Two great pieces in Sunday’s New York Times:

1.) The Brightest Are Not Always the Best: Frank Rich looks at Obama’s economic appointees with a suspicious eye, and for good reason.

As Barack Obama rolls out his cabinet, “the best and the brightest” has become the accolade du jour from Democrats (Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri), Republicans (Senator John Warner of Virginia) and the press (George Stephanopoulos). Few seem to recall that the phrase, in its original coinage, was meant to strike a sardonic, not a flattering, note …

Lawrence Summers, the new top economic adviser, was the youngest tenured professor in Harvard’s history and is famous for never letting anyone forget his brilliance. It was his highhanded disregard for his own colleagues, not his impolitic remarks about gender and science, that forced him out of Harvard’s presidency in four years. Timothy Geithner, the nominee for Treasury secretary, is the boy wonder president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He comes with none of Summers’s personal baggage, but his sparkling résumé is missing one crucial asset: experience outside academe and government, in the real world of business and finance. Postgraduate finishing school at Kissinger & Associates doesn’t count.

Summers and Geithner are both protégés of another master of the universe, Robert Rubin. His appearance in the photo op for Obama-transition economic advisers three days after the election was, to put it mildly, disconcerting. Ever since his acclaimed service as Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, Rubin has labored as a senior adviser and director at Citigroup, now being bailed out by taxpayers to the potential tune of some $300 billion. Somehow the all-seeing Rubin didn’t notice the toxic mortgage-derivatives on Citi’s books until it was too late. The Citi may never sleep, but he snored.

Geithner was no less tardy in discovering the reckless, wholesale gambling that went on in Wall Street’s big casinos, all of which cratered while at least nominally under his regulatory watch. That a Hydra-headed banking monster like Citigroup came to be in the first place was a direct byproduct of deregulation championed by Rubin and Summers in Clinton’s Treasury Department (where Geithner also served). The New Deal reform they helped repeal, the Glass-Steagall Act, had been enacted in 1933 in part because Citigroup’s ancestor, National City Bank, had imploded after repackaging bad loans as toxic securities in the go-go 1920s.

Well, nobody’s perfect. Given that John McCain’s economic team was headlined by Carly Fiorina and Joe the Plumber, the country would be dodging a fiscal bullet even if Obama had picked Suze Orman. But I keep wondering why the honeymoon hagiography about the best and the brightest has been so over the top.

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1.) Best essay by a washed-up celebrity: Dick Cavett of “The Dick Cavett Show” writes an occasional online column at the New York Times, and his take on Sarah Palin’s post-election stardom and her butchering of the English language is really, really great:

Now something has gone wrong with all three television sets. They will get only Sarah Palin.

I can play a kind of Alaskan roulette. Any random channel clicked on by the remote brings up that eager face, with its continuing assaults on the English Lang.

There she is with Larry and Matt and just about everyone else but Dr. Phil (so far). If she is not yet on “Judge Judy,” I suspect it can’t be for lack of trying. …

What on earth are our underpaid teachers, laboring in the vineyards of education, supposed to tell students about the following sentence, committed by the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High and gleaned by my colleague Maureen Dowd for preservation for those who ask, “How was it she talked?”

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any.

2.) Most astute analysis of the potential auto bailout: Many times in past months, I’ve directed your gaze to the wise words of Pat Buchanan, former Nixon speechwriter, Reagan adviser and fringe presidential candidate. There are plenty of places I part ways with him, but the man’s political instincts are usually keen — this post about “conservatives” and their strange opposition to a meager $25 million to bail out our auto industry is worthwhile reading, even if (like me) you aren’t sure you agree with it:

Understandably, Republicans are seething.

When Hank Paulson demanded $700 billion to haul away the trash in the dumpsters of JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs — assuring us we could hold a garage sale of the junk — they rebelled. They acted as the nation, by 100 to one, demanded. They killed the Wall Street bailout.

