Commentary: Obama’s speech will show government isn’t answer

Darrell Delamaide is an unusual commentator: while he clearly has his own politics, he tries to provide analysis, and not just talking points. Case in point, this column.

The measures being previewed (leaked) — extending payroll tax cuts, business tax credits for hiring, patent reform (huh?) — are just so much small ball, which is all that Obama can play now because of political and budget constraints. He’ll detail the plans in a prime-time speech before Congress on Sept. 7, the White House said Wednesday. So Ronald Reagan and the Republicans are right: Given the current state of play, government is definitely not the solution. Republican obstructionism and Democratic timidity over the past 2 1/2 years have seen to that. 

Not sure what that Reagan reference means, but certainly Republican obstructionism and Democratic timidity over the past 2 ½ years have accomplished nearly nothing.

But here’s the real irony: Private business, without the benefit of significant government help, may step up and give the economy enough lift to get Obama re-elected.

Not exactly without government help: the low level of taxation and the effectiveness of lobbyists in tailoring legislation for the benefit of business are of big help.

Historians can bewail the fact that enlightened policies were available that could have ameliorated the situation. But in a climate where widely accepted scientific theories like evolution and global warming are rejected by willfully ignorant politicians, it’s no surprise that Keynesian management of aggregate demand — one obvious solution to our problems — would also be spurned.

When major political candidates speak of doubting the reality of human causes of global warming to audiences who also do not believe in evolution, mature and effective economic policies are not going to be forthcoming.

So we are left with Adam Smith’s world, with its harsh business cycle and merciless treatment of the working class. Fortunately, some of the shock absorbers, built in by Keynes and other enlightened policy makers before the new Dark Ages of economics descended on us, continue to function and shield us from the worst. 

It is amazing to see middle class voters support ideologues who pander to their fears and ignorance while pushing legislation that enriches the already-rich by taking wealth away from all others – or, perhaps, not so amazing.

Right wing cringes

Michele Bachmann may have won the Iowa Straw Poll, but there's a new frontrunner in town: Rick Perry, who edges out Bachmann and Mitt Romney in a new poll of Republican voters in the state. Perry would take 22 percent of the vote, just ahead of Romney at 19 percent, Bachmann at 18 percent, and Ron Paul at 16 percent. Sarah Palin pulled in 10 percent, only beating the bottom tier of the race, which includes Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and Jon Huntsman. Only 33 percent of Iowa Republicans call themselves Tea Partiers, but Perry dominates among that bloc, taking 32 percent to Romney's 6 percent. In other news, only 35 percent of Iowa Republicans believe in evolution, and 32 percent still believe President Obama was not born in the United States.

Well, that proves that (at least) a third of Iowan right wingers are idiots.

Conservative intellectuals don't have a candidate in the 2012 GOP primary, and they're making their worry more and more public. "To many conservative elites, Rick Perry is a dope, Michele Bachmann is a joke, and Mitt Romney is a fraud," Politico reports, citing a series of Wall Street Journal editorials that wrote Romney out of the race and dismissed Bachmann and Perry as unelectable. The Journal's editors wrote that it was time for "someone still off the field to step up." But the options are short: Rep. Paul Ryan shot down conservative pundits' fantasizing about a run when he said definitively that he would not enter the race. Mitch Daniels, right-wing intellectuals' previous crush, also decided not to run, and Tim Pawlenty, whom they saw as a serious policy thinker, dropped out of the race. Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said there were still "leading lights" who aren't in the race, and wore a Ryan-Rubio button on Fox News last week.

Paul Ryan? The one who wants to dismantle Social Security? O, please nominate him!

“I would hope that whoever the Republican candidate is, he or she will not tell us that creationism or intelligent design is the equivalent of evolution — just another theory about the origins of the biological man,” said the syndicated Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, who declined to weigh in on specific candidates, though Perry was recently recorded telling a young boy on a rope line that Texas schools teach both theories. “To put intelligent design on that level is like offering grade-school children a choice between astronomy and astrology,” he said.

But that is what these bozos consider important, and they pander to the extreme right wing of the Republican party.

