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Obama's Anzio, Or Ben Nelson's?
The New Republic blogs — ... would have been more popular, and the atmosphere for adding to it more receptive. I don't have extremely strong opinions either way about the political calculus. Senate wrangling is tricky. What I find odd is that Krugman takes as a given that the White House blundered -- this is the premise for most of his commentary on the stimulus. Meanwhile, the incontrovertible fact is that you can't spend one more dollar than Ben Nelson wants to spend, and there's no evidence that Nelson even understands the economic theory underpinning fiscal stimulus, let alone has any willingness to ...

Another example on the need for filibuster reform
Political Animal — ... municipalities all pulling back. If the federal government pulls back too we're going to go down the drain." It's a reminder that Ben Nelson, like too many conservatives, simply doesn't approach public policy in a serious way. Indeed, back in February, when policymakers needed to make the recovery efforts bigger and more ambitious, they couldn't -- Nelson wouldn't let them. He said at the time that an $800 billion stimulus, regardless of whether it would help or not, shouldn't pass. " At some point it's just too big ," Nelson argued, with the intellectual seriousness of a house ...