Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has named his picks to the "super committee" charged with making deficit reduction recommendations.

Reid named Washington Sen. Patty Murray and center-right Max Baucus, who the Post's Rosalind Helderman today (8/10/11) calls a "natural choice," given that he chairs the Finance Committee. The New York Times is a little more helpful, pointing out that Baucus

broke with other Democrats and supported tax cuts enacted in 2001 under President George W. Bush. He also worked with Republicans in 2003 to pass legislation that added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.

This is important for anyone who thinks that the tax cuts and drug benefit contributed greatly to the deficit problem.

Reid also picked Massachusetts' John Kerry, about whom the Post writes:

Kerry comes as something of a surprise, since he has focused more closely on foreign relations. However, as a respected former presidential candidate, his selection could help appease liberals.

I'm not sure how Kerry would "appease liberals."  In this particular case, the main issues are protecting Social Security and Medicare. And as of Sunday on Meet the Press, Kerry's view on that was that

the real problem for our country is not the short-term debt. We can deal with that. It's the long-term debt. It's the structural debt of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid measured against the demographics of our nation.

It's not clear how picking someone with that misleading perspective is supposed to "appease liberals."

The New York Times has a piece today (3/7/11) about the debate over U.S. military intervention in Libya. The paper reports that

there are persistent voices--in Congress and even inside the administration--arguing that Mr. Obama is moving too slowly.

Reporters David Sanger and Thom Shanker contend that there is too much concern about perceptions, and that the White House is too squeamish because of Iraq. And who are those persistent voices?

The most vocal camp, led by senators John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee for president, and Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut independent and another hawk on Libyan intervention, say the central justification for establishing a no-fly zone over Libya is that the rebel leaders themselves are seeking military assistance to end decades of dictatorship.

As always, when it comes to calling for military force, John McCain is front and center in the  TV news debate, since he is apparently an "expert."

But the Times notes that there are others calling for a more aggressive response--including Sen. John Kerry. And that's a problem for the White House:

For the administration, Mr. Kerry's view is more troublesome, given that he is a normally a strong ally on foreign policy issues. He was a fierce critic of the war in Iraq, but he sees Libya as a different matter.

John Kerry was such a fierce critic of the Iraq War that he voted for it.

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham's enthusiasm for Dick Cheney is not a new thing. Appearing on MSNBC back in 2004, Meacham praised the Republican National Convention speeches of Cheney and Sen. Zell Miller:

If I taught at the Kennedy School, I would take these two speeches as ur-text of partisan rhetoric. I think it was a brilliant tactical night, one of the most brilliant in the age of television. These were two concise, rather devastating rhetorical hits at John Kerry. And there was just--they did not miss a base. They did not miss anything that they could hit.

The remarkable thing about those two speeches was their breathtaking dishonesty. (See "If Only They Had Invented the Internet," FAIR Media Advisory, 9/3/04.) Those were the speeches in which Miller and Cheney claimed that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was opposed to all U.S. weapon systems, had promised to give the U.N. a veto over U.S. military action, and so on--all blatant falsehoods.  If you saw that non-stop parade of lies as "brilliant," then maybe it's not so surprising that you would be looking forward to Dick Cheney running for president.

Senator John Kerry's post to the SaveTheInternet.com blog (6/16/09) looks at the fact that "nine of the most popular 10 phones are locked in a deal with one of these big wireless carriers," and how this corporatization limits the new medium:

Here's the issue I think we need to wrestle with: Wireless service providers are largely deciding what phone you can use. We don't see that happening in similar markets.

Your broadband provider doesn't decide what kind of computer you can connect to at the end of your DSL or cable wire. And 40 years ago, the FCC ruled in the historic Carterfone decision that AT&T couldn't pick and choose which phones can and can't connect to its network.

The pertinent question Kerry comes to is: "Is the status quo the right model for maximizing innovation, competition and consumer choice? Or do we need a change?"