Sarah the Quitter pressured prosecutors in Johnston case

By GottaLaff

Via The Mudflats, we discover that, while another Palin scandal may interest us on a slow news day, the real story is this one (original post on this here):

And what, in the long run, may be the most important story revealed today is this from The Immoral Minority:

As some of you may know Sherry [Johnston's} court date was moved from yesterday to August 19. The reason for this is that until just now the prosecutors REFUSED to make any kind of a deal, because of pressure they were receiving from the Governor. For some reason Palin was pushing for Sherry to receive the maximum sentence. [snip]

I cannot talk about what kind of deal Sherry may get, but the prosecution has become much more reasonable now that Sean Parnell is our Governor.

Okay, so maybe I should have ignored rumors of a Sarah/Todd split (it was irresistible, widely reported, and I'm only human), but we cannot ignore S the Q pressuring the courts for what appears to be personal reasons.

She just can't stay out of the news, now can she? Maybe she'll Tweet about it.

Does Obama really want activists to back off re: health care?

By GottaLaff

This reminds me of a scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, where Gene Wilder feebly tries to warn one of the kids of impending danger:

Mike Teevee: Look at me, I'll be be the first person in the world to be sent by television!
Mrs. Teevee: Mike, get away from that thing!
Willy Wonka: [unenthusiastically] Stop. Don't. Come back.

Now compare and contrast:

The Washington Post's Ceci Connolly reported over the weekend that the White House is aware of the pressure Democratic lawmakers are under from progressive organizations on health care, and the president is on the members' side. [...]

But I'm not sure if the story should be taken at face value. There are plenty of progressive organizations and institutions -- MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, Service Employees International Union, Progressive Change Campaign Committee -- pressuring Democratic members on meaningful reform. If the White House wanted the groups to pull back, the White House would ask the groups to pull back.

Instead, we're hearing that lawmakers -- who'd prefer not to receive the pressure -- received supportive comments from a sympathetic president about those mean ol' activist groups leaning on members to do the right thing. [...]

[T]here's very little evidence to suggest the White House is doing anything to pressure those applying the pressure, beyond saying nice things to members of Congress about how awful it must be to feel so much pressure.

Think about this way: freshman Sen. Kay Hagan (D) of North Carolina was against a public option. MoveOn started leaning on her pretty aggressively, and soon after, Hagan reversed course. Maybe the timing was coincidental, maybe not.

But aside from reassuring support on a conference call, why would Obama seriously want MoveOn and its allies from helping him achieve his goal?

Stop. Don't....

Generals have plan to put public pressure on Obama on Iraq withdrawal

By GottaLaff

President Obama is no George Bush... thank goodness. And unless I'm mistaken, I seem to remember that Obama won the election. However, it sounds like there are a few in the military who haven't gotten word of that yet:

CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, supported by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 21.

But Obama informed Gates, Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen that he wasn't convinced and that he wanted Gates and the military leaders to come back quickly with a detailed 16-month plan, according to two sources who have talked with participants in the meeting. [...]

There are indications that Petraeus and his allies in the military and the Pentagon, including Gen. Ray Odierno, now the top commander in Iraq, have already begun to try to pressure Obama to change his withdrawal policy.

A network of senior military officers is also reported to be preparing to support Petraeus and Odierno by mobilising public opinion against Obama's decision.

Petraeus was visibly unhappy when he left the Oval Office, according to one of the sources. A White House staffer present at the meeting was quoted by the source as saying, "Petraeus made the mistake of thinking he was still dealing with George Bush instead of with Barack Obama."

Petraeus, Gates and Odierno had hoped to sell Obama on a plan that they formulated in the final months of the Bush administration that aimed at getting around a key provision of the U.S.-Iraqi withdrawal agreement signed envisioned re-categorising large numbers of combat troops as support troops. That subterfuge was by the United States last November while ostensibly allowing Obama to deliver on his campaign promise. [...]

The source says the network, which includes senior active duty officers in the Pentagon, will begin making the argument to journalists covering the Pentagon that Obama's withdrawal policy risks an eventual collapse in Iraq. That would raise the political cost to Obama of sticking to his withdrawal policy. [...]

Obama told Petraeus in Baghdad last July that, if elected, he would regard the overall health of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps and the situation in Afghanistan as more important than Petraeus's obvious interest in maximising U.S. troop strength in Iraq, according to Time magazine's Joe Klein.

But judging from Petraeus's shock at Obama's Jan. 21 decision, he had not taken Obama's previous rejection of his arguments seriously. That miscalculation suggests that Petraeus had begun to accept Keane's assertion that a newly-elected Democratic president would not dare to override his policy recommendation on troops in Iraq.

Let's recap: President Obama is the commander-in-chief. He calls the shots. So is it me, or should these military officers defer to their boss rather than try to publicly humiliate and pressure him?

That's what I thought.