Happy Watergate Day one and all.

Not only has the president generated little enthusiasm for himself, he has pissed off a good number of us with his corporatist bullshit. He may be disappointed if he’s depending on his base. Until there is a reason for me to vote, I have no intention of wasting my time. Obama destroyed any “hope” I had for “change”. Corporations own the damn country.

Someone said here last week that “voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil.” How true.

President Rahm Obama.

My spouse and I always vote but we write in each other’s names when the “choice” we have been given by corporate headquarters is too distasteful.

Good morning Attaturk. Watching the President last night, I had the distinct feeling he was there to play the role on TV, like Reagan maybe, but not able to pull it off somehow. Reagan believed his lies, and that made him persuasive to many. Obama doesn’t really care about his lies one way or other. The sales pitch has lost its urgency and passion since he got the job. His minders give him the same predictable lines to deliver and make sure he doesn’t knock anything important over in the office. Obama will become a leader when he cares more about governing than campaigning. He doesn’t have much experience there but there is still time.

I’m not sure if Indiana even gives the write-in option, since we’re 50 years behind the rest of civilization here. If possible, I’ll write in the name of one of my cats. Thanks.

Risen dismissed suspicions that the story was part of an orchestrated campaign to rescue the troubled American effort there and derided critical bloggers as pajama-clad layabouts with no reporting chops.

Pass me the f*cking cheetos already, I’m starving over here…! ;-)

pajama-clad layabouts with no reporting chops.

Seeking the naked truth.

“Disappointingly small” doesn’t begin to cover it.

Obama is continuing–and expanding–polices which could accurately be called fascist. He has claimed the right to kill any one of us. The Electronic Frontier Foundation rates his record on human rights as worse than Bush II’s.

Forget comparisons with Clinton in 1994. Even the Republicans haven’t gone this far. Obama is in terra incognita.

All the Rage

Obama went before a joint session of Congress and gave an empassioned speech on why a public option was the right thing to do morally. Yet he already knew damn well that the deal had been made with his corporate cronies for campaign dollars.

Same thing from the Oval Office last night, talk about what he could do but offer nothing concrete, it is becoming his M.O.

…you won’t get fooled again.

I’ve heard this song before — Vietnam had gajillions of barrels of sweet, sweet Texas Tea right under the surface.

Same as it ever was. But without the crazy.

Put all your faith in the hands of god? That’s what the starving and out of work were told during the Great Depression. Here, eat this hot air!

As bad as the news is, I was hoping for a bit of truth on the status of the gusher as a minimum. Guess I just need to get some of that faith stuff.

Breaking: White House staff in an effort to make the President appear more convincing and in control of the Gulf disaster has decided to stitch shoulder pads in his jacket. Problem solved, don’t look back.

Good morning, pups. It’s Dowd and Friedman we’re facing today. MoDo is all upset that the president doesn’t have tantrums. In “Can The One Drop the Buzzer-Beating No. 23 Act?” she hisses that in the Oval Office, a place usually reserved for addresses on war, the president tries to “seize the moment” and “seize control of our own destiny.” Hmmm… I wonder why she’s comparing him to Michael Jordan…? The Moustache of Wisdom is in Turkey and sends us a “Letter From Istanbul” in which he says he is visiting Turkey and finding that the nation has pulled away from its balance point between the East and the West.

Here they are.

The coffee and tea are ready, and I’ve got corned beef hash and poached eggs for breakfast. Oh, frabjous day! We’re cool again. It turned out that the problem with the AC was minor and easily fixed (yay!) and as a bonus we had a thunderstorm yesterday afternoon that dropped the temperature almost 20 degrees. It’s still going to be hot, but in the 90s rather than the 100s. I can deal with the 90s… Have a great day.

Obama’s GWOT 2.0, now with more waste
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LF17Ak03.html

Obama phoned it in. Maybe he’s burned out.

He should take a week off, come back refreshed, and then fire Rahm, Axelrod, and whoever else was responsible for embarassing him last night.(/s)

Morning all. Last night on the LiveBlog of the “speech” somone, can’t remember who, coined the phrase Spinocchio. Very clever. President Spinocchio said that within several weeks BP will be capturing 90% of the oil volcano. How many believe that?

