"Only I'm the President ..."

[Political Waves]

Obama has just finished his press conference as I write, and he's [quietly, confidently] flexing his muscles; love it! When asked if McCain and the other Cold Warriors criticism had moved his position on Iran, he said, with a grin ... what do you think? Love it, doubled.

 

He went on to indicate that only he's the prez, so he'll decide how best to handle it. He said he was appalled and outraged by the violence -- that the video of Neda's death was heartbreaking -- and connected the dots from Iran's growingly repressive response to their people and the requirements of entering the international community as a viable player; here's the obvious point -- if you can't handle this responsibly, Iran, then you can't handle a nuke.
 

In choosing not to play the zero-sum game of the press, he delivered this master stroke, giving me my first genuine laugh of the day: Everybody here is on a 24-hour news cycle. I'm not.

Despite disagreements with some of his internal decisions, I admire Obama more by the day -- his ability to let the players string themselves out in absurd soap opera, that exposes them like a house full of necked drunks the morning after, is simply brilliant.

Here's a quick post on the Cold Warrior non-sense; the old way, lingering in the conversation but not in the hearts and minds of the majority. Still, we are trained to think upside down on this -- for instance, CNN is exploring why, if Obama's administration is based on change, we aren't rushing in to involve ourselves in the Iranian uprising. Oopsie ... 'nother Orwellian disconnect that we've been schooled to accept, unquestioningly: change is NOT flying into the face of the struggle to impose our values and take political advantage of a weakness, meanwhile making ourselves a pawn for ideological PR campaigns.

First piece, an example of why Froomkin got sacked; he draws conclusions with precision and has an expert eye and working bullshit-o-meter. He uses the news like a bludgeon and lets it do all the work [open his post for lots of additional links.] My kinda guy. The last piece here is cherry on the nearly-flattened GOP cake.

Jude


Obama, Slayer of the GOP
Dan Froomkin, Washington Post
06/23/2009
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/white-house-watch/2009/06/23/pf.html

The coverage of the latest wave of public-opinion polls has focused mostly on President Obama's ostensible political weaknesses. But the more important story may be the increased marginalization of his Republican opposition.

Three major polls out in the past week tell the same story: Of a Republican party that is widely disliked and mistrusted -- and that is becoming essentially irrelevant. Notably, on the single most polarizing aspect (the "public option") of the biggest political issue of the moment (Obama's proposed health-care overhaul), the public overwhelmingly supports Obama's position.

Republicans have essentially no power in the House. And even in the Senate, their ability to effectively block Obama is minimal without the cooperation of a handful of unreliable center-right Democrats.

In fact, the only real power Republicans have left is granted to them by a media culture that consistently clamors for bipartisan solutions, even as one of the parties increasingly represents a shrunken minority of hardened extremists.

Overall, public support for Obama remains very strong -- particularly considering all the unpleasantness he's having to deal with. The new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds his approval rating at 65 percent, with majority support for his handling of the economy, health care, international affairs, the threat of terrorism, the situation with Iran and global warming. His public support is slightly less than 50 percent in two areas: the budget deficit and the auto industry bailout.

By contrast, the Republican Party is viewed favorably by only 36 percent of the public, down from 51 percent three years ago, and the lowest in Washington Post polling history, but for a one-time blip in late 1998 on the eve of the Republican House's impeachment of Bill Clinton.

Obama leads Congressional Republicans by wide margins when asked who they trust to handle the deficit (56 to 30); health care reform (55 to 27); the economy (55 to 31); and the threat of terrorism (55 to 34).

Yes, even while the poll coverage would have you believe that the deficit is Obama's big political vulnerability, it it actually the one issue the public most trusts Obama to handle -- at least when the alternative is putting Republicans in charge. The utter hypocrisy of Republicans lecturing Obama on the deficit is apparently not lost on the public.

Last week's New York Times/CBS News poll found Republicans with only a 28 percent favorability rating, the lowest ever in that poll. The Wall Street Journal/NBC News found only 23 percent of the public feels either very or somewhat positive about the GOP -- down from 44 percent four years ago, and an all-time low from that poll as well.

Don't forget the trend Nate Silver and others blogged about a few months ago, namely that "Republican party identification, which had already been at fairly low levels, in fact appears to have slumped further since Inauguration Day."

And for good measure, Susan Page writes in USA Today that a new USA Today/Gallup Poll finds that over the past two months, "expectations for the future have brightened significantly amid rising optimism about a stock market rebound and economic turnaround."

So how are the Republicans trying to stop the bleeding? Health reform is Obama's biggest legislative priority right now, and the GOP is making its big stand in opposition to a "public plan," which would allow people to purchase insurance from a government-run plan if they weren't happy with the private options.

