Those Despondent Republicans

D'oh! Can't anything go right for the Republicans?

Just when it seemed like everything was coming up roses -- the United States lost the Olympics -- they just turn around and this happens, President Obama is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize!

Then they rush out to criticize the award, since any honor for America or Americans is something to despise, and are tripped up by two other very patriotic groups, Hamas and the Taliban, trying to hog the microphone.

Add to that: The president's approval ratings went up six points in a couple of days, the fact that things look more on track to get credible health care reform, the stock market's going up, and the sun came out this morning. Nothing can go right!

The Republicans almost had a piece of good news -- came that close. They heard we attacked the moon and figured we'd be in another big war. But it turns out no one up there cared. So even that's a downer.

"I Will Protect Medicare"

President Barack Obama said these important words tonight, "I will protect Medicare."

And the Republicans sat on their hands. Take note, senior citizens of America, and anyone who hopes to be a senior citizen someday: The Republicans sat on their hands.

The Republicans showed in that one moment, if it hasn't been crystal clear all these many years, that they hate Medicare and are determined to do away with it.

We cannot let the Republicans get their greedy paws on Medicare. They cannot be trusted.

Amen To Joe The Nerd Ferraro

I want President Obama to clunk some heads. The Republicans, if he can. But I'm talking about the Democrats, because he must.

I'm a Democrat and I am sick practically to death that the Democrats are not seizing this moment to get some great Democratic things done. Oh no, it wasn't enough to get a Democratic majority. We do that and what do we find, we have a whole wing of the Democratic party who are Republicans in Democratic clothes. Good grief!

I want someone to put the squeeze on them. Play hardball. Break their political kneecaps if that's what you have to do. Put their political manhood in a vise and do some crunching. Let them know if they betray us it will be the last time they dare do so! Something like that. I want a party with some discipline. You either go along with the principles of this party or we'll find someone who does.

Away with Max Baucus! Away with Joe Lieberman! Away with Ben Nelson! If we're going to have a Republican senator from Nebraska anyway we may as well have a Republican senator!

I like this comment by Joe the Nerd Ferraro, speaking of President Obama's health care speech coming up Wednesday night:

I want the low growl that says we are going to get this done. I want to hear an attitude that says, “Any Democrat stepping out of line at this point is done. Not because I say so, but because every person who worked for me last year will be ticked off. Do you seriously think any volunteer will work for you next year if this opportunity is squandered?”

Amen to that! "Any Democrat stepping out of line at this point is done." You got that?

Hey Stupid Teabaggers - Obama Ain't Hitler

Some guy came in and told me today that he heard some teabaggers (giving tea a bad name, by the way) saying Obama is Hitler.

Is there anything more ludicrous? Probably, but I don't know what it could be.

Look, stupid, if Obama was Hitler you wouldn't be saying that so freely. Because if Obama was Hitler he'd have you in a concentration camp, your kids would be dead, and we'd be breaking your windows and stealing your stuff.

The fact that none of that is happening and that you're free to say it without anyone laying a hand on you proves that what you're saying is false and stupid.

Save the Hitler crap for someday when the real thing comes along. It's like Chicken Little. If Hitler is every person you disagree with, no one's going to believe anything else you say ... even if Hitler suddenly did show up. We'd be going, Yeah, those yahoos think everyone's Hitler!

The Republicans' "Great White Hope"

Oh my, how can these Republicans get up and say such things? I can easily picture all kinds of racist thoughts taking place in private, but to go to some public venue and spout this kind of thing is beyond belief.

The latest to lament on the fact that we have a black president, and that we should do something about it, is Kansas Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins (R-KS), who says the GOP must find its "great white hope" to lead them back to power.

The term of course comes out of boxing, from back in the day when there was a black boxer who was the champ. So who can we get to bring the title back to its rightful owners, the white folk? We need a "great white hope." That's what the word "white" is there for. It was a racist thing.

The Republicans might want to think about how this is playing with the voters. We're making progress on some of these issues. They might want to come along as well.

Krugman Nails It

Paul Krugman nails it today in his column, "Republican Death Trip." Speaking of the right-wingers and their despicable lies and distortions about President Obama and health care reform, he says,

This opposition cannot be appeased.

