The president and the first lady looked so happy at the White House's Fourth of July celebration with military families. Happier than they've both looked in a long while. The president had his sparkling, Cheshire-cat grin full-on for the cameras. Like he knew something we didn't know. Like he looked at the White House Correspondents Dinner in April, after he slam-dunked Donald Trump and the next day took out Osama bin Laden.
I wondered then if perhaps polling numbers indicated President Obama had already won the standoff with Republicans over raising the debt ceiling to cover money Congress has already spent. Yep, you guessed it. Obama won the second battle of Fort Sumter without a single shot fired. Pulled the rug right out from under the neo-secessionists like Ron and Rand Paul and Rick Perry.
On July 4, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln called Congress into special session to appropriate millions of dollars and thousands of lives to preserve the Union. On July 4, 2011, President Barack Obama head-faked the Republican plutocrats into a last stand over protecting the rich while the rest of the country is suffering.
Turns out voters in the swing states of Ohio, Missouri, Montana, and Minnesota don't like that idea -- by a margin of almost 80 percent.
Where Americans are hurting most, they most believe in sharing the economic pain across the board. Not just bailing out the rich to have them impose "austerity" on the rest of the country. Next thing you know, we might just have Athens on the Potomac.
Few folks thought the president had any cards left to play in the debt ceiling game with "Red" Boehner and "Baby Face" Cantor. But nobody knows how to hold his political cards better than Cool Hand Barack. As Paul Newman said, "Sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand."
Read 'em and weep, Mr. Speaker.
Follow Linda R. Monk, J.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LindaRMonkJD
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/13/jeremy_scahill_reveals_cia_facility_prison
Linda, you mentioned that Obama turned out not to govern as a progressive; but did you ever think he would continue secret prisons and rendition, and expand drone attacks to a far greater extent than Bush?
should AA be applied to all?
I was hoping Haley Barbour would run in '12; he'd have played Jeff Davis to Obama's Lincoln. And then we'd have had a real 150th reenactment of the election of 1850.
just like when he caved on the Bush tax cuts this past winter in exchange for a completely routine extension of unemployment benefits. he gives away the farm, and in return gets things that were already going to happen. I have no idea how you can watch this guy operate and have so much faith in his competence. and he's about to put Social Security, which doesn't affect the federal deficit at all, on the table here again for no reason at all. cut Social Security - the deficit stays the same. he's just not being honest about what is going on.
The charm of Southern liberals--no matter how piqued they get, it is always a family quarrel.
Gingrich the strategist won. He "lost" his attempt to shut down the Clinton government then shut it down Clinton's administration with a spurious impeachment proceeding. Good laws in place for 60 years were rescinded under the last two years of Clinton, laws that prevented insurance and banking from running amok, gave "teeth" to regulators, and may have prevented the last financial crisis. -Republicans affronted popular opinion back then. Did it matter?
This is simply is Southern power politics -- propose the catastrophic, settle (temporarily) for the unthinkable (no cuts in military spending, no new taxes, and eventual "privatization" of entitlements which still won't fore fend bankruptcy), call it compromise instead of a disaster.
I think Clinton had far more character than Obama. The disaster is not Gingrich et al, it is the milquetoast Northern liberal response.
Obama has replaced McCain's 100 years war in Iraq with unending police actions in 100 countries, institutionalized formerly illegal wiretapping, torture, "emergency" police state powers that evidently will never end, a massive unregulated giveaway to Big Insurance in Obamacare, massive giveaways to banks and private industry while jobs still bleed away oversees. What is to admire?
Decent thoughtful people evidently fill an empty glass with assumptions of their own decency and substance, not his.
What is a really generic and central "litmus test" that lawyer and layman alike can share?
I am not a lawyer, but allegedly by his own standard, a certain constitutional law professor said the so-called FISA or telecom immunity bill was so egregious that he emphatically was going to filibuster. Three days after he irreversibly secured the nomination for president, without batting an eye he brazenly reversed himself.
So, lawyers can change their minds?
There seems no other "argument". Can good sense and reason allow without explaining that he has no soul to sell? Can he have ever been a law professor with professional standards and a professional souI and done the thing he did? Did law ever mean anything to him or was it just a thing to do until he found another plaything?
I suspect that Hillary would have voted for the bill had she not been furious at the trick an inexperienced and therefore necessarily incompetent upstart had played upon her and the public. She seems to be happier at her present job than I think she would have been as president. Both Clintons' evident expedience is less offensive than Obama's.
What is Obama? I think he has been very consistent in a very bad way.
Just like Cool Hand Luke, Obama plays the game for himself.
Out of Iraq, not ten thousand targets left behind.
Out of Afghanistan, not ninety thousand stuck as fodder.
Occupation should be left to the Israelis. Even if we are stuck paying for that too.
It's a real life Ocean's 11!
Dispite my frustrations of the lack of progressive initiatives being moved to the forefront, he does deal with the reality of politics better than many I have seen.
No Drama Obama is a great nickname for him.
After the disaster that was W, "If you ain't with us, you're aginn us", I appreciate the thoughtful, reasoned response President Obama offers. Even when I would have liked a more aggressive play.