He's Engaged

Washington Post: If It's Not About Shut-Ins, the President Is Otherwise Engaged. "The administration has found it useful to provide such reminders, at regular intervals, that the president is paying attention to the issues of the day. International environmental concerns? 'The president has already been very engaged in these issues and plans to be engaged,' Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state for global affairs, said in August. The India-Pakistan standoff? 'The president is fully engaged,' White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said in June. The review of military resources? 'The president has been engaged,' Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld attested last year. The China spy plane crisis? 'He has been very engaged,' said a senior Bush aide, briefing reporters. This president, it would seem, has been engaged more often than Elizabeth Taylor."

Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Little Lying Minds

Daniel Gross: Bush's Bushwa. "President Bush opened his final radio address of the year this way: 'In 2002, our economy was still recovering from the attacks of September the 11th, 2001, and it was pulling out of a recession that began before I took office.' Bush concluded 2002 with the same dishonesty that defined his economic policy throughout the year — a mendacity that ranged from denying the tax cut had anything to do with the re-emergence of the deficit to arguing that the terrorism insurance bill would create 300,000 construction jobs."

Happy Anniversary

Re-date.com is a brilliant idea. I have to admit that I never could have done anything like this, not only because I didn't think of it, but also because for me, the most painful programming task is date calculation. But that won't stop me from enjoying the product of someone else's labor, and it shouldn't stop you from celebrating my next lesser anniversary: on 1/27/03 I will be 1.2 billion seconds and, consequently, 20 million minutes old. Party at my place! Oh yeah, and I have an actual birthday 10 days prior.

A Sound Warning

E.J. Dionne: It's Time To Do The Math. "Will 2003 be a 'here they go again' year? Will Democrats again back a fictional 'compromise' that will further deplete the Treasury? You can already see its outlines. Bush may agree to add the Democrats' idea of a payroll tax holiday to his other proposals and pronounce the package 'balanced.' If Democrats do this, they will be complicit in creating a fiscal crisis that will explode after Bush leaves office — at just the time when the baby boomers are retiring and placing heavy demands on government."

This is tough love to be sure, but given the Democrats' track record of collaborating with a very bad Bush economic plan, it's time for Democrats to stand up and demand that federal budget and tax policy actually make a modicum of sense.