Category: President Barack Obama

Convention Time

I have been absent from these pages for some time, it is true. The Serious Poo-Poo Institute of Technology has been in the midst of relocating, and therefore I have been without Internet access for weeks. You know how it goes. These are the travails of the blogger.

The Democratic Convention has been going swimmingly, I think. I was unable to hear Michelle Obama, the Most Elegant First Lady of the United States in History, speak. I will catch up on her speech later, now that, well, you know, I have access to the Internet.

I often bang my head against the steering wheel of my car trying to figure out how in the wide wide world of sports there is any question that President Barack Obama should be re-elected. He has earned a second term. There has not been a President in recent history who has deserved a second term more handily than has Mr. Obama.

This man is not the cause of current state of the economy. He is the architect who stopped the economy from running all the way off the cliff. He reformed our health care system. He led the effort to shoot Osama Bin Laden in the eye. He got rid of the hideous policy of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. He saved the automobile industry, indeed, he saved the automobile industry at a time when his opponent was all like “screw those guys.” He went all bad-ass on those Somali pirates. He scolded the United States Supreme Court right to their faces.

I am convinced that Obama will win, by the way, although I am bewildered that there is even any question. I am convinced he will win based on the strength of the votes of women. Based on the stupidity that was the whole contraception debate and a general concern that the government is sniffing around in their nether-regions a bit too much, I predict that women will come out in droves and will preserve a well-earned second term for Mr. Obama.

I have more predictions, too, if you like.

I predict that if my previous prediction is incorrect, that is, if instead Mitt Romney is elected President of the United States, I predict that Mr. Romney will have a robust jobs bill on his desk by 1:15 p.m. January 20. This is the most cynical prediction I have ever made. But it is what is happening. Congress is holding you hostage as surely as the Iranian students held their hostages until Ronald Raygun’s inauguration in 1980.

In this short-term regard, a Romney Presidency would not be terrible. We would have full cooperation from Congress under his White House. I mean, if you like voting with a party that would hold you hostage. And the party that caused this whole mess in the first place. And the party that wants to regulate your vagina. And the party that brought you the attacks of September Eleventh.

Fired up.

Grand Feats and Wise Decisions

I am just now beginning to learn about politics in New York state. From what I understand, we don’t yet know if a Democrat will be available to run for state senate in the 55th district. Presumed candidate Mary Wilmot has said she will not run, and state Democrats hold their convention May 10.

It doesn’t matter. If the right Republican is on the ballot, I’ll be voting for him.

That’s what I said. It is likely that I will vote for a Republican in November. I’m lookin’ at you, James Alesi.

Why? Because a perfectly justifiable defense for voting for a public official is that said official has performed grand feats and has made wise decisions while in office. Regardless of party affiliation. Regardless of the other 90 percent of said official’s political portfolio. And, friends, James Alesi has performed great feats and has made wise decisions. To wit, via the Wiki (citations waived):

In 2009, Alesi voted no on same-sex marriage legislation despite being considered the Republican most likely to support the legislation. He is seen on video from the New York Senate floor casting his no vote with his head in his hands, and later admitted that he struggled with his decision to vote against the legislation.

In 2011, Alesi became the first Republican to announce his support for a new same-sex marriage bill. On June 24, 2011, Alesi was one of four Republicans to vote in favor of the Marriage Equality Act, stating: “I swore with my hand on the Bible to uphold the Constitution … I didn’t swear with my hand on the Constitution to uphold the Bible”.

America! Fuck yeah!

Here’s the thing, though. Alesi didn’t hold his nose to vote on marriage equality. He made this vote with—forgive the term here—pride. He has become an outspoken advocate on the issue, even chiding the Obama administration on the issue. This is not easy for a Republican to do, and Alesi may have lost formerly stalwart political support for his key role.

However, due to his grand feat and his wise decision, he is more than likely to pick up supporters like I. I will reward Mr. Alesi for doing outrageously right. Even though I still think he’s in the wrong damned political party.

This was an easier concept to exercise when I lived in Northern Virginia. I told my Congressman every time I saw him that I would vote for him until he quit. Why? Because Jimmy Moran voted against the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. Sure, it didn’t hurt that Moran is a damned good Democrat. But with Moran, that was a pleasant side effect. I gave him my vote, every two years, because he gave me that single vote in 2002. Congressman Moran found his way to the center circle of grand feats and wise decisions, and, due to that, he would have my vote for his whole entire career. That is how much a “no” on the Resolution meant to me.

