While the grindingly slow process of working an initiative through the congress, funding it and getting the agencies at state and local levels into action seems like stasis, eventually the program the administration has worked long and hard for does arrive.

That big government can take so long that it seems impossible, but what it can accomplish with public service from those elected by the taxpayers is a very good use of the taxes we pay.

Sure, it would would be better if B.O. laid down a progressive gauntlet and challenged GOP budget priorities head on, daring them to oppose aggressive job-creating measures without any deficit-cutting camouflage. But then, we all know that frontal assaults aren’t exactly Obama’s thing.

So instead we get the reluctant(?) endorsement of conservative budget frames, and a passive-aggressive approach to boosting the economy that might have been borrowed from a character in the old Popeye cartoons: “I’ll gladly pay you in budget cuts Tuesday for some stimulus today.”

Romney is hinting that the economy — the fire — needed not just more stimulus, but longer-lasting stimulus. Instead of pouring on a little gasoline to kick start the fire, we’d needed a slow-burning log that would provide fuel for a longer period.

The Götterdämmerung that is the Republican Party’s campaign for the presidency in 2012 has been wild enough to give hope for a round of presidentin’ to everyone who’s enjoyed a few minutes in media’s glare. That includes TX gov. Perry, recently much touted for offering to secede, and throwing court challenges against EPA’s right to protect TX citizens from the polluters that fund his campaigns.

Once again, Paul Krugman, who along with many others correctly told them their first stimulus was inadequate and misdirected, is telling them again: this won’t work.

After watching White House Adviser David Axelrod on ABC’s This Week, one can easily understand the lack of enthusiasm for an aimless Democratic Party that can’t even stand up and fight for what it’s supporters believe because it’s led from the top down by incompetent and corrupt corporatists.

In early 2009, the Administration proposed to put the banks through “stress tests” to see how they’d survive more adverse scenarios. So why didn’t the economic team also have a test in case their own recovery plans proved to be insufficient?

The White House just released a statement that the President’s Chief Economic Adviser, Larry Summers, will leave the Administration and return to Harvard University by the end of the year.

If there are any progressives left, it’s time for them to acknowledge that the Obama Administration is systematically destroying their brand.

Three (sorta) “positive” stories about economic stimulus all came together in the last couple of days. They suggest that even when the forces of darkness are trying their hardest to make us stupid, it’s possible we can actually sort out the truth.