White House press secretary Robert Gibbs recently expressed his frustration with what he called the "professional left," in no uncertain terms. Which, ironically, means the White House and the "professional left" have now achieved parity in that both sides express withering contempt for the other. The irony lies in the fact that both are probably thinking the exact same thing about each other: "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"

From the White House's point of view, Lefties are not giving them sufficient credit for the things which President Obama has managed to achieve with a fractious Congress, and with an opposition party dedicated to the failure of any small shred of his agenda. From the Left's point of view, these are mostly hollow victories and were achieved at great price -- gutting the real reforms proposed, in exchange for something so watered-down it was barely worth passing (and certainly not worth praising). What all of this may mean is the opening round of the Washington game "Who's to blame?" which will likely start in earnest the day after the midterm elections this year.

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About the Cartoonist | Reprint Policy

Last week, a federal judge handed down his decision in the case Perry v. Schwarzenegger, which said (in no uncertain terms) that gay marriage was a civil right, and should be guaranteed to all -- no matter what voters thought about it -- in much the same way that interracial marriage is a constitutional right guaranteed to all (which happened via a similarly-contentious federal court ruling in the 1960s). While this ruling was rightfully hailed by gay rights supporters, everyone knows that there is still a long road ahead until it reaches the Supreme Court, where the matter may be fundamentally decided.

While the outcome in the highest court in the land is obviously uncertain, what strikes me is that even people who support gay marriage winning in the courts may not have fully appreciated what such a victory would bring. Because it would be monumental, and change forever the status of gay rights in this country in a very fundamental way -- one which would likely be impossible to touch, from that point onwards. I don't think I'm overstating the case when I say that if the Supreme Court upholds the decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, it will become the "final battle" for gay rights. Not that America would change overnight into some sort of Utopia for gays, but that the battles for legal equality would be decided once and for all, and (other than a few minor skirmishes) gay rights activists would move on to making sure that their rights were adequately implemented and defended from that point onwards, rather than having to fight to gain legal recognition of these rights in the first place.

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August in Washington means the beginning of the official "silly season" of politics. This is because Congress takes the whole month off, and political news stories become rather thin on the ground. Intrepid political reporters, wishing to be on vacation themselves, get lazy and start going crazy over non-stories hyped into political wildfires seemingly overnight -- over the silliest of subjects. But these fun and games have not quite yet begun, because the Senate wrapped up work this week, and a few legal decisions of great moment were in the news.

Silly Season '10 may not even begin next week, since Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called the House back into a rare vacation-interrupting session, so they can get some emergency money out to the states to save thousands upon thousands of jobs for firefighters, teachers, and cops. The Republicans, in a stunning display of hubris, called this a giveaway to "special interests," but more on that later.

Perhaps an early harbinger of this year's silly season was the Capitol Police allowing a protest group to hang a senator in effigy, but drew the line at beating the effigy with sticks (although slapping him apparently met their standards). So, anyone planning an effigy party in the near future, be warned -- the line has now been drawn. Hanging an effigy -- OK. Beating said effigy with sticks -- not OK. And both the senator involved and the group protesting hail from the Right, making the silliness all that more enjoyable.

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There are certain court cases everyone schooled in America at least recognizes the names of: Marbury v. Madison, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, and, most recently, Roe v. Wade. Even if you don't remember the particular details in these cases, chances are you'll at least have heard all of these names before. And we could be on the brink of another landmark case entering this pantheon of pivotal legal decisions: Perry v. Schwarzenegger. Yes, California's "Governator" may go down in history as being on the wrong side of this case (even though he personally supports overturning Proposition 8).

But I do have to caution that there's only a chance of this happening -- and even if it does happen, it's going to take awhile. While the closest "landmark" case in American history to the subject at hand would be Loving v. Virginia, which overturned miscegenation laws and allowed interracial marriages everywhere in America, the question at this point is whether Perry v. Schwarzenegger will turn out to be this generation's Plessy v. Ferguson, or rather the Brown v. Board of Education of our era. This will depend on whether gay marriage wins or loses in the Supreme Court, of course.

