damn...what he said!

Its not the President's job to set policy, its to execute what is given to him. He can attempt to sway public opinion but that's pretty much it. Our legislative branch is fucked to hell, so that's the biggest problem.

Please don't use Bush as a model for a good president, especially in the "Decider" capacity.

Perception is everything. FoxNews most trusted news network according to a PPP poll.

Poll: Fox most trusted name in news - Andy Barr - POLITICO.com

This guy must have thought he was bulletproof after knocking off ACORN. Not a smart move at all.

Anti-ACORN filmmaker arrested - Manu Raju and Erika Lovley - POLITICO.com

Well when it came out that he;d edited the Acorn video to put answers in the audio track where they weren't originally I'd say the shine had worn off for most open minded Americans. So if anything he was trying to regain the attention he'd gotten through the farce he was.

Nate Silver over at 538.com agrees.........

FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: The White House's Brain Freeze

Problem is that many of those D's (much less the RINO's) would have laughed at him because they would have known it was an empty threat. For however little I think of Pelosi & Reid, one thing you won't hear me accuse them of is not knowing how to play the political part of the game. Take Pelosi for example, she pulls about 75% of the vote in her district & hasn't faced serious opposition from within or without in a decade. Obama can't touch her & he knows it.

Think what you will of Obama's policies but damned if I see how anyone can argue with the "empty suit" description when it comes to political power. And that was easy to predict before he ever took the oath of office.

Pelosi and the House aren't the problem. And the House bill could have passed the Senate with 50+ votes. The problem is in allowing party members or those with party privileges (Lieberman) to vote against cloture with no repercussions. Sure Obama needed to wield a bigger stick, but the 50+ Dems in the Senate that would vote for the House bill need to fix their own problems.

+1

What confuses me is that I have to believe this change in direction is electorally-focused. But if you abandon your policy initiatives in the face of obstruction from the other party you only accomplish the following:

1. Energize the other party
2. Demoralize your base

Which doesn't seem like a recipe for success in November.

It's important to remember the historical context of HCR.

When Clinton attempted to do it his team worked out a proposal and then presented it to Congress as a package. Congress got pissy because they hadn't been consulted and allowed it to die on arrival.

Obama's team, with many veterans from Clinton's team, determined that they had learned their lesson and decided to let Congress craft the bill so they wouldn't run into the same problem, 18 years later.

Which was fine in theory.

In practice it fell apart because 60 Senators in the Democratic caucus tried to take the bill in 60 different directions to satisfy their own desires, electoral needs and/or egos. And Harry Reid, who desperately wanted this to pass by 60+ votes, figured he count eventually work out a massive compromise bill.

Here's the thing: a bill based around the principles originally articulated by Obama would have passed the Senate with more than 50 votes, but probably less than 60. When it became clear that the whole thing was devolving into a clusterfuck (and that would have been around early summer last year), the best thing for Obama to have done would have been to step back in and tell the Senate to write a bill along those original principles and send it to the floor. If the GOP wanted to then filibuster it, then he (a still-popular President, with a populace who still wanted health care reform, could have then wielded his bully pulpit to either shame the GOP into ending their filibuster, or drive their polling even further into the ground.

So I guess what I'm saying is that there's a point where attempting to be bipartisan and collegial just goes too far. :D

I read somewhere that the HCR process was like Obama winning the lottery and then letting Max Baucus spend it all.

It's interesting we haven't seen more talk about this. I mean, attempting to spy on a sitting US Senator by tapping their office? Was this a federal building? I'd be curious to see if they are the only ones involved, seems a bit random to be trying to tap one specific Senator's office. I'm not big into conspiracy theories, and I doubt there's anything major behind it, but are there other instances of this ever?

From what I gather of the situation, it sounds like they were trying to tape some conversations regarding back room dealings to try to save the health care bill (Landrieu is one that is needed to get it to pass and received money for her state to do so). But I don't know what the hell they thought they were going to leak when breaking the law.

