mistermix at Balloon Juice takes issue with Atrios using the Lucy and the Football line regarding Lindsay Graham and the Obama Administration. Atrios is a snark machine so I think this is less of a question of whether Obama is being Charlie Brown than whether the Obama approach to political bargaining is the most effective one. mistermix writes:

[The Obama Administration] know[s] full well that they’re playing Charlie Brown to the Lucy du jour. Atrios is certainly smart enough to realize this. I’d like to hear his alternative to kissing Lindsey Graham’s a**, because I have no clue what other, better strategy is waiting in the wings.

I do not know if it would work, but it seems to me that a more confrontational approach may in fact be more effective. As booman writes:

There was a a time when I wrote about the Media as much as anything. Now I almost never write about the Media. Mostly I suppose it is because it does not interest me anymore. But part of it is because I think it does not matter very much. Tom Friedman's ridiculous column on the Tea Partiers garnered a lot of ridicule. I do not question that the ridicule is appropriate. Indeed, Tom Friedman is the most ridiculous figure in the Media. But does Tom Friedman matter? Steve Benen writes:

One of the reasons I'm inclined to write about the Tea Partiers is that there are still many in the political establishment who believe the political mainstream should do more to take the Tea Party crowd and its hysterical cries seriously. [. . .] Thomas Friedman has a column today suggesting Tea Partiers strive to "become something more than just entertainment for Fox News."

Steve believes that Tom Friedman still matters. Does he? I seriously doubt it. Indeed, I ask for any evidence that anything Tom Friedman has written or said has affected the policy discourse since Iraq. Friedman provides fodder for ridicule. But little else. Ezra Klein is much more influential now imo.

Speaking for me only

Boycott Arizona! What a Boycott Can Mean:

In 1982, President Reagan signed a bill making Martin Luther King Jr. Day a federal holiday, but it wasn’t until almost a decade later that Arizona finally recognized it. In the meantime, the state lost NFL support and Super Bowl XXVII. The game — and the economic boost that comes with a Super Bowl — was to have been held at Tempe’s Sun Devil Stadium in 1993, but was moved to California to protest the state’s failure to recognize the holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader.

No Super Bowls for Arizona. The Fiesta Bowl out of the BCS in the next negotiations. This can be effective pressure.

Open Thread.

One of the most unfortunate convergences in legal theory has been that private civil litigation is merely a "racket for lawyers" with no redeeming social value. I find myself guilty of that thinking myself. And yet it was not always so. Many, if not most, legislation which intended to reform and regulate commerce, included private litigation as part of the regulatory process. The phrase private attorneys general used to have resonance. Today, "tort reform" is the "cheap slogan" that has trumped the concept.

On the FinReg debate, one of the ideas being bandied about is making it easier to sue the rating agencies. Paul Krugman writes about it today:

Boycott Arizona. Here's a list of the state's House and Senate members. Here are the Senate sponsors of S.B. 1070. Here are the Senators who voted for and against it. Arizona needs 17 people to run against them, or if the deadline has passed, to campaign for their opponents.

The Arizona House passed the bill on April 13. Here's the list of Arizona House members. Here's how the House members voted. 35 House members need to be replaced in November.

Tonight on TV: A new episode of "Breaking Bad," Celebrity Apprentice, the Pacific, Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters. It will be sad to watch Bret Michaels, knowing he is still in intensive care in critical condition. Since the show is taped, I hope tonight isn't the episode where he gets fired. Send good thoughts his way.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Paul Krugman, perhaps the most vital asset in the Media for progressive policies (even if he does not always advocate for them), writes these strange words:

My sense is that too many people are taking the easy route of going for the cheap slogans instead of thinking things through; and some people are pushing their signature issues even when the evidence clearly shows that they’re wrong. And we can’t afford that kind of self-indulgence.