That's exactly true. And I have to hope that President Obama knows what he's doing in continuing his dance with the extremists, including supposed "centrist," Charles Grassley. These people are stabbing him in the back. Like it or not, there's no bipartisan heaven just up the road.

The time for kicking ass has come. President Obama has the power to do it if he chooses.

But, as Krugman says,

What’s still missing, however, is a sense of passion and outrage — passion for the goal of ensuring that every American gets the health care he or she needs, outrage at the lies and fear-mongering that are being used to block that goal.

Please, please, please, Mr. President. Take these despicable Republicans down. And get the job done for the American people.

You wanted to be president to bring "change we can believe in." You're there ... Now do it!

Cash For Clunkers

I'm just starting to notice signs at local car places about "Cash for Clunkers" and stories about it online. Now I'm seeing a story that John McCain will be opposing more money for "Cash for Clunkers."

Why McCain is opposed to it, I don't really know. His campaign was sort of a clunker and he got all kinds of cash for that.

When it comes to Brainiacs who know what good legislation is (or bad) I don't think we should be looking to McCain. After all, his idea of a great president (vice president who might have to step in) was Sarah Palin. And we know what a clunker that idea was.

I don't think my own personal clunker would qualify for this program. Not that I've looked it up, since I'm not in the market for a car. But I think it has to be a gas guzzler and mine gets fairly good mileage.

But I'm not opposed to subsidies for other people's cars, since it's all meant to stimulate the economy. They used to just send us a check. Now they're channeling the money into a program like this, which seems more efficient. Go right to the point of sale where someone is actually spending it.

McCain and the Republicans (clunkers every one) will be opposed to this. They are, after all, afraid that something might work. They're invested in the idea that Obama must fail. So they can stand back and complain about how he failed, i.e., precisely what they wanted. (Hint: The Republicans are no good.)

Sniffing Dogs

Here's a good picture of President Obama shaking paws with the first dog of Mexico, President Felipe Calderon's golden retriever.

You have to wonder what kind of security they have when he's jetting around the world, meeting every species of human and animal. I hope it's good.

We know they have bomb sniffing dogs. But if he sees very many more dogs he'll probably see a lot of dog sniffing dogs. I know I see a lot of that when dogs are together.

The Republicans' Budget

I'm tempted to leave a big empty spot here, to faithfully convey what the Republican alternative is to President Obama's budget.

That's what they offered today. I haven't seen a copy of the budget, but according to Robert Gibbs, it takes a few minutes to read it. I did see one very interesting chart. I believe I can still picture it in my mind. It had three circles and one rectangle. The rectangle was the title and the circles specified the principles of the budget. And I believe reduced government spending was one of the circles. So ... there ...

The Republicans are simply the Party of No. They have nothing to offer except to nay say and gainsay the President's thoughtful plans. It's time to run these cretins out of Washington. They're not doing the people's business. They in it to please lobbyists and probably to line their own pockets. Empty, empty. Shameful. But kind of funny.

Obama Does It Again!

Did President Obama do that? Make the stock market go up another 6.8%?

I guess he did, because people were willing to blame him when it went down. So he must be working some of his own Obamagic to get things done.

I hope things keep improving, but who knows? It seems like if everything's as bad as they say that we'll have downs as well as ups. Even if we have lots of downs in addition to the ups, we can be extra thankful that we have Obama and not Bush in office. The fragrance of honesty as opposed to Bush's stench of corruption is a major up all by itself.

As for everyone picking at Obama, criticizing everything he does, there's not one of them could do it any better. The Republicans? Please. They had eight years and gave us pure misery every single day. Obama's got it going on. He's the only president we have. We want him to succeed! If Obama succeeds we all win.

In other news, it's reported, through Oprah, that Michelle Obama is not pregnant.

Make Bush Disappear

President Obama has sent out a memo telling whoever, the government to ignore George Bush's signing statements. These were Bush's excessive end runs around whatever law it was he wished to violate on a particular day. So, we're making progress!

Obama also lifted Bush's ban on stem cell research, and in general Bush's war on science. Again, more progress.

