15 hours and 36 minutes ago
The Obama White House’s inexplicable war on Fox News has magnified Fox’s stature among viewers. Far from marginalizing Fox and delegitimizing it as a news source, as intended, the feud has made more people than ever choose Fox News as their favored source of television infotainment. Fox’s ratings bumped up almost 10 percent in the two weeks after the White House decided to engage Fox News directly. And among advertisers’ favorite demographic — 25- to 54-year-olds — Fox’s ratings went up a whopping 14 percent. This is probably not the kind of change Obama voters thought they were voting for. Congratulations, Obama. You have transformed Fox into the most successful “news” channel ever. — D.K. Jamaal, Examiner.com
The breathless claim that Fox News’ ratings recently spiked thanks to the White House’s public critique is bogus hype. A detailed analysis of Nielsen ratings numbers clearly indicates that in the two weeks after the White House in mid-October sparked a media controversy by claiming Rupert Murdoch’s channel was not a legitimate news organization, Fox News’ ratings did not soar. They experienced no significant increase at all. Instead, in the two weeks after the initial verbal jousts with the White House, Fox News’ total day ratings virtually flatlined. Think about it. The unfolding controversy — which gobbled up untold hours and pages of news coverage as the Beltway press treated the dispute like a major news event — and the hubbub barely moved the ratings needle one inch in Fox News’ favor. — Eric Boehlert, Media Matters
The Web site Edmunds.com contends that the Cash for Clunkers program was a costly incentive because many people would have bought cars anyway. It claims that only 18 percent of car sales wouldn’t have happened without the program — so the per-car incentive cost of those 125,000 cars was $24,000. But the White House countered that Edmunds’ claims are at odds with a number of other reviews of the program, including by Moody’s, and by third-quarter economic growth.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got blunt in Pakistan, speaking to newspaper editors: “Al-Qaida has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002. I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to. Maybe that’s the case; maybe they’re not gettable. I don’t know.”
Meanwhile, a new book by former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe confirms that Clinton came close to being vice president. “I think Bill may be too big a complication,” Plouffe writes, quoting Barack Obama. “If I picked her, my concern is that there would be more than two of us in the relationship.”
It takes a strong spine (or a hard heart) to criticize President Obama’s idea of sending a $250 check to every Social Security recipient — something he wants to do because the cost of living doesn’t entitle seniors to a cost-of-living increase for next year. New York Times economics columnist David Leonhardt noted that because overall prices have dropped 2.1 percent this year but Social Security benefits won’t drop accordingly, “recipients are already set to receive an effective raise.” And seniors may be sympathetic, but they’re better off than some demographics. “The real median income of over-65 households rose 3 percent from 2000 to 2008,” he wrote. “For households headed by somebody age 25 to 44, it fell about 7 percent.”
The whole episode does not bode well for the prospects that Obama and Congress will do something substantive about the unsustainability of Social Security and Medicare. “If the long-term issue is entitlement reform,” said Joel Slemrod, a University of Michigan economist, “the fact that the political system cannot say no to $250 checks to elderly people is a bad sign.”
Two New York Times columnists have offered thoughtful cases against giving Gen. Stanley McChrystal the extra troops he wants in Afghanistan.
Arguing that digging deeper in Afghanistan will weaken the United States, Thomas Friedman wrote: “We simply do not have the Afghan partners, the NATO allies, the domestic support, the financial resources or the national interests to justify an enlarged and prolonged nation-building effort in Afghanistan.”
Suggesting there are better uses for U.S. dollars right now than “inflaming Pashtun nationalism,” Nicholas Kristof doubts more troops will do the trick. He wrote: “We have been fighting in Afghanistan for twice as long as we fought in World War II, with a current price tag estimated to be more than $60 billion a year. Standard counterinsurgency ratios of troops to civilians suggest we would need 650,000 troops (including Afghans) to pacify the country. So will adding 40,000 more to the 68,000 already there make a difference to justify the additional annual cost of $10 billion to $40 billion, especially since they may aggravate the perception of Americans as occupiers?”