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Underwater

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.

For five months, Obama was holding his head above water, metaphorically, and charting extremely stable polling numbers where his approval was slightly above his disapproval. This trend has now ended, and a new trend is emerging -- downwards for the president. What's even more ominous is the fact that this trend seemed to accelerate dramatically at the end of July, meaning August may be even worse for Obama.

After taking a quick look at July's numbers, we're going to attempt to put this into some sort of historical perspective by taking a look back at where other presidents first reached this crossover point in their presidencies, without drawing any sweeping conclusions (other than: "don't attempt to draw sweeping conclusions"). If at any time, while reading the rest of this, you get too depressed to read further, I would suggest skipping down to the last historical section and at least giving that a chance.

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Republicans and conservatives (virtually indistinguishable, these days) have been better at creating a narrative for their political philosophy than Democrats and liberals (at least in my lifetime). They "tell a story" about their political beliefs, and it's a story anyone can relate to, mostly invoking words like "freedom" and "liberty" but also holding sacred "private property" and severely frowning on "big government" which is perennially "on the backs" of the little guy. See, I don't even have to tell their whole story, just a few quick references, and the story pops into your mind in completion. You already know how the rest of this story goes, in other words.

But this is not an article decrying the Democrats' seeming inability to match Republican rhetoric in the public mind, as that's what we do around here on Fridays. Ahem.

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President Obama gave a speech to veterans today on the progress of the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. The speech also addressed the situation in Afghanistan, as well as some more specific veterans' issues; such as Obama's poignant personal plea for soldiers not to hesitate to ask for help with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder:

So today, I want to say in very personal terms to anyone who is struggling -- don't suffer in silence. It's not a sign of weakness to reach out for support -- it's a sign of strength. Your country needs you. We are here for you. We are here to help you stand tall. Don't give up. Reach out.

But in all the media reports I've seen yet on the Iraq withdrawal part of the speech (considered by the media to be the most newsworthy part), very little attention is being paid to how exactly we got where we are today -- President Obama announcing he's meeting an important milestone on the timetable for American military withdrawal from Iraq. So I thought it'd be worth a look back at what preceded today's speech. Because, as I said, the mainstream media so far have fallen down on the job of providing any sort of context or perspective (or, even, "a timeline") to Obama's Iraq withdrawal whatsoever -- or, even worse than omitting things, getting them factually wrong.

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Last week, this column took a week off, due to an extended trip into the desert for the Netroots Nation convention. But now, we turn our sights back on the Nation's Capitol region once again to examine what's been going on there in our absence.

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."

But is this wise, one wonders? The question that immediately springs to mind is how can anything called the "DMV" be considered remotely cool? For those of you in states with differently-labeled government offices (such as a Motor Vehicles Administration, for instance), allow me to explain. In many states, this acronym stands for the not-so-beloved Department of Motor Vehicles. You know -- the government office we all love to hate more than any other, with the possible exception of the Internal Revenue Service.

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So I have arrived back home from the big Netroots Nation conference in Las Vegas. Since it was the first one I've been to, I thought I'd share some random impressions. Now, I know this sort of thing doesn't appeal to everyone (which is why I didn't even attempt to "liveblog" the conference), because quite frankly if you weren't there then you probably don't want to hear about it. For those readers, I apologize, and swear we'll be right back to normal columns here starting tomorrow. This is also why I posted a column very late yesterday as well, to give you something else to read, just in case this sort of thing bores you.

In any case, these musings are mostly random and presented in no particular order whatsoever. This may be a little confusing.

Which is a good place to start. This wasn't just the first Netroots Nation I've attended, but the first convention of any type. So the entire thing was a new experience, and admittedly somewhat confusing in nature.

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