David notes:

This super-durable bungee cord must have the force of law, meaning it will be woven by Democratic legislators now exerting as much pressure on President Obama's left as congressional Republicans focused on President Bush's right.

When, for instance, Obama hedged on his promise to revoke $226 billion worth of Bush's upper-income tax cuts, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) pushed him to fulfill the pledge and put the money into programs that better guarantee job creation.

When Obama initially offered up a stimulus bill filled with discredited business tax breaks, Democratic senators forced him to back off. Reps. David Obey, D-Wisc., and Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., then argued that the president's proposed infrastructure investments were too small to boost the economy. That led House Democrats to increase Obama's spending targets.

As stimulus negotiations continued, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., tried to add provisions letting courts renegotiate banks' primary-residence mortgages so as to prevent more foreclosures. It's a commonsense proposal: Judges already have the power to renegotiate vacation-home mortgages, and the New York Federal Reserve Bank says existing bankruptcy laws are exacerbating the foreclosure crisis. While Obama opposed the initiative out of fear that banking industry opposition might slow the underlying stimulus bill, Conyers' effort ultimately made the president commit to supporting the reforms in future legislation.

A personal note: some of you may have noticed a certain paucity of posting on my part in the last six months. Yes, life does intrude on blogging, but most of my difficulties have been the result of a spectacular run of bad luck getting computers to work for me. Most of this is my fault; I can't get used to the idea that something as relatively expensive as a computer is considered old and in need of replacement after only three or four years.

Well, I finaly gave in. I have a brand new computer, one that I have almost figured out how to use. So I am hopeful in the new year to be more of a presence, here at Corrente.

However, this weekend my brand new wireless mousse and keyboard simply stopped working, and though it was after I'd written the post, it's amazing how useless is a computer without any way to communicate with it.

My apologies to Gene Gaudette at American Politics Journal, with whom we have been working to be part of the team which gives you Pundit Pap on their site. APJ has a fabulous new version of itself, which you should definitely check out.

So here's a Monday view of yesterday's Fox News Sunday.

Chris Wallace led with Hillary’s announcement, but since there was really nothing of note to say, other than facile and futile attempts to predict the future, the Hillary-bashing was something of a bust. Weirdly, it was Juan Williams who brought up Barak Obama’s Muslim father as a potential something-or-other-not-good for Senator Obama’s presidential ambitions. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

The headline from this Sunday’s gasbaggery at Fox should probably be that a Democrat, Joe Biden, of all people, though perhaps that is not so surprising, finally suggested a real way to limit the powers of this president.