Bill Press thinks the President “looked great”, the setting was wonderful, and the speech was a great success. Veal pen.

Within weeks? how far away is August when the relief well is operational?
Weeks, if we stretch it. Good comment.
Marion, so glad it was only a minor problem with the air conditioning. In my travels, your area of the country is not the place to be without a working air conditioner.

The whole speech was pointless, but this is where I really started to scream at the tv:

All of these approaches have merit, and deserve a fair hearing in the months ahead. But the one approach I will not accept is inaction. The one answer I will not settle for is the idea that this challenge is too big and too difficult to meet. You see, the same thing was said about our ability to produce enough planes and tanks in World War II. The same thing was said about our ability to harness the science and technology to land a man safely on the surface of the moon. And yet, time and again, we have refused to settle for the paltry limits of conventional wisdom. Instead, what has defined us as a nation since our founding is our capacity to shape our destiny – our determination to fight for the America we want for our children. Even if we’re unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we don’t yet know precisely how to get there. We know we’ll get there.
It is a faith in the future that sustains us as a people. It is that same faith that sustains our neighbors in the Gulf right now

WTF? This is the plan? Talk about it some more? And have faith? I can’t put into words how disappointed I was. Put Hillary in charge of our energy policy, she probably has one written up already.

Pray the oil away!

He prefers to just sit back and let the “free market” works it’s magic. Hollow rhetoric. Neo-liberal all the way. Surprised he doesn’t have Tom Friedman working for him.

I have to be honest. Despite all the criticism he’s gotten on the blogs, I still believed he would come through. And he has accomplished some things that he deserves praise for. But last night’s speech was so lame that all I thought was that he was weak. A weak leader with no vision.

Bill Press, the “Clear Channel Liberal”, is bad for your digestion, Bluetoe. Sadly, I’ve got an hour commute that ends just a few minutes after 8:00 Chicago time. I don’t tune in WCPT (820AM) until Stephanie Miller starts at 8:07, a minute or two before I pull in to the parking lot at work.

Well, at least I get 90 seconds of Progressive radio in the morning. Better than nuthin’.

This was Obama’s Jimmy Carter “malaise” speech. Except more pathetic.

He’s done. His career is toast.

Hope to hear some rumblings about a primary challenger to O. Congressman Peter DeFazio of Oregon perhaps. He sees through O’s “act.”

He’s a real insider dropping names and rubbing shoulders with the “movers and shakers.”

WTF was he thinking? He even said at one point something like we have to work together. I’m screaming….tell us what you want us to do! Give us direction, Mr. President, we’re begging for leadership.

When the POTUS falls short as Mr. Hope and Change did last evening with this underpowered national address from the Oval Office we are given a view of how our POTUS is comprehending and focusing.

Barack Obama has been in the WH now long enough to have gathered up a accurate inventory of what The Decider and Dick The Dick left him.

His admission that Ken Salazar had not done what needed to be done was a major tell. Some people need to lose their WH positions at this point.

BP has run hard onto the rocks of Bad Corporate Citizenship and is now a derelict that is adrift with it’s poor performance in letting this Gulf Disaster take place and then coming in with a discredited reaction plan. BP may not survive this. Likely should not. Surely some BP people should now be in real jeopardy for poor/pathetic/criminal performance.

Barack Obama maybe cannot or will not confront BP and nationalize it and take it’s shabby corporate culture apart and punish the perps and take it’s treasure to undo what BP has done in/to the Gulf of Mexico. That is weak on his part.

But he can,should and at this point needs to thresh out his WH staff and the Executive Branch which he — Barack Obama — does run — to rid the chaff from the wheat.

Failure to do so and soon is on Obama. Obama wanted to be POTUS and damn well better get with cleaning out the Bush/Cheney WH years debris and then also denounce Reaganism as a failed approach to government and governance.

Once/when that is well in progress then Obama must confront BP failure(s).

Politically, it was a disaster as well. He’s giving the govs the National Guard and is asking the govs to use them. No saying how to use them, so lets let Jindal be the hero. If O had said ‘use them this way’ it would have been at his direction, but, noooo, he’s asking the govs to figure out what to do with the troops.

morning, and glad the AC is back on there, Marion.

