Achenblog - The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach on whatever strikes his fancy - February 22, 2009

The Rocky Folds

A sad day for American journalism: The Rocky Mountain News is no more. Lots more at Romenesko. [More to come...]...

[Cross-posted from the blog formerly known as The Trail] Socialism in America: That's a big theme we're picking up as we dip into the Conservative Political Action Conference, which kicked off this morning at the Omni Shoreham. The presence...

Budget Fever

For those who love this stuff, check out the Obama Budget. For those who don't like such concepts as "a $1.75 trillion deficit," I suggest you take the day off. [NASA, by the way, is slated to get an...

The Democratic Reagan

Obama's speech was his best rhetorical moment since Grant Park on Election Night. This guy is really good and reminds me of Reagan: Tremendous stage presence, great smile, easy to like, knows how to hit the big theme and...

Hope Springs Eternal

We got "preliminary" excerpts of Obama's speech tonight, and he's hitting the hopeful note, the it's-darkest-just-before-the-dawn note. And it's obvious to me that he was reading my blog this morning. Who could deny it? [And notice how, within seconds...

Moral Hazard

How come I never heard of "moral hazard" until this economic crisis? (Though, come to think of it, it might be a good title for my memoir.) There are a couple of letters in the Post today that capture...

When Panic Is Prudent

When the president addresses Congress and the nation tonight, he will have the interesting rhetorical challenge of explaining precisely how dire our economic situation is (justifying extraordinary bailouts and stimuli), but why we should nonetheless be optimistic and hopeful...

The Morning Buzz

Last night, I actually heard myself referring to the statuette as a real person, as in, "Oscar likes comebacks," and realized that I needed to stop watching the show. (Also, Oscar apparently doesn't like comebacks enough to give Mickey...

Achenblog: February 22, 2009 - February 28, 2009