Katie thinks that while President Obama's job summit is sensible on policy grounds it will be a political liability, reinforcing his image as a dithering talker in the face of crisis.

Says Katie, "Is it a good idea? Yes. Having key stakeholders put their heads together, or at least communicate about the problem, will undoubtedly produce some interesting ideas." So, case closed, right? Wrong! "The 'optics' of the summit ...might just work against him," Katie warns. "Obama is undeniably a deliberative president. He shares none of his predecessor's brash decisiveness ... I'm not sure the public finds that tendency comforting anymore."

Katie's premise is correct. Many Americans are reassured by leaders like our erstwhile "decider" in uncertain times. Until, that is, their rash decisions prove disastrous. Then Americans die, deficits mount, and their approval ratings plummet.

So, while Katie's political advice to Obama might be wise in the short term, it strikes me as short-sighted. Good policy is good politics, especially where the economy is concerned. Careful decision making now will pay political dividends later.

Today, just before jumping on Air Force One for his nine-day trip to Asia, the president announced that he'll convene a "jobs summit" in December. Amid rising joblessness, the summit will ostensibly aim to figure out ways to create new jobs and stem the flow of recession-induced layoffs. The president will invite CEOs, economists, unions, and small-business leaders to meet with administration officials at the White House to discuss the issue. "It's important that we don't make any ill-considered decisions—even with the best intentions—particularly at a time when our resources are so limited. But it's just as important that we are open to any demonstrably good idea to supplement the steps we've already taken to put America back to work. That's what this forum is about," Obama told reporters today.

Norman Podhoretz, one of the original neoconservatives, just wrote a 352-page book asking Why Are Jews Liberals? To Podhoretz, and to many others, it's a mystery why Jews remain loyal to the Democratic Party and continue to avoid aligning with today's Southern-based GOP. After all, many Jews fall into a demographic—higher income, suburban, professional—that has tended to align with the GOP. And recent Republican administrations have been aggressively pro-Israel (at least when Israel happens to be governed by a right-of-center coalition). Plus, Republicans have pretty much purged the folks who make unfortunate stereotypical comments about Christians' elder brothers in faith. Well, pretty much.

In a letter to The Times and Democrat (Orangeburg) on Sunday, two South Carolina Republican officials defended Sen. Jim DeMint from charges that he had opposed earmarks that would have benefited the Palmetto state.

"There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves," wrote Edwin O. Merwin Jr. and James S. Ulmer Jr., chairman of the Bamberg County and Orangeburg County Republican Parties, respectively. "By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation's pennies and trying to preserve our country's wealth and our economy's viability to give all an opportunity to succeed."

Oy vey!

Lehman Brothers is dead; long live Lehman Brothers. Exactly one year after the ill-fated financial colossus filed for bankruptcy, spurring weeks of economic chaos and months of crippling recession, the verdict is in: little has changed in the culture of Wall Street.

With that in mind, President Obama is set to mark the anniversary of Lehman's collapse today with a "major" speech that, he hopes, will reinvigorate efforts to overhaul the banking system. Congressional enthusiasim for reform proposals introduced by the White House earlier this summer has stalled, beaten back by a vicious health care debate and industry opposition. So, just after noon at New York's Federal Hall, located in the heart of the financial district, Obama will seek to shift the focus back to the Street. The timing is just as significant as the location; in a little over a week, the G20 will meet in Pittsburgh, presenting a do-or-die opportunity to get the world's economic movers and shakers on one page. Press secretary Robert Gibbs has said the president doesn't plan to introduce any brand new proposals, but, if the White House is serious about pushing through meaningful reforms, here are a few points Obama might hammer home today:

Who says news mags are dead? At a town hall in North Carolina this afternoon, President Obama gave a shout-out to this week’s cover of Newsweek:

I don't know whether you've seen the cover of the latest Newsweek magazine on the rack at the grocery store, but the cover says "The Recession Is Over."  I bet you found that news a little startling.  I know I did. Now, it's true that we've stopped the freefall.  The market is up and the financial system is no longer on the verge of collapse. We're losing jobs at nearly half the rate we were when I took office six months ago.  So, we may be seeing the beginning of the end of the recession. But that's little comfort if you're one of the folks who have lost their job, and haven't found another….

