In his big speech on financial regulation, President Obama vacillated between a vigorous defense of free markets and a second position that I described at the time as "a middle ground as a kind of neutral referee between the pro-market types and the socialists, someone who can see the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches." In his press conference today, Mr. Obama did the same thing. At one point, he offered a defense of free markets that sounded like it could have come from Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, or Richard Epstein. Said Mr. Obama: "in fact democracy, respect for property rights, respect -- respect for market-based economies, rule of law -- that all those things can in fact lead to greater prosperity."

In his talk earlier this month at the Council on Foreign Relations, White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers said, "It is too early to know how successful our policies have been. It is not even clear how we will know ultimately whether they have succeeded, because of the difficulty of constructing a counterfactual and knowing what would have happened without intervention."

Well, it may have been too early then, but it isn't too early now. Either that, or word from Mr. Summers never made it through to President Obama. At his press conference today, Mr. Obama said, "here are some things I know for certain: In the absence of the stimulus, I think our recession would be much worse."

One of the topics that critics of the Obama administration's expansion of the role of government have been interested in is the lack of some of the usual checks and balances. Not only is Congress in Democratic hands, but the press, which usually serves as an independent watchdog, seems to be fawning over the president. Two developments today in the press-as-lap-dog theme. First, Peter Osnos, a veteran of the Washington Post, interviews some of his former colleagues and ABC's Sam Donaldson and concludes that "Obama is getting more favorable press than Reagan did." He says Mr. Donaldson suggests that is in part because Regan's policies "appealed less to the natural instincts of reporters than Obama's do." Mr. Osnos writes that some tough scrutiny of the president would be good for both the president and the public. Second, at Obama's press conference, the second question was one from the Huffington Post that was reportedly coordinated beforehand with the White House. Mr. Obama also fielded some tougher questions at the press conference, including one about his smoking and one from Fox News, which asked whether Iranian diplomats are still invited to July 4 parties at American embassies.

Consumers who opposed a bailout for the auto industry might have thought they could just avoid GM or Chrysler vehicles. Now, reports the New York Times, Ford will get a $440 million loan from the federal energy department, and Nissan and Tesla will also get government loans. Why should taxpayers, most of whom are a lot poorer than the Ford family that, according to another Times article today, still controls the motor company with a stake worth more than $140 million, be forced to loan money to Ford? For that matter, why should taxpayers who are richer than the Fords be forced to subsidize a family that is managing its assets with a commitment that, the Times article quotes Bill Ford explaining, is not financial, but "emotional"? If Bill Ford wants to pursue an emotional commitment, can't he do it without taking $440 million in loans from the taxpayers? Ford had a marketing advantage over GM and Chrysler by being the domestic automaker that didn't need or accept a bailout. The federal loan would seem to risk squandering that advantage.

Amherst College says that "Last year, for the first time since at least 2003, more Amherst seniors who took jobs did so in government or nonprofits than in the private sector," an article on the Bloomberg wire reports. Also commenting on the trend is the president of Harvard:

At Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, undergraduates are relieved that they no longer have to fight the temptation of high-paying Wall Street jobs, President Drew Faust said, in an interview in New York.

The British National Health Service is the world's fourth-largest employer, the Financial Times reports. The Chinese army and the Indian state railway reportedly have larger workforces, as does the U.S. military.

Dr. Mark Sklar, writing in the Wall Street Journal, argues that doctors should not be forced to participate in any government-run health plan because, among other things, "We have paid for our professional training."

The executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg News, Albert Hunt, has an oddly circular column in which he first rejects as an "exaggeration" the idea that President Obama is getting a "free pass" from a "quiescient press corps" that focuses on style rather than substance -- and then spends the rest of the column arguing that Obama is "like Secretariat, the legendary race horse," and is more compelling than either Ronald Reagan or John F. Kennedy, the two presidents that Mr. Hunt puts in Mr. Obama's league. "The fawning coverage depicted by some is hyperbole," Mr. Hunt fawns, sounding an awfully lot like a member of that same "quiescent press corps" that he denies exists.

Just to put it in a bit of perspective, under the Reagan administration, 20 million jobs were created, unemployment fell to 5.5% from 7.6%, real GDP grew 26%, and a defense buildup helped to win the Cold War. The top marginal federal income tax rate was cut to 33% from 70%.

Some of President Obama's advisers on the left are urging Mr. Obama to "put everything else on hold" to make a big push for universal health care. Given that, some of the brightest minds on the free-market side of things are rallying to try to defeat Mr. Obama's plan. The New York Post marshals the president of the Pacific Research Institute, Sally Pipes, while the blog of Harvard economics professor and former Bush economic aide Greg Mankiw links to both a Wall Street Journal article by Abraham Verghese and an article on health care by Milton Friedman.

News accounts of today's indictment of Allen Stanford refer to his bases in Texas, Virginia, and Antigua, but not so much attention is being paid to his activities in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where, as this article from the St. Croix Source reports, Mr. Stanford's February 2008 groundbreaking for a vast "global management complex" for his financial group was celebrated with letters of congratulation from President Bush and from the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Mr. Stanford has maintained that he is innocent of any wrongdoing. But the special federal tax break for the U.S. Virgin Islands from which he would have benefited was the focus of a series of New York Sun editorials and news articles. See, for example: here, here, here, and here. The tax break may be worth taking a new look at in light of Stanford's indictment.

With everyone from President Obama to Paul Krugman complaining that letting homeowners buy homes with little or no down payment is a bad idea, why is the Federal Housing Administration backing mortgages requiring only a 3 and a half percent down payment on a $400,000 one-bedroom apartment in "East Williamsburg" Brooklyn? Looks like someone is taking seriously the admonition to get that credit flowing again.

A neat recording of Ronald Reagan from 1961 talking about "socialized medicine" is available via the Carpe Diem blog of economics professor Mark Perry. Reagan begins by quoting the socialist politician Norman Thomas saying that the American people would never vote for socialism, but that under the name of liberalism, the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program. Said Reagan, "One of the traditional methods of imposing statism of socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people that can't afford it."

The list of the options that the House Ways and Means Committee is weighing to pay for health care has been obtained by the Associated Press, and none of them is painless. They include a 10 cent a can tax on soda and "other sugary drinks," a "2 percent income tax increase to single taxpayers earning more than $200,000 a year and households earning more than $250,000" and "a new employer payroll tax could target 3 percent of employers' health care expenditures." Also on the table, the wire service reports, are "higher alcohol taxes, increases to the Medicare payroll tax and a value-added tax, a sort of national sales tax, of up to 1.5 percent or more." So much for the idea that the plan would pay for itself by encouraging preventive care and reducing defensive medicine.

A British government official, Peter Mandelson, calls in the Wall Street Journal for diminished respect for the "choices of sovereign governments":

The only way forward is a totally renovated approach to international coordination of economic policy. We need to strengthen and depoliticize the International Monetary Fund and give it a new surveillance role that covers all aspects of systemic risk. It needs to be mandated to make recommendations on weaknesses in the system, and countries should be obliged to take these recommendations extremely seriously.

The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes weighs the evidence on President Obama and business and delivers a verdict:

Anti-business may be too crude a label. But this we can conclude: Obama doesn't trust free markets, he prefers government over business, he thinks Americans are too concerned about money, and he has a dark view of profits. A follower of Adam Smith, he's not.

President Bush is more charitable, or at least reticent. According to the Huffington Post, "Asked during a question-and-answer session if he thought his successor's policies were 'socialist,' Bush began saying 'depends on...' then stopped and concluded, 'We'll see.'"