Pruning Shears

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

The president has been making what I think of as qualified progress on Guantánamo. Detainees have started to move out, but not as fast as they should be. Their fates once they leave is in some cases uncertain; at least one is getting a regular trial in our justice system, while others face military commissions on domestic soil. Considering his questionable record elsewhere on human rights, and his abysmal record on civil rights, Guantánamo has been a relative win for him. That may be why Congress is stepping up its efforts to keep the place open. It isn’t just the big, bad president forcing this stuff. There’s two other branches of government, as well as a burgeoning intelligence/national security infrastructure, pushing these issues. (Spencer Ackerman has an optimistic take on this story.)

Three from Atrios. First, “The policy has been to prop up prices, not people.” That incisive sentence tells you more about the state of politics and the economy than a week’s worth of the Wall Street Journal. Then he pointed to this story, which reads like a parody of clueless traditional media ignorance of new media. It’s like they wanted to top Post’d. Finally, he linked to this by John Holbo:

I think, for some conservatives, the main objection to a somewhat vaguely conceived set of liberal values really is a strong sense that they are inconsistent with a certain sort of hardassery in the virtue ethics department.

Dear Center For American Progress, we do not need propaganda catapulting “Look, liberals! The insurance industry hates it! That means it MUST be really good, progressive legislation!” pieces from you or from anyone else. It just makes you look like Fox Left. The industry loves it, they’re just smart enough not to gloat about it - not on the record, anyway.

Attention would-be political comedians. When you hit something once, resist the urge to repeat it. Unless you have a black belt in humor you will not know how to effectively use repetition to push through the cycle of funny, not quite as funny, getting tired, lame, why won’t you stop, God is this dumb, starting to get funny again, hysterically heart attack-inducing comedy. You’ll likely get bogged down in the middle, stuck with uninspired recycling of the rare spark of wit you manage to stumble across. Enjoy the initial laughs, then let it go. When, for example, you come up with something original like “Louisiana Purchase” to describe Mary Landrieu’s ransom for a vote on health care reform, leave it at that. “Cornhusker Kickback” isn’t nearly as funny; it’s at best a chuckle. When it gets extended to “U Con,” “Bayh Off” and “Botax” it just makes you look like you’re more interested in coming up with clever turns of phrase than dealing with any of the substantive issues facing the country. Which, come to think of it…

This is my last political post of the decade. Prairie Weather gave the most succinct and accurate encomium in what appears to be a dashed off Christmas Day post: this has been “the worst and most humiliating decade for America that most of us have experienced.” Good riddance, get the fuck out, and may we have the courage, determination, energy and willingness to make the next one better.

Last week I quoted James Wolcott, this week I WISH I COULD WRITE LIKE Lucy Kellaway:

Many of the business books that surround me wear their badness on their sleeve. Last week a book arrived in the office with the title: Waging War on Complexity Costs – Reshape Your Cost Structure, Free Up Cash Flows and Boost Productivity by Attacking Process, Product and Organizational Complexity. I found myself so weakened by the title I couldn’t even open the cover to see what was inside. If the authors really want to wage war on complexity, the title might have been a good place to start.