Tag Archives: Barack Obama

national news, political news, Uncategorized

What’s in a name?

Obama-Cruz

Social media provide a wonderful — but occasionally maddening — forum for passing around silly quips and observations.

This one came across my Facebook feed the other day.

It noted that President Obama’s critics have been fond of referring to him as “Barack Hussein Obama.” Yet one of those critics doesn’t get the same treatment by his foes who could refer to him as “Rafael Eduardo Cruz.”

To be fair, I don’t recall hearing Texas Republican U.S. senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz use the president’s full, given name when referring to him. Maybe he did. Whatever …

I have heard the president make plenty of fun of his own name.

During two appearances with Republican rivals at the Al Smith Dinner in New York City — which is a political ritual of sorts, bringing opponents together for a night of fun and bipartisan fellowship — Obama cracked jokes about his name.

In 2008, he said he got his name from “someone who never thought I’d run for president.” Referring to a line that Republican nominee U.S. Sen. John McCain had used in a debate with Sen. Obama, he joked, “Barack is actually Swahili for ‘that one.'”

In 2012, while running for re-election, the president noted something in common with his GOP foe, Mitt Romney. “We both have unusual names,” he said, noting that “Mitt” is Romney’s middle name. “I wish I could use my middle name,” the president quipped with feigned wistfulness, again to huge laughter.

What’s the connection between Obama and Cruz? They both have faced — and are facing — equally ridiculous questions about their eligibility to seek the presidency.

What’s the lesson here?

It might rest in that old saying about something being “sauce for the goose … and the gander.”

 

national news, political news

Sanders’ ‘revolution’ might be overstated

revolution

Sen. Bernie Sanders is now using the word “revolution” to describe the nature of his bid to become president of the United States.

He’s leading Hillary Clinton in every poll there is in New Hampshire, which I think is filling the Vermont senator’s head with visions of overinflated grandeur.

It’s not that his Democratic support is fake. It’s real. But let’s cool the “revolution” talk for a bit.

Three presidential campaigns of the late 20th century also were labeled “revolutions” in some quarters. How did they do?

1964: Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona took the Republican Party presidential nomination by storm, defeating “establishment” candidates, such as New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in a wild primary fight. He went on to lose the general election that year to President Lyndon Baines Johnson in a historic landslide. LBJ, of course, traded a good bit on the legacy of his slain predecessor, John Kennedy, and vowed to continue pursuing JFK’s unfinished agenda.

1968: Just four years later, the Vietnam War caused another revolution. LBJ’s popularity had gone south. Democrats looked for an alternative. They turned to one in Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, who stunned LBJ with a stronger-than-expected showing in the New Hampshire primary. In came another anti-war candidate, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York, brother of the murdered president and a political hero to many Americans — including yours truly. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, another “establishment” candidate, won the nomination, but then lost to Republican Richard Nixon by a narrow margin that fall.

1972: Let’s call this one the Anti-Vietnam War Revolution 2.0. The flag bearer this time would be U.S. Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota, who beat the party “establishment” led by Sen. Ed Muskie of Maine to win the nomination. McGovern drew big crowds to rallies, too, just like Sanders. Did they equate to votes that November? Ummm, no. President Nixon won 49 out of 50 states and buried McGovern’s “revolution” under the landslide.

Yes, some “revolutions” succeed. Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory in 1980 is one. Barack Obama’s election in 2008 could be considered another one. But they required extraordinary circumstances. The Iranian hostage crisis hurt President Carter grievously in voters’ minds in ’80 and the economic free-fall of 2008 helped lift Sen. Obama into the White House eight years ago.

Sanders might think he’s carrying the torch for another revolution. Then again, Republicans such as Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and perhaps even Marco Rubio might want to say the same thing . . . for entirely different reasons.

I just want to remind the revolutionaries out there that the political establishment doesn’t get to be so entrenched and powerful by being made up of pushovers or patsies.

 

 

medical news, national news

‘Moonshot’ cancer initiative must go beyond Obama years

Vice President Joe Biden points at President Barack Obama during the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)

Why do I get this nagging knot in my gut that President Obama’s so-called “moonshot” effort to find a cure for cancer isn’t getting enough attention on an important aspect of it?

It will have to continue long past the day that Barack Obama leaves the White House for the final time as president.