The Dow quickly sank another 1,000 points, and, charged with criminal irresponsibility by the elites, the GOP buckled, reversed itself, rescued the bailout — and was wiped out on Nov. 4.

Now we hear from Paulson that the $700 billion Congress voted will not, after all, be used to buy up all that rotten paper on the books of the big banks. Some banks are using the cash to buy other banks.

So Republicans are right to be enraged. They are victims of the biggest bait-and-switch in political history. But they are now about to do something terminally stupid. With GM, Ford, and Chrysler teetering on the brink, they are turning a cold stone face to Detroit …

And to let the auto industry die is to write America out of much of the economic future of the planet. [Bolds mine-R]

Go read the whole thing. You’ll be a little smarter afterward.

3.) Funniest totally lame YouTube thing I just found: Thanks, Nick, for pointing me to this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J6S6mDyNvY[/youtube]

It may be hoity-toity, and it may be one of those magazines that graces more coffee tables than actual readers. But it’s got great longform journalism (a dying breed, indeed), and two of this month’s pieces on Obama are worth noting:

1.) “The Joshua Generation”: This in-depth piece from reporter David Remnick looks at how Obama used race to his advantage — and downplayed it as well — en route to the White House, and looks at what the victory ultimately means for black Americans in the 21st century. It’s not an altogether shiny, happy tale, but it’s informative for anyone interested in the racial, social and political divides in this country.

2.) “Battle Plans”: Ryan Lizza gives us an overarching view of how Obama’s advisers used an adept understanding of the nation’s political tide, as well as a cool-headed approach to usually white-hot presidential politics, to help Obama to victory.

All this from the same magazine that gave us the unforgettable cover above, in the name of satire.

From Rupert “Fox News” Murdoch’s New York Post, with full story, at 9:50 p.m.:

I’ll be doing that here. Check in early and often, and look for the headlines that begin with “SPIN ROOM,” because those are mine.

Best piece of investigative journalism: Jeffrey Goldberg’s article on airport security in the forthcoming issue of The Atlantic. The reporter spends many hours in many airports across the country — acting strange on purpose, carrying all sorts of forbidden items (nail-clippers, weapons, alcohol, giant Hezbollah flag), using fake boarding passes (nope, he didn’t actually have tickets either!) and at one point even wearing an “Osama bin Laden, Hero of Islam” teacher through the screening.

A forged boarding pass, printed with a consumer laptop and consumer inkjet printer. This one got Mr. Goldberg in "elite" first class.

I could have ripped up these counterfeit boarding passes in the privacy of a toilet stall, but I chose not to, partly because this was the renowned Senator Larry Craig Memorial Wide-Stance Bathroom, and since the commencement of the Global War on Terror this particular bathroom has been patrolled by security officials trying to protect it from gay sex, and partly because I wanted to see whether my fellow passengers would report me to the TSA for acting suspiciously in a public bathroom. No one did, thus thwarting, yet again, my plans to get arrested, or at least be the recipient of a thorough sweating by the FBI, for dubious behavior in a large American airport. …

(B)ecause I have a fair amount of experience reporting on terrorists, and because terrorist groups produce large quantities of branded knickknacks, I’ve amassed an inspiring collection of al-Qaeda T-shirts, Islamic Jihad flags, Hezbollah videotapes, and inflatable Yasir Arafat dolls (really). All these things I’ve carried with me through airports across the country. I’ve also carried, at various times: pocketknives, matches from hotels in Beirut and Peshawar, dust masks, lengths of rope, cigarette lighters, nail clippers, eight-ounce tubes of toothpaste (in my front pocket), bottles of Fiji Water (which is foreign), and, of course, box cutters. I was selected for secondary screening four times—out of dozens of passages through security checkpoints—during this extended experiment. At one screening, I was relieved of a pair of nail clippers; during another, a can of shaving cream.

He never once missed his flight.

Anyway, it’s a definite must-read and a shocking look at how $7 billion taxpayer dollars have been used on what Goldberg calls “security theater.”

