Tag Archives: White House

So very wrong about Campaign ’16 . . . so far

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I’ve said it more times than I can remember, which is that I’m wrong far more frequently than I am right.

My political prognostication skill has been exposed for what it is: shaky . . . at best.

Thus, I am prepared to acknowledge how wrong I’ve been about the current campaign for the presidency. My wrongness tracks along both parties’ trails.

First, the Republicans.

Donald J. Trump’s candidacy has withstood the candidate’s own serious shortcomings as a presidential aspirant, let alone his actual ability to govern.

Never in a zillion years did I think he’d still be in this campaign — let alone leading the GOP gaggle of candidates — after the countless insults he has hurled along the way.

Sen. John McCain’s valor during the Vietnam War doesn’t make him a hero? The ridiculous back/forth with broadcast journalist Megyn Kelly during the first presidential debate? His assertion that he’ll build a wall along our southern border and force Mexico to pay for it? His revealing Sen. Lindsey Graham’s cell phone number? His proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States? His assertion that he witnessed “thousands of Muslims cheering” the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11?

OK, I’ve left some of ’em out.

Despite all that, this guy continues to lead the pack.

Anger among GOP voters? That’s what is moving this man forward? If that is the case, then the Republican Party “base” is lost its sanity.

During President Obama’s State of the Union speech, I tried to imagine Donald Trump standing at that lectern offering high-minded, soaring rhetoric designed to lay the groundwork for how he intends to govern. Imagine him as well standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol next January offering his inaugural speech to the nation as its 45th president.

All I hear coming from this guy are blustering, blistering insults.

Is that really what we want in the next president of the United States? Our head of state? Our commander in chief?

Now for the Democrats.

I once thought Hillary Rodham Clinton’s nomination was a shoo-in. She had it locked up. Nothing, or no one, would derail the Hillary Express on its way to the nomination and to the White House.

Then came Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist with a campaign theme that has resonated with his party’s base. Break up the big banks, de-fang the Wall Street power brokers, spread the wealth around, lift up everyone’s wages and reduce the income gap between the very rich and the rest of the country.

Republicans have made a lot of hay over Benghazi, which has become a form of political shorthand that means: Clinton lied about what she knew about the attack on the U.S. consulate in that Libyan city. There’s a congressional select committee that’s still looking for something to torpedo Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, Sanders — the independent U.S. senator from Vermont — is drawing huge, enthusiastic crowds. He’s ahead by a good bit in New Hampshire, the site of the nation’s first primary vote and is now virtually tied with Clinton in Iowa, which is about to kick off the voting with its caucuses.

Do I believe Hillary Clinton will be denied the nomination? No. But it sure ain’t the coronation I thought it would be when this campaign began.

Let me add, too, that I do not believe Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. I have some faith — although it’s been hammered — that the Republican Party brass comprises reasonable, intelligent and sane men and women who understand the consequences of nominating someone whose main skill lies in his ability to insult anyone who disagrees with him.

I don’t like acknowledging how wrong I have been.

Still, I feel better now for saying so out loud.

 

GOP governor draws angry fire … from Republicans

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South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley isn’t angry enough to suit some within what used to be known as the Republican Party.

No. She instead called on her party brethren to not listen to the “siren call of the angriest voices.” She offered that advice in her response on behalf of her party to President Obama’s State of the Union message delivered Tuesday night.

What was the reaction among the conservatives within her party?

Anger. Lots of it. Some of it, well, bordering on hateful.

Is this what the Grand Old Party has become? The party of intense, seething anger?

She aimed her fire, without mentioning him by name, at Donald J. Trump, the GOP frontrunner who has tapped into some vein of anger within his party. The call to ban all Muslims? That suits the Republican “base” just fine, irrespective of its being totally outside the principles on which this country was founded.

Haley sought to quell that kind of rhetoric in her GOP response. It was met with hostility.

This is a remarkable set of circumstances facing the Republican Party. It is about to commence its nominating process in just a little more than two weeks with the Iowa caucuses, followed immediately by the New Hampshire primary. Its leading candidate has stirred up some intense anger among the party’s most fervent voters.

