Obamas Steal the Show at the G-20, Plus More on the Summit and the Economic Crisis

Our daily look at stories and topics that are lighting up the Internets:

All About the G-20

The blogosphere today was bloated with news, thoughts, and inanities about the G-20 summit. We divide our coverage of talk on the G-20 into two groups:

Policy: Let's start with this post by Joshua Keating, who's upset that among the major results of the G-20 is a clamp-down on tax havens, allowing politicians to "claim a political victory without actually enacting the tough new international financial oversight they said they were pushing for." Props to conservative Mark Steyn for predicting this yesterday. Keating also has another interesting post here in which he analyzes the potential for "success" that the G-20 protesters have. There has been a lot of focus on the U.S.-Russia meeting—see Steve Gutterman's analysis here—which conservative Charles Krauthammer isn't too happy about. Conservative David Pryce-Jones concurs, wondering whether the joint Obama-Medvedev statement was meant to isolate Putin. And John Feffer wonders if the Western world should scrap NATO once and for all.

The Not-so-policy-related: No, she didn't! No, he didn't!! OMG!!! While this might not be the exact refrain in the blogosphere, it certainly seemed to be the tone in reactions to the first couple's introduction to the Queen. First up: Michelle's hug. Anya Strzemien sums up the controversy here. Ali Ahmad gives his take on the royalty protocol-breaching incident here. Conservative Ed Morrissey does too, but he doesn't think it was too big a deal: "Mrs. Obama committed a small breach of protocol, but it's not on the same level as the Angela Merkel back rub or replacing 'Great Britain' with 'England.' " Liberal Jed Lewison reacts to conservatives unhappy with Obama's gift to the Queen: an iPod. Many, many others in the media and the blogosphere turned their attention to Michelle's outfits, like this liberal blogger, who wonders why anyone even cares. Marc Ambinder wonders whether the G-20 summit was swallowed by Obamamania, suggesting that most leaders are avoiding reality by the spin they're giving the meetings. And William Kern analyzes the Obama paradox: his popularity in Europe versus the popularity of his views.

The Gloomy Economy

This blogpost by liberal economist Paul Krugman—a response to this blogpost here—has a number of bloggers talking. Krugman writes that with the Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP), "there's a lot of money going to institutions that would never otherwise arrive at the taxpayers' door. And that, in a broad sense, is what's wrong with TARPish rescue schemes. They try to fix the banks by driving up the price of a whole asset class." Liberal Big Tent Democrat has Krugman's back. He takes on the false assumptions underlying the PPIP: "The assumption behind the support of the Geithner Plan is that politics prevents even trying to do the right thing now and we must absorb the failure of the Geithner Plan before the right course can be taken." Conservative Katherine Mangu-Ward reacts favorably to another Krugman post comparing our current moves on the economy to the failed Japanese efforts of the 1990s. Conservative Anthony Randazzo takes the comparison a step further. And John Baldoni offers a humble guideline for dealing with the recession in your workplace.