Stung by reports that the first Obama ad of 2012 was both a) insipid as all get-out and b) eclipsed by the NRSC parody video of it, the new DNC chair has reportedly authorized the re-release of what turned out to be the seminal Obamacare argument. This is five years old, sure – but it spells out everything about the Democrats’ health care plan, strategy, | Read More »
No, really. President Obama met with the transparency award givers in private; the award ceremony did not appear on his schedule, and had no press presence whatsoever. There wasn’t even a staff photographer there, much to the surprise of the transparency/open government people, who are all of them kind of confused that they had to give this award under the rose and in an undisclosed | Read More »
I believe that this qualifies as a “Kinsley gaffe:” which is to say, a politician accidentally telling the truth. Background: this was from a press conference where the President was trying to explain why his foreign policy was such an improvement over georgewbushgeorgewbushgeorgewbush’s, despite the fact that it lacks a coherent conceptual framework, an overall philosophy, a clear set of objectives, and any sort of | Read More »
In some ways, John Yoo’s argument (“Antiwar Senator, War-Powers President“) is almost… superfluous. The basic point is straightforward enough: President Obama, just like every other President since 1973, has come to the conclusion that the War Powers Act is in fact an unconstitutional and onerous restriction on the executive branch’s constitutionally mandated oversight of military affairs. This conclusion follows the usual evolutionary arc: as Yoo | Read More »
The title to this Hill article is “Frustration with Obama Builds” – which is highly ironic; or, at least the verb is. The article itself discusses the President’s apparent public indifference towards getting involved with anything resembling negotiations over the ongoing budget problems; what makes it interesting is that Democrats (specifically, Sen. Kay Hagan of NC) are apparently now willing to go on the record | Read More »
Michael Totten reminds us that if Qaddafi wins in Libya after all, it’s not without precedent. Specifically, the precedent of Saddam Hussein, post-Gulf War I. Back then we were all “wouldn’t it be great if the dictator fell?”, too- and back then we pretty much sat around and did nothing printable while the dictator went around smashing the opposition back down into the ground*. Which | Read More »
Mister President, here’s the bar that you have to clear. It’s a high one. A much higher one than your attendants are telling you that it is. They are almost certainly telling you to concentrate on the ‘blood libel’ comment – which, by the way, will immediately resonate with at least 40% of the population of the country, mostly because it is darned accurate* – | Read More »
There are two passages that you need to consider from this Hill article about how the current administration continues to blame the previous administration for everything in creation, but particularly our current rotten economic situation – a year after the current administration promised to stop doing precisely that. Here is the first passage… During a July 14, 2009, address in Warren, Mich., Obama said, “Now, | Read More »
There’s been a good deal of discussion over whether the President should have gotten involved with the conflict over whether to build a mosque in Ground Zero*. Certainly the President himself has had second thoughts about that: his strong statement on Friday was followed up by a predictable backtrack on Saturday, and the anonymous sniping from his own administration officials over that was likewise inevitable. | Read More »
As you may recall, White House press flack Robert Gibbs earlier this week announced his frustration with his party’s fringe Democrats who are unaccountably upset that they trade money and effort for… well, Gibbs’s frustration and contempt. It was fascinating to watch – for that matter, so was the latest extended whine from Alan ‘counting-the-days-until-his-permanent-MSNBC-gig’ Grayson on the subject* – but my sense of honor | Read More »
Yes, Maureen Dowd. We may not have a “nation of cowards” on race, as Attorney General Eric Holder contended, but we may have a West Wing of cowards on race. Although I’m somewhere between Holder and Dowd on this one: we have a national political party of cowards on race, and it’s the Democratic one. As we’ve just had Andrew Breitbart graphically, if perhaps not | Read More »
Ouch. Obama clearly wishes to do good and means well. As I’ve mentioned in the past, that’s pretty much the worst thing that you can say about a person in English. It’s what you fall back on when you can’t credibly claim competence or experience for somebody. Via Riehl World View. Read the whole thing, although with a title like “World Sees Obama as Incompetent | Read More »
Well, don’t ask me*: ask Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post. Yes. The Huffington Post. President Barack Obama took to the Oval Office to address a nation worried to death over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a location used so much more often by Saturday Night Live than by actual presidents that my brain actually released a small dollop of dopamine in anticipation of comedic | Read More »
I just noticed that the President kind of likes to use that phrase a bit. I wonder if he realizes that it makes him look like a bit of a narcissist? Particularly since he’s clearly using that phrase in all those occasions to argue that while bad things that happen under his watch are always his responsibility, they’re never his fault. Even the Christmas bombing | Read More »
Froma Harrop is very, very upset that mean people are picking on President Obama: Gulf Coast residents are supposedly mad at President Obama for not keeping the oil from threatening their beaches and marshes. We hear this in stereo — from political opposition on the right and liberal pundits bored by the president’s cerebral approach to problem-solving. Stopping the waves is a job for Neptune, | Read More »
Now he’s just messing with us: The Obama administration is leading an effort within the International Whaling Commission to lift a 24-year international ban on commercial whaling for Japan, Norway and Iceland, the remaining three countries in the 88-member commission that still hunt whales. [snip] [Environmental] groups have run ads in major newspapers highlighting Obama’s campaign promise in 2008 to “strengthen the moratorium on commercial | Read More »
Guess he’s not counting on the President to campaign for him, then. Rep. Charles Rangel compared President Obama to former Vice President Dick Cheney Saturday for their shared commitment to the Iraq War, one the Harlem Democrat argues is based on the country’s hunger for oil. “I challenge anyone to tell me we aren’t there because of the oil,” said Rangel, who kicks off his | Read More »
(Via Drudge) The saw is stuck. The risky effort to contain the nation’s worst oil spill hit a snag Wednesday when a diamond-edged saw became stuck in a thick pipe on a blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said the goal was to free the saw and finish the cut later in the day. This is | Read More »
There’s a lot of interesting stuff in this John Dickerson article on what last night’s results really mean, but this last paragraph is probably the one that needs to be most referenced: The night showed just how limited Obama’s political power is. He said he’d work all-out for Specter, but he didn’t campaign for the senator in the final days. That may have been a | Read More »
Possibly the most important bit in this article (via Hot Air) is the bit I put in bold: President Barack Obama’s Washington-bashing could boomerang on his party in Congress if he’s not careful, House Democratic leaders have warned White House senior adviser David Axelrod. The fear — raised by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, campaign chief Chris Van Hollen and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn in a closed-door | Read More »
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