This is classic.

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You judge for yourself: is Jon Stewart right to skewer Fox? Before you decide, listen to the last minute of the segment.

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The most newsworthy item in this clip is Emanuel saying that the healthcare bill cannot pass the Senate with a public option. Along those lines reports are now coming out that the Obama Administration is negotiating with Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) to use a watered-down ‘public-option trigger’ which she has said she will support. The White House has denied these reports.

Likely we will see either a trigger mechanism or an insurance co-op.

Here’s the Emanuel clip from Charlie Rose.

(Video embedded below. If you experience a problem, use this link instead.)

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I have been arguing for some time that Barack Obama made a crucial tactical error in bailing out the big banks early in his presidency. His actions have left him vulnerable to populist resentment.  In my view, this weakens his credibility and ability to push through other pieces of his legislative agenda and will harm Democrats in the 2010 elections.

Slipping poll numbers

Indeed, Obama has slipped somewhat in opinion polls. Now, some will tell you that it is because Obama is running a socialist left-wing big government agenda in a center-right country. And as a result, he is losing independent voters. But, is that really true? 

While conservatives are opposed to the Democrats’ health care initiatives as an expansion of the state, progressives are identifiably more opposed to a greater number of Obama legislative issues (willingness to abandon the public option, escalation of war in Afghanistan, and continuation of rendition to name a few).

Bailouts poisoned the well

I would argue that it is the apparent ineffectiveness and unfairness of Obama’s policy initiatives on banks and the economy which has angered middle class Americans – conservatives and liberals alike. The economy is still in the tank despite incipient signs of a technical recovery. And Americans understand that banks and bank staff are making lots of money while thousands lose job and home.

Why then would you trust government? More likely, you would see government as the problem? Most people are not ideological and have no opinion about the role of government except when things are not going well. In my view, this is a major reason why so many are sceptical about changing healthcare. Barry Ritholtz gave voice to this sentiment in a post earlier today.

A problem of substance and style

However, I want to take this one step further because the problem is as much style as substance.  Today, we are to hear Obama’s much-anticipated speech on healthcare reform.  Some feel this is a make-or-break speech for the President. I look forward to hearing his ideas.  But, I don’t expect to hear anything new and I suspect many others feel the same way. Has Obama’s charm worn off?  In some ways, yes.

I have tried to put my finger on it in previous posts, and I think Barry did a fine job in describing the connection between the disgust over bailouts and  Obama’s difficulty with healthcare.  But, there was something missing for me until I saw Yves Smith’s last post on debtor’s revolt. The woman in the video calling for a debtor’s strike made a passing reference to the bailouts which made clear to me her anger that a bank could charge her 30% interest when that same bank wouldn’t exist except through taxpayer largesse.

And that’s when it hit me: it’s the Obama as Bush Three meme. Look at these two videos below. I have some words afterwards.

George W. Bush video

Barack Obama video

As I see it, the man in video number one shows extreme callousness when switching abruptly from a serious discourse about war to a game of golf, generally considered the sport of the wealthy. If one wants a defining moment for the failure of George W. Bush’s presidency, there it is.

Fast forward to August 2009 and we see an eerily similar circumstance.  The economy is still in tatters and Americans are at verbal war over health care. Yet, the President of the United States is off playing golf. Why anyone in the White House thinks this is a good idea is beyond me. It certainly appears to be more of the same – and that is in striking contrast to the pre-inauguration image Obama enjoyed.

I was struck by the fact that Obama was golfing during his vacation two weeks ago as his legislative agenda was falling apart.  So this is the image that I will have in my head as I listen to the President tell us why his legislative agenda is the right one for America.

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While I have come down hard on some aspects of Barack Obama’s legislative agenda, I have not been painting him with a Hitler moustache or accusing him of socialism, that great evil practised only in cheese-loving France.  So I was disappointed to learn how vociferously some were shouting down the President’s back-to-school speech.

The shouts of Fascism in the direction of the President are laughable. Can we please have a reasoned political debate without throwing in meaningless historical references?

So, here it is below in all it’s glory – Barack Hussein Obama’s back-to-school speech.

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School Daze and And while we’re on the subject … – Cartoons in Scranton Times-Tribune

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Here, Eisenhower was talking about the military industrial complex in 1961. Today, one could make similar statements about other powerful lobby groups like the finance industry (or the healthcare and oil industries).

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Senator Ted Kennedy died last night after a year’s battle with cancer. However one might feel about his politics, one must admit that Ted Kennedy had a remarkable life, one that is celebrated in the video clip below.

No related posts.

I listened to the first day of the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings for a spot as a US Supreme Court justice. I was very impressed.  The three who impressed me the most were Al Franken (D-MN), Arlen Specter (D-PA), and Sotomayor herself.