Then the party — at the invitation of House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — listens to Gov. Haley talk sensibly while offering criticism of the Democratic president’s vision . . . only to have its most conservative members go ballistic!

The Republican Party appears to be morphing into something few us recognize.

 

SOTU won’t fill us with warm, fuzzy feelings

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It never really had to be this way.

Barack H. Obama took office in January 2009 as the 44th president of the United States after an election that many had hoped would be a “transformational” political event for a country that had just elected its first African-American president.

Not long afterward, then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that his top priority would be to make Obama a one-term president. Yes, that’s right. McConnell said that defeating the president’s re-election effort would be his No. 1 priority.

That set the tone — right off the top — for the kind of relationship that the White House would have with Congress.

It hasn’t gotten any better, even as President Obama prepares to deliver his final State of the Union speech to a joint congressional session.

Ugly relationship coming to an end

To be blunt, the president didn’t do his part to develop a good working relationship with Congress. I’ve lamented before how the young president never learned how to build upon those relations with his congressional friends. To be honest, the president arguably served too little time in the Senate to have crafted a lot of friendships and political alliances among his fellow legislators.

I had hoped the president could have followed the Lyndon Johnson model of transferring his Senate experience into effective legislative accomplishment.

He didn’t.

However, Congress made it clear that it had no intention of giving any quarter to the president.

So, the president’s final State of the Union speech — which the White House says will be an “unconventional” presentation — isn’t expected to produce any bright lights of hope for a smooth and successful final year of the Obama presidency.

Republicans almost unanimously say that next to nothing will get done in this final full year of Barack Obama’s administration.

Perhaps, then, it will be left to the president simply to declare victory on the accomplishments that his presidency has delivered.

I’m wondering now if the president is going to remind us that Sen. McConnell’s top priority never came to pass.

 

Obama vetoes ACA repeal bill; what now?

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Who didn’t see this one coming?

Nobody. That’s who.

President Barack Obama today vetoed a bill that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act and cut federal funds from Planned Parenthood.

This was the mother of political statements. And I’m not talking necessarily about the president’s veto.

I’m referring to Congress’s insistence that the ACA — also known as Obamacare — isn’t working, that it’s an albatross, that it represents a government overreach.

It’s also the president’s signature domestic policy achievement. He said all along — going back to other efforts by Republicans in Congress to repeal the law — that he’d veto any such bill if it got to his desk. It did . . . and he did.

I believe Congress needs at this time to cut its losses. It doesn’t have the votes to override the president’s veto, even with its GOP majority in both legislative chambers. Republicans need a two-thirds majority to override; they don’t have it in the Senate.

We’ve got an election coming up. We’ll have a new president a year from now. Depending on who the parties nominate, Congress might have a dramatically different look than it does today — particularly if the Republican presidential nominee happens to have the name Donald J. Trump.

The current Congress still must work with a Democratic president who — on this issue — has drawn a line deep into the dirt between the White House and Capitol Hill.

The Affordable Care Act is going to stay; moreover, the government will continue to provide public money to Planned Parenthood. Don’t mess with either of them.

Let’s get on to the many other complex issues facing the nation.

Tornadoes need federal, political attention

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My wife and I laughed — nervously, I’ll admit — earlier today at our good fortune as we prepare to haul our fifth wheel back home.

We left the Texas Panhandle just ahead of a severe winter storm that blew in from the northwest. We headed for the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex to spend Christmas day with our son, daughter-in-law and our three grandkids — only to watch while tornadoes ripped through the region the afternoon and evening after Christmas.

The tornadoes resulted in several deaths and untold destruction of property all around our kids’ home in Allen.

I’m not well-versed in what happens next, but the destruction would seem to require some federal help. I am aware that state governors have to ask for it but as I write this brief blog post, I am unclear about whether Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is going to seek federal help to clean up the mess that the tornadoes left behind.

President Obama is due to return to Washington in the next day or so. I want to extend an invitation for him to land Air Force One at D/FW airport and take a look at what happened out there.

And the other candidates for president? I’m aware that Republican contender Ted Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, already has taken a gander at what occurred in his home state.

We’ve still got a bunch of presidential candidates seeking the office. Yes, they can come, too.