He turned to Vice President Biden during his State of the Union speech and made Biden the leader of the effort to find a cure for cancer. The president now wants to commit $1 billion toward that goal.

But the 44th president has less than a year to go. There won’t be a cure found before he leaves office. Who’s going to keep fighting that fight? Who’s going to lead the effort?

Would it be Biden, who leaves office the same day as Barack Obama? It ought to be.

We all know someone who’s been affected by this killer. Many of us have endured treatment and therapy ourselves.

There’s certain to be opposition to the president’s call for such a major expenditure. My hope is that we can muster the kind of national will that we managed to find for the actual moonshot initiative launched by President Kennedy in 1961.

According to The Hill: “In any type of major ambitious efforts, unless you set your sights high, you’re almost guaranteed to not get to the type of success that we all want,” an administration official said. “There’s a reason the vice president is aspiring big, it’s the only way we’re going to push the envelope and make this kind of progress.”

True enough. This project, though, is going to require a lot of attention that must persist long after the current administration leaves office.

Whoever succeeds Barack Obama has to commit with the same fervor to the fight to cure cancer.

One demonstration of that commitment would be to keep Joe Biden on the job.

 

local news, national news, political news, State news

Iowa set to kick it off . . . but Texas awaits

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OK, so the nation’s political junkies’ eyes are turning this morning to places like Ottumwa, Indianola and Dubuque.

Iowa goes to the polls today, sort of.

The rest of us will know sometime this evening who Iowans prefer to become the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees.

I don’t want to dismiss the importance of these caucuses, which both parties do differently. Republicans actually cast ballots; Democrats go into rooms and argue with each other.

It still just involves a single state. Iowa is a fine place. I’ve been there a couple of times. But it comprises a relatively small population and only a fraction of Iowans are going to take part in these caucuses.

The really, really big show starts on March 1.

New Hampshire next week? South Carolina the week after that? Pffftt!

Texas comes into play on that first day in March when we take part in what amounts to a national primary. We’ll join about 20 other states in selecting delegates to the party conventions.

I do not believe the Republican field will be quite as crowded as it is this morning. Some of the 11 candidates will pull out, perhaps after tonight’s caucuses, or after the New Hampshire primary.

The Democrats might still have a three-person race when the dog-and-pony show comes to Texas.

For those of us who like this process, Texas usually has been a sort of political backwater. We have conducted our primaries relatively late in this nominating process, making our votes meaningless.

Not this year.

There will be some real excitement this year that could rival the 2008 primary.

Eight years ago, the Democrats were engaged in a brass-knuckle fight between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The primary occurred that year while the two of them were still battling for their party’s nomination.

A fascinating development occurred that year. Democrats drew far more attention in Republican-laden Texas. My wife and I live in Randall County, one of the most GOP-friendly counties in this state. The Democratic Party primary polling place was many times busier that day than the Republican polling station at the Baptist church where we vote.

Why? A lot of Republicans were crossing over to vote in the Democratic primary to cast their votes for who they thought would be the weakest candidate who would run against the GOP nominee.

Clinton won the Texas Democratic primary, but the nomination went eventually, of course, to Obama.

The rest is history.

Will there be a similar display of system-gaming this year? Might there be thousands of Democrats casting Republican primary votes to help nominate the person they think would be the weakest foe this fall? The state’s open primary system allows for that kind of tomfoolery.

If it happens, well, that’s how it goes.

Whatever happens on primary day in Texas will matter — a lot — in determining the next president of the United States.

I look forward to all the attention that will come to places like Marfa, Palestine — and perhaps even Amarillo.

 

national news, political news

‘Failed presidency’? Hardly

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Ed Rogers’s bias is crystal clear.

The Republican operative, writing in the Washington Post, calls Barack Obama a “failed president.” The president’s alleged “failures,” Rogers asserted, has led to the rise of Donald J. Trump and the crippling of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Read the essay here.

I am acutely aware that there are those who side with Rogers’s assessment of Barack Obama’s two terms in the White House. I also am aware that others disagree with him, who believe that the president’s tenure has been anything but a failure.

I happen to one of the latter.

I’m enjoying, however, listening to the field of Republican presidential candidates harp on the same thing. They decry American “weakness.” They blame the president for it. They say we’re weak militarily, economically, diplomatically, morally . . . have I left anything out?

