At the end of another difficult day, the Obama administration put forward Rahm Emanuel to talk to reporters about the stimulus success and the failure of yet another nominee. His message was that the problems so far resulted from excessive kindness and openness. Emanuel also promised that this administration is still ahead of the Clinton administration at this point.

McClatchy reporters Steven Thomma and David Lightman provide a handy guide to how Obama sold the stimulus (likely to get final approval Saturday) and how he’ll likely approach the rest of his agenda. The conculsion is that the President won, but won ugly.

“Emanuel conceded that the White House “lost” four days of the clash, but said it was because Obama focused too much on bipartisanship at the expense of talking up the benefits of the still-emerging proposal.”

Politico – Gregg flip-flop emboldens GOP

Conservative Republicans were beginning to accept defeat on the more-spending–fewer-tax-cuts version of the stimulus when liberal Republican Judd Gregg suddenly became their new hero by walking away from his new job in the Obama administration.

Writer Charles Mahtesian explains how the withdrawal reminded Republicans that their adversary was not invincible.

“The withdrawal was Obama’s third failed nomination in less than two weeks, an unexpected state of affairs for a president whose campaign was known for its discipline, flawless execution and ability to see around corner.”

Washington Post – Sifting Through Details of the Deal

Writers Shailagh Murray and Paul Kane combine a narrative about the messy end of the stimulus process with a guide to the broad spending outlines of the plan.

What’s clear is that in the final moments, pork went in and didn’t go out.

“The bill does address other Democratic policy priorities that had languished during years of GOP control. Public housing provisions total nearly $10 billion. Nearly $15 billion would go to clean-water and environmental protection projects. Minus the construction money, education programs would receive nearly $100 billion in new funding, including $12 billion for special education, boosting the federal share for education services to the highest level ever, according to the Senate Appropriations Committee.”

N.Y. Times – Even After the Deal, Tinkering Goes On

While labor groups and government programs were the big winners in the last-minute scramble to compile the stimulus bill, other lobbies also used the confusion to slip in big prizes for their clients.

Writer David Herszenhorn looks at what they got.

“Another late insertion was a $3.2 billion tax break specifically intended for the failing auto giant General Motors that allows it to claim refunds for taxes paid in earlier, profitable years. General Motors and Chrysler received a multibillion dollar federal bailout in December to prevent them from collapsing.”

Wall St. Journal – Next Challenge on Stimulus: Spending All That Money

A

nother piece on the practical problems of spending all of the stimulus money in the time and fashion sought by its creators.

Writers Stephen Power and Neil King use the specific to demonstrate the general as they explain how pouring billions into the Department of Energy may be like pouring water on a rock.

“Another challenge: making sure money designated for states gets funneled through quickly to the people it’s meant to help. A good chunk of the DOE stimulus money, around $5 billion, will flow in the form of grants to states for programs to supply insulation for homes in low-income neighborhoods. There, too, states are scrambling to prepare to handle unprecedented sums of money. Massachusetts, which is farther along than most states in weatherizing homes, expects an injection of upwards of $161 million into a program that last year spent $14 million.”

David Brooks – The Worst-Case Scenario

Brooks must have had a bad day Thursday, because his column for today outlines a dystopian vision of the end of the American era brought on by misguided efforts to revive the economy.

You might wait until you’ve had a second cup to try this one.

“Essentially, Americans had migrated from one society to another — from a society of high trust to a society of low trust, from a society of optimism to a society of foreboding, from a society in which certain financial habits applied to a society in which they did not. In the new world, investors had no basis from which to calculate risk. Families slowly deleveraged. Bankers had no way to measure the future value of assets.”