"... that government spending can heal the economy."
Dude, everyone knows government spending can help the economy, if it's targeted at the economy. The problem is most of the spending in this bill isn't designed to help "get the economy moving." Dems took this opportunity to try to pay for a bunch of pet projects that they know they can't get passed unless they camoflage it as a "stimulus package."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told the Post he expects Gregg to receive a "standing ovation" when he walks into the next gathering of the Senate Republican Conference.

This says it all...a hero of the repugs in the senate!

Now that we know Gregg offered his name, the cynical side of me wonders if he wanted the job precisely *because* it was responsible for conducting the census. Lotta room for Publican mischief there. Once that was gone, there was no point in going on.

But, maybe that's just me. The last 8 years have been really hard on my ability to assume good-faith motives to anything that Publicans do.

Keep the heat on these HYPOCRITRES. Since when have the Republicans ever shown they believe in fiscal discipline, except to thwart Democratic spending

If it's a program the Republicans like, they'll cry how essential tax cuts and war spending are. But the moment the Democrats want to solve Social program deficiencies, the Republican hypocrites are fiscal hawks.

Figure out the cost of Bushes economic priorities, broadcast, advertise these costs, and give an equal share to Democratic ideals and when the equilibrium is reached, lets determine once and for all which program turned out to work best.

Anyone still think the Republicans would dare resurrect privatizing Social Security now or in the future? Point out the failures of the last Administration, pound home the failed policies and just maybe we can give it the deathblow it deserves, never to rise up in our decision making process.
Exposing the supporters of failed policies as obstructionists to the betterment of American Society.

So the two leading heroes of the right at the moment are Rush, who hopes Obama fails, and Gregg, who couldn't decide whether he wanted to be in the cabinet and now can't decide whether he wants to run for re-election in 2010. An impressive pantheon there, guys.

Meanwhile, Obama laughs off Gregg's 180 with his Lincoln line last night, which was reminiscent of his Jay-Z shoulder brush-off the day after the abominable ABC debate (William Ayers/flag pins/bittergate etc.) during the primaries.

I do not mind this at all. It just proves the jouvenile nature of the GOP leadership. They care not 1 speck about the American people or their own constituents.

The GOP game is all about scoring daily points on the media message game board and winning news cycles. It didn't work for them in the long run in the election and they are missing the true nature of the changing landscape outside of the deep south now as well.

Obama's favorables are in the mid-60s and support for the stimulus has increased.

If all they represent now is sabotaging Obama, then they will be in for a big surprise in 2010.

Yes, this really is excellent news. The GOP gets a couple of days of good talking points but after that all that will be left is the legacy of Obama reaching out to Republicans and getting burned. They think they will be able to do to Obama what they did to Clinton and they are obviously mistaken. However, the power of the BS story is definitely with the GOP; see "Pelosi's Mouse" above, etc. The Dems must remember to push back on them- it's the only way the Reps will ever get any traction against this popular, effective president. They seem to be hoping to convince everyone that Reagan was right about the government after all- Gregg becomes their standard bearer for this. I hope they continue this strategy- it's short term gain- long term pain! On to 2010!

MSM can barely control its concern-trolling over this. Jeff Zeleny wrote (today's Times) that not a single week has gone by in the Obama Presidency without a personnel problem, and paints this as entirely an embarassment to Obama.

The bizarre flip-flopping of Gregg isn't really remarked upon.

I feel like I'm still living in bizarro world.

Was it just a couple weeks ago that the GOP threw a hissy fit about the extra funding in the stimulus for the census and stripped the money out? They do not want to fund the census properly but want to do a house to house survey. You can't not fund for a house to house survey and expect to get one with the amount they have budgeted right now.

The President is cashing in some capital and the GOP are acting like jerks. GOPers will be become irrelevant long before Obama runs out of capital.

Obama = WIN

GOP = FAIL

"he understands that the stimulus package is going to do nothing to stimulate the economy"

This notion is counterfactual. A week ago or so, Gregg was saying he believed the recovery bill is necessary and good overall. Now pundits are spinning it exactly backwards, as if his withdrawal showed he had principles which show the bill to be bad. So he has principles but no integrity?

Weakness shows itself by its public perversions and prevarications.

