[ Posted Friday, February 27th, 2009 – 18:47 UTC ]
Barack Obama is moving Congress so fast, we're approaching warp speed. Consider the fact that neither presidents Reagan nor Clinton got their (much smaller) stimulus packages passed for over six months -- and Obama got his passed in mere weeks. And with Clinton and Reagan, that was a major party of their presidential legacy, whereas with Obama it is just the first item on a very long list of enormous changes to be made. Soon.
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[ Posted Thursday, January 29th, 2009 – 16:57 UTC ]
News from Iraq has seemingly slowed to a trickle, due to most of America wanting to turn the page and move on. But an item which appeared today in the Washington Post shows that the Iraqi government is not wasting any time in asserting the prerogatives of true sovereignty which they gained on the first of this year. Even in the midst of an Iraqi election (or perhaps because of the impending vote), Iraq announced that the security company Blackwater Worldwide will not be getting a renewal of their license to operate in Iraq this year.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 – 17:10 UTC ]
Our new president has had a pretty good first week in office. In his "first 168 hours" (for those of you who love arbitrary timelines for the "honeymoon" period), he has made good on quite a few campaign promises, sent an envoy to the Middle East on a "listening tour," and pushed his stimulus package in Congress. All around, an impressive first week by any standard.
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[ Posted Friday, January 23rd, 2009 – 18:13 UTC ]
Because Obama's Inaugural speech was indeed masterful. When he started speaking, I was thinking "which line will be the one everyone focuses on?" In other words, which line will be the "nothing to fear but fear itself" or "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" moment? Both of those lines are from previous inaugurations, so what would be remembered from Obama's speech?
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[ Posted Friday, January 16th, 2009 – 16:49 UTC ]
Taking that last one first, the status in Washington is fast approaching Officially Freaking Out (in the tradition of acronym-crazy D.C., I will refer to this from now on as "OFO") as they contemplate the city being overrun by Inauguration visitors. To put this in perspective, Washington's population is around 600,000 people. Estimates of the crowd which has even now begun descending on the city range from one million up to three million. Three million people is five times the population of the city. For comparison, take the population of the town or city you live in and multiply it by five. Now picture that many out-of-towners arriving for an event. It's like Woodstock descending on a small town, in other words. Or, if you prefer, a Medieval siege. No word yet on where to park the catapults and trebuchets.
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[ Posted Thursday, January 15th, 2009 – 19:02 UTC ]
Mr. Bush, history doesn't record just seven years of your presidency. It records what happened before 9/11 as well. You were determined to do everything in your presidency differently than Bill Clinton. And because the Clinton people were so alarmed about Al Qaeda, that meant that you could safely ignore it, since getting alarmed about it was doubtlessly the wrong thing to do.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 – 17:12 UTC ]
Are you one of those people who wants to see what has been done in your name by the outgoing Bush administration? Are you frustrated by all the "we need to look forward, not backward" language from Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders? Well, now you can do something about it, by calling up your House member today and telling them to support John Conyers' H.R.104, a bill to "establish a national commission on presidential war powers and civil liberties."
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[ Posted Monday, January 12th, 2009 – 17:36 UTC ]
President George Bush gave his final press conference today. Lest I be accused of "Bush Derangement Syndrome," I'm reproducing some of the most interesting answers Bush gave today, with a minimum of snarky commentary. Actually, what I (and many others) have would properly be called "Bush Fatigue," as even his final week in office seems somehow endless. But I think it's worth taking one last peek inside Bush's thinking because it is so interesting to hear how his views of his term in office differ so significantly from the way others see him. If you'd like to read the entire transcript of the press release, the White House website has it up.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 – 18:09 UTC ]
The American television news media is slipping out of Iraq, as quietly as they can. This story was reported by the New York Times over the holidays, and it may prove to be a consequential part of the way the war ends. Because it might actually make it easier for President Obama to wind the war down, and avoid a lot of squabbling over how he does so.
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[ Posted Friday, December 26th, 2008 – 18:05 UTC ]
Three names suggest themselves in this category. The first, sad to say, is Sarah Palin. While some dismiss her with the term (which she herself uttered on Saturday Night Live) "Caribou Barbie," my educated guess is that we have not seen the last of Alaska's governor on the national stage. Because while the list of things Palin lacks is long and daunting, she has one star quality which may prove to be strong enough to cancel all the rest out -- charisma. A politician can learn about such mundane things as world events and how to speak with political finesse, but charisma can't really be learned -- it's more of an innate quality. And Palin's got it. For those laughing at the prospect of Sarah Palin ever reappearing, I caution that when Ronald Reagan first ran for president, we all laughed at him, too. An actor becoming president? Pre-pos-terous! So don't underestimate charisma, or Palin's ambition.
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