an at-large team since 1994. However, if Kansas would get swept in this weekend’s Sunflower Showdown series with No. 11 Kansas State, it may need a Big 12 Tournament title like the one coach Ritch Price won in 2006.

“Every program wants to leave nothing to chance and that’s the position we’ve put ourselves in,” Price said. “If we win the series this weekend, we could bump up to third or fourth in our league and I think that would make us a virtual lock to make the tournament.”

Yael Abouhalkah, Star editorial board member:

The more House Speaker Nancy Pelosi talks about torture, the worse her credibility looks.

Now Pelosi has picked a fight with the CIA, implying the agency is making her look bad by releasing information about meetings on torture she attended years ago.

Sorry, but Pelosi has made herself look like an inept congressional leader all by herself.

It now appears clear that, as Pelosi finally acknowledged, she knew almost six years ago that the CIA was torturing detainees with waterboarding.

The Star:

Olathe will use federal funds to buy abandoned and foreclosed homes to help stabilize the impact vacant properties could have on neighborhoods.

Using $1.9 million from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the city hopes to purchase up to eight houses, said city spokesman Tim Danneberg.

Rasmussen:

With Israel and Iran turning up the bellicose language, U.S. voters are less confident than they were at the beginning of the year that Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in peace.

Now just 40% of voters think it is possible for the two to peacefully coexist, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. That’s down 12 points from early January. Two years ago, just 27% thought it possible for the two sides to live together in peace.

While 40% now think such co-existence is possible, 36% disagree and say it is not.

Just 34% of voters now think it is at least somewhat likely that the Israelis and Palestinians will reach a peace agreement by the end of President Obama’s first term in office. Only 8% believe such an agreement is Very Likely.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls.) Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter.

Most Democratic voters (52%) think it is possible for the Israelis and Palestinians to live peacefully side by side. The majority of Republicans (54%) disagree. Voters not affiliated with either party are evenly divided on the question.

KC Biz Journal:

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will cover more than $15 million of a $16 million project to improve Johnson County’s Douglas L. Smith Middle Basin Treatment Plant, the Environmental Protection Agency said Friday.

The sewer plant improvements are expected to create 270 new “green,” or environmentally friendly, jobs; save county wastewater-service ratepayers almost $600,000 a year; and reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by more than 9,700 metric tons, the EPA said.

Groundbreaking ceremonies attended by local, state and federal officials are scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Monday at the sewer plant, 10001 College Blvd. in Overland Park. The EPA called the project the “largest green infrastructure project in the state of Kansas” to be financed by the federal stimulus plan.

The Star:

John Currie, a 38-year-old executive associate athletic director at the University of Tennessee, is Kansas State’s new athletic director.

Currie has been No. 2 in charge for Tennessee’s athletic department for several years and had previously been a finalist for athletic director jobs at Duke and Middle Tennessee State.

A source told The Star that K-State’s other A.D. finalists were Mark Boehm, a K-State graduate from Topeka who is currently the executive associate A.D. at Nebraska, and former Indiana A.D. Rick Greenspan.

Incoming K-State president Kirk Schulz announced the hire Thursday night. Currie succeeds Bob Krause, who resigned March 31 after less than a year on the job.

AP:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - With a spiffy, spruced-up stadium and Zack Greinke’s array of nearly unhittable pitches, the Kansas City Royals are helping Rick Adams beat the recession blues.

A year ago, Adams operated two frozen custard stands in Kauffman Stadium and business, reflecting the long-woeful Royals themselves, was south of .500. Now, in the renovated New K he’s expanded to four stands and hired additional workers. Business is booming and profits are up.

“I’d say it’s up about 20 percent,” said Adams, stepping out of the way on the widened concourse while a busy worker poured cups of the rich, creamy treat.

Kansas Liberty:

A bill that would limit the authority of cities to annex unincorporated land was a partial victory for property rights, but the bill sponsor said the measure was just a start and that he would seek additional limitations next year.