Best new web presence: The Daily Beast, a blend of news aggregator (i.e. it has lots of links to actual news and commentary sites), blog hub and high society. The design is great, the bloggers are varied and terrific (if a bit elite), and “The Big Story” feature is particularly nice, giving five or six widely different angles on a particular story of the day. You really should check it out.

On the outside, looking in. (Photo by Carolyn Kaster/AP)

I wrote a couple weeks ago on the growing evidence that not only is Obama going to win, he’s going to win big. The evidence was there, and a few pundits were making the same predictions (though more muted, because as pundits they fear being wrong). Today, however, it seems the prediction of a McCain loss is a sure bet… just take a gander at these varied samples from around the web:

Bill Kristol, token conservative columnist for the New York Times:

The McCain campaign, once merely problematic, is now close to being out-and-out dysfunctional. Its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic. If the race continues over the next three weeks to be a conventional one, McCain is doomed.

He may be anyway. Bush is unpopular. The media is hostile. The financial meltdown has made things tougher. Maybe the situation is hopeless — and if it is, then nothing McCain or his campaign does matters.

Ex-Clintonite Lanny Davis, in Politico’s Arena:

this election is over. Obama is on the right side of most issues supported by most voters, especially economic, and Senator McCain cannot delete his erratic behavior when the credit crunch crisis hit, fatally undermining his key strengths on experience and steadiness in crisis. …

Given this Schmidt-driven politically tone-deaf Atwater-model strategy–if not changed–what is a certain Obama win on Nov 4 will be a blow-out - perhaps close to the Ronald Reagan landslide over Walter Mondale in 1984.

Former Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins:

We have seen two major campaigns this year that could be described as internally divided — Sen. Hillary Clinton’s losing primary campaign and now Sen. John McCain’s general election effort.

And while chaos and disarray reigned supreme in Sen. Barack Obama’s opponents’ campaigns, the steady, disciplined and strategically driven Obama campaign marches forward toward likely victory. …

And no one seems to be in charge, least of all the candidate. The end result is a campaign suffering from “schizophrenia.”

John McCain is saying one thing on the stump, his running mate another. But the worst sin is that his advertising campaign is incoherent and putting out multiple and inconsistent messages. …

With one debate remaining and less than three weeks of campaigning left, John McCain’s 10-year quest to be president is coming to a close and — as of today — a dreadful one.

1.) For once, a non-media conservative defending journalists for doing the work they’re supposed to do.

Larison says (and you should really click here and read the whole thing):

When someone at a restaurant asked Palin a question about Pakistan that generated some controversy because it seemed to contradict McCain’s previous statement at the debate, the McCain campaign dubbed it “gotcha journalism” and right away when Gibson stumped Palin with his Bush Doctrine question there was a great hue and cry about the “gotcha” nature of this question.  Apparently the questions on her reading habits and Court rulings has also been defined as a “gotcha” question by Palin supporters, even though it is as certain as the sun rising that journalists will ask nominees their views on judicial philosophy and Court rulings … In other words, the “gotcha” is no longer an ambush — it can include any question to which the candidate really should have an answer. …

When this year’s rulings came down, the presidential nominees either volunteered their opinions on the rulings or they were asked about them.  McCain denounced Boumediene and endorsed Heller. Obama supported both, which caused him some trouble because he had said that he thought the D.C. gun ban was constitutional …  If Ifill asks these questions tonight, is she playing “gotcha” or trying to gain information and a window into the candidate’s reasoning and understanding of the relevant policies?  This might be worth sorting out in advance so that we’ll know which flubbed answers to ignore and which ones are important.  If all questions are now “gotcha,” maybe we can just skip watching the debate and go have a drink. [bolds mine-R]

2.) Speaking of Gwen Ifill…

This is the argument: The moderator of tonight’s debate, a woman who is known throughout Washington for being a fair interviewer (and far from tabloid-esque, as with the more partisan likes of MSNBC or Fox News), is writing a book about “politics in the age of Obama.” She is black.