Now, if somehow Obama can just wipe history clean and make it so Bush's criminal presidency never happened, then we'll be happy. But I don't think he's going to be able to accomplish that trick.

What we're just going to have to settle for is undoing as much damage as possible. And maybe if Bush ever has to answer for his crimes, throw in vandalism while we're at it. The man was a vandal.

Obama And The Troops

It was a delight to see President Obama addressing the troops. Finally, a commander in chief who has the well being of the troops at heart. Finally, we can believe what the commander in chief is saying, that he's not simply out to get a lot of people killed for ideological reasons. On these accounts, Bush was 100% guilty. He was a criminal.

But now ... how did we ever get so lucky? ... We have a feeling, compassionate, intelligent, honest president ... and the difference is clear!

Watching the entire speech today, in which the president announced the timetable for the completion of the Iraq war, was inspirational. This would be the time to enlist if ever there was a time. Your children aren't simply cannon fodder for the heartless, thoughtless Republicans.

It was great to hear him make such coherent points. The man has some reflective capabilities, and he has them in rich abundance. Obama compared to Bush is like a breath of fresh air compared to the filthiest stench I can imagine. How could two men be so different? Obama, like a genius, a humanitarian. Bush, a moron, complete and total garbage.

Obama's News Conference

What a difference there is between Barack Obama and George W. Bush!

Watching a news conference with Bush was unbearable and virtually impossible. Not only was he a dunce, but he had the media so cowed their docility was sickening.

With Obama, we have finally have a smart guy back in charge. And the press seemed to rise to the occasion, asking decent questions and not gotcha crap. They were intelligent questions and they got intelligent answers.

Whatever the Republicans are trying to pull, their usual ideology and bluster, when Obama starts talking, you know he makes sense and what some legitimate idea what he wants to do, and that it has a decent chance of being effective. Just ideological opposition isn't enough. The Republicans need to learn that.

I haven't been watching presidential press conferences in their entirety, but I saw the whole thing tonight. It was impressive.

Obama, Clinton, Biden

It's remarkable how far everything's come since the early days of the primaries and the pre-primary debates. We had three of the top officials in the present government competing against one another, and now they're on stage together, working in harmony.

Biden never seemed to have much of a chance to do much toward getting the presidential nomination. It seemed like a waste of time really to have him competing at all. But he did. And even though he didn't win a thing, he still came out more or less on top.

Clinton and Obama were the big story, like a steel cage death match between the two. It was a great division in the Democratic party. Clinton was expected to win -- I thought she would -- I was on her side. But Obama never seemed to make mistakes, never seemed to do anything that would turn people away from him. Clinton was a lot more over the top, or the blogs made it seem that way. Every little thing she did was blown up as an example of the Clintons being racist and terrible in other ways. Which I thought was false.

Obama was a great guy. I saw him in one of his campaign stops and was very impressed.

In the debates, then, they were definitely at each other's throats and it was a nasty thing. So it's hard to believe that it's all come around as it has. There they are, one big happy family.

Obama's First Actual Day At Work

It was great seeing the photos of President Obama doing the business of a normal workday. I'm sure we'll get to that point where everyday is just another day. Like we did with Bush. We weren't thinking about him all the time, except with fear and loathing in our hearts. Eventually Obama will be able to do things without everyone (me) hearing about it.

I always think I'd like to keep track of everything. But whether it's boredom or the mere fact that I have a life to live and that doesn't include reading every news article, I know I'm going to quickly lose track. It's just nice to have a guy in there as president that I feel like I can trust enough to turn my back. Bush, never. But what can you do? No one cares what you think, especially.

I was very bummed out about John Roberts (a Republican appointee) screwing up the oath of office. It was a relief to hear that Obama retook the oath today sometime. Hopefully they made Roberts stand in an antechamber and run through the oath to a mirror about 50 times before they trusted him to go live. What a dolt. It's 35 words. You're the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. You can't manage to read 35 words in the sequence it's written out on the card? Good grief, how can we trust your opinions or anything else? I thought these Republican appointees (bozos) were supposed to be "strict constructionists!" How strict are you when you can't manage to read the actual text? So it was a relief to me to hear that Obama got it officially behind him, whether it was with John Roberts or whether they brought in someone who could actually read.