OMG, Obama still reads Newsweek?! Yippee! Eat it, Time! Oh wait, he was sort of trashing us, wasn’t he? This cannot stand. Here’s the response from Daniel Gross, who wrote the article, and guess what: He thinks Obama didn’t read the piece, considering he went on to articulate the very same argument that the article actually makes. (You've gotta at least read those subheads, Mr. Prez.) Here’s Dan:

The Pew Research Center today released results from its latest survey. Your Gaggler just attended a roundtable with Pew Director and pollster extraordinaire Andrew Kohut where he discussed the major findings. The basic message is all good for Obama. For Republicans, eh, not so much. You can read the full results here, but these are a few of the highlights (apologies for the very long post, but your Gaggler loves polls):

• Obama's personal favorability ratings are higher than his job approval: 73% of Americans have a favorable impression of Obama, while 63% approve of the job he's doing as President. By contrast, Clinton and Bush had favorability ratings of 60% and 61% and job approval ratings of 55% and 56% respectively at comparable points in their presidencies.This personal popularity will probably give Obama some cover in pursuing difficult or unpopular policies.
  

• Pew's data confirms that there is a large partisan gap in Obama's job approval rating, but Kohut says this doesn't mean the President is a polarising figure. Obama's approval rating among Republicans is actually a little higher than Clinton's was in May 1993 - 30% for Obama, 25% for Clinton. The partisan gap is largely a result of Obama's enormous popularity amoung Democrats. Republicans are about as critical of Obama as expected, but Democrats are much more approving of him. The poll gauges the strength of the public's feelings towards Obama by asking if they approve or disapprove of his performance very strongly or not so strongly. A vast majority of Democrats (79%) say that they very strongly approve of Obama's performance. By the same measure, only 39% of Democrats very strongly approved of Clinton. Even President Bush, who was very popular with his base, doesn't match Obama's figure - 71% of Republicans strongly approved of him at the same stage in his presidency. (MORE AFTER THE JUMP)
  

Maybe it was major after all. Although President Obama did not announce any new policy today in his speech at Georgetown, he did go back and explain, in great detail at times, the origins of the financial crisis and how the administration has been trying to respond. And Obama implied that he's going to tackle two major issues that have felled his predecessors at the White House: entitlement reform and re-jiggering the tax code. Although he didn't offer many details, that's big news.

But first, when we say “go back,” Obama did literally explain, in several paragraphs, what caused the current recession, which he says was prompted by a “perfect storm of irresponsibility and poor decision-making stretched from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street.” “Our most urgent task has been to clear away the wreckage, repair the immediate damage to the economy and do everything we can to prevent a larger collapse,” Obama said. “Since all the problems we face are all working off each other to feed a vicious economic downtown, we’ve had no choice but to attack all fronts of our economic crisis at once.”

Questions about Obama's socialist tendencies should be put to rest after he announced his plans for Detroit in a serious, no-nonsense statement this morning. The President was firm in his intention to keep the government out of the business of running car companies, saying "Let me be clear: the United States government has no interest or intention of running GM. What we are interested in is giving GM an opportunity to finally make those much-needed changes that will let them emerge from this crisis a stronger and more competitive company." 

At the risk of stating the obvious, dealing with Detriot is a thorny issue for a President who has long recieved political and financial support from unions and workers. Short of nationalization, there's almost no way of mollifying the left on this issue. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, usually a reliable supporter of the President, has already voiced criticism, and we're likely to hear much more from midwestern Democrats and unions in the coming weeks. Which is probably why Obama chose to speak directly to autoworkers:

"I'd like to speak directly to all those men and women who work in the auto industry or live in the countless communities that depend on it. Many of you have been going through tough times for longer than you'd care to remember. And I will not pretend the tough times are over. I cannot promise you there isn't more pain to come. But what I can promise you is this - I will fight for you. You are the reason I am here today. I got my start fighting for working families in the shadows of a shuttered steel plant and I wake up every single day asking myself what I can do to give you and working people all across this country a fair shot at the American dream." 