I'm not familiar with every issue Krugman mentions in that post (though I think he is wrong on the issue of "too big to fail"), but I am familiar with how politics works. I think Krugman is confusing "easy route" with "effective route" when it comes to politics. In a perfect world, politics would be a polite debating society. In the real world, "cheap slogans" are almost always more valuable than "thinking things through." The thinking comes first - decide what policy you want to forward, then the politics (the "cheap slogans") for forwarding those policies comes next. Bashing Wall Street (and Goldman) is clearly the best "cheap slogan" for advancing financial reform. Silly to pretend otherwise. Krugman's title - "Can't Anybody Play This Game" - is ironic to me. He seems the one lacking in the political acumen here.

Speaking for me only

Can anyone deny that the most trenchant and effective criticism of President Obama today comes not from the right but from the left? - Marc Ambinder

This one has been making the rounds from some fairly ironic quarters (see, e.g., here.) And Ambinder's line "Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn's keepin'-them-honest perspectives on health care[,]" come on.

Anyway, I'm sort of switching to election mode about now, which means looking hard at the alternative, as I imagine will a lot of folks. So there may be a paucity of "trenchant and effective criticism" of Dems until after November. We'll see.

Speaking for me only

Boycott Arizona!

Yanks and Rays off to a fast start in the AL East. The Padres have won 8 straight and lead the NL West.

9 Gators were chosen in the NFL Draft, the most from any school.

The Celtics will put the Heat out of their misery today (where will Wade play next year? He has to be upset with the lack of support.) The Bulls try to scare the Cavs and even their series today (as Durant and the Thunder did to the Lakers last night.) As expected the series in the West have been very competitive. The Mavs play for their season tonight in San Antonio, the Blazers have tied the Suns and the Jazz lead the Nuggets.

In cycling, returning from his 2 year suspension, Vino wins his second L-B-L on a podium that included Valverde. The anti-doping movement takes a hit today I think. As does Johan Bruyneel.

In 1994, then House Speaker Newt Gingrich unleashed his Contract on America, a set of 10 bills to be considered within the first 100 days of the 104th Congress.

Now, in 2010, the Republicans are drafting a remake. This time, they are going to use social media to get ideas, so when they unveil it after Labor Day, it will have built-in support.

So what was in the Gingrich version? One of the ten bills was a crime bill, named the "Taking Back Our Streets Act." It was a trojan horse of a bill. Presented as the answer to the "crime crisis" for "minorities and the poor," in its specifics, the plan's solutions were simply to incarcerate and execute in greater numbers.[More...]

HBO debuts "You Don't Know Jack" , Barry Levinson's film about Jack Kevorkian, starring Al Pacino, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon and Brenda Vaccaro tonight. Danny Huston plays Kevorkian lawyer Jeff Fieger.

Sen. Lindsay Graham is up to old tricks. Now he's pulling support for the Climate bill because the Dems want to act on immigration.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

(Photo credit: Archiwum Panstwowe w Krakowie)

Via John Wesley Hall (aka Last Night in Little Rock) at FourthAmendment.com:

AZ: State immigration law signed; what does an illegal alien look like?

The Arizona state immigration bill, S.B. 1070, was signed into law by the Governor yesterday. It permits detention on reasonable suspicion of being an illegal alien, and the burden apparently is on the detainee to prove he or she is a citizen. How does one prove citizenship? Carry your birth certificate? Won't the footprint be a little dated? No picture on a birth certificate. Isn't the burden of proof in a warrantless detention on the government? Doesn't the Fourth Amendment protect illegals the undocumented already inside the U.S.? It has to [in order]to protect the rest of us.

Arizona's S.B. 1070 makes a mockery of our Constitution. Congress needs to put immigration reform front and center now and pass legislation that would invalidate S.B. 1070 and prevent other states from following in its footsteps. [More...]

Bill Belichick has decided to draft every available Florida Gator. Good move. (Kidding aside, Hernandez in the 4th was a steal. He'll catch 60 balls from Brady next year. Gronkowski (NE's 2nd round pick) won't see the field ahead of Hernandez imo.)

Can the Bulls even their series with the King? I'll be watching this afternoon to see. (No I won't. Game is tomorrow.)

Tomorrow is the Liege-Bastogne-Liege cycling race. I'm going to go with Andy Schleck to repeat.

This is an Open Thread.