Regaining mantle of campaigner

As he did four years ago when he found his back against the wall in his Democratic primary fight with Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Obama seemed intent on showing that he is the partisan fighter that some of his supporters fear he is not. That is the essence of the Obama problem: he is a campaigner, not a governor. He ran a great campaign, and has run a disappointingly mediocre government. As a result, it is difficult to work up enthusiasm for his reelection.

He signaled that he intends to use the rising influence of the Tea Party movement as a chance to undermine Republicans with independent voters. And he bluntly asked voters to begin considering what he believes the consequences would be if Republicans won the White House.

There is no question that the right wing has hijacked the Republican party, and no doubt that combination bodes ill for liberals, for the not-wealthy, not-corporate, not-extremist, but is that all he can offer?

It is premature to suggest the enthusiasm gap is permanent. Democrats are confident that when the general election battle begins — with Mr. Obama matched against a single opponent — the fervor surrounding the 2008 campaign will return.

To wait until the game starts to bring out one's best effort is a dangerous tactic. Fervor? Not again, no. Resignation.

“Everyone was so hopeful with him, but Washington grabbed him and here we are,” said LuAnn Lavine, a real estate agent from Geneseo, Ill. “I just want him to stay strong and don’t take the guff. We want a president who is a leader, and I want him to be a little bit stronger.”

Agreed. He went in with an agenda for change, and compromised every single time, and looked weak.


With his own approval ratings hovering near their lowest point since he became president, and with a new Gallup poll showing that only 26 percent of Americans approve of his economic policies, Mr. Obama singled out one element of Washington that is viewed in an even more unfavorable light: Congress. “You’re supposed to be in public service to serve the public,” Mr. Obama said. “And that means that, yes, you don’t get your way 100 percent of the time. It means that you compromise.  It means you apply common sense.”

Perhaps they are supposed to, but Republicans do not agree with his rules, they do not apply common sense, they apply political sense. And while he waits for his opponents to play fair, they are working to defeat him, as they have for 31 months.

Tea Party: The Christian Right in Disguise?

Without doubt.

Tea Party candidates like O’Donnell and Bachmann have campaigned on libertarian economic platforms, leading some commentators to dig into old Ayn Rand novels for the source of this new economic populism. But what they’ve missed is that the Tea Party’s obsession with the size of government has been part of Christian conservatives’ platform for decades. The Tea Party was just a new name coined by clever activists and the media—a rebranding that has made it much easier for Christian-right candidates to run for office without having to air their views on social issues, which are increasingly viewed in a negative light by the general public.

Science? Just a theory

Rick Perry calls global warming an unproven, costly theory. The Texas governor says scientists have 'manipulated data' to win research dollars. And maybe the earth is flat, in fact.

Without citing his sources, Perry added that the cost of implementing what he called "anti-carbon programs" is billions of dollars: "I don't think, from my perspective, that I want America to be engaged in spending that much money on what is still a scientific theory that hasn't been proven, and from my perspective is more and more being put into question."

O, it gets better.

One of his questioners was Jim Rubens, a Republican from the village of Etna who works as a consultant for the Union of Concerned Scientists. If both "observed scientific data" and the National Academy of Sciences are wrong on the issue, Rubens asked Perry, "doesn't that call into question the entire science discovery process that is the basis for America's status as an advanced technological society?"

That is, if science is hokum, then what does that make the US?

"You may have a point there," Perry quipped, adding that he believed the issue had become politicized. Without citing any specific examples, the Texas governor charged that "there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects."

So, the Guv'ner politicizes the issue, says it has been politicized (which is bad), and it might all be a bunch of nonsense. First he calls the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank a traitor, then backs off slightly, now he calls global warming (and evolution) unproven theories. These are code words to the right wing fringe: all this liberal crap is nothing more than that: crap, and you can count on this good old boy to throw it out, once he get into office.

But the Guv's battles is not just with lefties; he also has a feud with the Bushes and their Bushies.

