Matt Yglesias

Neo-Hooverite Cuisine

At the farmer’s market on Sunday, I bought a nice-looking pork loin. Only problem was, I didn’t know anything about cooking pork loin. Fortunately, Ezra Klein had bought me Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything as a housewarming gift so I looked it up. But the book made the odd-to-me claim that the problem with roasting pork loin is that you can’t do it with vegetables because they wind up soaking up too much pork fat. That, to me, sounded more like a feature than a bug. Indeed, I’d also picked up some potatoes at the market and potatoes roasted and flavored with pork loin drippings sounded really good. Arguably potatoes aren’t vegetables, though, so maybe he didn’t think of that.

Fortunately, the internet brought forth a recipe for roast pork loin with potatoes, though I had to use dried spices since, like a normal person, I didn’t have any fresh sage on hand. The recipe observes that “covering it for the first two hours is the secret to tender arista” but their proposed method is to put it in a roasting pan and then cover “loosely with foil.” Much easier to use a big ovenproof lidded saute pan and cover stuff by just putting the cover on. Long story short, too much pork fat is rarely a problem — listen to Yglesias and McConnell and reject the counsels of McCain and Bittman.

McConnell: I’ll Bring Home The Pork

This argument sometimes works (see Tim Johnson in 2002) but it’s a real desperation strategy, something incumbent Senators only break out because they fear they’re in imminent danger of losing and don’t have much to say on their own behalf:

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell said Thursday that Kentucky voters would make a terrible trade if they replaced him with a Democrat lacking the clout to deliver huge amounts of federal money he took credit for bringing back to the Bluegrass state. [...] McConnell, facing a hard-charging challenge from Democratic businessman Bruce Lunsford, did not mention the nation’s sagging economy or his recent vote for a $700 billion rescue of the financial industry during a speech to the chamber of commerce in this Appalachian city.

One wonders if this is even true. It certainly is true that as GOP leader, McConnell has had a ton of clout and has brought a lot of pork home. But as leader of substantially reduced minority, would he really continue to have all that much clout? Indeed, it doesn’t seem obvious to me that McConnell would even be able to hold on as leader if, as seems probably, the Republicans lose seven or eight Senate seats. It’s McConnell, after all, who was architect of the unorthodox notion that Senate Republicans should respond to losing their majority in 2006 by launching a lot of filibusters in defense of the unpopular incumbent president’s agenda.

The Road to Nowhere

As we know, Sarah Palin said “thanks but no thanks” on the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. Or, rather, she favored the Bridge to Nowhere, attacked its critics, defended it publicly, and then when it became clear congress wouldn’t fund it she ended construction on the project and reallocated the funds to something else. But alongside the Bridge to Nowhere was a Road to Nowhere — or, more specifically, a road to the Bridge to Nowhere. As Paul Kiel explains Palin actually kept this $26 million project going even though, absent the bridge, it was completely useless. Why? Well it seems that unless she finished wasting your tax dollars and mine on this bridge, she would have had to have returned the money.

UPDATE: Back in 2006, Palin specifically defended the road in a debate. Faiz pulled the video:

This is pretty unremarkable stuff — putting picayune Alaska interests above national interests — but it certainly cuts against the image that Palin is trying to make.

Thanks But No Thanks

I somehow find this more shocking than the initial lie:

McCain cut off a question about the “Bridge to Nowhere,” which Palin claims to have killed in Alaska even though Washington pulled back money for the project before she turned against it.

“The important thing is she’s vetoed a half a billion dollars in earmark projects–far, far in excess of her predecessor and she’s given money back to the taxpayers and she’s cut their taxes, so I’m happy with her record,” McCain said.

I mean, come on! Palin was introduced to the public, quite specifically, as the governor who said “thanks but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere.” Among other things, there’s a huge difference between what you’d think of a governor who actually turned down federal pork and a governor who just trimmed some local projects. I assume all governors equipped with a line-item veto find themselves vetoing some stuff. Few governors, including Sarah Palin, turn down major federal dollars. But John McCain wanted us to believe that Palin did turn down federal dollars! But she didn’t! And now he says it’s no biggie. Even as he has her running around the country bragging about this!