Desiree out
Rogers on the cover of WSJ. She also made the cover of Vogue before her boss, first lady Michelle Obama.
I guess it was inevitable. Desiree Rogers is quitting her job as White House social secretary. For replacements, might I offer that Sally Quinn is available?
UPDATE: Oh, never mind. Good-bye fabulous, hello, finance director …
Time to ignore the White House on healthcare?
Unfortunately, I am a member of a party of wimps (Michael Bennett, Alan Grayson, Anthony Weiner and a few others duly excepted.) The latest White House pronouncement, that it doesn’t see the votes for a public healthcare option, even in the face of growing momentum for a Congressional push to get one done through reconciliation (22 signers and counting,) has led the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign to declare that Team Obama has a “loser mentality.” Polls show the public option remains much more popular than healthcare reform itself, it has a majority of support across the country, and had at least 50 votes in the Senate last year. As Ezra Klein points out, the White House’s refusal to either fight for the public option or stand up and try to kill the progressive letter-writing effort shows a stunning lack of backbone, and a breathtaking tone deafness in the face of the first spark their base has had in nearly a year. Read more
A strong case for change
The pundit class has a way of overreacting. Last year, they declared the Republican party to be dead, dead, dead, only to turn around by the end of the year, and begin declaring the Democratic party to be dead, dead, dead (we’re still in that memespace now.) But when it comes to the very real problems plaguing the Obama administration, I don’t think it would be an overstatement to say we have a serious problem. Obama’s team is great at election strategy, but green in the ways of Washington. As for the president himself, Leslie Gelb gets to the heart of the matter in a long, well-written piece in the Beast:: Read more
So what’s a guy got to do to get on a no-fly list around here?
Accused attempted plane bomber Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab slipped through every conceivable security hole.
I mean, when his own father is telling you to watch out for the guy … From CNN, a report on how it all went so almost horribly wrong: Read more
Harry Truman, Barack Obama, and the mythic ‘executive order’
Harry Truman in uniform in 1916, as an officer during World War I.
Gay activists have given mixed reviews to President Obama’s “big gay speech” the other night, with many, including radio host Michelangelo Signorili, saying they’re tired of words. They want action from this president — and they want it NOW — on repealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” on killing off the Defense of Marriage Act (good luck getting that through this Senate…) and on an Employment Non Discrimination Act (much more likely to get done in my opinion…) Much of the heat on Obama is centered on the military policy, which many activists claim he can abolish (or at least arrest) with the “stroke of a pen,” either by issuing a giant stop-loss order (which would have the unpleasant effect of preventing ALL troops from returning home to their families…) or by issuing an executive order demanding the military stop enforcing the law requiring the separation of gay and lesbian soldiers who admit as much, from service. It all sounds very simple, and activists claim that if Harry Truman could desegregate the military during the far more racist climate of the 1940s, Obama can do it now, since polls show a majority of Americans, both outside the military and inside, approve of open service. Plus, the Europeans are already doing it (the weakest argument of all, since Europeans also don’t commit their troops to tough combat by and large, with the exception of the Brits and Canadians, and never in the numbers we do, and so Americans perceive them as “non-fighting forces” and don’t care what they do regarding their gay and lesbian troops.)
Well, I hate to be the skunk at the garden party, but it’s not quite that simple, and neither is the history. Read more
Cornyn slams Bush thought police … only he calls Bush ‘Obama’
It’s official, the Republican Party is 100 percent crazy people. The latest mental patient to be let out of the ward on his own recognizance: John Cornyn of Texas. Per Politico:
The White House says it’s just trying to root out disinformation by asking people to flag “fishy” opposition to the Obama health care agenda. But Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) thinks it’s a little creepy.
In a scathing letter to the White House Wednesday, Cornyn said a White House effort to track and fight health care reform attacks is more like a “White House program to monitor American citizens’ speech opposing your health care policies.” Cornyn was responding to an e-mail Tuesday from White House new media director Macon Phillips asking supporters to keep the administration in the loop regarding attacks on the health care plan. “If you get an e-mail or see something on the Web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov,” Phillips wrote.
