Norm Ornstein
Norm Ornstein
Norman J. Ornsteinis a political scientist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington D.C. conservative think tank. He was the co-writerof It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism...
aid becomes change commitment corruption danger delegation disasters hurt lining major needs news people pockets reinforced resist stories strategy tone wasted zero
Any spate of news stories from now on about corruption in contracts, etc., will hurt - people will resist a major taxpayers' commitment if they think much of it will be wasted or lining the pockets of miscreants, ... That perception, unfortunately, has been reinforced by the delegation request, which editorials have called 'Louisiana looting.' The delegation needs to change its tone and strategy when it comes to getting aid. The other danger is that over time, as other disasters occur, aid becomes zero sum.
expect forced
I don't expect a lot that are forced by the president.
blame deserves fema goes happy local share state
I'm happy to place the lion's share of the blame for this on FEMA and the feds. But I think a substantial dollop of the blame goes to the state and local level, and he deserves his share of that.
chances election loser next night quickly
Before election night or the next morning, I would have said the chances for a rematch are zero, that the loser would be quickly forgotten. But we're in a different world now.
awful colleagues putting unwilling
He's putting a marker down that an awful lot of his colleagues have been unwilling to do.
verdict
After 40 years, the verdict is still out.
happy public time
It's not what you really want at a time when the public is not very happy with you.
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You've got a lot of people who privately view DeLay as so radioactive. It's not just the Texas stuff, in some ways the Texas stuff is the least of it.
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They want a group of people on the House Ethics Committee who are going to go to extraordinary lengths to keep Tom DeLay from going down or being embarrassed yet again, which embarrasses them all, they believe, with whats been going on down in Texas.
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The spectacle of a mayor and a governor throwing mud at each other while the city and the area were floundering was not a pretty one. That's another area where it's going to take some time and some historians to figure out whether he was let down by the government or not. On the other hand, his anger at those with a higher place on the hierarchy is an understandable one.
according basis billions dollars federal funds money needed situation spent
We now have a situation where billions of dollars of federal funds are allocated not on the basis of where it is most needed and can be spent most effectively, but according to who's sloshing the (campaign contribution) money around so they can get the earmarks.