GOP's Texas bully

Now that he’s declared his candidacy, odds are Republicans will nominate Texas Gov. Rick Perry for president. They won’t be able to help themselves. If Hollywood put out a casting call for an anti-Obama, Perry would get the role. Democrats have been chortling about running against yet another swaggering Texas governor. Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum explains why Perry can’t win:

"He's too Texan...Even in the Republican Party, not everyone is from the South and not everyone is bowled over by a Texas drawl. Perry is, by a fair amount, more Texan than George W. Bush, and an awful lot of people are still suffering from Bush fatigue."

I think this is wrong. The cowboy archetype runs so deep in American culture that even George W. Bush couldn’t ruin it. Besides, the Connecticut rancher was a trust fund poser who rode bicycles, not horses. Deep down, everybody knew that. Now that he’s no longer president, Republicans no longer have to pretend they believe the brush-cutting charade.

I don't see Perry even winning the nomination. He's too much of too many things. He's too openly religious, he's too openly macho, and he's too right-wing. He is the one early primary voters might prefer, but he is not electable.

Perry’s sectarian religiosity and loose talk about Texas seceding might not play among Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania voters whose ancestors fought to save the union. Calling Social Security an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme would doom most candidates, although it’s the kind of big talk that thrills them down at the Tea Party corral.

Exactly. The tea party might love him, but the rest of the Republican party want to defeat Obama, and Perry can not do it. Except for the fringe, people generally do not look at Social Security as expendable.

Another piece in Salon discusses Perry's electability.

The Clinton '92 story speaks to the preeminent role that the economy plays in presidential races. One of the reasons Clinton was able to rebound so easily from his spring nadir was that voters were unsually restive and eager to throw out the incumbent, George H.W. Bush. Thus, they were inclined to give the challenger the benefit of the doubt, and Clinton was able to earn it. Could Perry, despite his early stumbles, do the same thing under similar conditions in 2012? Sure.

even if concerns about his electability are unfounded, that won't stop Republican Party leaders from worrying -- and, if they feel the need, working hard to prevent him from winning their nomination. That's what we've started to see this week, with influential, opinion-shaping voices on the right weighing in to express concerns about Perry's campaign trail antics -- and to call for new candidates to enter the race. Clearly, the "elites" of the Republican Party, who play a vital role in crafting the talking points that shape mass GOP opinion, are fearful that Perry might be a general election liability. And if he keeps behaving as he has these past few days, their concerns will only grow -- as will the number of GOP elites willing to express them publicly.

Just how influential are/will Perry's big-money backers?

Promises, promises

Bachmann: If elected, gas prices would fall to less than $2 per gallon Perhaps she can also get the tooth fairy to up her rewards for lost teeth.

McConnell’s message to Obama: Stop pushing your failed economic policies Those would be the ones that Republicans made sure failed, surely.

Perry: Scientists are manipulating data to prove climate change And they would not get to do so in Texas, coz the Guvner would kick their asses.

Intransigence

Hardly a voice of moderation (pun intended), Senator Kyl strikes an uncommon chord: conservatives have to remember they are not in charge.


Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) warned that conservative Republicans shouldn't expect to get exactly what they want on a compromise in a deficit-reduction and debt-ceiling-increase package. "My Tea Party friends I’m sure appreciate this, but we have to keep reminding ourselves, we don’t control the government. Conservatives are not in charge," Kyl said Friday on Fox News. "And therefore we are not going to get exactly what we want; we have to craft something that leads us in the right direction." Kyl said the question for Republicans is what kind of bill they can entice Democrats to agree to.

Or get the President to cave in to, as they have in other matters.

26% approval rating

A new low of 26% of Americans approve of President Barack Obama's handling of the economy, down 11 percentage points since Gallup last measured it in mid-May and well below his previous low of 35% in November 2010.

 His solution? Go on the road, attack Congress as ineffective, and promise a major something in September. I don't think they quite get it, his political team: attacking Congress is more of the same tried and failed strategy of not taking responsibility, but simply casting blame.

