Morning Must Reads — Bear suit bomber?

Mohammed in their 200th episode, so Trey Parker and Matt Stone opted to have

Mohammed in a bear suit and make lots of jokes about why he was exempt from

the lampooning directed at other religious figures. But the bear suit may

have been enough, as police investigate the amateurish, botched car bombing

outside of the network’s headquarters in Times Square. A manhunt is on for a

white dude in his 40s spotted near the Nissan Pathfinder that was found full

of gasoline cans, firecrackers and the non-explosive fertilizer. Writers

Dionne Searcy and Joel Stonington were part of the Journal’s big play on New

York local news. “The bomb consisted of two alarm clocks on the floor of the

back seat with wires connected to two contraptions: the first, a can with 20

to 30 M-88 firecrackers in between two one-gallon gas cans on the back seat;

the second, three propane canisters commonly used for barbecueing and a

large metal gun locker in the cargo area. The locker weighed 200 to 250

pounds when loaded with the fireworks and eight bags of what police said

believe were nonexplosive-grade fertilizer. Police said all of the fireworks

were purchased as opposed to being homemade.‬”

New Orleans Times-Picayune—President Barack Obama talks to Louisiana fishers

about Gulf oil spill disaster

The same weather pattern that brought deadly storms to the South over the

weekend helped keep BP’s oil slick from making landfall in Louisiana.

Tennessee’s suffering bought the fishermen of Louisiana a little more time.

But because the well spewed so much oil for so long after the April 20

explosion 40 miles off shore, when it does make landfall it will be worse

and affect more people than if there had been a speedy response. Now the

delayed federal response to the huge oil leak in the Gulf is causing some

headaches for the Obama administration. Former EPA officials are blasting

the failure to employ a contingency plan that allowed the burning of the

slick much sooner than it began. But now that the disaster has the

president’s undivided attention, he is not likely to be accused of a failure

to intervene again. Writer Richard Rainey was with Obama as he made a

rain-soaked visit to the site of the disaster. “Interior Secretary Ken

Salazar said the leak could end up being worse than the 11 million-gallon

1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska…Salazar said on ‘Fox News Sunday’ that the

administration had been ‘stepping on the neck of BP to do everything we can

do’ since the explosion. ‘We’ve been on top of this every minute,’ he said.

The potential environmental impact of the spill, he told NBC’s ‘Meet the

Press,’ is ‘a very grave scenario.’”

Times of London — Cameron hopes 24-hour campaign stint will push him over line

Tory leader David Cameron made headlines in Britain this weekend by laying

out the agenda for his first days as prime minister. It’s always seemed

strange to me that in a country with no period of transition (PMs transfer

power on the day of the election) the convention for candidates has been to

avoid any charges of presumptuousness by not laying out any detailed plans

for what you might do if your party takes control. Cameron was judged the

clear winner of the debate Thursday, Gordon Brown’s Labour Party is a

tailspin (Brown agonistes: He missed a train on the campaign trail and had

to spend an hour waiting for another one) and the Liberal Democratic surge

seems to have petered out. Cameron may be trying to keep up his momentum

with the talk of governance, but it’s quite plausible that the Conservatives

will get an outright majority. Cameron, who is campaigning like an American,

will have to hope like American politicians do, that his base turns out.

“The latest polls suggest that the Tory lead is stuck at around 5 percentage

points, not enough to secure a majority on a uniform national swing. The

last YouGov tracker poll for The Sun puts the Conservatives on 34 per cent,

the Lib Dems on 29 per cent and Labour dropping into third place, on 28 per

cent. An ICM poll in The Guardian shows the Tories on 33 per cent, down

three points from the last ICM poll, with Labour and the Lib Dems both on 28

per cent.”

New York Times — Deflation Could Stall Efforts for to Revive Greece

It looks certain that the Europeans with money left will approve a move this

week to pay their parts of a $145 billion bailout for Greece. The good news

for Eurocrats is that their currency and union will survive in the short

term. The bad news is that Greece may become a necrotic appendage. The

country, driven to the brink by socialism, government unions, corruption and

dishonest bookkeeping has agreed to draconian cuts in order to placate the

outraged burghers of German finance who wouldn’t go for the bailout unless

the Greeks admitted they were very naughty and promised to live on saltines

and weak lemonade from now on. Writer Steven Erlanger raises a fascinating

point. If the cuts are imposed and maintained, Greece will likely suffer a

stultifying round of deflation because they are unable to cheat with their

currency as other similarly situated countries have done. But if the cuts

prove too politically unpopular and are repealed by the next government, the

country will create the danger of a new debt contagion for world markets.

“Embedded in the euro and thus no longer in control of its own currency,

Greece cannot take the easy way out of its debt by devaluing. So Greece must

either cut its spending sharply or default on its loans — which would badly

damage German and French banks carrying a lot of Greek debt. That is

considered one reason President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has been so quiet

on the Greek crisis, Mr. Fitoussi said. The Greek deal ‘is an indirect way

of bailing out French and German banks,’ he said. ‘The French understood

this from the start, but Germany didn’t seem to.’ Katinka Barysch, an

economist and deputy director of the Center for European Reform in London,

said that that realization had hit home in Germany. ‘It might be unpopular

for the Germans and Europeans to bail out Greece, but it will be even more

unpopular for them to bail out the banks that owned Greek bonds,’ she said.”

Washington Post—For Obama, a changed tone in presidential humor

President Obama’s routine at Saturday’s White House Correspondents

Association dinner was so mean. While made a joke about his soggy poll

numbers, his routine was a litany of rips on others. As Obama plowed through

a routine that sounded like a rejected script for Triumph the Insult Comic

Dog, I thought: He’s rich ($5.5 million last year), powerful, and perhaps

the most famous person in the world. Is ripping on the pitiable chairman of

your opposing political party really the place Obama wants to be? But the

president believes himself entitled to hit back at his critics, and his

supporters get particularly pumped up when he goes on the attack. But it was

hard not to notice the distance between his remarks earlier in the day

Saturday at the University of Michigan’s commencement and his remarks to the

press and celebrities. At Michigan, Obama talked about the dangers of

demonizing our political opponents for fear that we make the political

center a no man’s land. At the dinner, he took an occasion usually given to

gentle ribbing and mild self-mockery for president’s past and piled scorn on

his foes. Writer Paul Farhi looks at how Obama departed from presidential

tradition: “At the height of the media frenzy over Bill and Hillary

Clinton’s involvement in the Whitewater real estate deal, Clinton opened his

remarks at one of the press dinners by saying: ‘I am delighted to be here

tonight. And if you believe that, I have some land in northwest Arkansas I’d

like to sell you.’ Former Clinton speechwriter Mark Katz calls Obama’s humor

‘a work in progress.’ Katz recalls that before Clinton made his first White

House Correspondents dinner speech, he asked his speechwriters why there

weren’t more jokes about his political enemies. Clinton’s speech drew

criticism after he inserted his own somewhat hostile jokes.”

–My column on the surprising racial politics of Florida’s Senate election is here.

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