Trying to get a train out of Penn Station today? Good luck with that! There is NO ESCAPE from New York, people.

Here is an obituary for Rudy Giuliani’s political career. Is it still possible that he might at some point in the future be considered a viable candidate for state or national office? Sure, I can envision a scenario. It looks a lot like The Road.

Americans as a whole may be too lazy to steal, but North Pole denizens are still on their game. Merry Christmas!

As a public service, we are offering this space for BlackBerry users to complain about the continuing problems they are suffering this week. You poor, deluded saps.

Quick retort to the previous entry, which seems to suffer from the persistent refusal to acknowledge the institutional realities that has been such a hallmark of progressive thought over the last year. I’ll see your HuffPo and raise you an Andrew Sullivan.

Here’s what has happened: a liberal Democratic president has just passed universal health insurance. No Democratic president has done something like that since Johnson. It is designed to show that government can do something real and tangible for the working poor. And in that respect, its impact on the political culture will be deep and lasting…

My suspicion is that… this new landmark for liberalism will reorient American politics the way Reagan’s first year did — profoundly. I may be wrong and I will be accountable for this judgment. But the age demands government action. And Obama is doing as much of it as consensually and as civilly but as ruthlessly as he can.

Why so pragmatic and centrist? Because he wants it all to last.

There is also this, from TNR’s Jonathan Chait, on the subject of employment:

Obama’s trickiest dilemma is that the public does not agree with — or, to put it less charitably, understand — the basis for his anti-recession strategy. Whatever your view of deficits, they clearly make more sense during a recession than during an expansion, when deficit spending can help fuel overheated growth. The trouble is, public opinion tends to get loose with the purse strings during boom times and tight during recessions, which is the opposite of what you want. During the 1990s boom, the public favored expanded social spending and tax cuts over paying down the national debt. Today, by overwhelming margins, they favor an immediate balanced budget, even in the face of economic catastrophe.

That is, of course, insane. But Republicans have taken full advantage of the public’s fiscal insanity.

Would we all love to live in a world where compromise was unnecessary, where acknowledging political realities didn’t require strategy and incrementalism? Sure, why the hell not? Do we? Maybe in Kucinich-land. The rest of us are stuck here. And guess what the alternative is? Actually, you don’t have to guess. Look back at the last eight years.

You know what makes for a bad morning? It’s when you finally read one of those 9000-word HuffPo pieces that have been going around for a couple days, about how the President is whiffing, and how this healthcare bill is kind of bullshit and… you pretty much agree with it? I am not really feeling the love. I kind of want to go back in time and vote for Kucinich or maybe your mom. Anyway, when it comes to HuffPo, it helps if you: 1. Ignore any of the writer’s historical examples, because I actually don’t know anything about history and yet his simmering reduction of the past is suspicious to even me? And: 2. substitute any common word such as “said” or “expressed” every time the author (Drew Westen) uses “messaging.” 3. Also, it really wouldn’t take an editor longer than 8 minutes to cut 500 words, consider springing for that Arianna. (❤ you, whatevs!) Oh and 4. This essay is a total cheat because it’s about “perceptions” and he has no idea what is going on in the White House behind “clothes doors.” (Eighth-grade joke.) But other than that…. really, it looks like this healthcare bill is the worst Christmas present ever.

OMG! Following in the footsteps of her mentor, Doree Shafrir-who we all love-is RETURNING TO GAWKER. Hopefully she will bring back the dildo with her!

UPDATE: OOH! And also Richard Lawson! It’s like nostalgia or something! Something GOOD!

ALSO: It should be made clear that Doree is only returning as a two-day-a-week contributor. A two-day-a-week contributor, okay? It is apparently very important that we clarify: Doree Shafrir back at Gawker as a two-day-a-week contributor. We hear those days are Thursday and Friday, but whatever days they are, it will only be two of them.

Clusterstock notes: “This is pretty much the perfect metaphor for 2009.” Dealbreaker notes: “We Are Doomed.”

“This is the most cowardly, selfish, arrogant news conduct out there today. What the fuck is ‘video and photos posted on the Internet’? How does that help readers? It’s as if I can go to www.internet.com, and there, on the first screen, will be the video and photos of the snowball fight and the maybe-gun-wielding cop. ‘Posted on the Internet’ would be acceptable if this were 1997.”
–Washington City Paper

editor Erik Wemple, reaming the poor dim Washington Post over its lousy, terrible, no-good coverage-and meta-coverage-of the now-infamous D.C. snowball fight with bonus cop-gun-pulling.

by The End of the 00s

Oh hello! As a special treat for this holiday season, we’ve commissioned some thoughts (both deep and shallow) from writers (both near and far) to look back (in anger or otherwise) on the 00s. (Whew!) You may think that this was just a delightful public service on our part, but you’d be wrong. It actually means we’re going to schedule these fine and glorious contributions throughout the holidaze that follow for the benefit of us regular folks doing somewhat less typing for a few days! Daddy’s fingers are tired and crampy. Also we will not really get into this whole “BUT IT’S NOT REALLY THE END OF THE DECADE!” business from you people that are obsessed with the fact that there was no “Year 0,” which, FINE, OKAY, I understand that you don’t want to make Pope Gregory XIII mad, but I really don’t care? Which is weird. Usually I can get my panties in a bunch about nearly anything but this whole decade business isn’t crossing the threshold. In any event, now you are warned, and get excited!