President Obama's approval rating has dwindled in recent weeks to the point that it is barely hugging the 40% line. Three months earlier, it approached or exceeded 50%. History will remember this period for the messy political debate in Washington over the debt ceiling, followed by distress on Wall Street and tragedy in Afghanistan. How much each of these factors is responsible for the overall decline in Obama's approval rating is unclear. But Americans' unhappiness with each of them is reflected in recent declines in Obama's specific job ratings for the economy, the federal budget deficit, and various foreign policy measures, as well as in his markedly low rating for creating jobs.

Of course, as Rick Perry and his Texas swagger jump to the lead in the early Republican line, and push the Republican party decidedly to the right, the president benefits. it might work, to rely on the Republican Party losing the election and his winning reelection, but it won't do a damned thing to help the nation improve.

What would Hillary have done?

As disappointed and disillusioned as I am with President Obama, I am uncomfortable with all the braying from disappointed liberals. I have not understood why liberals were so ready to undermine him, as if they did not realize that the Republican and, especially, the right wing relished their attacks. Now they are, some of them, saying that Hillary Clinton would have been a better choice, that she would have handled her presidency in a better fashion, would have negotiated and shown more spine, than Barack Obama.


Rather than reveling in these flights of reverse political fancy, I find myself wanting the revisionist Hillary fantasists — Clintonites and reformed Obamamaniacs alike — to just shut up already. I understand the impulse to indulge in a quick “I told you so.” I would be lying if I said I didn’t think it sometimes. Maybe often. But to say it — much less to bray it — is small, mean, divisive and frankly dishonest. None of us know what would have happened with Hillary Clinton as president, no matter how many rounds of W.W.H.H.D. (What Would Hillary Have Done) we play.

It is a kind of piling on that liberals are engaged in now that it is acceptable to admit that perhaps we made a wrong choice. It's too easy. It is almost as if they were confessing their sins in hope of purifying their souls, only waiting for someone to absolve them, tell them to recite I will not vote foolishly again two hundred times, and promise that everything will be better in the morning.

I believe she was better prepared to navigate the vast right wing of our political system? Yes, sir, that’s part of why I voted for her over Obama. Do I wonder if she might not also have taken us to war with Iran by now? Well, that’s part of why I almost voted for Obama over her.

Obama seemed the candidate of change, of hope for a different way of conducting ourselves in the world and of ending the trend toward greater and greater economic disparity at home. Clinton seemed a tired choice, and then there was Bubba.

The visions — in 2008, of Obama as a progressive redeemer who would restore enlightened democracy to our land and Hillary as a crypto-Republican company man; or, in 2011, of Obama as an appeasement-happy crypto-Republican and Hillary as a leftist John Wayne who would have whipped those Congressional outlaws into shape — they were all invented. These are fictional characters shaped by the predilections, prejudices and short memories of the media and the electorate.

Wailing and hoping they, we, had voted for Hillary and thus wound up with a President we would still be supporting fervently, who would have already closed Guantanamo and withdrawn our military forces from Afghanistan and Iraq, who would not have agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts, would have ended torture definitively ... it is pure fantasy.


If she had won her party’s nomination and then the general election, Hillary Clinton’s presidency would probably not have looked so different from Obama’s. You think Obama’s advisers are bad? Hillary Clinton hired, and then took far too long to get rid of, Mark Penn. And her economic team probably would have looked an awful lot like Obama’s.

Excellent point. Obama drew his administration from the Democratic establishment, and the prior Democratic president was Bill Clinton: Panetta and others. Would Hillary have ditched Bob Gates as Defense Secretary? They are false choices we imagine.

It’s just that her similarities to Obama never seemed to register with those who saw in our current president a progressivism that he himself wasn’t advertising, and saw in her a drive and ferocity that — far from being the salvation some are now imagining — made her a harpy, a monster and a bitch. Her storied toughness was then read as craven ambition that was going to tear her party apart. Her knowledge of how Congress works was seen as part of her dynastic and corrupt Beltway privilege.

I certainly felt that she did not deserve to be the nominee ; I hated the idea that Bubba would be back in the White House, in any capacity.