The bill was approved by the Kansas House and Senate and is now awaiting a signature or a veto from Gov. Mark Parkinson, who’s been mum about his intentions toward the legislation.

House Majority Leader Ray Merrick was the chief sponsor of the proposal, Senate Bill 51. He represents a largely unincorporated area of Johnson County, part of which was annexed by Overland Park after a prolonged battle with residents, many of whom vigorously opposed becoming part of the city.

Overland Park had initially sought to annex about 15 square miles. That request was pared to about eight square miles by the Board of Johnson County Commissioners. The decision to allow the partial annexation is now the subject of a court battle that is scheduled to resume this summer.

Abilene Reflector-Chronicle:

Saline County is the latest area county to have confirmed cases of the H1N1 flu, bringing the number of cases in Kansas to 34 on Friday morning.

A report from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment states an adult and a child in Saline County have been confirmed with the type A influenza, which is commonly known as swine flu.

Earlier this week, the KDHE confirmed cases in Riley and Geary counties involved soldiers stationed at Fort Riley. A child of the Geary County soldier was also sickened by the flu.

As of Friday morning, here is a rundown of the 34 confirmed cases in Kansas counties: two adults in Dickinson; one child in Ford; one adult and two children in Geary; four adults and seven children in Johnson; one child in Ottawa; one adult and one child in Riley; one adult and one child in Saline; one child in Sedgwick; and one adult and 10 children in Wyandotte.

The following column is by a contributing author.  The author of this article runs the Kansas Supreme Court Blog (kscblog.wordpress.com).

SCOTUS: The Conservative Case for a Liberal bomb-thrower

Within days of Justice Souter’s announcement of his resignation from the Supreme Court a fairly predicatble excercise in message-shaping was beginning on the conservative side of the aisle. Souter, who has for years been castigated as a disastrous nomination which helped sink the first Bush presidency, is suddenly being talked about by the Heritage foundation as something other than a full-on liberal. Yes, they throw some caveats in about how he was ‘certainly no conservative’ but the intention is plain. Paint Souter as a centrist in an attempt to force the President to nominate a moderate liberal. (more…)

Poll:

Add one more government bailout to the list opposed by most Americans.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of adults say “no” to using federal funds to bail out troubled life insurance companies, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Just 12% favor the idea, and another 12% are not sure.

Investors (80%) are even more strongly opposed.

There’s little partisan disagreement on this either. Eighty-three percent (83%) of Republicans, 71% of Democrats and 77% of adults not affiliated with either party oppose a bailout for ailing life insurers.

Rasmussen:

Just 38% of U.S. voters agree with former Vice President Dick Cheney that America is less safe now because of changes President Obama has made in national security.

Fifty-one percent (51%) disagree with Cheney, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

The partisan divided is predictable: 72% of Republicans agree with Cheney, while 80% of Democrats disagree. Among voters not affiliated with either party, 35% think Cheney is right, but 50% say he’s wrong.

WSJ:

Read Panetta’s memo to CIA employees: (more…)

The Scorecard has more.

Dan McLaughlin at Redstate:

This is a point I have noted in regard to the Bush Administration, and it’s just as true of the Democrats: they will not have an unlimited window of opportunity in which to nationalize health care and pass a ruinous cap-and-trade program, major tax hikes, EFCA, and other significant priorities. The clock is already ticking four months into the Obama Administration, with the summer recess gradually creeping closer and a potential major battle brewing over the Supreme Court. Every day that the Speaker is tied up defending herself over an issue the Democrats thought would help them is a day that her attention, and the headlines, are pulled away from the rest of the legislative agenda. Even Republicans who would like to keep Pelosi around another year for electoral advantage have to realize the even greater priority on stopping that agenda now, for the good of the country.

The Pelosi story has mostly taken on a life of its own by now, and/or is being driven by sources in the CIA or elsewhere in the intelligence community; much of this is in any event beyond Republican control. But if Republicans get the opportunity to keep the heat on the Speaker, they should.

