Posts Tagged ‘obama’

National Journal’s Hotline reports that President Obama’s approval numbers are at an all-time low.  Not exactly what the White House had planned as the reaction to the State of the Union.

As a good friend of mine predicted before the speech, Obama “doubled down” on defending his policies and not moderating this actions. Even his so-called “spending freeze” was pushed off a year – to the literal laughter of Congress.

Obama has reacted by saying that he would rather be a great one-term President than a mediocre two-term President. The problem with his comment is that if a President is great, he gets reelected. Think about it. Other than JFK, name a “great” one term President.

President Obama is telling the Justice Department to find a different location than New York City for the terror trial. Mayor Bloomberg had expressed concern about the trial taking place in Manhattan and even liberal Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer wanted it somewhere else.

It begs the question: if you can’t do it in New York, where, pray tell, do you think you can do it? It certainly won’t be well received anywhere else. Maybe since Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid have been so gung ho about civilian trials of terrorists, they should do the trial in either San Francisco or Las Vegas.

Actually, Vegas seems like the perfect venue. It’s all for show anyway.

This whole episode is going to continue to damage Obama’s credibility on the war on terror, or whatever his administration calls it these days. The bottom line is that terrorists should not be tried in civilian courts in the first place.

Why blog on the State of the Union when I can post this!

Erick Erickson at Redstate.com has a post that is certain to make you angry.

Remember how the Democrats vehemently denied both the existence of the death panels and the cold nature of the decision making processes that would be invoked to save money on health care?

Well, then you should not be shocked to learn the Democrat leadership of the House of Representatives is prohibiting members of Congress from putting links to Haitian Relief efforts on their websites and encouraging donations to the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and other groups.

Why?

According to the House Administration Committee,

“We understand the good intentions of those making such inquiries, but the rules of the House preclude Members from using official resources for any purpose other than in support of the conduct of the Member’s official and representational duties on behalf of the district which he or she currently represents,” the letter states. “This has, in the past, been interpreted to mean that charitable solicitations using official resources are not permitted.”

But don’t worry. The House Democrats say it is permissible for members of Congress to link to the White House’s relief effort. Just not private sector charities.

Really?  The President of the United States has to use a teleprompter for a little speech to an elementary school?

“The Fix” from the Washington Post discusses this hard-hitting ad in Thursday’s Politico.  The ad itself says it all.

This story at Politico is stunning. The White House has completely lost touch with reality. The expected loss by Martha Coakley in Massachusetts should make Democrats pause. Instead, the Obama administration intends to plow forward with it’s overreaching agenda. How many times do the voters need to repudiate (NJ, VA, MA) the big-government agenda before they get the message? They wait until November 2010 at their own peril.

This is powerful, and should make Democrats very nervous.

Another year, another decade.

I’ve been thinking about my memories of 1980, 1990, 2000 and wondering what will standout in 2010.

In 1980, the most vivid memory I have was witnessing the greatest sports moment in American history – when the USA Olympic hockey team beat the Soviet Union (“Do you believe in miracles?”). It was the symbolic turning point of West triumphing over the East, with the actual turning point happening 10 months later with the election of Ronald Reagan as President of the United States.

By 1990 the Berlin wall had come down and the Soviet Union was headed to the dustbin of history, as predicted by Reagan. The United States went through incredibly prosperous times even as it went through some interesting political shifts. The 1992 campaign saw Ross Perot as the spoiler for George Bush (who had famously broken his “no new taxes” pledge) and the election of the boy from Hope. 1994 was the “revolution” with the sweeping election of Republicans to the House and Senate. The decade ended with an impeachment of the President in the House, but no conviction in the Senate.

2000 was the year that divided the country in half, with the razor thin margin of victory of George W. Bush over Al Gore. And then Sept. 11, 2001 the country came back together, at least for a little while.

Bush actually did a lot to strive for bipartisanship. Not one of his major legislative initiatives was passed on a party-line vote. Bush’s two biggest legislative initiatives, No Child Left Behind and Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage, were opposed by conservatives in the House and Senate. But the war in Iraq and his push for big government initiatives had the dual affect of motivating the left against him and suppressing his base of support. The result was Republicans taking a beating at the polls in 2006 and 2008.

Looking at President Obama’s first year, bipartisan is not what comes to mind. In fact, there is a more partisan tone than I have ever witnessed myself. Is that a bad thing? Probably not. Big fights over policy are important. If everything big was just passed without strong debate we’d have a much more intrusive government. Partisanship puts a check on government, at least to some degree.

So 2010 will likely be the most partisan year in memory. There are going to be some big policy fights (health care will be the first) and this year will be fascinating to watch from an electoral standpoint. It could be a repeat of 1994. Time will tell.

One thing for certain is that time does not stand still. How will the decade of 2010-2019 be remembered? I don’t have any idea, but anticipation is half the fun.

Happy New Year and Happy New Decade!

Let’s say your boss is on vacation and something big happens at the office. You don’t want to bother him, so you tell everyone that there is nothing to worry about, “the system worked. Then, a couple days later your boss is compelled to hold a press conference to admit that there was a “systemic failure.” Quite the opposite of “the system worked.” You’d probably then be a little worried about whether you were going to keep your job.

So DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano is probably not feeling all that secure right now. Obama hasn’t thrown her under the bus yet. But using “systemic failure” must make Napolitano cringe. As she was doing serious damage control about how her comments were related to the aftermath of the attack, Obama did, kind of, come to her defense:

Mr. Obama appeared to be trying to contain the damage on Tuesday, offering “systemic failure” as a substitute diagnosis for “system worked.” He framed Ms. Napolitano’s statement by saying she was right that “once the suspect attempted to take down Flight 253, after his attempt, it’s clear that passengers and crew, our homeland security systems and our aviation security took all appropriate actions.”

Remember what happened after the last president defended a top official in a crisis? “You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie.”

I’m not certain Napolitano should feel much comfort in the comments from Obama. Brown resigned within days of being praised by President Bush.