Wow. In the tradition of "the Google" and the intertubes, a star is born.

I think I'm going to put that on my business cards.

A great diary by ShawnGBR on the first time evolution has been observed in the laboratory making a rare and complex new trait.

Via Atrios:

SW Nebraska: Will any future president be able to do the job on the press, Congress and the public that George Bush has been able to do? What about the politicization of the Justice Department, science, etc? It seems that McClellan has taken the press to task in his book. Will the press be so cooperative with a President again or has the media been reminded that they actually have an important, difficult job to do?

Anne E. Kornblut: I haven't read McClellan's book yet, but really look forward to it, especially on the point you raise. My immediate reaction upon hearing he'd said that was, "Wait, what!? Isn't it the job of those employed at the White House to be straightforward in the first place?"

What's striking about Kornblut's statement -- beyond the unbelievable naiveté (anyone who works at the intersection of politics and the media knows that "straightforwardness" is a relative term) and the incredible evasion of McClellan's charge -- is the extent to which it reveals the complete inability of Kornblut to identify, even in hindsight, the definitive attribute of the administration that has been in power for nearly eight years.

The Bush administration hasn't simply failed to be "straightforward" with the press or the American people. Their mendacity from Day One -- from their reasons for invading Iraq to redacting scientific reports on global warming to justifying their response to Katrina -- has been deliberate, strategic, and (frankly) rapacious.

That Kornblut can't recognize this after eight years of evidence -- remember Armstrong Williams? -- is simply astounding.

Isn't it the job of those employed at the White House to be straightforward in the first place? Korblut asks.

Well, yes, yes, we should hold them to that standard, at least.

But really, Anne? You're only now asking yourself that question?

As for SW Nebraska's initial question -- Will any future president be able to do the job on the press, Congress and the public that George Bush has been able to do? -- the answer, apparently, is yes.

As understood by an anonymous commentator over at the Cunning Realist:

At this point it seems the sack of flour in my pantry has out performed my stock portfolio in the last 6 months.

The Big Picture points us to an eye-opening chart by Bill King that illustrates the extent of borrowing by financial institutions at the Fed Discount Window.

Note how the rush for cash from Bernanke and Co. literally dwarfs the S&L crisis from the 80s, and appears to be on its way to doubling the infusion of cash that the fed released after 9/11 to keep the American economy on track.

So we're headed to more inflation, right? Well, that's an interesting debate, and an upcoming post I have planned will take a look at the arguments between the inflationists and the deflationists.

Which, to be honest, I find far more interesting and relevant than almost anything the presidential candidates are saying at the moment.

Blogging will resume with some regularity momentarily....

An interesting post from John Rubino:

With a few months of hindsight, it’s now clear that debt-as-money was not one of humanity’s better ideas. When the U.S. housing market—the source of all that mortgage-backed pseudo money—began to tank, hedge funds found out that an asset-backed bond wasn’t exactly the same thing as a stack of hundred dollar bills. The global economy then started taking inventory of what it was using as money. And it began crossing things off the list. Subprime ABS? Nope, that’s not money. BBB corporate bonds? Nope. High-grade corporates? Alas, no. Credit default swaps? Are you kidding me?

No longer able to function as money, these instruments are being “repriced” (a slick little euphemism for “dumped for whatever anyone will pay”), which is causing a cascade failure of the many business models that depend on infinite liquidity....

The process of debt reclassification has a momentum that a few hundred billion new dollars [from central banks] won’t stop. And once corporate bonds and agency bonds and emerging market bonds have been crossed off the list, the system will start eyeing the dollar. Is it really a store of value after falling by half against oil and gold in the past five years? Didn’t the Fed just create a tidal wave of new dollars and promise to create infinitely more if needed? Isn’t the U.S. economy hobbled by the implosion of housing and mortgage finance and hedge funds and (soon) derivatives? Don’t Americans owe more per capita than any people in human history? And a realization will begin to dawn: Maybe the paper currency of an over-indebted country isn’t money either…

Zeus Y.:

Jim Cramer screams about his poor financial buddies going down. “Lower interest rates, Fed. I don’t want my rich decadent friends to face their due. They have FAMILIES for Christ sake.” So far the American people are refusing to play ball with this rigged game....

