Tag Archives: Barack Obama

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Palin cheapens MLK memory with blast at Obama

It strikes me that some commemorations deserve dignity and decorum.

Honoring the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ought to be one of those occasions … isn’t that right former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin?

The former half-term governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, took a swipe today at President Obama ostensibly while honoring the memory of the slain civil-rights icon.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/20/palin-slams-obama-in-mlk-post/?hpt=hp_t2

“Mr. President, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. and all who commit to ending any racial divide, no more playing the race card,” she said in a Facebook post.

She didn’t offer a specific example of how the president was “playing the race card.” Some have suggested that Obama’s remarks in a New Yorker magazine interview provided the grist for Palin’s attack.

Obama told The New Yorker that some Americans just don’t like him merely because he’s black. Umm, I think he’s correct on that one. Denying as much is to ignore the reality that race still does matter in the hearts and minds of millions of Americans.

My larger point, though, is that Dr. King’s memory deserves to be honored only on its merits — and not used as a cheap political weapon by someone who doesn’t deserve the national political attention she continues to get.

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What if feds had done nothing in ’09?

Many of my friends on the right — and the far right — have taken great pains to blast the smithereens out of President Obama’s economic policies.

Namely, their target has been the increase in the national debt, which now stands at $17 trillion. What has run up the debt? It’s been that federal stimulus package the Obama administration pushed forward while the nation’s economy was in free fall.

You remember those days, right? The economy was shedding 700,000 jobs a month; banks were failing; the real estate market was collapsing; the stock market was flushing itself down the toilet.

Barack Obama’s response was a costly one. The Federal Reserve Board reduced interest rates to near zero, making it easier for borrowers to pay back loans, while making it tough on lenders who are in the business of making money on what they loan.

My pals on the right and their Republican pals in Congress keep harping on the difficulties the Obama administration has endured trying to restore the economy.

I keep circling back to this question, which Sen. John McCain in 2008 and former Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012 both ignored as they ran for president against Barack Obama: What would have happened had the feds done nothing, had the government not instituted its stimulus package to shore up an economy that was on the verge of collapse?

I’ll add this follow-up: Why do they dismiss the clear evidence that the economy is in recovery at this moment? Is it back completely? Probably not.

* The job losses have stopped and have been replaced by job gains. Yes, the December job growth was disappointing. But we’ve gained back all the jobs lost during the final years of the Bush administration and the first year of the Obama administration.

* The annual budget deficit, which once topped $1.1 trillion has been cut in half — and is declining. Will we balance the budget by the time Obama leaves office? Probably not but it’s trending in the right direction.

* The jobless rate is at 6.7 percent, down from nearly 10 percent. Has it declined because every unemployed American has found work? No. Many of them have quit looking for jobs but the signs are indicating that opportunities are opening up on the job market.

* The stock market is setting records, which ought to please Wall Street investors — not to mention those of us with retirement accounts that depend on a healthy market.

I’m not naïve. I know there are myriad problems out there. The world is a restive place. Conflicts are erupting all over the planet. The United States is involved actively in a war that it is trying to wind down; we’ve already ended our involvement in another war. We’re killing terrorists almost daily, but the dead ones are being replaced almost immediately by recruits dedicated to waging war against the Great Satan. This war on terror won’t end anytime soon, folks.

Economically, though, I am feeling better about my future than I was, oh, about six years ago.

What’s more, I hate to think how I’d view our future if the government had kept its hands off the economic rudder.

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Obama has learned: You need to keep tabs on folks

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich said it well this morning on “Meet the Press” while commenting on President Obama’s National Security Agency reforms.

He said Obama ran for president as someone “inclined to support civil liberties,” but has learned that “after five years” he has to depend on surveillance techniques to keep Americans safe.

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/19/22358363-congressional-intelligence-chairmen-applaud-obama-for-backing-surveillance?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=1

The chairs of the Senate and House intelligence committees understand that as well in backing Obama’s reforms while acknowledging the president has developed a keen appreciation for spying on potential bad guys.

This came from the Republican House chairman, Mike Rogers: “The most important victory was the president standing up and saying, ‘Hey, the program did not have abuses. This wasn’t sinister. It wasn’t a rogue agency. It was legal and proper.’”

And this came from the Democratic Senate chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein: “A lot of the privacy people perhaps don’t understand that we still occupy the role of the Great Satan. New bombs are being devised. New terrorists are emerging, new groups, actually, a new level of viciousness. We need to be prepared. I think we need to do it in a way that respects people’s privacy rights.”

The president has recommended putting NSA efforts to listen to phone conversations under more intensive judicial review.

I’ve noted already that NSA activities don’t get me too worked up. I’ve got not a single thing to hide from those guys. Besides, Obama has said the NSA is listening only to those who it believes are up to no good.

That works for me.

As the former speaker — no shrinking violet when it comes to criticizing the president — has said, Barack Obama has learned to appreciate the need to keep eyes and ears on those who would do us harm.

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For GOP, immigration reform a necessity

Congressional Republicans are facing a stark reality in the face.

