Билл Клинтон назвал политику США «хаосом» и обвинил обе партии в слабости

Bill Clinton writes in his new book, Back to Work, that last summer’s political fight over raising the U.S. debt ceiling made the nation look “weak and confused” overseas, the AP reports. He also “describes the current state of the country as ‘a mess’ and largely blames the anti-government sentiment embodied in the tea party movement that has held sway since the 1980s. But Clinton also criticizes Obama and other Democratic lawmakers for not making a stronger case for the steps they took to stabilize the U.S. economy in 2009, like the bank and auto company bailouts and the $787 billion economic stimulus program.” “Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire has a special place in the political blogosphere. Operating much like a traditional wire service, it’s the site to which thousands of political insiders — Members of Congress and their staff, political consultants and pollsters, lobbyists, journalists, and political bloggers — go several times a day to get news, analysis, and commentary on the latest political developments that drive political debate in the U.S.” House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “pushed back hard” against an upcoming 60 Minutes report “that is expected to raise questions about potential conflicts of interest between congressional leaders’ personal stock holdings and their involvement in legislation that may affect those investments,” Politico reports. A new Gallup poll finds Republican voters are more likely to express enthusiasm about voting in next year’s presidential election. On the national level, 56% of Republican registered voters and 48% of Democratic voters are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting. In 12 key swing states, the Republican advantage in enthusiasm is 59% to 48%. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) acknowledged that any bipartisan agreement on debt reduction will need to include some new tax revenue, CBS News reports. Said Boehner: “I think there is room for revenues, but I think there clearly is a limit to the amount of revenues that are available.” “The comment was significant because Boehner and other Republican leaders have repeatedly insisted that tax increases are off the table, and most Republicans in the House and Senate have signed a ‘taxpayer protection pledge’ vowing not to raise taxes.” A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds Herman Cain “is showing initial resilience in the face of allegations of sexual impropriety: More than half of potential Republican voters say the controversy is not serious, fewer than a quarter say it makes them less likely to support Cain, and he’s running essentially evenly with Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination.” Romney edges Cain nationally among Republican voters, 24% to 23%, essentially a dead heat between the two. Rick Perry trails with 13% followed by Newt Gingrich at 12%. A warning sign: Cain slips to third place among those who see the charges as serious and Republican women are significantly more likely than men to say the scandal makes them less apt to support Cain. A new Montana State University Billings poll finds Rep. Denny Rehberg (R) barely ahead of Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) in the U.S. Senate race, 36% to 35%, with 25% still undecided. Former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) resigned as chairman and chief executive officer of MF Global Holdings Ltd, Bloomberg reports. “His resignation came four days after the bankruptcy filing as the company’s bets on European sovereign debt rattled investors. U.S. regulators are investigating about $633 million missing from MF Global customer accounts.” First Read: “Why not stick around and fix this? Why run away? Perhaps there are legal reasons to do. Perhaps he thinks it’s the honorable thing to resign. Maybe he was an absentee CEO and is embarrassed this happened on his watch. Whatever the explanation, it’s not good for Corzine’s reputation. The whole point of Corzine’s relevance in politics was his knowledge and success of the financial world. Politicians can recover from sex scandals because the public is willing to separate the personal flaws if the professional work is on the up and up. Corzine’s fall may be harder to recover from.” Whether or not Rick Perry is behind Herman Cain’s sexual-harassment troubles, Paul Begala says there’s nothing “despicable” about giving reporters a tip about a candidate’s impropriety, “Here’s the Begala Standard: if an attack is fair, factual, and about the public record, it’s not dirty. Business experience — and, yes, one’s conduct around the office or in an after-work watering hole — is relevant. Scrutinizing it is fair. You don’t attack someone’s race or religion or gender or sexual orientation. You don’t go after family. You don’t pry into private lives, but you look at public performance in office, or in prior campaigns; you look at business and financial matters, votes and quotes (and for the presidency and vice presidency I think health is a legitimate inquiry). And there’s nothing wrong with encouraging journalists to do so as well.” Herman Cain flatly denies that he made an unwanted sexual advance toward a female employee at a work event, but multiple sources tell Politico “there were urgent discussions of the woman’s accusations at top levels of the National Restaurant Association within hours of when the incident was alleged to have occurred.” The new details “put the woman’s account even more sharply at odds with Cain’s emphatic insistence in news media interviews this week that nothing inappropriate happened between the two.” The woman in question “told two people directly at the time that Cain made a sexual overture to her at one of the group’s events… She was livid and lodged a verbal complaint with an NRA board member that same night.” Meanwhile, the New York Times reports Cain’s wife will no longer do an interview with Fox News tomorrow night as previously planned. While Americans across the nation are downbeat, a special USA Today/Gallup Poll finds that “voters in a dozen key battleground states for the 2012 election are in an even deeper funk about their lives, Obama’s tenure and the nation’s politics.” “The underlying perils for the president are particularly pronounced in these battlegrounds, presumably because they are in parts of the country that have been hit hardest by the nation’s economic troubles.” States polled: Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. Despite sexual harassment allegations becoming the focus of his campaign this week, a new Rasmussen survey finds Herman Cain continues to lead the GOP presidential field with 26%, followed by Mitt Romney at 23% and Newt Gingrich at 14%. The rest of the field: Rick Perry at 8%, Ron Paul at 7%, Michele Bachmann and Jon Huntsman at 2% and Rick Santorum at just 1%. Greg Sargent foudn this question in the recent Suffolk University poll conducted in Florida: Do you think the Republicans are intentionally stalling efforts to jumpstart the economy to insure that Barack Obama is not reelected? By a 49% to 39% margin, Floridians said they were, while 12% were undecided. Steve Benen: “Here’s a suggestion for other pollsters: given these results in one of the nation’s largest states, and the fact that the charge has been made by so many prominent political voices, perhaps it’s time to start putting the question to a national audience?” Update: National Journal reports Senate Republicans blocked a $60 billion infrastructure bill, making the bill the second piece of President Obama’s jobs proposal to be voted down in the Senate. Andrew Sullivan: “The only way past this for Cain is through it. Let the women speak, if they wish. If they refuse to come forward or detail the accusations, then there’s nothing more to be done. But the golden rule of political scandal applies: disclose everything, apologize for what needs to be apologized, and get it over with.” Meanwhile, Michael Tomasky plays out the various permutations.