Weekly Standard blog has several sources and articles linked that detail the stupidity of what they did......

ACORN-Buster Arrested for Allegedly Bugging Tampering with Sen. Landrieu's Phones | The Weekly Standard

For some people, the ends justify the means.

Well put. Obama had a window to force it through with 50-55 senators on board and he passed in hopes of getting 60 later in the year. That, in retrospect, was the big mistake in the process.

This is pretty amazing and they should be severely punished. If we're going to be serious about terrorism (domestic and abroad), these guys should be made examples of as this behavior is extremely dangerous.

Perhaps this is just the grumpy old journalist in me talking, but this is what happens when the "Jackass"-generation decides to go all Woodward and Bernstein.

I like it when you get all "Get off my damn lawn!"

:lol:

You should prolly use that line on your show.

Don't believe the SOTU hype.

200K teaching / educating positions added - where? School districts are laying off teachers all over. Or is this like here locally where they "added" 53 tutoring positions to help Title I kids under the "stimulus" package while a couple of hundred regular teaching positions were cut?

Geez Geithner, can't you shave for the SOTU?

edit: I know it's tradition for the Supreme Court to stay completely neutral, but it looks a little silly when all these old men and women sit on their hands instead of clapping for ending childhood obesity.

after his day? That IS after he shaved this morning!

Presumably (since this is a governmental/political speech) it'll be ended with government involvement, meaning it wouldn't be neutral for them to respond.

edit to add: Although there's very little left of the facade that is their neutrality, this is really more about maintaining kayfabe than anything else.

...and Barack just dunked on the Senate by Executive Order.

I'm all for earmark transparency, but shifting the spending from legislative to executive doesn't lower the total.

And in the process created a government commission! Oooohhhh... in your FACE, Senate! :p

Apparently Alito missed the memo on the SCOTUS being neutral as he was shown shaking his head no in response to the speech.

Well, usually the president doesn't take a cheap shot at SCOTUS during the SOTU.

According to Brad Smith, former head of the Federal Election Commission (and, in the interest of full disclosure, a casual acquaintance of mine), Obama was just wrong.

actually he was shaking his head no at Obama's chastising them so it was more or less appropriate IMO

Apparently Mr. Smith is telling one person one thing, and another person something different:

From the Washington Independent:

Mike Lillis speculated earlier on whether the far-reaching implications of Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission could open the door for foreign companies to intervene in American elections. Former FEC Chairman Bradley Smith tells me that, indeed, the decision seems to let foreign corporations spend whatever they like, as long as they find a loophole that protect them from the ban on election spending by foreign citizens.

“To the extent that there may be some foreign corporations that don’t fall under the category of foreign nationals, that might be something Congress can deal with,” said Smith. “I think the court would probably uphold the constitutionality of that. I can’t say for certain that they would.”

As for Obama's comment, it wasn't a cheap shot. There's no prohibition on the President from commenting on Supreme Court decisions. He's the head of a coequal branch of government.

Apparently Alito mouthed "No way. It's simply not true." I guess we've found our blown out of proportion moment...

According to what you quoted, if foreign nationals/corporations can find a loophole (which apparently the Washington Examiner wasn't able to find), then they could run an ad. But they would have to find a loophole, since the section of law that was struck down does not have anything to do with foreign nationals or foreign corporations, and the ban on foreign nationals and foreign corporations having anything to do with our elections still stands.

I stand by my statement that it was a cheap shot, especially given the fact that the SCOTUS is supposed to remain neutral and impartial during the speech. Kinda hard to do when the president misrepresents your decision in front of a nationwide audience. YMMV.

The talking points sure get down the chain of command quickly.

That's not a knock either, your party is just much more organized when it comes to that stuff.

But it is his job to set the tone for the policy and the party he represents. That is the fundamental difference in the two parties and why Republicans get stuff done (even if it's stuff that fucks up the country).