This has been translated into “she’s a member of the liberal media and is writing a book about politics in the age of Obama.”

This is the intellectually dishonest bomb-throwing that otherwise engaged people like myself simply detest, no matter which side of the aisle is throwing it. First, a book about the changing fortunes of black politicians is a far cry from a book “about” Obama or (as some have called it) “PRO-Obama” — she hasn’t event written the chapter about Obama yet. Secondly, do we think Bob Woodward would be a bad moderator? He’s written books about politicians, and all of them have been tough, hard-nosed — and ultimately fair. (There’s a reason President Bush keeps sitting down with the man, even though his books on the Bush White House have provided plenty of embarrassment.)

This is how it stands: Those who begin whining about “unfairness” are usually doing it because they know they’re losing (see previous post on the landslide that now seems imminent)… when Sean Hannity et al brought the Jeremiah Wright story to the forefront, Obama never claimed the story wasn’t credible because it was being reported by a right-leaning news organization; the story was true and so the questions were justified. He tried to spin it, sure, but not by beating up on the press. I’m guessing that’s because he knew he was winning then, and he surely knows he’s winning now.

…instead of real-ity.

Some 52.4 million people watched Friday night’s debate. That may seem like a lot, but it’s actually 16 percent fewer than watched the first debate between President Bush and John Kerry in 2004 — and despite the fact that 12 networks (all the majors, all the newsies and a few you probably don’t get) aired it live.

Why the drop? It could be because more people chose to enjoy their Friday nights out on the town, planning to watch it via Web the next day. (As far as I know, there’s no data on how many have watched it this way, nor even a way to accurately compile such data. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that Bush-Kerry debate was on a Thursday night.)

But still, the numbers are surprising. Isn’t this “the most important election of our lifetime”? Isn’t this supposed to be the most exciting election in the history of the universe? More to the point, about 38 million watched Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, and about 500,000 more than that watched McCain’s.

Let that sink in for a minute. Assuming that two-thirds of the people who watched one candidate’s acceptance speech did not watch the other’s — and, based on my totally unscientific discussions with partisans on both sides the days after each acceptance speech, that’s a pretty good guess — it’s likely that fewer people watched the debate than watched at least one of the acceptance speeches.

Real questions by a real person, vs. speeches given via TelePrompTer. Do we really care where they stand?

Recent events lead me to think otherwise. Consider how much the debate coverage focuses on personality/image/composure (McCain didn’t look at Obama! Obama didn’t have any good zingers!), while policy differences are simplified and utterly false statements are just left hanging in the air (Pakistan was not a “failed state,” as McCain chastised; Obama and Michelle are coming up on their 16th anniversary, not 15th… I bet he’s in the doghouse!).

Debates are boring. I get it — I’m not even excited about Thursday’s between Palin and Biden, despite the fact that it’s bound to be rife with comic value on both sides. But seriously! The day we’d rather hear a prepared speech than an actual spontaneous discussion on the issues is the day we’ve lost the right to complain. (Re: Bush 2000’s “steady hand” vs. Bush 2008’s stubborn refusal to consider things commonly known as “facts.”)

P.S.: This should tell you a good deal about the intelligence of the average voter. (VodPodded at right, but bigger-screen here.)

Best podcast: “It’s All Politics” from National Public Radio. Hosts Ron Elving and Ken Rudin go over a week’s worth of presidential politics with wit, whimsy, astute analysis and just a bit of cynicism. It’s free, click here to get it.

Worst new TV show: Fox’s “Hole in the Wall.” The preview looked sort of funny, which compelled me to look it up on Hulu during a lull here at work. The contestants, hosts and audience are all WAY too excited about the stupid task that’s going on here: Namely, people trying to contort themselves to fit through (you guessed it!) holes in a wall. This further strengthens my urge to come up with some pitches for TV shows — if this thing can make it on the air, anything can. Click here to watch; it’s a great test of the human will to see how far you can get before turning if off. I made it almost 7 whole minutes!