It may be that the recovery bill isn't all that stimulative. After all, if any stimulates the economy it is known that tax cuts, the mantra of the Repos, are generally the least stimulative.

I believe Senator Gregg. He signed on to a Democratic administration and was then shocked (shocked!) to discover it was Democratic in nature. How could he have known?

Sounds totally plausible to me.

(Administration surrogates should be dragging this flip-flopping douchebag's integrity through the mud at every opportunity.)

Judd Gregg has always been a full blown right wing reactionary Republican and nothing else. He was, as is the wont of opportunisic wingnuts, trying to feather his own political nest and then got cold feet when it became clear he wouldn't be allowed to screw up the census. Good riddance! Perhaps now our President will stop inviting his enemies to sink the good ship Obama almost before it leaves port!

Just read all the comments. Are there more right wing trolls than usual? Feels like it.

I'm glad he's gone. I haven't felt good about him since he struck that deal with his Dem gov. to appoint another repug. Good riddance!

Gregg's embarrassing and very public waffling was an indicator of just how desperate the R's are to managing the census.

And there's no doubt, considering the GOP history of manipulating jurisdictional boundaries (Delay's Texas congressional district was the best example) that they wanted to use the census for the same sort of advantage, or they wouldn't be such crybabies about it.

Funny how they exert such demanding minority influence now, when they derided the Democrats for trying the same back when the R's ran the whole show.(...kick their soft teeth down their whiney throats..)

These days, the hypocrisy of the Republican Party is even worse than when they were in the majority.

The simple fact is that, if the Democrats control the census, it will be done fairly and with malice towards none and (God forbid!) charity towards all. Which the Republicans will claim favors the middle class and the poor, and somehow damages the greedy class.

But if the Republicans managed the census, every minute of that enormous challenge would be performed for the sake of desperately grasping for votes, or denying the Dems theirs, in the next election and beyond.

Now the R's will frame it as "We MUST save the census from those manipulative Dems" but the fact is, the Democrats simply benefit graciously from a fair and comprehensive census. The R's would need to cook the census books for an advantage, but they have proven of late that they are quite capable of cheating, lying and calculating with a floating decimal point that they move whenever it benefits them.

Because the census will determine a number of things very important to the Republicans.

And how might the census change the face of the political map?

Because of the population flow away from rural and ag areas, Iowa may lose a congressional district, the 4th and the 5th could possibly be reconfigured as one district.

If so, and the trend towards blue keeps moving in Iowa, then they R's lose TWO seats, one by population decline and the other by popular will.

And guess who's the likeliest to go in that scenario?

Our old pal, the bigoted, wild-minded maniac from western Iowa, Steve King.

The Republicans just can't afford an honest census. The MUST cook those books, at all costs, or their much-ballyhooed re-enactment of 1994's fishy Republican majority surge is simply out of the question. And even with all their tricks in play, they still have little hope for such a comeback, but it gives them something to fool each other with and threaten their Democratic Party pals with.

I've heard it myself from the bitterheads who still think Obama's landslide in the electoral college was some kind of a typo.

"Just wait until mid-term elections, it will be 1994 all over again!" they said. And all I could think was, "...just wait until mid-terms, and you will all finally realize just how marginalized your GOP has become.."

I think that Pres. Obama should now turn to an academic to head the Dept of Commerce. I recommend
AnnaLee Saxenian, Dean of Information, Local and Regional Planning, Univ of Calif Berkeley and author of several books on regional advantage in economic development.

The Ballad of Judd Gregg
Judd Gregg went all around Washington
and heard the conservative plan:
"We're gonna do you in, poor boy
for talkin' to th'Omaba man
for talkin' to th'Obama man."

A truck rolled away in a cloud of dust
Judd turned his face toward home.
He called Grover Norquist, he called little Rush,
but he saw he was all alone,
he saw he was all alone.

Now Republicans made a heavy load
and Judd Gregg began to cry.
He picked up some press releases in his hand
and said "I'll stay with them till I die."

"Whenever Republicans make a hue and a cry
that taxes must be cut,
Why, that's where I'll be too,
with those of expansive butt."

"before Gregg cited it (Census issue) as a major reason for his withdrawal."

**except that Gregg has said that the census issue was just a "slight catalyzing issue".