Odds & Sods #16
Nixon's back, the stock market is up (or is it?), warrantless wiretapping is DOA, we long for a smart president and are there really any Dems out there, flying under the radar?
- Nixon's face on the dollar coin? Look for it in 2016. In between now and then, let's figure out what the coin is REALLY good for, e.g., do they still have pay toilets anywhere?
- Woo hoo! The stock market is at or near an all-time high! But, as Cunning Realist points out, "the Dow would have to rise several thousand more points to reach a 'real' all-time high after accounting for inflation."
- Is it possible that the lame duck Congress will NOT legalize Bush's warrantless wiretapping program? Could be.
- Remember what it was like to have a smart president? Maybe we'll have another one someday. In the meantime, Bill Clinton is the gold-standard. When Clinton speaks, you want to hear what he has to say.
- Speaking of (Hillary) Clinton, I still think we may not have caught sight yet of the Democratic nominee for 2008. Here's Jonathan Alter:
...[T]he Democratic nominee could easily be neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama. Two years before the 1992 election, the presumed Democratic front runners were Mario Cuomo and Al Gore. Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder, an African-American candidate, was considered an intriguing choice. Far down the list of possibilities, languishing in polls as Evan Bayh and Chris Dodd are today, was an obscure governor named Bill Clinton.
That's less likely to happen today; since 1990 we've gotten talk radio and the Internet and not much flies under the radar anymore. And yet, in early 2003, who thought Howard Dean was anyone significant?Joe Lieberman……29%
Dick Gephardt……15%
John Kerry………..13%
John Edwards…….8%
Al Sharpton……….5%
Howard Dean……..2%