... and someone who's better versed in monetary policy can correct me if I'm wrong.

One of the effects of the neoliberal obsession with discouraging governments from running debt was effectively to free up money at lower costs for the private sector. In other words, if the private sector doesn't have to compete with government for the money available to be loaned, the private sector can get it for cheaper.

Implicit in this (well, frankly, it's explicit in the neoliberal worldview) is that the private sector will do more useful things with that money than the government will. If that means more profit for private borrowers because their debt service charges are lower, so much the better.

In any case, it was always based on a flawed and dishonest premise to begin with, which is that money spent by the government vanishes forever, while money spent by the private sector is recycled and circulated and trickles down. Give a dollar to a hedge fund manager or a corporate lawyer, and it magically turns into ten dollars via the cab driver, the barista at Starbucks etc.; but give a dollar to a schoolteacher or a civil servant and it disappears without a trace and without any effect on the economy.

In reality, the private sector has pissed away tomorrow's wealth and left nothing to show for it, far more effectively and completely than government ever did.

It's not a rhetorical question--what exactly is this?

I get irony as much as the next guy and usually better, but in this article you've got utter howlers (the mainstream media skews left on most issues) and perfectly reasonable statements (the Dems should have done something about Jefferson sooner.)

If this is satire, stick to satire. If it's an honest attempt to let the right wing make their case to us, then stick with that. Putting the two together either (1) delegitimizes any legitimate point they might be making, by making it look like it's intended as a joke, or else (2) legitimizes ridiculous statements by allowing them to pass alongside the howlers.

"2) legitimizes ridiculous statements by allowing them to pass alongside the non-howlers."

about Obama's perpetuation of some of Bush/Cheney's policies but unfortunately I'm afraid they're necessary. Americans have proven that.

The fact is that, politically, Obama has to protect himself in advance against the accusations of being soft on terrorism that will inevitably come if/when there is another terrorist attack. Yes, Obama ran on a platform of (among other things) restoring the rule of law and that's a good thing, but people voted for him 7 years after 9/11--which is to say, they had had years to get over the immediate panic of being attacked.

America was not a fundamentally different country in 2008 than it was in 2001. It just wasn't as panicked.

The sad and ugly truth is that the last time Americans were tested, and asked to surrender all their freedoms in the name of safety, and to turn like pit bulls on anyone who questioned this blind obedience, they fell all over themselves to do so. (No, not ALL Americans, but enough to make the difference between George Bush having a second term or not.) It took a failed war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and a devastated economy to get Americans to decisively turn away from the Republican party.

In the months before the election, there was an article in a major monthly glossy--can't remember which--in which the author expressed concern that Obama represents redemption without penance. That is, that we imagine that by electing Obama, we wash away our guilt in having allowed Bush/Cheney to have their way.

At the end of the day, the last time there was an attack on US soil, America showed itself to be, by and large, a nation of gutless cowards who will fall into line behind whoever beats the national security drum hardest.

(Oh, yes, I can hear the outraged shrieking by people who lived thousands of kilometers from Ground Zero, insisting that it was Like It Happened To All Of Us. Don't flatter yourself; there are no good targets in Nebraska, and 9/11 happened in a city that you were quite content to bash as the antithesis of Real America, until 9/11 gave you an excuse for crocodile tears and cans of whoop ass.)

I have seen nothing to convince me that this won't happen again. So, much as I would like to see Obama decisively turn away from official secrecy, I would like even more to be convinced that Americans are worthy of such trust.