First Door on the Left

Alright, I admit it. I spend at least a couple of hours each day reading other people’s blogs. It’s part of what I get paid for. Lucky me, right?

Once in a great while I’ll happen upon a blog post that I just have to print out and put in my “Don’t Forget” file. I hit one of those today. It was written by Jeff Fecke of Alas! A Blog and deals with a topic that has been bothering me for some time. He entitled it “The Choice.” I hope you’ll go read the whole thing.

Barack Obama is imperfect. I can understand being frustrated by him. I can understand even wanting to primary him with a “perfect” candidate, though I disagree strongly with the idea that such a candidate exists. But I cannot understand looking at a choice between Obama and any of the Republican candidates and thinking that the Republican would be better. The choice that progressives and liberals have is not between perfect and evil. It is between Obama and evil. And if you’re willing to choose evil to spite Obama — well, in my mind, that makes you as bad as the evil itself.

Amen.
 

Things are turning surreal in Washington this week. It seems that the Republicans are splitting apart while the Democrats are coming together. I don’t know quite what to make of it. Here’s the NYT on Boehner’s woes:

With G.O.P. Unity at Risk, Boehner Tries Tougher Style

John Boehner

WASHINGTON — Speaker John A. Boehner is a laid-back leader who likes to say that his role is to let the House work its will. But with the nation’s economic standing and his own political future at risk, Mr. Boehner jettisoned his usual laissez-faire approach on Wednesday.

“I didn’t put my neck on the line and go toe to toe with Obama to not have an army behind me,” Mr. Boehner declared at a private party meeting, according to some House members. He demanded the fealty of conservatives who were threatening to sink his budget proposal and deny him the chance to confront the Senate with a take-it-or-leave offer on a debt ceiling increase.

(That’s President Obama to you, sir.)

Meanwhile, every member of the Democratic caucus in the Senate — including Independents Lieberman and Sanders — signed a letter to Mr. Boehner today assuring him that his plan would be dead on arrival in the Senate and urging him to seek a more sensible and realistic solution:

Speaker John Boehner U.S. Capitol, H-232 Washington, DC 20515

Dear Speaker Boehner,

With five days until our nation faces an unprecedented financial crisis, we need to work together to ensure that our nation does not default on our obligations for the first time in our history. We heard that in your caucus you said the Senate will support your bill. We are writing to tell you that we will not support it, and give you the reasons why.

A short-term extension like the one in your bill would put America at risk, along with every family and business in it. Your approach would force us once again to face the threat of default in five or six short months. Every day, another expert warns us that your short-term approach could be nearly as disastrous as a default and would lead to a downgrade in our credit rating. If our credit is downgraded, it would cost us billions of dollars more in interest payments on our existing debt and drive up our deficit. Even more worrisome, a downgrade would spike interest rates, making everything from mortgages, car loans and credit cards more expensive for families and businesses nationwide.

In addition to risking a downgrade and catastrophic default, we are concerned that in five or six months, the House will once again hold the economy captive and refuse to avoid another default unless we accept unbalanced, deep cuts to programs like Medicare and Social Security, without asking anything of the wealthiest Americans.

We now have only five days left to act. The entire world is watching Congress. We need to do the right thing to solve this problem. We must work together to avoid a default the responsible way – not in a way that will do America more harm than good.

Sincerely,

Only five days left before default. Five. Days.

The Republicans own this one. Lock, stock and barrel.
 

By george, I do believe the Democrats may be finally getting it…

Democrats Explicitly Call Out GOP For Sabotaging The Economic Recovery

They’ve made it explicit. Democrats are accusing Republicans of trying to sabotage the recovery — or at least stall it — by blocking all short-term measures to boost the economy, even ones they previously supported.

In a Capitol press conference Wednesday, the Senate’s top Democrats argued that Republicans don’t want to pass measures like a temporary payroll tax holiday for employers because they’ll improve President Obama’s re-election chances.

“Our Republican colleagues in the House and Senate are driven by putting one man out of work: President Obama,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL).

The harshest denunciation came from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the man who crafted the Dems’ new “jobs first” message.

“We are also open to hiring incentives, perhaps in the form of a payroll tax cut for employers that was floated by the administration…. [T]hat might not be our first choice, that shows how willing we are to work with the Republicans to create jobs. It’s pro-business, it’s a tax cut, and many Republicans have been for it in the past. But now all of a sudden they’re coming out against it,” Schumer said.