I see on CSpan that Bobo’s line about more detail was picked up. Of course, if the micromanagement line had been possible, don’t we all know that would have been the Word. What most of the wingers are hyping is takeover all of the corporates that have failed to keep themselves above water, so of course, taking over the spill would have been grist for the mill.

The energy crisis is on us, and I’m glad the pres. took the direction of getting alternate energy use now underway.

And how is he getting the alternative energy underway? Waiting for the wisdom of the “free market” to work it’s magic? Typical neo-liberal.

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.

All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem.

Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this nation, and it can also be the standard around which we rally. On the battlefield of energy we can win for our nation a new confidence, and we can seize control again of our common destiny.

The “Crisis of Confidence” speech was the best damn speech an American president has made in my lifetime, sir. Thoughtful, prescient, wise. As the excerpt above foretells, we chose unwisely. We chose “Morning in America”, we chose Reagan, we chose failure, and the results speak for themselves. The Gulf states are soaking in that choice this morning.

Obama’s speech was, literally, nothing. It was 18 minutes of air.

Our last President was “The Decider”
Regardless of facts, reason or implications, he made decisions and stuck with them no matter what.
Our current President is “The Considerer”. He considers and is considerate (to corporations at least). He has yet to actually act or decide anything.

Neither model is good leadership.

For starters;
“The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included more than $80 billion in clean energy investments that will jump-start our economy and build the clean energy jobs of tomorrow:

* $11 billion for a bigger, better, and smarter grid that will move renewable energy from the rural places it is produced to the cities where it is mostly used, as well as for 40 million smart meters to be deployed in American homes.
* $5 billion for low-income home weatherization projects.
* $4.5 billion to green federal buildings and cut our energy bill, saving taxpayers billions of dollars.
* $6.3 billion for state and local renewable energy and energy efficiency efforts.
* $600 million in green job training programs – $100 million to expand line worker training programs and $500 million for green workforce training.
* $2 billion in competitive grants to develop the next generation of batteries to store energy.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/energy-and-environment

in case you’re interested in reality in addition to the usual winger nonsense.

That should have been part of the speech.

I guess the WH assumes interested parties will acquire and absorb information.

This morning Obama will name the Chairman of his bipartsan “National Commission to understand the causes of this disaster and offer recommendations on what additional safety and environmental standards we need to put in place.”

Wish ‘em luck.

Rahm, is that you?

Have worked on Capitol Hill also, do not join in the general putdown of actual accomplishment.

The “accomplishment” you speak of does not go far enough. It’s time for the U.S. to stop taking baby steps and calling it “real” progress. Apparently you think the citizens should just sit back and shut up and marvel at the “accomplishments” of the political class.

Sitting back and shutting up is the opposite of spreading misinformation in your equation,.

“Several months ago, Milt started telling me about what they were finding,” Risen said. “At the beginning of the year, I said I wanted to do a story on it.” At first both Bearden and Brinkley resisted, Risen said, but he eventually wore them down. “Milt convinced Brinkley to talk to me,” he said, “and Brinkley convinced other Pentagon officials to go on the record. I think Milt realized that things were going so badly in Afghanistan that people would be willing to talk about this.” In other words, according to Risen, he wasn’t handed the story in a calculated leak.

My Italics and bold At first they resisted but then I wore them down? Dude got played he only thinks he’s a player.
Lets see the Times ask for a second confirming source. Has the Times learned nothing from Judy Miller?
Maybe the Times need us to teach their reporters how to get a story. How to get a second confirming source when your original source has motive to lie. How to determine who has motive to lie to you. And of course when are you being played.

Apparently any criticism of Obama is equivalent to spreading misinformation in your political calculus. Just what one would expect from one that self indentifies as a member in good standing of the professional political class.

‘any criticism of Obama is equivalent to spreading misinformation’

since we were talking about the speech last night, that is a rather obvious misstatement.

‘self indentifies as a member in good standing of the professional political class.’

as my comment is easily available and can be visited by anyone here, again that is a rather obvious misstatement.

Disingenuous to a fault.

yea he’s done but it’s like he doesn’t give a damn. Just another bought and paid for freak of a disposable politician. My god does the junta have some magical drug that totally ruins people in office, no one could be this pathetic without a very good reason.