Franken was very well-spoken, even inspirational in his commentary after his introductory remarks.  Specter showed himself to be the hard-nosed pit bull of a legislator that we have come to love/hate.  The man is clearly knowledgeable about the issues and jurisprudence in a way that would leave you satisfied with the abilities of our legislators.

Sotomayor, as she described herself, is the epitome of what we should be looking for: someone who decides cases based on the law and nothing more.  If the GOP wants to get Sotomayor on so-called judicial activism, they have a very difficult struggle in front of them.

Below is some Bloomberg Television commentary about the hearings.  If and when I get other footage, I will post it.

Update 1935ET: Here is the transcript of her opening statement via Swampland’s Jay Newton-Small.

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Marshall Auerback sent me this joke about Mark Sanford.

Mark Sanford’s staff thought he was hiking in the mountains. In fairness to his aides, "I’m getting some Argentinian tail." sounds a lot like "I’m hiking the Appalachian Trail."

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Ahmadi-Nejad win sparks violent clashes – FT
Iranian Elections – Mark Thoma
Iran Elections – Swampland
The Persian Paradox: Understanding Iran and Iranians (video) – FORA.tv

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From Charlie Rose’s site: “Reaction to President Obama’s speech in Cairo with Mohamad Bazzi, Roger Cohen, David Ignatius and Robin Wright.”

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George H. W. Bush’s National Security Advisor talks with Charlie Rose and Carlos Pascual, Brookings Institute vice president and director of Foreign Policy. They opine on “the Obama Doctrine” as Barack Obama nears his 100-day mark in office.

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I say no, he needs to get all of this out in the open and behind us.  But the Conservative Wall Street Journal’s Jerry Seib makes a compelling argument that he should, using Jerry Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon as a reason.  Take a look.  And if you’re interested in Watergate, the recent film Frost/Nixon is a brilliant look into aspects of that time in the U.S. political scene.

Obama is shifting his stance on waterboarding as the furore grows about this issue. Take a look. There’s a special appearance by Waterboarder-in-chief Dick Cheney, defending himself. Pretty nauseating, actually.

This last video goes to the internal debate regarding releasing the classified waterboarding memos. Many at the CIA are up in arms about it. Personally, I support the CIA as a very necessary organization, one that works hand-in-hand with the State Department. However, they do not get a free pass.

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Jon Stewart makes light of the stimulus debate.

The comedy continues in the next segment:
Solving the Economic Crisis – John Oliver and Jon Stewart

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This video of George Bush’s top 10 moments according to David Letterman is hilarious. Bush is nearly out of office. We’ll miss moments like these. (hat tip Marshall)

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Here’s a little video that should teach you why you need to erase all data permanently before you sell or get rid of any computer, Blackberry or computing device.

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The video below comes via the Daily Kos and YouTube.

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) has said that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) needs to publicly apologize for his actions during the recent U.S. Presidential Campaign in order to retain his seat as Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. Lieberman, now an independent, supported Republican John McCain despite having run as a Democrat as Vice President on the ticket with Al Gore in 2000.

However, no apology was forthcoming. He still retained his seat. Go figure.

The video shows why Democrats have been miffed about Lieberman’s previous rhetoric and how he changed his tune between 2006 and 2008. Apparently, a potential offer to run as McCain’s running mate had much influence on his change of tune.

Source
Lieberman Keeps Senate Chairmanship – ABC News

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Quite funny.

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Patrick Buchanan has given up on any chances of McCain winning this election judging by his last blog post. The title alone says it all. In a missive titled “Obama’s First 100 Days” Buchanan asks what an Obama Administration will look like.

While you may disagree with the sometimes controversial Pat Buchanan, he is always interesting.

Undeniably, a powerful tide is running for the Democratic Party, with one week left to Election Day.

Bush’s approval rating is 27 percent, just above Richard Nixon’s Watergate nadir and almost down to Carter-Truman lows. After each of those presidents reached their floors — in 1952, 1974, 1980 — the opposition party captured the White House.

Moreover, 80 percent to 90 percent of Americans think the nation is on the wrong course, and since mid-September, when McCain was still slightly ahead, the Dow has lost 4,000 points — $5 trillion to $6 trillion in value.

Leading now by eight points in an average of national polls, Barack Obama has other advantages.

Not a single blue state is regarded as imperiled or even a toss-up, while Obama leads in six crucial red states: Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri and Colorado. Should McCain lose one of the six, he would have to win Pennsylvania to compensate for the lost electoral votes. But the latest Pennsylvania polls show Barack with a double-digit lead.

Lately moving into the toss-up category are Nevada, North Dakota, Montana and Indiana. All voted twice for George W. Bush.