But according to the Wall Street Journal poll, 76 percent of Americans consider a public option either extremely (41 percent) or quite (35 percent) important. A recent Employee Benefit Research Institute poll found that 83 percent either strongly (53 percent) or somewhat (30 percent) support the availability of a public plan.

Nevertheless, today's coverage focuses on Obama's weaknesses.

"Obama Approval: Trouble Ahead?" says the headline on Gary Langer's analysis for ABC News.

Dan Balz and Jon Cohen write in The Washington Post:

Barely half of Americans are now confident that President Obama's $787 billion stimulus measure will boost the economy, and the rapid rise in optimism about the state of the nation that followed the 2008 election has abated, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll....

The tempered public outlook has not significantly affected Obama's overall approval rating, which at 65 percent in the new survey outpaces the ratings of Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at similar points in their tenures. But new questions about the stimulus package's effectiveness underscore the stakes for the Obama administration in the months ahead as it pushes for big reforms in health care and energy at the same time it attempts to revive the nation's flagging economy.

With more evidence that the weakness narrative is setting in, Chris Cillizza blogs for The Washington Post that Obama's press conference today "lands at a rare weak moment for the Obama White House with a series of domestic and international challenges bearing down on him."

And Michael Falcone and Andy Barr write for Politico:

Eroding confidence in President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy and ability to control spending has caused his approval ratings to wilt to their lowest levels since he took office, according to a spate of recent polls, a sign of political weakness that comes just as he most needs leverage on Capitol Hill.

Jamison Foser of Media Matters offers some perspective:

It's generally accepted that the news media obsess over horse-race political coverage at the expense of serious examinations of important issues. Media critics on the left, right, and in the middle tend to agree that there is too much focus on polling and not enough on policy, while many reporters seem proud of their focus on the game rather than the stakes. (Politico is, after all, called "Politico," not "Policy-o," and features blogs "on Politics," "on Hill intrigue," "on Gossip," and "on Campaigns" -- but not "on Policy." ABC News' senior White House correspondent calls his blog "Political Punch." And so on.)

But, he explains:

The media's obsessive focus on politics does not, however, mean their political assessments are of a high quality.... Calling the media's coverage of politics and policy "horse-race journalism" is an insult to horse-race journalism -- the Daily Racing Form isn't in the habit of advising readers to bet on the filly with the broken leg.

And Julian E. Zelizer, writing in a CNN commentary, quite accurately points out that Obama's real political vulnerability "is the tension between the left and center of the Democratic Party." ++


McCain Hits Obama On Iran Again, Joe Klein Tells Him "Be Quiet"
Sam Stein, HuffPo
06-23-09
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/23/mccain-hits-obama-on-iran_n_219407.html

Sen. John McCain continued to rap President Barack Obama for his measured reaction to the crisis in Iran, which McCain said was inadequate in its support for the protestors of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's contested re-election.

Appearing on C-Span's Washington Journal on Tuesday morning, the Arizona Republican said that when it came to Iran, Obama response "has not been enough."

Saying that he expected Obama to "come out more strongly" during his press conference on Tuesday, McCain urged the man who defeated him in the 2008 campaign to "follow the example of our founding fathers that declared that all of us are endowed with certain inalienable rights."

"Sen. Daniel Webster, when the Greeks rose up against the Turks in 1823, I would love to give you the full quote, but he said it is our duty to stand up for people who are struggling for freedom," McCain said. "That is what America is."

As for George Washington's famous farewell address, warning of the perils of foreign entanglements, McCain did not mention it.

The line pushed by McCain has become the de-facto Republican criticism of Obama since the crisis in Iran began. The president has expressed his concern with the rising violence in the country as well as the obvious inaccuracies in the presidential vote. But he has avoided outright support for the seating of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi.

The measured manner of Obama's response, while criticized by some, has been described as essential by many foreign policy observers. On Monday night, Time Magazine's Joe Klein applauded the president for his approach. And when asked about earlier McCain's remarks, he urged the Arizona Republican to stop talking.

