Not Being an Anti-Gay Bigot Not Enough For Obama

21Jun09

Jonathan Capehart writing in the WaPo is mad as hell and wants people to remember things aren’t all bad.
Let’s face it, the Obama administration bungled the politics surrounding its filing of a brief in a case challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriages. But the searing criticism [...]

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Tags: Barack Obama, DADT, DOMA

Turns out the Weapons of Mass Distraction Didn’t Exist Either

20Apr09

Regarding the below clip Josh Marshall writes:
Mitchell played a clip of the always cartoonish Newt Gingrich and then noted that conservatives are drawing the analogy to John Kennedy’s famous meeting with Nikita Krushchev in which the latter sized Kennedy up as a lightweight and — so the argument goes — thus believed he could push [...]

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Tags: Barack Obama, Hugo Chavez, Newt Gingrich

Saving the World: Send Checks, Not Resumes

09Apr09

The Washington Post reporting on young would be Obama Staffers:
The job-seekers range from think-tank types to lawyers seeking better hours or a more altruistic mission. Many were low-paid field directors and their nomadic minions who knocked on doors, organized voters and coordinated multimedia promotions for the Obama campaign.
Their collective purgatory highlights the unintended consequences of [...]

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Tags: Activism, Barack Obama, Obama Campaign, Young activists

A World Free of Nuclear Weapons

06Apr09

The big news today is a rare policy coming out of the Obama administration seemingly identical to what we were promised during the campaign:
“I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” Obama said to a crowd of about 20,000 packed into the historic [...]

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Tags: Barack Obama, Nuclear Disarmament, Nuclear Non-Proliferation

Listen, When Woodrow Wilson…

05Apr09

Anyone else get the sense that George Will is just becoming a repository for historical anecdotes?
On ABC This Week, Will formulated a dozen little quips and snide responses that simplistically described Obama’s foreign policy. Never once did I get even a whiff of the alternative policy we should be pursuing.
Sure it would folly hardy [...]

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Tags: Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, George Will, Iran, North Korea

Judging Evan Bayh

03Apr09

The situation described here is the pre-eminent know-unknown of American politics.
The President’s budget also passed the Senate last night. Zero Republican votes. Two Democratic defectors. Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson. Interestingly, other senators you might associate with their precise position on the ideological spectrum — Lincoln and Landrieu and Pryor and Carper — voted [...]

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Tags: Barack Obama, Evan Bayh, Senate, Obama Budget

What if …

20Feb09

Couldn’t tell you what exactly it was, but something about this post made me think about where we’d be if George W. Bush was President today.
Maybe the issue would really be if right wing ideologues were trying to addresses these problems instead the Obama crew.
Basically every viable options to respond to banking, housing, [...]

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Tags: Barack Obama, Hank Paulson, Housing, TARP

Faith in Government Restored?

25Jan09

Nate Silver has a chart showing modern era Presidential initial approval ratings. Obama’s 68 approval score is second only to Kennedy.
Interestingly there is a definite trend towards lower levels of approval and higher levels of disapproval over the years. Increasing dissatisfaction with government is mirrored in almost every opinion poll measuring the government over [...]

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Tags: Approval Ratings, Barack Obama, Scandals, Transparency

It’s A Rebellion!!!

15Jan09

It’s pretty painfully clear the media is disappointed by the limited number of scandals among Barack Obama’s cabinet picks. Apparently Congressional Democrats are engaged in some kind of “rebellion”.
Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) — President-elect Barack Obama, looking to get his administration off to a fast start when he takes office next week, is drawing [...]

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Tags: Appointments, Barack Obama

Once More Unto the Center, Dear Friends, Once More

13Jan09

Not to be harsh, but this post over at Gristmill on Obama cabinet pick seems significantly off base
The political junkies say Obama has loaded his cabinet with centrists. Progressives can only wonder why the world suddenly turned upside down. OK, it’s his cabinet he can pick whom he wishes, but his picks seem a bit [...]