Not only is Obama ahead in the state and national polls, he has more money, is running far more ads, has a superior organization on the ground, attracts larger crowds, and has greater enthusiasm and more media in camp. And new voter registrations heavily favor the Democrats.

Though Congress is regarded by Americans with a disdain bordering on disgust — five of six Americans think it has done a poor job — Democratic majorities are certain to grow. Indeed, with Democrats favored by 10 points over Republicans, Nancy Pelosi’s majority could grow by 25 seats and Harry Reid could find himself with a filibuster-proof majority of 60 senators.

Democrats already have 49, plus two independents: Socialist Bernie Sanders and Independent Joe Lieberman. Their challengers are now ahead in New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Minnesota, Oregon and Colorado, with a chance of picking up Georgia, Alaska, Kentucky and Mississippi.

We may be looking at a reverse of 1980, when Reagan won a 10-point victory over Jimmy Carter, and Republicans took the Senate and, working with Boll Weevil Democrats, effective control of the House.

With his tax cuts, defense buildup and rollback policy against the “Evil Empire,” Reagan gave us some of the best years of our lives, culminating in America’s epochal victory in the Cold War.

What does the triumvirate of Obama-Pelosi-Reid offer?

Read on to find out what Pat thinks! I don’t agree with his premises above or conclusions, but it is debate-worthy nevertheless. What’s your opinion of what he has to say?

Source
Obama’s First 100 Days – Patrick Buchanan

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You remember the furor in 2004 over the hackability of the Diebold voting machines? Well, that same worry is back in 2008 and apparently Homer Simpson has fallen prey. Watch the video. Hilarious. (hat tip Marshall Auerback).

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This SNL skit making fun of the Obamas is hilarious. Even Obama fans have to laugh! (hat tip Marshall Auerback).

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If you are in need a little comic relief, I have the answer: Jon Stewart. He is my distraction of the day.

Stewart has a great segment from last night on election gaffes. The part where Al Gore gives Tipper a big wet kiss is a classic. But, this one is all Joe Biden — the guy is a gaffe-machine (bless his heart because I am voting for him).

Happy Friday. Tomorrow night, Marshall Auerback is in town and I am going to need a drink….or two…or three.

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Race has a way of inserting itself into almost everything in America. I have always found this troubling. In this particular Presidential election, it should be the economy here, the economy there, the economy everywhere. Yet, we also find the issue of race a factor where it should not be.

Witness Patrick Buchanan. Now, I have a certain amount of respect Patrick Buchanan, the former U.S. Republican Presidential candidate (after all, his website is on my blogroll). I came of age watching him debate Morton Kondracke and Eleanor Clift on “The McLaughlin Group” weekly in the early 1980s. His controversial ideas on foreign policy are top-notch. However, when it comes to domestic politics, he often veers off into the jingoist and downright racist side of things.

Such is the case again regarding Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama for President. Buchanan makes a connection between Obama and Powell that many seem to have made silently, but have been afraid to voice out loud in a politically correct America — they are both Black.

Was race a factor in the decision of Colin Powell to repudiate his party’s nominee and friend of 25 years, Sen. John McCain, two weeks before Election Day, and to endorse Barack Obama?

Gen. Powell does not deny it, contending only that race was not the only or decisive factor. “If I had only that fact in mind,” he told Tom Brokaw, “I could have done this six, eight, ten months ago.”

Yet, in hailing Barack as a “transformational figure” whose election would “electrify our country … (and) the world,” Powell seems to testify to the centrality of Barack’s ethnicity to his decision.

For what else is there about this freshman senator, who has no significant legislative accomplishment, to transform our politics and to electrify the world, other than the fact that he would be the nation’s first African-American president?

Powell’s endorsement follows that of another African-American icon, Congressman John Lewis of Selma Bridge fame, who switched allegiance from Hillary to Barack, while Clinton still had a fighting chance to win.

When Lewis deserted her in February, he, too, claimed a Road-to-Damascus experience, to have seen a transformational figure:

“Something’s happening in America, something some of us did not see coming … Barack Obama has tapped into something that is extraordinary. … It’s a movement. It’s a spiritual event.”

Lewis’ desertion, however, was not unrelated to a primary challenge in his Atlanta district and angry constituent demands to know why he was not backing the first black with a real chance at winning the White House.

Powell was under no such pressure. Hence, what he did, and why, are subjects of media and political speculation.

Understandably, Powell is being hailed by the Obama media as a profile in courage. Equally understandably, his endorsement of Obama is said by Republicans to smack of ingratitude, opportunism, and even vindictiveness toward a party to which he owes his fame and career.

Here was a man who was rendered extraordinary honors by three Republican presidents. Reagan raised him from Army colonel to national security adviser, the first African-American in the post. George H. W. Bush named him chairman of the Joint Chiefs, over hundreds of more senior officers. George W. Bush made him the first African-American secretary of state.