If President Obama is disappointed in his point-woman in the House, he wasn’t showing it Monday at a Democratic fundraiser in Miami Beach. “I don’t think people quite understand. Nancy Pelosi is not simply the first woman speaker of the House,” he told the crowd. “I think she’s going to go down as one of the greatest speakers of all time. And she’s very nice and she’s very friendly, but, boy, she is tough. And that’s what you need when you’re putting up with all the criticism and the carping and the griping — and that’s from the Democrats. I mean, you should see what she has to put up with — from the Republicans. So I could not have a better partner in trying to move the country than Nancy Pelosi.”
Some reactions on ABC’s “This Week” to Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to ease up on prosecutions of medicinal use of marijuana in the 14 states that allow it:
“We have legalized gambling in this country over two generations. It used to be considered a sin and a crime. With no national debate and no decision moment — we just did it — we have legalized prostitution, as anyone who opens a telephone book and looks under ‘escort’ can tell you. And we’re probably in the process now of legalizing marijuana.” — Washington Post columnist George Will
“We won’t see a full legalization of marijuana until somebody figures out that if you tax it, maybe you can pay for health care.” — John Podesta, former White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton
“I wish that I believed that this was going to lead to some broader federal look at the whole futile war on drugs.” — Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker
President Obama should set a timetable to get our troops out of Afghanistan as soon as is practically possible. Their presence cannot contribute to bringing peace and security to that country, nor does it contribute to the security of the United States. In fact, the occupation of Afghanistan is making things worse. The United States has helped put together a government dominated in key positions — especially military, police and intelligence — by Tajiks, the ethnic group whose paramilitary leaders were the first to strike a deal with the invading forces. Not surprisingly, this contributed to the nationalist fuel for the insurgency among the Pashtuns, the country’s largest ethnic group. This contribution to ethnic conflict is a common mistake, or sometimes a tactic, of occupying powers that helps drive lasting and violent civil wars. — Mark Weisbrot, Center for Economic and Policy Research
There are many reasons for hunkering down in Afghanistan and adopting a tougher military strategy so Americans and their NATO allies can finally leave behind a more stable — though barely democratic — Middle East. New York City, Philadelphia, Denver, Springfield, Ill., and the U.S. Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va., are high among those reasons. All five places were prime targets of suspected radical Islamic jihadists, as emerged from plots the FBI and local police nixed in September. Most of the would-be terrorists the FBI has identified and arrested had trained at various al-Qaida camps in or near Afghanistan. And all of them had gained cover in the United States by posing as normal members of moderate Muslim communities. — Bogdan Kipling, for McClatchy-Tribune News Service
“Slashing executive salaries, bonuses and perks at the seven bailed-out companies that gorged most gluttonously at the public trough is emotionally satisfying, but it shouldn’t be,” wrote columnist Eugene Robinson. “It’s like arresting jaywalkers while ignoring the bank robbery that’s happening in broad daylight down the block.” Though he supports the pay caps, Robinson argued that the Obama administration isn’t doing enough to “curb the irresponsible Wall Street practices that led to the financial meltdown — and, if unaddressed, will lead inexorably to the next crisis.”
Former Vice President Dick Cheney is back at it, calling the Obama administration’s abandonment of a missile-defense program in Eastern Europe “a strategic blunder,” criticizing diplomatic outreach efforts to Iran, and disparaging complaints about torture as “a libel against dedicated professionals.” During a speech Wednesday to the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., Cheney also accused President Obama of “dithering” on Afghanistan “while America’s armed forces are in danger.” Cheney said that Obama “seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission.”
But retired Gen. Paul Eaton, who used to oversee training of the Iraqi military, responded that Cheney and other Bush administration officials were “incompetent war fighters” who left a mess that Obama must clean up. He said they “ignored Afghanistan for seven years with a crude approach to counterinsurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it. 2. Ignore it. 3. Bomb it.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius raised eyebrows today during her Senate testimony about H1N1 readiness. A Washington Post blog explained that Kansas’ former governor had an outpatient procedure Tuesday to remove a basal cell carcinoma from her forehead.
“President Obama’s brief display of drive-by compassion Thursday in New Orleans was, for me, by far the worst outing of his presidency thus far — and the biggest disappointment,” columnist Eugene Robinson wrote. He said that “it was strange and disheartening that Obama would wait nine months to make his first visit to New Orleans as president. It was stunning that he would spend only a few hours on the ground and that he wouldn’t set foot in Mississippi or Alabama at all. But worst of all was the way he seemed to dismiss the idea that his administration could and should be doing much more.”
