President Obama may be on the verge of a significant announcement -- the nomination of Elizabeth Warren to head the newly-formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This is pure conjecture on my part, I have to admit right up front. But politically, it would indeed give the president a boost right when he needs it most, heading into the midterm election season.

Elizabeth Warren would be a logical choice for the job, and not only because the entire idea of a consumer financial protection agency was hers to begin with. She's got the credentials and is well-qualified to take the job on, should Obama appoint her. And politically, it would go a long way towards energizing the Democratic Party's base. Because she is the Left's favorite choice for the job, by a wide margin.

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President Barack Obama gave a wowser of a speech today. In it, he signaled that he's completely over his obsession with chasing the non-existent pipe dream of bipartisanship from Republicans. Obama dove into the 2010 election season fray with this speech, and appeared much more like the "Candidate Obama" that so many of his supporters have been missing for so long. In a speech that was touted as an announcement of a legislative package to get the economy moving faster, Obama not only rolled out his economic ideas, but also did a better job of defining the Democratic narrative than he's done in quite a while.

This is exactly what Obama needed to do, and what Democratic political analysts have been calling on him to do. It really was a good speech all the way around, where Obama not only strongly stood up for his policy ideas, but also defined both his position and his opponents' position by including them in a larger narrative about what his party stands for and why their values are superior to the Republicans.

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The news today that has all of Washington a-twitter (and, although I have not checked, also likely "a-Twitter") is that the mayor of Chicago has decided he will refrain from running for a seventh (!) term. This opens up the field, and the reason why it may become national news is that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has long expressed a desire to run for this particular office, should the current mayor decide against running again. Which has now happened.

So I'd like to send a plea to Rahm Emanuel: Please, please run for mayor of Chicago, Rahm. Please.

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I am not normally a theater critic. I should just say that right up front. But on this Labor Day, I thought it would be appropriate to write about a play I saw this summer. I was invited (by fellow Huffington Post blogger Michael Gene Sullivan) to a performance of the San Francisco Mime Troupe's recent production, POSIBILIDAD, or Death of the Worker a few weeks ago, and caught their performance in a local park. The play, written by Sullivan, is a brilliant work, combining tragedy and humor to make a very pointed argument for thinking outside the box on the state of Labor and jobs today.

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Last week, I heard an interesting take on the political scene: that both parties seem to be trying mightily to lose the upcoming midterm elections. Republicans, in a natural Republican cycle, are nominating some candidates who are so extreme they may lose races which should have been easy Republican wins. Democrats seem paralyzed with fear, even though populist anger should be working to their advantage, since Republicans have never met a Wall Street bank or gigantic corporation that they couldn't love and carry water for. Both parties are registering record low approval rates from the public -- Democrats in the low 30s, and Republicans even worse in the low 20s. This being the American political system, though, there's really only two choices, and right now the public isn't getting behind either of them.

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The problem of illegal immigration, as everyone knows, is bad and getting worse. Ask anyone, they'll tell you -- the federal government has abdicated its responsibility to secure the borders, and as a result more and more illegal immigrants cross the border every year. As everyone knows.

There's only one problem with this -- it's not true anymore.

However, these statements lose nothing of their "truthiness." As Stephen Colbert defined this term, this means that it doesn't matter if it is true or not, because it sounds so true that everyone believes it anyway, because they want to believe it's true. [Official Colbert definition (there are actually many Colbert quotes on the subject to choose from): "Truthiness is 'What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true.' "]

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Dog days of August

Augusts, to be frank, are not President Obama's friend. The past month was no different, at least as measured by public opinion polling. Obama was on a downswing heading into the month, and his numbers reflect this in a stark way. In other words, it was a bad month for Obama.

As I pointed out last month, "Augusts, to put it mildly, haven't been very kind to Obama. He's got some sort of Augustine Jinx happening, or something. Two years ago, August was 'Reverend Wright' month for Obama on the campaign trail. Last year, August was 'death panel' month at the town hall meetings from Hell."

By that measure, at least, this past August wasn't actually all that bad. Given the choice of reliving the past month versus August 2009 or 2008, I'd be willing to bet Obama would choose this year's dog days in a heartbeat.

But, while Obama's poll numbers last month were pretty bad, there was some good news at the end. In keeping with this, we're going to present the bad news here first, and save the silver lining for the end of today's article.

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President Barack Obama, in his second primetime address of his presidency, declared that it was time to turn a page in Iraq, and that the combat mission known as Operation Iraqi Freedom was now over. When Obama took over the war from George W. Bush, he was handed two milestones to meet, from an agreement signed by Bush and the Iraqis one month before Obama took office. The first was getting American combat troops out of Iraqi cities, which happened last summer, and the second was getting all American troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011. To these Obama added a third milestone -- withdrawing American forces down to 50,000 troops or less. His speech tonight was the announcement that he had achieved this self-imposed deadline.

Obama struck a rather humble tone in his remarks, which seemed just about right for the situation. He didn't go out of his way to either claim personal credit, or point the finger of blame. He even included President Bush, by name, in his remarks, after phoning him earlier today.

This was a fitting end for a war which divided the American public, in more ways than one. When the war began, the American people supported it at a rate of 70 percent or better. Just tonight, CBS released a poll which showed that, as of now, only 20 percent of the American public think "the war in Iraq was worth it." A whopping 79 percent of them think "it was not worth it." What this mostly shows is the fickle nature of American public opinion. Think about those numbers for a second. That's a "swing vote" of over half the country. In other words, less than half of Americans have held consistent views on the Iraq war since it began.

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President Obama will give an Oval Office address tomorrow night in primetime, on the subject of Iraq. This is a good idea, because it's a good use of the famed bully pulpit of the presidency, to highlight some good news. Speaking to the nation on television is a perk of office which can be quite effective in getting a message out to the American people. But there's another way to do this as well, and one that President Obama has all but ignored in the past year -- the presidential press conference. And it's about time we had another one.

The Obama team strategy has been to favor one-on-one press interviews over the formal setting of a press conference. The president, just last night, appeared on a major network in such a sit-down interview. But it's a mistake to barricade the president from press conferences, because they can also be quite effective at getting your message out. Press conferences are more of a duty than a perk to presidents, and apparently Obama has decided to just ignore doing this particular duty. This is a mistake. Obama really needs to get over his fear of press conferences, and start holding them on a regular basis.

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The battle looms. It is, in fact, right over a hill right in front of us. So, are Democrats girding their loins for the fight, and roaring their defiance at the opposition?

Um, well, not that I've noticed. Sigh. Instead, loins un-girded and roars muted to the level of squabbling jaybirds, Democrats are once again acting like Democrats.

The big fight this election season hasn't really dawned yet. And all the issues in the past will likely pale in comparison to the big fight that's just ahead of us. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (to his credit) set up this fight, right before the midterm election's homestretch. The big fight this year is going to be over extending the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest two percent of American workers, and to the top three percent of American small businesses. On the other side are, respectively, ninety-eight percent of American workers, and ninety-seven percent of American small businesses. Not bad odds, even for Democrats.

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