• Howard Fineman who is a friend of the Bayh’s offers a kinder take on Bayh.  See link.  It paints him as a fundamentally decent man who did not have the stomach for nasty politics and the campaign this fall where his wife’s corporate directorships would come under scrutiny.  But one wonders why such a thin-skinned man thought he could rise to the presidency.  While praising Bayh, Fineman unintentionally opens up a couple of critiques for Bayh.  There appears to be an element of petulance at being passed over for the Vice Presidency yet again.  I find it interesting that a man who like Al Gore attended St. Albans, never suffered from financial hardship, worked in private practice only for about 3 years and parlayed his family name into statewide elected office at 31 knows so much about how America operates.  And could we please stop referring to politicians who do not have the spine to cut entitlement spending but want to slash government tax revenues by incessant tax cuts as deficit hawks.  Deficit peacocks seems more appropriate.
• Ross Douthat from the right repeats many of my critiques yesterday that Bayh was essentially an empty shirt who never had the guts to take a courageous policy stand.  See link.  He articulated conventional wisdom but for a self-professed executive never provided much leadership.  Now he leaves whining about partisanship in the Senate (which to be fair is toxic) but without doing anything meaningful about it.  And on his way out he repeated the nonsensical Republican canard that the stimulus did not create a single job.  The stimulus is unpopular (which naturally finds Bayh ranged in opposition) and one can question how effective it was and whether it was an appropriate policy, but in their honest moments (or when they petition for stimulus funds or while posing for the cameras at ribbon cutting ceremonies for projects they solicited but voted against) even the Republicans agree that jobs have been created.

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