“Run? I can’t hardly walk.” — Former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, asked if he might run for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat next year
“Your Cash for Clunkers was the very last card. Now what’s a redneck like me gonna block up in my yard?” — Rep. Bill Otto, R-LeRoy, in an anti-Obama “RedNeck Rap” YouTube video some saw as racist
“It’s not lost on me that we’re both African-American and under 9 feet tall.” — Patrick Woods, Kansas SRS legislative liaison, on an incident in which Otto confused Woods with the much-older Health and Environment Secretary Rod Bremby
“The Obama administration really needs to get over itself.” So wrote John Nichols of the Nation, having had his fill of the White House’s official criticism of Fox News (for being too partisan and unfairly critical) and unofficial criticism of left-wing bloggers (for being insufficiently supportive). Nichols offered three facts to consider:
– “Since the founding of the republic, media outlets (the founders dismissed them as ‘damnable periodicals’) have been partisan.”
– “Presidents are supposed to rise above their own partisanship and engage with a wide range of media — even outlets that are hard on their administrations.”
– “The worst mistake a president or his administration can make is to try and ‘whip’ relatively like-minded writers and reporters into line.”
Nichols concluded: “Nothing — no attack by Glenn Beck, no blogger busting about Guantanamo — does more damage to Obama’s credibility or authority than the sense that a popular president is becoming the whiner-in-chief.”
President Obama vowed last weekend to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military. Much of the reporting about this policy in recent years has focused on soldiers who were outed. But Joseph Rocha wrote that the policy is sometimes used as a threat to keep people silent about abuse. He claims that he was hazed and physically assaulted by other soldiers who suspected that he was gay, but that he was afraid to report the abuse because it could lead to an investigation into his sexuality. “My leaders and fellow sailors were punishing me for keeping my sexuality to myself, punishing me because I wouldn’t ‘tell.’” He also claimed that some superiors threatened women to keep quiet about sexual assaults by suggesting that they were lesbians.
From Eugene Robinson’s column: “The president of the United States wins the Nobel Peace Prize and Rush Limbaugh joins with the Taliban in bitterly denouncing the award? Glenn Beck has a conniption fit and demands that the president not accept what may be the world’s most prestigious honor? The Republican National Committee issues a statement sarcastically mocking our nation’s leader — elected, you will recall, by a healthy majority — as unworthy of such recognition? Why, oh why, do conservatives hate America so?”
Reps. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, and Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, have been trying to out-conservative each other in their GOP primary contest next year for the U.S. Senate. Nearly every week, one or the other issues a press release aimed at appealing to some right-wing concern, real or imagined. Last week Moran introduced a resolution calling on President Obama to stop appointing “czars.” But as experts told a Senate panel last week, “czar” is a made-up media term, and such advisers have been common among past presidents. FactCheck.org determined that President George W. Bush had more such advisers than President Obama does. That caused Kenny Johnston, executive director of the Kansas Democratic Party, to observe: “For eight years Jerry Moran said nothing as Bush made a record number of executive appointments. To speak up now is nothing more than an attempt to court far-right primary voters.”
Much of the reaction to the news that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize has been surprise that he was awarded the prize so soon in his presidency. Obama has made some significant efforts to improve diplomacy and to reach out to the Muslim world, and he has called for a world free of nuclear weapons. But he hasn’t accomplished much yet, other than improving the world’s opinion of the United States.
Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, wants to revoke ACORN’s tax-exempt status. But in making that case, Tiahrt doesn’t need to follow the example of talk-radio hosts and exaggerate the link between ACORN and President Obama. In a statement Tiahrt read recently on the House floor, he claimed that ACORN was “the political machine of President Obama” and said that Obama paid ACORN more than $800,000 to “help him win the White House.” But as FactCheck.org determined, Obama has had minimal association with ACORN since he helped represent the group and other plaintiffs in a “motor-voter” case in 1995. Obama’s campaign did pay ACORN $800,000 during the Democratic primary as part of a “get out the vote” effort. But that’s 0.1 percent of the more than $700 million Obama spent during the 2008 campaign.