John Boehner called it a gimmick, Paul Ryan called it sugar high. Lamar Alexander and Jeb Hensarling both criticized it as short-term stimulus — apparently that’s a bad thing. Would Republicans really oppose a tax cut for business that created jobs? This is sort of beyond the pale. So if they’d oppose even something so suited to their tastes ideologically, it shows that they’re just opposing anything that would help create jobs. It almost makes you wonder if they aren’t trying to slow down the economic recovery for political gain.

It’s not like there haven’t been enough hints already. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had this to say way back in October of last year:

The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.

Come on, Democrats, get with the program!
 

A few people have asked my why I haven’t said something about the Anthony Weiner situation. I’ve nothing to say, really. He seems to be behaving a lot like the new generation of politicians we now have in Washington, D.C. I do believe, however, that the people who are now screaming for his head on a platter need to take care of cleaning their own houses before they worry about his.

Nancy Pelosi should hold her hearings to determine if any laws were broken or any rules of the House of Representatives violated. If so, appropriate action should be taken. If not, we should move on and let him and his family sort this out.

I’ll close by saying that nothing that is happening right now comes as a surprise to me. I knew there would be some skeletons escaping from his closet as soon as I heard he was going after Clarence Thomas. It hurts me, though, that a bottom feeder like Andrew Breitbart should gain any credibility or notoriety from this.

And that, friends, is all I have to say about that.
 

Wasserman Schultz Picked as D.N.C. Chairwoman

Wasserman Schultz

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida was named Tuesday as the new chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, with President Obama selecting her to lead the party’s fund-raising and organizational efforts heading into the 2012 election cycle.

Ms. Wasserman Schultz, 44, accepted the position during an afternoon call with the president. She succeeds Tim Kaine, who served as the party’s national chairman for the last two years but announced earlier Tuesday that he is running for a Senate seat in Virginia.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. disclosed the decision to members of the Democratic National Committee, asking them to “welcome her as President Obama’s choice.” The president, who is locked in a budget showdown with Republicans, did not publicly announce the news.

“In selecting Debbie to lead our party, President Obama noted her tenacity, her strength, her fighting spirit and her ability to overcome adversity,” Mr. Biden said. “President Obama expressed great admiration for her as a leader, and he was honored that she accepted this important challenge on behalf of the Democratic Party.”

I do not yet know Rep. Wasserman Schultz. It will be interesting getting to know her and I look forward to working with her.
 

President Obama met with congressional leaders from both parties today. He continues to cling to the belief that the Republicans have a desire to work with him in governing the United States.

A transcript of the President’s remarks follows the break.

Continue Reading »

New DNC ad targeted mainly at young voters but it carries an important message for all of us…

The clip of President Obama is from a speech he gave at a large DNC sponsored rally at the University of Wisconsin on September 28.
 

In what can only be described as an exercise in futility, President Obama invited Democratic and Republican leaders from the Senate to the White House this morning to discuss his forthcoming Supreme Court nomination. It goes without saying that the Republicans are going to oppose whoever the President nominates. They have opposed everything else he has tried to do (and has done); why would they change now?

The President met briefly with the press just prior to the meeting. He was asked if he would use a woman’s right to choose as a ‘litmus test’ when selecting a nominee…

You know, I am somebody who believes that women should have the ability to make often very difficult decisions about their own bodies and issues of reproduction. Obviously this has been a hugely contentious issue in our country for a very long time. I will say the same thing that every President has said since this issue came up, which is I don’t have litmus tests around any of these issues.

But I will say that I want somebody who is going to be interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights, and that includes women’s rights. And that’s going to be something that’s very important to me, because I think part of what our core Constitution — constitutional values promote is the notion that individuals are protected in their privacy and their bodily integrity, and women are not exempt from that.

Good answer.

A full transcript of the press availability follows the break.

Continue Reading »

President Obama’s remarks at the closing of the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit:

Congress completed its work on health care reform this evening…

Congress approves final piece of health care overhaul

Congress Thursday passed and sent to President Barack Obama the final piece of landmark health care legislation intended to change dramatically how most Americans buy, use and maintain insurance coverage.

The House approved the bill by a vote of 220 to 207 Thursday night, hours after the Senate passed the measure by a vote of 56 to 43. No Republicans in either chamber voted for either bill.

This legislation, combined with the bill signed into law on Tuesday, will bring the most significant change in health care policy since Medicare was created in 1965 to provide health insurance coverage for seniors and the disabled.

The new laws will extend health insurance coverage to 32 million people who currently are uninsured. They will expand coverage to 94 percent of eligible Americans. Consumers will find a host of changes in how they deal with doctors, insurers, hospitals and the rest of the health care system.

Done, of course, without a single Republican vote. I hope people remember that come November.