I shake my head in wonderment at those assertions. Then I realize that they’re all politicians — yes, even Donald J. Trump, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson — seeking to score points.

That’s what politicians do, even those who say they aren’t politicians.

Democrats do it as well as Republicans.

However, I am going to let history be the judge about whether this presidency has failed.

So far, I’d say “no.”

The economy is stronger than it was when Barack Obama took office; we’ve continued to wage war against terrorists; our military remains the most powerful in the world; we’ve scored diplomatic victories, such as securing a deal that prevents Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons — irrespective of what the critics allege; we’ve kept our adversaries in check; we’ve avoided a second major terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Has this been a perfect seven years? No. Has any presidency skated to completion with a perfect score? Again, no. Not Ronald Reagan, FDR or Ike. All the great men who’ve held the office have endured missteps and tragedy.

However, this “failed presidency” talk comes in the heat of a most unconventional election year.

I will continue to keep that in mind as the rhetoric gets even hotter as the year progresses.

 

national news, political news, religious news

‘2 Corinthians’ gaffe lingers

Bible2

The gaffe that Donald J. Trump committed at Lynchburg University just won’t go away.

Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump’s chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, took a poke at Trump over the verbal blunder.

The Hill reports:

“Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz joked Monday about rival Donald Trump’s flub of a Bible verse.
“While on the campaign trail in Iowa, Cruz began referencing the biblical verse 2 Chronicles 7:14 (‘Second Chronicles’) before he was interrupted by someone in the crowd at the town hall who joked he meant ‘Two Chronicles.’
“Cruz was making light of Trump’s gaffe during a speech at Liberty University last week where he referenced ‘2 Corinthians’ instead of ‘Second Corinthians,’ as it’s commonly known.
“Trump later blamed evangelical activist Tony Perkins for the gaffe, saying ‘he actually wrote out the 2’ for his speech and adding that people in other places of the world ‘say 2.'”
And to think that President Barack Obama’s critics keep criticizing him for his expert use of the TelePrompter.
national news, political news

When presidents cherished using their power . . .

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Theodore Roosevelt was not a timid man.

The 26th president of the United States took office as the youngest man ever to ascend to the White House; he was thrust into the office in 1901 when President William McKinley was shot to death.

How did the brash man treat his office? Like he owned it.

I’m reading a book, “The American President,” by historian William E. Leuchtenburg. It examines every presidency of the 20th century — from TR to William Jefferson Clinton.

TR had written a letter to the British historian George Otto Trevelyan near the end of his time in office, according to Leuchtenburg. He wrote:

“While President, I have been president, emphatically; I have used every ounce of power there was in the office and I have not cared a rap for the criticisms of those who spoke of my ‘usurpation of power.’ . . . The efficiency of this government depends upon possessing a strong central executive and wherever I could establish a precedent for strength in the executive, I did.”

Leuchtenburg writes also that Roosevelt boasted after leaving office in 1909 about how things “were done by me without the assistance of Congress.”

Holy smokes!

Try to imagine the current president — or any recent president, for that matter — bragging about going over the heads of another “co-equal branch of government.”

The 44th president, Barack Obama, has issued some executive orders that have sent his congressional critics into apoplectic shock.

Theodore Roosevelt has, over time, gained stature as one of this country’s greatest leaders. His face is on Mount Rushmore, for crying out loud, right along with Abe Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and the original George W. — Washington.

How did he get there?

By using the power of his office.

 

national news, political news

Clinton ‘inevitability’ has vanished

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reacts as she is introduced to speak at the Massachusetts Conference for Women in Boston, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

There once was a time when Hillary Rodham Clinton was considered a shoo-in to become the second consecutive history-making president in U.S. history.

You’ll recall the narrative.

She would succeed the first African-American president, Barack Obama, by becoming the first female president. She would win in a historic landslide. No one since, say, 1952, when Republican Dwight Eisenhower — who commanded our troops to victory over Hitler during World War II — was considered as destined to become president.

Then a funny thing happened.

Her critics began making points that stuck. They drew blood. The email tempest. Benghazi. Her occasional waffling. Is she trustworthy?