He's backing up these difficult words with action, announcing that he'll appoint a new Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers. The Director will be charged with ensuring that "the full resources of our federal government are leveraged to assist the workers, communities, and regions that rely on our auto industry."

The New York Times today reports on the Swedish Government's refusal to bailout iconic automaker Saab. Sweden, often hailed by the left as a model social democracy,  is renowned for it's generous welfare state. It's interventionist model of dealing with banking crises - essentially nationalizing banks and pumping cash into them before selling - has been much discussed on this side of the Atlantic lately. So the decision (albeit coming from a more conservative government) to hang Saab out to dry is surprising, and will have a deep impact in parts of southwest Sweden where the carmaker dominates the economy.

Saab is owned by GM, and some are questioning whether their influence has been beneficial. The criticisms echo the ones we've heard on Sunday morning talk shows here: That GM has failed to innovate or keep pace in a competitive market. Is poor management in Detroit now having an impact on Sweden? From the NYT:

Saab was always known for its innovative engineering. But analysts say that in recent years, with General Motors’s emphasis on volume rather than individuality, it has lost its edge. “Under G.M.’s ownership, they denuded the intellectual content behind the brand,” said Peter Wells, who teaches at Cardiff Business School in Wales and specializes in the automotive industry. “Its products are not exciting enough, and Saab doesn’t have a strong brand identity anymore.

And this:

Swedish officials...have also been scathing about General Motors, Saab’s owner, and the last thing they want is to seem to be bailing out a despised foreign company. Struggling for its own survival, GM has said it will completely pull out of Saab by the end of 2009, a course that Ms. Olofsson, the enterprise minister, described as tantamount to declaring “that they wash their hands of Saab and drop it into the laps of the Swedish taxpayers.”

Ouch. GM execs might want to postpone their Swedish vacations for the time being.

Is anybody really in charge of this crisis? Barack Obama's off in California doing the "Tonight Show"-- "These financial industries are holding us hostage," the world's most powerful man complained to Jay Leno Thursday night -- and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is under constant fire for his handling of AIG and just about everything else. So it occasionally feels as if there’s a bit of a power vacuum in Washington. But if there is, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is moving aggressively to fill it. Though his interest-rate toolbox is all but empty, Bernanke has managed to find yet new ways of acting with striking speed and force on his own in recent days. Bernanke is basically printing money on a large scale to fortify the financial sector, committing himself to buy $300 billion of Treasurys and committing an additional $750 billion to mortgage-backed securities. This latest effort has annoyed the Wall Street Journal editorial page. "The Bernanke Fed has now dropped even the pretense of independence and has made itself an agent of the Treasury, which means of politicians, " the Journal opined Friday .

In fact it’s much more likely that Bernanke, a scholar of the Depression who from the beginning has pledged never to let it happen again, is doing most of this on his own even though he generally coordinates his actions with the Treasury.

Bernanke is is also taking charge of the nation’s economic future on other fronts. While it was Geithner who announced the "stress tests" of major banks to be completed in April, the Fed is overseeing the process, bringing under its wing other regulators from the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, the FDIC, and the Office of Thrift Supervision. And, with Geithner’s Treasury badly understaffed, the Fed is dominating the discussion about future regulation. In testimony Thursday to the Senate Banking Committee, newly minted Fed Gov. Dan Tarullo (an Obama appointee, true enough) said the Board is undertaking a major effort "to evaluate regulatory and supervisory changes that could help reduce the incidence and severity of future financial crises." This includes the idea of creating a new "systemic risk regulator." While Tarullo acknowledged that Congress must legislate the new authorities, "effectively identifying and addressing systemic risks would seem to require some involvement of the Federal Reserve." Indeed. With Geithner wounded and Obama off on his latest road show, it looks right now as if Bernanke is minding the store.