The House is Angry. But Not Angry Enough.

Media report: Spurred by anger over A.I.G. bonuses, the House voted 328 to 93 to levy a 90 percent tax on any company accepting more than $5 billion in bailout money.

I reply: Only 90 percent? Why isn't the House angry enough to levy a 100 percent tax? What does that unlevied ten percent want to accomplish? Recognition for trying? I thought they only did that, these days, in kindergarten. (That's one of the things Glenn Beck is crying about these days, anyway.)

Further, my imagination is challenged to understand why all 423 House members were not angry.

Further still, I ask, why didn't the House levy ANY company receiving ANY bailout money which, I remind us, is my money, your money not THEIR money.

This whole deal - and I use that word deliberately - hearkens back to the good ole days (economically speaking) of government advise to Americans immediately after the Twin Towers collapsed.

Remember "Shut up and shop?"

Please join me in recognizing the same tone now.

Presently, however, their advice to the American people is much abbreviated.

Now it's simply "Shut up".

The shape of the table

I wasn't wild about Obama's choice of Rick Warren but I have to say that, after I had some time to reflect, I wasn't surprised.

Obama has always, always been driven more by the desire to bring everyone to the table - regardless of whether they share his ideology - than he's been to fill the seats with those who share his world view. What seems to matter most is the willingness and ability of opposites to work together at the table toward a pragmatic and realistic end.

When he was elected to head the Harvard Law Review many African-American students who had placed their hopes in him to bring more African-American students onto the editorial committee were disappointed when he instead put together a committee comprised of some of the most outspoken conservatives on campus. The thing he wanted to achieve, he said, was a Law Review of the highest caliber. (For more about this, watch Frontline's piece on Obama, aired before the election.)

He's done this before during his time as an elected official. Some of those who helped him in Chicago have felt left behind because he offered no quid pro quo. (The July 21st issue of the New Yorker discusses this at some length.)

Obama, to my view, is not the lefty many believe him to be. Instead, his core is pragmatism. The change he brings is that the seats at the table will filled by those who share pragmatism - but not necessarily ideology.

I think Obama made a miscalculation by elevating Warren at this time. I don't think Warren deserves the honor he was given. It really is like a bucket of tarnish was dumped over the glow of his election.

I also think that we will see, in the not too distant future, the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (a gift to us from the Clinton administration), and recognition of civil rights. That's because Obama has a track record of pragmatically moving toward inclusion to achieve outcomes that we support.

He has no track record of throwing us under the bus.

I'm willing to wait and see what his actual outcomes are before I make a decision about the weight and proportion that Warren leaves behind on January 21.