September was a rough month for President Obama in Kansas, judging from the latest SurveyUSA poll co-sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12. Only 39 percent of Kansans surveyed approve of the job he’s doing, down six percentage points in a month and down 23 points since he took office. The month ended with approval ratings for Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback slipping a few percentage points to 54 and 48 percent, respectively. Gov. Mark Parkinson saw his approval number rise four points to 53 percent, the highest in his five months in office.
By a large margin, Barack Obama is the most overexposed president in our nation’s history. It is impossible to get away from his image and voice. A study by Towson University professor Martha Joynt Kumar showed that Obama had done 114 media interviews after his first seven months in office, about three times more than George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at the same point in their tenures. It seems that the president believes that the more he appears on television and says the same thing, the more support he will generate for his health care plan. Unfortunately for Obama, just the opposite is occurring. People are not swayed by Obama. The president should forgo governing and pursue his real dream, starring on his own television channel, the Obama Channel, all Barack, all the time. — Jeff Crouere, BayouBuzz.com
Because he is the object of unceasing criticism, Barack Obama is also the object of unceasing attention. Day after day and night after night, his is the face we see and the voice we hear. Like Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, he bestrides the political landscape like a colossus. And his opponents? Talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, Fox News host Glenn Beck, and GOP lawmakers John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Jim DeMint and Joe Wilson. As these pygmies shoot their little arrows, Obama stands there shaking them off and accepting apologies. He takes shot after shot, and not only is he still standing, he’s still smiling. If health care reform is achieved, Obama will get the credit. If it is not, the blame will be distributed among all those whose exertions he encouraged by appearing to do nothing. And when it is all over, it will still be all Obama, all of the time. — Stanley Fish, NYTimes.com
“Sometimes I wonder whether George H.W. Bush, president ‘41,’ will be remembered as our last ‘legitimate’ president,” columnist Thomas Friedman wrote. He noted how the right hounded Bill Clinton from day one with the bogus Whitewater scandal, and how the left never let George W. Bush forget about the disputed 2000 election. And now, Friedman wrote, the right wing is trying to delegitimize President Obama “using everything from smears that he is a closet ‘socialist’ to calling him a ‘liar’ in the middle of a joint session of Congress to fabricating doubts about his birth in America and whether he is even a citizen.”
Friedman argued that it is OK to criticize Obama’s policies or even his character. “But if we destroy the legitimacy of another president to lead or to pull the country together for what most Americans want most right now — nation-building at home — we are in serious trouble,” Friedman wrote. “We can’t go 24 years without a legitimate president — not without being swamped by the problems that we will end up postponing because we can’t address them rationally.”
An article by the conservative Hudson Institute concludes that President Obama has a “policy approach” to governing. Rather than focusing on incremental changes and fixes, Obama prefers comprehensive policies aimed at making systems more rational and coherent. While that may be admirable, columnist David Broder warns that such an approach usually isn’t very successful because of the messy legislative process. Congress has 535 members, all with their own agendas or parochial interests. Add in the influence of special interests, and it makes large changes difficult. For example, Broder said, the energy bill started out in the House as a “reasonably coherent set of trade-offs that would reduce carbon emissions and help the atmosphere” and ended up as “a grab bag of subsidies and payoffs to various industries and groups.” Broder wrote: “Democracy and representative government are a lot messier than the progressives and their heirs, including Obama, want to admit. No wonder they are so often frustrated.”
Many of those complaining about President Obama’s “unelected and unaccountable czars” seem to have a bad case of amnesia — or at least selective outrage. After all, President Bush had more such “czars” than President Obama supposedly has. Yet during the Bush years, columnist Dick Polman noted, “there was nary a cry about imperial Russia from the president’s congressional cheerleaders, nor from his fans on Fox.”
Despite President Obama’s assurances today at the United Nations that the United States understands “the gravity of the climate threat ” and is “determined to act,” world leaders are justified in being skeptical. The fact is that many Americans, including most GOP members of Congress, are unconvinced of this threat and are unsupportive of actions that would cost much money or require significant lifestyle changes. For example, the cap-and-trade bill in Congress faces strong opposition, and its Senate passage seems doubtful. Yet as Obama also argued: “Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it — boldly, swiftly and together — we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe.”
