++ For the details of what the failure of the Super Committee means and whose at fault,I suggest Steve Benen at www.washingtonmonthly.com . Over several days He lays out the offers and counter-offers. In the end, the GOP would not budge on the issue of serious revenues. The ratio of cuts to revenues the Republicans offered the Democrats was stunning.
++Yet that hasn't stop the cycle of the blame game. John Kerry and Pat Murray were first off the block on the Sunday talks shows. Mitt Romney blamed President Obama for not doing anything. Romney, whose credibility is being damaged every day, either doesn't know or refuses to recall that on this one the Republicans explicitly asked President Obama to stay away. John Boehner, who had been offered several grand bargains by the President before the creation of the Special Committee, took the opportunity to blame him anyway. Michael Gerson weighed in blaming President Obama and Robert Samuelson also piled on that for some reason the President had to do Congress' work. Marc Thiessen wrote that it was all so pathetic that the Committee couldn't even get the $1.5 trillion by law, let alone a grand bargain.
++Ezra Kelin and others reminded everyone that President Obama already agreed to $2.8 billion in cuts and that the real problem with the Supercommittee failing was that there were two components that would stimulate the economy in the package, which would add 1.5% to the GDP. Without these added components and Europe plunging into recession this would increase the possibility of a double dip recession. That's why, according to Klein, the market plunged today.
++No one knows whether this will lead to a further downgrading in the country's credit rating but the last one didn't effect the purchases of bonds.
++Mitt Romney has tried to finesse his way out of the report that his staff took all the hard drives when he left the governor's mansion in Massachusetts by blaming the current governor, who is a supporter of Barack Obama, as trying to smear him. But today he told a nespaper in New Hampshire that he made sure that any political opposition--he was running for the GOP nomination even then--would not be able to use them against him. Seems reasonable but it is also illegal.
++What's interesting about Romney now is that he is running for President solely on his employment record at Bain Capital and not on his public political record. The December edition of the Atlantic has an article "Can Romney Inc. Run America? The article analyzes what Mitt Romney did there and concludes that contrary to his self-promotion as a businessman, he really was a glorified consultant. The article then analyzes whether these consultants actually make good businessmen--sometimes yes and sometimes no. Then it asks whether such a person really could run something as large as the United States Government. Several of the things that Romney promises to do immediately simply can not be done--like repeal Dodd-Franks, repeal Obama's Healthcare Act and put China on the Treasury List for manipulating their currency. And since he can't do these things, then why would anyone believe anything else he says?
++Two articles today, one in the Washington Times and another in Politico finally raised the issue this blog has mentioned from time to time. The GOP contest is not likely to be a quick Knockout for the simple reason that the rules have changed and the way delegates are divided up in a proportional manner simply delays the day any candidate will achieve the winning number of delegates.
++The blog Reaction writes that it is by no means a certainty that Mitt Romney will win this thing. While almost all insiders say it is Romney's for the taking,Reaction points out that Newt now is statistically tied with Romney in New Hampshire, the absolute must win state for Romney. If Romney can't win convincingly in the state, then he immediately faces South Carolina and Florida where the Republican base is more conservative and religiously based.
++In the race against President Obama, Mitt Romney is ahead beyond the margin of error in Michigan. Remember he openly advocated the auto industry go bankrupt. But his father was a very popular governor of the state and he grew up there. But there is something else here. I read on occasion at the Dailykos a blogger named the Muskogen Critic, who occasionally reports on the return of manufacturing to the Midwest. His recent post talked about two new solar battery plants opening in Michigan , two wind energy plants and a new car plant. These are the result of President Obama and the previous Democratic governor's policies. But they are being heralded by Governor Snyder, the conservative Republican and backer of Romney. So Romney's position in Michigan may not be a mistake because when it comes to President Obama no good deed goes unpunished.
++David Frum, George W's former speechwriter, asks why have the Republicans gone mad in the new New York Magazine.
++Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish decides to talk about why the Republicans are at fault on the debt deal and why he's backing President Obama for a second term.
++ On the debt deal, the Republicans are scrambling in the Senate to prevent the cuts in the defense budget, which they proposed as their triggers. Some wiseacres are commenting that they aren't serious about the debt anyway. It's nice to know that today is the tenth anniversary of Dick Cheney saying "Deficits Don't Matter".
++Who would have thought that a tax break that passed the Senate by one vote, the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy would actually become the burning issue of the 2012 campaign? As Ezra Klein points out, if they did expire the debt would improve by over $7 trillion.
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