In the New York Times magazine this last Sunday with the unintentionally hilarious headline "What the Left Doesn’t Understand About Obama," editor of The New Republic, Jonathan Chait has a whopper in the very first paragraph (emphasis is mine):

This has been the summer that liberal discontent with Obama has finally crystallized. The frustration has been simmering for a while — through centrist appointments, bank bailouts and the defeat of the public option, to name a few examples. But it has taken the debt-ceiling standoff and the threat of a double-dip recession to create a leftist critique of the president that stuck.

Obama passed the stimulus. The stimulus that worked. Bush bailed out the banks and the auto industry. Now the American auto industry is slightly booming at the moment. Hiring and everything. And the banksters are rich and under-taxed. As much as I hate to admit it - something horrible Bush did actually worked.

Get that? Bush bailed out the banks and the auto industry in '08. Guess who wasn't President until January '09? Someone who couldn't have bailed out anything yet. Obama got stuck with its implementation but he didn't start it. Bush is the Bailout President. Remember: "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system."

This is revisionist at best. Otherwise false.

This deserves a correction. That's what we do in journalism - whether is at a blog or at the Grey Lady.

The New York Times needs to correct this error.

I was interviewed a while ago on Mr Media's blog and he asked me about my political beliefs. The idea of what a Centrist means has always baffled me as a belief system. I understand calling yourself that, but not as a bargaining tool. Right wing bloggers like Hugh Hewitt use the word "center/right" to hide their extremism to a guy like Wolf Blitzer.

ANDELMAN: I have one last question: many people find that their political views become more conservative as they get older. Are you seeing any sign of that within your own beliefs?

AMATO: What is the center? Do you know what I mean? Has anybody defined what the center is? I believe that we all through our experiences in life, we all come to decisions and conclusions which we are comfortable with morally, what we think is the right thing to do. So that’s how I’ve developed my convictions, so they are not changing, they’re only getting stronger since I’ve been involved with blogging and in the political process.

As always, Duncan nails the "Centrism" riff:

Let's be clear that "centrism" is, for the most part, a cosmetic pose for the benefit of Beltways journalists who know that The Most Important Thing Is To Be A Centrist.

In terms of what those centrists actually support in terms of policy, I'd say there are roughly 3 kinds of things. Occasionally they live up to their name and push through genuine compromises between left and right. More often than that they push fake "split the baby" compromises which achieve nothing genuine but have the appearance of doing "something."

And, most often, "centrism" is used as a cover for what amounts to bipartisan endorsement of corruption in the name of furthering the Might and Majesty of the establishment powers.

As TIME"s person of the year. I thought it was my duty to bring this story to your attention yesterday. Well, it's hitting the walls now. Newday at least covers the numbers:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton beats John McCain and ties Rudolph Giuliani in a new Newsweek national poll, a stunning counterpoint to recent surveys showing the former first lady trailing the GOP's dueling presidential frontrunners. The poll, taken earlier this month, shows Clinton besting McCain 50 to 43 percent among 1,000 registered voters nationwide. It also showed her in a dead heat with McCain among independents, a group that has proven stubbornly resistant to her centrist message.

Atrios has this:

The Newsweek numbers on the head-to-head presidential matchups were not publicized by the magazine. They appeared in a press release on the magazine's Web site but weren't included in a Clinton-Barack Obama cover story, which focused on whether Americans were receptive to black or female presidential candidates. A Newsweek editor said the poll matchups were not pertinent to the cover story.

"Right. The poll numbers regarding how receptive voters were to Clinton and Obama were not pertinent to a cover story "which focused on whether Americans were receptive to black or female presidential candidates."

I've been informed that the The Clinton team is asking Newsweek for an explanation as to why they omitted the polling data which is essential to the central theme of their story. It makes absolutely no sense to me. This data seems to be perfect for Jonathan Alter's story. There must be a reason why it wasn't included. Stay tuned...

EZRA:

Look, I'm just saying, the Moderate Voice is making a totally stunning, totally organic comeback in the "best centrist blog" category...read on

In case there was ever any doubt, Paul Krugman makes it plain today that partisan times call for partisan measures.

The point is that those who cling to the belief that politics can be conducted in terms of people rather than parties -- a group that also includes would-be centrist Democrats like Joe Lieberman and many members of the punditocracy -- are kidding themselves.

The fact is that in 1994, the year when radical Republicans took control both of Congress and of their own party, things fell apart, and the center did not hold. Now we're living in an age of one-letter politics, in which a politician's partisan affiliation is almost always far more important than his or her personal beliefs. And those who refuse to recognize this reality end up being useful idiots for those, like President Bush, who have been consistently ruthless in their partisanship.

We can only hope progressive organizations who don't mind endorsing less-conservative Republicans (Sierra Club and NARAL, we're looking at you) are listening.

--Guest Post by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report