While this type of tactic was successful during the Obama campaign, Cornyn thinks it’s a step too far.
“I am not aware of any precedent for a president asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed ‘fishy’ or otherwise inimical to the White House’s political interests,” Corynyn wrote. “By requesting that citizens send ‘fishy’ e-mails to the White House, it is inevitable that the names, e-mail addresses, IP addresses and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House.”
John Cornyn … now, I’m thinking I’ve heard of that guy before … oh, right! He’s this John Cornyn:
During the Terri Schiavo affair, the former Texas Supreme Court Justice was at the forefront of the GOP campaign to intimidate and threaten judges. … [and]
Back in December 2005, Cornyn dismissed the New York Times’ revelations of the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping program. Regurgitating the same “Give Me Death” defense offered by colleagues Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Jeff Session (R-AL), Cornyn sneered:
“None of your civil liberties matter much after you’re dead.”
Never mind that Cornyn and his fellow thugs on the right (he got his idea from RedState, of course,) are making it up entirely that somehow the Obama White House is “creating an enemies list.” These wingers are so insane, they think the government is downright Hitlerian for daring to try and give you healthcare coverage, but have no problem whatsoever with a Republican government that monitors your phonecalls and reads your email. And Cornyn is at the forefront of Republican demands that the abuses of the Bush administration and its extensive domestic spying and torture program never be investigated.
Jesus, what kind of cabbage are these people smoking? (Perhaps only our drug-addled friend El Rushbo knows for sure…)
The political-media complex’s tortured logic
Glenn Greenwald concludes, quite rightly, that the political-media class is too corrupt to really take on torture, at least not above the level of “rogue interrogators” (which I guess means guys who don’t have cushy jobs at Berkely or the power to order the CIA to violate the law…) while Digby relieves me of the duty of watching another tedious “This Week” roundtable on TiVo.
Downcast in Tehran
A New York Times story says a spirit of depression is setting in in Iran, as hope for change dwindles.
“People are depressed, and they feel they have been lied to, robbed of their rights and now are being insulted,” said Nassim, a 56-year-old hairdresser. “It is not just a lie; it’s a huge one. And it doesn’t end.”
Still, if this Guardian piece is right, there may be reasons for some hope that the blood-soaked Khamenei’s days of ruling may be numbered (and his little friend, too …) Meanwhile, President Obama praises Mousavi, and Ahmadinejad just won’t stop talking. And is the neocon strategy working? Obama is apparently moving to fund dissident groups in Iran, just like Dubya. Confused yet? Like the Michael Jackson song says: you are not alone. (Post-Newsweek gives yet another neocon — Saul Singer — a platform to demand what the neocons have always demanded: no negotiations with Iran. Well, at least he didn’t call for an invasion…)
Stop making sense: Pat Buchanan on Obama and Iran
Pat Buchanan does it again, answering the neocon warmongering gobbledygook with a good, sensible column on the president’s response to Iran in Town Hall. His opening:
The Obama policy of extending an open hand to Iran is working and ought not be abandoned because of the grim events in Tehran.
For the Iranian theocracy has just administered a body blow to its legitimacy in the eyes of the Iranian people and the world.
Before Saturday, the regime could credibly posture as defender of the nation, defiant in the face of the threats from Israel, faithful to the cause of the Palestinians, standing firm for Iran’s right to enrich uranium for peaceful nuclear power.
Today, the regime, including the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is under a cloud of suspicion that they are but another gang of corrupt politicians who brazenly stole a presidential election to keep themselves and their clerical cronies in power.
Meanwhile, the same neocons who a few days ago were rooting for Ahmadinejad, are suddenly demanding that Obama make Mousavi look like an American puppet. And John McCain wanders further and further away from reality. (Don’t these people remember the last time we interfered in an Iranian election? How’s that working out?)
As for me, I’m with Dick Lugar.
Wrong again neocons: Italy will take some Gitmo detainees
Slowly but surely, the Obama administration is emptying Gitmo.
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