Sorry for the slow start today, but decided to dive a bit deeper on the immigration bill, which required that I put on my Think-Like-a-Conservative hat and then quickly take it off before hitting the keyboard.
Here are some midday savories for your news/views appetite:
* 4th Quarter GDP grew at surprisingly high annual rate of 3.2%; would have been a percent higher without government shutdown. Thanks, congressional Republicans.
* At the New York Times, Timothy Egan discusses Cathy McMorris Rodgers use of biography to trump support for policies that negatively affect people like her back home.
* Gallup notes dissatisfaction with gun laws increasing mainly because number of those wanting less gun regulation has risen sharply. Wish they gave us partisan cross-tabs on that one.
* WaPo’s Lyndsey Layton reports that GOP pols who support Common Core Standards are trying to disassociate the actual reforms from the label. I noted during the SOTU address that Obama seemed to be doing the same thing.
* At the Prospect, Harold Meyerson offers a very good retrospective on the career of Henry Waxman, “liberalism’s legislative genius.”
And in non-political news:
* Americans staying away from Sochi in droves. One reason: 3-star hotel rooms going for $700 a night.
As we break for lunch, here’s Son House again, showing off his slide guitar chops in “Death Letter Blues.”
