publius

OUR DUMB SENATE…. To echo dday and Ezra Klein, I tend to think that the problems with the Senate described in Chait’s new TNR article are structural. That is, the problem with the Senate is the Senate itself rather than the individual Senators. The fact that the Senate kills and waters down legislation is no […]

MUCH ADO ABOUT NY-20…. The big news tomorrow will be the special election in NY-20 to replace Senator Gillibrand. As you know by now, the election has become a proxy war for larger national battles over the stimulus. So there will inevitably be a lot of ink spilled on what the election means. Personally though, […]

GEORGE WILL’S LEGAL EXTREMISM…. Noted climatologist George Will shifted gears to constitutional law yesterday, arguing that the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) (i.e., the bailout) is unconstitutional. The specific claim is that it violates the nondelegation doctrine, which holds that “legislative” acts cannot be “delegated” to other entities, particularly the executive branch. There […]

GIVE BAYH A CHANCE?…. Evan Bayh’s working group hasn’t exactly taken the liberal blogosphere by storm. The reaction has been critical, and the most common complaint is that it’s simply a tool for business interests. That fear may prove correct. But let me be devil’s advocate for a moment and at least try to present […]

THE “OTHER” REASON NOT TO TORTURE…. The Bush administration was fond of citing Abu Zubaida as evidence of the great success of its “interrogation” policy. Bush himself claimed that Zubaida was al Qaeda’s “chief of operations,” and that he was a fount of valuable information. Zubaida also has the dubious honor of being the first […]

JUDD GREGG’S QUEST FOR ATONEMENT…. I’m not exactly sure why Judd Gregg has decided to lead an increasingly nasty line of attacks against Obama. On a purely personal level, you would think that Gregg would be grateful for Obama’s vote of confidence. But not so much. Yesterday, Gregg delivered the Republican weekly address and quite […]

OMINOUS CANARY SONGS…. Count me among the skeptical of Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy. What really worries me is what I’ll call the “reverse canary” problem. Simply put, the wrong people are too happy. You’re all familiar with the phrase “canary in the coal mine.” The idea was that miners would bring canaries down into the […]

THE EDUCATION OF HARRY REID…. These comments from Reid fall into the category of “one can only hope he’s BSing”: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday that John Roberts misled the Senate during his confirmation hearings by pretending to be a moderate – and that the United States is now “stuck” with him as […]

A UNIFIED THEORY OF BENEN…. I wanted to briefly introduce myself and thank Steve for his probably foolish decision to trust me with the keys. I write as publius at Obsidian Wings along with Hilzoy and other questionable characters like Eric Martin and Von. Anyway, I’ve been a longtime fan of Steve’s — and I […]