Which brings me around to the scenario in which would have required me to have voted for George W. Bush in 2004.

That’s right, kids. George W. Bush had an opportunity to push his way toward this glorious realm as well. He could have forced my vote—but, alas, he was an incompetent shit-head.

He failed to bring home Osama bin Laden’s head on a pike.

Had George W. Bush managed to have snatched or annihilated Osama bin Laden, I would have voted for him. I’d have had to. Even though Bush himself brought about the necessity of getting bin Laden by thumping his chest so stridently about him, even though Bush’s Presidency would eventually end up overseeing at least three events of an apocalyptic nature (but that’s another blog entry), even though Bush’s almost wistful appreciation for disaster capitalism was downright maniacal, yes; if he had nailed Osama bin Laden, I would have voted for George W. Bush in 2004.

Grand feats and wise decisions, in my estimation, are powerful arguments for your vote. Even ones that are patently false and absurd on their asses. Remember “He Kept Us Safe?” How many times did we have to hear that tired bullshit about the President who got caught with his dick in the cookie jar on September Eleventh? Yet, people believed it and adopted it as a spirited defense for one of the most failed Presidents in modern history.

The least we can do is adopt a similar stance regarding President Obama based on actual facts.

Obama’s Presidency has been chock full of grand feats and wise decisions, most notably the occasion we’ve recently marked of the departure from this realm of one Osama bin Laden.

The New York Times did an excellent piece April 28 about President Obama, “Warrior in Chief.” Some liberals may not like having a Democratic President who is so tough on these issues; I think it is just plain awesome.

The piece discusses the decision to go after bin Laden, and how there were no asshole yes-men in the room assuring the President that it was a “slam-dunk.”

SOME of Mr. Obama’s top advisers worried that the intelligence suggesting that Bin Laden was in the Abbottabad compound was circumstantial and much too flimsy to justify the risks involved. The deputy C.I.A. director, Michael J. Morell, had told the president that in terms of available data points, “the circumstantial evidence of Iraq having W.M.D. was actually stronger than evidence that Bin Laden was living in the Abbottabad compound.”

At the final National Security Council meeting to consider options connected to Bin Laden’s possible presence in the Abbottabad compound, Mr. Obama gave each of his advisers an opportunity to speak. When the president asked, “Where are you on this? What do you think?” so many officials prefaced their views by saying, “Mr. President, this is a very hard call,” that laughter erupted, providing a few moments of levity in the otherwise tense, two-hour meeting.

That, in my opinion, is a stark study in contrasts. When President Bush asked his advisers about military action in Iraq, they told him what they knew he wanted to hear, and then he took their shitty advice, and he failed monumentally. Obama’s advisers gave him the brutally frank hard news, which he considered and then acted nonetheless, against miserable odds, and, as a result, one more shitty little mess left by the Bush Administration was tidied.

I don’t care if you like Obama, or agree with him, or think he’s a communist somehow. He made the tough call on bin Laden, and now bin Laden is dead. If nothing else falls under the category of “grand feats and wise decisions,” this one certainly does. This President is more than worthy of a second term even if you only consider this single decision of his—although, as we shall probably explore moreso, there are multitudes of others that make the man quite worthy.

Arianna Huffington is Wrong, Dahling

Arianna Huffington recently criticized President Obama for an ad he has apparently run (I have not seen the ad) that questions whether, as President, Mitt Romney would have gone after Osama bin Ladan.

Appearing on ‘CBS This Morning’, she said, “Using the Osama bin Laden assassination, killing, the great news that we had a year ago, in order to say basically that Obama did it and Romney might not have done it … to turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do.”

She compared the ad to one that the Hillary Clinton campaign aired during the 2008 election.

“It’s the same thing that HIllary Clinton did with the 3 A.M call, you know, ‘you are not ready to ready to be commander-in-chief’,” she said.

Wrong! Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong!

A claim that Romney may not have gone after bin Laden actually has basis in fact. Hillary’s ads regarding Obama’s 3 a.m. readiness were completely hypothetical.

Fact, you say? Yes, fact, as in, something Mitt Romney has actually said. And, I quote:

It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.

Hillary’s ad was nonsense, based on no provable facts whatsoever, and it has proven to be incredibly incorrect. Of all the vital aspects of the President’s job, I would count “managing well that 3 a.m. call” to have been one of President Obama’s greatest strengths.

