In the article itself, Hirsh hits on what's become a pattern with Obama over the past year: his penchant for losing control of the news cycle. Now, in the past, every time this has happened, he's recovered. Instead of concentrating on winning the news cycle each week during the campaign, he concentrated on winning the next election. It was impressive to watch as he seemed to recover just when things seemed to be spinning out of his control.

However, the fact that this keeps happening again and again makes me think that he will sooner or later not be able to recover and allow the ability of the right-wing to drive the news cycle become his undoing. Certainly I'm interested in seeing how he recovers from this one, but I'm frustrated that it got to this point in the first place. He was supposed to be organizing a full court press in the media and on the floor of Congress to get his plan through. Instead, he gave up that initiative and allowed the Republicans to take it.

"the conversation is focused on individual programs rather than the macroeconomic effect"

So the Republicans should just roll over and accept whatever the Democrats propose? Ridiculous.

If all that really matters is size, then the Democrats should be willing to pick a number and let the Republicans fill in all the details. If they don't agree to -- in fact, if they don't propose -- such a plan, then the Democrats are engaged in blah blah blah.

It ain't just Republicans. Lots of Democrats don't like the lack of efficay and the porkfest presented in this bill. Support for the Bill is down to 37%

http://tinyurl.com/dx2l4s

Face it, liberal Democrats overreached trying to cram every spending program they wanted in the last 40 years into it and then, with straight faces, they try to explain how this is really a stimulus program and not the Pork-0-Rama that it is.

Yes I'm sure there would a ton of GOP and Blue Dog support for a really efficacious stimulus that was primarily targeted towards lifting burdens on the poorest Americans.

Framing this in terms of efficacy when the only thing the GOP is proposing is more Bush-style tax cuts for the rich is just laughable.

i'm starting to think (okay, have been thinking) obama should have just rolled congress. That includes Pelosi and Reid just as much as the republicans.

tyro, great comment. i'm "interested" in how Obama is gonna pull this one, too...

I'm depressed about this. If Obama believes this is the right thing to do. He should fight for it. I called e-mailed my Senators, Harry Reid and whitehouse.gov. to tell them to get their game on.

Also I hate what I'm hearing about the TARP. Jon Steward for Treasury Sec and HHS!

Shorter Viajero: the lack of free money for slumlords pisses me off so much that I'm going to keep shamelessly lying about the stimulus bill.

The problem isn't that the debate is on birth control. The problem is the debate is asking America to choose between the "big spenders" vs. "responsible belt-tighteners."

That's what we've got to fight.

The Republicans have been deficit spending for 30 years on tax breaks while Democrats have been responsibly paying down the debt.

Today, we're in a situation where Republican macroeconomic policies have so destabilized our financial markets that they've crashed.

We're in a situation where they've so underinvested in infrastructure that New Orleans flooded and bridges are literally collapsing in the midwest. Not to mention zero investment in future technologies, affordable healthcare, and a million other things.

Republican policies have led us to the edge of a depression--the same place we were in 1929. Let's be clear--EVERY Republican President since 1980 has increased our national debt, while no Democratic President has since FDR.

Now, Barack Obama is saying that faced with job losses and financial market collapse that we haven't seen since the great depression, we have to respond in a big way.

We are going to have to spend money. The Democrats have said we have to, and the Republicans are certainly not going to stop deficit spending now after they've been doing it for 30 years!

The question is, are we going to do something new, or are we going to keep doing what the Republicans have been doing since the 1970's?

Tyro - this is an interesting point. But this generally seems to be Obama's strategy. Wait and wait and seem to do nothing and let his enemies dominate the news cycle and think they're winning - and then all of a sudden he takes back control of things and gets what he wants.

I'm generally inclined to think this is how things will work out with the stimulus bill, as well. I've just seen too much "Oh, no, Obama is letting Republicans take charge of the agenda" caterwauling proved to be nonsense over the past year or so to really be convinced by it.

Yes, this might prove to be a major failure. But I think it's way too early to start assuming that is what's going to happen.

But this generally seems to be Obama's strategy. Wait and wait and seem to do nothing and let his enemies dominate the news cycle and think they're winning - and then all of a sudden he takes back control of things and gets what he wants.

