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President Barack Obama has reached the first crossover point of his presidency, where his job approval numbers with the public are lower than his disapproval numbers. This is not exactly good news for Obama fans, especially heading into a midterm election.
Instead, I am amazed once again (even though I really shouldn't be by this point) at how adept Republicans and conservatives (but not hardcore Libertarians, I have to admit, who generally put their political philosophy above pandering to the public) are at suddenly throwing large parts of their core ideology over the side of the boat whenever something is happening (or about to happen) that they just don't agree with on a gut level. "Get the government off everyone's back!" very quickly becomes: "Get the government into your bedroom, your end-of-life decisions, or what chemicals you choose to ingest in the privacy of your own home -- and do it in a manner which we agree with!"
Whoops! Looks like the first thing that's been going on is that the region now has a new nickname -- the "DMV" -- amongst the hipster set (note: I fully understand that that use of "hipster" automatically disqualifies me from judging what is cool and what is not among today's youth). This moniker comes from the hip-hop music scene, and it stands for "District (of Columbia), Maryland, and Virginia."
Crack cocaine, it is widely known, causes irrational behavior. I speak not of irrational behavior among the drug's users, but rather among politicians. It has done so ever since crack appeared on the scene in America during the 1980s. Today it was announced that Congress has approved a bill (which will now head for President Obama's desk) which will scale back the worst of the irrational legislation which passed in the Reagan era. Somewhat. In true incrementalist fashion, Democrats have now made things slightly less unfair, but fell far short of actual fairness. It's as if, right after the Civil War, Congress announced that black people would now count as four-fifths of a person, instead of the previous three-fifths -- in other words, a step towards equality, but not exactly the giant leap of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Which makes it rather hard to praise such an effort, even though it does represent (some) progress.
Another dispatch from our resident cartoonist, C.W. Cunningham. And you thought there would be nothing here but a reprint of an old column today... surprise!
About the Cartoonist | Reprint Policy
The White House is, quite obviously, getting back into campaign mode. This is a good thing for Democrats, because it means putting the last spadeful of dirt on the carcass of President Obama's hopes of bipartisanship in Washington during his term of office. But while Obama has recently begun to make the case to voters why electing Democrats this November is a good idea, Vice President Joe Biden has apparently been doing a much better job in terms of framing the debate on Democratic terms. Which means the smartest thing Obama could do right now is to send the Vice President out in front of the media and in front of campaign events to make the case a lot more strongly than Obama could (or should). In other words: more Biden, please.
This week, Congress -- moving with its usual less-than-blinding speed -- passed a Wall Street reform bill, a mere two years after the crisis hit. Wall Street responded by pulling a secret lever which caused the biggest earthquake Washington has ever felt.
President Obama got two pieces of good news today: the Senate passed Wall Street reform, and the volcano of oil on the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico may finally have been brought under control. Whether this does him any good with the public remains to be seen, however.
The next few weeks could turn out to be the most important politically in the remainder of this year. Because this may be the last chance Congress has of passing any big or contentious legislation, before politics consumes everything (even more than at the current time). This is due to a combination of factors, but mostly boils down to the congressional calendar and the midterm election season.
But this blade cuts both ways. If Republicans are going to stop a bill to extend unemployment which costs less than $40 billion, then how can they turn around and advocate extending the Bush tax cuts on the rich which would cost almost seven hundred billion dollars and still say with a straight face that they're some sort of "deficit hawks"?