1. From the NYT (of course): 'Gentle White House Nudges Test the Power of Persuasion'
'Tempers were fraying in the White House Cabinet Room as night turned into morning on Jan. 15. President Obama had been cloistered nearly all day with House and Senate Democrats, playing “marriage counselor,” an aide said, as he coaxed, cajoled and prodded them on a health care overhaul. As the clock neared 1 a.m., the two sides were at an impasse. Mr. Obama stood up.“ ‘See what you guys can figure out,’ ” one participant remembers him saying, adding that the failed effort left the president mad. Another Democrat who was there, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, said Mr. Obama left “frustrated that while he was putting out ways to bridge the problem, we hadn’t reached a conclusion.” Ever since his days as a young community organizer in Chicago, Mr. Obama has held fast to the belief that by listening carefully and appealing to reason he can bring people together to get results, an approach that in Washington has often come up short.'I fail to see how leaving in a snit, ordering others to figure things out, qualifies as gentle or persuasive.
2. From Fox News: 'NAACP to Honor Van Jones as 'American Treasure'
The title alone makes me think of the PBS ads for 'Antiques Roadshow' ("... well sir, you have a national treasure, a national treasure'), putting Van Jones on the level of a well-preserved textile.
'But Jones still has his share of outspoken supporters, and one of them is Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP. "Van Jones is an American treasure," Jealous writes in an opinion piece posted at CNN.com. "He is quite simply one of the few Americans in recent years to have generated powerful new ideas that are creating new jobs."Ahh - for that to work as an accolade, one would have to demonstrate that at least one job had been generated by these 'powerful new ideas' something I doubt Mr. Jealous (I had to write it) can prove.
Oh well - as least it's entertaining.
