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The idea itself is a basic one -- pay for the costs of war now, instead of endlessly borrowing money in order to do so. A few weeks ago, the White House leaked an interesting factoid -- it costs one million dollars to put one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan for one year. This is a nice round number, and gets people to think about the war in a new light -- how much it costs.
For those of you not conversant in the language of gambling, allow me to explain. When you have a good poker hand you start raising the betting until, at some point, you are said to be "pot committed." This means you've invested such a major portion of your available chips in that hand's kitty (or "pot") that folding is no longer an option for you -- because it would leave you too weak to effectively continue playing. But if another player is equally as confident about their hand, a bidding war will ensue. And, at some point, you just decide the heck with it and push all your chips into the pot. You know that if you lose this hand, you'll effectively be sidelined in the game anyway, so you might as well win as much as you can in the current pot... if the cards turn up in your favor. That's a big "if," though -- because if you lose, you're out of the game. It's a bold and risky move, but one that can pay off in a big way.
Our illustrious (cough, cough) White House press corps showed it could get to the bottom of a story with impressively journalistic and probative skills this week. The story that so obviously required multiple questions to President Obama on his trip to Asia? Whether he's eating enough, and whether he's losing weight. Oh, and his gray hair.
Palin's family owned a Rambler? Shoot, now I have to be nice to her, I guess [Full disclosure: I am a big Rambler fan]. Well, she'll never beat Mitt Romney for Rambler credentials by anyone's measure, seeing as how Mitt's dad George was the head of American Motors Corporation at the time the Rambler was introduced, and was duly called the "Father of the Rambler." But still, the thought of a young Palin rambling around certainly does give her a connection to American families everywhere (of a certain age).
This column is really a second installment to yesterday's ("How To Not Give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed What He Wants"), where I took a look at two of the criticism's against Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try the accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in federal civilian court rather than in a military tribunal.
The struggle for healthcare reform is not going to end this year. By saying that, I am not breaking any news about Harry Reid or the Senate, or even about the chances for passage of any particular bill or healthcare reform scheme before New Year's Eve -- rather, I am urging people to take a step back and view healthcare reform from a much bigger-picture point of view. Because whatever passes is not going to be the final word on the subject. As with almost any sweeping social legislation, it's going to take a few revisions before we get it right. Perfect bills almost never pass. The more normal course of events in Washington is that compromises pass, and then are strengthened later on. Healthcare reform should be viewed in the same way.
There was an absolute prime, Grade-A example of media cluelessness this week which is still unfolding, much to my bemusement, so I thought I'd start by pointing it out. Nothing to perk everyone up like a little well-deserved media-bashing, eh?
Are presidential approval numbers tied inexorably to the state of the economy, as measured by the unemployment rate? That is the question The New Republic tries to answer in a recent article, which comes complete with graphs purporting to provide an unequivocal answer. Unfortunately, while they do present their case, they also undermine it by cheating a bit with the statistics themselves, and a very selective process for choosing which numbers to examine. Meaning the only answer we can adequately take away from the article is: "possibly."
This column today celebrates a milestone -- triple digits on the odometer! That's right, as hard as it may seem to believe, this is the one hundredth volume of your weekly Friday Talking Points column. For a little over two years now, we've brought you our thoughts on "the week that was in politics," and for a little less time than that, we've announced our weekly winners of both the aforementioned MIDOTW as well as the ignominious Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week. And we wrap it all up with some practical, good old-fashioned, home-brewed Democratic spin, our Talking Points for the week ahead.
The two prevailing views so far seem to be: "Good news for Republicans!" and, alternatively, "Good news for Democrats!" It is possible that neither are true, and yet neither entirely false. There was certainly some interesting news, but it's tough to read amongst all the spin.