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We're going to begin today with the news that a popular New Jersey beach is considering allowing women to sunbathe topless. And then move right on to the financial reform bill, by way of a neck-snapping segue. Just to warn you up front.
The Supreme Court recently ruled that the post-9/11 laws against "materially supporting" terrorist groups should be very broadly interpreted. Even counseling any group on the official list of terrorist organizations about peaceful topics is now to be considered "supporting terrorism." Which leads me to wonder what they'd say about actually paying a terrorist organization tens of millions of dollars.
Christmas has come in June for the Democratic Party. Republican Joe Barton just delivered a huge, nicely wrapped present to Democrats. The only question is whether they'll open it and make use of it, or halfheartedly play with it once and then throw it in a corner (since the Democratic Party is kind of fickle about using such free gifts from Republicans, for no explicable reason whatsoever). But more on the flailing Joe Barton in a bit.
All this activity is welcome, because up until now the White House has seemed a bit adrift in their response to the tragedy. They may have been on top of the entire situation from Day One, as they claim, but it wasn't readily apparent to the public, meaning they either were actually adrift, or they have been having a communication and press relations problem. This must be frustrating to the White House, since the press has been somewhat lacking in their own response and coverage. Case in point, after obsessing for a solid week that the president needed to "show some rage" over the situation, the press immediately pounced when Obama did show a bit of annoyance, immediately proclaiming that he was "too angry," or the press just giggled in true Beavis and Butthead fashion: "heh heh heh... the president said ass... heh heh."
President Barack Obama's administration was supposed to follow a basic premise: never let a crisis go to waste. That was according to one of his own advisors, shortly after Obama took office. But so far, their track record on doing so has been decidedly mixed.
Gosh, here's hoping everyone is having a super Tuesday today!
Several states hold primaries this Tuesday, many of which may have implications beyond their state. For instance, the primary runoff election in Arkansas will likely be the closest-watched race (at least by Democrats), to see if challenger Bill Halter can pull an upset against sitting Senator Blanche Lincoln, who enraged many by her corporate-friendly work on the health reform. Other states will also have interesting races to watch, but today I'm going to concentrate on California's primary. Call me parochial if you will (I live in the Golden State), but there are a few California races worth watching tomorrow.
The mainstream media, led by the intrepid White House press corps, closely followed by the inside-the-Beltway punditocracy, has declared what must happen for the oil to stop flowing into the Gulf of Mexico: President Obama needs to get angry at the oil.
I wish I were kidding, but sadly, I am not. This is the [...]
While I would immediately caution everyone not to get overly optimistic about what I'm about to say, President Obama's approval rating was looking up in April. Gains were modest, but were pretty much across the board. Although, as I said, the end of the month saw a slight reversal to this trend, likely the result of the drip, drip, drip nature (or, more properly, "gush, gush, gush") of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The new media narrative, which is exactly what the White House was pushing just before the primaries happened, coincidentally (for once, Democratic framing actually worked -- the media snapped it up like a cheese puff at cocktail hour) is now: "it's an anti-incumbent year." The White House was pushing this, because it is a lot better sounding than what the media was using previously, which was: "it's an anti-Democrat year," or even: "it's an anti-Obama-agenda year." Of course, even if it is just an "anti-incumbent" year, Democrats still have more incumbencies to defend, so it's not like the party's out of the woods yet in regards to November.