Those who do not know history are, as we all know, doomed to repeat it. But there should be some sort of special doom reserved for those who actually do know their history, and choose to ignore it anyway. Amy Domini recently wrote a wonderful article in The Huffington Post about this phenomenon as it relates to our current financial crisis. She went back and dug out a New York Times article from when Congress passed the bill which created this whole mess. While there are some minor factual errors in her writing (as I remember it, George Bush was "elected" in the year 2000, not 1999), reading the reprinted Times article is just absolutely stunning. It covers the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the financial regulatory law that was passed as a result of the Great Depression to keep the banking industry from doing stupid and reckless things.

Anyone who is currently pointing fingers at Republicans for championing "deregulation," and demonizing them for doing so needs to read this, to brush up on their history. This Clinton-era bill passed the House 362 to 57, and it sailed through the Senate with a whopping ninety votes for it, and only eight against.

Continue Reading »

In an admirable spirit of egalitarianism, President Obama has opened up the White House Easter party for children (the annual "egg roll") so that anyone who is lucky enough can get a ticket online. The official website to apply for tickets has reportedly been a bit overwhelmed, but because they are randomly accepting reservations on-and-off throughout the day (instead of starting at one set time), there is still a chance for any member of the public to get one of these tickets.

But, although I have no plans to attend, I have to applaud them for making the tickets so available. [Full disclosure: I believe I attended one of these when I was about five, although I don't know whether we made it in to the White House grounds or just attended alternate events in the park across the street. Hey, I was five, I don't remember all the details perfectly....] But opening up the White House egg roll to the general public is the right thing to do, meaning that even if you don't manage to get tickets, everyone still has the same chance. It's basic fairness.

Continue Reading »

[Note: Updated below.]

President Obama is taking your questions now, and will answer them tomorrow. In a move to make Obama more accessible and answerable to the public, the White House web site is soliciting questions from the public for Obama to answer on their new "Open For Questions" page. So, given the opportunity, what question would you ask the president? Personally, I would choose: "Will drug policy be included in your new science-based approach to government, or will you let politics continue to trump science in this arena?" Because there have been two specific news items in the past few weeks, and while they are almost completely unrelated, they both come from the "science/politics" debate on drugs. The first is the "morning after" pill, and the second is medical marijuana.

Continue Reading »

I waited to write this until after President Obama held his second prime-time press conference, so I could give my reactions. President Obama did his usual job of unflappably answering questions in an intelligent and adult manner. This will come as less and less of a shock to the media and the public as time goes on (as the memory of what preceded him fades).

Obama himself didn't make much news. There were a few memorable lines, such as "I'm not going to lie to you" -- again, the shock of hearing such things will wear off with time, I'm sure. About the only newsworthy thing Obama came up with was a challenge to congressional Republicans to put up or shut up on the budget. He made this point several times, essentially saying: "Where's your budget, guys?" But for the most part, Obama was content to restate his case for his budget plan and for fixing the economy. And, almost as an afterthought, on his final question the president hit a thematic high point on the subject of "persistence" -- making his point (persistently, one has to say) that this is exactly what the American people should expect from him on all sorts of issues -- the persistence to follow through on them and get something done.

But while Obama's performance can be summed up in a paragraph, that would make for a very short column. And we can't have that.

Continue Reading »

It may already be too late to even suggest this, but I think we need a better term than "toxic assets" (or "toxic mortgages" or "toxic" anything else) if we're trying to convince people to buy them. I mean, has any marketing campaign in the history of advertising been successful using the word "toxic"? Even actual poison (bug spray, for instance) largely avoids this word, unless in some reassurance that the product is "non-toxic to pets."

To be fair, this term has largely come from the media. Which means it already may be too late to re-frame the issue. Because, like a pit bull on a juicy bone, the media gets attached to some terms and refuses to ever give them up. But for anyone trying to sell the Obama/Geithner plan to clean up our financial system, it really would be a good idea to come up with another snappy term to replace "toxic" with.

