Politico’s Glenn Thrush reports this morning that Republicans believe the GDP report showing the economy is shrinking gives them political “leverage” over Obama, since bad economic news is terrible for the President. But Thrush notes that this shouldn’t be the case, since the contraction was the result of spending cuts, which in theory should undermine […]

The disgusting Lanny Breuer–a Clinton-era big-wig–is heavily featured in Glenn Greenwald’s article.  But of course the weak, ineffectual Eric Holder, and Obama himself, are even greater culprits on this.   A key reason why Obama’s first term was such a disappointment was that, in the worst ways, it was Bill Clinton’s third term.  Obama basically […]

It sums up this week and what it means. I think, and dearly hope.

Oh, dear.  I like Ezra Klein. A lot.  So I’ll leave out the sarcasm–a necessity anyway, since I’ve already exhausted this week’s supply. But I do want to point out, because he’s so influential now, that Klein’s piece yesterday siding with those who thought Obama’s speech Monday should not have set forth liberal policy positions […]

I’m a political junkie, born and bred.  And so the number of political opinion pieces I’ve read in my life, dating back to my teenage years (me being a child of my parents, they of the ardent liberal Democrat variety– “Oh, no, Bevy!  You have to return that purse.  That company is anti-union!”  “Okayyy, Mom.”)–run […]

There was less wow in the address that preceded [singer Kelly] Clarkson. Obama teased the crowd with a theme of unity: “Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation and one people.” But his “we the people” theme turned out to be more of a campaign retread. “We the people […]

This was a throw-down-the-gauntlet speech.   We have ourselves a leader.   —-UPDATE: E.J. Dionne equates this speech with FDR’s second inaugural speech and Reagan’s first one, in its importance. I hadn’t thought of Reagan’s–and of course the substance of today’s speech was the mirror image, the opposite, of Reagan’s–and I wasn’t alive for any […]

Okay.  There’s no way to do justice to Washington Post centerist columnist Dana Milbank’s column today about Obama’s “presser” yesterday by just summarizing it or quoting a sentence or short paragraph from it.  And justice for that column, titled “President Congeniality talks tough,” is what I want. So here are the first six (blessedly short) […]

The issue here is whether America pays its bills.  We are not a deadbeat nation.  … This is the United States of America. We can’t manage our affairs in terms of the way we pay our bills? … I don’t think anyone would consider my position unreasonable. — President Obama, today So President Obama does […]

Either that or he means that the public understands what the debt-ceiling statute actually is, and will never support Congress’s authorization of payment of already-incurred expenses earlier authorized by none other than Congress itself. Obama and the congressional Dems should take the ball Walden has handed them and run with it.Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of […]