Barack Obama walked into the White House in January 2009 with his own set of structural and strategic challenges: an economy in free fall; a 24-hour cable-news and talk-radio-fed culture eager to blare “crisis!” headlines every 12 minutes, making long-view evaluations of a presidency impossible; and most important, an obstinate Congress. On every major vote, from the stimulus to uncompromised health care reform, Obama needed 60 (not the historically customary 50) to get anything moving, a practical impossibility, thanks both to Republicans, whose stated goal was not to fix things but to keep the president from fixing anything, and to conservative Democrats, who made the party’s majority a false promise to begin with.

Yes, quite very true, but he wanted the job, just as she did. And his strategic and tactical choices were bad ones: let Congress hash out legislation out in the open, get only marginally involved during the legislative process, and wait for the end of the process to step in and close the deal. And go for health care first. Still, the Republican campaign to destroy his presidency, even if it damaged the country (in effect, especially if it damaged the country, for then they could really blaming for screwing up), and their ability to prevent any defections, hurt him badly. But his inability to overcome such intransigence is a key part of his defeats.

Run, Paul, run

Republican Congressman Paul Ryan is strongly considering a 2012 presidential run, according to the Weekly Standard. The magazine claims the Wisconsin representative is on vacation in Colorado to discuss the possible campaign with his family during the congressional recess. He’s also reportedly been in talks with political strategists about the bid. “He’s coming around,” a Republican source close to Ryan reportedly told the publication. Ryan, as the House Budget Committee chairman, has been a powerful voice on conservative economic policy, and he’s stated that he isn’t satisfied with the current crop of GOP candidates, especially when they debate deficit issues.

The more, the better. All of these (Ryan, Perry, even Palin) will push the Repoublicans further to the right, and will show them for what they are: defenders of the privileged and the corporate.Now they are even talking about putting the US back on the gold standard. Maybe they'll do away with the anti-trust division of the Department of Justice, as well.

Stop the bickering

On Tuesday, Starbucks Corporation CEO Howard Schultz called on business leaders to stop funding political campaigns until Congress stops the partisan bickering. A CNBC poll on political donations in light of the debt debate fiasco last month showed that 89% of respondents agreed with Schultz. Shortly after, CNBC showed a comment by political commentator Robert Reich saying that the reason companies contribute to U.S. politicians is because they see it as an investment. With that in mind, will Schultz’s view prevail? Unlikely.

It is heartening, and discouraging, that it has gotten to the level of a CEO to voice this complaint. Witness the 89% who agree. Despite these voices, politicians continue to rail that they represent the voice of the American people and that it is for them that they are fighting. Nonsense. The vaunted American people for whom they claim to be fighting are sick of their posturing and ineffectiveness, of their bromides anc clichés. Yet things continue the same as always. Why? The answer is simple: money.

Here is the “best way” to understand U.S. politics in four bullet points.

• Republicans and Democrats both play to the rich 1% and to the following industries: big oil, big pharma, defense contractors, and banking and insurance. Add the NRA.

• Republicans take their talking points from Fox News, but are really laser focused on bullet no. 1. Fox talking heads berate the Democrats and the President, both of whom take money from the same donors as the Republicans, but who argue a different ideology.

• No matter who is elected, it is never as good, or as bad, as voters expect it to be. President Bush never banned abortion and we didn’t get Martial Law. President Obama failed to save the economy and we didn’t go socialist (or soshilist; same thing). Well, for the most part that might be true, but many people have suffered, and continue to suffer under a Democratic president, as badly, if not worse, than under a Republican president.

• The vote that matters is the vote that’s local, like a town hall vote for the school budget or a zoning law. As a result, voting for selectmen, city council and maybe the mayor and governor, matters and voting actually changes things. For Congress and the Senate, see bullet points 1 and 2. Well, abdicating national politics to the rich and powerful only confirms their domination and power.

CNBC “Squawk on the Street” hosts asked why Schultz was making these statements and not bigger name CEOs. In particular, they asked why executives like Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase CEO, are not coming forward to complain about Washington, too. After all, lack of confidence in Congress has been something nearly every average trader and money manager in the market has been talking about all summer long, including in interviews here at Forbes. For that answer, see bullet point No. 1.