If they fail to approve immigration reform — and soon — they’re going to be cast farther into the political wilderness by those who would benefit most by such improvements in U.S. immigration policy.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/195764-obama-to-democrats-boehner-will-pass-immigration-reform-in-2014

The GOP already is in serious trouble with immigrants and with those who are the direct descendants of recent immigrants to the United States, as the 2012 presidential election proved without a doubt.

GOP nominee Mitt Romney fared poorly among Latino voters, winning about one in four votes, enabling President Obama to win an unexpectedly comfortable re-election victory.

Republicans who control the House of Representatives have been reluctant to act on immigration reform, such as enabling those who came to this country illegally as children a path to citizenship. They’re going to pay a big price down the road if they don’t do the right thing by giving those folks a chance to come out of the shadows.

House Speaker John Boehner, who I believe is a reasonable man caught in the vise grip of a wing of his party, is beginning to send out signals that immigration reform could occur this year. Barack Obama thinks it will happen, as he told congressional Democrats.

Given that the GOP has declared its intention to reach out, such reform is becoming a necessity.

It’ll be good for a beleaguered political party. What’s more, it will be good for the country.

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Sen./Dr. Coburn to leave the Senate

The U.S. Senate is losing one of its more intriguing members early next year.

I’ll miss Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn in ways that I still need to define.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/01/17/coburn_to_leave_senate_in_early_2015_121275.html

Sen. Coburn is leaving to continue his ongoing battle against prostate cancer. His departure in January 2015 will set off a campaign to replace him in a special election. Don’t look for that seat to flip from Republican to Democrat, given that Oklahoma hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1994.

I’m intrigued by the notion that Coburn is (a) one of the Senate’s most conservative members and (b) one of President Obama’s best friends in the Senate.

How can that be? Aren’t the two parties at bitter odds with each other? Well, apparently Sen. and Mrs. Coburn are quite close to President and Mrs. Obama, owing to the time the men served together in the Senate. I’ve heard over the years that Coburn took young Barack Obama under his wing after the Illinois Democrat was elected in 2004. He showed him the ropes, introduced him around the place, got him acquainted with some of the key players.

Coburn and Obama have been fighting tooth and nail ever since, but they’ve managed to maintain their friendship. It harkens back to the old days on Capitol Hill when political adversaries could avoid becoming enemies.

Coburn, a physician by training, knows the health hazards associated with the disease he is battling.

I wish him well as he continues that fight and hope the relationship he has managed to maintain with a key Democrat — Barack Obama — isn’t lost on his Senate colleagues who’ll stay on to continue their service.

Godspeed, Sen. Coburn.

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NSA changes welcome

Count me as one of the relatively few Americans who have become overly concerned about National Security Agency surveillance practices.

Perhaps it’s because I have nothing to hide or fear from the government. I behave myself, pay my taxes, don’t talk to terror organizations and am generally happy with my station in life.

Pretty boring stuff, actually.

Still, President Obama’s planned reforms of NSA surveillance tactics ought to be welcome news to those who have become anxious over recent revelations about what the government does to prevent terrorist attacks.

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/16/22328345-obama-to-propose-key-changes-in-data-collection-program?lite

One change will be the requirement of judicial oversight of the release of any data collected. Republicans and Democrats seem to speak with one voice in Congress about the need to rein in the NSA, believing it operated with too much intelligence-gathering latitude.

Maybe so. Again, I have nothing to fear from it.

I get the concern, however, from those who worry about possible erosion of civil liberties, such as the right to privacy and the right to be protected against overzealous government intrusion.

Hasn’t the president told us that the NSA is not listening in on everyone’s phone calls? Hasn’t he assured us time and again that our privacy is being protected, that the NSA has been targeting only those suspected of engaging in potentially dangerous activity involving organizations bent on harming Americans?

Yes, I know: This is the same president who pledged we wouldn’t lose health coverage under the Affordable Care Act … and that pledge didn’t quite work out so well.

This is a different matter altogether.

Still, the changes ought to assuage some fears out there about NSA overreach.

Meantime, I’ll keep leading my boring life.

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President vs. Military: Nothing new in Gates book

My friends on the right are having a good time these days dissecting former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s assessment of Barack Obama’s presidency, particularly the part about the president’s strained relations with the military. He writes about it in his memoir, “Duty.”

I have been wondering about that. Is it really unique to this president, or to the office, that the commander in chief would have difficulty with the brass?

I tend to think not.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/01/15/gates_obama_was_suspicious_of_militarys_motives.html

The link attached here contains part of an interview that Sean Hannity had with Gates in which Hannity seems to seek to lure Gates into acknowledging some kind of special animus between this White House and the Pentagon.

Again, is that really new and unique to this administration?

I am going to share a brief personal recollection on that very subject.

My late uncle, Tom Kanelis, was a career Army officer. He enlisted in 1943 and then received his commission some time after that. He then served during the Korean War, where he saw all kinds of hell as an infantry officer with the 2nd Infantry Division. He would serve a total of 27 years in the Army before retiring in 1970 with rank of colonel.