Delawareonline.com:

Officials anticipate it will take three months to get sports betting running and no more than six months to get table games in play.Representatives from two of the state’s three casinos say they are confident they can meet that timeline. But the NFL could try to block implementation of sports betting in court and Delaware’s Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the legality of table games or various forms of sports betting, such as bets on a single game.

SlamOnline.com:

But all of this is why it’s so important to sit and truly appreciate these next 48 hours, to embrace Kobe Bryant in his most uncertain hours. In David Foster Wallace’s brilliant Kenyon commencement address, he opens with an old joke: a wise fish and a young fish are swimming along. The old fish says “Boy, the water sure is nice today.” The young one responds “What the heck is water?” The 81 points, the playoff defeats, the beautiful jumpers, the impossible passes, the taunts, the arrogance, the brilliance, the 4th quarter takeovers, the aloofness, the games where forced jumper after forced jumper falls short, the player who elevated scoring into art and turned the art of a 10-man game into nothing more than scoring. The single-minded and arrogant volume shooter who allowed the most talented team in the League to lose to the lowly Rockets is not Kobe. The hero who reached into his resolve and carried a worn team over the Rockets and towards a championship is not Kobe. The Kobe in Spike Lee’s movie is not Kobe. This is Kobe. This is water. Beneath all of what we need him to be, want him to be, say he is, this is a man. A man who has played some of the best basketball ever played, but a man, and for the next 48 hours he will be allowed to exist as one in all of our eyes. OK, I’ll be a little disappointed if Game 7 ends up being a blowout.

WSJ:

WASHINGTON — The House approved a $96.7 billion measure to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and other foreign-assistance operations, in an affirmation of President Barack Obama’s war policy.

The legislation, which passed 368-60 with support from a majority of Republicans and Democrats, would pay for troops in the two wars through the federal government’s current fiscal year, ending Sept. 30. Fifty-one Democratic lawmakers voted against the bill, to protest continuing the two wars.

Forbes:

To summarize, we see that taxpayers are on the hook for Social Security and Medicare by these amounts: Social Security, 1.3% of GDP; Medicare part A, 2.8% of GDP; Medicare part B, 2.8% of GDP; and Medicare part D, 1.2% of GDP. This adds up to 8.1% of GDP. Thus federal income taxes for every taxpayer would have to rise by roughly 81% to pay all of the benefits promised by these programs under current law over and above the payroll tax.

Since many taxpayers have just paid their income taxes for 2008 they may have their federal returns close at hand. They all should look up the total amount they paid and multiply that figure by 1.81 to find out what they should be paying right now to finance Social Security and Medicare.

Video at RCP:

CNN: Former Vice President Al Gore Friday took his successor Dick Cheney to task for aggressively criticizing President Obama so soon into the new commander-in-chief’s presidency.

In an interview with CNN, Gore said he himself had refrained from criticizing President Bush until well into the run up to the Iraq war - more than two years after the Clinton administration came to an end.

“I waited two years after I left office to make statements that were critical, and then of the policy,” he said. “You know, you talk about somebody that shouldn’t be talking about making the country less safe, invading a country that did not attack us and posed no serious threat to us at all.”

You can vote at Powerline’s poll here.

Powerline:

With President Obama poised to deliver the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, this seems like a good time to recall the commencement address President Reagan delivered there on May 17, 1981. Here’s how Reagan concluded his remarks:

The years ahead are great ones for this country, for the cause of freedom and the spread of civilization. The West won’t contain communism, it will transcend communism. It won’t bother to. . .denounce it, it will dismiss it as some bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written.William Faulkner, at a Nobel Prize ceremony some time back, said man “would not only [merely] endure: he will prevail” against the modern world because he will return to “the old verities and truths of the heart.” And then Faulkner said of man, “He is immortal because he alone among creatures . . . has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.”

