Which is why I was somewhat less impressed with last night's non-SOTU SOTU than even most progressives, because beneath the confidence-building bromides lurks a growing list of more than questionable policies, statements and actions, including, apparently, a push to bring back the line item veto, one of the more odious powers that every president seems to insists it's their right to have, even though the Supreme Court rightly ruled it to be unconstitutional, which it is, because it violates the separation of powers doctrine and impinges upon congress's inherent right and role in crafting legislation:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/25/line-item-veto-obama-admi_n_169908.html

Line-Item Veto: Obama Administration Would "Love To Take That For A Test Drive"

February 25, 2009 02:32 PM

In his press briefing on Wednesday, Robert Gibbs offered the strongest assertion to date that President Obama would like to see the restoration of the line-item veto.

Asked if Obama would use that legislative tool -- which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1998 -- to help weed out the earmarks from the forthcoming omnibus-spending bill, the press secretary replied:

"I can assure you that he'd love to take that for a test drive."

The remark appears to be the most definitive endorsement of the line-item veto from Obama to date. Past presidents have long sought the legislative power to reject specific spending items or tax breaks from individual bills. (Congress would have the power to reinstate the declined items by passing separate legislation). Bill Clinton was granted the authority in 1996, only to have the Court rule it unconstitutional two years later. In 2006, George Bush formally announced that he wanted legislation to re-introduce the line-item veto. His position was echoed by John McCain on the 2008 campaign trail.

But Obama, for his part, doesn't appear to have formally announced support or opposition to the restoration of line-item veto authority.

Asked more generally if, as a way of demonstrating his commitment to cutting down on pork, Obama would veto the entire omnibus-spending bill -- which GOP officials have blasted as containing hundreds if not thousands of earmarks -- Gibbs demurred.

"I think he is very concerned about earmarks," he said. "But without looking at a specific piece of legislation, I'm hesitant to throw out that four-letter word: veto."

Sorry, but for all his obvious political, intellectual, rhetorical and personal gifts, and for all the genuinely good things that he's said and done since assuming office, Obama is yet another insecure megalomaniac at heart, who embraces the imperial presidency doctrine totally, and has not hesitated to persue policies antithetic to a free and open democracy. This is yet another example of that, and it must be resisted. If congress grants him this power, it will deserve to be treated like the doormat that it will render itself to be if it does so, and I will cheer the day that SCOTUS strikes it down yet again, hopefully this time angrily.

No kings.

Admit it--you're just jealous of Republicans for their clearly enviable new minority status, and it shows. Reduced to political irrelevance and ankle-biter status, they are now more powerful, and relevant, than ever. And it just kills you that this is so. When oh when will you Democrats learn?

(Hint to newbies: No, I do not write for SNL)

They're not journalists. I don't mean this as a put-down of any of them, per se, but they're all professionals in other fields who happen to write columns from time to time. Calabresi and Glenn are lawyers and writers, Brookhiser is a writer and non-academic historian, Sabato is a political science professor who runs a political analysis center, and Ponnuru is a dishonest polemicist of the George Will ilk. But none are journalists, accredited or otherwise, although Glenn has certainly engaged in journalistic-like fact-checking, interviewing and researching, which I suppose technically makes him more of a journalist than many of the hacks who write for establishment media outlets. But then Glenn is honest and thorough, and they're not.

Michael Savage begs to differ. But that was SO 2003 and we're way past that now, obviously.

By the way, know anyone who wants to sell a bridge? I'm in the market...

:-)

three staunch conservatives, a non-partisan centrist, and a civil libertarian with liberal and progressive leanings. Why didn't they also invite Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity just to "balance" things out? I have to laugh whenever someone calls the NYT a "liberal" paper.

Calabresi was obviously full of it and is a hack to the core, I didn't bother to read Ponnaru since he's an idiot, Sabato was ok, Brookhiser was surprisingly and refreshingly honest (but then he's never been one to beat around the bush), and Glenn, of course, was his usual excellent self, throwing back establishmentarian talking points like unexploded hand grenades.

I simply never cease to be amazed at the degree to which the establishment media continues to kiss up to the right in every conceivable way, because it so clearly still fears it, the way that a tamed lion fears a chair in the hands of an expert tamer. And if nothing else, the right is an expert at "taming" the media to bend to its will. The fact that Dems like Emanuel have learned this trick just shows that it works and is very much still operative.

Of course, it never occurs to them that they might want to just report the news, rather than spin it to favor the right so as to lessen the blowback from it, and maybe have their op-ed pages reflect more actual reality rather than empty and now discredited RW and faux centrist ideology, because that would entail hard work and real risk, and we just can't have that in the era of spoon-fed talking points and unchallenged conventional wisdom.

It's simply surreal how so much of the nation's media "elite" has lost the ability, desire and willingness to engage in critical and reality-based thinking. Truthiness lives on!