His last post was at the Pentagon, where he served as a staff officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He attended many high-level briefings with the Joint Chiefs and their civilian bosses, namely the defense secretary and his staff.

I asked Tom about the brass’s view of civilian authority. He was pretty unequivocal. The brass resented all civilian authority, period, he said. I was shocked to hear that. “What about Ike?” I asked of President Dwight Eisenhower, the former general of the Army who — as you will recall — played a huge role in defeating Hitler’s forces during World War II. Didn’t matter, Tom said. Once Ike took off his uniform and and then entered politics, he added, he became one of “them.”

Yes, this is just one example. Other officers have different views of different presidents. Ronald Reagan is held up as the recent example of a commander in chief who had huge respect among the ranks of the brass.

I also know that the brass at the highest levels won’t say directly whether they disagree with a civilian edict. They take an oath to follow lawful orders without questioning them.

Gates’s revelations about Barack Obama and his top military commanders doesn’t surprise me in the least. They’ve existed at some level throughout the history of the Republic and will exist for as long as the nation exists.

That means forever.

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Spotlight gets hot as it shines on Gov. Christie

Welcome to center stage, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Now that he seems to have implied an interest in running for president of the United States in 2016, the media are looking at him with intense attention to everything he says or does, or doesn’t say or do.

That’s how it goes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/christie-bridge-controversy-exposes-a-gop-rising-star-to-new-scrutiny/2014/01/11/f49dee40-7aed-11e3-b1c5-739e63e9c9a7_story.html

This is nothing new in politics. The media are trained to do this kind of thing, irrespective of party. My friends on the right can spare me the “liberal media are out to get Christie” nonsense.

I will remind them of what happened to Sen. Barack Obama when he ran for president in 2008. You’ll recall the Rev. Jeremy Wright mess and his association with a Church of Christ pastor who said God should “damn America.” Also recall all those questions about the senator’s birth and whether he was constitutionally qualified to hold the office of president. Let us nor forget, either, the associations that young Barack had with the likes of William Ayers and other members of the infamous Weather Underground anti-Vietnam War crowd.

The media were quick to pounce all over him.

John McCain got the treatment during the 2008 campaign, as did Mitt Romney in 2012. Bill Clinton’s love life became media fodder during the 1992 campaign. Michael Dukakis and convicted murderer Willie Horton were joined at the hip — so to speak — during the 1988 campaign because of a furlough that Dukakis granted Horton while serving as governor of Massachusetts; the furlough ended tragically, if you’ll recall.

The media’s mission is to report these things, to expose candidates to the people who will decide whether they are the right fit for high office.

The bridge fiasco in New Jersey is a legitimate news story insofar as it will determine whether Chris Christie is a bully. It also might determine if he is truthful when he said he didn’t know in advance that key staffers ordered the lane closures of the world’s busiest bridge to get back at a political opponent.

The media will tell the story. It will be up to individual Americans to determine for themselves if it’s a story worth telling.

That’s the way it is, the way it’s been and the way it always will be.

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Could this memoir have waited?

John McCain isn’t exactly a friend of Barack Obama. I’ve had this nagging notion that McCain hasn’t gotten over getting drubbed by the then-young senator from Illinois in their 2008 campaign for the presidency.

The Arizona U.S. senator, though, posits an interesting thought about a memoir that is critical of his former campaign adversary. He said today the author of “Duty,” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, should have waited until the end of the Afghanistan War to release this tell-all tale.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/12/john-mccain-robert-gates_n_4585156.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037

It is puzzling, some have argued, that a former defense chief — who was asked to stay on when the new commander in chief took charge in 2009 — would be so harshly critical of his former boss at this time in history.

These kinds of memoirs do reverberate around the world. The United States is seeking to wind down its longest-running war, seeking to hand combat operations over to the Afghans who have everything to gain and lose in this struggle.

Does this memoir undercut that effort? Does it place men and women in harm’s way in additional peril at some undefined level?

I’m not sure when it’s ever right to publish a memoir that criticizes the commander in chief while military operations are still on-going.

I do respect John McCain’s view on these matters, given his own extensive and distinguished military career.

Now that the book is out and the full-throated chatter on it has commenced, time will tell if it does any damage in the field.

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Cornyn running against … President Obama?

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has just let Texans know how seriously he views the challenge from his right.

Not very seriously at all, or so it appears.

Cornyn has released a TV spot that talks not about any of the people running against him in the March 4 Republican primary. He blasts President Obama.

http://wordpress.com/read/blog/feed/12395410/

It’s not surprising, perhaps, to see this kind of strategy begin to play out. The more a powerful incumbent says about an opponent, the more publicity the opponent gets. I refer to U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Friendswood, who’s emerging as the chief primary challenger to Cornyn.

The incumbent isn’t about to give Stockman any mention at all. Why should he? Doing so elevates Stockman’s profile; it gives him attention; it provides him with grist of his own to use against Cornyn.

It doesn’t hurt that Cornyn is holding up the president as a “foe,” given Barack Obama’s unpopularity among most Texans.

The language in the ad is harsh. In my view it’s overly harsh, but that’s just me.

However, it makes for extremely smart politics from John Cornyn.