1. At least bother to cite that you pulled your information directly off the WhiteHouse.gov website.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Reali...ment-of-Shame/

2. I continue to be baffled by the administration's need to formally address right-wing personalities like Limbaugh and Beck in a formal manner on the official WhiteHouse.gov website. They may think they're somehow combatting these guys and their rhetoric, but all they are really doing is giving these guys a larger audience and more credibility in the eyes of their supporters. If you stop paying attention to the idiot with his pants down on the playground, eventually he'll pull his pants up and look for a new way to attract attention that may not be nearly as effective as the current method of gaining attention.

That only works if the rest of the world will also ignore him. When newspapers run stories on the latest outrage and are adding staff to monitor right wing outlets so they won't miss the next "big story" you have to be more aggressive.

The WH largely ignored the outrage about the school speech and it got covered by every major media outlet.

What's your point? Should the administration react to all this stuff? They're going to spend a whole lot of time being defensive and not getting much accomplished if that's the tactic they're going to use. It's not smart at all.

I thought it was well known that Olympics are a huge money drain?

The only way they're beneficial, from an economic standpoint, is if they raise the international prestige of a place to a level where you get more tourism for decades.

I think a Rio would benefit far more in that regard than Chicago.

The last three Olympics held in the U.S. (Los Angeles '84, Atlanta '96 and Salt Lake City '02) all finished with financial surpluses.

The Olympics themselves may have have finished under budget, but that's not a "profit" for the city, who has to spend a crapload to upgrade facilities that are never really used in the same way again.

Though, the drain should be lighter on major U.S. cities, which already has a bunch of the facilities in place, as opposed to someplace like Athens.

According to this article, the City of Atlanta spent about $6 million. The facility upgrades (Turner Field, Olympic Village, Centennial Park, etc.) were all paid by the Olympic committee.

Financial legacy of the Olympics in Atlanta is hard to detect | StandardNET – Ogden, Layton, Brigham, Weber, Davis, Top of Utah News

And the 1984 Olympics were the first ones to turn the fund raising into a private endeavor, and not have a repeat of the Montreal public financing disaster.

A staffer typing on a blog isn't that much of a distraction. It's not like Obama is going to spend all day surfing The Corner and Red State.

So no one except that blogger took the time to address the issue? You're giving far too much credit to that staffer.

And if you don't think there's a good size staff in the administration constantly monitoring all news sources including partisan blogs, we've got little to discuss. There was a staff to do that in the Bush adminstration and there's most certainly a bigger staff to do that in the internet-aware Obama administration.

On the other hand the Bush administration certainly had a bigger staff working on ways to justify torture, so maybe we should call it a wash.

No, each instance should be judged individually. Any comparisons is a partisan waste of time. Either Bush did something wrong or right. Either Obama did something wrong or right. The two situations have no relational bearing on each other.

I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

What? JPhillips acted like he had no idea that a president had a news-monitoring staff for the Internet. I pointed out that both Bush and Obama have had staffs for that reason since they both were President during the explosion of widely-used internet service. That's much different than the implication that the over-defensiveness of the current administration to partisan news reports is a wash because the previous president tried to cover up torture.

That's comparing apples to astronauts.

I found the juxtaposition of your two statements amusing, nothing more.

So they have a staff already committed to doing this, but doing this will prevent Obama from accomplishing anything.

It's not that I don't know there are people in the press shop, it's that I don't think making a daily blog refuting lies is going to keep Obama from governing. You seem to think this is an extreme waste of resources and I just don't see that.

The goal has been to tie Republicans to those guys. They have huge disapproval numbers and if people can coincide Republican with Rush Limbaugh, it's a good thing.

I don't think he's giving them new supporters and I don't think he's losing any potential votes over it. People who like Rush and Beck are not going to vote for Obama ever.

If Obama can't even deliever the Olympics how can he deliever health care! :mad: ;)

Ah got it, thanks.

You've got it all wrong........

Congressman blames Bush for Chicago's Olympics defeat - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

LOL! What else can we blame Bush for? ;)

What can't we blame bush for?

You guys had quite a run with Clinton, but it ain't gonna be nothing compared the run I'm going to have blaming everything on Bush. :D

I'm not going to pretend to know all the answers, but it's very concerning to see the military commander and the current administration having such great difficulties communicating with each other. I can't imagine how this kind of relationship can be anything other than counter-productive.

Barack Obama angry at General Stanley McChrystal speech on Afghanistan - Telegraph

i agree. maybe McChrystal should remember who the Commander in Chief is, and not publicly lobby for more troops, but instead use the chain of command.

Yep, McChrystal has at least two levels of command between himself and the administration.

Well, unlike your take on it, I believe both sides to be at fault. McChrystal needs to keep it in-house and Obama needs to do a much better job communicating with the military leaders more directly and on a more regular basis. The military and liberals may be like oil and water, but they've got to find a way to work better with each other for the sake of the general good.

I don't know why you believe the military and "liberals" are like oil and water, or what information you have that states clearly with backup that the administration is not communicating with the military.

I like this notion that Democrats can't get along with the military. That because they choose not to get us into unnecessary wars they're anti-military.

If this was a commander doing the same shit under Bush, you guys would want him tried for treason this afternoon.

Save for that South Asian adventure.

There's been an adversarial relationship there for years. This certainly isn't a secret by any means.

I'd also love you to show me where I put the communication blame solely on the administration. I haven't excused McChrystal's behavior in any way. He was out of line for what he did. I have little doubt that he was put in timeout for his comments.

Why would the administration get any blame for this? It wasn't the direct reports to Obama and Gates speaking out of turn. If anything, it shows a problem between McChrystal and his commanding officer(s).

I bolded your statement since you can never seem to remember what you wrote 5 minutes ago. What do you have that shows Obama does not communicate with military leaders more directly and on a more regular basis?

Your comment about the military and "liberals" is nearly as ignorant as most of your statements, but we'll chalk it up to hyperbole.

There is always stress between the military and any party who doesn't want war.

And which party would that be?

Depends on time in history. Each party has been against military actions at some point in history.

I'm still angry that FDR didn't regularly meet with Patton.

Well, at least you've gotten over the Republicans causing us to miss out on hosting the 1940 Olympics.

Because MBBF said so. No facts, nothing, just he wills it to be...like The Secret.

Was just hearing more about this while I was up in Massachusetts visiting for the weekend. Went digging up the stories and had completely missed most of this. The State Legislature did change the law back, Patrick appointed Kirk, and the Republicans sued to block the appointment. Any more on this? I'm just trying to get caught up.

Republicans' case dismissed, Kirk sworn in, hypocrisy wins out.

it went through. the Mass Republican lawsuit was thrown out.

We seriously need a strong third party in this country...

i think this was pretty ridiculous.

the "right" thing to do would have been to pass a law in the first place (way back under Romney) saying that the sitting governor has to appoint someone from the same party as the person vacating the seat and that that person has to be approved of by a vote of that party's representatives in the massachusetts state house or something (to avoid the governor appointing someone who was a RINO or DINO). And specifying that that process must be completed in X number of days.

But wait, that's too logical. It'd never work.

disappointed.

Just in case someone forgets to post this new poll on just one site today here it is:

AP Poll: Health care overhaul has a pulse - Yahoo! News

No, we seriously need somebody to represent the voice of the center-right. We've got Far Right and Left. Both equally rediculous.

how bout just the center? or the center-left?

why just the center-right? :p

Anything left of center-right is actually just far-left.

ding ding ding

I welcome a strong third party because it would certainly make a mockery of the idiotic electoral college when people start carrying entire states with 35% of the vote.