MattBai.com

Some technical problems

mattbai — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:28:24 +0000

If you're looking at my archives on this site, you might notice that I seem to have written my latest pieces in December of 1969. This would be quite a feat, since I was only 1 at the time. Actually, I've recently had to do a software update and some things are going haywire. So please excuse our appearance while renovations are completed, as they say....thanks.

Taking the Hill

mattbai — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:22:56 +0000

Sometime in the next few weeks, Congress and the White House will descend into the labyrinthine politics of comprehensive health care reform. For Barack Obama, this signals the end, in a sense, of the eventful prologue to his presidency. Impressive as they are, Obama’s legislative victories to this point — most notably the $787 billion stimulus bill and a stunningly ambitious $3.6 trillion budget resolution — have been relatively easy lifts for a popular new president installed at a time of economic crisis and buffered by comfortable majorities in the House and Senate.

Everyone a Winner?

mattbai — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:20:18 +0000

Even before he ran for re-election to the Senate, Norm Coleman saw more than his share of ignominious elections. First he lost the Minnesota governorship to a former pro wrestler who called himself the Body. Then he just barely managed to wrest a Senate seat from an opponent, Paul Wellstone, who had recently perished in a plane crash. So can you really blame Coleman for having spent the last eight months furiously trying not to have to concede defeat to Al Franken — a man who once acted alongside a gorilla on the set of “Trading Places”?

Michael Conrad

mattbai — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:54:49 +0000

I read your book earlier this month, and I recently criticized it in a post that was my attempt to start a conversation in my corner of the netroots. After seeing that you had written an article about the progressive blogosphere in an issue of Democracy I saw at a book store, I got this crazy idea to send you a link. My post wasn't widely read by any stretch of the imagination (and you've likely heard some of this before) but at any rate...
http://www.progressiveblue.com/diary/3308/

The relevant portion of the post is below.

...

Harold Ellis

mattbai — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:37:42 +0000

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Jay Paterson

mattbai — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:03:06 +0000

I find your writing brilliant and insightful because you agree with most everything I think. I was just telling some colleagues that, in politics (and life), we need less Bill Clinton and more Pat Nixon. You know, be stoic, be proud, suffer in silence, drink. What happened to respect for dignity, self-control and endurance? I just heard on the radio about the Edwardses being on Oprah, and I felt like I needed to take a shower. People have enough crap in their life, why do they want this dumped on top? Why are the Edwards doing this? Why is Oprah letting them? We get the picture . . .

The Chatty Classes

mattbai — Sun, 03 May 2009 17:14:28 +0000

Dan White

mattbai — Sun, 03 May 2009 17:10:51 +0000

I was very happy about your book. It provided information I needed. I used it in a "Brief" which I've written (about 60 pages) called "Ecocide as the Principal Dysfunction of Government and the Economy and Why Democratization is the Only Effective Solution". I am trying to decide on people and organizations to whom I can send this for their information. Please let me know if you would like to see it, and if so, please give me a mailing address. Also, please let me know if you recommend anyone to whom I should send it.

Jim

mattbai — Sun, 03 May 2009 17:05:55 +0000

I became a huge fan of your political reporting during the '08 campaign. (It's crazy how intensely the country followed the election last year, right?) But even though the honeymoon is over, and I've stopped obsessing over purely political reporting, I still automatically and reflectively read stuff that carries your byline.

Totaled?

mattbai — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:32:15 +0000

Of all the various forms of corporate subsidy that the American taxpayer is now being asked to shoulder (bailouts for swaggering investment bankers and insurers, lifelines for overextended homeowners and the mortgage lenders who took advantage of them), perhaps none evoke such complicated emotions in Washington as the comparatively modest plea of General Motors. This is not simply because of its size, but also because G.M. is bound up with our collective identity, both national and personal.

Yes, More Mr. Nice Guy

mattbai — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:48:04 +0000

Not quite seven weeks into Barack Obama’s presidency, the capital’s leading thinkers seem to agree that the era of postpartisanship is over. Obama’s team made little secret of their intention to win broad support for his stimulus plan — an effort that yielded three Republican votes in the Senate and none in the House. The president’s pick for the Commerce Department, Senator Judd Gregg, a Republican from New Hampshire, turned down the job, citing his personal opposition to the bill. According to E. J. Dionne Jr.