Dimon wants less regulation, even after the financial crisis. That lack of confidence is a smoke screen.

“I’m not a politician and I’m not here to prescribe policy. But as a business man who employs over 100 thousand people…I want to see congressional leadership,” Schultz told CNBC Tuesday morning. “We have a profound crisis of confidence in America and that problem stems from Washington,” he said. Stems? I doubt it. Washington excacerbates the problem, but the fault is not in our politicians, but in ourselves.

A new face, an old face

Enter Rick Perry, Formidable Fund-Raiser - The Texas governor has a vast network of wealthy supporters eager to bankroll his presidential ambitions - In exchange for?


G.O.P. on Defensive as analysts question Party’s fiscal policy: They just figured this out? The boasts of Congressional Republicans about their cost-cutting victories are ringing hollow to some well-known economists, financial analysts and corporate leaders, including some Republicans, who are expressing increasing alarm over Washington’s new austerity. Bachman, for example, continues to insist on her fictitious and offbase ideas, including using the tactic of bringing the country to default on its debts and obligations as a negotiating tactic. These critics include onetime standard-bearers of Republican economic philosophy like Martin Feldstein, an adviser to President Ronald Reagan, and Henry M. Paulson Jr., Treasury secretary to President George W. Bush, underscoring the deepening divide between party establishment figures and the Tea Party-inspired Republicans in Congress and running for the White House.

Debate Showed Why Americans Hate Government

GOP free-for-all

This should be good: Bachman is nipping at Romney's percentage-of-popularity heels, Rick Perry is about to announce that Jesus, er, that is, he's also runnin' for the nomination, and now the grizzly momma is showing up in her bus. Palin bus tour to roll into Iowa.

After a more than two-month hiatus, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is planning to crash the presidential party once again with a heartland-themed re-launch of her "One Nation" bus tour this week in Iowa, according to a Palin fundraising email obtained by CNN. Palin is bringing her Constitution-draped bus to the Iowa State Fair, just 30 miles south of where the Republican presidential field will take the stage on Thursday for a presidential debate in Ames.

It's not yet clear which day the tour begins, but her surprise arrival in Iowa will happen before the closely watched Ames straw poll. Palin is not on the straw poll ballot. According to a video link included the fundraising solicitation for Palin's political action committee, Sarah PAC, it appears the bus will also take Palin to Missouri and Illinois to visit the respective hometowns of former presidents Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan.

That's rich: Reagan and Truman

How dare he?

Tavis Smiley: Obama Is First President In My Career Not To Invite Me To The White House So?

One-Term Presidency?

It was a year and a half ago when President Obama told Diane Sawyer of ABC News in an interview that he would rather be a good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president. Now, coming off one of his worst weeks since taking office, Mr. Obama is nearing a decision on whether he really meant that. Is he willing to try to administer the disagreeable medicine that could help the economy mend over the long term, even if that means damaging his chances for re-election?

Who is kidding whom? He has a reelection committee. His advisers are leaking all over the place, theorizing about the next election, about possible opponents. C'mon, give us a break.

Obama plan: Destroy Romney

Barack Obama’s aides and advisers are preparing to center the president’s reelection campaign on a ferocious personal assault on Mitt Romney’s character and business background, a strategy grounded in the early-stage expectation that the former Massachusetts governor is the likely GOP nominee. The dramatic and unabashedly negative turn is the product of political reality. Obama remains personally popular, but pluralities in recent polling disapprove of his handling of his job, and Americans fear the country is on the wrong track. His aides are increasingly resigned to running for reelection in a glum nation. And so the candidate who ran on “hope” in 2008 has little choice four years later but to run a slashing, personal campaign aimed at disqualifying his likeliest opponent.


This is part of the pattern that has emerged during the Obama presidency: blame the other guy. But this could blow up in their face: the candidate who ran on hope can not be the candidate running on a slash-and-burn platform and hope to retain support. He will lose supporters. And while many of those would not vote for Romney, they might well stay away from the presidential election polls, as a means to vote against Obama.