"Be quiet," said Klein. "You don't need to do this. You know? You know what you're doing is a self-indulgent at this point. Sen. McCain, if he's going to talk about this, should also talk about the fact that the United States supported Saddam Hussein in the Iran/Iraq war for eight years. Every one of those protesters out in the streets, every last one of them believes the United States supplied Saddam Hussein with the poison gas that has debilitated tens of thousands of Iranian men." ++

 

 

GOP Senate Candidate: What Iran Needs Is More Guns
Jason Linkins, HuffPo
June 22, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/world/140825/gop_senate_candidate%3A_what_iran_needs_is_more_guns/

If you are not a regular user of Twitter, you might have some sort of "life," filled with "friends" and "activities," which offers you a sense of "meaning" and "solace" in these uncertain times. But at the same time, you would have almost certainly missed out on the wit and wisdom of Florida senatorial candidate Marco Rubio, who opined, thusly:

I have a feeling the situation in Iran would be a little different if they had a 2nd amendment like ours. #sayfie #tcot #nra

I'm nobody's idea of an anti-gun crusader. But when I consider the sorts of things the Iranians could stand to borrow from America, a poorly worded amendment dealing with gun ownership rights and militias is way down the list. I think that maybe Iran could stand to have some separation of powers, a line between church and state, a free press, freedom to worship, the right to assemble, the right to speak freely, a freedom from unlawful searches, due process of law, womens' suffrage, and a government that doesn't terrorize its citizens with armed thugs or threaten its neighbors through terrorist proxies. In short, there's all kinds of stuff I'd commend to Iran from our own body of work. But, yeah, after all that, some guns maybe.

I will, however, commend Rubio's good judgment in that he did not include "#iranelection" or "#neda" on this tweet. This idea probably would not have gone over well with the people following either hashtag.

Anyway, it's symbolic of how much has changed that a conservative now thinks Iran could use more readily available weaponry. ++

No Time for Irresponsible Partisan Rhetoric
Ann Davidow, BuzzFlash 

Tue, 06/23/2009
http://blog.buzzflash.com/davidow/129

The Republican minority spends an inordinate amount of time thinking of ways to stall legislation, keep nominees from being confirmed and condemn presidential proposals. By using procedural measures to stymie administration programs and hold up appointments, they have managed to confound reasonable decision-making procedures. And by working tirelessly to feed the propaganda mill it has created, the minority seeks to appropriate more power than the electorate was willing to give it last November.

However, attempting to turn events in Iran to their advantage takes partisanship way beyond acceptable limits of political discourse. But perhaps it was too much to expect that Republicans would hold off criticizing the president for his measured response to Iran's election results, a position with which, incidentally, most Middle East experts concur.  As Iranian-American sources explain, the pointed comments President Bush made in the past, ostensibly to show support for 'the people of Iran', elicited instead pleas from rank-and-file Iranians for him to stay out of their internal affairs.

And could anything be sillier or less relevant than Republican claims that, when the majority sought to curtail their endless amendments to proposed legislation in the House, they could identify with Iranian feelings of disenfranchisement - - unsettling indicators that a lot of exceptionally stupid people walk the halls of Congress. In response merciless jibes have emerged from the Twitter class: e.g. 'After running through the sprinkler this morning I claim solidarity with the victims of Hurricane Katrina' and 'having almost been hit by a cab in D.C. reminded me of Tiananmen Square.'

When anti-war demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago were met with a violent, heavy-handed official response, the chant went up "the whole world is watching." It was not a proud moment for the nation, but our form of government always manages to get us past moments of imperfectly realized ideals. Iran has no similar bedrock democratic mechanism to propel it through the tumult of public outrage. There, societal change is subject to disruptive swings, and contentious elements complicate the political landscape. Democracy or liberalizing trends are not easily accomplished; throw in religion as a factor of government and the entire process becomes just that much more complex. In his speech Friday Ayatollah Ali Khamenei referred to Iran as the world's only "religious democracy", something of an oxymoron for most of us.

President Obama reminds Iran that the whole world is watching despite its attempt to stifle standard forms of communication. Whether the leadership will tilt toward softening its position with respect to the demands of its citizens and its treatment of them or further isolate itself from the world community is an open question; however, people here need to be careful not to make assumptions regarding a country about which they are largely uninformed. Some members of Congress, in their zeal to exact partisan one-upmanship, have shown an unprecedented level of disrespect for the president as well as a troubling lack of understanding about the nature of geo-political stresses and strains in the region.

Even had Iran's presidency changed hands, its nuclear ambitions and other concerns may not have been substantially altered. Whatever the outcome, Iran will be a different place going forward - - requiring both statesmanship and a more cooperative spirit among our elected officials. Now is not the time for members of Congress to subvert the president's ability to conduct foreign policy. An earlier Congress abdicated its constitutional responsibility to declare war, and allowed a wayward administration and a cadre of determined neo-cons to take us into a costly misadventure in Iraq.