“The Emperor has no clothes!”

What has been mistakenly applauded as a calm temperment and pragmatic management style is revealed as overwhelming paralysis resulting in a reflex to retreat from, not engage with the unfolding events.

Obama is a kid with stage fright. While he knows his lines and has delivered them flawlessly in rehearsals, when the time comes to take center stage, he needs to be pushed out there. His timing is off and he has muffed the moment, reciting the wrong lines at the wrong time.

This speech, if given on day 5, would have been greeted with applause, and possibly standing ovations from the attentive and anticipatory crowd, but with anticipation turning to anxiety, the speech had been met with a resoundingly negative response.

I learned more about the spill, the response, and what can and should be done on my own these past 57 days than I did from the President last night.

Nothing replaces individual responsibility or local preparedness and coordination when attempting to manage a crisis.

Unlike so many, I did not project my hopes and dreams of a omni-potent federal government onto Obama. I have long felt that our federal government is too big, too bloated, attempts too much and is too corrupt to be effective.

If Obama is pinning his salvation from the Gulf crisis to prayer, he just missed the boat.

“Big Butter Jesus” burned to the ground.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-ksuOaI61g

Obama was elevated. He has never led. How does one become a leader? Leadership evolves via one’s character. By engaging in difficult or challenging tasks, by facing fear, by seizing a moment. Obama’s MO is to shy away from uncomfortable situations. A friend of mine in LA summed it up when she said, Obama chose to fight this spill with a five iron.

Honesty and transparency. Not too much too ask since that was all he truly had to offer.

If he had come out on day 5 and said this is very bad…BP is doing all it can but it looks like the only proven solution is to drill a relief well and that will take until August. In the meantime, using the authority granted to me in the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill, I am immediately federalizing the containment and clean up response. BP will focus on drilling the relief well, continue efforts to cap the well and try and capture as much of the gushing oli as possible. I am enlisting the aid of the entire oil industry, and all allies to provide us with all of the resources available and our goal is to keep as much oil as possible from reaching our precious coast.

I will provide daily briefings and allow the press access to our efforts so that the American people can see that the full focus and might of the federal government and the can do spirit of the American people is being harnessed and directed to protect our shores from the advancing oil. This is unpredcedent, unbelieveably difficult but I will make it my goal to see that as little oil as humanly possibly defiles our treasured shores.

BP will be directed to set aside, in escrow, a fund for claims to provide assistance to the families and businesses who lives and livelihoods have been changed forever.

Yes. He needs to play more golf.

How asinine!

Don’t you get it. He is only good at the vague outline. He looks to everyone else to do the hard work for him.

He is not capable. He cannot do the job that we elected him to do. We have entered into a leadership vacuum.

Who among us will seize the day?

Obama, while in the Illinois legislature voted consistently voted ‘present.’

First, let’s be honest. There is now new substance or technology that can supplant oil to power our cars or produce our tupperware. Wishing it into existence is folly. Attempting to tax it into existence is a recipe for economic suicide. Battery powered electric cars or hydrogen powered cars are still years away but we are searching, we are developing. The individual, individuals and the company that is first to bring a competitive product or service to market will be richly rewarded because we clearly have a demand!

Secondly, much of the ‘green’ programs in the ‘stimulus’ bill have been failures.

AP reported in March:
After a year of crippling delays, President Barack Obama’s $5 billion program to install weather-tight windows and doors has retrofitted a fraction of homes and created far fewer construction jobs than expected.

”A very rosy picture was painted that energy efficiency would be a great way to create jobs and save money,” said Michael Shellenberger, an energy expert who heads the Breakthrough Institute, an Oakland-based think tank that is financed by nonpartisan foundations and works on energy, climate change and health care issues. ”The Obama administration risks overpromising again.”

Instead of creating 85,000 jobs with the $5 billion, the Department of Energy claimed it created 8500 jobs, a tenth of the goal. That would put the cost of each job at a whopping $588,235.30, and that’s only if the DoE has its numbers right.

Anyone on this blog is qualified for that job and could complete the task by 5 pm!

Has a challenger ever defeated a sitting president in a primary and then won the general election?

“The Emperor has no clothes!”

You are wrong: actually, the clothes have no emperor.