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Tags: Barack Obama, Steven Chu, The Dread Center, Tom Vilsack

When the Status Quo is Criminal

11Jan09

In the comments section, Optimo said this about the Leon Panetta pick for CIA Director
Oh please. Why do you Feinstein’s actions have anything to do with a “liberal circular firing squad” or anything regarding territorial rights? She is pissed off because not having a torture and unitary executive shill at CIA means her ass might [...]

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Tags: Barack Obama, Diane Feinstein, Leon Panetta

The Center

10Jan09

I’ve been reading a lot about centrism and pragmatism, which as noted elsewhere are poorly defined terms. What really separates the left from the center left ? Or the left from the far left bogey men of Fox News. On a basic level far lefties are defined by the extremeness of their policies. Slavery [...]

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Tags: Appointments, Barack Obama, Centerism, Pragmatism

But He’s Been Consistent About His Bad Policies

18Dec08

For reasons I’m not completely clear about Tom Vilsack at Dept of Ag and Ken Salazar at Dept of Interior seem to have triggered the most upset blog postings of the season. I guess people were just tapped out of criticism for Hillary Clinton after the primary season.
You’re also getting push back pointing out that [...]

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Tags: Appointments, Barack Obama, Ken Salazar, Tom Vilsack

Maybe I’m Simplistic But…

16Dec08

This Chris Hayes essay on Obama’s “pragmatism” has been making the rounds and getting well deserved praise. Here’s a passage I wanted to highlight.

Many, like Sunstein, have drawn a lesson from the past eight years that is not about the failure of conservatism–neo or otherwise–or the dangers of the particularly toxic ideological disposition of [...]

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Tags: Barack Obama, Chris Hayes, Ideology

Low Hanging Progressive Appointments

15Dec08

To make a quick point, I really don’t think there is much reason to be excited about the Obama Administration picking clearly liberal/progressive people to fill certain positions. EPA, HUD, and Labor are appointments where it would be genuinely surprising to not get a significantly left of center appointment. These areas are definitely concerned with [...]

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Tags: Appointments, Barack Obama, EPA, HUD, Labor

Obama: Centrist Radical

14Dec08

This David Ignatius opinion piece entitled “Radical Change” by the WashPost web editors does a good job pushing the ideas about Obama’s place in world relations beyond the typical vague suggestions that Obama will simply heal the world’s wounds simply by his existence.
That’s one of the passages from his autobiography that has fueled [...]

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Tags: Barack Obama, Radicals

Brave New Center

23Nov08

I’ve noticed many internet folks complaining that Obama’s cabinet picks have been too centrist, and they must be on to something because George Will and David Brooks were on the television this morning saying how pleased they were with Obama’s picks. I basically see where the criticism is coming from, but I think people [...]

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Tags: Barack Obama, David Brooks, George Will

Sunday Morning Presidential Campaign Flashback

09Nov08

Back in the August, Cokie Roberts tells us about Barack Obama’s under performing campaign and how his vacation choices were elitist/un-American.

Obviously suggesting Barack Obama shouldn’t have visited his grandmother looks particularly worse now, but still that’s got to be one of the dumbest things ever said by someone not in the [...]

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Tags: Barack Obama, Cokie Roberts, Obama family pets, Sunday Morning Talk, Vacations

Election Demographics Breakdown

08Nov08

To follow up on the last post here’s some numbers from Kevin Drum about which groups Obama over and under performed his 9 point average swing among the nation as a whole.

Better then Kerry
Income $200,000 or more (+34)
First-time voters (+33)
No high school (+27)
Latinos (+27)

[...]

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Tags: Barack Obama, Electoral Victory

Which “We”?

06Nov08

Here is Ezra Klein on how no single group won the Election for Obama.
It’s only 3:40pm, and I have already read perfectly plausible arguments asserting that labor, young people, women, blacks, Hispanics, and white voters provided Obama his crucial margin. And you know what? They’re all right! If you subtracted enough points among any of [...]

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Tags: Barack Obama, Ezra Klein, Mark Penn