By GottaLaff
Chess, not checkers. Strong closer. You've heard the various descriptions of how President Obama plays the political game.
And that brings us to the Quote-O'-The-Day:
[T]he president is giving a decent impression of the Dalai Lama on a quiet day. But he's done that before, only to reveal a Ninja under the robes.Let's leave what's under Prez O's robes out of this, mmkay? Mmkay.
--Andrew Sullivan
By GottaLaff
Andrew Sullivan: "I confess I do not feel those highest hopes. I do not share his confidence in American military and civilian power to turn the roiling region of Afghanistan and Pakistan into something less threatening. I see no reason after the last eight years to see how this can happen, even with these new resources. But if you rule out withdrawal right away, then this seems to me to be about the smartest strategy ahead. But I see absolutely no reason to believe that it will mean withdrawal of any significant amount in Obama's first term."As Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell) said on Countdown tonight, "He came up with the least worst" option. This, to me, seems to be the consensus.
David Kurtz: "I know many progressives are disenchanted with this decision, but I'm struck again by how Obama is crafting a new progressive narrative for foreign policy and national security. Not just reality-based, though it is that. But an affirmative, positive rationale. Not a reaction to the conservative foreign policy orthodoxy, though it certainly acknowledges it."
John Aravosis: "I think Obama did a good job, especially for a Democrat, on a major military speech. Democrats enter this territory with certain disadvantages. That's why, I think, that Obama did a great job of using the pomp and circumstance of office, as Bush and other Republicans always do, to lend an air of dignity to the evening.
By GottaLaff
[H]ere’s Andrew Sullivan on why the Cheney clan is waging a death struggle against transfering Gitmo detainees to U.S. soil:I take issue with that. Dickless McHeartStent already is one of the darkest figures in modern American history.What Cheney fears, I suspect, is that Gitmo will be shut down, that history will record it as the lowest point in US human rights ever, that the Cheney family will be tarred as the brand that destroyed America’s moral standing, and that Dick Cheney will become one of the darkest figures in modern American history.
By GottaLaff
Despite the theatrics over health care reform, Andrew Sullivan says President Obama will ultimately get a bill through Congress.What about the grampies? Why is it always the grannies that are threatened with euthenasia? Is it because they're female? They get some sort of... preferential treatment?
"Obama has a solid majority and can achieve all this with Democratic votes alone. So why is he in such trouble? Partly it is that this kind of reform rightly stirs scepticism, and Obama has allowed a hapless and divided Congress to take the lead, muddying the message. Partly it is that the hard right is becoming more and more extreme and its fears have eclipsed the hopes of Obama's supporters. But the most critical part, in my view, is the public understanding that after two massive bank bailouts and a vast stimulus package, with two still-intractable wars, the US cannot afford even the modest 10-year trilliondollar package Obama is proposing. And Obama's inability to cut spending while the economy is so fragile means he is constrained from offering fiscal reassurance."
"So, tactically, Obama is on the defensive. Strategically? Again, he is stronger than he now appears. When the health insurance bill is passed and elderly Americans are not rounded up into concentration camps and granny isn't subjected to euthanasia, and when many uninsured people gain a peace of mind they have never felt before, and people become able to change job without fearing loss of insurance, the Republican scare tactics may come to seem absurd."
By GottaLaff
According to Andrew Sullivan, "Iran's own election monitoring commission has declared the result invalid and called for a do-over."
Later on Meet the Press, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough seemed to rebut these right-wing claims, suggesting that President Obama's outreach in Cairo "scared" the Iranian leaders into fixing the election:SCARBOROUGH: You know, the law of unintended consequences came in again. I suspect that Cairo speech really scared the grand ayatollahs in Iran. If they were going to fix an election, this was the time to fix it, because the last thing they wanted to do was Barack Obama take credit for reformers winning in Iran, like they already have in Lebanon. And by the way, in the short term that's bad news for us. I think in the long term, though -- if the ayatollahs are seen stealing an election, as a result from what Barack Obama did in Cairo -- I actually think that's a positive for the United States and Iran in the long run.
It scares me when I don't want to scream at MoJoe. Somebody talk me down, Laffy quipped.
By GottaLaff
Changechangechangechangechangechange:
Andrew Sullivan: "I've learned for two years now not to under-estimate Obama. I watched from the very start of the campaign how he strategized a path to achieving his goals partly by eschewing the kinds of tactics that Washington has come to see as political skill. I think of him in some ways as the Un-Rove. Karl Rove mastered the art of petty and nasty political tactics in the South of the post-Reagan era. And he never had a solid grip on conservatism as a political philosophy or of political strategy. And so Rove today endures as the architect of the biggest and deepest political implosion since the Democrats in the 1970s. It was all tactics, no strategy; all politics, no governance. He remains the worst single political strategist of modern times."Apparently, Sully doesn't get the message that Prez O is a socialistic commie. Someone Twitter him. Now.
"Now look at how Obama has framed the debate since the election. Every single symbolic act has been inclusive and sober. From that speech in Grant Park to the eschewal of euphoria on Inauguration Day; from the George Will dinner invite to the Rick Warren invocation; from meeting the House Republicans on the Hill to convening a fiscal responsibility summit; from telegraphing to all of us Obamacons that he wasn't a fiscal lunatic to ... unveiling the most expansive, liberal, big government reversal of Reagan any traditional Democrat would die for."
Once again, thanks to FDL for getting this up so fast.
By GottaLaff
Andrew Sullivan: "I have to say even I am a little taken aback by the force of the Republican assault. Even in a downturn as swift and alarming as this one, even after an election that clearly favored one approach over another, even after the most conciliatory efforts by an incoming president in memory, these people have gone to war against the president. The president should stay cool. The rest of us should realize what motivates the GOP: the opportunism of selective ideology."Utterly oblivious. If they want to turn this into a successful P.R. war, they might want to think about acquiring some ammunition first
By GottaLaff
Andrew Sullivan: "Some readers think my continuing attempt to expose all the lies and flim-flam and bizarre behavior of Sarah Palin is now moot. She's history -- they argue. Move on. I think she probably is history. Even Bill Kristol and his minions in the McCain-Palin campaign may not be able to resuscitate her political viability now. But even if she is history, she is history that matters."She's relevantly irrelevant.
By GottaLaff
Joe the Plumber has now had more press conferences than Sarah Palin.
--Andrew Sullivan
By GottaLaff
Andrew Sullivan: "Did anyone notice that in the TV spin afterwards, Biden was everywhere as you would expect of a vice-presidential nominee, but Palin was nowhere to be found? They can't even rely on her to spin without tangling herself in knots and adding new layers of lies to her existing web of untruth."IWRC* Palin is "clueless". Just ask the McCain campaign. They wouldn't trust her alone, without a script, in front of a camera for two minutes. Katie Couric can attest to that.
By GottaLaff
If you missed Real Time with Bill Maher the other night, you missed Naomi Klein discussing the economy meltdown and how it fits right into "The Shock Doctrine":
"The reason why this bubble was allowed to inflate is not because the American people demanded it, it was because it was spectacularly profitable for Wall Street."
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