Romney did actually say what he said. With his own mouth. I don’t see the problem.

The Real Loser In Wisconsin

The real loser in yesterday’s elections was President Barack Obama.

He lost an opportunity. Again. WTF is going on at the White House that nobody there is seeing that?

For both political and policy reasons, the President’s one and only mission right now should be changing the message from the deficit and the debt ceiling to jobs.

These elections this week were about jobs.

Again, this blogger asks, why in the wide wide world of sports wasn’t the President in Wisconsin this week? I know it would be unorthodox for the President to put his weight behind candidates for a state legislature.

But these are not orthodox times.

Wisconsin set the stage. It cued the lighting, it painted and fussed over the set and made sure everything was just perfect for the show. The main player just simply didn’t show up. Wisconsin would have been a hell of a place to get the spotlight where it needs to be and a hell of a place to score some campaign trail points.

Meanwhile, Congress has established a system for deficit reduction that guarantees it’s all we’ll be talking about for a good long while. What’s in the news today? Oh, the Republigoats announced their picks for the “super-Congress,” a concept that I think should be scrutinized pretty good for its Constitutional muster, by the way.

Are you hearing about jobs yet? Yeah. Get used to that.

Blow Up The Debt Ceiling

First thing Monday, President Barack Obama should hold a Rose Garden press event and announce that he and his legal advisers are swarming upon Washington DC immediately to start the machinations to invoke the 14th Amendment to blow up the debt ceiling of the United States of America.

And he should never look back, and he should tell anyone who squeals about it to go screw themselves. And if there are legal or political ramifications to this action, who cares. At least it keeps the country from going into default and has the added benefit of indicating to the nation’s userers that somebody is steering the boat.

Attention, Preznit Obama: If Jim DeMinty thought that health care was your Waterloo; I happen to think that this is your 9/11. It’s time to scramble the SORTIES, dude. It’s time to figure out if you’re gonna be Harry Truman or if you’re gonna be Warren G. Harding.

I don’t think at this point that Obama has any other choice. It’s time to go all presidential on this thing. It’s time to smash the debt ceiling.

Mark Halperin Is A Kind of a Dick

Halperin was suspended from MSNBC for these comments. The question remains, though, in my mind: Who do these people think they’re talking about? And where were the “the President is a dick” comments when the previous president was illegally plundering secular sovereign nations, categorically neglecting and bungling catastrophic natural disasters here at home while Americans drowned in their own attics, and overseeing the worst financial crisis since THE worst financial crisis ever?

I Killed Osama bin Laden and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

Poor George W. Bush.

The man’s greatest moment as “President” of these Untied States was when he was standing on a pile of rubble that he himself allowed to be created with his arm thrown around some hapless, tired fireman, yelling empty threats into a bullhorn. It’s kind of funny to watch now because if I were that fireman I’d be really annoyed.

Bush probably has better aim at the toilet than he does with this bullhorn. This guy probably not only has black lung and weird auto-immune issues, but he’s probably deef in one ear as well::

The guy’s most brilliant ad-lib ever! Probably ever in his life! And, guess what? It’s a completely empty threat.

George W. Bush said directly and many times that he would get us some justice for September Eleventh. He failed. Miserably and pathetically, he failed. He got us into two wars, only one of which was even tangentially related to this vicious event. He got justice, all right, on a guy who had nothing to do with it, on an entire nation that had nothing to do with it. He couldn’t touch Osama bin Laden. Couldn’t touch him to the point that his strategy became to simply deny that bin Laden was any longer important.

Remember, the only reason anyone thought bin Laden was of any importance was because Bush swaggered around with his cock out telling everyone how god-damned vital it was that we smoked this prick out of his hole. He’s the reason bin Laden was the most hunted man in the world, and now hie’s like, oh, nevermind? How sour are those grapes, do you reckon?

The contrast is astounding. Watch then candidate Obama during the debates:

Or, better yet, listen:

There is no swagger in his position. It is a simple statement of a straightforward, sensible foreign policy aim: If we get bin Laden or other terrorist leaders in our sights, and if they happen to be in Pakistan, and if Pakistan is unable or unwilling to allow us to take them out, then screw them, we’re going to shoot anyway.

Guess what happened?

There’s your contrast. One preznit stands on a pile of rubble and makes empty, foolish promises he directly contradicts six months later. The other made a manageable, sensible promise that he kept. He said he was going to do something, and he did what he said he was going to do. I don’t know about you, but I find that refreshing.

