President Kucinich?

The New York Times raises the spectre:

Just last weekend, three liberal writers made the case for taking on Mr. Obama in 2012. Michael Lerner, longtime editor of Tikkun magazine, argued in The Washington Post that a primary represented a “real way to save the Obama presidency,” by forcing Mr. Obama to move leftward. Robert Kuttner, co-founder of The American Prospect and one of the party’s most scathing populist voices, issued a similar call on The Huffington Post, suggesting Iowa as the ideal incubator.

On the same site, Clarence B. Jones, a one-time confidant of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., suggested that liberals should break with Mr. Obama now, just as Dr. King and others did with Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. “It is not easy to consider challenging the first African-American to be elected president of the United States,” Mr. Jones wrote. “But, regrettably, I believe the time has come to do this.”

Meanwhile, in Iowa, a group known as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, originally founded to aid Democratic Congressional candidates in 2010, has started broadcasting an advertisement that shows Mr. Obama, in 2008, promising to reverse the tax cuts for the most affluent Americans. The group isn’t advocating a primary challenge just yet — but then, the choice of Iowa as a market seems intended to send a pretty clear warning to the White House.

Spectre. We haven't heard that word since James Bond.

Stat of the day

The New York Times crunches the numbers:

At least a quarter of the tax savings will go to the wealthiest 1 percent of the population.

Dems won't abandon the cave man

Steve Kornacki tells why the president didn't get rolled:

Democrats, by and large, believe that Obama has been operating in good faith. This is different from the intense skepticism that (George H.W.) Bush already faced from the GOP base, which remembered him as the moderate who blasted Reaganomics as "voodoo economics" in his 1980 presidential campaign, when he made his deal with the Democrats. In raising taxes in '90, Bush was confirming what the right had long suspected about him. Obama, though, has more wiggle room with his party's voters. Which is why the concessions that he won from the GOP are so important. As part of the deal, expiring unemployment benefits for millions of Americans will be extended for 13 months. Just as importantly, there is now a real prospect that the Senate will act on repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and ratification of the START treaty before this month's lame duck session ends. Is extending tax cuts for the richest Americans (and blowing another hole in the deficit in the process) a steep price to pay for all of this? Absolutely. But that's politics: Obama took the best deal he could possibly get. And he got enough out of it that Democratic voters, who still like him enormously, can rationalize their way to supporting it (or at least not feeling betrayed by it) -- no matter how much grief Obama takes from liberal activists and commentators....

Some of the most vocal liberals will argue that Obama should have refused this deal, dared the GOP to let all the tax cuts (and unemployment benefits for millions of Americans) expire, and used his bully-pulpit to convince Americans that Republicans did it all in the name of protecting millionaires and billionaires from a tax hike. This wouldn't have worked, though. As the 2010 midterms demonstrated (hardly for the first time), when the economy is stalled, voters look for reasons to blame the man in charge -- whether it's logical or not. Obama is in no position to win a P.R. battle with the GOP right now. That's just reality, and on Monday, he dealt with reality and came away with the best compromise he could get.

If Obama doesn't hurry up and cave, those small business guys at Fox News won't be able to create any more new jobs

Rep. Alan Grayson gave the speech Obama should have given, mocking the Republicans on the floor of the U.S. House by pointing out just how much loot their media spokesmen stand to pocket if their Bush tax cuts mantra isn't debunked.

Deploying a series of cardboard posters to illustrate his points, Grayson electrified C-Span by pointing out "that each millionaire -- each person who makes $1.4 million a year on average, the top 1 percent of income in this country, the high and mighty -- (would receive) $83,347 a year in tax cuts,"  which they could use  to buy a 2011 Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan every year for the next decade or a Hermes "Birkin" handbag every year or a bottle of 1787 Chateau d'Yquem wine.

Let the poor drink Ripple.

A transcript:

Madam Speaker, we’ve heard endless braying from the Republicans, time after time, demanding an extension of tax cuts for the rich in this country. They tell us that somehow extending tax cuts for the rich will somehow create jobs. When we’ve had tax cuts for the rich for nine years and I haven’t noticed a lot of jobs being created in nine years.

They tell us it will boost the economy. Well, I haven’t noticed that happening for nine years either. So you have to wonder why they persist in this mania, this obsession of theirs that we need to have tax cuts for the rich when the economy is flat on its back and unemployment is almost 10%. I think I have the answer. The answer turns out to be very simple.

They want tax cuts for the rich because they want a tax cut for themselves. What do I mean by that? Let’s take a look at the people who are really in charge, the ones who actually run the Republican party.

Let’s start with this gentleman here, the man with the cigar, Rush Limbaugh. Doesn’t he look happy? According according to Newsweek, he makes $58.7 million a year, and extending the tax cuts means he’ll have another $2.7 million. Mega dittos, Rush, and mega money. Let’s look at the next one.

Here’s Glenn Beck, according to Newsweek Glenn Beck makes $33 million a year as a pundit and extending the Bush Tax Cuts means a cool $1.5 million for Glenn bBeck’s ongoing imitation of Howard Beale from 'Network.' Now let’s look at the next one.

Sean Hannity. Newsweek says that Sean Hannity, this man of the people makes $22 million a year from his act on Fox. And that means the Bush Tax cuts mean an extra $1 million. $1 million for Sean Hannity. Maybe he can afford some anger management classes. Let’s take a look at the next one.

Bill O’Reilly. He makes a modest $20 million a year from his gig on Fox. That means that the Bush tax cuts give him not quite seven figures, nearly $914,000 of extra cash. It’s easy to see why Bill O’Reilly wants to see the Bush tax cuts extended. And I have to say, he’s no pinhead when it comes to that.

And Now, Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin has made $14 million this year from cashing in on her fame. In fact, she’s done a better job of turning fame into cash than anyone in American history. $14 million. So she wants the Bush tax cuts extended so she can make an extra cool $638,000. As she was — as she would gesture (shoulder shrug.)

And now on to Newt Gingrich, the man who did such a great job of running America in the 1990’s, he wants a second chance in this decade. Newt, if you do to us now what you did to us then, we’ll be in trouble. But Newt Gingrich makes $5 million a year from his punditry, he’ll get an extra quarter million dollars a year. An extra quarter million dollars a year from the Bush tax cuts being extended.

Now let’s go on to the big cheese. George W. Bush himself. The man who got us into two endless war. The man who brought us to the brink of national bankruptcy. The man who gave us $4 a gallon gasoline. George W. Bush makes a cull $4.2 million a year, according to Newsweek. That means that extending the Bush tax cuts for George Bush means an extra $187,000 in his pockets every single year.

I have a better idea. Instead of placating these people and letting them spew out onto the airwaves their lies about the Bush tax cut ever revealing the fact that they stand to gain millions, millions of dollars each year from their selfish desire to take advantage of the rest of America, let’s do this. Let’s take that money and create jobs.

All that money that the Bush tax cuts are charging us that can create jobs for three million Americans a year. $30,000 job a fair wage for fair work, a dignified wage for dignified work and a way to — a dignified wage for dignified work and a way to help our economy, a better idea than putting money in the pocks of the rich. The problem is not that the poor have too much money, that’s not the problem at all, it’s that they need jobs.

Thank you.

Sadly, the Orlando Republican Democrat was defeated in his bid for re-election. But he got in the last punch.