Then along came Bernie Sanders, the independent U.S. senator from Vermont running as a Democrat. He started drawing those huge crowds. He’s blasting the daylights out of big banks, Wall Street and demanding wage equality. He’s a socialist — and let’s cut the crap about “democratic socialist,” which is meant to soften the “s-word.”

Now the once-inevitable president is less so.

Fellow Democrats are now flocking to New Hampshire to say things like “a loss here won’t doom” the candidate. Former Texas Democratic gubernatorial nominee Wendy Davis is among the latest to recite that mantra.

Maybe it won’t. Then gain, maybe it’ll signal a dramatic replay of 2008, when the then-U.S. senator from New York, Clinton, was supposed to be the nominee — only she ran into that young upstart from Illinois, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, the self-proclaimed “skinny guy with the funny name.”

Does history repeat itself? Are we witnessing a sort of 2.0 version of what occurred eight years ago?

A lot of political analysts still believe Hillary Clinton is the candidate to beat. She has the so-called “ground game” in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. She’s got the party machine lubed and ready to roll for her in other key primary states.

Let’s remember, though, this truth about the 2016 campaign. All the “conventional wisdom” has been tossed into the Dumpster. I’m one of those who believed Clinton was marching straight to the Oval Office. I didn’t foresee what would transpire . . . any more than I foresaw would be happening on the Republican Party side of this contest.

You want unpredictability in a presidential campaign?

I believe we’ve gotten it.

 

military news, national news, political news

Commander in chief test? Trump’s already failed it

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Trump-and-gun-and-cadets

Politico asks in a story whether Donald J. Trump will flunk the commander in chief test.

Republican Party brass is terrified, Politico reports, of Trump getting nominated and then having to answer difficult questions regarding national security.

Trump already has failed that test, in my oh-so-humble view.

In spades.

Time and again on the campaign trail, Trump has exhibited a shocking ignorance of such things as the “nuclear triad,” which is the nation’s three-pronged nuclear weapons system involving land-based missiles, submarine-based missiles and bombs dropped from aircraft.

He cannot articulate with anything approaching precision how he intends to solve the myriad defense-related issues. His answer to illegal immigration is to “build a wall” and “make Mexico pay for it.”

He praises leaders such as Russian leader Vladimir Putin and — get this — North Korean despot/maniac Kim Jong Un for their “leadership” skills.

But I keep coming back to the wackiness of this campaign.

It has produced surprise upon surprise all along the way.

Trump has been criticized by leading conservatives for not understanding the details of foreign and military policy. Never mind what progressives are saying about him; it goes without saying that they would be highly critical of the real estate mogul/reality TV personality.

Before you get all twisted up, I’m also well aware of those who believe the current president has failed the commander in chief test — while he’s been on the job. I simply do not share that criticism.

I totally get that one man’s buffoon is another man’s statesman.

You know where Trump fits in that equation as far as I’m concerned.

medical news, national news, political news

Palin politicizes PTSD . . . and her family’s latest crisis

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Sarah-Palin

There must be no barriers that will keep Sarah Palin from politicizing an event, including those that involve her family.

Palin’s son, Track, has been charged with assault. The incident allegedly involved the young man’s girlfriend and an AR-15 rifle.

Mama Grizzly’s response? She blamed President Obama for her son’s post traumatic stress disorder and his policies regarding care for veterans.

Unbelievable!

The former half-term Alaska governor happened to be at Republican presidential campaign frontrunner Donald Trump’s side Tuesday in Iowa, shrieking about how Trump was going to “kick ISIS’s ass!” while her son was being arrested and booked into jail in Wasilla, Alaska.

So she blamed the president of the United States for her son’s bad behavior.

This isn’t the first time Track Palin’s gotten into trouble because of his behavior. Recall the brawl in which he was involved in Anchorage, the one that also involved his sister, Bristol?

It might be that Track Palin suffers PTSD from his service in Iraq with an Army combat unit in 2008. If so, then he needs — and deserves — the best medical care he can find.

However, for his mother to politicize his ailment and to suggest that it’s another politician’s fault because the young man cannot control his temper goes shamefully beyond the pale.

Meanwhile, a New York veterans group has urged Sarah Palin and others to knock off the political criticism. Focus instead on the problems associated with PTSD.

As for Sarah Palin . . . your son needs help. He doesn’t need to be kicked around as a political football.