Now you have Republigoats this week making all kinds of statements about how Bush was actually the one responsible for getting bin Laden. I think there’s an argument to be made for that, actually, though I don’t think it’s an argument that Peter “It’s All Over But The Counting” King is going to like.

Of course Bush is responsible for nailing bin Laden. He’s the one who made doing so necessary in the first place.

Bush is the one who elevated this guy to the lofty position he came to occupy. Bush is the one who invented bin Laden into the anti-Jesus guy. Bush could have coolly downplayed bin Laden’s role, could have treated him like the two-bit shit-head that he was, but the guy we had to kill was George Bush’s invention. And once Bush created bin Laden and failed to sniper his ass, Obama had no choice but to get the job done.

So thanks, George Bush. You really are responsible for the death of Osama bin Laden. Nice going, you feckless jackass.

Like PB, I am concerned about Obama’s plan to visit Ground Zero; there’s something unsettling about it; it smacks of opportunism, of “Mission Accomplished.” I suspect Obama doesn’t want to do it but he’s being strong-armed into it by his handlers. I think the more appropriate thing for him to do would be to just announce that this thing was done as he did on Sunday, and then just get the hell on with his presidency.

I just hope he doesn’t wear a codpiece.

Gloaty Gloaty

It is impossible not to be gloaty today.

I heard it commented somewhere in the news that it’s somewhat unnatural to celebrate a death. Unfortunately, I think that’s wrong. I think that humanity has yet to shed the whole of its lizard brain, and that actually it is quite natural to want to vanquish a fellow human being who has wronged you. Unfortunately, I think the unnatural thing to do is to eschew that primal urge. Fortunately, most people manage to exercise that facility rather adroitly each and every day. We should all be thankful that this is true because were it not most of us would have been murdered in our sleep by now.

I think in the case of Osama bin Laden, though, it is not a sin to give in a little to that base instinct. We are not a bad person if we did a little victory bootie shake upon hearing that this evil bastard had been forcefully discorporated. We are not a bad person if we, say, cracked open that bottle of Prosecco and toasted this bloody event (as we did here at the Serious Poo-Poo Institute of Technology).

And, dare I say, I think we are not a bad person if one of our first immediate reactions was to fluff up at the chest that, by gravity, that was MY preznit what got this job done.

It went to politics right away. Of course it went to politics right away. I’m not even sorry that it did. I mean, how long did we have to suffer through “George Dubya Boosh kept us safe?” How long did we have to suffer through the Iraq war? Through the swaggering moron who didn’t deserve to swagger and didn’t even do it very well? Through a million excuses for letting this maniac slip through our fingers at Tora Bora?

Through:

We haven’t heard much from him. And I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don’t know where he is. I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run.

No. After living through all of that, it is wonderful to finally experience what it is to see a Commander In Chief assess the correct target, to pursue the target, and to actually accomplish the mission. This, friends, is what a Presidency looks like and smells like. That’s how it’s done.

More recently, we’ve had to suffer through one of the most brutally assailed presidencies in recent history. This black man was made to produce papers for crissake, forced to an indignity that just does not seem to go away for people of color in America. And this was only the most recent indignity he’s faced based on his melanin levels. Most pronounced have been the efforts to undercut this President as some other, some sinister, some anti-righteous force regarding these Untied States of America. But now? Now? Call him a Kenyan socialist now, motherfuckers. Question his provenance now! C’mon, Trump! What do you have to say now? Bitch?

By the way, why are we so surprised that Obama carried this out? We already knew that this President knew how to take a person out and how to do it right.

Remember the pirates?

So there’s no surprise here. This is a Presidency that has chronically exhibited measured competence and one that has shown an uncanny ability to deliver on the promises its candidate made in 2008. I do not disagree with PB’s assessment that powerful, popular Democratic presidents tend to turn their backs on the base. The answer for that is for the base to turn around back, and that’s happening:

The nation’s largest firefighters union — one of the Democrats’ most reliable sources of campaign money — announced Tuesday that it would quit donating to federal candidates this year because members of Congress aren’t sufficiently backing them in their fight against anti-union measures around the country.

As it should be. Democrats take labor for granted and really should not because labor does not have “nowhere else to go.” Labor is movement, not party, politics and could really give a shit about Democrats or Republigoats.

Nonetheless. Damn. This guy sure did get it right. Damn. I mean, damn.