Clinton I believe said "Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line". It's the difference in how they operate. Democratic supporters want a bill they can fall in love with. One they can feel all good about. Republicans are told that they will like the bill and that's that. They are told to do something by the person at the top of their party and they just do it. That might be wrong and it does kill independent thought, but it gets shit done. When your foot soldiers follow orders and has a chain of command, things work out much better.

Lets use tonight's speech as an example. I guarantee you that the Supreme Court comment will be the top story on every single right-leaning blog, TV show, radio show, etc tomorrow. They are told that this is the issue to target and they will all follow their orders. If this was the other way around, left-leaning blogs would be picking apart different things and not have a definitive message to pass on.

I think the problem is that many conservatives went so long without a media outlet (they really only had a portion of the WSJ, some minor hill magazines and a rare local columnist) that many flocked to talk radio and eventually fox news.

The left has always had their message outlet from most of network TV news shows, public television, CNN, most major newspapers and most of the big magazines (ie, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, ...).

So, there never was a need for a "go to" media group for the left (closest thing was probably the New York Times, but not everyone has access to it) because most people heard their arguments on the evening news or their local paper.

In essence, the fact that most journalists (and those running publication content) lean left hurt the organization of people on the left and sent the right in a cattle shoot towards Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. If the right had the equivalent of a few network news show, most major city newspapers supporting conservation/right-leaning arguments and Newsweek type national publications back in the 1980s, I'm not sure Fox News ever gets any traction (and Limbaugh isn't nearly as popular).

My understanding, having looked at the decision and listening to other campaign finance experts is that the Court's decision basically creates a situation where foreign corporations can give to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who can then turn around and use the money, provided it is not done in coordination with campaigns. There is no disclosure requirements so you don't know where the money came from.
Additionally, there's nothing stopping a foreign owned U.S. subsidiary which doesn' t qualify under the law as a foreign corporation from participating in campaign activities now allowed under Citizens United, (according to many campaign finance experts, including J. Gerald Herbert at the Campaign Legal Center).
Though to be fair, it's really an open question, since that question wasn't before the Supreme Court in Citizens United.

As an off-topic aside, are you available on satellite radio?

I think the delicate sensibilities of the Court will recover. After all they've been beaten for a couple of decades by the right for being activist and I think they still manage to get up every day.

As for the loophole, it's not at all hard to find. First, it's easy to incorporate as an American entity. That's probably enough right there, but if it isn't foreign nationals can always give money to a corporation that essentially launders it and passes it on as campaign contributions. Now I don't think Citigroup or P&G will act as money launderers, but it's very easy to incorporate a business and once incorporated there are currently no disclosure laws and it's an open question as to whether this court would allow disclosure laws.

I'd just like to thank the Prez for handing voters a litmus test issue with his don't ask/don't tell commentary last night. I'm sure most of the blue dogs really appreciate him giving prospective opponents from both the D's & the R's a stick with which to beat them no matter what position they take.

But it strikes me, cynical or not, that the prospect isn't lost on Obama & his handlers and that it might not be accidental or even incidental to his reasoning.

It doesn't take much to get me to buy into a conspiracy theory and what would be better for the status quo for both Republicans and Democrats than a good old fashioned non-issue battle in the 2010 elections?!? The economy sucks, a lot of members of both sides bailed out the banks, both parties are completely out of touch with voters but once again Democrats and Republicans will get 99% of the vote in the upcoming elections by getting voters to "passionately" vote either for or against the gays. The Pelosi urban types will retain their seats and the rural Republicans theirs. They know the game and the people get what they deserve I guess.

I am sure some liberals will be quick to defend Obama or paint me as anti-gay. Nothing could be further from the truth. If I were elected president (especially if I were a minority and had experienced discrimination throughout my life) my first day in office would be spent working on equalizing civil liberties. Where has Obama been for the past year? I guess civil rights aren't politically expedient to Obama.

