[ Posted Monday, October 5th, 2009 – 14:54 UTC ]
I say this because Obama has stopped his slide in the polls. The downward slope of his approval numbers came to a screeching halt, and instead began hovering above (but never dipping below) the 50 percent mark. Since then, they have wavered in the 50-55 point range -- not trending clearly upwards, but at least not trending clearly downwards, either. Better news for Obama fans is the fact that his disapproval numbers did actually reverse course, after hitting a mid-month peak, and have settled downwards from that point on.
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[ Posted Friday, October 2nd, 2009 – 16:44 UTC ]
It's this. Very simply -- it's a very simple plan. Here it is. The Republicans' health care plan for America: "Don't get sick." That's right -- don't get sick. If you have insurance, don't get sick; if you don't have insurance, don't get sick; if you're sick, don't get sick -- just don't get sick!
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[ Posted Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 – 16:27 UTC ]
So make of it what you will. Gibbs never even uttered the "V" word. But it's heartening to see the White House start to mildly threaten the use of the veto. This is an extraordinarily powerful arrow in the Executive's quiver, and one that they've been much too reluctant (in my opinion) to pull out. Now (extending this Robin-Hood-esque metaphor far further than I probably should), Gibbs didn't take the arrow out, nock it, and draw back his bow's string (much less aim it at anyone in particular). He merely reached over his shoulder, fingered the fletching of the veto arrow, and pulled it two inches out of the quiver -- before letting it drop back in.
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[ Posted Monday, September 28th, 2009 – 15:31 UTC ]
[Note: This column originally ran August 17, 2009. I don't usually re-run columns (and never so soon after their original appearance), but after watching the debut of Ken Burn's "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" last night, I had to dig this out. I strongly encourage everyone to watch the rest of Burns' series, which is running all week long on your local PBS station. I also strongly urge everyone to visit our National Parks, as well. This column was written just after a road trip I took this summer, and just after President Obama had visited Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.]
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[ Posted Friday, September 25th, 2009 – 17:29 UTC ]
"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party."
Of course, this really should be (in today's inclusive society): "Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party." But what it really should say is something more like: "Now [...]
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[ Posted Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 – 15:39 UTC ]
No so very long ago, Afghanistan was known as "the forgotten war." While America's attention was largely focused on Baghdad, many forgot our military was even in another country. But these days, Afghanistan is hard to miss in the headlines. Rumors are swirling over what President Obama will do there -- increase American troops, draw down troops, keep the same troops (it depends on which headlines you read) -- and how he will change our strategy and goals. Talk of "failure" is rampant, except that now it is not coming from the anti-war crowd, but instead from the Pentagon. President Obama needs to get out front on this issue, by beginning to talk about our newly-forgotten war: Iraq.
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[ Posted Monday, September 21st, 2009 – 16:13 UTC ]
The chattering classes inside the Washington Beltway have decided amongst themselves that when all else fails, they can always revert to their "least common denominator" story about President Barack Obama -- that he is in danger of being "overexposed." You don't have to look very far to find this viewpoint on television, in print, or on the radio. It's like talking about the weather, for the political punditocracy. There's only one problem -- there's not a shred of evidence to back up the idea that President Obama using the bully pulpit (as often as he likes) is somehow a bad thing for him. But that doesn't stop it from being talked about endlessly, whenever Obama is in the same Zip code as a news camera.
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[ Posted Friday, September 18th, 2009 – 17:04 UTC ]
How time flies. This column marks its second anniversary today, by the calendar if not the Volume number. For the second straight year, we only produced 47 columns, but by the calendar we've gone two full years and a few odd days. Actually, now that I think of it, more than just a few odd days. Ahem.
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[ Posted Thursday, September 17th, 2009 – 16:24 UTC ]
Scrapping this idea is a smart decision by Obama, because it defuses a major stumbling block to relations with Russia, and because the system was of dubious strategic value to begin with (if it even worked, which has not been definitively proven). Plus, in both Poland and the Czech Republic, the idea wasn't very popular at all. Nor was it popular with NATO. So taking it off the table results in positive diplomatic gains in more than one direction.
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[ Posted Monday, September 14th, 2009 – 16:46 UTC ]
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
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