These so-called financial elites are so crass and intoxicated with the latitude granted them by their CEO President, it looks like they won’t even bother to rig a few calls in the game or penalize the other team (the American public) unfairly. At this point, it looks like that won’t be enough, they are so far behind. They’re simply going to try to change the score [through inflation and central bank bailouts]. If this happens, I have no idea what is going to happen. Will we just accept it? No October Surprise and Crash because a few trillion dollars are simply pumped into the system and the interest rates are lowered? Woo boy.

Why don’t they just get it over with and say, "We need about a half-trillion dollar bailout for our buddies, from you, the taxpayer. If you don’t pay up, you won’t be able to buy a house, we’ll fire your asses, spiking unemployment (because we would have to cut back on costs, naturally), and we’ll generally make your life miserable. Pay up if you want "protection." It is not a “decreasing appetite for risk” that is gumming up the works; it’s a system that has been set up to have no consequence, which touts the myth of a risk-free profit that is bringing things down. After all, what risk is there in giving out fraudulent loans and then passing them off as AAA rated mortgage-backed securities? I get the profit from transaction fees and sale of the mortgage securities. Some other sucker can take the shaft.

Oops you mean I also used my ill-gotten gains to lend out money to hedge funds (looking for big interest) which are now collapsing and won’t be able to pay me back, but, but, but... The cannibalism of elites can be very ugly, but they always end up coordinating in the end and turning their appetites on the American tax purse. Internalize profits, externalize liabilities. If you have the right men in government, you can even commit open and outright fraud and produce nasty, shoddy work as Halliburton did in Iraq, by the government’s own assessment, and still get a quarter-billion dollar bonus. “Heckuva job ______ (fill in the blank). You’re one of us."

All the while that same taxpayer now has extreme strictures placed upon his or her ability to file bankruptcy and come out with a clean slate, even though two-thirds of bankruptcies are the result of real emergencies (failing health, lost job, or divorce), not the fabricated ones of the finance industry. The simultaneous mendacity, contempt, and dependence toward the American citizen is a force to behold. I think the best way we may have of calling their bluff, is simply saying, "no bailout". They have to take the pain even if that means pain for us. As a follow-up I think we should get real practical and creative about creating our own circle lending, our own markets (as with farmers markets, etc.) that cut out these non-productive, and indeed, life-draining, parasites. In the words that they not doubt use to condemn the homeless they pass on the way to their high-priced pseudo-profession. "Get a job, a real job!"

Greenwald gets it right:

Washington Post National Political Reporter Shailagh Murray opined on Monday:

Washington: What can possibly be gained by congressional hearings into the Libby commutation? Clearly Bush had the authority to do this, and he did it. Q.E.D. I'm old enough to remember when President Ford appeared before a congressional committee to explain his pardon of Richard Nixon. But Bush is no Ford, and unlike the Ford pardon, I don't think this action is going to look better over time.

Shailagh Murray: YAAWWN. That's my view of the Libby flap. What on earth did people expect Bush to do?

YAAWWN. What could possibly be more boring or irrelevant than the President of the United States protecting one of his most powerful aides, now a convicted felon, from going to prison, thereby ensuring that that aide has no incentive to disclose what he knows? Can we get back to what really matters to Americans, like John Edwards' haircut and probing investigations of his stylist?

From the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll:

5. From what you have heard or read, do you think President Bush was right to commute Libby's sentence, do you think he should have gone further and granted him a full pardon, or do you think he should not have intervened at all on Libby's behalf?

Right to commute sentence - 13%

Should have granted full pardon - 6%

Should not have intervened at all - 66%

No opinion - 15%

As usual, the true "fringe" in our country are Bush followers and their establishment media allies.