President Obama, WTF?

I’m still happy that I can say “President Obama.”

But some things make you say WTF?:

The Obama administration is fighting to block access to names of visitors to the White House, taking up the Bush administration argument that a president doesn’t have to reveal who comes calling to influence policy decisions.

President Obama, this is an easy one. You’re supposed to be all about accountability and transparency. You’re not a dork obsessed with secrecy like President Cheney was.

Give us your White House visitor log.

Rick Warren at the Inauguration

In my mind, Warren is the guy who wrote a book that meth freaks use to keep from being killed by bank robbers.

Apparently, there’s more to Rick Warren.

He appears to be a friendly guy who hates gay people and Democrats. But Obama has picked Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration.

Fundies are not happy that Warren has accepted. And neither are liberals.

I’m annoyed by the choice.

I understand that Obama is trying to bring all Americans together, and that’s one of the reasons I voted for him.

My main objection is that we have all feel like we’ve been taking orders from right-wing preachers for the past eight years. I’m tired of that shit.

I don’t want to have to hear anything from them again any time soon, unless I choose to attend a fundie church.

The invocation by Warren makes me think that we might have to continue to listen to those batshit-crazy fundie preachers. Why can’t they just go away and preach to their flocks and leave the rest of us alone?

Sarah Palin: Pallin’ Around with Druggies?

Part of the problem with using guilt by association is that your associations are examined much more closely than they would be otherwise.

Sarah didn’t like that Barack had served on a board with William Ayers. Fine.

But I don’t like it that Sarah spent some time with Sherry, the mother of Bristol’s baby daddy.

From the Times:

State troopers have arrested the mother of Bristol Palin’s boyfriend on drug charges. The woman, Sherry L. Johnston, was arrested after troopers served a search warrant on a Wasilla home. Ms. Johnston, 42, has been charged with six felony drug counts. A trooper spokeswoman said in a news release that the charges were in connection to the prescription painkiller OxyContin. Ms. Johnston is the mother of Levi Johnston, 18. Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, announced in September that her daughter Bristol, 18, was pregnant and that Mr. Johnston was the father. She is due to give birth this weekend.

Why does Governor Palin associate with druggies, and what connection does she have with the Medellin cartel?

See how Sarah’s logic can work against her?

Mark Penn Is Still an Ass

Funny:

Hillary Clinton was going to be president. She knew it. So did her chief strategist, Mark Penn, the man who had once delivered victory for her husband Bill. Barack Obama was “unelectable”, Penn declared early in her campaign, “except perhaps against Attila the Hun”. How wrong can you be?

Not much more wrong. The Democrats have screwed themselves way too often on the “electibility” argument for way too long. Kerry and his “electibility” is what gave us another four years of Bush.

Snip.

This is a man whose friend once described him as having “the IQ of Bill Gates and the emotional intelligence of an eggplant”. Now Penn says, in his surprisingly high-pitched voice: “Hillary ran on a theme of ready for change, ready to lead. Change was always a central and important part of her message.” That’s strange. I could have sworn it was more like, “Don’t trust the new guy, vote for someone with experience”. But anyway. “Look, at the end of the day, they both got about 18 million votes. It was the hardest-fought primary in the history of America. And it turned out that some small groups switched and became critical players.” Which is a pitch for his theory, obviously. “At the end of the day, they are separated by only 85 delegates out of close to 4,000.”

None of which answers the question. Let’s try again, being more specific about one of his biggest mistakes. People wanted a break with the past, Hillary could not provide that, and emphasising her experience only made it all the more obvious, surely? “The only thing I can tell you is that they [the Obama people] ran an excellent campaign,” he says. “We regarded him as a strong challenger throughout the entire period. There was no question that he had the personal abilities, the resources, all of the things necessary to win.”

Really? So why did Penn say in a memo of March 2007 that Obama was unelectable? “Huh. No. It doesn’t say that at all.” Yes it does, if the facsimile published by Atlantic Monthly magazine is correct. The great communicator appears thrown. “Those memos, right, that came out, were really … er, were really, I think, show you, you know, just a piece, because … a small part, a piece of how we were looking to, I think, set up or solve the fact that he was a very strong candidate.”