One can’t say those words — compassion, sacrifice, and endurance — without thinking of the irony that one who so exemplifies them, Pope John Paul II, a man of peace and goodness, an inspiration to the world, would be struck by a bullet from a man towards whom he could only feel compassion and love. It was Pope John Paul II who warned in last year’s encyclical on mercy and justice against certain economic theories that use the rhetoric of class struggle to justify injustice. He said, “In the name of an alleged justice the neighbor is sometimes destroyed, killed, deprived of liberty or stripped of fundamental human rights.”

For the West, for America, the time has come to dare to show to the world that our civilized ideas, our traditions, our values, are not — like the ideology and war machine of totalitarian societies — just a facade of strength. It is time for the world to know our intellectual and spiritual values are rooted in the source of all strength, a belief in a Supreme Being, and a law higher than our own.

When it’s written, history of our time won’t dwell long on the hardships of the recent past. But history will ask — and our answer determine the fate of freedom for a thousand years — Did a nation borne of hope lose hope? Did a people forged by courage find courage wanting? Did a generation steeled by hard war and a harsh peace forsake honor at the moment of great climactic struggle for the human spirit?

If history asks such questions, it also answers them. And the answers are to be found in the heritage left by generations of Americans before us. They stand in silent witness to what the world will soon know and history someday record: that in the [its] third century, the American Nation came of age, affirmed its leadership of free men and women serving selflessly a vision of man with God, government for people, and humanity at peace.

A few years ago, an Australian Prime Minister, John Gorton, said, “I wonder if anybody ever thought what the situation for the comparatively small nations in the world would be if there were not in existence the United States, if there were not this giant country prepared to make so many sacrifices.” This is the noble and rich heritage rooted in great civil ideas of the West, and it is yours.

My hope today is that in the years to come — and come it shall — when it’s your time to explain to another generation the meaning of the past and thereby hold out to them their promise of the future, that you’ll recall the truths and traditions of which we’ve spoken. It is these truths and traditions that define our civilization and make up our national heritage. And now, they’re yours to protect and pass on.

I have one more hope for you: when you do speak to the next generation about these things, that you will always be able to speak of an America that is strong and free, to find in your hearts an unbounded pride in this much-loved country, this once and future land, this bright and hopeful nation whose generous spirit and great ideals the world still honors.

Congratulations, and God bless you.

I’m confident that Obama’s address will contain nice phrases and, perhaps, soaring rhetoric. But will Obama express anything even approaching Reagan’s pride in America? It’s difficult to how, since he clearly does not share it.

Bruce Niles of the Sierra Club, writing in the Wichita Eagle, believes that Kansas policy would have made “contributions to slow global warming.”

Is Niles referring to contributions with regard to providing national momentum for his political cause, or does Niles actually believe that Kansas citizens could significantly impact the temperature of the entire globe?

The concessions made to the coal industry will greatly outweigh any so-called benefits for the state. The new coal plant actually increases Kansas’ contributions to global warming. While the country is moving away from polluting fossil fuels, Kansas has opened the door for outdated, dirty technology other states are rejecting. The agreement appears to invite Sunflower Electric to build another coal plant in two years. This is not a compromise, but a giveaway to the coal industry Kansans have stood up against.

CNN:

Paul made the announcement Thursday night on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show.

Paul had said previously that he would not throw his hat in the ring if Bunning decided to run for reelection. Bunning - seen as one of the weakest Republicans in the 2010 race - has said that he will run again, but Paul said he doesn’t necessarily trust that the two-term Kentucky senator will follow through.

“I think the problem is that every time a reporter asks Jim Bunning, are you running, their follow up question is, Jim, are you really running,” Paul said. He said Bunning has done some “unusual things” and said, “What I hate to see is a politician who might go all the way up to the deadline and pull their papers out an hour before and then you have one candidate and there’s no real primary.”

From the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce:

Chairman Henry A. Waxman and Subcommittee Chairman Edward J. Markey introduced “H.R. 2454, The American Clean Energy and Security Act.”  The Energy and Commerce Committee will begin markup of the bill on Monday, May 18, 2009, at 1:00 p.m., and will complete consideration before the Memorial Day recess.

