The Obama administration has made its first serious misstep. No, it wasn't the wooing of ingrate Republicans, or the dining with clueless reactionary pundits. It is much more significant. Faced with the failure of the Paulson-Bernanke banking bailout, the Obama administration has decided to double down. The new plan, described in broad outline by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on Tuesday, antes up another $1.5 trillion or more to keep the banks afloat. But it won't convince many that they are seaworthy.
By obstinately opposing Obama's plan to create or save 4 million jobs, the Republican leadership could be leading its followers from their current political wilderness into "never-never" land.
It will be easier for President Obama to deal with Netanyahu than with the almost equally hawkish Tzipi Livni because Livni seems dedicated to ending the conflict.
You can't even ask the question "What the hell's wrong with us?" because the answer requires decades of explanation. An increasing number of Americans wonder if our country will even survive.
I urge my friends, my colleagues, and the American people to join with me in making 2009 the year major health care reform legislation is delivered to the Oval Office.
We now have a chance to bankrupt the Mexican cartels, the Taliban, the Bloods and the Crips, and the gangs that are shooting their way across world -- before they cause the collapse of two countries.
Can Obama learn to manage the political process and accomplish his policy goals and still remain who he is as a human being? Can a decent man be president?
The bankers have convinced the Bush and Obama administrations that the taxpayers should be looted to bail out risk capital. We should stop listening to the folks that caused the crisis.
Decades of Reagan, Bush and now Limbaugh Republicanism have created such a toxic environment for American pragmatism that anyone who dared to step in that direction has been ridiculed and silenced. That ended last night.
When, in the middle of the worst economic crisis in decades, the president has to answer a question at a press conference about Alex Rodriguez, you know the hysteria about steroids in baseball has gotten out of hand.
Four families every minute enter the foreclosure process. It is no wonder that ACORN members are fighting back in the face of the economic maelstrom engulfing the country.
Everyone must stay as individually dedicated to the collectively desired goal as the hero through whom we channel so much hope.
The information disseminated by most stock brokers and advisors, and reinforced by the media, is the blueprint for financial disaster, as many investors now realize.
If confidence is the name of the game, Geithner sure hadn't come to the treasury secretary's job with a built-in advantage. It may be that the thing most needed here is certainty.
For all the brave talk about transparency and accountability Geithner gave the swindlers who got us into this mess yet another blank check to buy up the "toxic assets" they gleefully created.
Hilda Solis will work tirelessly to help strengthen one of America's greatest assets, its labor force, and her nomination deserves to move forward and be confirmed quickly. America needs to get to work.
One of the things we were promised by this president was straight talk, express and local. Obama's not living up to that promise or doing public service by fudging in the name of optimism.
What to do with A-Rod, and perhaps Tejada, and the other 103 names that appeared on the list that ensnared Rodriguez and which was somehow never destroyed?
I copied each transcript into separate Word documents, deleted the intros and all reporter questions, leaving just the unscripted answers to all questions. Then I ran Word's readability tool.
