Liberal Talk Radio

Palin got a crash course in diplomacy today. [Snarky, non-contextual aside: I've still met more heads of state than she has.] Henry Kissinger was among the grandees brought in to tutor young Liza. [Snarky, contextual aside: Do we really want an impressionable young lady like Palin to get the entirety of her foreign policy experience [...]

Bush’s failure is complete: Russia flexed its muscles in America’s backyard yesterday as it sent one of its largest warships to join military exercises in the Caribbean. The nuclear-powered flagship Peter the Great set off for Venezuela with the submarine destroyer Admiral Chabanenko and two support vessels in the first Russian naval mission in Latin [...]

Is John McCain the most narcissistic politician ever? I think he is. After getting caught up in the Keating Five scandal in the late 80s, where he took all sorts of gifts from Charles Keating in exchange for favorable banking legislation, McCain devoted his life to… campaign finance reform. Think about that for a minute. [...]

And here I thought my Master’s thesis in banking policy would sit, dusty, on a shelf in perpetuity.  (Hey, any ray of light during this crisis, right?) The Fed effectively killed Glass-Steagull today by allowing the last two remaining investment banks — Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — to convert themselves into Bank Holding Companies.  [...]

You know you’re on to something when even Republican hacks like Kristol agree with you: Everyone seems to agree on the need for a big and comprehensive plan, and that the markets have to have some confidence that help is on the way. Funds need to be supplied, trading markets need to be stabilized, solvent [...]

John Dickerson has a round-up of the best political ads of all time: The first one, a Johnson ad, with a twitchy, chain-smoking Republican explaining why he can’t vote for Goldwater, is brilliant.

Reader CW shares a graph on the size of the AIG bailout. And this is before we found out we’re on the hook for another $700 million…

Josh Marshall makes a great point: And in case it isn’t obvious, those begging as they cling by their fingertips on the precipice are not in a position to be making any demands or calling any proposals “deal killer.” Late Update: My instincts tell me that the effort to pretty this up by adding a [...]

McCain loses the message, Bush turns into a socialist, and finally: our interantional news roundup. Links Mentioned: Mallaby’s ideas on the bailout … Krugman pushes back … the WSJ’s timeline of events … a banker tells his story … the FT blames Greenspan … attacks in Pakistan … Mbeki out … Olmert out

Is it possible that the need for candidates to prostrate themselves at the altar of Detroit means that the majority of American politicians haven’t yet realized what most other Americans have known for decades, namely that American cars are crap? Gutter John actually wins a point for owning foreign vehicles, but loses 12 points for [...]