It’s a Joke, Get it?
The president reminded us he was making a little Jeopardy joke the other day as he introduced Joe the Plumber Spy, Richard Cordray, as top consumer bureaucrat.
Another joke is the way Obama likes to remind us he’s one of the elite and we’re not – unless, of course, we really are keeping hundreds of thousands of dollars we don’t need. He recently did this by targeting bestselling authors, ahem, like himself, for higher taxes. (Here’s a rude bestseller who doesn’t want to join the club). Other times he likes to try a little upwardly mobile bonding with moneybags like Mark Zuckerberg .
Gregg Easterbrook says if Obama wants to pay more taxes, he should just do it.
Slapstick Scandal
Mrs. Murdoch slapped silly her husband’s Parliament pie assailant yesterday. No word on whether the guy smuggled the fully assembled shaving creme concoction in his pants or if he assembled it on site. In any case he managed to achieve the impossible – not by outsmarting security – but by turning Murdoch into a victim, for a moment.
David Cameron is now calling for more media regulation. Here’s an LA Times editorial.
World Cup
Is soccer the new tennis? This from USA Today: The women’s World Cup outdrew any ESPN soccer broadcast ever with 13.5 million viewers for a 7.4 national rating. Last year’s U.S. Algeria men’s game drew a 4.0 rating. The most watched game on any network was the 1999 women’s final with a 11.4 rating.
Bluff
The president admitted that he’s bluffing on the debt ceiling by ordering Eric Cantor not to call him on it. Mitch McConnell acknowledged he doesn’t have the votes for the cuts Republicans want, so he offered a complicated “fallback” plan. McConnell’s plan let’s Obama have his way with Congress but Republicans get to vote against it. Theoretically, that would be useful next election, provided voters can figure what the hell he’s talking about.
