Hayward on Obama’s first month

A very nice articulation of the reluctance or the failure of Obama to address or defend the substance of his proposals--and even, to some degree, to pass off the responsibility of making proposals. It seems to be enough for him to say "I won" or, when pressed at all (which isn't often), to repeat the mantra that Republicans hold on to tired, old and "discredited" ideas and that he represents "the future." It is, as Steve suggests, very much an argument about power. Of course, he does not come near the substance of Republican ideas except to paint a caricature portrait of them--such as you might expect a freshman political science student to do in coming to terms with the various factions of American politics broadly understood. Steve's suggestion that this is a long-term problem of the left is interesting and it would be good to see that theme developed more. I was struck by Steve's discussion of Tipp O'Neil's exasperation in budget negotiations with Reagan when Reagan would want to discuss theoretical merits and demerits of spending programs and O'Neil just wanted to make a deal. That was very clear and, I think, quite revealing. And, boy, did we pass a cactus this time!

I looked through the podcast archives and I didn't see any review of the presidency of George W. Bush. Did I miss it? One would think that NLT would like to review such an event-filled presidency.

Ah Craig! Too much for a podcast! There's a three-picture deal in development with Universal to debut here on NLT.