New Channel Pomposity

I am a big Keith Olbermann fan, so it's hard for me to say this guy needs to shut up once in a while. All through the inauguration he was either being unnecessarily pompous or unnecessarily silly. I found it hard to listen to him. I had to change channels several times; it was zapping my last nerve.

As for all the news about Senator Kennedy, it was important. But it should not have been belabored to the point of being a downer for the day and taking attention away from President Obama. I swear, some of the stuff Keith has to say about this -- and everything else -- he meanders through 100 words when three or four might do.

The same thing was going on in the parade, but this was where he was being unnecessarily silly, all the belly aching about how slow the car was going, whether Obama wanted to walk or not, blah blah blah. It made me wonder, wouldn't it just be more helpful if they shut up? (I would've watched on C-SPAN but my cable reception on C-SPAN is very grainy.) It was nice for a while over on CNN, when Obama was walking, that all the pompous CNN folks shut up for long enough for us to enjoy the scene without trivia and exalted interpretation.

As for the racial angle of what this day means, that was also overdone to the point of being nauseating. Poor John Lewis can't get within a mile of a microphone but someone is asking him to put it in context vis a vis Martin Luther King, Jr. He's very gracious and very good at doing it. After you've heard it a few times you have to think the news business is given to too much cliche.

Yeah, Hey! How Do They Know!

Here's a valid comeback on the issue of tires being inflated or not:

August 5th, 2008

9:46 pm GMT

How does Obama or McCain know our tires are not inflated properly. I haven’t seen them checking my car. Proper inflation isn’t some new concept to the vast majority of us. Maybe these Senators just found out about this.

- Posted by Jim H

That's from the comments on the Reuters article. Jim is obviously on to something here. He hasn't seen Obama or McCain, either one, checking his car's tires. So how would they know if they were inflated properly or not?

I guess they must come over sometime when he's asleep.

Change We Can Believe In

Hey, it's a great ad. John McCain's floundering around with charges that are demonstrably false. Barack Obama lets him thrash about hopelessly, then kicks him in the jaw. McCain mcCain't tell us what he wants to do as president, just "Be very scared of the other guy." Obama cuts through the crap and gives us a hopeful message, promises of change we can believe in.

What have you got, John? "I got nothin'" Then go away.

Barack Obama's Afro

I'm not going to post the picture, but it's cute.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's Fifth Term

We've been saying that John McCain is running for George W. Bush's third term. That makes a certain amount of sense for these reasons: 1) It would be a continuation of the Republicans holding the presidency; 2) John McCain has been very supportive of Bush's policies on the war and on the economy, Bush's two biggest failures; 3) A Republican win would be a vindication of George Bush, since he has such a low approval rating in the country. What he started would continue. It's really nothing against McCain; it's just the facts as they stack up.

Now John McCain says that Barack Obama's presidency would be the second term of Jimmy Carter! That's a headscratcher. Why? There's no continuity, since Carter's presidency was over with in Jan. 1981. There are no particular Carter policies to be continued after all this time. And Obama's election would have nothing to do with vindicating, or in anyway impacting Carter's legacy. So, to me, this is just John McCain not making sense again. It'd make more sense to say Bill Clinton, at least in terms of the timeframe.

But if anyone can be fulfilling anyone else's term or continuing it, why not say Obama would have the second term of Kennedy? The living Kennedy brother supported him, and seemed to be "passing the torch." Obama seems to be the kind of guy who could be transformative to his generation in a way that JFK was inspirational to many in his. Or why not say Obama would have the fifth term of FDR. Or the next term of Harry Truman. Sure, there's no continuity, no vindication, no policies that are overtly being fulfilled. In the case of FDR, we had the depressing presidency of Hoover, kind of a parallel in a loose way to George W. Bush. We need to be lifted out of the ashes again, and there's no way McCain will do that. He's running for president to be president period.

Maybe we could see Obama as the next term of Lincoln. He freed the slaves, all that, and what could be more symbolic in those terms than our first African-American president?

As to who else's term McCain might be continuing, besides the obvious, George W. Bush, well, I already mentioned Herbert Hoover. But the only one that makes any sense is McCain and Bush, because of continuity.