Daily News Roundup, 1/21/08: No More Years

Did you feel a lightness come over your heart yesterday? It may have been because January 20 marked the beginning of George Bush's last year in office as president.

There are many who feel that his time in office cannot end too soon, and I am inclined to agree with them. Here we are in the middle of even more international uncertainty and a generally gloomy economic outlook, and what you get from the White House these days is the rhetorical, talking-points version of whistling past the graveyard. It is probably unreasonable or illogical to expect something better, but maybe I'm an optimist at heart.

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer may also be engaged in a little bit of optimism when he forecasts that some sort of economic stimulus will be ready to go and implemented by March 1, but maybe not. Everyone wants to be proactive on this and nobody wants to be the person / branch / party holding the bag if the economic wheels do come off, so I bet we will see some unprecedented cooperation in the completion of the economic stimulus package.

And I'm sure the Republican presidential candidate field will examine the product and then either champion it or judge it harshly, depending on what the final product polls at. With absolutely no clear frontrunner (other than speculative ones) the candidates are marching towards Florida, where the road will undoubtedly either end or narrow significantly for a few of them on January 29. I think it will be interesting to see who won what votes there as we head to February 5.

And, in case you were wondering, Mike Huckabee may be looking to Texas to keep him alive after he takes his inevitable beatings on February 5. I know, it makes me slightly uneasy too, but he might have a point.

Speaking of Texas, here's a rundown of how Tom Craddick is affecting some races for the state house. I thought this bit was interesting:

Not everyone wanted a sticker. As critics within his party see it, Craddick should not be thanked for his work as speaker of the Texas House. Republicans have seen their once-substantial advantage over Democrats in the House trimmed to 79-71 under Craddick's leadership.

This is certainly true, but it sounds like the message of some of Craddick's critics is starting to become ingrained everywhere.

Lastly, here is the kind of story I hate to see: the fourth editor in three years was run out of the Los Angeles Times because he wouldn't drop the budget axe as requested by the publisher. This has been going on at LAT ever since they were bought by one of those giant media conglomerates and is indicative of a larger problem happening in newsrooms all across America. Read all about it.