The onslaught would have two aspects. The first is personal: Obama’s reelection campaign will portray the public Romney as inauthentic, unprincipled and, in a word used repeatedly by Obama’s advisers in about a dozen interviews, “weird.”

The Obama campaign might well be careful about portraying the other candidate as inauthentic and unprincipled, as Obama increasingly comes across as, yes, inauthentic and unprincipled. Weird? Is that a code word for Mormon?

I'm responsible ... right?

Obama says he inherited economic problems - President Barack Obama said on Monday he inherited many of the country's problems with high debt and deficits when he entered the White House, sounding a theme likely to dominate his 2012 re-election campaign. Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser, where families paid $15,000 to get a picture with him, Obama defended his economic record and noted that problems in Europe were affecting the United States. "We do have a serious problem in terms of debt and deficit, and much of it I inherited," Obama said. The financial crisis, he said, made the problem worse.

But, I'm in charge now, so it is my responsibility, and it is time to stop blaming someone else for the troubles I should be fixing. He might have said something along those lines, but did not. And that is the crux of the matter: it is somebody else's fault, not his, the preasident maintains. But 2½ years into his term, it is time he accepted responsibility.

87% disapprove

In the wake of the debt-ceiling debate, 82 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job—the highest ever, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. I'd like to hear what the other 18% think.

N.R.A. to Sue Over Bulk Gun Sales Rule

The National Rifle Association on Wednesday filed a lawsuit challenging a new federal regulation requiring gun merchants along the border with Mexico to report bulk sales of certain semiautomatic rifles, contending that the Obama administration exceeded its powers by imposing the rule last month without Congressional permission.

The NRA opposes all restrictions on gun ownership, operating under the rubric that any restriction is the beginning of outright banning of gun ownership. Stupid and nonsensical, but that is their ideology.

“We will vigorously oppose that lawsuit,” Mr. Holder told reporters on Wednesday. “We think that the action we have taken is consistent with the law and that the measures that we are proposing are appropriate ones to stop the flow of guns from the United States into Mexico.”

Unless, of course, as with Operation Fast an Furious, it is the policy of the government to flood Mexico with guns.

We got a deal

I am not a fan of declarations of things will never be the same, or of the current penchant to include the words Here's how in any pronouncements, but perhaps this article does have quite valid points. In the aftermath of the deal worked out between te Three Stooges (namely, Obama, Democrats and Republicans), all talking heads are in a rush to provide instant, profound analysis.

My judgment is that all the Three Stooges look worse now than before the most recent crisis: Obama looks indecisive, seems to have no spine, to not understand how to use power, to be reluctant to twists arms (let alone kick a little ass), and to have no guiding principle other than reelection; the Democrats seem timid, weak, ignored by a president of their own party, and unable to fight the opposition effectively; and the Republicans look to be hostages of their right wing.

Nonetheless, perhaps the Republicans came out looking the best of the three. Speaker Boehner resisted the Tea Party dictates in the end, and he got his party to vote for the legislation.

Debt-ceiling increases are now tied to deficit reduction. With President Obama's signature, every future president until America's debt monster is tamed must come to Congress on bended knee and plead for the privilege of avoiding default.

Obama looked weak an dineffective, and was unable to impose his will. Then again, he does seem to believe he should be imposing his will. Score one for a weak president.

Bipartisan entitlement protection lives on. No one has the nerve to cut spending in any meaningful way. For all the GOP fervor to rein in government spending, the agreement defers all decisions about entitlement spending to a so-called super committee with an internal architecture almost built for stalemate. The legislationcreated a committee to com eup with cuts. Last year's Deficit Reduction Commission, already all but fiorgotten, is an indicator of how this new committee will fare: badly.


Congress's back-loading of spending cuts lives on. A Democratic president and a tea party-inspired Republican Party will mutually agree to cut domestic discretionary spending (defined by budget authority) by $10 billion compared with 2011 budget totals. That's out of projected domestic discretionary spending of just more than $2 trillion for fiscal 2012 and 2013. Crumbs.Half of one percentage point.

Speaker John Boehner wobbled but didn't fall. Does that make him a force to be reckoned with? Well, he still has the Sperakership. And he did get the votes.