Will anything get done? Will there be relief to be delivered to the state? Can it be delivered without attaching strings, such as what occurred when Joplin, Mo., was devastated by tornadoes in 2011 and then-U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor demanded that Congress cut spending elsewhere to “pay” for the relief?

We’ve got a lot of presidential contenders out there on the campaign trail. We’ve also got a president who’ll be flying directly at Texas on his way back to the White House. Texas is a big and important state.

And we’ve got a lot of residents who at this moment likely would appreciate some comfort from words of encouragement and support.

 

 

Still pulling for Jeb

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John Ellis Bush, aka Jeb, is trying to goad Donald Trump into making more stupid pronouncements.

To be honest, I might be one of the few Americans, let alone non-Republicans, pulling for Jeb to get Trump’s goat.

Jeb wants Trump one-on-one, in a debate. Just the two of ’em. Man to man.

It won’t happen, of course, given federal election rules that prohibit the exclusion of other declared presidential candidates.

Jeb, though, is trying to inject some of the energy that Trump has said is missing from his campaign.

Why am I pulling for Jeb?

OK, a couple of reasons.

One is that I long have admired the man’s family and its history of public service to the country. I point specifically to his grandfather, the late Sen. Prescott Bush, and — of course — his dad, the 41st president of the United States, George H.W. Bush.

Daddy Bush — known as Poppy to his family — in my view was the most qualified man ever to serve as president. He brought a stellar public service resume to the White House.

The second reason is that while I didn’t vote for older brother George W. for any public office — as Texas governor or as president — I happen to like him personally. I’ve met the 43rd president on three occasions: once on an elevator in New Orleans during the 1988 GOP presidential convention; in a lengthy 1995 interview in Austin not many months after he became governor; and in 1998 when I interviewed him in Amarillo while he was seeking re-election as governor.

My face-to-face contact with George W. Bush persuaded me beyond a doubt that he got a  bum rap from those who accused him being a dim bulb. Bush proved to be an amazingly quick study as governor.

Will the younger Bush be able to energize his moribund campaign? I hope he does and I also hope he’s able to knock Donald J. Trump down a peg or four along the way.

I am not going to predict it will happen, but my version of hope does spring eternal.

 

 

 

President declares victory … over whom, what?

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It’s being reported tonight that President Obama today declared victory as he and his family took off out west on their family Christmas vacation.

I get that he’s anxious to finish his final full year as president on a high note. I question, though, whether there’s a victory yet to declare.

The president held his annual end-of-year press conference touting a few key victories: the Iran nuclear deal, the continuing enrollment of the Affordable Care Act, the recent budget deal worked out by Congress, re-establishing ties with Cuba, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and some other things.

They’ve all produced good signs of progress. But victory?

Not yet.

There’s still that ongoing fight with the Islamic State. He pledged yet again that the United States is hitting ISIL “harder than ever” and vowed to ramp up the pounding that U.S. and allied nations are delivering to the terrorist monsters. That fight is far from over. Indeed, it might never end. It won’t end by the time the current president leaves office and likely won’t end by the time the next one departs the White House.

It all reminds me of the time the late U.S. Sen. George Aiken, R-Vt., once declared that it would be in the best interest of the country to “declare victory” in Vietnam and just go home.

Well, at least don’t have to “go home.” Still, there’s much more work to do before the 44th president hands the White House keys over the 45th.

Enjoy the time with your family, Mr. President. Come on back, though, and get to work.

Oh … and Merry Christmas to you as well.

 

A congressional breakthrough … maybe?

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A single dinner involving two political leaders of opposing parties likely doesn’t signal much all by itself.

It might portend a potential thaw in relations on Capitol Hill. I reiterate … it might.

Newly elected House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., invited House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to his Capitol Hill office for a two-hour get-together. They had a meal in the office and talked a little shop and got to know each other a little better.

What does this mean?

It might be a precursor to some actual progress in Congress between political leaders who’ve been fighting each other — often using some intemperate language to describe the other sides’ motives and intentions.

Democrats and Republicans are battling at the moment over a new budget. They did manage to cobble together a five-day stopgap measure that keeps the government running … but only for a short time. More bargaining is due in the next few days for everyone to agree on a $1.1 trillion federal budget that funds the government through most of next year.

Oh yeah. It’s also an election year.