FWIW.....the gay community has been asking the same thing for several months, hence the reason that he had to bring it up. He said doesn't think decisions should be made based on what will get you elected, yet he does nothing in regards to gay rights until it reaches the point where they apparantly are ready to call him out on it.

It's ridiculous. Gay rights at the national level should have been taken care of by summer 2009 by this administration. Some of these moral issues are an absolute farce. Just get it done.

But does he do it at the risk of losing any hope of having enough votes to pass anything else the rest of his term?

This was the key point of his speech on the AJC web edition overnight & this morning, a nod I believe to the reality that, barring something huge in either direction on national security or the economy, it will be the galvanizing issue in a number of districts. Yes Jim Marshall (D-GA8) I'm looking at you, and even John Barrow (D-GA12) has to think long & hard about what to do if he wants to return to DC.

It almost seems like a go for broke move by Obama.

Well, here's my opportunity to go to bat for Obama. He says he makes decisions that are not based on getting re-elected. He says 'Don't ask, don't tell' (or even discrimination at any level against gays) isn't right.

Here is his big opportunity. Put some mustard behind those words. Eliminate the military policy. Grant people who are gay equal rights, including the right to marry. If you don't want to go that far, remove the tax benefits provided to heterosexual couples and put gay couples on the same footing. You're not minimizing the vow of marriage by doing that. You're just taking out the financian incentives. Heck, it would put more money in the coffers!

I'm telling Obama to call the GOP bluff. I personally think they're full of it on this issue. He'll lose some right-wing votes, but I personally think that he'll gain a lot of respect from voters in the middle to offset that loss. If he truly means what he says about being a good one-term president, this would be an excellent start.

Who gives a flying f*#$ what the polls say on this matter? Brainwashed ignorance over many years is the only argument against this policy. It should be done because there's little question that it's the right thing to do.

But, and I'm sure you know this, national numbers don't matter one whit when it comes to how congressional districts vote.

It doesn't seem likely that an R is going to lose a seat by voting conservative on this one, if he's still got his seat after the last election then how much more of a storm can they have to weather? On the other hand, some coat tailed D's could suddenly find themselves between a rock & a hard place because they're up a creek no matter what they do. Vote one way & you guarantee primary opposition from the harder left, vote the other way & you become public enemy #1 (in the district) for the right quite a bit more than playing the middle would have gotten.

Like I said, this is frontrunner for a 2010 cycle litmus test and it's going to be tough for anyone to try to run toward the middle without getting called out for it one way or the other.

Fixed that horseshit you posted for you.

Well, it would sure be nice if Obama would actually pull the trigger on it and let Jon have the chance to be wrong. Until he does, it's empty rhetoric.

But political reality stands in the way. I think he can get DADT ended because Congress is going to hear from a lot of military leaders that the end won't effect combat readiness. He'll also be able to pull in some Republicans, maybe even Ted Olsen, to help bolster the argument. I think, but I'm not certain, that there's enough pressure there to get to sixty in the Senate. (Because the GOP will undoubtedly filibuster)

Any other changes just aren't going to happen no matter what Obama does. Dem senators won't hold together and there's no hope of getting more than one or two from the GOP. I'm all for equalizing rights, but I don't think there's any reason to move past DADT when it's 100% obvious it won't move through Congress.

See, now I started to expand on that very comparison but figured it'd just get (ever more) too damn wordy. Let me try something short to see if it'll cover that.

In the absence of something much more critical such as a federal move on gay marriage then this becomes the cycle's litmus test.

Hopefully that clears up the distinction there.

Maybe while he's repealing DADT he can figure out a way to not have the women who enlist raped.

While Obama promised a million things he won't deliver, I don't remember gay-rights being a huge part of that. Isn't he against gay marriage (at least by the time he started running for president?)

...and this is what I was thinking. By doing this he is going to grab a lot of the disenchanted middle. Trading the zealots for the middle.

So they're even stupider than I thought.


Illegally entering federal property with the intent to commit a felony just because Landrieu hasn't returned enough phone calls. Jackass generation indeed.