Newt. Again.

mattbai — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:45:51 +0000

FOR CONSERVATIVES, who have traditionally valued their grand theorists more than their campaign consultants, the buildings that house Washington’s premier think tanks are like a second set of grand monuments, symbols of a movement built on brash ingenuity. The Cato Institute, headquarters of the nation’s libertarian academy, occupies a stunning steel-and-glass tower on Massachusetts Avenue, boasting the kind of light-filled, contemporary opulence you would expect to find in Silicon Valley.

Susan Thomas

mattbai — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:02:52 +0000

I've just quickskimmed your article on Newt and will read as soon as possible but just to share I realized recently that Newt is a Republican or such version of Al Gore. I didn't see that connection mentioned in your article and wanted to share, along with the interesting connection between the "departure and return" political theme you noted and the technological version of such you noted in the piece w/the airline business description. You may have made either of these points, I just didn't spy them in my quickread and wanted to share.

AN APOLOGY...

mattbai — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 23:39:54 +0000

To all those who have written to me in the past several days, following my latest cover story on Newt Gingrich. I recently changed the e-mail settings for my nonblog mail, and it's now come to my attention that none of the mail has been getting to me. I'm not sure where it is--floating around in cyberspace, I guess. I've changed it back for the moment, so if you've written to me in the last week or so and are checking here for a response, please do send again and excuse my technological incompetence. I'm working to get it all sorted out. Thanks, and sorry.

Don't Look Back

mattbai — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 04:26:11 +0000

Chandelle North

mattbai — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:50:18 +0000

That was one of the funniest pieces I have read in a newspaper in a long time. (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-bai3-2009feb03,0,79....) If I could, I would pass it on to my friends. Great work.

Mike Sturgeon

mattbai — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:22:05 +0000

Kudos!!

I just got done reading your Obama Blackberry column. That is funny stuff. Non-maliscious, non-meanspirited, non-political, non-racist. Non-anything that might offend "political correctness" sensibilities. Just good clever humor. I frequently found myself laughing out loud and each "blackberry entry" just seemed to build and was better than the previous entries.

Funniest thing I have read in weeks. No, months. No, years!! (Well, you get the picture.)

Marty Breon

mattbai — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:46:40 +0000

It was regrettable that you presented these emails as real. They had not a single ring of authenticity. Even the 'recipients" of the email -- Gates and Clinton -- were impossible and contradicted the purpose of his retaining this text connection to old friends. How dumb do you think we readers are?

Jay

mattbai — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:48:02 +0000

I wrote to you earlier and was very skeptical about Obama. I was worried he was too much of a front man for the Democratic good old boys in Congress. I always admired and supported McCain, and stuck with him through the election. However, I'm coming around, and find myself rooting for Obama. He seems to be the right man for the times: I don't think McCain could have taken it physically, or the country could have taken another Repbulican mentally. I like Obama's cabinet picks, his scolding Wall Street about bonuses, and even his pokng fun at the snow babies in DC.

Kay Dangaard

mattbai — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:44:08 +0000

I thoroughly enjoyed your piece yesterday on President Obama's Blackberry. I rather think we should refer to his BlackBerry as The BarackBerry. What do you say?

The Edge of the Mystery

mattbai — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:03:19 +0000

Weeks before the election of 1960, Norman Mailer, already an accomplished novelist, sat down to write his first major work of political journalism, an essay for Esquire in which he argued that only John F. Kennedy could save America.

Rony

mattbai — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:30:56 +0000

Hello Matt, Saw you on Charlie Rose last night and again appreciated the perspective you bring when you appear there. Your point of President Obama's (YES!) focus on a generational shift and its importance equal to or greater than

Ahmad

mattbai — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:22:17 +0000

You stated on the Charlie Rose Show that Obama's advantage is not having
to bare the burden of the civil rights legacy. I found your comment to be a
little disingenuous to all of blacks who have succeeded in this country. I
understand why Clayburn took issue to your statement.

John P. Gooding

mattbai — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:23:41 +0000

Thank you for the wonderful piece on Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Have you ever considered doing something on Congresswoman Barbara Lee (I happen to be one of her constituents), the courageous remarkable woman who cast the lone vote against granting the Bush administration unlimited authorization on 9/14/01?

The Other Winner

mattbai — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:54:10 +0000