GREGG’S JUMP
“Far be it from us to judge anyone else’s career choices, but at first glance Judd Gregg’s decision [Tuesday] to leave the Senate to become secretary of Commerce is a stumper,” the Wall Street Journal says in an editorial.
“Mr. Gregg is an influential Republican in a party that is a single Senate vote away from irrelevance on any given issue. Meanwhile, Commerce is (to be generous) a lesser Cabinet post that Mr. Gregg twice voted to abolish, and he joins an administration whose policies aren’t exactly simpatico with his voting record,” the newspaper said.
“Then again, Mr. Gregg told us [Tuesday], ’When the president asks you to do something in a time of crisis, it’s hard to say no.’ The 61-year-old, in his third Senate term, also did insist that New Hampshire’s Democratic governor replace him with a Republican, who will be his former chief of staff, Bonnie Newman. Mr. Gregg is up for re-election in 2010, and maybe he was ready for a change anyway. Sixteen years on Capitol Hill will do that to any thinking person.
“The choice makes more sense for President Obama, who at once buttresses his image as a bipartisan leader and plays with the head of GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Mr. Gregg will be able to advise Mr. Obama about how to turn Senate Republicans on crucial legislation, and he could be influential on some votes. It also won’t hurt to have another voice for free trade and spending restraint inside Obama councils.
“Will Mr. Gregg make a difference at Commerce? The senator has long fought for entitlement reform, and he tells us the president told him that he would be ’a voice at the table’ on Social Security and Medicare spending. We think Mr. Gregg could make a bigger difference on those issues in the Senate, but he says he can do more good from ’inside the tent.’ We hope he’s right - and we’re just a phone call away if he wants any help.”
RESPONSIBILITY
“Last October, while campaigning in [Toledo, Ohio], Barack Obama called for ’a new ethic of responsibility,’ ” Reason magazine’s Jacob Sullum writes at www.reason .com.
“The nation’s economic troubles, he said, occurred partly because ’everyone was living beyond their means,’ including politicians who ’spent money they didn’t have.’ In his inaugural address last month, Obama regretted ’our collective failure to make hard choices’ and heralded ’a new era of responsibility.’
“Now President Obama, as one of his first priorities, is pushing a gargantuan ’stimulus’ plan that will add around $1 trillion to the national debt and cannot possibly work as advertised. Welcome to the new era of responsibility,” Mr. Sullum said.
“Remember when the problem with Americans was that we saved too little, preferring instant gratification even when we couldn’t afford it? As Obama put it in October, ’We were allowed and even encouraged to spend without limits, to borrow instead of save.’ Economists worried that our low saving rate made our economy and our government dangerously dependent on the whims of foreign investors. Yet on Monday, when Commerce Department data showed that the U.S. saving rate had risen sharply, from less than 1 percent of after-tax income a year ago to 3.6 percent in December, the press treated the increase as bad news.”
LOVES THE SPOTLIGHT
“Why is he doing this? That’s the question people have been asking since Rod Blagojevich started his I-Am-Not-A-Crook national media tour a week ago, and it was just as relevant Tuesday as we waited to see whether he had survived his encounter with David Letterman,” Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown writes.
“Just barely, I’d say, after watching Letterman ask that question himself before going on to skewer the former governor so thoroughly that a New York street vendor could have served him up as a Rod-kabob.
” ’Why exactly are you here, honest to God?’ the host inquired as the audience laughed.
” ’Well, you know, I’ve been wanting to be on your show in the worst way for the longest time,’ said an overly eager mop-topped character sometimes known as Blago.
” ’Well, you’re on in the worst way, believe me,’ deadpanned Letterman, who managed to dissect Blagojevich in such a friendly manner that the governor probably didn’t even realize he was sitting there with no clothes,” Mr. Brown said.
“At the very start of Blagojevich’s media campaign last week, my colleague Lynn Sweet summed up the most likely explanations for the governor’s motive in going public: that he hoped to plant seeds of doubt and sympathy with potential future jurors, and that he might also be raising his profile in preparation for a possible book deal or job as a talk-show host.
“I subscribe to all those interpretations, but I’d like to add one more to the discussion, one that’s so simple that it seems obvious, yet I haven’t seen it getting much discussion. It’s just this: Blagojevich is making all these national media appearances because he loves it. He loves the attention. He loves the spotlight.
“Blagojevich has always craved being a national figure. He’s always dreamed of the day when everyone in the country would be able to pronounce the name Blagojevich, and now they can.”
CLEAN HOUSE
“Barack Obama is off to a rocky start,” Jacob Heilbrunn writes at www. huffingtonpost.com.
“Both the Tom Daschle fiasco and the hastily concocted stimulus plan, which is in dire need of remedy, indicate that his own team is either inadequate or failed to prepare for his first weeks in office, which essentially amounts to the same thing. He needs to reboot before he gives the GOP any more room on the political playing field. Obama should emulate Franklin D. Roosevelt and create a new Brain Trust,” writes Mr. Heilbrunn.
“The problem with Obama’s approach is that he has relied too much on Clinton administration retreads such as former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, rather than following the approach Roosevelt adopted. …
“Another reason for Obama to reassess his team is the lamentable failures that have occurred in vetting his nominees. Take Daschle. Why is it that Obama was blindsided by Daschle’s tax problems? It should never have become an issue in the first place. The culprits should be identified and purged.”
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes .com.
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