Just go check out the article and enjoy.

Penn had a chance to put Hillary Clinton in the White House, and he blew it. But of course, her defeat is not Penn’s fault. And he never said Obama was unelectible. And Hillary ran on change.  And Penn never said that Obama was “fundamentally American in his thinking and values.”

I might not have a problem with Democrats and the Obama campaign helping to eliminate Clinton’s campaign debt if $5 million of it wasn’t slated to go to Penn.

He really is an ass.

Why Am I Starting to Feel Sorry for this Guy?

The end of the Bush era is at hand, and I couldn’t be happier. The guy has been a disaster nationally and internationally and while his incompetence and hubris have left our nation far weaker than it was eight years, ago, I’m starting to feel just a little bit bad for W:

On the war in Iraq, Bush said the biggest regret of his presidency was the “intelligence failure” regarding the extent of the Saddam Hussein threat to the United States. With the support of Congress, Bush ordered the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 — a decision largely justified on grounds — later proved false — that Saddam was building weapons of mass destruction.

Asked if he would have ordered the U.S.-led invasion if intelligence reports had accurately indicated that Saddam did not have the weapons, Bush replied: “You know, that’s an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can’t do. It’s hard for me to speculate.”

It would be easy for me to write an “I-told-you-so” paragraph on this one, but I won’t. But it’s hard to him to speculate whether or not he would have invaded Iraq if he had known that Iraq posed no threat to us?

I’m starting to feel a little bit less bad for him.

On the presidential election, Bush called Barack Obama’s victory a “repudiation of Republicans.”

“I’m sure some people voted for Barack Obama because of me,” said Bush, who leaves office with low approval ratings. “I think most people voted for Barack Obama because they decided they wanted him to be in their living room for the next four years explaining policy. In other words, they made a conscious choice to put him in as president.”

George, yes, Obama’s victory was largely a repudiation of GOPers, but that’s mostly because Republicans were so closely associated with you that it was nearly impossible for a guy like McCain to make a plausible argument that he wouldn’t continue your policy.

And again, yes, George, people voted for Obama because of you and also because they they want an intelligent thoughtful guy in their explaining policies to them. Americans are seeking intelligent leadership, George, and that’s largely because of the way you have governed.

But for some reason, despite my years of being an anti-Bush partisan, I’m really am starting to feel a little bit sad for Bush as he moves on to retirement in Texas or exile in Paraguay.

I fear I’m entirely too forgiving.

Joe Lieberman Is a Weenie (Or Holy Shit! Is Obama the Same as Bush/McCain?)

I come down on the side of weenie:

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman took another step Tuesday toward mending his relationship with Democrats, saying that Barack Obama’s actions since winning the presidency have been “just about perfect.”

“Everything that President-elect Obama has done since election night has been just about perfect, both in terms of a tone and also in terms of the strength of the names that have either been announced or are being discussed to fill his administration,” Lieberman said during a visit to Hartford.

Lieberman, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000, was re-elected to the Senate in 2006 as an independent but continues to caucus with Democrats. He supported Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign, going as far as to criticize Obama and make a speech at the Republican National Convention.

It seems that Joe is now bowing down to his new Democratic overlords, just as he did to his former GOP masters.

Joe likes to think that he’s all about political courage, but it seems that Joe is all about Joe and pleasing those in power.

High Speed Rail in the US?

God, please let this happen:

Senators John F. Kerry and Arlen Specter introduced a bill today to fund high-speed rail lines along the East Coast and in several other key areas of the country.

Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said the legislation would help repair the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, and at the same time create jobs when the country appears headed for a deep economic recession.

“At a time when our economy desperately needs a jumpstart, we need an effective national investment that puts Americans back to work,” Kerry said in a statement. “A first-rate rail system would protect our environment, save families time and money, reduce our dependency on foreign oil, and help get our economy moving again.”