“The legislation will create millions of new clean energy jobs, save consumers hundreds of billions of dollars in energy costs, promote America’s energy independence and security, and cut global warming pollution,” said Chairman Waxman.  “In support of these goals, this legislation ensures that consumers and industries in all regions of the country are protected.  I look forward to working with all members of the Committee to approve this legislation to make America the world leader in new clean energy and energy efficiency technologies.”

“This bill marks the dawn of the clean energy age,” said Subcommittee Chairman Markey.  “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to revive our economy and create millions of good-paying clean energy jobs.  After months of hearings and discussions with my colleagues, I am pleased that we have produced a bill that has widespread support from all regions of the country.”

H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009

Mark Perry:

The top chart above shows the world stock market capitalization based on data from the World Federation of Exchanges, in trillions of USDs, monthly from January 1996 to April 2009. The bottom chart shows the monthly change in world stock market value, measured in trillions of USDs. The $4.2 trillion increase in April’s world stock market capitalization, from $29.8 trillion in March to $34 trillion in April is the largest single month increase in the history of the World Federation’s data.

Jay Cost:

Comments like Steele’s do not help the Republican Party in any way, shape, manner, or form. The only effect they can possibly have is negative. And if said in the wrong place at the wrong time, they will have a negative effect. I think it is a great thing for a political party to have somebody who calls it like he sees it, even if those opinions don’t sit well with his own side. My favorite political book of all time is John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, so I’m well versed in the value of freewheeling, open debate. However, it’s no good for the party chairman to be a controversialist. Considering that he said what he said on Friday after all the controversy he has generated - it’s pretty clear that he can’t help himself.

The party cannot afford to have its national committee chairman doubling as a controversial pundit. It’s time for Michael Steele to resign.

The Fix:

Talking Points Memo is leading its site with the headline “Obama Admin Falls Back On Bushism: Abuse Pics’ Release Would Hurt Troops”.

On Daily Kos, Joan McCarter, a contributing editor to the site, described the move as “an unwelcome and probably futile policy reversal” by Obama; the post had already drawn more than 500 comments less than two hours since it was posted.

And Digby, another prominent liberal blogger, called White House press secretary Robert Gibbs’ explanation of why the Administration is reversing position as rising to “Fleischeresque levels of fatuousness“.

To be clear: it’s not immediately clear that liberals are abandoning the president in droves. Rather, as happens with almost every president, elements of the base are coming to grips with the idea that Obama may not be the liberal hero that people thought he was when he was first elected.

The political consequences are hard to figure. While there is clearly upset in many quarters of the Democratic base for Obama’s decisions regarding investigations into harsh interrogation techniques and now his reversal on the release of the photos, it’s hard to imagine that come 2012 these same voters will cast their votes for the Republican nominee.

“Politically, not reversing course could have had much worse consequences,” said Tad Devine, a Democratic media consultant. “I think it is the right move, and that makes it a smart move politically.”

The more likely scenario in terms of political consequences from these decisions is that the fervent desire to elect Obama within the party’s base will dissipate somewhat as liberals grow (and stay) alienated with the compromises the President makes over the next four years.

Source:

I can’t say we didn’t see this coming, because we did. But Arlen Specter is starting to make good use of that ‘D’ beside his name and behave like an actual Democrat, indicating that he’s open to a compromise on the Employee Free Choice Act and a public option on the Democratic health care plan.

Specter’s record in the Senate since changing parties on April 28th has been somewhat more mixed, however. The Senate has held 22 roll call votes since Specter’s party switch; Specter has taken the position of the majority of the Democratic caucus on 17 of these (77%). However, some of these votes were procedural with both the Democratic and Republican caucuses in broad agreement. Of the 15 votes on which the Democratic and Republican caucuses have split, Specter has sided with the Democrats on 10 occasions and the Republicans on 5; that makes him 67% Democrat and 33% Republican. A table of these votes and some further analysis follows below the fold.