Happy Birthday to Kenneth Tigar, 70. Cheers (twice)? Star Trek (twice)? Whedon connection? That'll do it.
So how about some good stuff:
1. I mostly agree with Josh Marshall's reader here, although Marshall makes a good point about what appears to have been in the heads of Team Romney. If the fundamentals really are playing in favor of the president, there's probably not a lot that Romney can do about it...but if it's close, then misunderstanding the fundamentals may hurt their ability to frame it the best way, and that could -- again, if it's close -- make some difference.
2. Lynn Vavreck on the undecideds.
3. Sarah Kliff on the state-by-state adoption of standard benefit packages under ACA. Prediction: assuming full implementation, the losers in the states will appeal to Congress, and odds are they'll eventually win (meaning that we'll eventually get national, not state-by-state, standards).
4. Joseph Cera explains why the Obama bump might be persisting.
5. Those of you uninterested in whether an attack ad meets truth-checker standards may nevertheless find Glenn Kessler's quick history of how presidents have received daily intelligence briefings worth checking out.
6. And an excellent post from Hans Noel about voting the party, not the person.
Kenneth Tigar is best known (to me, at least) as part of the "Barney Miller" repertory company, making six appearances on that show, most memorably as the guy who thought he was a werewolf. I also see that he has a Ph.D. from Harvard in German literature, which is almost as impressive.
ReplyDeleteI'm not much of a Barney Miller watcher, actually; not sure why. I do remember his Hill Street character, though.
DeleteI totally agree with TN on this one. Tigar was unbelievably funny on Barney Miller as was the whole show.
DeleteJB, you definitely missed the boat on this one. You really need to sit down and watch the Barney Millers. It is comedy at its finest and a show you could watch straight through one after another. The first season is mixed, however but by season 2 it is one of the best ever.
Glad to see the TPM post. I've been saying for a while now that Obama is way more popular than Carter and H.W. were at comparable points before the election--and his job approval numbers have only improved since. Everyone wants to talk about Romney losing the election, and everyone has good reason to (he's a lousy politician and he's distrusted by ideologues on both sides) but I think it's way underreported how Obama's winning the election. Not by being the default choice against a jerk but by being the incumbent who more people approve of and/or look favorably on than otherwise. That's not a story a lot of people want to tell, since everyone has their complaints about the incumbent (as usual).
ReplyDeleteWell, Obama certainly has a lot of protection in the MSM, that's for certain. Always has. That can't hurt him any. ;-)
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