Well, I hope it works out this time for getting laws through Congress in the same way it works for winning elections, but I don't know.

And ElV, there's a reason why the stimulus package looks the way it does: because the traditional, republican solutions that you support are proven in practice to be huge, destructive failures. The fact that you think the stimulus package is all wrong is pretty good evidence that it's right: the policies YOU supported over the past 8 years are extraordinarily destructive and harmful to the American people and your continued advocacy for them is just proof that you have no idea what you're talking about. Your ideas have been tried and found wanting. That's why we are repudiating them in all ways possible. The ideas you support are the ones that have gotten us into this mess, and to hear the screaming from right wingers about how we should implement THEIR ideas is embarrassing. They have no idea what they're talking about.

I favor Democratic solutions over Republican ones, but this is exactly what I feared when I found out that economic stimulus included things like the contraceptive waiver. I am in favor of that as a policy matter, but I am disappointed that the Democrats tried to take an ordinary liberal policy proposal and pass it off as economic stimulus made necessary by our urgent financial situation.

To me, this was little different from the Republicans arguing in the early 2000s arguing (1) "The economy is strong? Tax cuts!" and then (2)
"The economy is weak? Tax cuts!"

There's an easy way for Obama to take back control: threaten to veto the bill if the total $ amount is less than his original proposal. This has the side benefit of being a good idea since we actually need many more 100s of billions than he proposed. A veto threat would force clowns like Nelson and Collins to come up with sensible alternate stimulus proposals for every supposed pork they want to cut from the bill.

Ron E., I don't think Obama is going to threaten to veto his own bill. Set himself at odds with his own Congress on the first bill out of the gate? He'd make the entire party look like clowns.

Also, that teeth whitening ad is awful. It's horrible just to see those teeth out of the corner of my eye as I type. Let's get back to the PETA pig slaughterhouse ads, please.

I'm just going to note that there's no particular reason to worry so much about taking money out of the Senate version of the bill right now. Whatever bill the Senate passes isn't the real bill. The real bill will be determined in conference. If the Dems have the votes in conference, they can put whatever they want back in.

It seems to me that a wise strategy would be

1) Let Ben Nelson and Olympia Snowe run wild on the bill to get it past the Senate.

2) In Conference, put back in some of the stuff they cut (or other stuff, or whatever)

3) Have Obama give a big speech about why the stimulus is a good idea, and hopefully bring public opinion around.

4) (Implicitly) Dare Snowe, Nelson, and Collins to vote against cloture.

5) If you can't get cloture, push the thing through under budget reconciliation anyway.

The key, I think, is that Obama shouldn't use the bully pulpit too early. Right now, it's unclear what the final shape of the bill will be. Let the centrists mess about with it. If Obama steps in now, it doesn't do much good.

If he does it after the Conference committee does its thing, he's really putting the waverers much more on the spot - at that point there's a final bill, and they either have to say yes or no - no more question of amending it.

Or, anyway, something like that - I can't say I'm an expert on legislative politics.

But it just seems like everyone is being very quick to overreact, without having much sense of what's really going to happen. There's just so many steps left before we get to "Democrats fail to pass stimulus package" - so many different options to try out.

Public support for the PORK-0-RAMA bill is down to 37% and will continue to lose support.
And it's not just me....and it's not just conservatives or just Republicans. Democrats are starting to jump ship as they understand the support is eroding.

It's like a giant stinking corpse. The longer the brightr sunlight shines on it, the more it stinks!

Daddy Brendan touches me when my mommy is not around.

And it's not just me

No: there's a whole host of shameless lying parasites like Viajero hoping to feast off the corpse of the US economy.

Name: Jim Matthews
Lives: DFW
Likes: unearned income, slumlordism, trolling, shouting at people who aren't there.
Hates: blacks, gays, women, humanity

If you lose your job, he'll be there to say you deserved it. If you're sick, he'll be there to tell you you're lazy. If you lose your home, he'll be there throwing your possessions on the street. If you call him out, he'll try to stalk you, because Jim Matthews is a shitstain on the carpet of humanity.

Kent Conrad(D) and Ben Nelson (D)