Rick Wagoner = Ngo Dinh Diem ? Discuss.  After  visibly defenstrating GM CEO RIck Wagoner , and moving to replace the board of directors , won't Obama now "own" the GM problem? If the company shuts down in the near future, costing tens of thousands of blue collar jobs, it will be under executives implicitly or explicitly chosen by Obama. It will be Obama's failure, not simply GM's failure, no? A public sector failure, not just a business failure.  Doesn't that make it harder, not easier, for the administration to walk away and force the company into bankruptcy (if, for example, the company's plans for "viability" continue to fall short after the new 60-day deadline )? And doesn't that, in turn, make extracting the necessary concessions ( by threatening bankruptcy ) more difficult as well? ... This wouldn't be the first time that financier-turned-autoczar Steven Rattner's tendency to talk to the press--and maybe emphasize his own role --proved counterproductive. ... 2:23 A.M.

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Why are L.A.'s charter schools doing better at weathering hard budgetary times --without cutting teachers--than L.A.'s regular schools? 

Free from rigid union contracts, able to make spending decisions at the school-site level and continuing to see enrollment growth, charter schools can run their campuses like small businesses. At a time when the Los Angeles Unified School District faces layoffs of some 8,500 people and is dismantling popular programs to cut costs, some charter schools are actually hiring teachers. ( L.A. Daily News )

2:12 A.M.

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kf Does Have Some Enemies Left! Raines is gone. Bangle is gone. But I'd forgotten about "visionary" CNN president Jon Klein , who righteously killed Crossfire in order to bring us ...what was it again ... storytelling? ... emo? ... Glenn Beck? ... it's hard to keep track. Under Klein's leadership the network has now dropped to third place in prime time, behind previously hapless MSNBC, a development Klein madly and hilariously spins here .  ("The fact that one network may have eked out a slight edge in one small slice of the overall business really doesn't say much of anything.") ... [ You forgot Jeffrey Toobin. Wasn't Toobin an enemy?--ed. Yeah , but there's nothing happening with him.] ... 1:46 A.M

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Jonathan Cohn seems right in what I take to be his point here , which is that the key to selling universal health insurance isn't stressing the need to cover the"uninsured," but the need to save the insured (and those who can afford insurance) from the maddening hunt for a policy that won't screw them when they need it, or if they switch jobs. Savings in administrative costs, the virtue stressed by Cohn in this latest post, seem like the least of it, especially if they only amount to $300 a year. ... 1:23 A.M.

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