Ryan and Pelosi reportedly don’t know each other well. This meal in Ryan’s office was billed as sort of an ice-breaker.

Where do we go from here? That remains anyone’s guess.

Congress, though, needs to figure out a way to assert its constitutional responsibility to actually govern. There’s been too much fighting between the parties, not to mention between the majority party — that would be the Republicans — and the White House.

The president must share responsibility in this ongoing inability to find common ground. However, just as members of Congress want to take credit for the good things that happen, they also need to take responsibility for the negative occurrences.

Ryan and Pelosi likely aren’t going to become best friends forever — aka BFFs. A dinner, though, well might set the stage for a new working relationship that restores the concept of good government to Capitol Hill.

GOP turns on itself over immigration

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It’s fascinating to the max to watch what has happened to today’s Republican Party.

It is at war with itself. Immigration is the catalyst that has ignited the spark among the gaggle of GOP pols seeking the party’s presidential nomination.

There once was a time when Democrats were torching each other. The Vietnam War split Democrats between the Hawk Wing and the Dove Wing. Stay the course in ‘Nam or get the hell out of there … immediately if not sooner!

Well, the intraparty division sent Democrats into the presidential electoral wilderness for a time. Then Watergate occurred and the nation elected Democrat Jimmy Carter for a single term in 1976; Republican Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 launched a 12-year run of GOP White House control.

Democrats are relatively united these days.

Republicans? They’re fighting like the dickens over immigration.

Two of the main protagonists are Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida. Rubio has accused Cruz of endorsing “amnesty” for illegal immigrants.

Cruz has fired back with his own allegations that Rubio has flip-flopped on the issue.

It’s all quite fun to watch, at least it is to me.

Cruz and Rubio both are playing semantics over what they — and each other — have said about immigration. Cruz seeks to become the most conservative of the Gang of 14 (GOP presidential candidates) on the issue. I don’t know what Rubio is trying to do, other than trying to muddy up Cruz’s stated positions on immigration.

They both share a common dislike of President Obama’s policies, which include granting temporary amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants while sparing the children who were brought here by their parents illegally the misery of being kicked out of the only country they’ve ever called home; that would be the United States of America.

I don’t know when the pendulum will swing back to the old ways of Democrats tearing each other’s lungs out. I guess it will … eventually. For now, though, leave it to those silly Republicans to provide the entertainment.

 

Reid weighs in on Rubio’s (lack of) attendance

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, Maryland March 14, 2013. Two senators seen as possible candidates for the 2016 presidential election will address a conservative conference where Republicans will try to regroup on Thursday after their bruising election loss last year.  REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque  (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS) - RTR3EZQO

Is it really and truly the business of the Senate minority leader to comment on the attendance record of one of his colleagues?

Well, yes it is.

Harry Reid is a Nevada Democrat; Marco Rubio is a Florida Republican. Reid said this week that Rubio ought to quit his Senate seat if he’s going to keep running for president of the United States.

Why does it matter to Reid?

Well, it matters to Reid because it ought to matter to all Americans. Senator are federal employees. They get paid $174,000 annually from the federal Treasury, into which we all contribute with our tax money.

Rubio has indicated he doesn’t much like serving in the Senate. It’s too, um, tedious for the young man. He wants to become the Leader of the Free World, to make things happen in a hurry. He’s not seeking re-election to the Senate in 2016.

Reid’s call is on point, as Rubio keep racking up no-shows on Senate votes.

A newspaper in Rubio’s home state, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, has called on Rubio to quit. He’s ripping off the state’s taxpayers and his constituents, the Sun-Sentinel said. And this is a paper that endorsed Rubio when he ran for the office in 2010.

Let’s be clear: Rubio isn’t the first rookie senator to take a pass on doing his day job while looking for a better-paying public service gig. Sen. Barack Obama did the same thing in 2007-2008 when he ran for president. Should he have quit his Senate seat when he ran for the White House? Yeah, probably. But that’s all water over the dam now.

What’s on the table now is whether Marco Rubio should keep collecting that fat — taxpayer-subsidized — salary without doing much of the work that’s required of him.

Hit the road, Sen. Rubio. Campaign for president all you want, but do it on your own time … not ours.