As a more responsible leader deals with another authoritarian regime he shouldn't be second-guessed or bullied into taking precipitous action. This time around we must not allow ideologues to influence foreign-policy decisions that serve neither our interests nor those for whom we would wish to shape a political future. Questions about the fairness of Iran's recent election and the ensuing protests should not become fodder for partisan talking points or for various factions to pursue their special-interest agendas. Rather this is a time for the various agencies of government to work towards common ground, and to promote hopefully, a coalition of disparate political entities both here and abroad. ++


Is the Religious Right Losing Its Grip?
Lester Feder, American Progress
June 23, 2009
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/06/conservatives_free_market.html

The recession is taking its toll on the conservative movement, and religious right leaders’ intellectual rigidity is helping to put a nail in the coffin of a once-influential constellation of ideas regarding the free market.

This was made clear by a recent lecture at the conservative movement’s philosophical mothership, the Heritage Foundation. Jay W. Richards, author of a new book, Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem, said nothing new when he addressed the question, “Is the free market moral?”

Richards defended unregulated capitalism in the language of evangelical Christianity, reflecting the melding of social and economic conservatism Heritage has pedaled for two generations. What was remarkable about the event was that conservatives felt the need to apologize for such long-established doctrine. To watch Richards’ lecture or read his book is to enter a time warp straight back to the late 1970s, when conservatives were rebelling against “big-government liberalism” which they equated with “godless communism.”

But much has changed since then. Many conservatives concede that the eight-year reign of George W. Bush was one of the most disastrous in the nation’s history. Most Americans have come to believe orthodox free-marketism was a false gospel. And even growing numbers of conservative evangelicals are deeply troubled by the vast inequality and environmental degradation created by giving big business free reign.

There is still no sign of a mass defection of the evangelical base, but the openness of evangelicals to an alternative economic vision has the social conservative old-guard fearful that their rank and file could walk away from the free-market camp. In response to this fear leaders such as Gary Bauer of American Values, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and Focus on the Family's James Dobson are hardening their rhetoric, reviving old clichés that simply do not speak to the new economic reality.

Just this week Bauer sent an e-mail to members of his group to “Stop the Stimulus!”—legislation that passed four months ago—and to educate Americans on the “economic dangers of the left’s radical socialist agenda.” Bauer’s upcoming Values Voters Summit has one session planned to show how health reform means “rationing your life away” and another to teach activists how to organize antitax “tea parties.” However, not a single session offers solutions for families struggling with health care bills, unemployment, or home foreclosure.

Is it any wonder that a movement with so little to offer people who are suffering is nervous? The 5-percent shift of evangelical voters to the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008—with much sharper increases among younger voters—demonstrates that many evangelicals want new solutions, even if they’re still leery of the left.

Rice University professor D. Michael Lindsay, author of Faith in the Halls of Power, suggests that social conservative leaders may be sticking with the old party line because they still believe it. He points out that many evangelical religious leaders are faith entrepreneurs who built large churches, media ministries, and activist organizations using strategies modeled on the business world.

“In the leadership cohort, I would say over the last 30 years they have seen the benefit of the free market in the religious sector work to their advantage,” he said. “Because evangelicals are religious entrepreneurs, they have an affinity for business entrepreneurs, and the downturn has not changed this.”

But the religious right’s leadership paralysis may simply be born of fear. “I think that they feel that they need to reinforce the relationship between evangelicals and Republicans,” said Sarah Posner, author of God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters. As leaders circle the free-market wagons they revert to “pre-welfare reform rhetoric,” Posner said. “There’s no discussion of regulation of Wall Street,” just epistles spreading the good news of the free market.

Richard Cizik is one of the high-profile leaders of the Christian right who defected from the movement because of its rigid small-government views. He is convinced that his old allies on the right learned the wrong lessons from history. He describes his former allies as “zealots,” whom he defines by paraphrasing Winston Churchill: “A zealot is someone who won’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.”

“It’s not as if the antiregulatory DNA of evangelicals can’t be changed,” says Cizik, pointing to the years-long process that convinced him that “the ‘magic’ of free-market economics has shown itself to be snake oil.” Along with his concern about global warming, Cizik says he also lost 30 percent of his 401k in the financial crash. He attributes Obama’s improved margin among evangelicals to this group’s desire for new economic policy and says that openness to Democratic candidates could grow if the president’s policies succeed in turning the economy around.

And if evangelical leaders remain more faithful to the Republican Party and business interests than to the interests of their members, they will become similarly irrelevant.

“The Bible warns about this,” Cizik says. Scripture should be a caution to leaders who will surrender their remaining independence in the service of free-market forces: “What is the profits of the man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” ++

Lester Feder is a freelance journalist covering conservative politics and popular culture.


"I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington ... I'm asking you to believe in yours."
~ Barack Obama

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