While he may have gotten well with the capital elite with this decision, Powell has wounded his party’s nominee at a point of maximum vulnerability, a friend who supported him on the war, and agreed with Powell on the need for a larger invasion force. And Powell has embraced a liberal Democrat who owes his nomination to his fierce opposition to the war Powell sold the nation, a war Obama calls the worst blunder in U.S. history and a manifestation of a lack of judgment by those, like Colin Powell, who launched it.

Joe Biden, who voted to authorize the war, now calls his vote a mistake. Yet, Powell endorses him, too, while repudiating a McCain-Palin ticket that continues to defend his war.

And the scatter-gun attack Powell launched on the GOP ticket — hitting McCain for fumbling the financial crisis, choosing Sarah Palin, pressing Barack’s association with William Ayers, and not defending Obama’s Christianity — suggests a man with scores to settle with the party of George W. Bush.

Yet, what kind of Republican can Powell be when he professes deep concern that McCain might choose Supreme Court justices like John Roberts and Sam Alito? Every Republican in the Senate voted for Roberts. All but one voted for Alito.

Does Colin Powell have a problem with Antonin Scalia? Is the general a Ruth Bader Ginsberg Republican?

There is speculation Powell feels badly used by the neocons who cherry-picked and hyped the intelligence about weapons of mass destruction he presented at the U.N., and that he harbors a distrust of the neocons now reassembling around McCain.

If so, he surely has a case, and should have made it.

But in the last analysis, one comes back to the forbidden issue of ethnicity. For example, would Powell have endorsed Hillary, had she won the nomination? After all, her views on Iraq — having supported the war and never apologized — are even closer to Powell’s than Obama’s.

The issue cannot be avoided.

After all, we are in a year where Obama defeated the wife of “our first black president,” Bill Clinton, 90-10 in the black wards of Philly, and African-Americans, in one poll, are going 94-1 for Barack. And a Republican ticket that is hammering Barack on his ties to William Ayers fears to bring up his far closer ties to the Afro-racist anti-American Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Organizing a fundraiser last year for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, an Hispanic Democrat, Lionel Sosa of San Antonio, a political strategist for Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II, said, “Blood runs thicker than politics.”

Mr. Sosa is perhaps more candid about his motives than folks in D.C.

-Tribal Politics

The thought process here goes: Powell is Black. Obama is Black. Powell is a Republican. Obama is a Democrat. Therefore, Powell supports Obama only because they are both black. So, vote Republican because we care about issues, not race.

Hmmm. What about Chuck Hagel and Chris Buckley? Aren’t they also Republicans for Obama? In truth, I find this whole line of thinking quite sinister. It reminds me of a comment made by Australian Tennis Player Lleyton Hewitt in a match against American James Blake, who is half-black.

In a five set match with James Blake at the 2001 U.S. Open, Hewitt complained to umpire Andres Egli and asked for a black linesman to be moved after being called for two foot-faults in the third set. “Look at him,” Hewitt said, gesturing at the linesman. He approached the chair umpire and, pointing first to the offending linesman and then to Blake, said,”Look at him and you tell me what the similarity is.”
-Wikipedia

It is this type of thinking that leads to comments like this one here responding to Buchanan’s blog post:

friscokid said:

Powell is an intelligent and capable bureaucrat, but that’s all he is. He was used by the Republican Party to put a visible black face high up in the government, but he’s really just a spineless person (kind of like Joe Biden, come to think of it). Why else would he have allowed himself to be used by people
who, as is apparent now, he didn’t even like and who’s ideas he didn’t support.

Powell’s allegience to Obama is probably indicative of what we can expect from most black appointees in an Obama administration: if there is any friction or disagreement between a white person and a black person, we can count on black bureaucrats to side with blacks every time. Tribalism, which is what we’ve been taught is wrong, and which was waning, will have a sudden resurgence, in my opinion. The concept of payback for past injustices will also certainly be a factor in the intensity of the tribalism that we can expect to see.

Barack Obama is just one man. Even if you think he’s fair, his appointees are going to be running our daily lives. I don’t think most people are going to like what they do.

-Tribal Politics, comments section

Hello? It’s the economy, Stupid. But, apparently, this is how many frame issues in their mind. In an election as important as any in some 75 years, it would be nice to see the issue of race handled with greater dignity and less suspicion.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

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• Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama
• As I predicted: On June 4th Hillary Rodham Clinton abandons race
• Obama leads McCain by 2 points
• Patrick Buchanan throws in the towel
• Now Obama is back to not being good enough?

Below are the videos of Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live.” I thought it showed good humor on her part to be on the show. I give her full credit despite what some critics might say. Take a look.

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