Lucubrations

Payoff for night owls: early look at this morning's very interesting New York Times story on the internal dynamics of the Obama Administration's statements on the fast-evolving situation in Egypt. Basically it says that President Obama and his White House team were emphasizing that change needed to begin right away, while old foreign policy hands--including at times Sec. of State Clinton--were emphasizing the need for continuity in the process of change. If you're still wondering what newspapers are for, reporting like this is one important function.


It comes as little surprise that Washington Republicans make many more false statements than do Democrats--this study says three times as many, or over a third of the time a GOPer assert something, he or she is lying or deluded.

But for lies and delusions to work requires a certain gullibility as well as ignorance among hearers, and apparently none of us are immune. For example, I among many others fell for the impression that the U.S. owes the bulk of its national debt to China. But it's not true, and not even close. The U.S. owes most of its debt to...the U.S. That is, 53% of the federal debt is held by U.S. citizens and institutions. China holds 9.8% but Japan holds 9.6%, and the UK holds 5.1%. Makes a difference, don't it?

Still, it seems that the lies and liars are more fascinating, at least on the Internet. I just took a look at my usual first stop among a shrinking number of sites, Talking Points Memo, and literally every single story on its front page is about a GOPer whopper. Now I know CPAC is going on and that's fertile territory for this, but still... It's like there's nobody doing anything constructive...

As California again confronts a budget slicing crisis, Michael Hiltzik's column in the L.A. Times provides analysis and cautionary tale about the dysfunctional state of Texas.

And while Arizona mostly has been making headlines for Rabid Right mania--like its string of proposed racist, violence-engendering and secessionist laws including nullification of federal laws they don't like, even after the gun killings and attempted assassination of Gabby Giffords in Tucson. But somehow this counter-narrative was missed last week: a Public Policy Poll found that a majority of Arizonans favor stricter gun control, which is higher than the national average.

And if you missed it, Gabby's husband Mark Kelly has resumed training to pilot the space shuttle Endeavor in April, saying that he fully expects his wife to be present at the launch. It seemed pretty optimistic, until the news a few days ago that Gabby has begun to speak. And that in itself is truly amazing.