Continue Reading »

The 19th of March is a date which I will now celebrate every year, because it is the day I became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America. I have to admit, I was surprised at my own emotions and feelings during the swearing-in ceremony. I got caught up in the excitement and joy, along with 450 other participants (who represented a total of 67 different countries). When prompted, we stood up -- one by one, and in groups -- when our country of origin was called. When we were all standing together, we swore the Oath of Allegiance to our new country. After this, we were now "from" one country -- we were all fellow American citizens. I was filled with civic pride, as I realized I can now vote and make a difference as an active citizen in my adopted country.

Continue Reading »

For all the ink spilled over President Barack Obama's appearance on Jay Leno's Tonight Show, I have to wonder... does anyone remember Richard Nixon's ground-breaking appearance on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In?

I have to admit, I'm too young to have personal memories of it, but during the 1968 presidential race, Dick Nixon appeared on the most popular comedy show of the day (akin to Saturday Night Live with the original cast, in the 1970s) and he memorably uttered the show's catch-phrase: "Sock it to me."

Thanks to the miracle of the internet, you can now view this for yourself, should you so desire. But I refuse to get into a debate over what "Sock it to me" meant, except to note that the Volkswagen Beetle I was being driven around in at this point in time had a bumper sticker on it with the same phrase prominently displayed. You'll have to ask my parents what it meant, in other words.

Continue Reading »

There will be no column today.

This is due to having spent all day dealing with the federal government in a way I and my wife never have before.

Because Mrs. Chris Weigant was sworn in today as a citizen of the United States of America.

I am trying to make up for today's lack of column by convincing her to write a guest column about the experience, which I will post here over the weekend. Please join me in congratulating her on her newly-acquired citizenship, and add your voices to mine to convince her that people would like to hear her thoughts on the matter.

Thanks, and my apologies for the interruption of service. Rest assured, this sort of thing doesn't exactly happen every day!

-- Chris Weigant

[Updated, see below for additional information from Mark Blumenthal of Pollster.com.]

It really is a bit early to focus on President Obama's approval ratings in the polls, I know. But, rather than looking at the overall picture of how he's doing, I have been noticing something interesting which I don't believe others have picked up on -- Obama's numbers dramatically improve depending on the sample used by the pollsters. When "likely voters" (LV) are polled, the numbers they give are different from when either "registered voters" (RV) or "all adults" (A) are polled. Obama's LV approval rating is about five points lower than the RV/A numbers. The difference is more pronounced in the disapproval ratings, where LV numbers are fully ten points higher than RV/A numbers.

Is this significant? I have to admit, I don't know enough about polling to come to any conclusions I can be confident of. Perhaps I should send this column to Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.com to see what he thinks. Like many people, I did a lot of poll watching over the course of the presidential election, and even wrote a series of articles with graphs to track what I thought was going on. But I am strictly an amateur at this stuff, I fully admit.

Which is why I truly don't know the explanation of this phenomenon. But I know enough to identify it, at the very least.

Continue Reading »

First off, Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig!

For our non-Gaelic-speaking readers, Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

For the record -- and no surprise to anyone who has made it to the end of one of my 10,000-word columns -- yes, I have kissed the Blarney Stone. It's at the top of Blarney Castle, which is lots of fun to wander around, and to kiss it you have to lean backwards over a death-defying drop of something like ten stories. An old Irishman will hold your legs for you, so you don't fall to certain death, and you better believe I tipped him well for the service! Then, while leaning backwards, you kiss the magic stone (and try not to think about the rumors you've heard of mischievous Irish lads sneaking up there and urinating on it at night).

But kiss the stone I have, and have hence been rewarded with "the gift of gab." So if you're looking for someone (or something) to blame, while endlessly scrolling through my usual blarney, blame the stone. As the Irish say: That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

Continue Reading »