What Obama should do in Term 2 -- and won't

Some of the staff at the under-new-ownership New Republic, on the grounds that President Obama has at least a 50-50 shot at re-election, offer up a laundry list of what he should do with that second term.


It's actually kind of laughable.


Civil liberties? From the Dear Leader who flip-flopped on telecom snooping immunity in the middle of the 2008 campaign? Talk like a liberal? Fat chance, if he's not already. Political reform? Won't happen, and fake "reform" wouldn't be extended to third parties, anyway. Fiscal policy? Well, his Catfood Commission has already proposed that. Real liberals shouldn't want more of the same.

Isn't this just one more exercise in "projecting" stuff onto Obama?


That all said,  the new ownership probably won't move TNR off its current neoliberal focal point. And, how do you "triangulate" off neoliberalism and Democratic Party policy?


Meanwhile, per the first link, I think all opinion journals would be smart to transition as much as possible to web-based publishing, given ongoing problems to be likely with second-class postal rates, delivery, paper costs, etc.