One of the many things that has me excited about the Obama administration is his promise to rebuild infrastructure in the US. Besides repairing crumbling roads and bridges, we need to build a rail system that will transport passengers across the nation quickly, efficiently, and comfortably to give Americans affordable transportation options that don’t involve airplanes, buses, or oil. We can get the economy moving again while making ours a better country to live in.

While we’re at it, can we also build a national Wi-Fi network that will include rural areas?

Serial Obsessions

Do you remember the recount of 2000?

I sure do, and it introduced a new way of living to me.

During those dark days, I wasn’t able to read the internet from work, so I’d hurry home to read the different threads on Table Talk while watching TV and throwing shoes at it at the same time.

Joe Lieberman said we should count military votes cast after the Florida deadline?

I’d ask myself while throwing a shoe at the TV.

The Bush administration came into power and I had a few mini-obsessions.

Protesting Bush’s inauguration was the first and then , the second seasons of Survivor and Big Brother occupied way too much of my time (what was I thinking?).

And then 9/11 happened and as an obession, that one was a given. As was the lead-up to the Iraq war and the early days of the war. I had a hard time believing that Americans were so gullible that they would buy Bush’s argument that Iraq posed some sort of a threat to the US.

I was pissed. And obsessed.

And then Howard Dean happened and most of 2003 was occupied by that obsession while 2004’s obsession was getting Kerry elected.

That didn’t turn out well, so my obsessions became nonpolitical. Dogs, cooking, and graduate school were my obsessions after the Kerry loss. Those obsessions were probably more healthy than politics.

And then Obama happened. That obsession started slowly when I watched him announce his candidacy in 2007. I liked him a lot, but was afraid to commit because Dean’s loss broke my heart. But I got over it, as supporting losing Democratic candidates is something that I have historically done. My first choice for president in 1988 was Paul Simon, in 1992, it was Jerry Brown, in 2000, it was Al Gore, and in 2004, it was Howard Dean. If I supported Obama, the poor guy was doomed, I feared.

But then Obama started winning caucuses and primaries earlier this year. And then he kept winning all the way through November 4.

I had found my new obsession, and I loved it. I loved the thrill of watching his speeches, seeing the returns from the primaries, and doing my part to help elect Obama when I could.

The same was true in the general campaign against McCain.

And then Sarah Palin came onto the scene and I couldn’t get that loathesome woman out of my mind. She took up way too much room on this blog, I know. But I still can’t believe she happened.

Then, Obama won.

I’ve been irrationally exuberant since then. Electing Barack Obama has been a great thing for this country, and though I know he will disappoint at times, I think he will be a hell of a president.

But now, what the hell am I supposed to be obsessed with?

Sure, there are a lot of interesting things going on right now, but it’s been hard to find one thing to focus upon.

How am I supposed to live without an obsession?

Maybe I should just go on a long walk and do some other things I enjoy.

Agressive Ignorance

Jesus Christ:

A Wichita, Kansas preacher says he will not remove a message on his church sign that says President-Elect Barack Obama is a Muslim.

The sign is staying up despite the fact that Obama is a Christian.

The sign at Spirit One Christian Center reads, “America we have a Muslim president. This is sin against the Lord.”

Obama supporters reportedly got into a shouting match with parishioners outside the church on Sunday.

Obama’s Web Outreach

Cool?

Transition officials call it Obama 2.0 — an ambitious effort to transform the president-elect’s vast Web operation and database of supporters into a modern new tool to accomplish his goals in the White House. If it works, the new president could have an unprecedented ability to appeal for help from millions of Americans who already favor his ideas, bypassing the news media to pressure Congress.

“He’s built the largest network anyone has ever seen in politics, and congressional Republicans are clueless about the communications shift that has happened,” Democratic strategist Joe Trippi proclaims. The results, he says, “will be amazing to watch.”

Republicans say they’ll be watching for White House Web outreach that appears overly political.

My concern is the same as the Republicans.

I will be part of Obama’s network once he is president, so I’ll get his e-mails, and that should be fun. But if those e-mails are sent to try to help the president in an overtly political way, I’ll be pissed.

But if President Obama learns to harness the power of the internet in a way that leads to more effective governing, I’ll be really pleased. It will be nice to have a president who is tech-savvy.